I turned from looking at Tommy and looked back out the windshield into the dark North Dakota countryside. Something caught my eye. I stood up and stared intently out the dirty windscreen of the rumbling F-9 locomotive.
We continued to walk alongside the track, talking about the hobo we just met, about summer ending and school starting, and about how neat it would be to just hop on a freight train and not care where you ended up. Oh to escape from Christ the King Elementary, I thought. We came to a trestle. It was a narrow, stone trestle that crossed one of the tributaries of Peachtree Creek. The trestle was maybe 125 yards long and it curved hard to the right where the tracks disappeared in between a forest. We stopped, eyeing the end of the trestle in the distance. It seemed forever to the end of the open trestle. Just in case Walter had been wrong, I knelt down and put my right ear to the track as Walter had done earlier. Supposedly you could hear pings in the track if a train was coming. I couldn’t hear anything. “Still no trains coming. You guys want to cross?” I asked. It was mesmerizing to watch as we made our way across the trestle. “I bet there’s lots of water moccasins down there,” Walter said. We all agreed that there were moccasins in the creek. Another story the nuns had told us was about the water skier who had skied up to shore at Lake Lanier, and dropped into a water moccasin nest. He had been bitten mercilessly by the vicious moccasins, and died instantly, or so the nuns told us. Apparently the nuns didn’t want us to water ski either, or have any kind of fun. We passed a rickety wooden stand off the side of the trestle that was meant for someone who was caught on the trestle when a train came. The stand looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. We pondered its use and stopped to examine it. We shook it and it wobbled. The air was warm and still; we could hear birds chirping in the distance. We were too far away from any roads to hear any traffic noise. It was a perfect day and we were enjoying ourselves immensely. It was then that we heard a “ping” from the track and a chill went down my spine. Something didn’t seem right. We froze and exchanged frightened glances at each other. Suddenly we saw it. A big bright headlight aimed right at us. A train. On our tracks. It was a passenger train headed straight for us, coming out of the forest, going at least 80 miles per hour. We stood like statues, unable to move with fear. The stand wouldn’t hold all three of us and we knew it. The train continued to bear down on us. It wasn’t going to stop. It wasn’t even slowing down! Closer and closer it came. The horn was blasting steady. “Jump!” I hollered. |
“Wait a minute,” I said, “you’re talking,” I pointed to Murray, “about jumping off the locomotive at the beginning of the curve and making your way to the other side of the horseshoe in time to catch the caboose, I mean waycar. Is that what you’re going to do?” “I sure am, and I’m gonna take these guys’ money. Do you wanna make a bet too?” Sandy piped up, “$100 is the bet. Moose and I bet he wouldn’t make it.” “Well, Bill, are you gonna bet?” Murray insisted. “I’d put your money on me. Throw in $100 and you’ll get your hundred dollars back plus another $100.” He was cocky now. “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll just watch. No offense, Sandy, but I do hope he makes it; we’re sure going to have a lot of explaining to do if we show up in Edgemont without him.”
“Now listen up because I’m only going to explain this once,” the conductor lectured me as if I were still back at Christ the King Elementary. He continued, “Climb up there,” and pointed his lantern towards the ladder of the high cube boxcar, “and I’m going to kick you into the yard. There are some cars in the track you’re going into, so make sure you slow the cars down enough to where they make a good joint. Try not to blow those propane cars up.” He cracked a slight smile when he said that. He started to walk away towards the locomotive. “Wait! We can’t do that can we?” I said. This was a clear violation of railroad rules. Propane cars, whether loaded or empty, were not to be kicked. The conductor was trying to get me fired or killed, or both. “Look, it’s midnight, I’m old and tired and I wanna get some chow and get to bed. I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I know what I’m doing. So just do what I tell you.” The conductor turned away again. I walked over to the ladder and began climbing as the conductor signaled the engineer by shaking his lantern over his head to speed up quickly for a kick. The rolling bombs I was on began moving rapidly. The conductor pulled the lever to disconnect my cut of cars and we began rolling down the hill, towards the yard, building up speed. I climbed to the top of the boxcar, stuck my left arm through the top rung to hang on to the wildly weaving boxcar, and used my right arm to shine my lantern ahead past the six propane cars. I passed the rear brakeman standing by the yard track switch, and he directed my cut of cars into a yard track. There were cars to the left and cars to the right of me on adjoining tracks. There wasn’t much room between the cars, maybe 6 feet. I decided to slow my little train down even though I couldn’t see the cars ahead we were supposed to connect to. I began turning the brake wheel clockwise and it made a “tat tat tat” sound as it spun round and round. Nothing happened. I wasn’t slowing down. I continued turning the wheel, beginning to get frantic. It was obvious now that the hand brake was either disconnected or worn-out. I could now see the cars we were supposed to tie into. They were coming up fast. I started shimmying down the icy ladder as fast as I could and jumped without looking, right before the cars hit. |
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