I didn’t need to see or hear more. My only hope, I knew, was to stay ahead of them and try to make it to the far tree line at the broken end of the trestle. I knew that if I let myself be caught now no one would ever see me again.
I moved as fast as I absolutely dared, hopping more than running from tie to tie, speaking to each one as I went as though they were old friends and begging them not to give out from under me nor let me step between.
My pursuers had gained on me at first due to the better condition of the tracks at that upper end, as evidenced by the shouts of rage-filled cursing directly behind me. I didn’t dare look back for fear of losing my momentum and/or my footing. If I fell, even on the tracks themselves, never mind off the side to a certain death, I would lose my lead and they’d have me.
With most of my focus at my feet and on the ties directly ahead of me I was hardly able to keep track of how far I’d gone. The cries of the Christmas Club seemed farther back than at first and that gave me encouragement that I was at least pulling out ahead of them. Then I braved a glance up and saw that I was only sixty yards or so from the where the trestle reentered the trees. I knew my dismount tree, the one I had used the day of the family picnic, was not far beyond that.
Then I felt it. The swaying. First there was the sensation of moving sideways to my left as well as forward. I held my arms out to my side in an effort to steady myself, then the movement changed and I realized I was going to the right. My balance suddenly felt precarious. I didn’t want to slow, but I had to drop to a squatting position and put a hand down in order to retain my balance on the tracks. As I did it occurred to me that I was no longer hearing the shouting from behind.
I looked back over my shoulder and was transfixed by what I saw. The Clay brothers and Bud and Scary Guy were almost a hundred yards back up the trestle and they were all fighting for balance. The scene would have been comical in a less deadly setting. I could see the entire trestle waving from side to side, at least ten feet in either direction. The five men were flailing their arms and shifting their feet in a weird sort of slow motion clumsy dance. One by one they dropped to their knees, each one grabbing at a rail or at one of the ties to keep from being thrown over the side to fall to a certain death almost one hundred feet below.
That was when the wild card got played. I had not foreseen it, had certainly not planned for it, but there it was, coming in clopping, waving, living color. Robbie Clay. He must have been in the car and the brothers no doubt told him to stay put. But Robbie, in his simple-mindedness, didn’t like being left out of the action and only wanted to be where his brothers were. Wanted to be part of the adventure.
They saw him at the same time I did. All five were waving him back in absolute desperation. Yelling at him. “Robbie, no! Go back! Oh, God, go back Robbie!” But Robbie wasn’t hearing it. From my perch, even from that distance, I could see the expression on that poor boy’s face. As he hopped from tie to tie, waving and yelling the names of his brothers, his expression was one of sheer determination. He was going to join in the fun and nothing was going to turn him back.
The trestle’s side to side motion was more pronounced now. The men, crouched and clinging for dear life, were suddenly silent as they hung on and rode the wave and Robbie just kept coming.
Then I heard a cannon shot. At least, that’s what it sounded like. It echoed down the hillside and off the trees far below and was followed by several more just like it before I realized I wasn’t hearing a gun, but snapping metal. The rusted massive rivets that had for so many decades held the upright supports together were giving way to the strain caused by the exaggerated swaying of the trestle. It had most certainly not had any additional weight on it for many years as it sat soaking in the snow and rain and sun; now after all this time it was bearing the weight of me, and five grown men, and finally Robbie. He must have weighed two hundred and ninety pounds if he weighed an ounce, and he was running the tracks like I had seen the guys on the football team in training, when they were stepping in the center of old tires and having to place their feet in a wide running stance as they went.
Then the noise turned into a demonic orchestration of snapping and popping and crackling as the rotten wooden parts of the trestle turned to toothpicks. Then everything went into slow motion disaster and although it all happened in a matter of seconds, it seemed to take a lifetime. Well, it did, for some.
The waving motion toward the downhill side became more exaggerated and I realized that this time it wasn’t going to come back. Scary Guy let go his hand hold on the rail and stood to a crouch. I don’t know what he was trying to do, but in an instant he was flying and a terrorized guttural cry escaped his open mouth. At almost the same instant Ronny just dropped off the side without a sound.
As I saw all of this taking place, in a matter of moments but as though in slow motion, I realized that the wave was coming my way and I would soon be joining the others if I didn’t get off the trestle immediately. Abandoning all effort to hold on, I turned and ran, trusting only in instinct to keep my feet on the ties, looking up track for the familiar tree I had used months ago.
I felt the trestle begin to excuse itself from under my feet just as I realized I had reached the tree and it was only about eight feet away. There was no time to pause for balance or to measure my stride; I leapt and began to grab for anything my hands could close upon as I entered the folds of the branches.
The noise of the crashing trestle was deafening. The only sound I could hear now over the screeching of metal, the sliding of loose gravel from down below and the earth-shaking thunder of sheer weight coming to rest forever all over the hill side was the crackling of branches on both sides of me as I tumbled through the tree.
