THE MAN IN THE STRANGER'S GRAVE
by Eugene Hutchinson Mallory 2 (EHM 2)
A fictional account of William Sidel's death.

     This is a story of a railroad boomer. One of the men who came to old Iowa
and laid the rails that lifted her out of the famous Iowa mud. They brought
every farm within five miles of their rails and moved on to new lines and
faster trains. As these men were apt to do, this man married before moving on
and I knew him as the man in the strangers grave on my mother's family lot in
the local cemetery.

     Like so many of his kind he died on the rails and came to lie in a
strangers grave. I came to know this strangers tale and I tell it as well as I
can. As a child of her second marriage I never heard my mother mention his
name.

     The year was 1904. Not a good year for the overbuilt Midwestern railroads
or the ever-distressed farmer either.

     The Missouri Pacific Red Ball freight was two hours out on a night run
west. The nearly new Baldwin 4-8-2, burning clean Colorado coal, was really
showing what it could do.

     Conductor William Sidel was riding the high seat in the cupola of the
darkened caboose and pondering what he should do with his upside down life in
general. First as a boomer brakeman, so called because he and many other bold
young men, had followed the railroad expansion of the late 1800's wherever the
new rails led. Always moving on to new runs, new towns.

     Then a bit of lunch, and a bit of the old blarney, and he had his own
train in the Hampton, Algona and Western, riding the varnish, not a crummy
caboose. Even if the varnish was only an old combination coach; half seats,
half mail and baggage, and his little conductor cubby hole. The coach had to be
there to satisfy the franchise and he had trundled it up and down the 90 miles
of light weight rail that was all the Hampton, Algona and Western ever amounted
to. No matter that many grand names had been painted over or that the old coach
was hung on the end of an untidy string of freight cars and seldom exceeded 20
miles per hour, it was varnish.

     A perfect old man's job, while he was still young, had perhaps made him
old in too few years. God Forbid!

     But why was he uneasy on this perfect prairie night? True, when he had
totaled his manifests, the weight of this train had shocked him, and now, his
certified reliable watch said they had covered 40 miles of track in the last
hour. Things had changed while he had vegetated on the "branch" as the Hampton,
Algona and Western was always called. Now it was a branch. Another proud name
painted over on the old coach. Just an Iowa Central Branch and an Iowa Central
old timer had promptly bumped William Sidel from his cushy job.

     Here he was glad the office and his crew didn't know he had never been in
charge of as fast and heavy a train as this. But then, few people had. The
Baldwin man in the cab proved that. He was there to see what the new high
pressure engine would do on the long slow rise from the Missouri to the high
plains.

     But he, William Sidel, was responsible for this monster of a train.
Responsible, too, for a wife and a child to come. The easy life on the branch
had led to that too. Waving to the neighborly people. Chatting with the few
riders going a few miles in the old coach. Soon the school teacher stood in the
window and waved with her hands behind her back so the students wouldn't see.
See what that had led to! Now he was leaving her behind at nearly 50 miles per
hour and lucky he was in charge and not riding the rods or cowering in an
empty.

     The hard times that had finished the Hampton, Algona and Western had put
many hard and bitter men to riding the freights to search for that Big Rock
Candy Mountain.

     Not that the Hampton, Algona and Western need much to kill it off.
Probably it was never meant to survive. The Iowa Central wanted the first 70
miles as a link between its two main lines, so they put up a little real money
and got Tim Branan to promote and sell stock and even put up some of his own
money. Sidel thought he was pretty smart, buying five puny shares. He put up a
month's pay to get a conductor's job. He thought the Central was in on the
Milwaukee's refusal of a connection and even a crossover in Algona.

     So, our railroad ended in an open field on the outside of Algona and no
Western at all. Just a water tank, a turning Y, a primitive engine house a tiny
station, and that coal chute. The only exciting thing on the branch.

     The chute was a steeply inclined trestle work, high enough that coal
shoveled over the side of a car into a bin was high enough to slide into the
tender. High enough, that is, if the little old engine was in the mood to push
a car up there. There was enough track past the chute so that a couple of
empties could be left there. Every third carload and extra trip was made to
bring the empties down.

