Chapter 2
nimble
The rhythm of the BNSF freight car had fused into Nimble’s bones. Which made standing on the ground with the early October snow swirling all around him feel like being on the moving floor of a fun house.
He steadied himself against the sensation of falling and held up the three bottles of water he’d stolen from the inviting coffee shop on the edge of the small town. Which caused the two foil-wrapped sausage-and-egg biscuits tucked in the crook of his elbow to tumble to the ground.
Ignoring them, he held the waters up even higher and spared a glance at the town—and at the red and blue bubbles on the white SUV throwing up snow from its rear tires, though thankfully it seemed to be heading away from the railroad tracks rather than toward them.
“C’mon, Blue, take ’em,” Nimble said. He blinked against the white flakes that grew more sharp and fierce even as he stood there. “I gotta get back on. Star said he wasn’t sure how long the train will stay.”
Star was their expert on freight trains, locomotive engines, and schedules, and seemed to have memorized a map of all the trains in the country. Except this time, the train they’d been on had taken a westerly route along the southern Montana border rather than the northern route they’d expected.
Star had said he thought they were on some kind of spur line, but he didn’t know why. He also didn’t know where it went or how long until it again met up with the main line. Nimble wasn’t too worried. Star had guided them well thus far.
Blue wasn’t saying anything, merely looking at Nimble with those cold blue eyes of his. But that was like Blue.
“Come down off there and take these, will ya?”
Off there meant the top of the boxcar, where they’d scrambled to avoid being seen as the freight trundled slowly into the sleepiest town in the middle of nowhere.
Nimble didn’t know the name of the town, only that they were headed west to the warm California coast. He could ask Star and find out exactly where they were, if only Blue would take the bottles of water.
Nimble could climb the spindly metal ladder to the top of the boxcar easily enough with one or two bottles, but not with three. Plus, he needed to grab the biscuits from the snowy ground. They’d need something to fill their bellies while they waited for the train to move.
“Blue,” Nimble called, raising his voice.
“In a sec,” Blue replied. “Jeez, Nimble, chill.”
Nimble was his train name. All train hobos had one, regardless of how old or young they were. According to Star, this was a tradition dating back to the Depression era. Mysterious in origin. A way to honor those who came before.
“If we start going, you can jump,” Blue said, still not making any move to grab the waters.
Nimble’s breath hitched in his chest. Only a month before, along the main track in eastern Michigan, a hobo named Strider, a few years older than Nimble, had missed the grab when attempting to swing onto a flatcar in motion and gotten crushed by the trucks before getting both his legs sliced off.
Nimble could still remember the crunch of bones, the hot smell of diesel and grease and salt as Strider’s blood flew up in a red arc in the summer air. The train had rolled for a ways, then squealed to a stop.
People in cars waiting at the railroad crossing had surely seen the whole thing, heard Strider’s screams, and called 911. Which meant that Nimble and Blue and Star had to skedaddle off the train on the other side or get discovered by the local law and thrown in jail.
They’d left Strider’s things where they lay on the lumpy rocks next to the tracks, his dusty backpack a headstone of sorts. A sign of a dishonorable death after hopping trains for years.
Nimble didn’t think anyone would have taken those belongings back to Strider’s family. Strider had been buried in a pauper’s grave, and that was all she wrote.
Which was why, as Nimble leaned close and held up the bottles of water, his chin brushing the cold metal side of the boxcar, he jumped back when he felt the train jerk into motion.
“Take the goddamn waters,” he shouted, flushed with heat, snow melting on his skin.
Blue reached down but was unable to take hold of the waters.
Nimble threw all three bottles just as the zipper on his leather jacket snagged against rusted metal. He stepped clear, picked up the two biscuits, and threw them at Blue as the train began to roll.
“Grab the ladder,” Blue said as he caught the items, cool as the snow falling around his pretty face.
Star peered from behind Blue’s shoulder, wide-eyed and solemn. In another minute he was going to pull out his little black notebook to scribble down how this particular train made unexpected starts and stops.
Nimble was stuck. Palms sweaty, too scared to make a grab, the snow making the worn soles of his oversized army boots slide on the ground, he was fucking stuck.
“Throw me my shit,” he called. “I’ll meet up with you. On the beach. At the pier in Santa Monica.”
That had been their plan, a collective dream to make it to the West Coast for winter, there to bask in the warm air, their toes in the sand, eating something Blue called ceviche, though it sounded too much like raw fish for Nimble’s liking.
“My fucking stuff!” Nimble shouted as the train picked up speed.
Snow fell in his eyes, his neck icy cold even as fury climbed up inside him.
Blue and Star disappeared beyond the edge of the top of the boxcar and did not return as the train headed west, taking Nimble’s green duffel with its extra pairs of socks and briefs, his one other T-shirt, a slice of soap rolled carefully in brown paper, his earplugs, his black bandanna, his baggie of spare coins and folded bills, matches and stubs of candles, his Leatherman multi-tool, his playing cards, and the book Star had loaned him to read that he’d never even opened—everything he had.
Snow billowed in a gray-white cape against the eggshell-white sky and around the metal corners of each boxcar, flatcar, and empty coal car that hustled with metallic clangs past the point where Nimble stood, mouth agape, a scream filling his chest.
All that remained to him were the clothes on his back.
The snow didn’t look like it was slowing down anytime soon.
Which meant that Nimble’s plan of action had to involve heading back into the small town and finding shelter till the storm blew over.
Once the weather cleared, he could think about catching the next freight train out of here.
Without his gear, Nimble felt less conspicuous than he might have, in the snow by the railroad tracks on the edge of town.
But he was conspicuous, that was for sure, because he was standing there like a chucklefuck watching the train pick up speed, snow in his hair, with no idea what he was supposed to do.
Or how he was supposed to get to the West Coast on his own—and who he would punch first when he got there, Blue or Star.
The ripple of anxiety up his back battled with the rage that welled up like a hot fog at the thought of his so-called friends not tossing his things to him.
His ears rang with the blasts of the train whistle as it went over the road crossing: two long, one short, one long, echoing through the falling white curls of frost that were beginning to layer the stark, iron-dark rails.
In the wake of the last boxcar, the snowy air settled until there was not a speck of wind.
Nimble had traveled enough to know how to judge the coming weather from the way the wind blew. This stillness, the snow coming down like a white curtain, meant that the storm was taking a big breath, like a fighter letting go to get a better grip, and that the snow was going to get worse.