Chase by Jessie Haas

Fraser and the horse. My ticket’s punched!”
    No, Phin thought. No—
    There was a scritch of gravel, an impact, a grunt, as Plume pulled himself into the car. Phin’s skin prickled, hairs rising all down his back. Sweat broke on his forehead. Like his leg, his spirit had a decision to make.
    He laughed—weakly, just one helpless, nearly silent breath, and sagged in the corner, shaking his head, as Dennis’s voice echoed in his mind.
    All right, then. Come on in if you’re a mind to!

10
L INING O UT
    T he whistle wailed. Chuffing, the train gained momentum.
    â€œDown,” Fraser said at the bottom of the crate wall. “Aye, I mean it! Down.” A thud, a horse-sized grunt. “Good lad!”
    â€œLike a dog!” Plume said. “He laid down for you just like a dog!”
    Really? In the three weeks the horse had stayed at Dennis’s, Phin had never caught him sleeping. He was too alert. He’d be on his feet, shaking straw off his sleek sides, before anyone could get near. It would be worth seeing a horse like that folded up on a boxcar floor.
    But Phin wasn’t tempted to look. He leaned back in the corner, speed dragging at him as the train lined out across the dark land.
    The sides of the car shook, the crates shook, faster and faster until the shakes smoothed to a steady vibration. The wheels clacked. Through the partly open door, moon shadows leaped on the walls. The train plunged on. Faster and faster , it said, in a hundred clacking, creaking, rattling voices. Faster and faster, fasterandfaster.
    And louder. Phin hadn’t imagined it would be like this—the clacking, the whistle’s blare, the walls shuddering fit to shake their rivets out. A moving train was a forest of sound.
    Sheltered within it, he stretched his legs. Probably it made a noise. Probably the cloth of his pants hissed or rasped. Probably his boot heels thumped on the crates. It didn’t matter. Not even he could hear it.
    He passed a hand down his shinbone. There was an enormous goose-egg swelling, like the one on his arm. He’d had hurts like these before and thought nothing of them. These injuries came in life-and-death struggle and seemed more important, but really they were just bruises—
    No. Don’t think of that—Engelbreit’s head hitting thestove. He was safe for the moment; he must stop frightening himself.
    He reached inside his shirt for his bundle. Bacon fat had soaked through the bandanna. He felt a slick of it on his skin. The biscuits were crumbly. He stuffed one in his mouth; salty and smoke flavored from its daylong association with the meat, better than anything he’d ever eaten.
    Dry, though. He’d last had water when? Jimmy’s bottle, at the lip of the Dog Hole, a long time ago.
    â€œNay,” Fraser said below, and went on. To make out his words, Phin had to do the special thing with his ears that he’d learned at Murray’s. It was a kind of relaxing, not fighting the unwanted sounds, but letting them pass like water—water again!—through a sieve, catching only what he wanted. Up here he did what he couldn’t at Murray’s, cupped a hand behind his ear and pointed it at Fraser the way a horse would.
    He netted Fraser mid-sentence. “—won’t be buyin’ mules just now, I’m thinkin’. They’ll wait till things quiet down. But there’s an outfit up north may be interested.”
    â€œWhat outfit?”
    â€œThat’d be telling.”
    â€œSo tell,” Plume said.
    At Murray’s his voice would make a little silence aroundit. From across the room Murray would catch Phin’s eye, jerk his head toward the back door. Phin would drift that way and be out of the room before anything started. He’d heard many fights at Murray’s, but rarely seen one.
    Fraser broke the dangerous pause. “I’m like you,” he said. “Not answerable to myself