THE MAN IN THE STRANGER'S GRAVE
                   by Eugene Hutchinson Mallory 2


     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.