Free In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck Page A

extended into eternity.
    Mac shook him several times before he could wake up. “It’s nearly time to get off,” Mac shouted.
    Jim sat up. “Good God, have we gone a hundred miles?”
    “Pretty near. Noise kind of drugs you, don’t it. I can’t ever stay awake in a box-car. Pull yourself together. We’re going to slow down in a couple of minutes.”
    Jim held his dull head between his hands for a moment. “I do feel slugged,” he said.
    Mac threw open the door. He called, “Jump the way we’re going, and land running.” He leaped out, and Jim followed him.
    Jim looked at the sun, almost straight overhead. In front of him he could see the clustered houses and the shade trees of a little town. The freight pulled on and left them standing.
    Mac explained, “The railroad branches here. The line we want cuts over that way toward the Torgas Valley. We won’t go through town at all. Let’s jump across the fields and catch the line over there.”
    Jim followed him over a barbed-wire fence and across a stubble field, and into a dirt road. They skirted the edge of the little town, and in half a mile came upon another railroad right-of-way.
    Mac sat down on the embankment and called Jim to sit beside him. “Here’s a good place. There’s lots of cars moving. I don’t know how long we’ll have to wait.” He rolleda brown cigarette. “Jim,” he said. “You ought to take up smoking. It’s a nice social habit. You’ll have to talk to a lot of strangers in your time. I don’t know any quicker way to soften a stranger down than to offer him a smoke, or even to ask him for one. And lots of guys feel insulted if they offer you a cigarette and you don’t take it. You better start.”
    “I guess I will,” said Jim. “I used to smoke with the kids. I wonder if it’d make me sick now.”
    “Try it. Here, I’ll roll one for you.”
    Jim took the cigarette and lighted it. “It tastes pretty good,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten what it tasted like.”
    “Well, even if you don’t like it, it’s a good thing to do in our work. It’s the one little social thing guys in our condition have. Listen, there’s a train coming.” He stood up. “It looks like a freight, too.”
    The train came slowly down the track. “Well, for Christ’ sake!” Mac cried. “Eighty-seven! It’s our own train. They told me in town that train went on south. It must of just dropped off a few cars and then come right out.”
    “Let’s get our old car back,” said Jim. “I liked that car.”
    As it came abreast, they hopped aboard the box-car again. Mac settled into his pile of papers. “We might just as well have stayed asleep.”
    Jim sat in the doorway again, while the train crept into the round brown hills, and through two short tunnels. He could still taste the tobacco in his mouth, and it tasted good. Suddenly he dug in the pocket of his blue denim coat. “Mac,” he cried.
    “Yeah? What?”
    “Here’s a couple of chocolate bars I got last night.”
    Mac took one of the bars and lazily unwrapped it. “I can see you’re going to be an asset in any man’s revolution,” he said.
    In about an hour the drowsiness came upon Jim again. Reluctantly he closed the door of the car and curled up in his papers. Almost instantly he was in the black, roaring cave again, and the sound made dreams of water pouring over him. Vaguely he could see debris and broken bits of wood in the water. And the water bore him down and down into the dark place below dreaming.
    He awakened when Mac shook him. “I bet you’d sleep a week if I’d let you. You’ve put in over twelve hours today.”
    Jim rubbed his eyes hard. “I feel slugged again.”
    “Well, get yourself together. We’re coming into Torgas.”
    “Good God, what time is it?”
    “Somewhere about midnight, I guess. Here we come; you ready to hop?”
    “Sure.”
    “O.K. Come on.”
    The train pulled slowly on away from them. The station of Torgas was only a little way