“Bunch of guys, maybe hundreds, they control a big section of the tracks man. You don’t fuck with them.”
The two of them stood there staring at each other while he put it together. Bill could tell this one was a small-time thief, not what he was looking for. “Okay kid, off the train if you want.” The kid didn’t hesitate and ejected off the side, landing running, taking a few stumbling steps before catching his balance.
The way the kid feared these Raildogs was something. So there was obviously a gang out there. Doing what? Working the rail lines? How many people were there out there to prey on? How many people used freight trains to travel? Now he had more to think about as the train headed north towards Salt Lake City.
*****
Reno, Nevada
David looked up at the window as he approached; she was sitting there as usual. He wondered if she actually saw him or was she staring off into another place in her head. He waved up at her and she quickly waved back. Okay, she was watching.
David Perez walked through the front lobby of the care home for the second time in three weeks.
He signed in with another scribble and made his way through the hallways. She was waiting inside her room, the door open as always.
“Hello mom.”
“I can’t believe you’re back so soon David. I’m blessed.” She reached up to pull his face down for a kiss.
They settled into the pattern of awkward silences and intermittent questions that always formed their time together. “I can’t stay long Mom, but since I was in the area I wanted to come by.”
“That’s alright. Any time together makes me happy.”
After another period of silence David stood up. He walked to the window, looked out, and then pulled on his black jacket. “I think I should go Mom.”
“Okay.” She fussed over him again, hugging him tightly. “Thanks for coming.”
He headed for the door. Silently, he dropped something on the little table against the wall. Sarah looked down at it momentarily before closing her door.
*****
Nebraska
Cliffy wasn’t enjoying the ride. The crew had already made some easy money and the cash had everyone in a good mood. The beatings they gave out had everyone pumped on adrenaline, but none of it helped him.
Something about number ninety-two’s torture didn’t sit right with him. Who does that? Only a friggin’ psycho. It had been too long since he last talked to Albert. He should have heard something earlier this morning, but nothing.
As if on cue the phone started to vibrate. It never rang. It could put a guy in a bad spot to have it ring out loud at the wrong time. He checked the number.
“One.” Cliff waited.
“Forty-five, sir. Sorry to call.” The voice sounded apologetic.
“You’re not supposed to call me. Where is Albert?”
Cliff had his black book out trying to figure out who forty-five was. Some guy named Mickey.
“He’s dead. The guys in Spokane got ahold of me. Said his body was on a train that came in last night.”
“What happened?” Cliff was getting itchy, anticipating what was coming next.
“It’s fucking crazy. He was skinned alive. Someone took a knife to him while he was tied to a skid. It was right out of a fuckin’ horror movie. Insane.”
“Where’s the body?” Cliff needed to know who was involved.
“Yardmen seen our guys around the boxcar and they had to hightail it. The cops will have him now.”
Cliff felt his heart drop. What the hell was going on? More importantly, why? “Where are you now?”
“In Pocatello, trying to find the guy that attacked ninety-two.”
“Forget it. He’s gone. Get the crew together in Spokane and watch the phone for me. I’m coming up there.”
“Yes sir.”
Uncertainty twisted his stomach. Something wasn’t right, and he suddenly had problems. He needed to get up to Spokane and sort out the crew. This Mickey was taking the lead, which was good. He’d been left in charge in Pocatello, Albert must have seen something in the guy.
They hadn’t made it to North Platte yet, so Cliff could get off and change trains when they arrived there. He wondered if he should just get off the train and walk away, but he didn’t think he could.
*****
Reno, Nevada
Sarah watched out the window as David walked down the lane. She hated seeing him go, but everything was different this time. This time he’d left a surprise. She kept taking her eyes off the window to look down in her lap.
This changed everything. Somewhere in her head she knew it. Like a piece of precision machinery, once one piece moved then all the others followed in perfect sequence. She looked down at her lap again. Her hands shook slightly.
Finally it was happening. The only thing she knew that could save her was happening. She knew it was a block in her head, probably one she put there herself. It was holding her down like she was buried under sand. There was no getting around it, no way to medicate it. That day long ago something had clicked off in her head, and she’d been waiting all this time for the switch to be turned back on. Finally.
He was long gone now but she continued to watch. David had known all along what she needed because she’d made it clear. She hadn’t really believed he would, or could help, but then she looked down in her lap again.
How did he do it? What had it taken for him to accomplish it? On one hand she suddenly felt guilty. Why should he worry about her problems anyway? He’d suffered enough already because of her. Even when she was ruining his life she was still using him. God have mercy. She looked down again.
She opened her hand carefully and stared at the flower. It wasn’t anything special like a rose, but it signified everything to Sarah.
She held the flower gently in her left hand and ran a finger around the petals one at a time. Her finger traced the stem from top to bottom and back up again.
For the first time in a long time anyone walking the grounds would see that she wasn’t staring out the window. They wouldn’t be able to see that she was reading.
Sarah scrutinized the note that came with the flower. It was so simple and quaint. Yet she was soaring inside. She read the words one more time.
