I stepped back from the tracks and looked back at the lake with the two grocery stores and the boat houses, the long docks going out into the water and close by the station the gravelled patch around the artesian well where the water came straight up in the sunlight out of a brown water-film covered pipe. The water was splashing in the fountain basin, in back was the lake with a breeze coming up, there were woods along the shore and the boat we had come in was tied to the dock.
The train stopped, the conductor and the brakeman got down and my father said good-bye to Fred Cuthbert who was going to take care of the boat in his boat house.
“When will you be back?”
“I don’t know, Fred,” my father said. “Give her a coat of paint in the spring.”
“Good-bye, Jimmy,” Fred said. “Take good care of yourself.”
“Good-bye, Fred.”
We shook hands with Fred and got on the train. The conductor got on in the car ahead and the brakeman picked up the little box we had stepped up on and swung aboard the train as it started. Fred stood there on the station platform and I watched the station, Fred standing there, then walking away, the water splashing up out of the pipe in the sun and then ties and the swamp and the station very small and the lake looking different and from a new angle and then we were out of sight and crossed the Bear River and went through a cut and there were only the ties and the rails running back and fireweed growing beside the track and nothing more to look at to remember. It was all new now looking out from the platform and the woods had that new look of woods you do not know and if you passed a lake it was the same way. It was just a lake and new and not like a lake you had lived on.
“You’ll get all cinders out here,” my father said.
“I guess we’d better go in,” I said. I felt funny with so much new country. I suppose it really looked just the same as the country where we lived but it did not feel the same. I suppose every patch of hardwood with the leaves turning looks alike but when you see a beech woods from the train it does not make you happy; it only makes you want the woods where you live. But I did not know that then. I thought it would all be like where we lived only more of it and that it would be just the same and give you the same feeling, but it didn’t.
We did not have anything to do with it. The hills were worse than the woods. Perhaps all the hills in Michigan look the same but up in the car I looked out of the window and I would see woods and swamps and we would cross a stream and it was very interesting and then we would pass hills with a farmhouse and the woods behind them and they were the same hills but they were different and everything was a little different.
I suppose, of course, that hills that a railroad runs by can not be the same. But it was not the way I had thought it was going to be. But it was a fine day early in the fall. The air was fine with the window open and in a little while I was hungry. We had been up since before it was light and now it was almost half past eight. My father came back down the car to our seat.
“How do you feel, Jimmy?”
“Hungry.”
He gave me a bar of chocolate and an apple out of his pocket.
“Come on up to the smoker,” he said and I followed him through the car and into the next one ahead. We sat down in a seat, my father inside next to the window. It was dirty in the smoker and the black leather on the seats had been burned by cinders.
“Look at the seats opposite us,” my father said to me without looking toward them. Opposite us two men sat side by side. The man on the inside was looking out the window and his right wrist was handcuffed to the left wrist of the man who sat beside him. In the seat ahead of them were two other men. I could only see their backs but they sat the same way. The two men who sat on the aisle were talking.
“In a day coach,” the man opposite us said. The man who sat in front of him spoke without turning around.
“Well why didn’t we take the night train?”
“Did you want to sleep with these?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“It’s more comfortable this way.”
“The hell it’s comfortable.”
The man who was looking out of the window looked at us and winked. He was a little man and he wore a cap. There was a bandage around his head under the cap. The man he was handcuffed to wore a cap also but his neck was thick, he was dressed in a blue suit and he wore a cap as though it was only for travelling.
The two men on the next seat were about the same size and build but the one on the aisle had the thicker neck.
“How about something to smoke, Jack?” the man who had winked said to my father over the shoulder of the man he was handcuffed to. The thick-necked man turned and looked at my father and me. The man who had winked smiled. My father took out a package of cigarettes.
“You want to give him a cigarette?” asked the guard. My father reached the package across the aisle.
“I’ll give it to him,” said the guard. He took the package in his free hand, squeezed it, put it in his handcuffed hand and holding it there took out a cigarette with his free hand and gave it to the man beside him. The man next to the window smiled at us and the guard lit the cigarette for him.
“You’re awfully sweet to me,” he said to the guard.
The guard reached the package of cigarettes back across the aisle.
“Have one,” my father said.
“No thanks. I’m chewing.”
“Making a long trip?”
“Chicago.”
“So are we.”
“It’s a fine town,” the little man next to the window said. “I was there once.”
“I’ll say you were,” the guard said. “I’ll say you were.”
We moved up and sat in the seat directly opposite them. The guard in front looked around. The man with him looked down at the floor.
“What’s the trouble,” asked my father.
“These gentlemen are wanted for murder.”
The man next to the window winked at me.
“Keep it clean,” he said. “We’re all gentlemen here.”
“Who was killed?” asked my father.
“An Italian,” said the guard.
“Who?” asked the little man very brightly.
“An Italian,” the guard repeated to my father.
“Who killed him?” asked the little man looking at the sergeant and opening his eyes wide.
“You’re pretty funny,” the guard said.
“No sir,” the little man said. “I just asked you, Sergeant, who killed this Italian.”
“He killed this Italian,” the prisoner on the front seat said looking toward the detective. “He killed this Italian with his bow and arrow.”
“Cut it out,” said the detective.
“Sergeant,” the little man said. “I did not kill this Italian. I would not kill an Italian. I do not know an Italian.”
“Write it down and use it against him,” the prisoner on the front seat said. “Everything he says will be used against him. He did not kill this Italian.”
“Sergeant,” asked the little man, “who did kill this Italian?”
“You did,” said the detective.
“Sergeant,” said the little man. “That is a falsehood. I did not kill this Italian. I refuse to repeat it. I did not kill this Italian.”
“Everything he says must be used against him,” said the other prisoner. “Sergeant, why did you kill this Italian?”
“It was an error, Sergeant,” the little prisoner said. “It was a grave error. You should never have killed this Italian.”
“Or that Italian,” the other prisoner said.
“Shut to hell up the both of you,” said the sergeant. “They’re dope heads,” he said to my father. “They’re crazy as bed bugs.”
“Bed bugs?” said the little man, his voice rising. “There are no bed bugs on me, Sergeant.”
“He comes from a long line of English earls,” said the other prisoner. “Ask the senator there,” he nodded at my father.
“Ask the little man there,” said the first prisoner. “He’s just George Washington’s age. He cannot tell a lie.”
“Speak up, boy,” the big prisoner stared at me.
“Cut it out,” the guard said.
“Yes, Sergeant,” said the little prisoner. “Make him cut it out. He’s got no right to bring in the little lad.”
“I was a boy myself once,” the big prisoner said.
“Shut your goddam mouth,” the guard said.
“That’s right, Sergeant,” began the little prisoner.
“Shut your goddam mouth.” The little prisoner winked at me.
“Maybe we better go back to the other car,” my father said to me. “See you later,” he said to the two detectives.
“Sure. See you at lunch.” The other detective nodded. The little prisoner winked at us. He watched us go down the aisle. The other prisoner was looking out of the window. We walked back through the smoker to our seats in the other car.
“Well, Jimmy, what do you make of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” said my father.
At lunch