Valknut: The Binding Read Online Free Page B

jack-rollers and gangbangers every day. How are you in a
knife fight? Are you bullet-proof?”
    He was right, but she resented the sarcasm in
his voice. She glared at him and wished she could think of some
sharp reply.
    “I didn’t think so,” he said when she didn’t
answer. “You’ll have to find your father some other way.”
    The boxcar floor jumped as the wheels hit a
bump. She sat down hard, sending a painful jolt through her
strained shoulder. Her temper flared. “Then how the hell do you
suggest I find him! I can’t leave him out there. I don’t desert
people just because things get a little rough.”
    She stopped, realizing she was shouting at
him. None of this was Junkyard’s fault. He wasn’t her father. She
rubbed her shoulder and tried to control her voice. “Look, I have
no other way to find him. I have no money for detectives. I live on
student loans and part time waitressing—”
    She stopped, wide-eyed, and smacked her hand
to her head, “Damn—my job! I’m supposed to work lunch
tomorrow!”
    Disaster piled on disaster, all because of
this compulsion to find her father. She grimaced. “Scratch that, I
now live solely on student loans. My grandparents are dead, my
mother is dead, and there is no one else. So if anyone is going to
find my dad, it’s me.”
    Lennie glared defiantly at Junkyard. His gaze
was equally fierce, his expression as stubborn as she felt. The
wheels rattled over track joints with the steady rhythm of a clock.
The wind swept through the open door, pushing Lennie’s hair into
her face, but she refused to blink.
    Then she felt a nudge on her arm and found
Jungle Jim looking at her, his face sad and serious, and his eyes
had gone clear again. “Like Dougie said, ten years is sure a long
time. Long enough for a man to do a lot of changin’. Now don’t be
takin’ this wrong, Missy, but are you really sure you want to find
your dad?”
    “What? Of course I do!”
    But those gentle eyes waited, not letting her
hide behind glib words. She knew what he meant. Her father could
have turned into one of those human derelicts, like those she had
seen while searching the hobo jungles along Iowa railroad tracks.
Vacant eyed, smelling of urine and ancient sweat, they hardly moved
and barely responded to anything. She shied from the thought of
bringing something like that home and calling it father.
    If only Ramblin’ Red hadn’t shown her the
pocket watch. She remembered its cool, metallic weight in her hand.
It had made her father seem more real, like he could still be
alive.
    “I can’t just give up on him,” she said, as
much to herself as to Jungle Jim.
    Junkyard groaned and sandwiched his head in
his hands as though trying to keep it from exploding. “You have no
idea what’s out there. I do. Petey is only one of a dozen murders
on the trains over the last year, and they all happened the same
way. There’ve been three in the last two weeks—all of ’em on the
FRC Railroad. And those are only the ones I’ve heard about!”
    Her insides ran cold, but this time the fear
wasn’t just for herself. “All the more reason to get my father off
the rails.”
    Junkyard lifted his head and studied her, his
lips pressed together in a tight frown. Finally he sighed. “Okay.
It’s your skin. But you’ve at least got to go home and get some
gear. The hobo life doesn’t take much, but it does take
something.”
    He lay back on the cardboard and, rolling so
his back was to her, said nothing more. Jungle Jim settled down
beside him and began snoring immediately. Lennie watched them for a
moment, feeling alone and frightened.
    Her original plan had been to visit hobo
jungles and rail yards on weekends to show her father’s picture
around. But now she realized this would never work. The rail system
was too vast. It swallowed people without leaving a trace. If she
truly wished to find her father, she would have to track him from
the inside. The prospect terrified her.
    Both men lay