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As much as Lucy would have liked to get away from him, there were no other available seats in the passenger car for her to move into. She was stuck riding next to Adam Foley all the way to Great Falls. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too much further.
But the sun crossed the sky and dropped behind the mountains, and still the train inched across the land, making no progress at all. When would they get there? Why did everything have to take so long out here?
Every human endeavor fell into a void of emptiness like a raindrop falling into a lake. What was the point of doing anything, when the landscape, the atmosphere, the people, even the plant life, took no notice of you at all? What was the point of living out here in the first place?
The daily struggle for existence proved a futile exercise in wasting time. The land didn’t care. The animals didn’t care. Nothing cared if one person lived or died. Each individual person relied exclusively on himself for the means and motivation to keep himself going.
What was she thinking? All these thoughts about living and dying—where did they come from and what did they mean? Lucy never entertained such thoughts before in all her life. She never had to. The means and motivation, the people who sustained her and gave her the reason and opportunity to live, surrounded her on every side. They never gave her a moment’s doubt about her purpose or her ability to live.
She didn’t speak to Adam for the rest of the day. The train rattled on over a landscape with no end in sight. The daylight drained out of the sky, the mountains and the clouds shifted from gentle pastel to charcoal grey, and the moon swam in its pool of stars. Lucy watched it all from her window. She’d seen the same transformation dozens of times since leaving Muncie, but now it was different. The passage of evening into night took on a magical mystery almost approaching religious devotion. Lucy never experienced anything like it before.
The sheer mountains to the West haunted her. They watching the train pass but never revealed their holy wisdom to the rest of the world. She couldn’t throw off the impression that they were watching her, too, and she couldn’t stand it. What did they know about her? How could she ever access them or make herself agreeable to them? Could she ever redeem herself in their eyes?
Every effort she made to turn away from them, to look at something other than those mountains outside her window, brought her once again to Adam Foley. She couldn’t explain it to herself, but she felt the same insufferable examination from him that she felt from the mountains. He looked right through her and saw things she couldn’t see herself. Why?
Why couldn’t she hate him? Why couldn’t she just let him get off the train in Great Falls without a word of farewell? That would teach him.
But she couldn’t. She kept her silence all night, alternately dozing and starting awake in a ferment of emotion. Adam wasn’t bothered at all by any of the things she found so intolerable. He fit right into this bizarre world. He didn’t recognize its alien quality. Even though the landscape contained trees and cows and birds and rabbits just like Indiana, the two places couldn’t have been less similar if they’d been two different planets.
If only she could find someone like Adam to help her, to mediate between her and that hostile force. If only Joel Bloom understood the Western mountains as well as Adam did. Maybe he could protect her—from what? From the disembodied presence of the land? Ha! He’d probably laugh in her face when she tried to explain it to him.
Somewhere in the night, the idea came to her that with the slightest movement, she could lean over and bury her face in Adam’s chest and her body in his arms. She could rest in the shelter of his protection, and she could finally get some sleep.
Her eyes snapped awake. What was she thinking? She must have been dreaming. She would have to stay awake to guard herself from thoughts like that. Adam Foley was the last person on God’s green earth she should turn to for shelter from anything.
She didn’t manage to stay awake all night, but she kept her head against the window so she wouldn’t fall over against him in her sleep. She could barely stand to be one inch closer to the mountains, but it was better than completely losing control of herself.
She never celebrated the coming of dawn more than the next morning. The ghostly moon faded before the glory of the sun. The blazing light across the landscape hadn’t changed, but they’d soon roll into Great Falls. Adam Foley would be out of her life and she could ride in peace and quiet the rest of the way to Kalispell.
The conductor passed through the car. “Great Falls, folks!” he called. Passengers retrieved their baggage from the overhead racks and from under their seats. Adam got his jacket out and put it on. Then he sat back down next to Lucy to wait for their arrival in the station.
He’d be gone soon. It would be rude to part with him with their argument still hanging over them. A few words, and they could part amicably.
Adam saw Lucy looking at him, and he smiled. So he felt the same way. He wanted to let bygones be bygones.
“You’ll be getting off soon,” she observed.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Are you excited to see your family again?” she asked.
Adam nodded. “It will be good to get back home. I’ve been away a long time.”
“I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you,” Lucy remarked.
“I’m sure they will,” he agreed. “They’ll want me to stay. They won’t like the idea of me leaving again.”
“Maybe they’ll worry that you’re never coming back,” Lucy suggested.
“Almost certainly, they will,” Adam replied. “You never know but something can happen to someone any time.”
“I mean,” Lucy explained. “I mean you might not bother to come home to visit anymore. You might decide you like it too much away, and you don’t want to come home to Montana anymore.”
Adam thought it over. “I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening. I’m always going to have to come back here. It’s part of me. It’s in my blood.”
Lucy looked out the window. “I wish I felt that way about a place.”
“What about Indiana?” Adam asked. “That’s your home. Don’t you feel that way about it?”
“No,” she replied. “I wasn’t born there. I was born in Michigan. I only came to live in Muncie when my parents died. My grandfather lived there, and I came to live with him. But I’ve never felt Indiana in my blood the way you’re describing Montana. I don’t think it could be.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked.
Lucy closed her eyes. “I don’t know what I mean. It just seems like Montana has an effect on you that Indiana doesn’t have. Indiana doesn’t care if you come or go. Montana owns you, body and soul.” She shuddered to think about it.
She opened her eyes and found Adam staring at her, but he didn’t smile with that amused sneer she expected. “It does that. No doubt about that.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised you realize that.”
“Why?” Lucy asked. “Isn’t it obvious to everyone?”
Adam shook his head. “Hardly anyone realizes it, even people who’ve lived here all their lives. I’m surprised a low-lander like you picks up on it.”
“Low-lander?” she repeated. “That sounds like a bad word.”
Adam shrugged. “It’s not bad. It’s just what you are. But it shows you’re more aware of what’s going around you than most people. It means you can see things other people can’t see. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.”
Lucy bristled. “I’m sure there are a lot of things about me that would surprise you.”
He smiled then. “I’m sure there are.”
How had she let this conversation get away from her? “It doesn’t matter now. You’re getting off at the next station, and we won’t see each other again. I’ll just have to remain a mystery to you. A mystery from your past.”
“I suppose so,” Adam replied.
