When she emerged from the trunk, the girl-gaunt, olive skinned with rich black hair-said, "If you got any more bread, man, I'll make it up to you." She was probably 17, wore hip-huggers and a jean jacket with a big red 'I Brake for Men' button. Her eyes darted round, her face a grimace of dare. "There a lotta soldiers on this train?" The bottom of her bell-bottoms was hemmed with a salty-black crust of dried slush; I tried to see behind the heavy mascara she wore, but failed.

Billi stayed back, but the rest of us gathered in the Dining Car. The girl made a point to sit next to Everet, and for every evasive answer he gave, she gave two. When he took out his pipe, she asked for a puff, and he gave her one.

"Will ya tell us yer name now?" She wolfed down handfuls of food. Then fired out, "Teardrop."

"Where you from?"

"The North Pole."

"And family?" She smirked, "Twenty-four brothers and sisters!" Everet put his arm round her and she didn't seem to mind. "You go to school, work?" She laughed, "School? I sell matches!" I forced a smile, "Well, bunk as long as you like with us." She grunted. Billi later joined us. "Feeling better?" I asked. She shrugged. A pinkish line was pressed across her face, the imprint of a window stile. She sat next to Teardrop, who moved away slightly, even though the bench was wide. Our server did not hear half our orders, befuddled by the white goose there and the aspect of Teardrop's wrists. He could not help staring at both. The goose, calm as a sleeping kitten with eyes alert as a hilltop, took an occasional nibble at Everet's crackers. The young girl's wrists were wrapped tightly with white adhesive, exactly as a boxer's. The tape extended over her palms and through the gaps of her fingers.

The rattle of the plates and silverware offered a cheerful distraction. And every time we passed a railroad crossing the pleasing bells sounded, pitched high, then low. And the five of us spoke. I yapped away. Only Everet outpaced me. Wilfred wrote like a madman. Billi conjured a few words, but I could tell it was forced. Teardrop snarled her words. All the same, she could not completely conceal herself, this unsolvable girl: at once restless, brassy, guarded, insatiable, indiscriminate, tremendously vulnerable, quick to please, angry. And something about her seemed so very familiar to me; I could not tell what it was.

A call came that Cheyenne would be our next stop. Everet took from his coat a handful of envelopes, sealed with green wax. And to each he gave one. "Just a simple blessing, my friends, for we must soon part." As I opened mine Billi said, "I'm going to remember you as Mount Everet. I may write your song!" Everet blushed. "Will you excuse me, though-I'm still not with it." As she stood there was an almost imperceptible friction between her and Teardrop, who seemed both relieved and offended that Billi was leaving the table.

When Wilfred opened his envelope, his eyes grew large as silver dollars. What he held was a hand painted Christmas card: a little girl speaking to Santa on an old-time candlestick phone; it was inscribed: 'Thine Own Wish Wish I Thee.'

He opened his ledger onto a plate of gravy and did not care. He wrote nervously, a joyful impatience spreading out over his face. He held up the book: 'MY HATTIE!' He made a swirling motion across the card. He had known the artist. When he wrote out 'Hattie Clapsaddle' I thought that he might be pulling an Everet. And I looked to see signs of British deadpan.

He put the card to his chest. 'My friend!' he wrote, tracing over and over each letter of the word friend. Then he saddened. In a flash he filled three pages. I read to the group the story of their great companionship. Of how she'd been working with engravers in Germany just as the war broke out. And how it crippled her. He put pencil again to the ledger, writing, 'Her heart was like a child's. All that violence. Her innocence. The breath of war. She was the most virtuous woman I ever knew. And because she was incorruptible, it destroyed her.' Teardrop came out of her seat and was reading over my shoulder; when Wilfred wrote the word virtuous, she pressed down on me, as if to gain a closer reading. Wilfred sat back in memory, enveloped in the sorrow of joy.

Teardrop's card remained on the table. "Who's Tahira?"

The girl squirmed. "Is that your real name!" She squirmed again, "Anyone could guess that!" Still, she would not open her card in front of us.

We formed a weary string back to our cabin, Everet bringing up the rear. When we opened the cabin door we discovered Billi sleeping and all of Everet's trunks gone. I looked behind me. Everet was not there. I rushed back to the Dining Car. We were already at the Cheyenne station. I raced up and down the train, searching. When I shot out to the caboose I saw a single railcar being drawn on a parallel track. It came alongside me, brightly lit. And through the window I saw about twenty or so ragged men who looked and dressed so much like Everet I thought it was a trick of light. The red and green car was filled with stacks of trunks and wreaths of smoke. The men were gathered in little cells and filled them with wild gestures of commerce, wheedling one another with amusement and passion. And then I saw Everet's nose in a window. He shot a wink and a smile that spanned all understanding. And then he raised his pipe to me. A swirl of steam bloomed into a cloud between us and bloomed ever wider and upward and when it cleared the car was gone.

