Cornered in Yakima and On to Seattle

The railyard in Yakima was small, but then Yakima was a small town. There was a crummy, run-down station and not much of anything around the place except scrubby trees. The main part of town was a good half mile away. It was almost like the founding fathers decided they were going to grow their town and built the railroad on what they thought might eventually be the edge of town. Seemed kind of backwards to Harley. He thought they would want the transportation close to the heart of the city. However, that remote location would probably make it easier to get on the train without being seen. There were not a lot of other men riding this direction. Maybe most of them went to California after all, in spite of the dangers. No wonder the ranchers up here needed help. There was not going to be much competition for any available work, that was for sure.

The men slept in an unoccupied old coach house that had been used more recently as a barn, behind a large home on the west side of town. It was the closest inhabited place to the rail station and appeared to be occupied by an older couple. The house had seen better days. Harley didn’t see any signs of kids’ toys and there were old-fashioned curtains in the windows. The paint on the house was looking neglected and the garden was too small to feed more than two people. Clarence and Leo were sure an elderly couple would be generous if asked for food. Maybe they were from a logging family or trappers, or even gold miners. Wherever they acquired their riches, it seemed like the house and property were on the decline. Perhaps their children had left home and they were too old to take care of the property. The men could maybe do some odd jobs for them and get another home-cooked meal before they got to Chelan.

Brushing large cobwebs out of the doorway, Ed led them into the building that was just south of the main house. There was a loft in the top, but the wooden ladder leading up to it had disintegrated and there was no alternate way to get up there. The only reason to go up to the loft would be to perhaps find some straw to cushion their sleep a bit, or to be up off the bare ground. It seemed pretty dry all around the building and the patch grass was about three feet tall. They were leery of starting a campfire because they were pretty sure the folks in the house didn’t know they had visitors in the coach house. They were hoping to avoid having the sheriff show up and shoo them off, so the hobos decided to lay low for the night and approach the house in the morning, to maybe beg for a little breakfast or do some simple work.

The men all rolled out their bindles and slept on the dirt floor of the coach house. Harley had seen plenty of buildings like this on the wealthy side of town in Des Moines. Most of those were made of stone, but this one had was wood frame construction. These large structures used to stable the horses that pulled the carriages of the rich people. Later, with the introduction of motor vehicles, the horses were replaced with gasoline-powered automobiles. However, as he spread his bindle on the ground, Harley found the aroma of the horses still in the earth beneath him. That did not warrant even a slight comment from the Iowa farm boy, but the rest of the fellas had plenty to say about it. Somehow, eventually, they all fell asleep.

The barking dog wakened them. It was not simply barking; it was snarling, snapping, howling…all at the same time. It sounded to Harley like a one dog massacre. He ventured over to the door to peek through the one of the dirt encrusted windows on the door. Yep, it was a large dog. And it was right outside the door. They weren’t going to get breakfast any time soon.

“What is that, a pack of wolves?” shouted Adam from where he was peeing, in the far dusty corner of the coach house. Hearing his raised voice from inside, the furious dog started clawing at the door, and barking even louder.

“Nope,” Harley hollered back, “just one dog, but it looks like it could be part wolf.” Hearing his voice right on the other side of the door, now the dog was determined to tear it down. Fortunately for the trapped men, it was a sturdy door, but the clawing gained in intensity.

Then came a sharp, high-pitched whistle; the kind you make with your two fingers between your teeth. The barking stopped. Everything was silent, except for the footsteps Harley heard crunching through the high dry grass.

A man’s voice queried of the dog, “What ya got in there, Fang? Got a coon trapped, maybe a fox? Hope it’s not a bear. I ain’t openin’ the door if it’s a bear. Lemme get a look. Back up so I can get a peek in there.”

Quickly, there was an old man’s face staring at Harley through the window.

Harley thought perhaps he should duck down fast so as not to be seen, but he wasn’t quick enough. Then he realized that if the man did not see him, he might open the door and let the dog in to get the critter. Harley didn’t want the dog set loose on them, especially since he was the one right by the door!

He had to speak up. “Hey, mister. Please don’t open the door. We bums just slept the night here. Didn’t mean any harm, honest. We’ll be leaving right away on the train. Promise.”

The man looked square at him. “Ya cornered yerself some bindle stiffs, Fang. I’ll be darned! Ain’t never had no hobos here.”

“We’ll leave, honest, sir,” Harley said again. He put his hands together up in front of the window, like he was praying. He did not want that dog let in. He could hear the dog start clawing at the bottom edge of the door this time and sniffing really hard.

“Don’t reckon I need to turn the dog loose on ya, huh?” asked the old guy.

“No sir! Please don’t. We don’t mean any harm. We just wanted to sleep inside somewhere last night. We were going to leave right away this morning. There’s five of us and we are packin’ up our bindles right now. Just don’t let the dog loose, please!”

“Whatcha doin’ in Yakima? How come you ain’t in California with the rest of the bums?” the old man demanded.

