Chapter 15 #3
Bundles of T-shirts packed along both sides first, then underwear, then socks, filling every gap until there was a solid six to eight inches of ordinary clothing between the medical freight and anywhere a casual eye might look.
More clothing went across the top, enough that lifting the wagon's cover showed nothing but shirts and socks from the first glance.
If somebody reached in without looking hard, they'd pull out a T-shirt.
If somebody opened one carton near the outer layer, they'd find exactly what the carton claimed to hold.
Finding the medicine underneath would mean unloading the whole wagon carton by carton, and David doubted anybody with bad intentions was going to invest that kind of time on a farm rig that looked like it was hauling laundry.
Karen saw the value in it immediately. Medicine got people killed over. Clothing didn't announce anything worth the trouble.
"If somebody asks what we're hauling," David said, "what do we tell them?"
Curtis looked into the wagon bed. "Underwear."
Karen looked at him. "You're going to tell armed men we're hauling underwear?"
"You got a better answer?"
"Farm supplies," David offered.
"Underwear's more believable," Curtis said, and neither David nor Karen found a strong enough argument against that to keep pushing it.
Curtis walked the finished wagon slowly, checking wheels, checking the load's balance, checking the tongue and every strap of harness twice.
He had Waylon and Willie step forward a few feet, stop, then start again, watching how they leaned into the collars under the new weight, listening to how the wagon responded, running a hand along both horses' shoulders once they'd settled.
He climbed up, looked at two cartons near the back, and pulled them both out.
Karen protested before he'd even fully set them down. "We can carry those."
"That's enough," Curtis said.
"There's room."
"I didn't say there wasn't room."
Curtis didn't argue further than that, and Karen chose what came out herself rather than let him pick blind — nothing essential, the least critical of what remained after her earlier re-ranking, supplies she hated to leave but could leave without costing anybody a life she could have saved otherwise.
David marked HRLX 44192 on Daniel's paper and his own map before they closed it up. They weren't emptying the car. Medical freight remained inside, sealed again as well as they could manage, waiting for another trip that David wasn't going to start planning until this one was safely finished.
Karen took one last look inside the railcar before they sealed the door as far shut as it would go.
Daniel Hale's paperwork had brought them here. He'd never known the Hollow existed, or that his records would someday put medical supplies into Karen's hands.
"Rebecca needs to know he was right," Karen said.
"She will," David said, and that was enough between them.
They closed the car as well as the damaged track allowed — not to hide that anyone had been there, but because what remained inside might matter again someday, and there was no sense leaving it open to weather and scavengers in the meantime.
By late afternoon they were ready to move, and Curtis climbed onto the driver's bench for the first real test of a fully loaded wagon.
Waylon and Willie leaned into their collars at his command, and the wagon came off its rest heavier and slower than it had the day before, wheels grinding harder against gravel that had barely troubled them empty.
Curtis watched both horses close through the first several yards, reading their breathing and stride for any sign the load asked too much of them.
They settled into it. No drama, no strain beyond what David expected from two horses doing honest work.
"How do they feel?" David asked, riding alongside a moment.
"Working," Curtis said. "Not struggling. There's a difference, and I'll tell you the second I stop feeling it."
Karen mounted Whiskey. David swung up onto June. Smokey fell in alongside, unbothered by the wagon's new weight or the slower pace it forced on all of them.
David looked back toward the rail yard once before they turned onto the service road for good.
Yesterday they'd come in with an empty wagon and a dead man's paperwork.
Now, underneath a plain layer of T-shirts, socks, and underwear, sat medical supplies worth more to the Hollow than anything else they could have carried out of Charlotte.
From ten feet away, none of that showed. Just an old wagon, two Appaloosas, some clothing, and three tired travelers with a dog. Exactly what David wanted anyone watching to see.
Karen rode a while in quiet, and when she finally spoke, it wasn't about the load. "Rebecca's going to want every detail. What we found, what we left, how much."
"Tell her all of it."
"I intend to." She looked back toward the yard once, the same direction David had. "She earned hearing every bit of it."
They took the service road out rather than the main route they'd come in on, wheels crossing the last stretch of rail with a jolt that rattled through the whole wagon. David looked back once more.
Nobody followed.
He faced forward, toward the long road home, and let June set her own pace behind Curtis's wagon.