Machine Dreams

said more softly, “I wish you wouldn’t yell out my name in front of everyone.”
    “No one heard,” Billy said. He looked down the track past the train shack to the bend in the rails where the trees were thick. Big limbs hung lushly over the track. “Anyway,” he said, pleased, “the train is coming.”
    “I hate this dance,” Danner said. “Don’t you hate it?”
    Billy shrugged. Unconsciously, they’d kept their voices low. Now he whispered and nodded up at the train shack. “Who’s that at the shack?”
    In the moonlit dark, they saw the block shape of the old building and the silhouette of the stairs. A line of boys stood on the steps, four of them; then the door of the shack half-opened and a boy came out, wordlessly taking his place at the end of the line. The first boy went inside. Again, four of them stood waiting.
    “Stay right here so they won’t see us,” Billy said. “We can watch the train up close.”
    Danner barely heard his words as the sound of the train grew louder; once the engine was in sight at the bend, the train came so fast it seemed to fall toward them. Danner and Billy stood perhaps ten feet back, and the boxcars made a clattering wind,blurred words stenciled on their sides, their individual boundaries gone. Danner didn’t look directly at the cars but felt the air of the train at the side of her face—smokey, racing air that pulled at her. She saw Billy squinting straight ahead, arms crossed, feet spread as though to hold his ground. Danner looked past him, down the length of the rails. The roar was deafening and the train shack vibrated, the metal steps shaking. The whistle blew again, hooting a long bellow; one boy leaned over the wobbly railing and a ribbon of vomit snaked noiselessly through the air. Danner looked away, watching the building; the two windows glowed faintly as though the interior were lit by flashlights or a dim lantern. Danner had been inside before, sneaking in with girlfriends to look at the forbidden place. But the train shack was just empty and dirty, barnlike but small, with random straw and disintegrating rope on the floor. Burlap bags piled in one corner were stiff, stuck together, and there was a rank, tantalizing smell the summer daylight hadn’t quite dispelled. Danner pressed her arms to her sides; the memory of how the room had looked, the memory of the smell, came back to her powerfully. She turned her back on the old building and faced the receding train, past them so fast.
    “Oh, that was great,” Billy said.
    She saw the other boy then, standing farther down the tracks, where he must have been all along. At first she thought he was an adult—he was tall and stood so silently—but he walked closer and she saw his rumpled shirt, the shirttail out, and his jeans. He wore his sleeves rolled up above his biceps but he didn’t look country; maybe he was from Winfield or one of the other large towns near Bellington. He smoked his cigarette attentively, holding it with his thumb and forefinger like someone in the movies. The burning ash of the cigarette moved in the dark, a small red ember near his lips, at his side. A shock of thick, dark hair fell over one eyebrow; he shook it back.
    “You two lost?” He spoke to Danner, his voice deep but not menacing. “Don’t you mean to be at the dance?”
    “No. It’s a crummy dance.”
    “Yeah.” The older boy leaned slightly forward, looking past Danner at Billy. “Who’s he?”
    “He’s my brother.” Danner felt Billy near her, cautious and watchful.
    The boy said nothing, then averted his gaze, looking out across the tracks to the brushy riverbank opposite. The water was sluggish, so low and brown, and across the river was the old river road, hardly traveled anymore. There were lights in some of the houses but the lights were scattered; most of those ramshackle places were abandoned now.
    “What are they doing in the train shack?” Danner asked.
    “What do you think?” He paused. “They got a girl in there.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Never mind how I know.” He turned and looked at her then, full face. “You get on out of here now, and take your kid brother.”
    “Come on,” Billy said.
    “Are they hurting her?” Danner looked up at the boy. In the light of the moon she saw a stubble of beard on his cheeks. He squinted in the smoke of his cigarette, and past his shoulders the railroad tracks curved out of sight in trees.
    “Nah. You can’t hurt girls like