by Ronald Kidd
“Eighteen,” I lied.
“It’s hardest on the kids,” he said. “I see them hopping freight trains—sixteen, fifteen, some no more than twelve. They’ve got no place to go, at home or on the road.” He looked me over. “You’re new to this. Riding the rails.”
I nodded.
“Two pieces of advice,” he said. “If there’s something you can’t afford to lose, put it in your shoes. Don’t take it out. That’s for emergencies. And if you walk on top of a train, always face the front, so you’ll see what’s coming. Otherwise the curves will catch you by surprise and throw you off. Oh, and one other thing. Don’t let ’em call you a bum. You’re a hobo.”
I glanced around at the boxcar and the scenery flying by. “A hobo. Yeah, I guess that fits.”
He grunted. “Welcome to the club.”
I was riding the rails, part of a club I’d never thought about.
“Where you headed?” asked Bill.
“Anyplace.”
“So it’s like that.”
“I could get off at Mendota,” I said.
He shook his head. “The police there don’t like strangers. But if you go a few more stops, you hit Gate City. I stopped there once. You could stay at the jungle.”
I must have had a funny expression on my face, because he chuckled.
“That’s what they call it,” he told me. “It’s a camp for hoboes. Head for the railroad yard, and turn right at the creek. You’ll see it.”
Suddenly I saw danger in Bill’s eyes. He took my arm and hustled me to the back of the car, away from the door and into the shadows. The others were already there, huddled in a corner. We heard the clomp of work boots on the roof. A moment later someone climbed down the ladder, glanced inside, and then left.
We were quiet for a while longer, then Bill said in a soft voice, “That was a brakeman. They check, but not often and not very well. If you stay out of sight, you’ll be fine.”
We moved back by the door and into the sunlight. Bill told me how he had met his wife and gotten married. I wondered if I would ever marry. It seemed like normal things didn’t happen to me. There were just crazy things, like people who barked and fights with my father.
Before long, I felt the train slow down. Bill looked out the door.
“This is where I get off,” he said. He picked up his pack and gripped my shoulder. “Be careful,” he said.
I smiled. “Hope you find her.”
He hopped off while the train was still moving, to avoid the railroad yard and the bulls. Looking back, he shot me a grin and a little salute. Then he was gone.
***
I must have fallen asleep, because when I looked up, the train was moving again. The sun was high and the car was empty.
I thought of Bill and the others and wondered if they’d been real. Maybe I had dreamed them. Maybe they were a band of angels, like Daddy preached about from the Bible, sent down to hoist me onto the train and give me travel tips. Remembering Bill’s tip, I took the money from my wallet, flattened it, and put it inside my shoe.
The train chugged into the mountains. Suddenly I was tired of crouching in a boxcar and seeing the world framed by a door. Leaning out, I saw a metal ladder going up the side of the car. It reminded me of what Bill had said about walking on top of the train. Part of me was frightened by the idea, but another part was excited. I imagined myself standing on top of the train, arms spread out like I was flying.
I put on my backpack, then took a deep breath and stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder. The wind whipped by. I steadied myself, gripping the ladder. Rung by rung, I made my way up, making sure that first my hands were in place, then my feet. Finally I pulled myself on top of the car. Standing up, I turned slowly and carefully, taking in the view. It stretched from horizon to horizon, with earth on the bottom and heaven on top. The world was huge and I was hurtling into it.
I started walking, careful to go toward the front, the way Bill had told me to. At first it was hard to keep my balance, but soon I got used to the rocking motion. I imagined it must be something like walking on a boat.
Each time the train reached a curve, I stopped and braced myself, feet wide, leaning forward, then started walking again. When I came to the end of a car, I would sit down, reach forward to the next car, and pull myself across. I got pretty good at it after a while. The train moved, and I moved with it. It was like a living thing, a long metal snake, something Arnie might appreciate.
As I walked, I saw a mountain ahead. The train was moving straight toward it. I stopped and waited, expecting the train to turn aside, but it kept going. The train pounded the rails. The mountain loomed, filling the sky.
Then I saw it. There was a hole in the side of the mountain. It swallowed the train, car by car. The mountain rushed forward. The hole grew. It was a tunnel, deep and dark and bigger by the second.
As I stared, the top of the tunnel rushed toward me, chest high. Gasping, I threw myself onto the roof of the car. Rock hurtled by, inches from my backpack. Smoke billowed and thickened.
The world went black.
CHAPTER 28
The whistle blew. Wheels shrieked on the tracks. The train slowed, then stopped.
I was lying facedown on top of a boxcar. The tunnel was gone. Instead, there was bright sunshine. Bracing my pack, I flopped over onto my side. The hot sun beat down on my cheek. It felt good.
I looked down at my arms. They were black. So were my clothes. I ran a finger along my chin and looked at it. Black.
Once, in the mountains outside of Bristol, I had watched a train go into a tunnel and had wondered where the smoke went. Now I knew. It stayed in the tunnel, packed thick like coal.
My chest heaved, and I pulled out a handkerchief. I coughed into it, and it came away black. The train wasn’t just a way to get around. It was part of me, on my body and in my lungs.
“Hey!”
