Well, there was no use crying about it now. I had to figure out a way to get out of here, far away, and I could allow nothing else to occupy my mind until that was settled.
I moved down the sidewalk, cautiously, but not too cautiously, not so cautiously as to attract attention. I kept my eyes open; I regarded everything that crossed my line of vision as a possible instrument of escape. Just stay calm, I kept telling myself, and something will show up, something always shows up to those who wait. Then I saw something and thought, this is it!
What I saw was a railroad track—not the main tracks but a spur line that served the warehouse district—and when I reached the end of the block, I saw the lineup of freight cars and flatcars pulled off on the siding, and a small fleet of big tractor-simi jobs loading, unloading, coming, going. It looked like a busy place, and up ahead there was an old fashioned coal burning switch engine, and that started me thinking.
A switch engine.... It must mean that the line of freight cars was being readied to leave Lake City. That's just what's going to happen, I thought. Those cars are going to be coupled together, that switch engine would move the whole string out to the main track where it would become a part of the outgoing freight train getting ready to pull out right at this moment.
And that was when I saw the cops. A big job pulled away from the track, and there on the other side of the truck was a black and white sedan, a red warning light on top, a long, waving, short wave antenna at the rear. A squad car, all right. I was old enough to know a squad car when I saw one!
Well, I thought, almost tempted to smile, they are a very efficient crew, these Lake City Police. First roadblocks, now they are searching freight cars, and no doubt they already had men working the bus stations, depots, and even the airfields.
Let them search. Let them get it out of their systems—I was just glad they had decided to do it now instead of a few minutes later, because in a few minutes I intended to be in one of those freight cars. I intended to punch myself a one way ticket to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, anywhere. I didn't care where it was, just so the name wasn't Lake City.
What I needed was breathing space, thinking time—and those cops were fixing it up very nicely. It didn't occur to me that their searching the train at this particular time was a very close call; what occurred to me was that my luck must be changing. It must be changing! Surely they wouldn't come back and search that train again, after having done it once....
Yes sir, the cards were beginning to fall!
I waited patiently, watching the activity at the tracks, and after a while I saw the cops, two of them, climb out of a box car and drive away.
As soon as the police car was out of sight I began walking toward the track. Not a detail did I miss, for details were what my future hinged on. Details could mean the difference between living and dying. So I noted carefully that there were eighteen cars, four of them flatcars, two refrigerated cars, and the others were ordinary red-painted box cars.
Those box cars are out, I thought immediately. They load those things and lock them tight before they are coupled with the train... and I sure didn't want to find myself a prisoner in a box car. The refrigerated cars were out too. They offered the advantage of having ventilating and icing doors at the top, but too many people were apt to get curious about the contents of a refrigerated car, so that left only the flatcars, which didn't seem very promising at first.
But that changed when I saw the two workmen stretching the big gray tarp over the tractors. They were bright red high-wheeled farm tractors, four of them anchored down with cables and pulleys on one of the flatcars, and now the workmen were stretching the big tarp over them so they would look nice and new when they got to wherever they were going.
It didn't take the workmen long to get the tarp lashed down to everyone's satisfaction. They dropped off the flatcar, got in a truck and drove away. Most of the trucks and workmen were gone now... it looked like the cars were loaded and ready to pull out.
Sure enough, the switch engine began backing up, the engineer leaning out the far side of the cab to get his signals from the brakeman.
Now! I thought. It's now or never if you want to get out of Lake City alive! I broke into a jog, being careful to keep a box car between me and the brakeman. I swung up to the flatcar and squeezed under the edge of the tarp.
This was the dangerous time. This was a time for holding my breath and hoping that brakeman hadn't seen me.
Apparently he hadn't. Nobody yelled, nobody stuck his head under the tarp to see what the hell I was doing there, so apparently I had brought it off perfectly and nobody at all had seen me.
I breathed easier... everything was coming out just right. Of course this flatcar couldn't be called first class travel, but it would do. Up ahead I could hear the cars coming together, coupling, with teeth-jarring rattles. And then the car directly ahead smashed into my flatcar and slammed me back against one of the tractors. One of the big lugs on the tractor's rear wheel tore my coat as I grabbed for something to hold to—but that didn't bother me. Nothing could bother me now. I was as good as out of Lake City! In spite of the police, in spite of their elaborate communication system and their road blocks! _.
At last the entire string of cars was coupled together and we began to move forward. We moved forward for maybe ten minutes, then stopped. Then we moved in reverse for a short distance, then forward again. I couldn't see what was going on, but I knew that a certain amount of switching had to be done to get us on the right track.
I don't know how many times we went forward, stopped, then went backward and finally forward again. It seemed like a long time, as I crouched there under the tarp in semi-darkness, being slammed against the steel of those tractors every time the engineer changed directions. Finally we stopped and this time we didn't move again. I heard the switch engine break off and move away by itself. It won't be long now, I thought. We're on the right track, now all I have to do is wait.
I waited for what seemed like hours and nothing happened. Nothing at all. Every so often I could hear somebody crunch past on the cinders beside the track, and I died a little every time, and thought: What the hell am I going to do if it's a railroad inspector and he sticks his head under this tarp, or the cops coming back for a second look! But they always went on, and after a while my heart would start beating normally again.
If only I had a gun, I kept thinking....
But I didn't have a gun.
And what was holding up this string of cars? Why didn't a train pick it up and get it moving?
I didn't know the answer, and I didn't dare stick my head under that tarp to try to find out. I crouched there, and the long minutes and hours crawled by, and at last I realized that the sun had moved from one side to the other on the tarp and that at least four or five hours must have gone by since I first swung onto this flatcar that I was now beginning to hate.
That was when I finally realized that that string of cars wasn't going anywhere. Not today, anyway. Maybe not for a week, or even a month!
The realization came slowly, but probably it had been in the back of my mind all along and I had simply refused to look at it. But there was no getting around it now. I was stuck! I was on a train going nowhere!