Night Flight or Freedom Within Reach or How To Outrun A Train [josh]

He knew there was a kind of speed possessed of those being caught and another for whom freedom's within reach. Fear versus fear plus ability. He didn't know which kind now swallowed space and spat it out behind him like rails from an over-stoked train, but he was faster tonight than he'd ever cared to be.

Once he and eighteen hundred pounds of dumb madness squared off on his daddy's Wyoming ranch just eighty miles south of the waste he was now tearing across. Being cornered by a bull topped all harrowing encounters the boy had faced as a frontier child, but the thing that stuck in his mind was not whether he was fast enough, but how time seemed to slow in the midst of the panic. Adrenaline can have that effect, but this was about familiarity with bulls. It gave him a sense of direction.

There was no time or direction now. He was beyond panic and into The Blur. He'd no sense of rhythm, no awareness of breathing. There was nothing but dust and speed and the train. When the whistle blew it drowned out everything. He couldn't hear the wind or their steps behind him. He could see their lights. Sweeping all around and burning into his back like a long brand. Making him theirs. Run.

Something stung him. In the back of the head like a giant bee it knocked him over. He yelped and rolled and tasted dirt. They were throwing rocks and laughing and were no further now than a few yards. He scrambled to his feet and winced as pain swept through his head like a firey tide. Run. Run. He could feel blood cutting a path through his hair. He was reminded of the destruction he left. Fire and blood. Family. The Unspeakable Truth.

The fastest of them was gaining ground on him but only slightly. They were step for step cutting a path in the dark and dust towards what he knew was his Freedom Within Reach. In the ground he sensed the beginnings of his undoing. It began as a slight tremor in each step and built to a familiar vibration. Behind them, breaking the hill crest were the Sleeping Drunks On Horseback who woke to the blaze. Having found nothing alive at the house, they followed the tracks to where the boy now ran. The valley floor rumbled.

The train raced towards him at a right angle to his approach. Beyond it lay woods. One of them had come from the rear of the pack and nearly caught him. The boy could feel his presence just a step or two behind. His head ached and tears clouded his vision. The man grunted and reached out and grabbed the boy's shoulder. The boy felt a surge of determination and in a violent motion he turned to face the man and squarely planted his shoulder in his gut, heaving the mongrel into the air and dropping him onto his head. As the boy looked up, two others were upon him.

He felt tinge of confidence. A sense of direction. He boldly stepped into the first man and drove his forehead right into the man's nose and mouth. They hit hard. The man fell in a heap with his teeth raining down on him. He sidestepped the second man and then ran right by him towards his Freedom Within Reach.

It was no more than twenty yards to the tracks. The train was perilously close and moving fast. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the stretch and bob of a horses head and could hear the whoosh of a laso. Bottles were breaking all around. He stepped into the piercing glow of the train's headlamp and launched his body across the tracks. He streched out his arms to break his fall as his already shredded pants were violently stripped from his body. They flapped like The Flag of Freedom Within Reach as the train carried them into the dark.