Travel Together, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Unpublished short story F. Scott Fitzgerald

I

When the freight stopped next the stars were out, so sudden that Chris was dazzled. The train was on a rise. About three miles ahead he saw a cluster of lights, fainter and more yellow than the stars, that he figured would be Dallas.

In four days he had learned enough about the shipments to be sure that in Dallas there would be much shunting of cars billed to that point. If he decided to go on he could catch up with the freight before morning. And after the inactivity—except when he had held on to rods all night—the hiking one mile or so sounded like luxury. An Arabian Night luxury.

He stretched himself, breathing deep. He felt good, better than he had for years. It wasn’t a bad life if you had food. By the starlight he saw a few other figures emerge cautiously from other cars and, like himself, breathe in the dry Texas night.

That reminded Chris immediately of the girl.

There was a girl in the caboose. He had suspected it this morning at Springfield with the sight of a hurriedly withdrawn face at a window; when they laid over an hour he had seen her plain, not twenty feet away.

Of course she might be the brakeman’s wife, and she might be a tramp. But the brakeman was a gnarled old veteran, ripe for a pension rather than for a pretty girl of eighteen. And a tramp—well, if she was that, she was different from the ones he had so far encountered.

He set about warming up his canned soup before starting the hike into town. He went fifty yards from the tracks, built himself a small fire and poured the beef broth into his folding pan.

He was both glad and sorry that he had brought along the cooking kit; he was glad because it was such a help, sorry because it had somehow put a barrier between him and some of the other illegitimate passengers. The quartet who had just joined forces down the track had no such kit. Between them they possessed a battered sauce-pan, empty cans and enough miscellaneous material and salt to make “Slummy.” But then they knew the game—the older ones did; and the younger ones were catching on.

Chris finished his soup, happy under the spell of the wider and wider night.

“Travel into those stars maybe,” he said aloud.

The train gave out a gurgle and a forlorn burst of false noise from somewhere, and with a clicking strain of couplers pulled forward a few hundred yards.

He made no move to rise. Neither did the tramps up the line make any move to board her again. Evidently they had the same idea he did, of catching it in Dallas. When the faintly lit caboose had gone fifty yards past him the train again jolted to a stop…

… The figure of a girl broke the faint light from the caboose door, slowly, tentatively. It—or she walked out to where the cindery roadside gave way to grass.

She gave every impression of wanting to remain alone—but this was not to be. No sooner had the four campers down the track caught sight of her than two of them got up and came over toward her. Chris finished the assemblage of his things and moved unobtrusively for the same spot. For all he knew they might be pals of the girl—on the other hand they had seemed to him a poor lot; in case of trouble he identified himself with the side on which they weren’t.

The things happened quicker than he had anticipated. There was a short colloquy between the men and the girl who obviously did not appreciate their company; presently one of them took her by the arm and attempted to force her in the direction of their camp. Chris sauntered nearer.

“What’s the idea?” he called over.

The men did not answer.

The girl struggled, gasping a little and Chris came closer.

“Hey, what’s the idea?” he called louder.

“Make them let me go! Make them—”

“Oh, shut your trap!”

But as Chris came up to the man who had spoken he dropped the girl’s arm and stood at a defiant defensive a few yards away. Chris was a well-built, well-preserved man just over thirty—the first tramp was young and husky; his companion existed under rolls of unexercised flesh, so that it was impossible to determine his value in battle.

The girl turned to Chris. The white glints in her eyes cracked the heavens as a diamond would crack glass, and let stream down a whiter light than he had ever seen before; it shone over a wide beautiful mouth, set and frightened.

“Make them go away! They tried this before!”

Chris was watching the two men. They had exchanged a look and were moving now, so that one was on either side of him. He backed up against the girl, murmuring, “You watch that side!” and catching his idea she stood touching him to guard against envelopment. From the corner of his eye Chris saw that the other two hoboes had left their fire and were running up. He acted quickly. When the stouter and elder of the tramps was less than a yard away, Chris stepped in and cracked him with a left to the right of his chin. The man reeled and came up, cursing but momentarily repulsed, and wiping his chin with a long rag which he took from some obscure section of his upholstery. But he kept his distance.

