The Devil_s Workshop

Chapter 13

He's dropping air," Lucky said, after the freight crested the pass. They could hear air brakes hissing, indicating the engineer was slowing for the long downhill grade ahead. The freight crested the pass and began rumbling down the northern range of the Black Hills. The diesel engine was a big black-and-orange SD 45-2 high-hood road locomotive. "These were used by the Denver Rio Grande Railroad for long hauls," Lucky said, realizing that probably meant it was a "mixed" train containing a variety of different kinds of cars. Lucky was "scoping the drag," looking for one that would be easy for Mike to board with his broken ribs. Thankfully, the onset of D. T. S had subsided for the moment, killed by the exertion of climbing the rugged terrain to the rail, or by the earlier jolt of adrenaline as he watched the two soldiers die. But Lucky's stomach was rolling. For the last hour he'd felt as if he was about to throw up.

They were in a perfect place to catch out. The train had slowed to five miles an hour at the mountain pass. Lucky and Mike were crouched low, out of sight, as the big yellow MoPac diesel rumbled by. Then came a long line of piggyback cars, known as "pigs." Lucky was looking for a sleeper, because often one was left between two long lines of the same kind of cars. Not this time. The fifteen pigs rumbled past immediately followed by twenty stack cars, not good for hoboing. The double-decker stacks were thickly loaded with huge metal containers, which often shifted and had crushed more than one sleeping 'bo. Then came a dozen closed grainers, followed by a line of gondolas.

"About to get boned here," Lucky murmured. "Shoulda caught one a' them pigs."

They were running out of train when he finally saw a few "ledged grainers" coming toward them. They were old cars, not very common anymore, characterized by a narrow ledge on each end just wide enough to sit on. It wasn't the best option, but at least it was an easy car to get on.

"Okay, let's take the green one, second old grainer after the row of reds," Lucky said. He held his hands out in front of him to check his nerves. His hands were shaking badly. "Shit, these fuckers are comin' back," he muttered.

Mike didn't answer. When Lucky looked over at him he saw a strange, troubled look in Hollywood Mike's eyes.

"Let's go!" Lucky said. They took off running up the tracks. Lucky sprinted along next to the car, trying to find his coordination, which was just about lost now. He was feeling awkward, as his neurons and muscles trembled inside his body, on the verge of turning on him, attacking his voluntary nervous system. Lucky grabbed the ladder handle with his left hand and swung himself up onto the small ledge at the back of the car. He moved over as Mike grabbed the handle, gritting his teeth in pain. Lucky grabbed Mike's shirt, and with great effort, finally hauled him aboard.

They were now sitting backward, looking at the front of the grain car behind them. The tracks were flashing past; under their feet the huge metal coupling was groaning and creaking with the changing stress of the car.

"How's the ribs?" Lucky asked, his own nerves rioting in his alcohol-ravaged system. Again, Mike didn't answer.

The train had crested the peak at the top of the grade and was now picking up speed, heading downhill.

The ledge they were on was only two feet wide. If they fell off, they would land in the space between the cars and be run over and maimed, if not killed, by the car behind.

Lucky sat with his feet dangling, looking at the back of Mike's head. "You okay?" he asked.

Mike spun his head around. "Stop askin'. You're not in charge a' me," he snapped.

Now Lucky could see a shiny menacing glare in Mike's eyes that he had never seen before. "Calm down," he said. "I was just-"

"Screw you," Mike said, and then without warning the train went into a tunnel, and they were both in diesel-choking, inky blackness.

"Been through this tunnel before," Lucky screamed over the echoed racket. "Only a mile long. Hold yer breath."

"Shut the fuck up," Mike screamed back.

Suddenly and strangely, Lucky could feel Mike's hands clawing at him in the dark.

"Whatta you doin'?" Lucky yelled, knocking Mike's hands away. "Don't screw around. Dangerous back here." There was no light at all, and worse still, the tunnel was becoming thick with throat-closing exhaust.

"Fuck you!" Mike screamed. Then Mike's hands were back up by Lucky's throat. Before Lucky could defend himself, Mike had him in a strangulation grip, and was squeezing hard, shutting off Lucky's air supply.

"The fuck you doin'?" Lucky croaked, letting go of valuable air. He could hear Mike's teeth snapping close by his ear. His friend was actually trying to bite him! "Leggo! Leggo me!" Lucky protested, inhaling heavy diesel smoke that was closing his constricted windpipe.

Lucky did not want to hit Mike, but he was beginning to feel his consciousness dimming. He couldn't see anything in the black tunnel. Finally, in desperation, he swung a short-chopping right hand in the general direction of where he thought Mike's busted ribs were. He landed the blow and heard Mike scream in pain. Mike's grip on his neck loosened slightly, and Lucky inhaled another quick breath of lung-choking smoke. They were struggling in the pitch black, fighting each other on the narrow ledge. Lucky was trying to save his own life without throwing Mike off the grainer and under the steel wheels.

He couldn't fathom why Mike was attacking him. The noise of the train was magnified in the tunnel, but over the racket Lucky could hear Mike screaming, "You're dead, fucker!"

