I climbed down on my own and Amafo helped Jamey to the ground. We ambled along at Amafo’s pace. I did my best to walk slow and respectful, seeing as how our excitement grew at the noise of the oncoming train. It was bigger than I ever remembered, seeing it so close-up like we were.
The brakes screeched and the train came to a stop near enough for us to smell the grinding metal and feel the hot air rising from the steam engine. We stood and stared gap-mouthed at the train and the people waiting. We climbed the platform steps and Amafo found an empty outside table tucked up against the depot wall. He bought us a bag of roasted peanuts to share, so salty you had to lick your fingers after eating, and a tall glass of lemonade apiece.
Folks crowded to the edge of the tracks as passengers unloaded. A quarter hour passed and an easy calm settled in. Passengers waiting for a connecting train found tables inside the depot and a dozen or so men strolled up and down the platform, smoking pipes and mopping their brows.
Long after everyone else had come and gone, a tall gentleman dressed in a black suit appeared at the door to the final car. A Negro porter rushed to help him from the train. The gentleman was followed by two porters carrying his luggage—three large brown-leather suitcases.
“That’s the new Indian agent,” we heard someone whisper when he walked by. The agent seemed not to notice that everyone was staring at him. He pulled out his pocket watch and shook his head as he looked up and down the platform. He spoke to a porter and soon a wagon appeared. The agent climbed into the passenger seat as his luggage was loaded in the wagon bed and off they rode.
Less than five minutes after the agent left, the town marshal, Marshal Hardwicke, came driving a wagon pulled by two fidgety black horses, sleek and sweating. He leapt to the platform from his wagon, pushed open the depot doors, and strode to the ticket counter. After speaking to the ticket agent, he slammed his fist on the counter and stormed outside to the platform.
“Did anyone see the new Indian agent?” he said, turning his head from side to side as he spoke. “Was the train early?” Marshal Hardwicke shouted, but no one spoke to him. The marshal was a big man with powerful arms and a mustached face that grew more and more puffy-cheeked and red. Everyone on the platform moved to give him a path, but no one spoke.
A tall, thin lady in a shiny blue dress, the final passenger, stepped from the train. Her face was soft, but her eyes were outlined in black and her cheeks were pink circles of face powder. She craned her goose neck up and down the platform before turning and struggling to drag two large suitcases behind her.
“Hold on, ma’am,” a young porter called out, skip-stepping through the depot door. Judging from his size and bright, innocent eyes, he looked to be maybe sixteen years old. “I’m here fer ya.”
The porter gave a wide berth around the marshal, but not wide enough. Marshal Hardwicke grabbed his collar from behind and jerked the young man backwards and off his feet. He slammed him against the wall and slid his hand up the porter’s neck and under his chin.
“You, boy. You seen the new agent get offa this train?”
The porter nodded as best he could, being pinned up against the wall by his throat. The marshal relaxed his grip and the porter steadied himself, saying, “He left just a minute or two ago. Called hisself a wagon. Probly be at the hotel by now.”
Marshal Hardwicke staggered for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do next. That’s when I realized he was drunk. I had seen plenty of drunk men before, Choctaws and Nahullos both, but never at this hour in the morning. Drinking was something men did after dark, and mostly in quiet places away from women and children. The marshal cursed at the porter and told him, “Get on away from here if you know what’s good for you!”
From where he sat, Amafo kept his back turned to the marshal. When the shouting grew louder he kept his head down. I could tell he did not want the marshal or anybody else to notice us.
Marshal Hardwicke turned to the door, slamming it so hard a piece of cedar door facing, four feet long at least, popped loose and fell to the platform.
“Time we go,” Amafo said, thinking the marshal had entered the stationhouse. He rose and stepped around the table to help me with my chair. At that moment the marshal whirled and knocked Amafo against the table. Though violent in its result, I am convinced this was an accidental act. But something about bumping against another man, a weaker man, seemed to breathe new life into the marshal.
He glared at Amafo. His eyebrows wrinkled and his mouth drew tight. He slowly stooped and picked up the door facing with both hands. Amafo huddled with the two of us behind him, holding us back with his arms.
As the marshal stood up, he swung the board in a loop, catching my grandfather on the side of his head and knocking him to the ground. Amafo’s eyeglasses scooted almost to the edge of the platform. The marshal drew back the board and slapped it hard against the building, shattering the wood and showering Jamey and me with splinters.
The marshal stood glaring over Amafo. His face was red and his eyes were bloodshot. His fists were clenched tight and shaking. I had heard Pokoni speak of the devil taking hold of somebody, and I think I was seeing the devil come alive in front of me. I looked around for help.
The platform was full of people now. The stationhouse had emptied. Men and women circled us, but no one moved to help. I cried out and the marshal looked at us, Jamey and me, trembling and cowering against the wall of the building. His face suddenly changed, as if he was seeing us for the first time. His eyes slowly moved to Amafo, who was struggling to stand up.
“Ooohh,” the marshal moaned, dropping the board to the platform. The ticket master hurried through the crowd and picked it up.
“It’s sharp as a butcher knife. He could kill somebody with this,” he whispered, shaking his head.
Amafo was too dizzy to make it to his feet. He fell back to the platform and lay on his side, breathing hard and squinting his eyes. The marshal reached for my grandfather as if he were about to help him, but he stopped himself. In that moment something unspeakable settled on the railroad platform, some new level of meanness. I was afraid, but not too afraid to look squarely at what was occurring.
The marshal stood straight up, slowly and deliberately, dusted the splinters from his shirt and turned to face the gathering crowd. For the first time in my life I saw the power that evil and fear exercise over people. The marshal stared at the crowd. Better said, he stared at each and every person there, every man and every woman, challenging anybody to say a word, to move a muscle. Everyone in their turn took a step back.
When he was satisfied no one dared confront him, the marshal tipped his hat, turned smartly and walked to his wagon.
I knelt over Amafo and realized how old and helpless he was. He looked like a stranger, a tired and fallen stranger.
“My glasses,” he said. “Please, where are my glasses?”
I turned to the platform’s edge where I had last seen his glasses. A short young man in a tan suit, an out-of-town traveler, stepped from the crowd. He took his hat off as he approached me, in a sign of respect.
“Here you are, young lady.” He handed me the glasses. The right lens was shattered, but still snug and tight in the frame. The glass was broken in the shape of a spiderweb, with a small circle in the center surrounded by jagged lines.
“Yakoke,” I said. He looked at me strangely. “I am sorry. I meant to say thank you.” The man smiled with good humor and nodded to my grandfather.
“Is he—the old man—is he alright? Will he be okay?”
“Yes, I think so. He is my grandfather, my Amafo. We need to go. Can you help me lift him?” The man nodded as Amafo tried to stand.
“Give me my glasses,” Amafo said.
I had never looked at Amafo’s glasses before. They were part of his face, nothing more. I lifted the glasses high. The frames were much heavier than I had imagined. I watched the sunlight flash against