The concrete overpass presented none of these dangers. From Natchez Street, it was easily accessible, via shortcut; it crossed over County Line Road in plain view; yet it was closed to traffic, and far enough from town so that there was little danger of workmen, nosy old folks, or other kids.
The overpass was not stable enough to take cars—and, even if it was, no vehicle could get to it short of a Jeep—but the red wagon slid easily enough up the ramp, with Harriet pushing from behind. On either side rose a concrete retaining wall, three feet high—easy enough to duck behind, in case of a car on the road beneath, but when Harriet raised her head to look, the road was dark both ways. Beyond, broad lowlands rolled off into darkness, with a white sparkle of lights in the direction of town.
When they reached the top, the wind was stronger: fresh, dangerous, exhilarating. Ashen dust powdered the road surface and the retaining wall. Hely brushed his chalky-white hands on his shorts, clicked on his flashlight and jumped it around, over a caked metal trough filled with crumpled waste paper; a skewed cinderblock; a pile of cement bags and a glass bottle with a sticky half-inch of orange soda still inside. Grasping the wall, Harriet stood leaning out over the dark road below as if over the railing of an ocean liner. Her hair was blown back from her face and she looked less miserable than Hely had seen her look all day.
In the distance they heard the long, eerie whistle of a train. “Gosh,” said Harriet, “it’s not eight yet, is it?”
Hely felt weak at the knees. “Nope,” he said. He could hear the breakneck rattle of the boxcars, somewhere in the singing darkness, clattering down the tracks toward the Highway 5 crossing, louder and louder and louder.…
The whistle screamed, nearer this time, and the freight train ran past in a long
“We should come up here more,” Harriet said. She was looking not at the sky but at the sticky black pour of asphalt which rushed through the tunnel beneath their feet; and even though Hely was at her back it was almost like she didn’t expect him to hear her, as if she were leaning over the spillway of a dam, spray churning in her face, deaf to everything but the water.
The snake knocked inside his box, startling them both.
“Okay,” said Harriet, in a goofy, affectionate voice, “settle down, now—”
Together, they lifted out the box and wedged it between the retaining wall and the stacked cement bags. Harriet knelt on the ground, amongst the litter of smashed cups and cigarette filters left by the workmen, and tried to tug an empty cement bag from under the stack.
“We have to hurry,” said Hely. The heat lay on him like an itchy damp blanket and his nose tickled from the cement dust, from the hay in the fields and from the charged, staticky air.
Harriet wrenched free the empty sack, which caught and whipped up in the night air like some eerie banner from a lunar expedition. Quickly she plucked it down and dropped behind the cement barricade. Hely dropped beside her. With their heads together, they stretched it over the snake’s box, then weighted it at the edges with cement chunks so it wouldn’t blow off.
What were the grown-ups doing, wondered Hely, back in town and shut up in their houses: balancing checkbooks, watching television, brushing their cocker spaniels? The night wind was fresh, and bracing, and lonely; never had he felt so far from the known world. Shipwrecked on a desert planet … flapping flags, military funeral for the casualties … homemade crosses in the dust. Back on the horizon, the sparse lights of an alien settlement: hostile, probably, enemies of the Federation.
“He’ll be okay here,” said Harriet, standing up.
“He’ll be fine,” said Hely, in his deep, space-commander voice.
“Snakes don’t have to eat every day. I just hope he had a good drink of water before he left.”
Lightning flashed—bright this time, with a sharp crack. Almost simultaneously there was a growl of thunder.
“Let’s go back the long way,” said Hely, brushing the hair from his eyes. “By the road.”
“How come? The train from Chicago isn’t due in for a while,” she said, when he didn’t answer.
Hely was alarmed at the intensity of her gaze. “It’ll be through in half an hour.”
“We can make it.”
“Suit yourself,” said Hely, and he was glad that his voice came out sounding tougher than he felt. “I’m taking the road.”
Silence. “What do you want to do with the wagon, then?” she said.
Hely thought for a moment. “Leave it up here, I guess.”
“Out in the open?”