A burly man stood beside the boxcar, pointing up at me. He carried a billy club, the way cops sometimes do. I’d never seen a bull, but I knew without a doubt that this was one.
I looked around and saw that I was in a railroad yard. There were several sets of rails and a couple of trains. A low building stood at one end of the yard, with a sign above it: Gate City.
“Come down off of there,” yelled the bull.
I didn’t want to get beaten up, and I certainly didn’t want my money taken. Checking the other side of the boxcar, I saw a train coming on the next track, and it gave me an idea.
Adjusting my backpack, I climbed to my feet. I strode over and looked off the other side of the car. Sure enough, there was another ladder.
“What are you doing?” shouted the bull.
I scrambled down, missed a rung, and stumbled to the ground. Regaining my balance, I saw the other train approaching on the next track. The engine shrieked and moaned, billowing smoke, as big as a house.
The bull must have climbed into the boxcar and out the other side, because suddenly there he was, right next to me.
Without thinking, without pausing to realize how foolish it was, I lunged across the tracks in front of the other train. The engine rumbled toward me, close enough to touch. The ground shook. I tripped on the rail and then, in desperation, dove. The train thundered past.
I turned and looked back. Between the cars, glimpses of the bull flashed by. He was yelling, but I couldn’t hear a thing.
I got up and ran.
***
Gate City was a beautiful place, with a creek flowing through it and mountains all around. I went down to the creek and tried to wash up, without much success. My reflection in the water showed a stranger half-covered with soot.
After I dried off, I headed up a hill to Jackson Street, the main road in town. Checking my reflection in a store window, I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to smooth the wrinkles from my clothes. The first man I saw carried a briefcase and looked like a businessman.
“Excuse me, sir?” I said.
He shot me a loo
k and hurried on around me.
A woman approached, holding a little girl’s hand.
“Ma’am?” I said.
She walked right by. The little girl turned and stared at me.
“That man looks bad,” she told her mother.
Finally I got tired of being stared at, and I was getting hungry. I headed back down to the creek and turned right, like Bill had said.
I heard it and smelled it before I saw it. There was the rumble of voices and a whiff of unwashed bodies. I rounded a stand of trees, and spread out before me was the jungle, which was more like a village. There must have been a hundred people sitting and talking, clustered in groups of two or three. I saw a couple of tents, but mostly there were coats spread out on the ground and blankets hung from branches.
I picked out a spot under an old oak tree and settled in, leaning against the trunk. The area had been cleared off, and a broken mirror hung from a branch. A boy my age was using it to shave, not that he needed it. His skin was as smooth as mine, but even so there was something rough about him. His sleeves were rolled up, his clothes were dirty, and there was a tired, wary look around his eyes.
He spotted me watching him. “Got a problem?”
“Huh? No, it’s nothing.”
“You’re new, aren’t you?”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Just a guess. Where you from?”
“Bristol.”
“I suppose you’ve seen the jungle there,” he said.
“They have one?”
He snorted. “They have hoboes, don’t they? They’re not staying at the Ritz.”
I blushed, embarrassed to know so little about my own town.
“Is there anything to eat?” I asked.
The boy finished shaving and wiped his face with a towel. “Here’s how it works. If you bring food, you can take food. Add to the pot, take from the pot.”
“Oh.”
He studied me. “Of course, maybe you have money.”
My hand went to my pocket, and his gaze followed.
“I’ve got some sausage,” he said. “What’s it worth to you?”
My mouth watered and my stomach growled. Reaching into my pocket, I felt a few coins.
“How about a nickel?” I asked.
“Sorry.” He turned away.
“A dime?”
He looked back at me, then stepped over to another branch, where his pack was hanging. He reached in and pulled out part of a sausage, about the size of my thumb but thicker. Taking a penknife from his pocket, he unfolded the blade and cut the sausage in two.
He showed me one piece. “That’s a dime.”
I knew for a fact it was worth less than that, but I was hungry. I gave him the dime, and he handed me the sausage. I popped it into my mouth and it was gone, like a drop of water in the ocean.
He stared at me. “Wow, you really are hungry.”
That evening, unexpectedly, the weather cooled off. Someone lit a campfire, and everyone gathered around. The heat felt good. As much as anything, though, I think people were drawn by the light. It reflected off their faces, smoothing out the flaws and masking the dirt. In the firelight, they looked like what Daddy might have called a congregation.
The people sang. It wasn’t hymns, but there was something holy about it. They had carried the tunes with them and wanted to share—“Black-Eyed Susie,” “Pot Licker Blues,” “Skip to My Lou.” The songs were old, handed down over the years like Grandma’s needlepoint or the family Bible. I was sure that, for some of them, it was the only thing they had.
I thought of the hat company and the tunes sung by the Carters and others. With the help of science, Mr. Peer had recorded the music, but it was more than that. He had captured their history and traditions.
Gazing into the campfire, I realized that I had a song too. I needed to know what it was and why Mama sang it. The song seemed important, so when there was a break, I sang it, or at least the part I knew. All I got was blank stares.
