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She rode beside Jerry in a double seat, while around them children wept,
shouted, laughed, and otherwise made a racket, and adults
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact dozed, chatted, or endured the trip in
silence. The roaring train surrounded them oppressively, raining considerably
more soot and sound upon them than they had been exposed to in the private
car.
The clocks in the passing towns kept getting further and further ahead of
Jerry's watch. By now Jerry had begun to wonder whether any regular time zones
had yet been established. These people seemed to be setting their watches and
clocks by the local sun! Not that he cared much; he had more immediate
problems to worry about.
At a whistlestop just east of Cleveland, Colleen touched Jerry on the arm and
pointed unobtrusively out through the grimy window beside her.
"Some of Lafe's people," she murmured, so softly that no one but
Jerry would have had a chance of hearing her.
Jerry looked out the window with great interest, just in time to observe a
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
couple of tough-looking men in civilian suits and bowler hats stop a young man
on the platform. He had put down his carpetbag and they were showing what
might be badges Jerry couldn't really tell from where he sat and obviously
interrogating their victim.
Colleen added in the same low tone: "Only looking for bounty-
jumpers, most likely."
Now he was really lost. Damn Pilgrim, anyway. He asked: "And how are
bounty-jumpers best recognized?"
"They wont be recognized at all, I'd bet, if it's to be left up to those two,"
Colleen sniffed. She appeared to regard Lafe's agents and
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact their victim with about equal disdain. The
train pulled out before they saw the conclusion of the incident.
The day wore on, passengers feeding themselves from whatever food and drink
they had brought with them. A garrulously extroverted young soldier, recently
discharged and radiant with joy as his Pennsylvania home drew ever nearer,
went from seat to seat aboard the coach offering to trade some of his hardtack
biscuits for a share in more palatable fair. Jerry and Colleen shared some of
the contents of their hamper with him, but declined to try his biscuits, which
he had been carrying wrapped in a long-unwashed fragment of blanket.
When darkness had fallen and it was time for berths to be made up, the ladies
retired to the female compartment in the rear. Overnight passengers, it
appeared, were expected to supply their own bedding, and sure enough, the
bottom of the hamper packed by Sam revealed two folded blankets.
A uniformed porter came around to fold the men's berths down from the wall,
causing the daytime seats to disappear as part of the same transformation. The
only railroad-supplied bedding was the slightly stained mattress pads that
came down with the berths, triple-deck constructions with each shelf jutting
independently from the wall.
The night of April eighth passed uneventfully, and Colleen dutifully rejoined
her husband next morning somewhere in Ohio. At the first stop that the train
made after sunrise, people in their Sunday best came aboard carrying palm
branches. Jerry stared at them uncomprehendingly.
"Palm Sunday," Colleen beside him commented.
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact
"Oh." Sunday, the ninth of April, he thought. That leaves five more days. Am I
really going to do what Pilgrim tells me? Do I have a choice? If this is Palm
Sunday, next Sunday will be Easter. And
Friday the fourteenth will be Good Friday, won't it?
Colleen gazed after the happy Christians moving past them through the car.
"Were your folks religious, Jim?"
"No. Not much."
"Mine neither. But there are times when I think I'd like to be. Are yours
still alive?"
"My mother is," he said, abstractedly, truthfully. "My father my original
father kind of walked out, I understand, when I was very small."
"Stepfather bring you up?"
"Yep. I always think of him as my father. He's still around."
As if unconsciously, two-thirds lost in her own thoughts, Colleen reached to
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