At that instant there was a wild cry from the girl: “He got my purse!”

—and Chris turned to see the younger man making off twenty feet, to grin derisively.

“Get my purse!” the girl cried. “They were after it last night. And I’ve got to have it! There’s no money in it.”

Wondering what she would have in her purse to regret so deeply Chris nonetheless came to a decision, reached into his swinging bundle and, standing in front of the girl, juggled a thirty-eight revolver in the starlight.

“Pull out that purse.”

The young man hesitated—he half turned, half started to run, but his eyes were mesmerized on the sight of the gun. He stopped in the moment of his pivot—instinctively his hands began to lift from his sides.

“Get that purse out!”

He had no fear of what the kid had in his pocket, knowing that the police or pawn-shop would long have frisked them of all weapons.

“He’s opening it in his pocket!” the girl cried, “I can see!”

“Throw it out!”

The purse ajar fell on the ground. Before Chris could stop her she had left him and run forward to pick it up—and anxiously regarded its contents.

One of the other pair of hoboes now spoke up.

“We didn’t mean any harm, brother. We said let the girl alone. Dint I, Joe?” He turned for confirmation, “I said let the girl alone, she’s in the caboose.”

Chris hesitated. His purpose was accomplished and—he still had four cans of food…

…Still he hesitated. They were four to one and the young man with a sub-Cromagnon visage, the one who’d stolen the purse, looked sore enough for a fight.

As bounty he extracted a can of corned beef and one of baked beans from his shrunken sack and tossed them.

“Get along now! I mean get along! You haven’t got a chance!”

“Who are you? A tec?”

“Never mind—get going. And if you want to eat this stuff—then travel half a mile!”

“Ain’t you got a little canned heat?”

“For you to drink? No I guess you got to make your own fire, like you did before.”

One man said in sing-song: “Git along, little doggie” and presently the quartet moved off beside the roadbed toward yellow-lit Dallas.

II

Crossing the two starlights there obtruded the girl.

Her face was a contrast between herself looking over a frontier—and a silhouette, and outline seen from a point of view, something finished—white, polite, unpolished—it was a destiny, scarred a little with young wars, worried with old white faiths…

…And out of it looked eyes so green that they were like phosphorescent marbles, so green that the scarcely dry clay of the face seemed dead beside it.

“Some other tramps took about everything else I had when I got off in St. Louis,” she said.

“Took what?”

“Took my money.” Her eyes glittered for him again in the starlight, “Who are you?”

“I’m just a man. Just a tramp like you. Where are you going?”

“All the way. The coast—Hollywood. Where you going?”

“Same place. You trying to get a job in pictures?”

The marble of her face was alive, flashing back the interest in his. “No, I’m going—because of this paper—this check.” She replaced it carefully in the purse. “You going to the movies?”

“I’m in ’em.”

“You mean you been working in them?”

“I’ve been in ’em a long time.”

“What are you doing on this road, then?”

“Lady! I didn’t mean to tell this to anybody, but I write them—believe it or not. I’ve written many a one.”

She did not care whether or not he had but the very implausibility overwhelmed her.

“You’re on the road—like me.”

“Why are you on the road?”

“For a reason.”

He took a match out of his rucksack—and simultaneously his last can of soup knocked against him.

“Have a bite with me?”

“No thanks. I’ve eaten.”

But there was that wan look about her—

“Have you eaten?” he reiterated.

“Sure, I have… So you’re a writer in Hollywood.”

He moved around collecting twigs to start a fire for the last can of soup and he saw two pieces of discarded railroad ties. They were pretty big and he saw no kindling at first—but the train was there still. He ran to the caboose and found the brakeman.

“Well what kindling?” the old man grumbled.