“Here’s your first flower mom."
Chapter 7
Colorado
The Florida-bound teens huddled in the dark. Bart looked over at Danny who was passed out cold under the sheltered end of the grain car. The kid had changed into jeans and a hoodie that would have been better if it hadn’t been such a bright orange that stood like a sore thumb. Adidas had replaced the fancy dress shoes. Now at least he didn’t look like such a geek.
The kid had changed a lot since they first became friends. Danny approached him one day while he was sitting alone on a bench outside the school. “Hey, cool jacket.”
He’d liked that. He knew he looked like a thug and the jacket looked tough.
“You belong to a gang?”
Bart had looked closer at the kid with his curly hair hanging to his shoulders, white tennis shirt and blue shorts. He even had white socks and sandals to match. What would this kid know about gangs? He’d laughed, “Naw, I go alone, nobody brings me down.”
He came back again and again to how they’d started this strange friendship. Him and the geek. Looking at the kid again he wondered about that close call back in Cheyenne. How would the kid have faired in a real fight? Bart hoped they didn’t ever have to find out.
They had spent the first part of the night stopped for three hours outside of Denver. He hoped they hadn’t made a mistake taking the southern route. Now they were slowing again. He stuck his head out of the end of the grain car and realized they were entering a siding in the middle of nowhere again. He couldn’t see any lights in either direction.
“Danny!”
Bart watched the kid move in his sleep and start to come around. He could tell the moment when Danny remembered wh
ere he was, jolting awake, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing man, we’re stopped on another siding in the middle of nowhere. Want to check out some of the train?”
Danny seemed to jump at the thought. It took a second to get their bearings in the dark and become comfortable that there wasn’t anyone around.
It was dark enough they could hardly make out the graffiti as they walked alongside the train. They passed ten or more grain cars and then a few low-riders with storage containers.
Suddenly they were beside something different. They stopped and looked up. Then slowly they turned to each other and realized they were both smiling.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bart watched Danny hesitate and look around. Shit, there isn’t anybody here kid.
“You bet. Let’s get our stuff.”
*****
Topeka, Kansas
Raul hadn’t slept since they’d stopped in Topeka. He didn’t get where he was by being reckless. For now he settled for keeping an eye on Maria as she slept cuddled in a ball under the tarp.
He was on full alert. The freight yard was a big one. They were lucky to be on a rail where he could look across the rest of the yard and keep an eye out for trouble. The question was, how long would they be stuck here?
Looking around he could see there were other tracks running parallel to his, but it was the main set of rails on the other side that kept him on edge. He tracked any yard workers closely, making sure they weren’t paying any attention to them.
He knew that sitting on a stopped train in the city was just asking for trouble. It wasn’t the railroad cops that were a worry. They’d just move you along. It was the drifters, the thugs, and the gangs you had to watch out for. Not that he was scared. Raul had fought plenty of times in the past and would again in the future. Sometimes the fights were for show, or to improve someone’s position. Sometimes they were to the death. It wasn’t new, it was just the way it was.
He expected to someday die in battle. It wouldn’t be pretty, but he would go till he dropped. He knew the numbers, he watched those above him in the chain of command, he kept track of how many were alive, and how many had disappeared.
Understanding the consequences, the numbers game, that’s what kept Raul wide-awake in the dark of night. Now, his headband down low, just over his eyes, he crouched down with his arms resting on his knees, watching for anything that moved, examining every train entering and leaving the rail yard.
At one point he took a walk alongside the train to get a better look at the yard, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, he heard a noise that stood out as different. Above the constant squealing of metal on metal, of rail cars slamming, together he heard something else. Music?
With head cocked in the direction of the sound, his heart rate picked up speed. He couldn’t control his body’s reactions, muscle contractions or adrenaline, but he could control his mind. He had fought hard as a kid to teach his brain to think, and now he used that strength.
No panic – there wasn’t even an actual threat yet.
He retraced his steps back to their boxcar, contemplating waking Maria. Then on second thought, she might get all worried. It was better to leave her to sleep.
Climbing back into the car to keep out of sight, he listened. The sounds were getting closer. The rap music was filtering back in his direction. “In da club … feel like drinking … baby.”
It had to be a boom box, they should be in sight soon, so he kept still, waiting to see what was coming. Then he heard the first voices and started counting. One, two, three at least. When he heard them all laughing he upped the count to six or seven.
Leaning back, Raul tried to become invisible. He watched as the group came into sight. Young guys, all of them. They were drinking from beer bottles and stopping randomly to spray paint the sides of the odd car.
It sounded like they were looking for trouble just by their cockiness. A couple of the kids were roughhousing and another smashed his empty bottle against the side of the train.
A lot of violence happened on the spur of the moment, right place – right time, or, wrong place – wrong time. These guys didn’t need to be looking for trouble, but if opportunity presented itself, like here in the dead of night, six or more against him and Maria, someone might get ideas. It might even look like fun.
