excerpt
“My god, he’s strong,” Ruth said. “I didn’t know he was so
strong.”
“It’s the work,” Dan said, “and the swimming. Look at those
shoulders. He’s powerful in the water. Swam the river both ways
last summer, twice that I know of. Raised hell with him about it,
but I think he’s going to do it no matter what. At the pool in town
nearly every morning too, swimming laps.”
In the sun’s final benediction of the day, the plateau beyond the
Columbia glowed orange, floating above the dusk that filled the valley.
Engine Fred stared into his fire. Poodie sat twenty feet away
against a small boulder, waiting for the hobo to stir, watching the
flames and their reflection in the big man’s steel rimmed glasses. He
thought that Engine Fred’s gray suit and hat were like Judge Winter’s,
but rumpled and dirty, and he had never seen the Judge wear a
plaid shirt or go without shaving. Poodie leaned back to watch the
nighthawks swoop and dart. Straining to reach into his memory of
sounds, he wondered if the birds sang as they swept through the air.
He found no birdsong, only his mother’s voice and the rustling of
leaves on the big trees outside their house, sounds always in the
background of hismind. When he dreamed, the sounds grew louder
and carried pictures. His mother left so long ago, he sometimes lost
her face when he thought about her.He missed her singing and the
way she held him and looked into his eyes and read to him and
laughed when he tried to say Peter and it came out Poodie.
The scents of smoke and sagebrush filled his nostrils. Now, the
hills across the river were dark shapes against the dark sky. Poodie
felt the rumble of a freight train moving slowly on the tracks
behind him. Engine Fred looked up, glowered and said something
too far away for Poodie to read in the dim light of the little fire.
Swinging down from the boxcar as he followed his bedroll and
pack onto the right of way, Old Sam saw a figure moving through
the jungle toward the tracks. When he realized it was Engine Fred,
he turned to hop back on the train, but it was too late. The caboose
was passing.
Libros Libertad 