Until the Rail Runs Out

With her folded parasol and folded stockings stowed under her knees, Rebekah trailed her fingers on the pond’s autumn surface. She did this when we were young so being on the dock now instead of packing her traveling trunk, well, she did not surprise me.

“They’ll send you anyways.” Finishing school may as well have been the moon.

“I can’t. I can’t leave this blue sky,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. I had to be mean so she’d want to leave. It was the only defense I could think of, on a dime, for both our sakes. The summer flew as fast as those Wright boys’ plane. Dream. Crash.

“You’re not making it any easier, thinkin’ of yourself––” I said.

She stood fast. A loose plank flipped over. Rebekah shot an accusing finger in my face. “Watch it.” 

But I needed to finish making her mad. “I know what I’m sayin’. Get out of here, Rebekah.”

She sucked in air and narrowed her eyes. “Listen.”

“No, I’m not done. Don’t you see? You’re tearin’ me up like…”

Her fingers dug through my hair. Her palms pressed into my sticky, heavy cheeks. “I’ll go pack and I’ll get on that train, understand?”

“That’s right. Go on, get out of here. You’re squandering opportunity, you, you snob.” 

She pulled and pressed the tears right out of me. “I’ll pack,” she said, “but it’ll be a picnic basket. And you’re on the train with me. Until the rail runs out. Understand?”

A hiccup shook me. She always made things sound possible, and good, like it would be foolish not to carry out her idea.

Then there was me, always trying to keep up and rushing, pushing. “May as well do the show right.” I held her daring gaze. “Pack the trunk and the basket. Til the rail runs out.” 

Rebekah’s smile rent the blue. Her raw light dazzled.

People never talk about how much noise trains make. As far as I can tell, they clatter and bang their way, more than roll, down the tracks. The screeches and blows gave me a pain in my head like I’d never known. I sweated awful, too. 

Rebekah and I had been on the train a whole day, going into the second night. She smiled as much as I perspired. My smile stayed tucked inside ‘cept for when I looked at her. But I didn’t do it often because I didn’t want to fluster our cabin mates. As it was, the outside of my shoe touching the inside of hers was a joy, a torture, and a freedom that made the train commotion and headache feel like a stack of flapjacks covered in syrup on a Sunday morning.

When we’d jumped on, we held out until we got an empty cabin, determined to do the whole thing greedy. We took turns going to the bathroom, and only once, to keep our seats by the window. We allowed ourselves nibbles from the picnic basket. I’d eat nothing if it meant she’d keep smiling. Easy.

Despite our precautions, our wild idea of what adventure meant found us out when the conductor came by for tickets. He didn’t have to explain anything because his look said everything. We were kicked to the back end of the caboose until the next stop.

“Bek, looks like the rails run straight into wheat.” I sat on a side of the little tail end where I kept my eye on one stalk until it passed, another, til I felt cross-eyed. 

Then, surrounded by endless fields, stood an abandoned, gray house. We rushed by. 

I ached, moaned out loud, in fact. “I found us a new sort of rail, Rebekah. Had a porch and a red water pump, see it?”

“We’ll have to walk. From wherever the town is.”

“Is that alright?”

“Need to stretch my legs anyhow,” she said.

“Might get your blue sky here.”

“Nah, here the stars will blind you.”

“Stay close then,” I said.

“To you? Always.”

We traded in our recklessness for responsible ambition. With the red water pump and the roof over us, we only lacked food. That’s where the wheat whiskey helped.

Rebekah and I stalked the wheat fields in every direction around the grey house we’d claimed. We swiped the golden grains by the handful in order to stay unnoticed. Burning it up into something resembling a stiff drink at a time when stiff drinks were hard to come by fulfilled our mission. It was Rebekah who made the sale, every time, to men fresh off the train thinking she was offering something else. I stayed around the corner, ready if need be. I hated every minute until I saw her smile walking toward me. Even one subtle sale of moonshine turned to a decent buy at the store. 

Three years of that wore on her, I saw it in her hands and corners of her eyes.

After a long day, we’d lie on the chaff blown in by the four winds and dare each other not to blink under the stars. They nearly blinded us, like Rebekah said they would. This time, I couldn’t offer anything bigger or better.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I said one evening. I wiggled my nose to rid it of the incessant dust.

Her body went soft when she sighed. “I’m tired of walking.”

I got nervous, can’t say why. I let the click beetles sing for a beat before I replied. “Yeah?” I shifted closer. 

“Yeah, make the train come to us,” she said. “Rent a room out, plant the wheat ‘stead of boiling it away. Sell some bread?”

“I suppose,” I said. It wasn’t disappointment so much as it was surprise. Her imagination was bigger than that. Maybe she’d been in the sun too much. I ached all over again, at the thought she wanted something small.

“You’re thinking something else. I can hear it,” she said. Her fingers crawled through the remains of the grain and held my hand.

“We could pack the picnic basket and catch the train,” I said.

“Again?”

I licked my lips. “Never thought I’d miss that hot mess on wheels.”

“Not hot this time of year. Not cold, neither.”

“Not if I have you,” I said. 

She smiled at my kiss in words. “We’ll go then? Till the rail runs out?” Rebekah said.

“Sounds right.”