Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 6 6 So we waited, huddled in the boxcar, sitting against unwieldy sacks of gypsum, as the afternoon turned to evening. We lis- tened to the sound of the cars going clickety-clack over the rails, carrying us ever farther from home. There may have been tears. We knew we were in trouble. Eventually, after what might have been countless hours for all we knew, we felt the train slowing. We had heard stories about the fearsome "Yard Bulls" that stalked the rail cars looking for stowaways. Due to some defi- ciency of their childhoods, these burly brutes took unwholesome pleasure in beating up the poor innocent hobos. And now that we had unwittingly realized our dream of becoming hobos our- selves, we concluded that we were in for it. "This here's a matter of life and death," Tom told me solemnly. "Whoever or whatever opens that door, we gotta run like hell if we don't want to get arrested, beat up, or," and now his eyes narrowed in the darkness, "even shot." We pulled into some unknown destination hungry, thirsty, scared, and with no idea where we were. For my part, I thought we could be in Oklahoma or Texas by now. Then, with a clattering bang, the side door of the boxcar opened, and we found ourselves face-to-face with an enormous simian cranium from which dangled a jowly frown and a cigarette. "This is it!" Tom hollered, already ducking under the man's arm and into the night. "Scatter or die, every man for himself!" Sheer instinct took over. I ran, pumping my arms and legs as fast as they would carry me. In the dim and dusky light, I could just make out a treeline and bolted for it. If I couldn't be a hobo, I'd be a forest hermit. To say that big ape was winded when he caught up with me would be an understatement. Tom was a year and a month older than me, which made him that much more shrewd and elusive, but in the interest of cama- raderie, solidarity, or pity, he turned himself in shortly after. Twisting our ears for making him run for the first time in a decade, the Yard Bull escorted us to his office, interrogated us under hot lights until we gave him our phone numbers, and dialed my house. I could hear Dad bellowing through the receiver from all the way on the other side of the room. "They're where? Harlowton?" I suppose there was a slight note of relief apparent in his voice, even at that volume, but I'm still glad he had 75 miles of tranquil, scenic driving to cool him off before he picked us up. I counted myself lucky that the Yard Bull hadn't obliterated us, but I steeled myself for the wrath of an angry father, arguably worse as he was less likely to tan my hide than to say those dreaded words, "I'm disappointed in you, son." But it turned out that he was calm by the time he arrived. He even took us to the Tastee-Freez for cheeseburgers and milk- shakes before we set out for home. As we sat in the cab of his truck, he turned to look at me, tousling the hair on my head. "Don't think this doesn't mean you aren't grounded for the rest of your life, boy," he said with a mouth full of burger. That only lasted until the afternoon of the next day, at which point he forgot, or at least got irritated at me being underfoot, moping around the house. Regardless, he sent me out into the golden sunlight to play. And as I dashed down the dirt road to Tom's house (I had to see how he had fared in his punishment, after all), I was once again daydreaming about the future, plotting once more for a prosper- ous, fulfilling career as a gentleman hobo. In that situation, as in others since, if there was a lesson to be gleaned, I carefully resisted gleaning it. RATHER, IT RAN THROUGH MONTANA A LITTLE FURTHER SOUTH. THE BIG STAGING YARD WAS IN HARLOWTON, SOME 70 MILES AWAY BY TRAIN. An electric engine from the Milwaukee Road on display in Harlowton The Harlowton rail yard LEWISTOWN WAS NOT ON THE MILWAUKEE ROAD MAINLINE.

• Cover