“I got an uncle who lives in Chelan. He’s got a ranch. We are going there to work for him. I swear,” Harley said through the crack. He was still eyeball to eyeball with the old man, with just a pane of dirty glass separating them. He noticed then that the man had a shotgun in his left hand.

“No need to be swearing, young man. I’ll put the dog in the house again, then I want to see all of you before you leave. Don’t be sneakin’ off. I’ll be right back,” the old man cautioned.

He turned and left, taking the wolf dog with him. Harley let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Good thing you talk so good,” said Leo. “You really saved us on that one.”

“Are we waitin’ for him to come back?” asked Ed.

“I gotta get my stuff together. I figure we ought to wait at least as long as that takes me,” Harley said, noticing the rest of the men, besides Leo, were standing at the back door of the coach house with their bindles ready to go. “That old guy has a gun and I don’t want to get shot in the back if he comes out and it looks like we are running away. If you fellas wanna look like criminals and run away, I can’t stop you.”

“Oh, hell,” Adam exclaimed, “we’ll wait, but he better not take too long. I want to get on a train. This place ain’t no good no more.”

The old man was already crunching through the grass by the time they all gathered together by the two big front doors of the coach house. He had a burlap sack in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other hand. Harley saw him first.

“He’s bringin’ us coffee!” Harley exclaimed.

The man heard Harley and added, “I got homemade biscuits in the bag for ya, too.”

He stepped into the doorway and handed Harley the bag.

“Ya got coffee cups, don’t ya?” asked the old man. The bums scrambled through their bindles for the cups they each had. In a flash, they all had a hot cup of coffee. They sat back down on their bindles and Harley handed out the huge biscuits. There were two for each man, with one left over. “I wasn’t sure how many were hidin’ in here, but I thought you said there was five of ya. I stuck an extra one in there for me. Gimme it.” He grabbed the last biscuit and the bag from Harley, adding, “My wife wants the bag back.”

“This is mighty generous of you,” said Clarence, who was speaking up for the first time this morning. “Mighty generous, I’d say.”

The other four men murmured, “Thank you,” almost in unison. Ed said it a couple of times.

“Me and my wife is happy to help you out. My brother’s farm went belly up a year ago. We managed to hang onto this place, but he had to hit the rails like you fellas. We ain’t heard from him since he left. Just hoping he ain’t dead, ya know?”

The generous man was a compassionate man. Harley figured he was doing for them with the biscuits and coffee like he hoped someone would do for his brother.

“I’ll bet he’s okay, sir,” Harley replied. “I’ll bet he’s saving up his money and will be home real soon.”

Clarence spoke next, “We need to be taking off, Harley. Those trains stop in this town a couple of times in the morning and then there won’t be any more until late tonight. Let’s get to Chelan.”

The old man took the coffee pot from Leo. Harley thanked him again, and then all the other fellas chimed in with their additional gratitude. It was the first time anyone had given them food without them having to ask or beg for it; they didn’t even have to work for it.

Their timing was perfect. It seemed like the train, unguarded in this remote little city, was sitting there waiting just for them. It could not have been more perfect. They climbed up and into the train. It pulled out almost immediately. Next stop Seattle, and then Chelan.

They would be in Seattle before dark. Summer was making the days longer, and it was getting warmer every day. They still needed their bindles for sleeping in the cool evening temperatures and spent their time in the rail car shaking them out and sorting their belongings. Pretty much like a spring cleaning, but without the house. No one found anything special in their stuff. Harley found a stamped envelope and some sheets of paper, but he had no writing utensil to use for his letter home. When he asked if anyone of the fellas had a pencil, Ed and Adam rolled over laughing in the back of the boxcar.

“That’s real funny, kid. What the hell would we do with a pencil? We can’t write. Hell, we can’t even read!”

Harley wanted to tell them that he did not think that was a laughing matter, not being able to read or write, but they were his friends now, so he let it slide. His mother had told him that he would run into many people who did not know the value of education. That’s why his quest for college remained a secret from the other rail riders.

Seattle came quickly because there was only one stop between there and Yakima. Seattle was a large railyard, and it took them about forty-five minutes to find a remote track and one without bulls. It took another hour to figure out the right train. There were not a ton of bums up here, but the bulls were always somewhere. When they found the right train, Harley would walk close enough to the station door to see the schedule, He would figure out when that train was leaving and then the men timed their last bathroom trip and got settled in a box car. There was no cover of trees or woods near these bigger cities, so they had to just get on the boxcar and hide. It was usually safe to get on one that had wooden crates or large trunks on it. They were less likely to pack last minute cargo on one of those, and it was easy for the men to conceal themselves.

Harley has so anxious to get to Chelan and then the next thirty miles to the ranch. In Iowa, the towns were not so spread out. It was hard to imagine a ranch with the address of a town that was thirty miles away. It was crazy, but things were about to get a lot crazier than that.