Afriation Phobia

How many years too late are you? About ninety, wouldn’t you guess? What year is this? Isn’t it nineteen eighty already? Th at must be right, because you were born in forty-fi ve, and you’ve somehow managed to live for thirty-fi ve years. You’re less than a hundred years too late anyway. You’d be hearing the clear voice of that stream trickling not more than forty yards from behind this fence.

Of course, there wouldn’t be any fence. Just you and the stream and a lot more of those fi r trees, cottonwoods, willows, and other saplings whose names you’ve forgotten or never known. Who could ask for better company? Th e sunset concert would be about to start, featuring that stream, accompanied by fi ddling crickets and the harmonies of a good many birds. Th eir songs would fi ll this canyon like an amphitheater. Instead, you have this unaccompanied bass drone of idling diesel locomotives.

You’d have a lot to thank those quiet trees for, wouldn’t you? Th ey’d provide shade during the hot months, a wind break during the rest of the year, and a log cabin over there near the wall of the canyon. If your cabin were already built, it would sure spare you from this mid- September night’s raw wind that’s beginning to make you quiver as if you were riding on an open fl atcar. Th at grove of trees would be donating plenty of dead wood to keep your fi re going all winter. You could just stay put and ignore the bite of this wind that’s trying to warn you and the birds it’s time to migrate.

Of course, all them fi ne-feathered, fair-weathered birds would leave this canyon once the last of the chokecherries, rose hips, huckleberries, and crab apples that have been keeping them and you alive are gone.

But you’d stay here without them if you could manage to pull a fi sh or two from that stream and kill a fur-bearing critter once in awhile for its meat and hide….

Cut it out. Do you really think you could survive a winter in these mountains? Or in any other wilderness?

Probably not today. But maybe you could’ve ninety years ago. A lot more men had wilderness survival skills in the late eighteen hundreds. Either you’d have acquired some of them yourself or you’d be dead by now.

That’s probably it; you’d be dead. You might as well be, anyway, for you’d soon be chased out of here by the fi rst crew that arrived with the dynamite to shape the fl oor of this canyon to the will of the railroad company.

No, you wouldn’t be dead. You’d probably have just crossed that stream and erected a small lean-to in the woods a mile or so from those “No Trespassing” signs. Th ere’d be no cabin for you, though, because you’d still be trespassing on government-grant railroad land. But what else could you do other than trespass? You’d have needed access to that stream....

No, you’d have had to move on. If you’d stuck around here, you’d have seen the men with the dynamite return to make room for the highways. First, they built the two-lane highway that you followed out here from that town, and fi fty years later they built that four-lane interstate whose sparse traffi c you can sometimes hear about eighty yards from that opposite fence. Th en you’d have had to witness the area’s population grow until you found yourself with afriats and irrelevants scampering all around you like this cold wind that’s spooking through this canyon, spoiling what would otherwise be a fair evening. Yeah, you’d have probably been wiser to leave when the wind advised you and the birds to go.

But go where? It’s always “Go where?” Go somewhere else and look for a place where you’re allowed to be. Th at’s nowhere during these times when every place is fenced and everywhere you go you meet another “No Trespassing” sign like the ones along this fence. Either you’re trespassing or somebody is demanding you pay to be somewhere. Can you think of any exceptions? Just public parks, and if you’re not out of them before dark, you’re still a trespasser.

Well, if it’s trespass you must, then trespass you will, but you gotta go trespass somewhere else, because one thing you’re not prepared for is cold weather. Get off the ground. Move around a bit; keep your circulation fl owing. It’s dark enough now to walk back and forth through the tall grass growing alongside the fence. Faster. And rotate your arms. Higher. You’re feeling warmer already. Circulation is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? You’d forgotten how cold the nights can feel in mid-September in these mountains. You’re lucky you’re heading toward the West Coast.

You’d better crouch down now. No sense taking too many chances. Keep hidden from the yard lights. Look east as far as this angle lets you see up the tracks. There’s still no sign of the big headlight on that four engine freight train that’ll pull your frozen carcass out of this windy canyon, through the rest of these mountains, and down into eastern Washington, where winter won’t catch you for a couple more months. Get here, train.

It shouldn’t be much longer now. Didn’t the switchman tell you a west-bounder would be stopping here a little after dark? Of course, they never know very far in advance when the trains will arrive, since trains run more by tonnage than by clock schedules these days. But remember he said it’ll stop to pick up some grain cars. Then it’ll take you within eighty miles of your apple-picking work.

That man sure threw some caution into you when he told you how much the yard bulls have been busting riders lately. Remember, he said they’ve pressed trespassing charges against more riders this summer than any time since the Depression. He said, “Too many migrants are trying to ride again.” Sounds like times are even harder than when you left in a boxcar last June. Of course, you wouldn’t know. You haven’t tried to find work all summer.

He said, “You’d be safer waiting under that bridge at the west end of the yard.”

When you thanked him and said, “I will,” you didn’t mention you’d been down there trying to catch out since dawn. In fourteen hours, only three west-bounders have left this yard, and by the time they reached that bridge, they were all moving too fast for a chicken like you to try to hop.

No, you’re not a chicken. Just cautious. A more seasoned traveler with a lighter pack on his back might have caught a ride near that bridge today, but don’t you risk any limbs. Just catch the train right here where she stops. You can’t afford to miss another one by waiting under that bridge. The night’s not going to get any warmer.…

There’s two long blasts from the whistle of a locomotive. It’s somewhere west of you. Hear how the loud rumble of a moving engine is burying the lower-pitched drones of the idlers? What’s moving? Th ere it is, a single locomotive moving a short string of grain cars to the center of the yard. She’s stopping. Th ere’s two short whistles. Th at means the engine will be leaving those grain cars on that sidetrack, ready for the switchman to join them to the expected train. It’s coming soon, you can bet.

Car headlights! Lie down fl at! A car’s coming up the gravel road. It must have pulled out from that parking area near the dispatcher’s office. Get your head lower.