When the sun finally cracked the horizon, bathing the desert in a deceptive, pale gold, the train slowed at a siding. The kid crawled out, stiff but alive. He looked at Artie, who was already lighting a hand-rolled cigarette with steady fingers.
"How do you do it?" the kid asked. "How do you stay out here?" hobo tough
It was mid-November in the High Desert. The temperature had plummeted forty degrees in three hours, turning the air into a razor. Artie was hunkered down in an empty grainer car, the kind with the "suicide" porch—a narrow metal ledge that offered no protection from the wind. When the sun finally cracked the horizon, bathing
As the train crested the mountain pass, a "bull"—a private rail security guard—shined a high-powered spotlight into the car during a slow-down. The kid panicked, looking to jump. "How do you do it
Artie didn't argue. He just moved. He didn't have a heater or a thermal blanket. He had a stack of old Sunday Gazettes he’d scavenged in the last yard.