Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #20 November 2015 | Page 10

I followed them up the slope and they were
marching those people hard, forcing them and they
went up and when they got to the train the doors on
those boxcars stood open. I still couldn’t see a thing
inside. Then the people I’d known all climbed inside
those damned boxcars and the doors closed and that
train pulled out and don’t think the worse of me but
I let it happen. I let those things put my friends into
boxcars like cattle to the slaughter and then they rolled
on out and I have lived with that ever since.

When that train had disappeared down the
line I went back to the camp, changed my clothes and
found some boots, Otis Renshaw’s I think and put
them on. Don’t look at me like that son, mine were
shit riddled and I wasn’t keen on keeping them but
hell, Otis was dead and he wasn’t about to complain. I

found my bedroll and heaved it over my shoulder and
I left that place without a second glance.

You want to know if I reported it? Hell son,
who to? Who’d believe me if I did? We were just
bums to most folks and nobody would care. They
didn’t want us around for the most part so who’d come
looking? I just walked away from there and I never
told a living soul about what happened that night.
Until now. Reckon it’s finally time to make my peace.
I’m dying son, you know that and this is a lot to get off
my chest and I hope the Lord will forgive me for my
part in things. I never stayed in another Hooverville
either, too scared I guess and with good reason. I was
asked a few times but then I’d hear the blast of that
whistle and see that night happen all over again and
I’d shake my head and keep on walking because I
knew that train was still out there and one day it would
stop again and I didn’t want to be there when it did.

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