It was a hot night.

Grawson wiped a roll of sweat and dirt from the inside of his high, stiff collar. He twiddled it for a moment between his thumb and forefinger and then mashed it with his thumb into a crack in the cane seat.

It was a damn hot night.

Grawson stood up and pulled his wicker suitcase from the rack, and his coat and newspaper. He put the suitcase between his feet and the coat and newspaper on his lap.

He closed his eyes and listened to the rolling of the wheels on the steel track. Five minutes, he thought.

Yes, she had been pretty, thought Grawson.

Clare Henderson had been a damn fine figure of a woman, the bitch.

God how I loved her, said Grawson to himself.

Grawson opened his eyes and saw the couple in the seat across the way staring at him. When he scowled at them they turned away. His left eye blinked, and then he closed his eyes again.

Now the wind came across Barlows meadow some eight miles north of Charleston, a chilly wind in that gray time of day. It had rained the night before, that five years ago.

He could make them out now, Edward Chance and someone, alighting from the carriage, making their way through the high wet grass toward him and his brother, Frank.

“He won’t fire, Frank,” Grawson had said.

“I know,” said Frank.

In the cane seat Grawson shook as though twisted with pain and groaned.

He opened his eyes and saw that the couple across the aisle had gathered their baggage and pressed to the head of the car, joining with others. Grawson looked out. The train was in the station now, the platform crowded. Redcaps scurried here and there. Relatives, spouses stood on the cement lanes under the lights, here and there one waving and running beside the train.

Grawson closed his eyes again. There was time. There was plenty of time. He had his whole life and how long did it take to pull a trigger?