Some article of clothing ripped. I wouldn’t know until later that it was the back of my jacket. My hands felt like they were being shredded by the pine needles and smaller branches as I attempted to get a hold on anything that might stop my fall. I managed to twist my body so that I was facing downward instead of up at the sky, when I hit a larger branch in my midsection and stopped so abruptly that my glasses flew off and down through the tree. I could no longer see anything but green and brown blur, but for the moment my inability to breathe caused me the greater concern.
I was thankful that at least I was no longer falling. Reaching around me I eventually got a hold on a branch extending out in front of where I was draped, and pulled my upper body toward it until I could maneuver a leg up and over the branch until I was straddling it in a sitting position. Scooting closer to the main trunk, I leaned back and waited until I could breathe without gasping. I felt dizzy, but I was pretty sure much of that was my inability to focus on anything.
After a few moments I fumbled around and eased my way down the tree until I could tell I was close enough to the ground to drop. Once on the ground I knelt down and felt around carefully for my glasses, hoping they hadn’t hung up somewhere in the tree branches. After a few minutes of searching, my hand fell upon the familiar shape of the lenses. With a sigh of relief I checked to make sure they hadn’t broken in the fall, and put them on. Then I turned around to face the hillside and as I stepped out into the clearing I took in the devastation.
The change in the landscape was astounding. The entire framework of the trestle was down, with the exception of one standing iron upright near the tree line. I went back to this spot not long ago, after I got my news, and found that one piece still there, a lonely sentry posted to attest to what once was.
Everything else was on the ground, scattered across and down the steep slope for at least a hundred yards. There was no sound now. Even the birds weren’t making any noise. Focusing across the clearing to where some of the larger clumps of wreckage lay I could see a hand and forearm, sticking up out of the tangled iron as though grasping for some invisible help from the sky. That was all I could see of the Christmas Club and I had no desire to search further. But from where I stood I let my eyes wander farther down the hill and t
here I saw what was left of Robbie Clay. The only innocent party in this entire mess was lying face up on a flat outcropping of rock halfway down the hill. His legs were twisted in ways that legs are never supposed to go, but his upper body appeared from where I stood to be intact. Strangely, his arms were crossed over his chest like you might see someone in a coffin at the funeral home. I couldn’t see his eyes, but his face was turned straight up at the sky. If not for his mangled legs I might have thought he was just taking a nap on that rock.
Not wanting to look any longer or see any more, I took inventory of my own limbs. My hands were pretty chewed up and of course I was once more covered in pine sap. I took off my jacket and found out where the ripping sound had come from. Other than that and some aches and a few places I figured were going to be a nice purple color by morning, I seemed to be okay.
Heading down the hill to circumnavigate the tons of wreckage that used to be a trestle, I made my way back to the river and my bicycle, and home.
CHAPTER 11
At home I got a half-hearted chewing out from my mother, over the ruined jacket and the pine pitch and the fact that I hadn’t been around all day to help. The truth was, and I knew it even then, that she needed to vent her frustrations over more important matters that she didn’t feel free to discuss with anyone, and my messed up self came in handy for that. I let her go on for several minutes, interjecting an occasional mumbled “sorry”, until she ran out of steam and went back to deep cleaning the now empty kitchen.
I soaked in the bath for a long time, having to reheat the water twice as I reran the morning events over in my mind. The Christmas Club was a bunch of guys pretty much on their own and I didn’t think anyone actually kept track of where they were from hour to hour. Mr. Clay would come home from the store when it closed, but I didn’t think he’d start wondering where the boys were until either very late that night or sometime the next day. School was out for the summer and not scheduled to start for another two weeks, so Ron didn’t have to be home for any particular reason.
The car, I knew, was parked out of the sight of anyone, unless they happened to climb that hill of loose shale, in which case they would come upon the bodies before even starting up, or if they walked all the way up that back road and around the mountain to where the tracks left the solid ground and the trestle began. There just wasn’t much chance anyone was likely to do that for a long time; that is, unless a search party was eventually begun for the missing young men and someone thought to look up there. Since they had a car it was much more likely that the search would focus on the state highways rather than some dirt road going nowhere.
By the time they were found, if ever, we would all be long gone and out of the minds of everyone in Trinidad.
After I was cleaned up and had on a change of clothes I helped with some of the last minute packing. The three of us moved about in relative silence. All conversation between my parents was stiff and polite and brief. I just wanted for the morning to come when we would be loaded up and on our way.
Dad and I finished loading the U-Haul truck around 9:30 pm. Mom had gone down to the A&W for hamburgers, fries and sodas and by then I was famished and ready to eat. Afterwards though, I was suddenly so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open. So I excused myself and went to my room. Looking out the window at the Clay house I could see that there were no lights on. I climbed out my bedroom window having one more quick errand to perform. Fifteen minutes later I was back in my room. I rolled up in the sleeping bag that had been left unpacked and I was out so fast I didn’t remember my head hitting the pillow.
