by Darryl Brock
“Who did?”
“That ragpicker you paid for yesterday’s news. She’s called Miz Silk, on account she never finds any. She figures you for a gent who lost his sense along with his earthly goods.” He laughed. “Reduced to the tramping life but unfit for it.”
A trifle stung, I pointed at his bottle. “Does that make you fit?”
“Don’t hurt,” he said, laughing again. “I am partial to the flowing bowl, especially when I carry the rigging.”
“How about talking plain English?”
“Go on the tramp,” he said patiently. “However, I’m not truly a member of that class painted darkly as vagabonds, idlers, thieves and worse. I’m what you might call a wandering mechanic.” He waved to a spot beside him. “Care to sit? Too early for grub at the main stem.”
I eased myself down. “I’m Sam Fowler.”
“Slackwater,” he responded. We shook hands, his feeling doll-sized in mine. “Slack for short. My daddy was called Swift-water, a go-getter of the highest order.” He chuckled as if at the irony of it.
“I gather you’re not?”
“Oh, if there’s a need, I’ll put in my time at the cases—I’m a typesetter by trade—but why bother otherwise?”
“Couldn’t say.” I found myself starting to like this little man.
“Miz Silk was on the mark about you being a gent. Ever done honest work with them smooth paws of yours?”
“I’m a reporter.”
“Pen-pusher,” he said. “Know a lot of the breed.” He took another pull and smacked his lips. “Typesetting’s the ideal occupation for the errant knight. Newspapers and print shops always need extra help.”
“Ever meet Mark Twain?”
“Why, Mark, yes!” He started to lift himself up and sank back with a wince. “Worked for him in Buffalo a few years back, when he owned the Courier. Mark kept a sunny outlook even when his wife nearly succumbed.”
The Clemenses, I remembered, had departed from Buffalo in sadness after a year of sickness and family deaths.
“You worked with him too?” he said.
“In New York once,” I said. “Special project.” I didn’t bother to explain that it involved robbing a graveyard and fleeing for my life with sacks of money.
“I got a humorous story Mark could write up,” he said. “It’s true, too. First you gotta know that most engineers don’t mind tramps riding along. What’s it to them? But there’s this one locomotive jockey who considers himself a goddamn Fancy Dan. Thinks the sight of us piling on his cars spoils the whole grand spectacle as he rolls out of the station—so he gets his brakies to rough us up.”
“Sweet guy,” I said.
“Brawley’s not widely appreciated,” Slack agreed. “There’s a good many itching to even things with him. Well, along comes this competition for a prize, and Brawley commences to spruce up his locomotive. One day I see him giving it a fresh coat of green paint, and I get an idea.” He grinned, enjoying himself. “I and some others borrow a feather merchant’s cart and—”
“Feather merchant?”
He gave me a look that suggested I had not been in the fastest reading group. “They go ’round to chicken farmers? Get feathers to sell to pillow makers?”
“Okay.”
“So we shove the cart on the tracks just as Brawley’s fresh-painted engine roars up.”
“I think I get the picture.”
“Splat! Feathers everywhere on the paint. Not only that, but the merchant also had a load of eggs and now they’re fryin’ on Brawley’s shiny boiler! He was days scraping everything off—and of course missed the contest.”
We laughed together, then his face slowly sobered.
“I wouldn’t care for Mark telling how Brawley got his revenge, though,” he said. “It ain’t so humorous. Yesterday one of the yard spotters—them sneaking spy bastards hired to report us to the bulls—found out it was me behind the joke. So when I took my favorite place on the rods—the cars’ underpinnings—Brawley had a brakie fasten a length of chain to the coupling in front of me. I was laying low and couldn’t see what he was up to. When we got up to speed, that chain bounced and flew and knocked into me something fierce. I couldn’t roll out—it would’ve been suicide.”
“What happened?”
“Chain broke before it beat me to death, but it cracked a rib.” Holding his side, he pushed himself into a sitting position and forced a grin. “I do believe that Mark would fancy the feathers and eggs part.”
