“The freights are okay.” the kid answered. “Beside it ain’t my money.”
“You worked for it didn’t you?”
He turned his face to look at the two other hoboes in the car. They were still matching coins. Then he looked back to me. “I didn’t work for it for myself.” He reached into the waist of his dungarees. I saw him untie the money belt where he kept his wallet. He opened the crammed leather folder and pulled out a photograph. The kid handed it to me, and he was smiling.
I looked down at the picture. It was a photograph of a girl, a pretty blonde, about seventeen. She wore a thin summer dress and carried her hat in her hand. She was smiling. I looked at the picture for a long moment, then looked back up at the kid.
“Your wife?”
He had laughed. “My sister.”
I glanced down at the picture again. “She’s pretty.”
“There are just the two of us left,” he said. “Ma died a couple of months ago. My old man’s been gone longer than that.”
He took a bill out of his wallet as he spoke, and he handed it to me. I must have looked puzzled. He only nodded his head toward the money, and I had looked down at it.
It was a five dollar bill. Regulation. Nothing unusual. The moonlight through the trees streaked past, and the freight car lurched under us making it hard to read. I kept studying the bill, turning it over, and then I noticed something. On one side, in the clear space above the serial number, there was a word written. A name.
“Peggy.”
“That’s her name. My sister’s name,” said the kid. I looked down at the bill again.
“I did it with every dollar I got,” said the kid. “Most of the guys used to go into town on a drunk every payday. Whenever I thought that I would go with them I took my money out and there was her name on it, where I had written it. That’s what I was working for. I never let myself forget about it.”
I looked at the photograph in my hand. “She’s a lucky girl.”
He sort of snorted and looked out at the country passing by. “She’s a smart kid,” he said turning back to me. “Too smart and too decent to have to take the knocks. She graduates from high school this month. That’s what the money is for. It’ll start her off in college, pay for tuition and buy some clothes too, maybe. Oh, it ain’t much, but it will start her off. That’s the main thing.”
My throat felt sort of thick. I’d like to bash in the teeth of any guy who considers a man a tramp just because he happens to be riding the rails. I looked down at the picture, then handed it and the bill back to the kid. He smiled at me.
The two other ’boes in the car must have finished their game, because they walked over to where we were sitting. The kid was just putting the picture back into his wallet.
“Cleaned!” said the big guy. I had heard the other ’boe call him Mug.
“Like a whistle,” chuckled the little gray haired guy. As he smiled I could see that his front teeth were missing.
Mug had been watching the kid stuff his wallet back into his money belt. The big guy’s eyes gleamed like shattered glass. His thick lower lip hung loose. “You made out better than I did.”
The kid started to laugh but it ended in that hacking cough. He pulled the sweater over his belt.
“This your first time on the rails, kid?” continued Mug.
“Yes,” said the kid.
Mug grinned a fleshy grin. I didn’t like the look I had seen in his eye as he had stared at the kid’s wallet. Mug was a big guy. I’m far from being a pint size myself, but he still looked like a guy who could make plenty of trouble if he wanted to.
Mug looked away from the kid. “You oughta see Pete here matching coins,” he said, turning to the little gray-haired guy. “The damnest little cheat in the world.”
The little character called Pete laughed his toothless grin again. “You boys wanna play?” he asked, turning to the kid and me. We both shook our heads.
I twisted the thick ring on my finger, looking down at it. I knew that even then Mug was only thinking of the kid and his crammed wallet.
“It’s cold,” said Mug.
“Sort of,” agreed the kid. Pete grunted.
“Now down on the rods,” continued Mug, “that’s where you really get a comfortable trip.”
I looked up quickly. Riding the rods was the most dangerous part of hoboing. A ’boe only did it when he was afraid of being spotted by a prowling dick or when all the cars were locked.
“It’s an easy way of slicing off an arm,” I said.
“Hell! It’s the best way of riding,” said Mug angrily. “It’s as safe as riding on top if you don’t get panicky.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” I said, talking half to Mug and half to the kid.
Mug threw me a hard look and then laughed harshly. “You just gotta know how.”
Pete lit a pipe. “It is dangerous,” he said. “I’d never do it.”
There had been no more talk about it. While the kid listened with open-eyed wonder, we traded road stories for a couple of hours, then bedded down.
And here I was now, lying on the freight car floor. Listening, waiting. Fighting sleep. The freight rushed through the lonely night with a comfortable rocking sound. This was my kind of life. Traveling, doing what I liked, being on my own. After I had gotten out of the army I wanted my freedom. The locomotive whistle hooted somewhere far up the track. The freight car doors rattled slowly...
I awoke with a start. It was day! The kid was still on the floor next to me. One car door was open and Mug and Pete were sitting with their legs dangling over the platform. I looked back at the kid. One side of his face was flat against the floor. I raised myself on one elbow and looked more closely at him. He wasn’t breathing!
I got up quickly and bent over him. Everything inside me tightened, then knotted hard.
The kid was dead.
Pete was calling to me. “Something wrong?”
I got to my feet slowly. If I had only stayed awake the night before. Pete and Mug started over toward me. Then I remembered the wallet. I bent down again and unfastened the kid’s money belt. I started to take out the wallet.
Pete looked down at the kid. His thin mouth hung open. His eyes widened. “Is... is he?”
Mug rubbed one large, gnarled hand against his jaw.
The wallet was empty. Only the picture and a few cards were left in it. I closed the wallet and put it in my pocket.
“Musta been his lungs,” said Mug finally. “I heard the kid coughing most of the night.” For a long moment I just stared at Mug. I remembered his look the night before when he saw the kid’s wallet. I just stared at him and there must have been a hatred in my eyes.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “His lungs.” I turned around to the slumped body on the freight car floor. It swayed lightly with every lurch of the train. I bent down beside him.
The inside of the car was bright with sunlight from the open door. I looked at the kid. His collar had been torn open. As I looked even closer I could hear my heart pounding my ears. My mouth went dry. Around the kid’s neck was a harsh ringlet of red marks. Finger marks!
I turned around, getting to my feet. Mug’s large hands were hanging at his side. He bulged them into big bony fists as he saw me staring at them. I walked to the open door, looking out at the rushing green country.
I didn’t actually know whether Mug had murdered the kid. I would swear my life on it, but I didn’t know. Somehow, I had to find out for sure.
Pete stood beside me at the open door. “We’ll be hitting a mail junction in ten minutes,” he said nervously. “I’m getting off. I don’t wanna be around when they find the kid’s body.”