New Jersey

The train was nearly forty-five minutes late, and Ty put his ear to the railroad track.

“Hear anything?” Daniel asked.

Ty shook his head and checked his watch again. “Not yet.”

Michael balanced himself along the rail as Walt piled some stones on top of a wooden plank. Daniel stretched out lengthwise over the tracks, his hands together under the small of his back. “I’m tied up,” he said.

The boys studied him and were pleased with the new idea. Ty walked over. “Well, I warned you and your gang,” he said. “I told you there’d be trouble if you didn’t leave town. Now it’s curtains for you.”

Then: “No one will save you this time,” Walt added.

Ty lay down on the tracks, putting his ankles together and his wrists over his head. “Michael, try it,” he said.

In the distance, Michael could see a man and a woman walking hand in hand. “Here comes someone.”

Ty and Daniel craned their heads from the tracks. Walt shielded his eyes from the sun.

“I didn’t think we’d be the only ones here,” Ty said. “I’ll bet you they don’t climb any trees, though. Michael, get tied up.”

Michael brushed away some pebbles before easing his back onto the tracks. He lifted his head off the rail several times before he could find a suitable angle.

“You’ve rounded up the whole gang,” Ty said to Walt.

“That’s right,” Walt said. “All of you varmints are going to pay now.” He wanted to say more, but he felt out of his element as a ruthless sheriff. “That’s right,” he finally added. He caught sight of a few more people approaching the tracks. “Hey, where do you guess they’re all coming from? You think they parked over by Webber Street and walked along the stream?”

Ty lifted his head again. “I was thinking most people would just go downtown to watch. Train’s passing right over Dunlop Road. Doesn’t matter much to me, though.”

“Well, let’s go ahead and climb up and get ready,” Daniel said. “It’s going to be here soon.” He got up and dusted himself off. “Now I’m stiff.”

Walt and Ty followed, as Michael watched from his position. “You bums!” he called after them. “You left me tied up.”

“Come on,” Ty said, not looking back. Walt and Daniel looked up at the tree they had chosen and waited for Ty to climb first.

“So it looks like I’m done for,” Michael called out.

Ty looked back quickly and saw that more people were approaching the tracks. “Michael, come on up.”

Michael wiggled his feet, lifted his chin. “No one untied me. I’m doomed.”

Ty pulled himself up the lower branches, with Walt pushing off next. For the moment they concentrated on their path, as Ty tested a branch with his hand and said, “That will hold.” He stopped when the branches began to fan out—and were thinner—and then repositioned himself. Since he had to stay closer to the trunk than he had planned on, the view was too obscured to fully suit him.

“I wish I could cut some of these damn branches,” he said to his friends below. He looked down to check on Walt’s progress, then looked out again at Michael. “What is he doing?” he asked. “Michael, you’re going to get hit by the stupid train if you don’t get up. Come on.”

Michael lifted his torso, then sank back down. “I’m tied up.”

Ty watched a man and woman dressed in black, a flaxen-haired girl in a dark summer dress between them, at the edge of the field. The girl pulled impatiently on the woman’s arm. “It’s getting crowded,” he said.

Walt had settled on a branch directly beneath Ty and contemplated the safety in that. “Hey, don’t fall on my head,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll just fart on you instead,” Ty said, but his agitation with Michael didn’t let him enjoy it the way he should have.

Daniel climbed up past Walt, finally, and tested the branch across from Ty.

“You’re right,” he said. “The branches are kind of in the way. I wish I had a machete or something.” Now that he was settled in, he looked out at Michael, then craned his head expectantly farther down the tracks. The crowd that had been gathering over the last half-hour was fifty yards away. Daniel could see that one woman had a poster board sign by her side, but he couldn’t read it. The sun bathed the mourners in a yellow wash, which made him grateful for the shade. “What are we going to do about Michael?” he asked. “We can’t just leave him down there.”

“It’s not like he is tied up, you idiot,” Ty said.

“Hey, it’s weird,” Walt said. “He’s barely said a word all day, and now he’s acting like a big goof. Of all times.”

“Michael, get your butt up here!” Ty yelled. “You’re going to get flattened.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not afraid,” Michael called out in his attempt at a melodramatic voice.

“Brother!” Ty said. “What a pain.”

Daniel inched himself a little farther out on his limb and looked out over the tracks in restless anticipation. “What time is it now?” he asked.

“It’s way past time,” Ty said.