Free The Orphan by Robert Stallman Page A

too thick and thorny to get through. Not time to dig under it, so many roots in hedges. The cornfield with its endless ranks of low corn plants offers no cover at all. I am trapped, and it is because of my own foolishness. But there is no time now to wonder about the cause of such muddleheadedness. The men are at both ends of the hedge, advancing cautiously, sticking their shovels and bars into the weeds and into the hedge itself as they advance. I smell my own fear. I try to concentrate on Robert Lee Burney, but I cannot. There is some block there preventing him from emerging. In wonder I realize that he does not want to come out. To try another animal form would be worse. I am too inexperienced for that. I do not wish to hurt humans. The ones at the Nordmeyer farm threatened my own survival, but I do not wish to harm these men. Also, to show myself to so many witnesses is certain to bring on a hunt I would have great trouble escaping in my present state.
    “I’ll come out if you’ll go back,” says a high clear Voice.
    I jump, then flatten back in the weeds. The voice is Robert’s, and it comes from inside my own mind. He is making a deal with me. I have the urge to laugh. I think the words, “If you don’t come out now, we will both have great trouble, maybe be killed.”
    “Promise you’ll go back.”
    “I can’t. They have seen me. It would be a danger to you also.”
    “Promise!”
    The men at both ends of the hedge are closer, coming slowly, spread out into the cornfields. It is too late to run now without having to fight with some of them. As Robert’s voice screams inside me the one word again, I hear something, a metallic rumbling, then a far off whistle, slightly elevating in pitch. A train is coming, fast.
    Now the men at the south end of the hedge hear it too. They are hollering and running back around the hedge. I begin to slip through the weeds in their direction.
    “The Lakeshore. The Lakeshore!”
    “Get that handcar off the right of way!”
    “C’mon, get your ass in gear. That baby’s gon splatter us all over the county.”
    The south end of the hedge is free of men now, and I begin running faster. I arrive at the end of the hedge to see half a dozen men in work overalls struggling with the iron-wheeled platform, trying to get it off the tracks as the train appears to swell in size down the track, trailing a flat plume of smoke back along its length. Its black, blunt form approaches at unbelievable speed, the details of the iron engine face becoming clear so fast I have trouble seeing it all. The men on the track have the handcar derailed but sideways on the track. They will not make it. The train whistle begins a shattering scream, the pitch rising unbearable. Only two of them are still trying to get it off the track, the rest are running down the embankment as the train’s wheels begin to grind on the iron rails, a thousand metallic notes higher than the ear can hear, couplings crashing like hammers on anvils back down the length of the train. I stand up to watch the sight as the last two men dive away, one on each side of the track and the towering black engine seems to gobble up the little handcar and blow out its wreckage in a giant blast. A terrific smashing of wood and clanging of iron, and one heavy iron wheel comes sailing over the hedge, spinning and flailing its torn-out axle like the stem of an iron flower cut by the mower. A shower of wood splinters bounces back along the length of the black engine as it rushes on past in spite of its squealing brakes. As the engine flashes past above me, I see the white round faces of two men ducking away from the cab window.
    Behind me I hear again the men coming along the hedge. They are running now, shouting. I double back on the railroad side of the hedge in the shadow, and when I am half way back, I see the men gathered around the wreckage of their handcar. The train is on beyond me, just coming to a stop, its last car a hundred yards up