The High Divide Read Online Free PDF

around. At McLaughlin’s door he knocked. No answer came from inside.
    â€œHe’s paid for it already,” Eli said. “You can give it to him later, he’s probably still sleeping.”
    â€œSleeping? Nah,” Fogarty had said, and then selected a key from his ring, slipped it in the lock, and pushed open the door, all in a motion.
    McLaughlin managed to throw his legs free of the dirty bedclothes, and he sat in his yellowing shorts half in and half out of bed, shaking his head back and forth, arms crossed in front of his pendulous breasts, empty mouth moving soundlessly, knees pressed together like a child’s. His eyes blinked and fluttered in their sockets. Fogarty took the porcelain chamber pot from Eli’s hands and set it on the floor. Then he reached out and clapped the old man’s bony shoulder. “Rise and shine,” he told him.
    Overcome by the ammoniac smell, Eli had backpedaled into the hall, then followed Fogarty all the way back downstairs to the lobby, having to listen as the man chuckled to himself.
    Now, though, crawling out from behind the lilac bush in the alley, it was Eli who couldn’t help chuckling. He knew the basement entrance of the rooming house was always left unlocked for coal drops, and so he lifted the big trapdoor and descended the stairs, pulling the door back down behind him. He lit a match and located the steps leading to the main floor, and then upstairs he tiptoed across the wide lobby to the counter, went around to the back of it and reached underneath, where, sure enough, his fingers touched the cool brass fan of Fogarty’s beloved room keys. Eli didn’t know what he was going to do with them, only that he wanted them. He wanted Fogarty to wake up in the morning and not have them. He imagined the man searching, panicked, then racing to the sheriff’s office, imagined him blaming his renters, or better yet, Herman Stroud, who sometimes ran errands for him after school. The keys felt pleasantly heavy as he tucked them into the pocket of his coat, then he returned to the basement and left by way of the coal door.
    In the alley back of Harlow’s barber shop, as Eli passed by the outhouse, another idea occured to him and he made no effort to resist this one either. He opened the outhouse door, stepped inside, and dropped the heavy ring of keys down the black, smelly hole, laughing at the soft clanking sound it made when it landed.
    He crossed the tracks fifty yards short of the depot, climbed onto the platform of the grain elevator nearest the station, and tucked himself behind a pile of feed sacks. From there he had a clear view of the depot and, beyond it, the water tank next to which the engine would rest while its reservoir filled. Depot agent Wheatfield made a habit of ambling the train’s length, front to back along its north side then back to front along its south, and striking each empty car with his hickory walking stick—though he’d never been known to confront a free-rider. If it was a mixed-use run, the passengers who weren’t sleeping might venture outside to stretch their legs. In any case there would be plenty of time for Eli to find a car and get himself settled.
    The eastern clouds were starting to purple at the edges when Eli heard it—a far-off, steady thunder that rose in volume until he could feel it through the soles of his boots. Then the engine came around the last curve, cone of light sweeping before it, whistle blowing, and the air shaking with noise as the first cars howled past. He waited until the clanking stopped and the train was still, until the big cylinders were panting like tired dogs and Wheatfield had carried out his ritual tour. Then Eli climbed down from the platform and found an empty car toward the rear of the train, a lumber car from the smell of the redwood wafting out of it. He tossed his bedroll inside and climbed up after it and pulled the big sliding door three quarters