     He had never forgotten the day that Flanagan started up with a carload
when there were three empties already up there. The only time Algona knew we
were out there was when a car went up or down. You could hear that old engine
snort for a mile. Not a thing could be done about it. No use to holler, just
watch the empty go over the end. Flanagan got set down for a while. The new
man, off the Central board, took a look at the contraption and said, "Well, I
heard he was drunk, now I know he was!" The new man took it up though. It was
that or load coal with baskets or walk the ties.

     "Hell of a way to run a railroad. Hell of a way for the Central to get a
cheap line. Swindled the stockholders, swindled Branan, swindled me, and they
will swindle the bastards that took my job, too," mused Sidel.

     Sidel came back to reality with a sudden jolt of fear. He smelled fire. A
hot box at this speed could burn off an axle in a hurry and pile up hundreds of
tons of splintered wood, tangled iron and smashed freight. Almost at once he
realized that the fire was not a hot box, but a hobo fire in a little patch of
brush near a culvert.

     The shock broke the mood. Why was he woolgathering in the dark about the
pokey old branch. Here he was with a fast train, a clear track, perfect
weather, a harvest moon, and a million stars. How often he had longed for the
excitement of the good old days. This was better, this was his train.

     Sidel swung down from the dark into the cone of yellow light below the big
circular tin shade of the caboose lamp. He came down lightly enough to be a
young man and by first glance was astoundingly young for a conductor. A further
glance showed neither a young man or a youthful middle-aged man, perhaps an old
young man. The light brown wavy hair was just a little dulled and faded, the
blue eyes too. A shrewd observer would have known the hair was thinned a bit on
top beneath the striped denim cap. A face that had aged, however unwillingly,
but had not achieved the solidity and maturity of early middle age. Cold
comfort as that might have been for the loss of the effervescence and vigor of
youth or the sheer physical charm of this man. The lack of maturity and settled
purpose plainly showed and not to advantage.

     Jack Scott, the rear brakeman, was a startling contrast. Much the same
size, build and real age, his face had long ago settled into hard sour
solidity. The face of a man who took what he could, gave only what could be
required of him, and thought anyone who did otherwise was a fool. He did wonder
sometimes in a dim way why he found life such a miserable affair, but not to
any effect. Not a pair of men designed for easy friendship.

     Jack spoke first. "What ya see up there? Are we lousy?"

     "Not a soul, just a lot of moonlight."

     "That fracas in the yards must have scared em off for a while."

     Sidel did not answer. He was not pleased by this approval of 'that
francas'. Some hobos had shown fight. The yard dicks had used their guns and
gut shot men had died in agony on the cinders of the yards. He had never
believed the contest between the men who would ride for free and the men
supposed to keep them off warranted the use of weapons as coldly lethal as a
gun. A man forced off a speeding train could be killed, but he had a good
chance. They could be killed trying to get on a moving train too. They knew
that when they decided to get aboard. Their choice all the way, but a gun.

     Sidel finally spoke, "I'm going up to the head end. I'll send Fred back."

     Jack answered with an edge in his voice. "Better wait a bit. The grade
gets stiffer soon. That will slow her down some. It's pretty lively out there.
It ain't your parlor car aisle you know."

     Sidel suppressed a chuckle. If Jack could see that old combination coach.
However, Sidel just said," When we hit the grade, I'm libel to get a face full
of smoke and cinders. I'll go now."

     He started for the door, then stopped and picked a hickory brake stick off
the rack. A stick heavy enough that a man could put it through the spokes of a
hand brake and put his back into it.

     "You going to stop us with that?"

     "We're not going to stop, but I could have some passengers who don't like
the accommodations. If so, it might help persuade them to get off."

     Jack's look of contempt at the weapon confirmed a building suspicion. Jack
probably was carrying a gun, a derringer, no doubt. A breach of the rules. Like
a ship captain, the conductor was the one authorized to carry a gun, and he was
not, never had.

     He thought of bracing Jack with this charge, but decided not tonight, why
spoil the run.

     If that suspicious bulge was a sneak gun, and Jack had enough enemies to
warrant carrying it, someone might well get on Jack's train, not looking for a
ride, but looking for Jack. I'd like Jack better on somebody else's train. I'll
deal with him later. This is my night to be the railroad man I thought I was,
up there in the sloughs of northwest Iowa.