On one hand I felt as if I were ten again, felt the abandoned buoyancy of the child I had been, the ticklish delight of knowing nothing. Open to enchantment without any need for explanation. The belief that if your favorite ball go down one hole it will come up another. Everet, even if only for a few brief miles, had given me that. On the other hand, I felt the pulse of bereavement, the acute knowledge of how suddenly we lose what is most precious. Even in the moment after I had last met his eyes, I wondered if Everet had ever existed at all. No, I had no doubts.

When I walked into the cabin I found everyone gathered round the table. A small scatter of crumbs surrounded a saucer and an empty glass in what had been Everet's place. "He's gone, isn't he?" I nodded my head and took my seat. In front of each of us was a printed card with a single calligraphic marking: 'Kuponki.' In the middle of the table was a small ruffled banner, stitched in gold thread: 'Thine Own Wish Wish I Thee.' Under the saucer was a note folded over. Billi read. "I've never gotten used to themŠand I really can not bear goodbyes, and so your forgiveness I beg. I get in such a hurry I forget myself. I suppose first that you must want to know what is a Kuponki. Well, it's Finnish. A voucher. A Coupon. For the desire of your heart. May you be blessed forever. Until we meet again, E. Haskell."

Looking up from the note Billi gasped. Then we all did. How could we have not noticed before? Fastened to the ceiling were four long strings, and depending from them, at eye level, were four shiny glass ornaments, majestically blue. And what I first saw-what we all first saw-was a sign outside the train reflected in the glass: "Welcome to Cheyenne, Magic City of the Plains."

Each ornament had a footing of snow and a wispy line of clouds engraved round the two poles; between them was an empty band. Billi studied her reflection. After a short while she rubbed her eyes. Then an ecstatic laugh popped out of her. She motioned, "What do you see there?!" I had to narrow my eyes, but deep within the glass-I have to say within because it was both on and not on the surface of the glass-I saw the interior of what looked like a coffeehouse. "It is a coffeehouse," she screeched. "It's the Café Lena! The first place ever to hire me. And what do you see there?" I strained, "It's a woman, with a guitar-it's you!" And we all, save Teardrop, began to peer into the balls before us.

Noises bubbled up out of Wilfred's throat; his pencil flew, 'It's my Hattie! It's her!' Out of respect we did not look into the glass, considering it his moment, not ours. But he motioned to look. 'Quickly! look!' And we saw scene after changing scene of a young soldier, a happy woman. I, too, saw images from youth, from my home in untroubled times.

Teardrop slapped her leg, "All you're doing is projecting your own memories on that thing. I could do it with a corn muffin. Buncha mass hypnosis."

Then Billi said, "Maybe you're right. I don't see anything anymore." And Teardrop huffed on Billi's glass, "Told you." When the fog of her breath had cleared, Billi shouted. "No, wait! That's Constitution Hall." We all looked. "I was once booked to play there." And her expression deepened. "It was the first place to deny me." I asked what she meant. "The DAR wouldn't allow me in the building." She lowered her head. Teardrop asked, "What's the DAR?" I told her. Billi continued, "I wasn't the first. They'd done the same thing to Joan Baez two years ago. Just as they had to Marian Anderson."

"What'd they have against Baez?" Billi lowered her head, "Well, you do the math: she was a peace-nikŠand Mexican."

"And you?"

"I wrote protest songs; add that to being an Egyptian born in Hoboken, an Arab. When I did charity concerts they called me a saint. When I stood up to ask why in this great nation we still had the poor, they called me a communist."

Teardrop asked, "And they wouldn't let you sing because you came from Hoboken?" We tried our best to stifle what went up as a community laugh.

"Where's Constitution Hall?" demanded Teardrop.

"Washington, D.C."

Teardrop turned to me, "Can you get me there?" I paused and then shrugged. Teardrop turned her Kuponki card over and then we all did; they were identical: "Unconditional Lifetime Warrantee. Discharge of One appeal. Granted upon Request. Guaranteed by the full faith and credit of E. H. & Partners."

"What's this?"

"Looks like-"

"A wish?" By this point I was ready to believe anything.




Next Chapter: Butterflies are Freed