Ch.2 Antoinette
Texas - 2084
Antoinette sat in the open doorway of the railway cattle car, leaning against the edge of the door. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she cried. “Roger,” she whispered. “Oh, Roger, why did you have to die?” She fingerpicked the guitar in her lap, the notes rising from the lamenting strings, weaving through her words like a dirge, a talking blues, an offering to the dead.
”It was so good, helping you run the shelter, helping you love and care for those lost children. Loving you. Waking in the morning to fresh joys, fresh problems, fresh sorrows, fresh triumphs. Oh, Billy, Johnny, little Susie, where are you now? Have you found a new home? Or are you still heart-lost?
”And Roger. So kind and gentle; until the memories overcame you and made you curl around old hurts like a muscle cramp. Drinking to numb the pain. In the months I shared your life, I could never get through the pain that festered in your soul. You would not talk about it, would not let me in, ‘til you died in a car wreck, too drunk to drive. Why, mon Dieu. Why?
”I thought I had found in you my heart’s desire, a man to love, whose work was helping others, and in whose work I could share. Now you are gone and I am back on the road, running from the pain. Will I ever find another man like you, Roger?”
She continued to think of Roger and the children of the shelter. The memories brought sadness and loneliness, but the devastating pain of his death and the loss of the children she had grown to love had begun to ease during the past four months of travel. She played softly on her guitar.
The train was traveling south out of Gainesville, Texas. Wheat fields slid by on either side. The bright afternoon sun shone through the open slats of the car and the early November air felt unusually warm. She started another song, singing in French, her voice a warm, rich contralto, letting her long black hair blow in the wind. Finishing the song, she sat and watched dark clouds massing in the sky ahead. She could see rain falling. “When we reach the rain, I will have a bath,” she told the guitar. She spoke in French, her native language, plucking at the strings softly. She looked again at the wheat fields slipping by, musing. Her face, fine-boned with delicately sculpted, distinctly French features, was pensive.
A drop of rain struck her face and she laughed. She stood, balancing against the sway of the train and put the guitar away. She stripped off her pullover blouse and skirt and, placing them on her duffle bag, turned to the door. The rain poured down now, heavy enough to hide the ancient diesel locomotives at the front of the train. Taking careful hold of the six-inch wide slats, she swung outside and climbed naked to the roof. She settled herself in the center of the roof, the metal cooling rapidly in the rain as the train swayed along at a steady thirty-five miles per hour. She closed her eyes, arched her back, and raised her arms as she reveled in the feel of the driving rain on her bare golden-brown skin. The rain washed across her slender dancer’s body. She ran her fingers through her thick thigh-length mane of black hair, washing it out in the downpour.
She was glad this was not one of the new mag-trains such as those found in her native country. No, this line of track had not been reworked with powerful magnets fastened to concrete cross-ties every ten feet. She had ridden on mag-trains. They were much faster, too fast to ride as she now rode. This was one of the old privately owned railroads that carried loads in to the main hubs, still riding wooden ties and even older steel; so different from what she knew.
When the rain began to slacken, she climbed down and swung back inside. The wheat fields had given way to scrub brush and tall, dried out grasses. She took a hairbrush from her duffle and returned to the open doorway to sit in the warm sun that had broken through the clouds again. She watched the passing landscape and let the wind dry her hair while she brushed it. The sun felt good, relaxing, after her shower. She lay back in the pool of sunlight on the floor and, dulled by the rhythmic vibrations, fell asleep.
#
She awoke with a gasp and a start and sat bolt upright. For an instant, the world seemed black and white, her mind a chaotic jumble of images and emotions. She rolled over to her side and clasped her knees in her arms, taking deep breaths as she calmed herself. Ah, non, she thought. I have had another night-mare.
Four years previously, a group of her step-father’s friends had tried to rape her, encouraged by her step-father himself. When she tried to fight back, they had beaten, tortured and tried to kill her. Somehow she’d escaped, her mind swallowed up in a red madness. Hours later she’d found herself in her own bed, not knowing how she’d gotten there. Nightmares of chaotic, alien, violence, hunting, and death haunted her sleep for months afterwards. Now after three years of peace, the nightmares were beginning again.
She sat up, rubbed her eyes and yawned. The countryside was giving way to roads and buildings. She moved to her duffle bag and dressed, then tied the bag closed. Brakes squealed as the train slowed. If the train slows enough, she thought, I will get off here and see if I can find supper.
She stood and slung the duffle bag over her shoulder and across her back. The guitar case she slung across the front of her body, cinching up the carrying strap to hold it snugly. Well-padded inside and made of reinforced fiberglass, it did a good job of protecting her precious guitar. She wrapped her left arm around the guitar case to hold it as the train slowed almost to walking speed.
Up ahead, the tracks crossed a wide road. She swung out and clung to the slatted side of the car. As her feet hit the pavement, she released her grip and veered away from the train. The driver of a waiting car stared at her in surprise. She slowed to a walk and smiled at him as she loosened the strap on the guitar and slung it over her shoulder.
