Free Two in the Field by Darryl Brock

didn’t know. Brakemen signaled to each other across the yard, their lanterns swinging clockwise at times, counterclockwise others. Twice they popped up so near that we had to duck beneath cars. Staring up between the great wheels at the oil-grimed bottom so close overhead, I felt claustrophobic.
    “Spotters all over the yard,” Slack whispered as we crawled out again. “They get their damn bounties if we get our heads busted.”
    “Look out!”
He lunged forward an instant after we’d stepped onto the adjacent track. I wheeled and nearly froze. Looming like a house in the blackness, moving with lethal silence on the rails, a flatcar piled with timber was practically on top of me. I threw myself backward and hit hard, the gravel raking my neck as I jackknifed my legs to avoid amputation by the wheels. With a shudder I watched the car roll on across the dark yard like a ghost.
    “What the hell was
that?”
    Slack pointed to a low knoll. “The hump. They use it to separate cars by gravity. Gotta keep your eyes open.”
    Tell me about it
.
    We found our train and moved along the boxcars; the doors were secured with chains. Slack looked discouraged; only two cars remained before the caboose. Then he discovered that the door of the next one was open a few inches. Through the slit I could make out bags of grain. Slack reached up with what lookedlike a grappling hook attached to his fishplate. The effort made him groan. I helped him widen the gap, then boosted him up and followed him inside.
    I peered into the gloom. “We alone?”
    “First lesson is never climb in a car with tramps unless you know some of ’em or you got a weapon.” Hook poised, Slack made sure nobody was among the bags. “Shut the door, Sam.”
    I did so after peeking outside.
    “Anybody around?”
    “Hard to know,” I said. “Soon as I think I see something, it vanishes.”
    “This is almost too good.” He explained that the smoothest-riding cars were generally near the front or the rear, and situated between loaded cars to reduce the jolts. “All set up for us. Soft bags to spread out on. Nobody else here.”
    “You think it’s a trap?”
    “One side open, the other sealed,” he mused. “It stinks of Brawley.”
    “Should we get out?”
    “No use runnin’. If it’s a setup, they’ll be waitin’.” He beckoned me to the opposite door; with the fishplate we forced it open to the length of the chain outside, a gap of some ten inches. “Now we got a safety hole,” he said. “Wouldn’t be time to work it open if they came in after us.”
    We waited in silence. I thought I heard sounds outside.
    “Dogs are the worst,” he whispered. “Once in Chicago I got chased by a pack.”
    Christ, what were we doing?
    The couplings groaned and the car suddenly lurched forward. I fell sprawling into the bags. Slack, who had braced himself, watched the door closely as we began to move. “If Brawley’s coming, it’ll be now,” he whispered. “Either storm inside or lockus in and leave things to his toughs once we’re out of town.” He made a shoving motion. “Papers’ll say TRAMPS IN FATAL PLUNGE, but those wise to the road will know what happened.”
    We froze as heavy footfalls sounded outside and lantern light shone through the slit in the doorway we’d entered. Alert for the rattle of a chain being fastened, instead I heard a rumble and the heavy door begin to slide open.
    “This is the one, boys!” a voice said.
    “Go!” Slack hissed. He pulled his whiskey bottle from his pack and hurled it at the door. It exploded in a shower of glass and brought a curse outside. “Go now!”
    For a terrible instant I was stuck. Slack shoved me violently. I popped through like a cork and tumbled again on the gravel bed. I was halfway to my feet when Slack landed on top of me.
    “Got the bastards covered!”
a voice roared in the darkness nearby.
“Out here!”
    With his hook at the ready, Slack handed me the fishplate so that we each had a