Читать книгу Train 653 - Angela Yvette Thurman - Страница 14

Chapter 10

Trudy was happy to be with Sydney, but she was still bitter due to her past. For a long time, she was forced to live in poverty, and she wanted to enjoy beautiful things like she did in her past. The people in town knew that he was living in her house, and they did not trust him because they knew nothing about him. She told them that he was traveler in need of assistance, and her heart would not let her ignore him. She said that he helped her around the house by doing repairs on her house and chopping wood for the fireplace and stove. All of the work that he did paid for his room and board. The women knew that was bullshit because they had noticed that she started to look better, and every time that they saw her, she had a smile on her face.

One evening as she walked down the street on her way home from the butcher shop, two men approached her and demanded that she take them to Sydney because they had heard that he was staying at her house. She denied that she knew who they were talking about, so Lewis pulled out his knife and told her that he would cut her throat. Out of fear for her life, she led them to her house. Sydney was out back chopping wood when he heard Lewis’s voice. He turned around and Lewis said, “Well, well, well if it ain’t the pretty boy.” Then he told him to drop the axe and turn around slowly. Sydney dropped the axe, but he did not turn around.

He was furious at Trudy for bringing them there, but inside he knew that she did not have a choice because Lewis and his brother were ruthless. He sent her in the house to get them some whiskey. Lewis informed Sydney that while they were in Ohio, some investigators were hanging around the railyard trying to solve the murder of a man that was missing. He told Sydney that he knew he did it because on that night he was there, he saw the whole thing. He told him that they had followed him to the furnace, and they watched him throw Earl’s dead body in the fire and watch him burn, showing no remorse.

Sydney sat on a stoop and asked him what it would take for him to keep his mouth shut. He told him that he could really use another man in the streets, and also he needed somewhere to stash all of the things that they had stolen. Trudy went in her bedroom, and she prayed for guidance to help her deal with Lewis because she had fallen in love with Sydney, and she did not want to see him get hurt. After sitting in the dark, the answers that she was seeking was revealed to her, so she went into her closet and pulled out her cedar chest and took out a small vial of poison and poured it in a bottle of whiskey before heading back outside.

She started walking toward Sydney with the bottle in her hand, and Lewis called her a stupid bitch and said that she was supposed to offer a drink to their guest first, so she turned and gave him the bottle. She knew that because of his greed, she nor Sydney would not drink the whiskey that she had poisoned. He opened the bottle and took a long sip before telling Sydney that he would be back in two days, and he had better be ready to go work for him.

Instead of heading back through town, Lewis and Horace walked along the tracks, passing the bottle of whiskey to each other until it was empty. Sydney and Trudy watched as they started to lose their balance, not able to walk in a straight line. She told him to keep his eyes on them because they would never bother them again. All of a sudden, they heard a train blowing its whistle from a distance, and it was heading straight toward Lewis and Horace. They were too unbalanced to escape from its path, and it hit them both. Lewis was caught under the wheel, and his mangled body was dragged right in front of them, leaving blood along the rails.