Somebody Owes Me Money

It was obvious what they meant to do. They’d ride the train up to where we stood, and then jump on us. Four against one and a half, which is about what we added up to, and the outcome was not in doubt.

“Oh, Chet. Chet, what are we going to do?”

None of them had gotten on the first car, or in the space between cars number one and number two. I said, “Honey, we’ve got to get on that train, too. It’s our only chance.”

“I can’t walk!”

“You’ve got to! Come on, now.”

I half-dragged her up the gravel slope, and saw the engineer of the train looking at us in open-mouthed bewilderment. His big diesel engine trundled by, and he looked down at the top of our heads, and I’m sure he kept looking back at us after he’d gone on by. I’m sure of it, but I didn’t look to check. I saw a chrome railing coming toward us, and in a car farther on I saw the first of the hoods, with his gun out.

I had one arm around Abbie’s waist, holding tight. She had both arms around my neck. I was about as nimble as a man in ankle chains wearing a straitjacket, but if I didn’t connect right with that chrome handle it was all over.

Here it came. Here it was.

I stuck my free hand out, grabbed that bar, and held on.

The train took me away.

Funny how fast it was going all of a sudden. And my feet were dragging in the gravel, while simultaneously my arm was being pulled out of its socket. I pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and Abbie babbled a million things in my ear, and I finally got my right foot up onto that narrow ledge of platform, and then it was possible to get the rest of me up onto the train, and there I stood, with Abbie hanging on me as I held to the train by one hand and one foot.

Something went zzzt.

That louse hanging on the next car was shooting at us!

“Abbie!” I shouted. “They’re shooting at us! Get in between the cars!”

“How?”

“I don’t know! Just do it!”

So she did it, I don’t know how. It involved putting her elbows in my nose, one at a time, and spending several hours standing on my foot — the one foot I had attached to the train — but eventually she was standing on something or other between the cars, gasping and panting but alive.

So was I, for the moment. There’d been several more zzzts and a ping or two, but the train was rocking back and forth so much it would have been a miracle if he’d hit me. I was a moving target and he was a moving shooter, and since we were on different cars our movements were not exactly synchronized.

Still, I wasn’t all that happy to be out there in the open with somebody shooting bullets at me, no matter how much the odds were in my favor. Some gambles I’d rather not take. So I swung around the edge of the car and joined Abbie amidships.

It was very strange in here. We had three walls and no floor. A sort of accordion-pleated thing connected the end doorways in the two cars, so we couldn’t get inside, but fortunately the ends of the cars were full of handles and wheels and ladder rungs to hold on to, and there was a narrow lip along the bottom edge of each car to stand on, so it was possible to survive, but very scary to look down between your legs and see railroad ties going by at twenty or thirty miles an hour under your heels. I spent little time looking down.

In fact, I spent more time looking up. A metal ladder ran up the back of the car, and I wondered if we’d be safer on top than here. I called to Abbie, “Wait here! I’m going up!”

She nodded. She looked bushed, and no wonder.

I clambered up the ladder, my arms and legs feeling very heavy, and at the top I discovered that the top of a railroad car sways a lot more than the bottom does. It was impossible for me to stand, impossible to walk. So I inched along on my belly, and no matter how cold and windy it was, no matter how icy and wet my feet were, no matter how I ached all over, no matter how many people were after me with guns, I must say it did feel good to lie down.

Still, I was there for more than that. I crawled along the top of the car for a little ways, and it did seem safe up here, so I edged back and called down to Abbie to come on up. She did, slowly, with me helping her at the top, and when she was sprawled out on the roof, I yelled in her ear, “I’m going exploring! Don’t move!”

“Don’t worry.” She shut her eyes and let her head rest on her folded arms.

I stuck my mouth close to her ear. “Don’t fall asleep and roll off!”

She nodded, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. I patted her shoulder doubtfully, and then took off.

It didn’t take long to get to the other end of the car, and when I did, there was the pot-shooter, resting now between the cars. Waiting for the train to pull in at a station, no doubt. Then he and the others could just run along the platform to where we were, shoot us, and disappear.