He finished writing his entries for the day – including as a side note the fact that he’d located Henry Kyllo through various intelligence sources earlier that day – sat back in the antique oak chair at his little desk, and closed both journals. The lantern light flickered briefly, a particularly strong gust of wind sneaking in through a small crack in the wall.
The wind died down for a few seconds, and Palermo heard boots crunching snow beside the caboose. Closer. Now the ring of metal steps. Palermo turned in his chair, waited for the knock on the door. When it came, it sounded thin, the latest gust whipping it from the knocker’s knuckles.
“Enter,” Palermo said.
The door opened just a crack, closed a little, opened again as the opener struggled to keep it from being ripped out of his hands. Snow blew in, dusting Palermo’s dark red Persian rugs and Sri Lankan wall hangings. To Palermo, the elephant was the most exquisite of animals and everywhere in the caboose sat statues, photographs, miniatures, and paintings of the creature.
“You’ll do well to close that door in a hurry, Marcton. Either in or out, make up your mind,” Palermo said calmly.
Another few seconds of struggling with the door and finally Marcton squeezed inside, the door battering him on the shoulder as he did so. The door slammed shut behind him. A final puff of fine white powder settled on the floor at his feet.
“Kendul’s here, sir.”
“I told you not to call me ‘sir,’ Marcton. You know my name; I expect you to use it.”
“Right,” Marcton said, uneasy in his own skin. “Well, he’s here, like I said. Shall I bring him in to see you, or will you go out to see him? Derek and Cleve patted him down already; I gave him some coffee. Warm him up.”
Then Marcton just stood there, head bent, chewing his lips. His thin frame shivered from the cold. He’d gone out into the storm – as always – wearing only a thin black T-shirt and loose fitting blue jeans.
“Send him in here,” Palermo said. “You get him, and only you come back with him. I don’t want Derek and Cleve in his company for too long, understood?”
Marcton nodded, swallowed, shivered harder. He turned toward the door in his heavy boots, the laces flapping behind him. He burst outside this time, rather than play push-and-pull with the wind. The door cracked on its hinges, nearly flew off, then slammed shut again, Marcton’s boots now thundering down the metal steps. Boots crunched on snow again, the top layer a thin sheet of ice driven through with every step.
Palermo knew that when Marcton came back with Kendul, he would not step in the holes already made by his boots, but would go out of his way to avoid them. Palermo never asked why. Just as he’d never asked why Marcton refused to wear a coat, a hat, or anything else that might help keep him warm in winter months. He respected his people’s privacy above all else, and never wanted to pry into their personal lives – unlike Kendul, who made it his business to know everything he could about his Hunters. But then Hunters and Runners had always been fundamentally different – always would be.
Palermo swiveled in his chair, picked up his journals, pulled open a drawer in his desk, and placed them gently inside. He shut the drawer and stood up, breathing deeply of the crisp night air. He glanced back at the door; the snow Marcton had ushered inside had already melted into his rugs, sunk into his wall hangings. Only a sprinkling remained near the foot of the door where a thin strip of the caboose’s original hardwood lay exposed.
He walked to the dresser next to his small bed, examined the framed photographs there, searching for one in particular, but not finding it. He frowned, tried to remember where the photo might be. It’d been so long…
Then he remembered. He reached across his bed to the tiny nightstand. Pulled out the top drawer, dug under some papers, his gun, and a bottle of whiskey. The picture he pulled out was not framed like the others. It was in terrible shape: burnt-edged, sun-faded, bubbled, and warped. A decade of neglect, both emotional and physical. Until last night, he had barely thought of the girl in the photograph. It was just too heartbreaking.
Palermo stood up straight again, back popping, fingers brushing the girl’s photo. Over the years, pain had settled into the creases of Palermo’s face, but when he touched the photograph, he felt a thin smile playing about on his lips, easing – if only momentarily – some of the heartache imprinted there. He still loved her, of course he did, no matter what had happened. He always would.
When the door suddenly flew open again, Palermo nearly dropped the picture, but caught it at the last second, thrust it deep into his coat pocket. Turned to greet his visitor.
Snow blasted in again, swirling around the caboose, creating little blizzards for the elephant statues peppered throughout the furniture surfaces.
Marcton escorted James Kendul, leader of the Hunters, inside, pulled a fold-out chair from inside the redwood armoire, snapped it open, motioned to Kendul to sit.
Kendul thanked Marcton, sat down, and sniffed. Once.
“Thank you, Marcton,” Palermo said.