Rounding the bend, the train slows. Everyone waits, lets cars pass. At last, they stand back up when they start to see cars worth hitching on to. Adrenaline firing their veins, they follow Anne and Cinnamon’s lead. They bolt for it. Digging hard into the ground, racing over the earth, taking each rise and dip in stride. Their packs bouncing, jostling, as they come on like a band of gypsy commandos. Sprinting to match the locomotive’s speed, they come alongside the clattering cars. Anne reaches for the grainer’s steel ladder. Her lungs burn, and the dog-bitten ankle aches and throbs, but not enough to slow her down. She is getting on this train. Grabbing the rung, she pulls herself up onto the metal porch. Turning, she reaches down for Cinnamon. Their eyes lock. Lips smile, Anne tugs hard, lets her weight fall backward, and the girl swings up. Behind Cinnamon comes Canary and the twins, who are running hard, their little legs pumping. She helps them, along with Trot, who brings up the rear. He gives one twin a boost up onto the porch’s platform, then the other. Then Canary swings up, and finally, Trot clambers aboard. Just as they fall onto the train, it starts to gather speed.

Last aboard is Dredd. He looks spent. Grabbing for the ladder, one hand slips off, and Anne considers stomping the other one. She sees him for what he is, just as Cinnamon told her, not for what he pretends to be. He’s a chameleon. But she grabs his wrist. It is not her decision to make. She helps him get his hand back on the rung. He recovers, brings his other hand onto the ladder. Anne falls backward, her weight pulling Dredd onto the train. He falls beside her, breathing hard, smiling, greasy dark curls framing his face. He talks over the rumble of the train. “Thank you. That was very noble of you. You could’ve let me eat gravel, left me behind.”

And she could have, but she didn’t. She only hoped she wouldn’t later regret helping him.

Everyone coughs and heaves, looking to the cutout circles within the metal car. The double barrel. Everyone crawls through the hole to get out of sight. Inside the compartment, it’s like the last train Anne hopped, when she met Cinnamon. Dirty and dusted by railroad travel. It smells of bodily fluids. A few dirty blankets and a plastic bottle of urine. The inner walls are tagged by others who have hopped the train. Initials and dates. Everyone is road worn and weary. They’re tired, pushed to the brink. They have just lost something they had built and grown used to. Now they are uprooted, in search of something, but with no real consensus on what that something might be.