Gob's Grief [antikvár]

THOMAS JEFFERSON WOODHULL WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD when he ran away from home to join the Union army. One night in August of 1863, he sprinted down a white road that seemed to bloom out of the darkness as a bright moon climbed higher and higher in the sky above him. He was in a hurry to catch the train that passed a mile east of the shack where he lived with his brother, his mama, and her family, the notorious Claflins of Homer, Ohio. The train was halfway gone when he got to the tracks. Tomo ran alongside the boxcars, cursing at the top of his voice. "You shit for a train won't you just stopf'' He would have been grateful for just a bit of slowing. But the train moved on speedy and serene. He wished he had a gun to shoot it with. Glancing back, Tomo saw that the caboose was coming up fast. He cursed again, louder and fiercer, the curses escalating into a wordless howl as he threw himself up at an open boxcar, managing a precarious grip, which he knew he must lose in a moment because he was not strong enough to hold on. He had resigned himself to slipping away, and launched a final "Shit on you!" at the train, when suddenly a set of pale hands came out from within the car and hauled him up and in. "Why are you making all that racket?" asked his savior, who was just a dark shape until he put Tomo down and turned up a lamp. The man had brown hair and bright blue eyes, and fat lips so red that they seemed stolen from a girl. "Why are you being