“I’ll pass it along to him in Hartford,” I said. “That’s where I’m headed.”
“A fair piece from here.” He looked reflective. “You thinking to tramp it?”
“You mean walk? No, I need to get there sooner.”
“Road knights don’t walk if they can avoid it,” he said airily. “Walking bums are generally of a lower order. You’re thinking to hop cars then?”
“Well, you saw me thinking,” I said. “I don’t know about doing it.”
“Here, give me a hand … go easy!” Tugging on me, he stood erect. The top of his head came only to my chest.
“You okay?”
“I’ll make it.” He stepped gingerly onto the tracks. “I wouldn’t mind stopping by Hartford. I’m bound for Rochester anyway. My momma’s ailing and needs some money.” He grinned up at me. “Got any?”
“Not much.” A wild understatement. Was I too poor to be a tramp?
“Anything to swap?”
I gestured at my clothes. “You see it.”
He grunted and said no more until we entered a clearing beneath elms. A number of men there, most as grubby as us, clustered around a pit where burning railroad ties and green branches issued greasy black smoke.
“Slack!” one called.
“Thought you’d be three states off by now,” said another.
“Brawley got the best of me,” he told them. “But there’ll be another time.”
He was carrying himself straighter. Pride, probably. Or reluctance to show weakness. Some of these guys looked predatory.
“Be back,” he said, and moved off into the trees.
I decided on a cordial approach. “Sam Fowler,” I said, and went around sticking out my hand, which got varied responses, few of them dripping with friendship. I was glad when Slack returned carrying a folded sheet of cardboard.
“Don’t give out your whole name,” he cautioned me later. “And don’t ever ask about somebody’s past. It’s one of the biggest rules of the road. From now on you’re Frisco Sam.”
“Okay.”
He waved the cardboard. “First thing you need is one of these rigs—the tramp’s bedroll and best friend against the hard iron. This one’s mine.” He gave me a speculative look. “You’re big enough, Sam, to take somebody’s off ’em.”
“Rather not,” I said. “I’ve got a few coins, if it’ll help.”
“Bound to.” He paused to think. “If only I was fit for the rods.” From his bundle he took a wooden board with one slotted side. “You set this atop the steel framework under a car—there’s just enough room—and there you sit like a lord so long’s you don’t fall asleep. Nobody can see you unless they come spotting under the car.” He shook his head. “Which that sonofabitch Brawley did.”
I got the willies picturing myself perched on that piece of wood, the ties flashing by so close underneath.
“ ’Course it’d be a tighter squeeze for you,” he went on judiciously. “Since you’re green and I’m laid up, we’d better ride the cars. There’s risks there, too, but I’ll help you all the way.”
“And what do you get out of this?”
“It’s tough for the little man on the road,” he said soberly. “Got to be twice as smart, twice as ready to stick up for yourself. Being hurt, I can use a pard with size and strength.”
“Nickel up!” came a yell.
“Pitch in for grub,” Slack translated.
We lined up for bacon fried on a twenty-gallon coal-oil can, beans hea
ted in cans attached to sticks and slathered over coarse bread, and coffee brewed in fruit cans. I was famished and the meal ranked among the best of my life. Slack grumbled when I was assessed an additional two cents for extra beans. “Gotta fix that,” he told me when the coins in my pocket jingled. “They knew you had it.”
“I’m the only one with money?”
He shook his head. “Lots of these boys carry enough to ride the cushions in a pinch.” I surmised that this meant buying a passenger ticket. “You’re the only one dumb enough to show it.”
“Where do you keep yours?”
Surreptitiously he crooked a finger toward his crotch. “Little bag down there,” he whispered. “We’ll rig you with one, soon’s you get a belt to hang it from. Right now you need other things. Got fifteen cents?”
I forked it over, fewer coins jingling now.
“Wash up for us.” He handed me his bean and coffee cans, and directed me to a pump a quarter mile away. “Our main stem used to be closer to the yards and had water. They ran us off. St. Looie’s gettin’ hard. Too many on the tramp.”
