I looked at the little guy. A gray stubble covered his thin jaw. He kept looking between me and the rushing scenery.
“Should be about ten minutes,” he continued. “You comin?”
Mug was rolling some things up into a bundle in one corner of the freight.
“Maybe,” I answered slowly.
“There ain’t gonna be another brain along here for a couple a’ hours,” said Mug looking up. “And it ain’t sayin’ we’ll be able to hop that one. I’m sticking.”
“Mug may be right,” I said quickly. I couldn’t afford to lose track of Mug.
“But what about the yard dicks?” asked Pete.
“They won’t bother us.”
“They won’t bother me,” answered Pete. “That’s for sure. I’m high tailing it just as soon as this rattler stops. You coming or ain’t-ya?” He turned to me.
I looked at Mug before I answered. “I’m staying.”
Mug turned to look at the slumped figure on the ear floor. I followed his eyes. “Okay,” he said finally. He looked over to me. “But Pete’s right. We can’t be caught with this kid. And we can’t dump him. They’d be waiting for us at the next depot if they found the body. The kid’ll have to stay on. We’ll stay too but not in here.”
He finished knotting the bundle with a hard yank. I knew that there was no other freight car open. I waited for what he was going to say. I almost knew what he was going to say. Pete stopped scratching his head and looked at the big guy expectantly.
“We’ll ride the rods,” said Mug finally.
Pete shook his head and gave a low whistle. “I’m gettin’,” he said quickly. “Sure as hell I’m gettin!”
I felt my forehead cold with sweat. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the body of the kid lurching with the movement of the car. “Okay,” I said quietly. “We’ll ride the rods.”
Mug looked over at me and smiled. Sunlight caught the thin glazed scar on his cheek. He just kept smiling and didn’t say anything.
The train pulled into a siding in what might have been ten minutes but seemed like an hour to me. I kept thinking of all the stories I had heard about the rods. About sudden jolts throwing ’boes under the speeding wheels. About guys falling asleep and dropping beneath the rushing train.
Pete crouched by the open door as the train slowed to a stop. “So long,” he said and jumped. His bundle was tied to his belt and it bobbed as he moved. We watched him run crouching. He dashed across the network of tracks into a thicket of bushes. He didn’t turn around once he had left the train.
One long stretch and the train had stopped. Mug and I jumped down on to the crunching gravel. We bent low and ran quickly along the side of the line of freight cars. Up ahead I could see the engineer leaning out of his cab. A breakeman was climbing down off the caboose.
“Under!” said Mug in a loud whisper.
I saw him duck low and scamper beneath a heavy freight. I followed him awkwardly, bruising my knee on a track tie and scooping up a handful of gravel.
In the dark under the freight car I saw the rods. They were about ten inches from the gravel bed. Each rod was about the width of a broom handle and there were two of them running along under each side of the car. Several others crisscrossed almost flat against the bottom of the car.
“Get up! Get up!” yelled Mug in a loud whisper. I looked across to where he was. Mug rested on the two bottom rods, gripping the top rods with his hands. As I lifted my head to look at him I bumped it sharply on the bottom of the freight. My nostrils were filled with the sharp cold smell of the gravel and the hot oily odors of the freight car bottom.
I finally managed to arrange myself directly across from Mug. I balanced my entire length on the two thin rods under me, winding my feet around them and with my arms and hands grabbing every top rod within reach. An octopus couldn’t have done a better job.
I heard a loud sssss’ing noise. I was about four inches from the side of the wheels. They began to turn slowly. I shifted my eyes and looked down at the ties below slipping away. I gripped my rods tightly, desparately. The ties began to blur. The wheels were like buzz saws.
I finally worked up enough courage to lift my head slightly and I turned it carefully to look at Mug. He was balanced easily on his rods. Only one hand gripped the pipes above him. The other held a little dried apple which he was eating contentedly.
“It’s... it’s — not — bad,” I said across to Mug. My voice sounded strangely too loud. The noise of the wheels sliced against my ears.
“It’s like I told your friend,” answered Mug. “It’s the only way to ride.” He hadn’t called the kid ‘my friend’ before.
I looked up quickly at my hands gripping the rods above me. The knuckles were strained white. My thick gold ring seemed too large for its finger.
“To bad about your friend,” continued Mug. “He did die of that lung trouble, didn’t he?”
“Sure,” I said. “I told you he did.” I looked over at Mug.
He was smiling again. His thick lips hung loose and his teeth were like pieces of shell stuck in red clay.
“Good,” he said. “For a while I thought you might have thought something else. Something unhealthy.” He laughed and then dropped the apple core from his hand. We both watched as it was carried a little ways by the wind, then mashed under the train wheels.
Mug reached across with his free hand and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t hold on so tight, buddy,” he said. “You ain’t gonna get hurt.” He looked at me mockingly. I could feel my heart pounding louder than the clatter of the train. Slowly I let go with one hand from the rod above me.
“Good!” Mug laughed.
I held my free hand suspended a minute then laid it across my chest, breathing deeply.
Mug turned his body on the rail, still holding on with one hand, until he was now facing me entirely.
“That’s a nice ring you got there,” he said looking at my hand. “Gold, ain’t it?”
I nodded my head.
A train rushed past us on the opposite track in a rumbling steely racket. The first shock of the noise nearly threw me off my perch. I quickly gripped another rod with my free hand, staring panicky at the rushing road bed beneath me. Mug didn’t move. He was smiling and he kept looking at my hand and the ring.
The train passed and it was lighter again under the freight car. I let go with one hand again.
“Let’s see the ring, buddy,” said Mug. I can’t show him I’m scared, I thought to myself. He knows it, but I can’t admit it. I extended my arm toward him. I’ve got to tag on to him until we get off the train. It would be suicide to start a fight now.
Mug’s hand turned the ring around on my finger.
“You wanta sell it?” he asked.
For a moment I couldn’t answer. “Sure,” I said finally. My heart was beginning to pound again. “If you’ve got the right price.”
He still held on to the ring and my hand with his big hand. One push — one forceful push from him—
“Ten bucks,” I said.
Mug let go of my hand. My arm dropped a little ways and almost hit the rushing track ties. I grabbed the rod above me quickly.
Mug turned around on the rod again, until he was facing the bottom of the freight once more. With one hand he loosened his collar and pulled out a small tobacco pouch that was tied to a string around his neck. Still working with only one hand, he opened the bag and looking with his chin down on his chest, pulled out two bills.
He looked at the bills, closed the bag, and with the bag still on his chest outside his shirt, handed them to me.
“Ten bucks,” he said. “You got a sale.”
I looked at the top bill. Nothing unusual. Regulation. But in the space above the serial number was a word, a name. Peggy. My heart was beating too fast. The girl in the picture, the look in the kid’s eyes. They came flashing back to me with each fast turn of the train wheels.