Explore "Lone Women" by Victor LaValle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Fred Harnden arrived early to greet the arriving trains. He worked for the Bear Paw Mountaineer, the local paper of Big Sandy and its surrounding territories. Meeting the train counted as his job, but more than that, it felt like a calling. He thought of himself as an ambassador. The first local face many new arrivals would see. He didn't have a great smile and he knew it, but his eagerness and excitement to meet people often won them over anyway.
He wasn't the only person waiting for the three o'clock out of Seattle. There were a dozen others waiting on the Great Northern, too. But most of the other people were looking for their kinfolk, or were employers come to greet a new employee. Fred had a higher purpose, he felt. And he came out every day, notepad and pencil in his right coat pocket. Only one other person came to meet the train as often as him.