Chapter 2 #3
"Same yard. A few tracks apart, from what he had written down."
That was good news, if any of it held. One stop instead of three.
Russ had been quiet through most of it, working a stub of pencil against his own scrap of paper, doing sums David couldn't see yet.
"How much are we bringing back?" Russ asked.
David looked at him. "As much medical as we can," Karen said.
"That wasn't what I asked."
He turned the paper around so David could see the numbers scratched across it.
"Three riders, four horses," Russ said. "Whiskey carries most of your camp load going out.
Coming back, you spread your gear around and give him as much freight as he can safely carry.
That gives you room." He tapped the paper.
"It doesn't give you enough room. You know what a liter of fluid weighs before you even count the case it comes in.
Blankets take up space without weighing much.
Boots take up space and add weight. Soap's heavier than it looks in bulk. "
"Say the whole railcar's there," David said. "What then?"
Nobody had an answer right away.
"We take the most valuable pieces," Karen said. "We don't need all of it. We need enough."
"You can bring enough home to make the trip worthwhile," Russ said. "What you can't do is make much of a dent in a railcar. You rode across half the country on one animal once, David. You know what a horse hauls before it gives out on you. We're not bringing a railcar home in saddlebags."
David glanced toward the barn.
Russ followed his eyes.
"Don't even think about my mules."
David looked back at him.
"Wasn't."
"You were."
David almost smiled.
Russ tapped the paper. "Those two are pulling a plow. Find another answer."
"A wagon, then. Empty going out."
Russ shook his head before David finished the sentence. "Not loaded, not on roads we haven't seen yet. Bridges, washouts, mud — getting an empty wagon there in one piece might be harder than getting four horses there. A horse can pick its way around a bad spot in the road. A wagon can't."
"How far could we get a wagon before it became a liability instead of a help?"
Russ thought about that honestly instead of answering fast. "Maybe partway. First fifty, sixty miles, roads out this direction are ones we've scouted some already. Past that, I couldn't tell you what we're driving into."
"What if we don't bring the wagon," David said.
Russ looked at him.
"We find something closer to Charlotte," David said. "A wagon somebody left behind. Draft stock, if any's still around and healthy. A handcart, anything with wheels that isn't waiting on an engine that's never starting again."
"Maybe," Russ said. "That's a lot of maybe."
David turned to Rebecca. "Does Daniel's paperwork say anything about trucking yards? Not just rail."
She went through the stack again, slower this time, and pulled two sheets free.
"Yes. Two terminals, both close to the rail yard."
"Anything in those records that might help us move freight?"
Rebecca looked down at the papers. "Maybe."
"Mark those too."
She nodded and went back to work, and David let it sit there for now. Whatever answer was waiting in those trailers, it was a problem for Charlotte, not for this table.
Later, David stood alone over the map, the string still pinned where he'd left it, tracing the same hundred seventy-five miles it had traced that morning.
Russ came and stood beside him.
"We can get there," David said.
Russ nodded. "Probably."
David looked at him.
Russ shrugged. "You wanted honesty."
David looked back down at Charlotte, at the small mark Rebecca had made where the yard sat, at the string running out from the Hollow like it was the easiest part of the whole plan.
Getting there wasn't what bothered him anymore. If Rebecca's papers were right, there might be enough sitting in that yard to change what Karen could do for years, not just get them through one bad summer.
And all they had to carry it home with was saddlebags.
David tapped the pencil against the map.
"We need a way to haul it," he said.
Russ looked at him, something almost like approval in it.
"Now you're asking the right question."
Neither of them had an answer yet. David folded the map along its worn creases anyway and set the pencil down beside it. Whatever the answer was, it waited in Charlotte, not on this table, and there was no sense pretending otherwise tonight.
Russ picked up his hat off the back of the chair.
"Four horses ought to get the three of you there," he said.
"That's the plan."
Russ settled the hat onto his head. "Plans are useful right up until the road gets involved."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Russ headed for the door, then stopped with a hand on the frame.
"First light?"
"First light."
Russ nodded. "I'll help you get Whiskey packed."
Smokey came in from the porch and settled against David's leg, head resting on his boot, the way he did most evenings when the house had finally gone quiet. David reached down and rubbed behind one ear without looking away from the map.
"You're coming too," he said. "Somebody's got to keep watch while the rest of us sleep."
He stayed a while longer, Smokey's weight warm against his leg, looking at the string still pinned across a hundred seventy-five miles of country none of them had crossed yet.