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Show 183 "Andy, I'm not taking your money," Karl protested. "You'll need it to live on." Andy's arm tightened almost painfully around Karl. "If I was J. Pierpont Morgan, I'd buy you a whole goddang railroad to ride home on. Take the money and take care of yourself. You're the best friend I'll ever have." After a final squeeze, Andy released Karl and ran out of the saloon, leaving three silver dollars on the counter. The train didn't stop or even slow down in Canaan, but chugged through the town at forty miles an hour. When the freight approached Center Street hill, Karl threw his bundle out the boxcar door and jumped after it, rolling as he hit the cinders alongside the track. The impact tore the knees from his pants and imbedded cinders in his hands, but he ignored the pain to search in the dark until he found his package. It held the Kuppenheimer coat and the Homburg hat. Three dollars had bought Karl a passenger ticket to Toledo, Ohio, with a dime left over to tip the porter. In the Toledo railroad yard, he'd waited for hours to find an unlocked boxcar on a train headed east. The trip had been brutal. From Cleveland to Pittsburgh he'd stood on the coupling between two fast-moving freight cars, one hand clinging to a ladder on the car ahead of him, the other arm pressing the bundle against his face to shield his eyes |