Sometime during the night, he sensed that he was once more alone.
He woke in a panic, at dawn, thinking, I’ve missed the train. It’s come and gone. But, no—
He heard the locomotive whistle shrieking across the sky, moaning like a funeral train as the sun rose over desert sands.
Did he or did he not hear a bag, similar to his own, catapult from a not-stopping train to bang the station platform?
Did he or did he not hear someone landing like a three-hundred-pound anvil on the platform boards?
And then Cardiff knew. He let his head fall as if chopped. “Dear God, oh dear vengeful God!”