Page 41 of Buck Baxter and the Mysteries of Love

As the train pitched and swayed, the soldiers carted the two crates out through the door from which they came, leaving four of the men behind.

They were about to leave, when the soldier barking the orders noticed the lid to the crate containing the grenades slightly ajar.

At the same time, I could hear Stella begin to wheeze and panic. “Buck, I can’t breathe,” she whispered.

The German glanced around to see another lid askew.

Silently he signaled to his men, pointing at the other crates for them to search the boxes.

“Buck!” Stella panted quietly.

“Sshhh! They’ll hear you.”

The soldiers stepped closer.

Stella began to hyperventilate. “But I can’t breathe in here.”

I reached for her mouth, trying to stop the noise but she slapped my hands away.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Trying to cover your big fat mouth.”

“That ain’t gonna help! I said I couldn’t breathe. What are you trying to do, finish me off?”

I peered through the gap and saw all four of the soldiers homing in on our crate now.

Stella was in such a state she began to squawk like a dying parrot.

The Germans rushed toward our crate.

“Ah, fuck it,” I muttered.

In the next moment I threw the lid off our crate, jumped up like a fucking Jack-in-the-box, aimed the shotgun, and stopped the four Germans in their tracks.

Instantly they raised their hands in the air, all of them shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

“Come another step closer and I will.”

The leader pointed to the crates surrounding us. “If you shoot, you’ll hit the bombs.”

“Not if I hit you first,” I warned. “Now back up.” I nudged Stella with my foot, and she came up heaving for air. “Stella, get to the ladder, now.”

“The ladder?”

“Uh-huh. If we wanna get out of here, the quickest way is up.”

“You wanna go up? Onto the roof of a moving train? Suddenly staying inside the crate don’t seem so bad.”

“Just move it, would ya!”

As Stella hauled herself out of the crate and hurried to the ladder leading to the hatch in the ceiling, one of the Germans made a move toward me, about to snatch my rifle.

I cocked the weapon. “You think I’m afraid to use this?” I swung the shotgun toward one of the portholes, fired a bullet through the glass, then aimed it back at the Germans. “Think again.”

I reloaded so swiftly my folks woulda been proud.

The rumble of the train now competed with the whistle of air blowing in through the crack in the porthole.

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