Aberdeen
Destination Unknown
Aberdeen
Admiral Biscuit
Sweetsong caught a glimpse of the railyard as the train bent around the wye, then heard the sound of wheels crossing a switch, surely the yard ladder. Any moment now they’d be in the yard proper, and if the train stopped, she’d have to decide how and when to bail out.
But the train didn’t stop. Her grainer crossed a road, the switch, another road, and they were alongside a storage facility, a home for the too many possessions people had. The narrow pole buildings were as good as a wall when it came to cover, enough time to risk sticking her head out the side really quick, to glance up and down the train to get an idea what was coming.
Another road crossing, for one. The train’s horn was almost constant as it was signaling traffic, but there weren't any cars waiting on her side of the train.
The yard was behind them, and she guessed if the train had meant to stop there, it would have gone around the other leg of the wye. She couldn't be sure of that: sometimes trains backed into yards. On the plus side, if the train started reversing she was likely to have cover when she bailed; on the downside she’d almost certainly be in somebody’s backyard. People usually didn’t like that; some of them were more protective of their plots of land than unicorns were of their towers. Especially golfers—they hated it when pegasi landed on their courses.
There wasn’t a parallel road but there were plenty of road crossings. Sweetsong moved out from under the slope sheet onto the deck of the grainer, allowing her to get a look over the edge while still remaining out of the sight of any cars that were waiting for the train.
To her north, baseball diamonds, one with the outfield facing the tracks. A long fly ball might land in a gondola and get carried away, and she wondered if any carman had found a baseball in one and wondered where it had come from. She knew about scraps of dunnage and bits of tarp and strapping that got left in cars, but how often did things fall in them randomly?
For that matter, what did the crews think of the litter that the cars—especially grainers—collected from riders? She knew that littering wasn’t the reason that railroads kicked hobos off the trains, but it couldn’t help. Aside from a few smudges in the dirt and maybe an errant hoofprint or two, nobody would ever know she’d ridden this car once she left it.
Sweetsong heard the locomotive throttle up, and a moment later could feel the train starting to accelerate. They weren’t going to stop in the yard, they were running through. An express train, as much as a freight train could be an express.
That wasn’t true; plenty of the double-stack trains were priority trains. She’d been sided out before so one could overtake her plodding freight, freight that might one day languish in a storage unit like the one the train had just passed. It was better to not have too many things.
How much further is the Pacific? There was no way to know, but the train was headed west, and every road it crossed was one road closer to the ocean.
Every now and then there would be a field that went up nearly to the tracks with no cover, but for the most part there were thick, luscious trees and bushes lining the route, plenty of hiding places if she needed to find one. She would have liked to be in a gondola, and maybe if the train stopped and she had some cover from the locomotive she’d go looking.
Or maybe not. It was usually best to find a car and stay put.
Sweetsong reached for her saddlebags, intending to get out her guitar, then thought better of it. A capella was better music for a forest, and left her nothing to pack if she did get caught. She hooked a hoof over the ladder and started to sing.
•••
She didn’t notice the parallel road on the south side of the tracks until she heard a horn honk. She snapped her head around, immediately noticing an old-fashioned convertible with a coffin-shaped nose. The driver waved at her and she waved back, then he accelerated and was gone.
Sweetsong ducked back down, her ears alert for the sound of brakes, but they didn’t come. The road curved away and the train continued on, passing diagonally through a small town before crossing a river on a short truss bridge. There was a highway to the south and another road to the north, and she guessed she was going to be running next to one or both of the roads before too long.
She got more of a reprieve than she’d expected; trees provided a nearly perfect screen. She could hear the cars and see flashes of sunlight off their chrome and windows, but there was no way that they could spot her blurring by. Aside from road crossings, the only place she had to hide between Satsop and the outskirts of Montesano was as the train passed the Vaughn company.
The train cut through the southern tip of Montesano, passed under US-12, made its way across a river, and then went back into farmland and trees.
Instead of continuing straight, now the track made a series of small turns, skirting along the edge of a hill. She guessed that they were generally following the edge of a river’s floodplain, and the few small creeks the train passed over were tributaries. A river was good; a river might lead to the ocean.
Sure enough, when the train came out of the woods, the tracks were perched on the edge of a hillside, right alongside a river.
