Destination Unknown

by Admiral Biscuit


Spokane

Destination Unknown
Spokane
Admiral Biscuit

IHOP was always generous with pancakes, and she had one left over for later in a little Styrofoam carrier. It would be soggy in the morning, but still tasty.

North of the small rail yard was a kidney-shaped lake that was a dumping ground for old cement pipes, weirdly enough. It had a few small copses of trees and was right next to the Spokane Fairgrounds, and was probably the best spot she was going to find to overnight unless she flew out of town or camped on a roof. The pond area was enclosed with a big fence which meant she probably wouldn’t be interrupted. It was either that or fly further south where it got hillier and there were clusters of trees around the houses.

•••

In the morning she ate her soggy pancake and then went exploring. Where did the tracks go? Which line would take her most directly to the Pacific? What could she find for food that would keep well in her saddlebags? Sometimes small towns were better than cities—in a small town she didn’t get overwhelmed with choices. But there were specialty shops in big cities, and she found a Petco that had alfalfa cubes for snacking. They were supposed to be for rabbits, but there were no Petco police to tell her she couldn’t eat them if she wanted to.

Had anypony started selling flavored alfalfa cubes yet? Surely there were enough ponies visiting and working to make a profit; if sour cream and cheese or buffalo flavor—whatever that was—could be preserved and dusted on chips then they could be put on alfalfa, too.

For a moment, she imagined opening a bakery—a chipery—but that was a lot of work and it was better to roam the country and take bits as they came, rather than settle down and have a boring, predictable income.

The land could provide her with grasses, shelter, and fish; people provided her with money and transportation. All she needed was her guitar and a bit of moxie. It wasn’t in her nature to want a house on a foundation or a steady job. Life was for experiences, not doing the same thing every day to pay a mortgage on a house that couldn’t even be moved if she got tired of where it was.

Admittedly, hot showers were nice, but there were hotels and truck stops that would rent them, and some nomads even got gym memberships just for the showering facilities.

She hadn’t interacted with all that many hobos, preferring to fly solo, but she’d come across a few. One, an older man with a beard and missing fingers on one hand, had lamented some modern hobos who made it a point to get as dirty as possible, even though the hobo code specifically said to stay clean. Even if that wasn’t a requirement, she would; she didn’t want oily fur or gritty wings.

Her bits were getting low and she decided to fly around and find a park, eventually settling on a peninsula in the Spokane River. It had what seemed like an unnecessary number of bridges and one of the roads tunneled under the park then split into two roads with two bridges on the other side. 

Weird though it was, it was popular with tourists, already full of people as she settled down on the steps of the Great Northern Clocktower.

People were generous and she stayed all day, playing her guitar and singing; she discovered in the afternoon that a few people were willing to give her money for flying into the river and catching a fish, which she hadn’t intended as a performance—she was just hungry.

Still, bits were bits no matter how they were earned and she packed up for the night and flew off to the Amtrak station. She knew Amtrak went to Seattle, so if she picked the same route Amtrak took, she would also wind up in Seattle. That didn’t get her all the way to the ocean, but that got her close.

Her mission complete, she returned to the pipe pond to spend another night in the trees before finding her way out of town.

•••

Besides finding which route she should take, she also had scouted out a perfect hiding spot, and after another breakfast of IHOP pancakes with a few more for the road, she flew over to the Indian Canyon golf course. There was a copse of trees on either side of the tracks, and it was less than a mile past where the track made its sharp bend northwest. Freight trains would probably still be moving slowly as they went by, and that would be her opportunity. There was plenty of underbrush to hide her, and the only chance of being discovered was some golfer on the search for an errant ball.

That wasn’t much of a risk; golfers trampled through the underbrush like a herd of buffalo.

Even better, she’d have time to get situated on the train. After the golf course, there was a bridge, then a cemetery on one side and a weird abandoned amphitheater on the other, neither of which were likely to have people watching.

The downside was that she wouldn’t get a horn as a warning that a train was coming..

She nestled into the carpet of pine needles and twitched her tail, like a predator on the hunt. An intermodal train rumbled by, going slow as she’d hoped. Stack cars from one end to the other, no good hiding spots. The yard had had plenty of variety of railcars, and it was only a matter of time before the right train passed.

•••

An eastbound train rolled by, brakes squealing as it slowed for the curve ahead of it, and of course it had plenty of cars which she could have boarded, if only it wasn’t going in the wrong direction.

Sometimes she could see golfers through her tree-perch, and she amused herself watching one of them try to pitch his ball out of a sand trap. It took three tries before he got it back on grass, and another two before he tapped it into the cup and stomped off to the next hole.

Golf was stupid, its only selling point being that it was outdoors, but a person could walk around and not hit golf balls. There were plenty of sidewalks and trails.

•••

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the tree, but she did. It wasn’t a train that woke her; it was a golfer rustling around in the bushes on the other side of the tracks, and her first instinct was to duck back in the tree, out of sight.

He glanced up—he must have seen movement—but he didn’t spot her, and went back to looking for his ball.

After a few minutes, he gave up and went back on the course.

•••

It was easier to spot approaching steam trains back home, she could see the smoke over treetops sometimes when they were miles away. Human trains didn’t make as much smoke, even though they were bigger.

They were deceptively quiet, too, when they weren’t blowing their horns or ringing their bells. Usually on the mainline, the tracks were all welded instead of having joint bars every forty feet, so there wasn’t the rhythmic clatter of wheels crossing the staggered joints.