I remembered the sweetest singer, Sue Dean, and realized that nearly all the voices at the campfire had been male. In the railroad yard, around town, in the jungle, most hoboes were men. That’s why, when I headed back from the campfire, I was surprised to hear a female voice.
“No. Don’t, please,” she was saying.
The voice came from behind a tattered blanket. Setting down my pack, I glanced behind the blanket and saw a big, scruffy man leaning over a young woman. He was holding her, and she was trying to push him away.
“Leave her alone,” said another voice. I was surprised to find out it was mine.
The man looked up. “Who are you?”
“I’m her friend,” I said, trying to think of something. “The others are coming.”
The “others” must have scared him off, because it couldn’t have been me. The man let go, backed away, and fled into the bushes.
The young woman looked up at me. For a second she almost seemed annoyed, then all of that changed. Her face was dirty and her clothes were torn, but there was nothing wrong with her smile.
“If you’re my friend, I guess I need to know your name,” she said.
“Nate.”
“I’m Barbara,” she said. “Thank you.”
Getting up from the ground, she brushed off her dress, a pretty print with flowers on it. It was the last thing I would have expected in the jungle.
I said, “Don’t take this wrong, but you should get some long pants.”
“Why?”
I glanced around. “All these men. They might get the wrong idea. Like that one.”
“You’re sweet,” she said. She cocked her head and said, “Real sweet.” She was smiling again. Her lips were soft, and her eyes were big. “Do you ever have daydreams?” she asked.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“Here’s a nice one.” She reached out and touched my arm. “What would happen if we met in normal times? Just you and me, under the trees. I wonder if we’d be sweethearts.”
“Sweethearts?”
“I guess we’ll never know. Isn’t that a shame?” She gave me a peck on the cheek. Then she put her hand on my shoulder, pulled me close, and kissed me.
CHAPTER 29
I was hungry, and not just for food. I wanted company and friendship and the touch of a real, live girl. I kissed her back. It felt good.
There was a noise behind me. A man came out of the bushes, reached around my neck, and squeezed, lifting me off the ground. I smelled bad breath.
“Got him,” said the man.
“Good,” she said.
Barbara, if that was her name, reached into my pocket and pulled out the coins. She checked the other pockets, found my wallet, and opened it. There was a library card, the photo of Sister’s grave, a wildwood flower pressed in waxed paper, but no money. Dropping the wallet, she took my pack and looked inside. She found my pocketknife, then shouldered the pack.
“Don’t take it,” I gasped. “There’s nothing valuable.”
“We’ll decide that,” said Barbara.
“Check his shoes,” said the man.
My heart sank. I wondered how he knew. It didn’t take long to figure out. Bill’s trick might fool the bulls, but hoboes knew.
Barbara yanked off my shoes and took the money.
“Think you’re smart, huh?” she said.
She straightened up, opened the knife, and grabbed me by the throat. “Don’t follow us. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t breathe a word. We’ll kill you.”
Up close, her eyes were flat and dead. Her hands were rough. Her grip was strong, and the knife was sharp. She touched the tip of it to my neck, and I felt a drop of blood trickle down to my shirt.
She said, “Close your eyes. Count to fifty. This never happened.”
The man released me. I did as she said. When I opened my eyes, they were gone.
My knees felt weak, and I sank to the ground. I touched my neck. My fingers came away red. I was frightened, but i
t was more than that. What had just happened? A kiss had turned to blood, comfort to pain, daydream to nightmare. Daddy had always said the line between heaven and hell was just a thread, and it seemed he was right.
How could she do that? I had saved her, hadn’t I? Suddenly I realized the answer. I hadn’t saved Barbara; I had saved the man who’d been holding her. Barbara’s friend had probably been crouched behind a bush, waiting to strike. By chasing off the first man, I had spared him. He still had his pack, if not his pride.
I picked up the wallet and put it back in my pocket. My pack was gone, containing clothes, a toothbrush, a few bandages. All of it was important to me but useless to them. It would end up scattered by the road. Even worse, my money was gone. I was in a strange town, far from home, with nothing but the clothes on my back.
I was cold and hungry. My pack had been the closest thing to a home, and now I really was homeless. Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the campfire. The flames were dying out, and people had drifted away. Curling up near the embers, I fell into a restless sleep.
***
I woke up to shouts in the distance. It wasn’t just one person; it was a crowd, and the sound got closer by the minute, moving through the camp. Among the trees, I saw the glint of flashlights and heard the barking of dogs.
The police had come.
“Get up!” they yelled. “Get out!”
I scrambled to my feet just as a young officer approached. “We’re not hurting anyone,” I told him.
“Just doing what I have to.”
“Me too.”
“Get your things,” he said.
“I don’t have any.”
He blinked, and I left. I climbed a maple tree beyond the camp and hid in the branches until the police and dogs had swept the area clean, if that’s the word for it. The empty camp looked like a trash heap.
When the sun rose, my stomach ached from hunger. I made my way up the hill again and into town, but this time I didn’t stop at Jackson Street. I had noticed some big houses farther up the hill. The first one I came to was a tall, yellow structure with two chimneys and a grand entrance. A garage was in back, but I didn’t see a car. I noticed tall grass and weeds in the yard, and up close, I noticed the paint was peeling.