Once Lucky had pried Mike's hands off his neck, he instinctively fell back on his old Marine Special Forces Recon training. Instead of pushing Mike away, he pulled him closer, encircling Mike's trunk with both arms. Fueled by adrenaline from the unexpected attack, Lucky began to squeeze Mike hard, using as much force as he could. Mike screamed as his broken ribs shot pain through his torso, then Lucky head-butted him.

They flashed back out of the tunnel into pale moonlight. Overhead lights attached to a parallel trestle strobed over them. Lucky now spun Mike away from him and quickly looped an arm around Mike's throat. As he struggled and fought, Lucky choked him out, compressing his carotid arteries until Mike was unconscious. Then Lucky held his slumped friend tight, so he wouldn't fall off the narrow platform.

"What the fuck?" he screamed at the twenty-two-year-old. "I'm your friend, dammit. Whatta you doing?"

Mike couldn't respond.

Exhausted, Lucky finally stood up with shaking legs on the rocking platform, then dragged his friend across the ledge and laid him down. Lucky took Mike's pulse. It was uneven. He sat back and tried to clear his lungs of diesel smoke. He prayed he hadn't crushed Hollywood Mike's larynx. Then he saw the first bug. It was crawling up his arm, under his shirt. "Get the hell off me!" Lucky wailed, beating at the hallucinatory insect. They were coming now. He could feel them crawling up his neck. They were in his scalp, going for his eyes.

Mike was regaining consciousness, but he seemed unable to talk and was having difficulty swallowing. He was lying flat on the ledge of the grain car, with spit drooling out of his mouth. Lucky was beginning to think he had done some life-threatening damage.

"What the fuck's wrong with you, man?" Lucky asked. He tried to tell himself the bugs were imaginary but was, nonetheless, raking stiff fingers through his hair, trying to clear his scalp of the crawling bastards.

Hollywood Mike still couldn't answer. Worse still, his gaze was unfocused, and when he looked at Lucky it was with vacant, glassy eyes.

The sun had not appeared above the horizon, but already it was lighting the eastern sky. Lucky could see the ribbon of cars stretching out before him as the train, still heading down the slope, made a long gradual turn. Off in the distance Lucky could see a ravine with a big metal trellis. The rumbling diesel engine was a quarter of a mile ahead, just crossing the ravine. Then Lucky sat down with his back to the car and began to whimper. He felt bugs crawling on his face. He saw them moving under his T-shirt. "Nooo…" he wailed. "Go away, I can't take this." He began slapping at himself, trying to get them off, while Mike lay close to death on the ledge beside him.

Unexpectedly, Mike went into a huge spastic convulsion. Lucky jumped back, startled, and watched in horror as his friend spasmed uncontrollably on the narrow ledge.

"Fuck, man!" Lucky screamed, "Fuck… oh fuck. We're getting off!" he yelled.

Lucky needed to slow the train in order to jump. To do this, he knew he had to cut the air on the car. Once the air line was cut, the brakes on the center section of the train would automatically come on, slowing the entire train.

Lucky pulled out an old pocketknife and crouched down with his feet on the uncoupling lever, one arm holding on to the coupler, as the track strobed by beneath him. With his life hanging suspended above the tracks and his heart beating wildly, the bugs disappeared. Lucky didn't know what part of his subconscious was driving him, but at least the D. T. S had been washed away by his pumping adrenaline. He quickly grabbed the rubber air line with his right hand and slashed it. It whipped all around the uncoupling lever where he was precariously perched, slapping his face like an unattended garden hose. As he crawled back onto the grainer's narrow ledge, he heard the brakes come on under the car. The train slowed slightly.

They were now crossing the trestle. He looked down at a thousand-foot drop below the tracks through the open metal rails. When Lucky pulled Mike up into a sitting position, more spit drooled out of his mouth and down his shirt. Mike coughed, but said nothing. His eyes seemed cloudy and distant now, almost as if he had already passed on.

The train was going only ten miles an hour as they came off the trestle. Lucky knew the engineer would stop somewhere down the line and check the cars for the broken air hose, but he needed to get Mike off now.

He stood Mike up and grabbed him in a fireman's carry. Then Lucky took a deep breath and two running steps, leaping off the grainer with Mike over his shoulder. He was trying to get as far out from the wheels as possible, sacrificing himself by landing on his feet instead of taking his patented bone-saving roll. He hopped once, feeling his knees jam. The pain shot up his thighs. He went down, still holding Mike over his shoulder, trying to keep Mike's head from banging into the hard ground. He rolled once and came to a stop.

Mike's eyes were open, but were now like no eyes Lucky had ever seen on a living person. He was conscious, but it was as if nobody was in there, as if Mike's soul had disappeared.

Lucky sat up and saw that he was in a small switching yard. The sun was peeking up over the horizon. Off to his right was a very small town, only a couple of buildings and a store. The town probably supplied the switching station.

Lucky hoped there was a doctor nearby, and a bottle. Christ, I need a bottle, he thought. He couldn't deal with the bugs, not now, not with Mike dying.