The train crossed the west branch of the Susquehanna River south of Lock Haven. Burke sat in the aisle seat beside Robinson in the back of a Pullman car on the way to Chicago. The second western swing of the season.
“Bob Chipman’s going tomorrow,” Jackie said. “I see him good.”
Burke nodded, looking past Robinson at the central Pennsylvania landscape.
“You miss your wife on road trips?” Burke said.
“Yes.”
The train slowed as it went through Clearfield. They were behind the town, where the laundry hung and the trash barrels stood. Behind sagging barns with tobacco ads painted on the siding. Tangles of chicken wire. Gray scraps of lumber. Rusted stove parts. Oil drums. A sodden mattress.
“He was really going to shoot me,” Robinson said.
“How’s it feel?”
“You got shot at,” Jackie said, “how did that feel?”
“Scared the shit out of me,” Burke said.
Robinson nodded.
“You scared?” Burke said.
“I been scared since I said I’d do this.”
“You could quit.”
“No,” Robinson said. “I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“You think I should?” Robinson said.
Burke thought about it for a moment.
“Disappoint a lot of people,” he said.
“You think I don’t know that?” Robinson said.
“It wore me down,” Burke said. “Scared every day.”
Jackie nodded.
“This is more public,” he said. “More, ah, concentrated. But being a Negro man in America in the twentieth century...”
He shrugged.
“So this is like your life already,” Burke said. “More of the same.”
“Cranked up a little,” Robinson said.
“You get used to it?”
“No.”
The train had left Clearfield behind, and picked up speed again. The card game that had begun at Penn Station was still being played. The same people were playing. Sukeforth, Reese, Gene Hermanski, and Eddie Miksis. Some of the players slept. Shotton, the manager, read a book.
“How about you?” Robinson said. “You get used to it?”
“Being scared?”
“Un huh.”
“I was scared all the time, every day, it got to seem like the only way there was to be.”
“Yeah,” Robinson said. “That’s the feeling. You still got it?”
“War’s over,” Burke said.
“That’s not what I asked. I asked you if you still felt scared,” Jackie said.
The train passed a small cluster of brown cows standing near a gate. Waiting for feed.
“I don’t feel scared,” Burke said. “Or much anything else.”
“Bother you to shoot that man?” Robinson said.
“No,” Burke said.
Robinson was silent for a time, then he said, “Tell me about the girl.”
“What’s the girl got to do with anything?” Burke said.
Jackie shrugged. They watched the fields of western Pennsylvania lumber past them. Burke had adjusted to the movement of the train the way he had adjusted to the troop ship. It had come to seem the norm.
“I was her bodyguard,” Burke said. “Keep her away from a guy named Louis Boucicault. He didn’t like it.”
“You and the girl?”
“Yeah. For a while.”
“And?”
“Things got out of hand. I had to shoot a couple of people. I got fired.”
“And the girl?”
“When I left she wanted to come with me.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Her father said no.”
“I seen you work,” Robinson said. “I wouldn’t think that would stop you.”
“Girl’s trouble,” Burke said.
“So am I,” Robinson said.
Burke looked at Robinson, but didn’t say anything. They were both quiet for a long time, before Robinson spoke again.
“Being scared alone,” he said, “is worse.”
Burke didn’t answer. Robinson had nothing else to say. They sat quietly together as the train crossed into Ohio north of Youngstown.