Lou could hear himself groaning, but did not have the strength to open his eyes. There was an intense throbbing from the back of his skull. Gradually, he was able to blink. His surroundings were blurred. The smell, a dusty, heavy farm odor, was much stronger than the one inside the boxcar where Cap and George were being held. Maybe some sort of grain car, he thought.

He brushed his hand over a huge knot on his scalp. Stupid! He had let one of Chester’s goons get behind him. Things came into focus and he rolled onto his side. The car’s interior was alarmingly dim.

Directly overhead, twenty feet or so, a round hatchway in the roof, not totally sealed, let in the only light. Lou pushed himself upright and walked his hands around the metal walls. No steps, no ladder. No way out. The rectangular space was not the full size of one of the cars. It was half as large, maybe a third—a full-sized car partitioned off, he guessed.

From nearby he heard moaning and crawled toward the noise, trying to ignore the shell bursts from the back of his head. As a doctor, he would often ask his patients to measure their discomfort on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being none and ten being the worst pain imaginable. Taken as individual injuries, his head and the bullet wound in his thigh hovered around a seven each. Bearable. When he finally located the source of the moaning, his own discomfort all but vanished.

Cap and George lay huddled together on the floor of the grain car, hidden by shadows and propped up against one of the walls.

“Hey, pal,” Cap said weakly. “You okay?”

Typical of the man.

Lou’s vision adjusted even more. Neither of the two was restrained—a bad sign.

He stood, shakily crossed to Cap, and gave him a hand up. Cap’s grip was all but gone. He had absorbed more beating. Aside from swollen eyes and a freshly split lip, Lou saw that he was also missing two front teeth.

“Oh, Cap…” Lou’s anguished whisper echoed in the empty chamber.

“Two on one, I’d bet on me any day. Four on one, it’s still gonna to be close. But five or six? Bad odds, brother.”

“You’re a lion, buddy,” Lou said. “They really did a number on you.”

Cap shrugged. “Hey, like they say after those horror stories at meetings, at least I’m sober.”

George had absorbed another pounding as well, but he actually seemed more conscious. He cried out when they tried to move him.

“I think they busted him up inside,” Cap said. “Maybe some ribs.”

Instinctively, Lou checked George over. He was battered, but his pulse was holding.

“We’ve got to find a way out of here,” Lou said. “There’s nothing resembling a ladder.”