I Might As Well Because I Have No Choice Read online

CHAPTER THREE

  When I woke up, it was daylight, and the train was bumping along its train tracks at a good pace. Walking to the door, I could see patches of woods, a stream and miles of wheat fields whizzing by.

  Jaquan sat up straight an asked, "Is that right what you said? We’re partners?"

  "Sure, Partner."

  "Where are we going?"

  "I dunno. Maybe Elizabeth Jersey."

  "I could eat. Boy could I eat."

  "You and me both," I said.

  "Have you been driving rigs for a long time?"

  "Yep. Ever since I was old enough. Worked along with my brother until he was killed. Then on my own for the Big Ridges & Corp."

  "My brother, finally one time he braced a town Marshall."

  The train were slowing a little. Leaning out of the door, I could see the long sweep of the cars ahead as they rounded a curve and started up a steep grade.

  "The marshal told him to pull over and sleep it off. But Sidney, he just went ahead and dragged on."

  "You seen it?"

  "Sure. That Marshall, he walked over and looked at the body, and then he looked up at me, and he said, "Man, I’d no choice. I hope you don’t hold that against me."

  "I blamed that Marshall. Sometimes afterwards, that Marshall met a bullet. And let’s just say it had his name on it for my brother’s death."

  We sat down in the boxcar door and dangled our legs. The sun was warm and pleasant. You could smell coal smoke from the engine and that hot dry smell you get from ripening grain fields. They’d be shoving wheat in no time at all, but I had my fill of that, even though it paid much as driving rigs. I never hunted no kind of work a man couldn’t do from the back of a truck.

  "We’re coming to a town," Jaquan said.

  "Are we? Yep," answering my own question.

  "It seems to me you could get you a path. I mean to say, on a railroad, they tell me when a man ships cattle or rides with cattle, the railroad will give him a path back home."

  "You heard it right. Only I didn’t take to that new clerk back in Chicago. The one I used to know, he was aright. That one’s holding his nuts at a man hate’n. And nobody does that to Barn Mussolini."

  Suddenly footsteps drummed on the freight car top and then a face leaned over above head, looking apake. It was Karl Kellen. He turned around, lowered his feet, then his full length, and swinging by his hands; he swung in and dropped to the floor in the freight car besides us.

  "You could get killed that way," I said.

  He chuckled, "My numbers not up."

  There was a hard reckless light in his eyes that I did not like. Perhaps because they were also lighted with contempt. The way I figured it, a man has no right to hold anybody or anything in contempt. Especially the odds. From time to time, I’d seen a few men die. An I couldn’t bring myself to think there was any special providence looking out for any of us.

  Too me, we work out our destinies subject to a lot of accidents, incidents, and whim. The men I have viewed die, died mostly because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, either they really deserved it. And the kind of men they were mattered none in the least. The good went easily as the bad. The brave as quickly as the cowards.

  As for me, I did what I had to do, what I believed I ought to do, and tried not to take any unnecessary chances. There and there, I’d seen more than one man die showing how brave he was or doing something he was dared to do which didn’t make sense anyway any which way you looked at it.

  Those police back there, they asked about me?" Karl asked us.

  "You know they asked about you Karl."

  "What did they say?"

  "Nothing much. Only they seemed anxious to put them handcuffs on you. If I were you," I said, "I would stay away from few places. And we’re coming into town now."

  "You call that a town?" Karl asked. "That’s nothing but a wide spot in the road. The clowns in a place like that won’t worry me."

  The town clowns. I heard that term given to the constable or Marshall in those little towns. His likes is a good enough sort if you give him a chance and often further we stayed away from Clan Vine graveyards, they were filled with his type.

  "They don’t bother me. I’m packing the difference," Karl said.

  Why do all those would be toughs talk like echoes of each other? How many times have I heard much talk an each one of them like animals in their hideouts, coming out every once in a while emphasizing about what they plan to do? And then like the Reurp Seater gang, they run into a bunch of gangs, small town hoodlums and get shot to rag dolls.

  "That gun your packing is the handle that will open a grave for you on Clan Vine," I told him.

  Jaquan Vessey got up. "Pacino let’s unload and hunt us some grub."

  Karl Kellen chuckled. "You guys on your uppers. Don’t be damn fools. Stick with me and you’ll be rolling in money."

  "You’re riding the same train we are," I said.

  An ugly light came into his eyes. "What I’m doing here is my own business and business is good." He then brought a stone of crystal meth amphetamine from his pocket. "How about that?"

  "Jaquan, there’s a house with a woodpile and two axes," I said. "Let’s you and me see if we can earn our breakfast."

  Jaquan dropped to the roadbed, ran a few steps, then he walked back to meet me. I tossed my gear out into the weeds and dropped off towards the ground myself.

  The last I heard, Karl Killeen saying, "A couple of finks! Just plain bums!"

  "I don’t like that man," Jaquan said.

  Jaquan waited by the woodpile while I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A skinny Irish woman looked at Jaquan and then at my sack.

  "What’s in it?" She asked.

  "My gear ma’am. I’m a rider. But right this minute, I’m riding a two day hunger. There’s a pair of axes and we were wondering if we could earn a meal."

  "Well now, you’re a couple of lads. You heft those axes awhile and I’ll be making up my mind."

  We’d worked a few minutes when she came to the door. "Come off it now!" She called. "Pat will be home for his supper and if he found me making you work for a meal, he’d take the stick to me."

  She brought two big plates piled high with ham hocks, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and seated them down on the stoop.

  "If that’s not enough, knock on the door. Himself is a healthy eater. And I know he’ll make way with twice the lot."