Saturday morning came like a blink. The sun was coming through my window at a slant and slapping me in the face, bringing me quickly from deep sleep to a sitting-up awareness that it was moving day. I jumped up and pulled on my jeans and tennis shoes and headed for the kitchen. Mom and Dad were there finishing a bowl of cereal so I got one for myself and wolfed it down as fast as I could without splashing milk all over. Mom rinsed and dried the bowls and spoons and tucked them all away in the final box. As she taped it Dad and I did a last check of every room, making sure we hadn’t left anything unloaded. He told me to go out back and take one last look in the lawnmower shed for any stray tools.
As I turned away from the empty shed I glanced up the side street over the short fence that surrounded our rear yard. The Clay house looked deserted. It kind of gave off a haunted feeling for me, but then, I was the only one who knew no one was living there anymore.
I found my folks out front. Mom was going to drive the Plymouth while Dad drove the U-Haul. I had my choice, so I opted to ride with her for now and I said I’d switch over and ride shotgun in the U-Haul once we started up the Feather River canyon north of Oroville.
Our little two vehicle convoy pulled away from the front of the Methodist parsonage of Trinidad (the lesser) California at 9:22 am, Saturday, August 28th, 1965. Next stop, Quincy, California. I was happy. I loved the mountains. Still do.
We drove past the end of Main Street and the last few familiar commercial facilities of Trinidad, then past the High School campus, the Gulf station and Veterinary Clinic and finally past the little sign that said “You are leaving beautiful, Trinidad, California. Come again!”
I made it a point to not look back out the rear window. I had a sense of great relief, as though a weight had been lifted from me that had been pressing down on me for so long I wasn’t even aware of it anymore, until it was suddenly taken away as we cruised on down the road toward the Golden State Highway and points north.
I was looking forward to this new place we were going, with great anticipation, and brain-storming ways to continue the new life upon which I had so recently embarked.
You see, the previous day’s events had all been planned as I lay on my bed that Thursday night, unable to find sleep. Oh, I know, even as I knew then, it was not much of a plan. I had no doubt that I could draw the Christmas Club after me. And in my mind as I imagined how things would go, there were no glitches. I didn’t fall off my bike and almost get nabbed. In my imagination I didn’t get out of breath as I ran and my legs didn’t get all rubbery from the climb. When you’re doing things in your head there aren’t any physical restrictions or consequences. Likewise, in my imagination I ran like the wind down the tracks and at just the right time I stopped and turned toward my pursuers and wagged my tongue at them flippantly as the trestle began to fall. In my imagination I leapt like Zorro or the carefree Robin Hood to a deft landing on a handy tree limb and swung down to the ground with the ease of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, as my enemies were crushed under tons of rusty metal. I was the Amazing Spider Man. I was Daredevil – the Man Without Fear.
The reality of it was that I couldn’t actually count on anything going the way it did in my midnight daydream. I am not now, nor certainly was I then, an engineer or an architect or even a passing math student. I had no logical reason to believe that trestle would collapse as it did.
The fact was, I was fourteen years old and just young enough and still stupid enough to believe that stories were always supposed to end happy.
The fact was, things might have gone very badly for me had it not been for the wild card.
You may remember that in the beginning I said Robbie Clay had a role to play. Well, that was it. I had no way of knowing he would be with the others. I know Robbie used to sit in the car when they were all at home, just because he loved to go places and seldom got to, so they would let him sit in the back seat and pretend; mostly to keep him out of their hair. I could surmise all that just watching them, as I did on many an evening, from my bedroom window.
So when I flipped them off and they dove for the car, in their anger and determination to catch me they must have squeezed in around Robbie and he was a part of the chase by default.
They didn’t expect him to join them in the foot chase. They probably even told him to stay with the car. I can only speculate about those details, but one thing I feel fairly certain of looki
ng back. It was the added weight and lumbering clumsiness of Robbie, wanting so badly to be part of what his brothers were doing that finally brought that trestle down. I couldn’t have planned that. It was just the way it turned out.
But a seed that had been planted in me became a tender shoot that day, and grew into a strong complex organism that blossomed and bore its fruit the rest of my life, in ever-increasing abundance and quality.
It had begun with Frankie Valerio. The kid who threw the rock at my eye. He swore it was an accident and he did a pretty good job of acting shocked and remorseful about it all. I never heard anything after we moved away from that town, but I know they never caught whoever it was that doused the corner of the Valerio home, near Frankie’s bedroom, with gasoline and set it on fire just two nights before the Everman family moved away.
The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department talked to the Christmas Club and a few other folks around town about the beating Steven Hines took behind Jake’s Auto, but they never got a confession and never made any arrests behind it. All I can say about that is Steve shouldn’t have backed off being my friend when I needed him most. His slinking away like a kicked cur and leaving me to take what Ronny Clay dished out left me with a pretty bitter taste in my mouth.
But his habits were predictable. His dad was always working on his car, and Steve spent a big part of his weekends running to Jake’s to fetch one thing or another. I only had to cruise around on my bike patiently. The tire iron was stashed in the alley and available for the right moment.
When they found old man Mazurkiewicz all bloated and stinking, with dying chickens all around and his face down in chicken crap, they just figured he had fallen like old men do, and rapped his head on the corner of the feeder. I really, really didn’t like that old fart.
The Everman Journal Page 8