Franco licked his lips. The alcohol was having trouble settling in his stomach, keen to escape the way from which it came. A few deep breaths subdued this – for the time being at least. ‘Why did she leave?’
‘Don’t know. She just left. There was a note that barely made sense, rambling about things, mad things, from what I recall. There was some crazed declaration about chasing the sun to find Ederik but who knows where her mind was at. The Sand Sea is a big place. If someone doesn’t want to be found, then they won’t be. You were just a babe in arms then and someone had to look after you, being that you were abandoned. That responsibility became mine and I looked after you as my own for evermore.’
Bitterness seeped in once more. Whilst it was easy to have compassion for the situation that his parents struggled with, the chain reaction of bad decisions that followed were far less acceptable.
‘You raised me.’ Franco swigged again, his mood as sour as his liquor. ‘Not them. You. I don’t see them here right now, reminiscing over how things transpired with big smiles.’
Something obstructed his throat. A long gestating rant that had been the backbone of bad behaviour and pity-seeking eruptions. The urge to launch his bottle into the sky was overwhelming.
‘It wasn’t what they intended, I’m sure.’
He cut Pappy off immediately.
‘Intended or not, this is the way it all went. Like you said, life is like a train on the rails, a destiny of sorts. I’m guessing that there are some who just jump from the cars without thinking of the landing. I don’t owe the folks a damn thing. Just you.’
With a sharp wheeze, Pappy took a spell to collect himself, giving Franco ample time to compose himself and lose the shakes.
‘Well I guess you know best on that front, lad.’
A flock of crows soared overhead, calling as if spooked by something unseen. Their obnoxious squawks abated as they took flight to the closest peak. Pappy kicked his boots in the dirt, displacing it before changing the subject to something more placid.
‘This idea of yours. This venture. Tell me about it again. What was the plan?’
‘It’s nothing really.’
‘You’re a man now. Speak like one.’
‘We provide entertainment,’ Franco stated. It was embarrassing confessing to the designs he had for when the old man had finally passed, crude given the circumstances. Originally it was something for the pair of them to participate in – until tragedy dictated otherwise.
‘Entertainment of what sort?’
‘It would be a delight on wheels. We would stuff the cars with tables, games, and all the booze folks could handle. The girls would entertain and we would make money on the tables like you wouldn’t believe. We would put on a show wherever we travelled.’
‘Are the games honest?’ he enquired.
‘Nothing but. The patrons get to win. There’s none of that fixing. Who would want to play at a table where the dealer has sticky fingers?’
‘These girls –’ he swallowed in interruption ‘– are they pretty?’
‘Oh, the prettiest. They would have kind faces to bring about respite for the poor bastards stuck down the mines or suck in the mills.’ Franco finally laughed; envisioning the entire thing like had done many times before.
‘Ah, now I like the sound of that.’
‘The bar would be filled with the finest rums and bourbons this far south of the trade line. It would be an oasis to the parched.’
‘Like this here stuff?’ Pappy tilted the frosted dark glass to his parched lips.
‘Better,’ Franco promised.
‘Got a name for all this yet?’
‘I’ve been kicking something around I guess …’
‘Being?’
Franco took a swig to build up nerve before setting the cup in the dirt at his boots. ‘The Gambler’s Den.’
To his surprise, the suggestion wasn’t immediately rubbished – unlike most others he had pitched in the past. No, Pappy weighed it with a considerable amount of thought as he sucked on a roll-up. The smoke got the better of his throat, starting a coughing fit. When it finally relented he spat the fire out beside him and quenched it with the bottle’s own. His eyes reddened, Pappy continued as if nothing had happened.
‘It’s not completely terrible.’ He relented. ‘It’s good, honest work. You should pursue it. We’ve got plenty saved to overhaul the cars and it’s not like you have to pay for a pine box for me. It’s your train now anyway. Stick with it and it’ll take you far. You’ve got a good head on you. It’ll grant you the one thing that most others lack.’
‘What would that be?’
‘Freedom, lad. Freedom. It’s the only thing that’s worth a damn – the only thing worth seeking out from the day you’re born until the day you’re buried. Money drips through the fingers when you try to hold it tightly. There’s bad sons of bitches out there who do just that. They may fool themselves and others that it can be done but it’ll trickle out slowly or drain in a rush. Money is fleeting. Freedom, however … If you can be free, you can be poor in wealth but rich in spirit.’ A bevy of deep, vicious coughs interrupted, eventually suppressed with more whisky. ‘And I wish that for you more than anything else.’
There were a million things that Franco wished to confess. This wasn’t how he wanted things to end but as Pappy once told him, you can’t deviate from your life when you’re set along the path. There was no use in complaining and certainly no use in getting upset. Things were just how things were, whether by chance or construct of the divine. With head held high, Franco said the only thing that came to mind that could encapsulate his feelings.
‘Thank you. I mean … thank you, Grandad. For everything.’
A lingering, compassionate smile painted the pair, ruined completely with Pappy’s wave of a hand.
‘Now go. Get out of here, you hear? Get on board that train and don’t you dare look back else you’ll feel my foot meet your backside.’
Instinctively Franco’s fingers reached for the bottle to take with him. Briefly hesitating he retrieved it from the dirt and placed it at Pappy’s feet leaving both it and his cup beside it. A singular pat fell on Pappy’s shoulder heavily on passing. Nothing else was spoken. Nothing needed to be. They were each aware of what this moment was and both decided not to change it with further sentiment.
The Eiferian 433 sat waiting for him in the stillness, an iron and steel sentry anticipating its new owner’s command. The moment he stepped foot into what had been the sleeping carriage, Franco realized that he was quite alone. It was a feeling he had not been accustomed to since Pappy became a quick surrogate for his absentee father. That may have been forced upon him in adolescence but it made him no less thankful.
Tears stained his cheeks as he cursed once, twice, and finally a third time until his throat gave. Sitting on Pappy’s bed, he allowed himself this moment before wiping his face and bringing about composure. The car was closed up as he moved out to the engine cab, greeted by the sight of Rosso who folded up a newspaper.
‘Where to now, boss?’
‘Anywhere, Mister Rosso. Absolutely anywhere but here.’
‘Forgive me but does anywhere have a location in particular?’
A thunderbolt of inspiration struck. ‘Yes, actually. Enlighten me: where would have a good yard for outfitting this here train with some flair?’
‘You’ll be wanting Packers