Flanagan's Run [antikvár]

Los Angeles Hugh McPhail dropped his trousers, stuffed them into his knapsack and started to run. As his feet settled into a rhythm he saw ahead of him the train clicking away into the distance, its smoke whorling black behind it. The old "Superchief" had carried him half way across America. It had been the first time he had ever ridden boxcar carrying a ticket free of fear, and it had given him a sense of security. Just before leaving the train he had tossed his ticket to the old man who had sat unseeing in the corner for the whole thousand-milejourney. "Save yourself a beating, old timer," he had said. Then he had jumped. Above him the road sign read: Los Angeles six miles. That meant forty minutes. McPhail ran easily, on his heels, with low frugal strides, his feet hardly leaving the ground. He wore a knapsack with thick padded straps to protect his shoulders, and a flat tartan cap. His upper body was not that of a runner, for he was heavily muscled, particularly in the shoulders and back, but months of distance training had scoured his body of every scrap of fat. As he ran, trickles of sweat started to roll like tears down his brown cheeks, and joined with others to form streams on his back and chest. The salt sweat seeped into his eyes and made them smart. He brushed it away with the back of his hand and looked up at the sun. Midday: a bad time for running. For a mile there was nothing but the soft dirt road, spun out before him across the brown plain, like a ribbon casually cast off by a child. The surface was pock-marked with holes, destroying his rhythm but nevertheless keeping his mind in focus. This was rich country, its earth quite unlike that of the sour, bleak land from which he had come: in the north, moor and heather, in the centre, coal and shipbuilding, in the south,