When I returned I was instructed to set the cans upside down, ready for the next users. Different men were using the pit now, lighting coal stolen from the yards. “There’s plenty to spare,” one griped, “but Brawley’s got a burr up his ass—like it was his coal.”
“Brawley,” Slack echoed dolefully. “He’ll have spotters out tonight. We better get some rest. Couple hours and it’ll be time.”
“For what, exactly?”
“Ideal is to find a freight with cars loaded but not yet sealed. Trick is to get in before the yardman closes ’em.”
“So then we’re trapped inside?”
From his cardboard pack he produced a short steel bar with six holes. “This is called a fishplate, made for holding rails together. Tramps use it other ways—like prying doors open.”
I looked up through the trees and tried to quiet my nerves. “What if all the cars are sealed?”
“Two choices. Wait for a train tomorrow or look to board someplace else. I’ve stowed in coal tenders and once even in a gondola heaped with cow shit. You can’t tell beforehand how it’ll go. That’s the glory of tramping.”
“Uh huh.”
He grinned. “You’ll soon get your first taste.”
SIX
A layer of clouds dimmed the moon. We worked our way cautiously around locomotives blasting steam. Other dark forms were moving around us, whether trainmen or tramps I didn’t know. Brakemen signaled to each other across the yard, their lanterns swinging clockwise at times, counterclockwise others. Twice they popped up so near that we had to duck beneath cars. Staring up between the great wheels at the oil-grimed bottom so close overhead, I felt claustrophobic.
“Spotters all over the yard,” Slack whispered as we crawled out again. “They get their damn bounties if we get our heads busted.”
“Look out!” He lunged forward an instant after we’d stepped onto the adjacent track. I wheeled and nearly froze. Looming like a house in the blackness, moving with lethal silence on the rails, a flatcar piled with timber was practically on top of me. I threw myself backward and hit hard, the gravel raking my neck as I jackknifed my legs to avoid amputation by the wheels. With a shudder I watched the car roll on across the dark yard like a ghost.
“What the hell was that?”
Slack pointed to a low knoll. “The hump. They use it to separate cars by gravity. Gotta keep your eyes open.”
Tell me about it.
We found our train and moved along the boxcars; the doors were secured with chains. Slack looked discouraged; only two cars remained before the caboose. Then he discovered that the door of the next one was open a few inches. Through the slit I could make out bags of grain. Slack reached up with what looked like a grappling hook attached to his fishplate. The effort made him groan. I helped him widen the gap, then boosted him up and followed him inside.
I peered into the gloom. “We alone?”
“First lesson is never climb in a car with tramps unless you know some of ’em or you got a weapon.” Hook poised, Slack made sure nobody was among the bags. “Shut the door, Sam.”
I did so after peeking outside.
“Anybody around?”
“Hard to know,” I said. “Soon as I think I see something, it vanishes.”
“This is almost too good.” He explained that the smoothest-riding cars were generally near the front or the rear, and situated between loaded cars to reduce the jolts. “All set up for us. Soft bags to spread out on. Nobody else here.”
“You think it’s a trap?”
“One side open, the other sealed,” he mused. “It stinks of Brawley.”
“Should we get out?”
“No use runnin’. If it’s a setup, they’ll be waitin’.” He beckoned me to the opposite door; with the fishplate we forced it open to the length of the chain outside, a gap of some ten inches. “Now we got a safety hole,” he said. “Wouldn’t be time to work it open if they came in after us.”
We waited in silence. I thought I heard sounds outside.
“Dogs are the worst,” he whispered. “Once in Chicago I got chased by a pack.”
Christ, what were we doing?
The couplings groaned and the car suddenly lurched forward. I fell sprawling into the bags. Slack, who had braced himself, watched the door closely as we began to move. “If Brawley’s coming, it’ll be now,” he whispered. “Either storm inside or lock us in and leave things to his toughs once we’re out of town.” He made a shoving motion. “Papers’ll say TRAMPS IN FATAL PLUNGE, but those wise to the road will know what happened.”
