By early afternoon, Tim Jamieson had most of the shipment for Fromie’s Small Engine Sales and Service staged on the depot tarmac when the Beeman brothers, Del and Phil, arrived late. Because of their family ties to Mr. Jackson, Tim could not fire them despite their unreliability, and he needed their help to load produce from a Carolina Produce boxcar.

Del Beeman backed a stake-sided truck to the boxcar and, with Tim, began loading crates of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Hector the engineer and his secondman, eager to depart, joined in to speed things along. Meanwhile, Norbert Hollister loitered under the depot overhang, watching without helping, which Tim found unusual given Norbert’s previous lack of interest in train business.

As Tim finished forklifting the last produce crates destined for the DuPray Grocery, he noted Phil Beeman’s red eyes and sluggish speech, concluding that Phil and Del had been smoking marijuana, increasing Tim’s concern about the delivery even though it was less than a mile away.

Doc Roper arrived in an old Ford station wagon and headed toward Mr. Jackson’s office/apartment where Luke was being kept. Tim, still working the dock, waved him toward the warehouse and recognized Roper as an old-school rural doctor, a Bible-carrying fixture in the community.

The train’s secondman asked about Luke, and Tim said he intended to find out what was going on. Tim urged the crew to get moving, joking about offloading one of the luxury cars, and Hector responded with a crude farewell before returning to the engine, hoping to make up lost time on the run to Brunswick.