was still wondering where the fence was when his flight ended as suddenly as it
had begun.
It ended when the ground gave under him.
There was horror in that plunge. It began with a black void that would have
warned any other fugitive, but to Steve, whose fear was registered in terms of
light, blackness was welcome and the deeper the better.
This blackness was really deep.
Steve was right out in it when the ground gave. In a sense, what happened
was that Steve jumped clear of the ground and it came along to catch him. Next
he was spilling downward at a sharp angle that he recognized as Carolina clay,
because he had seen huge banks of it while driving along roads that bore signs
reading: "Danger. Slides."
This was a slide and Steve was part of it. He was going over the equivalent
of a waterfall in terms of soft, flowing earth. Already picturing himself as
trapped, Steve felt like an insect sliding into one of those curious sand
funnels provided by a more conniving species to receive unwary prey. All about
the earth was stifling, for more of it was overtaking Steve, much like a
torrent. Madly he was struggling to climb out of it and going down a dozen times
as fast as he could climb.
Out of a rush that sounded like padded thunder, Steve heard a mournful
blare from far away, approaching like a horn of judgment. In the midst of a
repeated shriek, his plunge ended, much more happily than he had hoped.
Steve stopped with a jolt that at least was softened by the mass of clay
that had preceded him. As he caught his breath, he was flung forward by the
increasing mass that followed him and he landed harder, headlong. This time the
jolt produced a terrific, clattering shock, that jarred Steve's nerves more than
his body. Wiping clay from his mouth, he came to his hands and knees, then
sagged back as the clang was repeated almost overhead.
Something really shocked him that time, something that caused him to recoil
as if he had clasped a slimy snake. It was something that he did clasp, as cold
and hard as steel, because it was. Dropping back into the subsiding clay, Steve
clapped his hand to his chest, glad that he still had it. A slow, hard grinding
sound, creeping in front of him, made him realize that instinct, plus luck, were
still factors in his favor.
This was a railroad cut, away down below a high clay bank that flanked
Treft's premises. The distant blare was a locomotive whistle, around a bend,
announcing that a halted train was about to start. The jolting shock so close to
Steve had been the clatter of couplings, taking up slack. The cold, hard steel
that Steve had clutched was the near rail of the track underneath a car. The
creeping, grind was a wheel, beginning an onward roll just after Steve had
whipped his hand away.
Lying back against the clay, Steve could see the big black hulks of cars
moving slowly and laboriously above him, like great stupid creatures that
considered him too insignificant to notice. He had counted three of them when he
realized that to ignore them wasn't the proper way to return their indifference.
Coming to his feet, Steve felt one leg bend under him, but he clamped his
hands into the clay to gain additional support. One shoulder nearly buckled
under the strain, but Steve fought off the stabs of pain until his weak leg
could do its part. With the clay giving under foot, he was in danger of toppling
forward, but he didn't care, not if he could time it to the ladder of a box-car.