Another eastbound train passed, this one a mixed freight. Since there was only one track, that meant that it might be a westbound train’s turn next. It wasn’t all that far to the yard, and as the sun climbed up in the sky, she edged out on the branch, but she couldn’t see much up and down the main. They trimmed the branches back so they wouldn’t hit trains, which meant she was a good thirty feet away from the tracks, and couldn’t see much but other trees.

•••

Half an hour later, her patience was rewarded as a westbound train came by, shaking the ground and trees as the locomotives accelerated.

She jumped out of the tree and glided alongside the train—the locomotives were far enough past that the crew wouldn’t see her—her eyes peeled for a good car.

Midway through the train, a boxcar with an open door. That was an option. Behind that, she could see a few grain cars which were also a good choice.

The train was picking up speed and she had to decide quickly. The boxcar would be easier to get into, and she had a track spike in her saddlebags to wedge the door.

As she banked into the moving car and settled on the floor, she realized she wouldn’t have to. Some other hobo had already spiked the door, and they hadn’t caught it in the yard.

She settled back in the car, positioning herself far enough back that she had a good view, but couldn’t easily be seen.

•••

The tracks curved around a few times before settling on a southwest route that took her near an airport. She couldn’t see where it was, probably on the other side of the train, but did see a big grey airplane climbing off to the north.

Most of the land she could see was fields, with occasional woodlots or swampy areas left fallow.

Half an hour past the airport the train slowed down and Sweetsong started worrying. She’d thought a hobo had spiked the door, but maybe it was one of the bulls; maybe they were still looking for her. Maybe they thought that the boxcar would be the perfect trap, and maybe they thought they’d lull her into a false sense of security by letting the train carry her for a while before making their move. Outside she could only see fields and distant barns but the train was slowing down for something.

Logically, it was probably a meet, but she realized that she could hardly see any trees out her side, there might not be any on the other side either. Nowhere close to hide.

There could be an access road on the side with the closed door, there was no way she’d know. She focused her ears intently, trying to make out noises through the metal wall of the boxcar, almost missing the distinctive sound of the train clattering across a switch.

Normal operations . . . but she didn’t feel comfortable in the boxcar any more. She could see another track on her side of the train, with nothing on it, then gathered up her blanket and stuffed it back in her saddlebags.

She could lean against the side of the car and get a decent view, and she saw that the tracks curved to the left, which gave her good sight down the main. There wasn’t a train yet.

If her paranoia was justified, the bull would be waiting about where the car stopped, and he’d be on the far side of it so she’d have no warning, no time to get away. The train was moving slowly, there was nothing coming on the other track, and the fields were empty.

Sweetsong jumped out the open door and glided into the field, close to the tracks. No shouts of alarm and outside she didn’t hear anything that wasn’t train noise.

She checked both ways and hopped up on the main, risking a glance underneath the still-moving railcars. She couldn’t see any rail bulls over there, just more wheat. It didn’t rule them out.

Staying on the main wasn’t wise, so she hopped back down off the ballast and waited at the edge of the field, nervously nibbling a few stalks as her train finally came to a stop.

Once again, she looked up and down the main and there still weren’t any trains coming. Hers was stopped, and she flew up to the open platform of a cylindrical grain hopper. It was completely unsuitable for riding, but safer to go through then under.

She poked her head around the edge, and discovered that there was no frustrated bull storming up to her boxcar, and in fact there was no road at all for him to be on. She’d abandoned her car for nothing.

Just the same, she liked more open cars anyway. Since the train was stopped in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but fields and a few distant barns poking above them she might as well find a better car to ride. Covered hoppers were tricky to mount when the train was moving, but now that it was stopped she could take her time picking. If she heard her train start to move, she’d retreat back to the boxcar, otherwise she had a wide selection of grainers to choose from.

She almost jumped off her hooves as the other train blasted by; she hadn’t heard it coming at all, and then a moment later a buffet of air between the cars and an orange blur of the locomotive.

Which meant her train was about to start, it could have already, and while it had seemed a good idea to have the boxcar as backup, she’d have to cross under her train then get in the narrow gap next to a fast-moving train to jump aboard, and that was suicide.

Sweetsong could hear the banging as her train started moving, pulling the slack out of the cars, and she was going to get back on her train or be standing out in a field in the middle of nowhere and hoping that the next westbound train also stopped.

The car next to her was a bad choice, it had an open floor under the slope sheet, but the one behind it had a nice hidey hole and a floor, not her first pick when it came to grain cars but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

She landed on the floor just as the slack action arrived and got knocked off her hooves, and as she got up and dusted herself off, the last car in the eastbound train passed.

When the train crossed the switch, she was worming her way through the hole, a tight fit with her saddlebags but once she was in, she was invisible, and it was surprisingly spacious inside. Not great for riding while awake, but perfect for sleeping, a cozy little steel nest.

She stripped off her saddlebags and spread her blanket out, even though it was early. Unless she got cut out of the train, this was the car she was going to ride to the ocean.

Outside, she mostly saw the support struts of the car in front of her, and fields on the edge of her vision. 

If she’d been thinking a few steps ahead, it might have been smart to pull the spike from the boxcar. A bull might see it and wonder if somebody was riding the train. They wouldn’t see her but sometimes they used dogs to help, and a dog might smell her.

Or maybe they’d check the car and find it empty and then think that whatever hobo had been riding the train had left and wouldn’t look further. Who would give up a nice comfy boxcar for a hole in a grain car?

It wasn’t worth worrying about; she was safe and secure and on the move again, and whatever the future brought, she could deal with.