We froze as heavy footfalls sounded outside and lantern light shone through the slit in the doorway we’d entered. Alert for the rattle of a chain being fastened, instead I heard a rumble and the heavy door begin to slide open.
“This is the one, boys!” a voice said.
“Go!” Slack hissed. He pulled his whiskey bottle from his pack and hurled it at the door. It exploded in a shower of glass and brought a curse outside. “Go now!”
For a terrible instant I was stuck. Slack shoved me violently. I popped through like a cork and tumbled again on the gravel bed. I was halfway to my feet when Slack landed on top of me.
“Got the bastards covered!” a voice roared in the darkness nearby. “Out here!”
With his hook at the ready, Slack handed me the fishplate so that we each had a weapon. A few yards away a big man stood silhouetted against the cars. The long-barreled revolver he held was trained on Slack. I had no doubt that it could quickly shift to me.
“You ain’t sendin’ me to jail, Brawley.” Slack crouched low, further reducing his small target area. “There’s bastards like you in there get their fun picking on little men.”
“Who said jail?” The big man had a high, husky voice. “You’re threatening a railroad employee right here on railroad property.”
“Use your gun then,” Slack snarled, and charged forward.
No! I reached out too late to pull him back.
Brawley’s boot caught him in the chest and sent him spinning to the ground with a yelp of pain. I took a step forward, but the revolver swung toward me.
“Don’t push—” Brawley began, but he’d underestimated Slack, who with a snakelike slither shot forward on his belly and sank the point of his hook in Brawley’s boot. The big man bellowed and tried to pull away, teetering off-balance as Slack yanked hard on the hook. By then I’d leaped forward. I had a good angle at Brawley. Fishplate met cranium with a solid thud and he folded to the ground as if he’d been etherized.
Slack snatched up the revolver. “We gotta move!”
Shouts came from ahead where men were jumping from cars. Slack squeezed the trigger and a crack sounded over the rumble of the wheels.
“C’mon!” As if he’d forgotten his injured rib, Slack darted between two of the boxcars, grabbed the bottom rung of a steel ladder with his hook, swung
himself up on the coupling brace, hooked the opposing ladder and swung to the ground on the other side. I followed, not nearly so nimbly. “Hurry!” he urged. Temporarily shielded from our pursuers, we sprinted until we were abreast of the car we’d been in. “Throw me!” he yelled. “Now!”
I grabbed him beneath the armpits and tossed him bodily through the opening. Rolling with the impact, he was instantly on his feet and yelling instructions. The train was moving fast. I had a matter of seconds. Concentrating on what he told me, trying to ignore the knife-edged wheels just below, I ran all-out and reached for the rung beside the door. The ground beneath me was bumpy. The car was jiggling. My fingers couldn’t get good purchase.
“Jump!” Slack yelled.
As I made another clutching try at the rung, I vaulted feet forward into the air as if trying to clear a bar, a gargantuan leap of faith. My hand closed around the rung as my calves hit the bottom of the doorway, and for a terrifying instant I teetered backward. Slack grabbed my shirt and held on until I could work myself in.
I hugged the rough floor like a lover.
“Always throw yourself forward,” he lectured. “On your back or belly, don’t matter, but flatten out and go forward. Easier with the cars coming at you, of course, but we didn’t have that choice.”
Right then just being alive was enough.
He looked around pleasurably as if we were in a luxury hotel. “This should be good till morning. Brawley got our cardboard and water but we got these soft bags.”
“When he comes to, won’t he telegraph ahead?”
“And say what?” Slack laughed. “That two men he had the drop on—one half his size and the other he can’t identify—drilled his foot and dented his head?”
“But we’re carrying his pistol now,” I said. “Doesn’t the railroad worry about things like that?”
“Oh, if this was a cushion run, they might make a search at the next stop,” he said offhandedly. “But, hell, there’s no shortage of guns on the freights.” He hefted Brawley’s and informed me that it was a wartime navy .36 originally designed for paper cartridges with powder and ball, now converted to take metal shells. “This’ll scare some off, but with Brawley so anxious to settle my hash, I’m thinking to pick up a .45 short-barrel Peacemaker.”