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Show RIVER and steel boxcars rattling, creaking, and clattering out several different percussion lines, the wind adding a flute part as the train picked up speed till finally the wheels were singing and the whole mad symphony was rolling down the rails. Crossing the Rockies made us appreciate the slow, timeless nature of freight-train travel. The ride was rough as hell, but it had it all over riding a bicycle. We came out of the mountains one evening near Spokane and our train turned south and rumbled through the night toward the Columbia River. When we woke up in the morning, weary and bone battered, we were surrounded by the most godforsaken stretch of desert I've ever seen-and I'm from Utah. There was nothing but drifted sand and a single variety of nasty, brutish, and short sagebrush. Off in the distance we could see the control tower of a railroad yard. We unloaded our bikes and made for it. We spent a long day in Pasco, Washington, waiting for a train to take us to Portland and the sea. I've never been so damn hot in my whole life. The radio said it was 115 degrees in town and the cinder and steel railroad yard beat that by at least ten degrees. Not a breeze stirred, leaving the air was dead as congealing lava, and the very rails seemed ready to melt. The yard was home to the most miserable-looking set of hoboes this side of hell: we lay in whatever shade was available like frying lizards. I met the hobo who had helped us out in Butte. He was surprised to see us and broke into a howl of laughter. We must have been a sight, because I couldn't get a straight word out of him. There was supposed to be a hotshot bound for Portland leaving in the evening, but by two o'clock Rosie and I were crazed by the heat. I yelled up at an engineer passing by in a donkey engine, "Whaf s the next train out of here?" He -117- |