     Sidel stepped out onto the front platform of the caboose. Glad to leave
the unconquerable aroma of kerosene flavored with the ancient tobacco and
equally ancient sweat. Outside, the early fall air had nearly the sensuous
balmy feeling of the first spring thaws.

     He was relieved to be free of Jack's company and potential problem, as
well as the stink of the caboose. Turning he slung the brake stick over his
shoulder on its thong, and mounted to the top of the train. Standing on the
three board catwalk, he paused to get the feel of the sway wiggle and bounce of
the car. The wind of passage was strong, but steady. Holding the heavy hickory
in front with both hands, he took a tentative step or two and was pleased to
feel the old skill coming back. Once learned, never forgotten. Now to work.

     Moving steadily forward, leaning on the wind, the muscles and nerves of
his legs and body checked for abnormal motion underfoot that would indicate
trouble in the trunks or structure. His ears searched the rattle, bangs and
squeaks of the tail end sound. The sound that tells the dedicated train watcher
that the end is coming, long before he can see the caboose. It was O.K. He
heard no sound of dragging parts or other problems. His nose, ever alert for
the acrid reek of smoldering cotton wadding and scorched grease that means a
hot box, gave no bad news.

     All this was largely automatic leaving him time to be aware of the idyllic
scene. The moonlight was silver, bright enough to yellow the headlight beam far
ahead. The steam from the stack was heavy, lazy and rolling low, sometimes
tumbling on the grass of the shadowy prairie. Not a flat plain, but a rolling
country. He could smell the sweet aroma of the maturing grass and once the
powerful, unforgettable odor of new mown hay.

     The sound of the engine became ever plainer. The clear bell-like sound
confirmed the message of the cool heavy steam. The engine was running easily on
very early valve cutoff. The steam was heavy with water being fully expanded in
the cylinders. The heat it had picked up from the white hot coals had been
almost all converted into forward motion. He had a professional appreciation of
the men who had made and were operating this marvelous machine. For hundreds of
centuries men had been limited to the speed and power of horses. Now the power
of 2000 horses was in one machine with speed unheard of a lifetime ago.

     This was railroading. This had drawn him, a teen-age boy, from that long
ago and far away place he had once called home.

     His steps slowed as the realization filtered through the sensory flood
that this too must end. He had reached a heavy laden car of mining supplies.
One that might fail under the pounding of the long fast run, but all was well.
Indeed, it seemed a steadier platform than the others. The engine was near. His
topside walk almost over.

     He came to a stop near the front of the steady car immersed in the
intensity of the experience. His eyes enamored of the kaleidoscope of grays
from silver to sable in the rolling tumbling steam so close along side. His
whole being pervaded by the tremendous pulse of the engine. Rocked by the
motion of the boards beneath his feet and leaning into the rush of sensuous
air, he moved into an eternal moment of his own, outside the relentless
pressure of events. A moment without beginning and without end, filled forever
by the mighty voice from the stack, the voice of power, the power of 2000
horses.

     But relentless time is not so easily stopped. A furtive figure is on the
boards behind him, holding high a huge iron bolt.

     The fearful blow is struck. The bony citadel of the skull is breached and
the tender brain invaded. The boomer spirit flies, taking with it its eternal
moment.

     The useless weapons, iron and hickory alike, drop into the shadows. The
dying body, in reflex of escape, stumbles forward, is supported fleetingly by
the rushing air, then topples down between the cars, as down a chute to the
terrible mill below. A mill where a multitude of iron wheels beat and grind on
steel rails.

     The killer is already scrambling down the irons to the lowest step, where
he will fling himself away to roll and tumble on the grass like the steam.
Unlike the steam, he will arise again, battered, but triumphant, to bear away
his bitter prize of vengeance.

     The train steams on proclaiming its puny power to the vast uncaring sky.
In its wake, are fragments of cloth, flesh and bone. Between the rails lies a
railroad watch that will never measure time again.

     This gruesome grist of that terrible mill will be duly gathered and sent
to the newly made widow. She will pack the watch away in an attic box. The
pitiful remnants of a man will be buried in the strangers grave on her family
lot. Others will come to share that plot with him, but never his widow or his
unborn son. They will have other lives to live, other graves to fill.