Beggars of Life by Jim Tully

PHILIPPINES
    F OUR of the men left the mail train at Cedar Rapids. Bill and I rode on to Boone with the one-armed man. Having a small amount of money, we purchased food and took it to a hobo camp, where we remained until late afternoon before boarding a freight train for the west.
    The crew saw us climb into an empty box car as the train left the yards, but did not molest us. As it rolled slowly along the tracks, we made ourselves comfortable for the one hundred and forty miles to Omaha.
    We travelled about ten miles across a high viaduct that spanned a great chasm below. Standing at the door of the car, we watched the smoke from the engine curl in black clouds above the green trees that resembled bushes at the bottom of a canyon. Wind-swayed, the trees undulated like the waves of a green ocean.
    The train stopped on the western end of the viaduct and the entire crew came to the box car and attempted to collect money from us. “Pay us, or hit the gravel,” snarled the conductor.
    â€œWe ain’t got nothin’,” said the one-armed man. “Besides, don’t you guys get your wages from the road? Why take a tramp’s money?”
    â€œNever mind that. We ain’t haulin’ live stock,” answered a brakeman.
    Realizing that an open fight would do no good because the train crew was armed, we crawled out of the car.
    The conductor, in an effort to collect a smaller amount, said, “Come on, we’ll let you ride for a buck apiece. Three dollars ain’t too much.”
    â€œNope,” answered Bill, “I wouldn’t give you a cent if you hauled me cheap as a letter. It’s against my principles.”
    â€œHow about you, Red?” asked a brakeman.
    â€œDo you know what the Pope told the Cardinal?” I asked in reply.
    â€œNope,—What?”
    â€œTo go to hell,” I answered.
    The crew’s quest for vagabonds’ riches, ended, a brakeman stood near with a gun while the rest of the men went to their posts. Then the train slowly pulled out, and we watched it merge into distance.
    We walked to a shanty at the end of the viaduct where a man sat in the door whittling a green stick of wood.
    He was about thirty-three years old, with flabby face, black eyes, and flat nose. He wore an army hat, which sat jauntily on the back of his head. His shirt was open, and disclosed an American flag tattooed on his chest.
    â€œHow far’s it back to Boone?” Bill asked.
    The man looked up from his whittling and answered tersely,” ’Bout ten miles.”
    â€˜How far’s it to a town t’other way?” asked the one-armed man.
    â€œâ€™Bout twenty to where a train stops,” answered the man with the flag on his chest.
    â€œWell,” said Bill, “let’s hike across this bridge to Boone.”
    â€œYou can’t do that, Mates. That’s what I’m here for—to let no one cross. Train caught a guy out there in the middle one time, an’ bumped him down in them trees like a dead bird,” said the flag-chested man as he resumed whittling.
    We stood silent for a moment, and he continued, looking up, “A train slows up here to-night, and you might be able to make the rods out on her. She’s a meat run, and travels fast as a mail train. All sealed cars. You might as well stay here, because you’d have to walk five miles so’s to cross an’ hit the pike for Boone, and then you’d have ten or twelve miles by road.” It was easy to be seen that the man was lonely.
    The sun soon sank, and the sky faded to a dull grey. Then a blood red cloudy line appeared along the horizon, and grey clouds, resembling cement castles with turrets, rested upon it. Yellow clouds rolled above the castles, like immense butterflies unable to find a bush upon which to light.
    In a short time all turned scarlet, then purple black, then mauve. At last, dark shadows crept over the earth, and all the colours merged