End with water. – THEODORE ROETHKE Through a window fogged with his breath, Hatch can see the first and last cars at once as the train curls slowly around the mountain, a giant horseshoe, the other cars—he counts them—like a string of scattered islands, an archipelago. In the green valley below, grass ducks under bladed wind, and trees are naked for all to see, their skinny arms pointing in jumbled directions. The mountain curves up from the valley in a range of stony ridges like knuckles and joints, a peach fuzz of morning light growing from them. Up ahead, the engine disappears into a tunnel, followed by one car, then another. A steady rush of squeezing darkness. Boy, take this here jar of applesauce to Mr. John Brown. Blunt held out a mason jar, in conventional use a container for storing fruit but in Hatch’s hands a glass zoo for displaying fireflies, holes punched in the lid, metal gills. Yes’m. His grandmother often entrusted him with such errands. Free of her, he unscrewed the lid and dipped his finger in for a taste.
