Free Runaway by Alice Munro

which was just below, a voice of authority—maybe the conductor’s. But it was not possible to hear what he was saying.
    Juliet got up and went to the front of the car, looking over the tops of all the cars ahead. She saw some figures running in the snow.
    One of the lone women came up and stood beside her.
    “I felt there was something going to happen,” the woman said. “I felt it back there, when we were stopped. I didn’t want us to start up again, I thought something was going to happen.”
    The other lone woman had come to stand behind them.
    “It won’t be anything,” she said. “Maybe a branch across the tracks.”
    “They have that thing that goes ahead of the train,” the first woman told her. “It goes on purpose to catch things like a branch across the tracks.”
    “Maybe it had just fallen.”
    Both women spoke with the same north-of-England accent and without the politeness of strangers or acquaintances. Now that Juliet got a good look at them she saw that they were probably sisters, though one had a younger, broader face. So they travelled together but sat separately. Or perhaps they’d had a row.
    The conductor was mounting the stairs to the observation car. He turned, halfway up, to speak.
    “Nothing serious to worry about, folks, it seems like we hit an obstacle on the track. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll get going again as soon as we can, but we could be here a little while. The steward tells me there’s going to be free coffee down here in a few minutes.”
    Juliet followed him down the stairs. She had become aware, as soon as she stood up, that there was a problem of her own which would make it necessary for her to go back to her seat and her travelling case, whether the man she snubbed was still there or not. As she made her way through the cars she met other people on the move. People were pressing against the windows on one side of the train, or they had halted between the cars, as if they expected the doors to open. Juliet had no time to ask questions, but as she slid past she heard that it might have been a bear, or an elk, or a cow. And people wondered what a cow would be doing up here in the bush, or why the bears were not all asleep now, or if some drunk had fallen asleep on the tracks.
    In the dining car people were sitting at the tables, whose white cloths had all been removed. They were drinking the free coffee.
    Nobody was in Juliet’s seat, or in the seat across from it. She picked up her case and hurried along to the Ladies. Monthly bleeding was the bane of her life. It had even, on occasion, interfered with the writing of important three-hour examinations, because you couldn’t leave the room for reinforcements.
    Flushed, crampy, feeling a little dizzy and sick, she sank down on the toilet bowl, removed her soaked pad and wrapped it in toilet paper and put it in the receptacle provided. When she stood up she attached the fresh pad from her bag. She saw that the water and urine in the bowl was crimson with her blood. She put her hand on the flush button, then noticed in front of her eyes the warning not to flush the toilet while the train was standing still. That meant, of course, when the train was standing near the station, where the discharge would take place, very disagreeably, right where people could see it. Here, she might risk it.
    But just as she touched the button again she heard voices close by, not in the train but outside the toilet window of pebbled glass. Maybe train workers walking past.
    She could stay till the train moved, but how long would that be? And what if somebody desperately wanted in? She decided that all she could do was to put down the lid and get out.
    She went back to her own seat. Across from her, a child four or five years old was slashing a crayon across the pages of a coloring book. His mother spoke to Juliet about the free coffee.
    “It may be free but it looks like you have to go and get it yourself,” she said. “Would you