Another train was pulling in, momentarily distracting him. He glanced over to watch the train roll up and slow to a stop before returning to watch the young kids causing shit.
*****
Pocatello, Idaho
The train had been sitting in Salt Lake for an hour. It was everything Cliff could do to not get off the train. His forty-five years felt more like seventy right now. He thought hard about just walking off and heading out to his new homestead. He had enough stashed away to get by for years, but he would have to stretch it out.
He was that close. Another five years maybe, or a couple nice scores along the way and he’d be set for the rest of his life. The couple grand a month from dues was nice, but once he left the tracks permanently he might run into problems trying to collect. You were only the boss if you were still influencing things, still keeping a tight grip.
Either way, Cliff waited it out and eventually the train headed northwest towards Spokane. Just thinking about the place had him conjuring up wild visions of what must have happened to Albert.
He shook his head. “Fuck Albert, I hope you were already dead before the knifework started.” But he knew he hadn’t been. This time the violent shudder that ran up his spine made him reach out and grab the wall of the boxcar for balance.
He could use a drink right now, but didn’t think that was too smart. He watched the small town of Pocatello roll by. Was it all a coincidence? He kept wishing it was, but he had a bad feeling that stuck with him. There was something going on, and Cliff had no idea what.
It was almost like someone was purposely leaving their bodies to be found that kept him thinking. They’d lost gang members before. It was bound to happen. Sometimes when you ran into another gang and there were more of them than you, you didn’t always win the battle. Some guys had just disappeared, probably dragged off the tracks and left hidden somewhere. A couple of times bodies were found that showed signs of beatings.
Cliffy sometimes liked to see himself as a general, and you knew you were going to lose pieces in a war, but you kept going and just added new ones.
This time around it was like the Raildogs were being sent a message. Someone wanted them to find the bodies, to know what had happened. Who was the message for? And more importantly, who was delivering it? He had caused a lot of pain in a lot of places in his time. There could be a lot of people looking for him.
*****
Utah
Bill Dewton cursed for the hundredth time. He wasn’t settling in very well to travelling by freight train. He wanted to get some sleep while it was still dark, but the constant up and down over the hills bordering Nevada and Utah kept shaking the train.
He had never suffered motion sickness, but this was getting him pretty close. He hunkered down, closed his eyes and tried to drift off, but before he could his head would begin swirling. His eyes would snap open and he would suck in gulps of fresh air until he cleared his head and he would be able to start thinking about sleep again. The train was going over the top of a hill when he caught the beep of his cell phone.
Someone was trying to call him, but the reception was crappy at best. It showed two missed calls and a text message. But then he was heading down into another valley and lost service again. Fucking phones, he shook the damned thing, never working when you need them.
Now each time the train crested a hill, he tried to return the call. The text message had changed his mood. The Pocatello police had entered their dead man into the system and hit Bill’s alert. He read it again.
We have a body here in Pocatello with a number tattooed on the inside of the w
rist. Found near the train tracks.
Bill was almost bouncing with anticipation. He was awake now and eager to call back. Realistically, what help was a body going to be? Still, he was excited that the new information he’d entered about tattoos and trains was already showing results. Now the only question was, how was he getting to Pocatello. He groaned, knowing he was stuck on this train until Salt Lake.
*****
Topeka, Kansas
Dougie Rackman always had a lookout on point when the train was moving, but when they were entering or leaving a city he liked being at the door watching for himself. He knew that if just one friggin’ idiot missed something you’d land in shit.
Cops, yard police, hell, it could be just a bunch of hard-cases looking for fun. You needed to be on top of things and he did that as a rule. That was how he noticed the group walking alongside the tracks before the train came to a stop.
“Raildogs!” Everyone in the car turned to his voice,
“Rally up boys, we got a rumble.” Dougie smiled broadly, like a dog baring its teeth.
Electricity surged through the car. Muscles flexed in anticipation. Crooked grins grew more menacing.
He rolled his shoulders to loosen up and dropped a few quick squats to get the blood moving. It looked like even numbers, six on six, or close to that. He chuckled, he’d out his six guys against any other six out around.
Doug jumped before the train stopped. He didn’t hang back and that was why he was a leader. Rashad never missed the action, he was in the air beside him. They hit the ground running, headed right for the other group.
Devon and the rest of the crew hit the ground behind them, some landing better than others, and they surged forward. As they got nearer, he realized it was a group of kids, not men, but that wasn’t his problem.
Momentarily stunned at the sight of the charging Raildogs, the kids stopped, jaws hanging open. Then the first one of them reacted and they started to spread out into a defensive position.
Dougie fought not to laugh out loud. Perfect, he thought to himself. This was what he wanted all his opponents to do. Scatter. His men had been taught well and this was a situation they would eat up. They understood gang mentality, and the gang stood together.
He went at the biggest one, Rashad with him. The guy must have thought Doug was going to stop at some point, but he hit the guy on the run in a full tackle and knocked him off his feet. They landed in a heap, and he pushed off the kid, rolling away.