•••
The tracks paralleled US-12 into Aberdeen, although most of the time the road was at a higher elevation or blocked by trees, letting her keep in the open. She kept glancing down the front of the train to check her cover, then went back to sightseeing out the south side of the train. She caught a glimpse of a lumber yard with a loading dock on the river, big enough for a ship to tie up to. This wasn’t the Pacific, but she felt like she must be getting close.
Then they got into town and the tracks were tucked between fast-food restaurants and US-12; if the train had been going slower, she could have shouted an order at the McDonald’s drive-through. Instead, she stayed in the shadows under the slope sheet: there were lots of cars and people and no trees to hide her.
Sweetsong got a brief reprieve as the train crossed over a swing bridge, then it was under a highway interchange and into a railyard.
The train was already slowing as it bumped through the yard ladder. Is this it? There was nowhere to hide; not even a screen of trees or bushes along the side of the yard. Just hard-packed dirt and hardy weeds.
They hadn’t switched off the main yet. She watched the yard pass behind them, industrial buildings on one or both sides. Storage yards, and as the train curved around a tight bend, she caught a glimpse of a boatyard with a barge dragged up on shore for refit.
Another tight bend and a few trees—they were on the outside of the curve; she could jump and the crew would never see her, or she could try her luck and ride on. She’d seen barge facilities on the Mississippi a long way from the Gulf of Mexico, after all. She could still be dozens of miles from the Pacific. Once her train stopped at a grain export elevator, then she’d know she’d gone as far as she could.
•••
Half a mile later, her train stopped for good.
Once she’d heard the locomotive uncouple and drive off, she stuck her head out the side to see what she could. Not much; the front of her train was stopped short of a road, as were all the other strings of cars on both sides. There was no cover at all, nothing but asphalt.
There would be people around, and probably cameras, too. Most likely this was a grain loading facility, although she couldn't tell from the end platform of her grainer.
After some mental deliberation, she abandoned her grainer and landed on the asphalt. It would only take a rail worker glancing down the tracks to see her, but that couldn’t be helped. Being down low gave her a chance to see under the cars, to get an idea where the closest cover might be. If there even was any.
There wasn’t any. She got a glimpse of skinny, decorative trees bordering a parking lot to the northeast, a metal warehouse of some kind, and stacks of wood on the river side.
The yard she was in would certainly have lights. She could wait until nightfall and fly above them—they’d spot her, but they wouldn’t be able to follow her. Or she could leave now and not worry about being seen. There was no chance of catching a train back out of here, so no harm in being spotted.
The other side of the river wasn’t as built up, as far as she could tell from looking under the belly of railcars. If she made her way between the cars—carefully, in case any of them were about to move—she might be able to get to the edge of a row without being spotted and have a better look at what was around her. And if she was noticed, a straight path south across the river was likely her best escape, although if she saw something better from the air, she could always change her plan.
•••
There were three tracks with strings of grainers, then an empty track, and then more tracks full of grainers. She took a quick glance in both directions as she reached the vacant track; now she could see the grain elevator to the west and thought she caught a glimpse of a ship, as well. There was nowhere nearby to hide, so she darted across two more tracks, finally boarding the end of a grainer on the outside track.
It was a suicide grainer, one that had no floor, just the center sill and a couple angle braces. That was okay, she had no intention of riding it; the car was the last cover she’d have before flying off.
Sweetsong braced her hooves on the side sill and stuck her head out, looking up and down the tracks. In front of her was an open lot with no cover for hundreds of yards in any direction.
From what she could see, flying across the river was still her best bet. Even better, closer than the other bank she’d seen from under the grainers, there was an island with scrubby trees and brush. That would be a good intermediate stop; if anyone wanted to chase her they’d need a boat or an aircraft.
She took one last look around. There were no trains coming, there were no people within eyeshot or earshot, so she jumped off the grainer, got a running start on the cement, and took flight, climbing above the light poles as quickly as she could. Anybody who was looking at her could see her, but that also gave her a better view in case there was a pursuit.
Once she was across the river, over the marshy flats she dropped down until her hooves were nearly skimming the muck, and followed the edge of the island to the west side, then used her momentum to coast up into the trees.
It wasn’t a great hiding place, but it gave her time to catch her breath and watch the grain elevator. Nobody on the other side of the river seemed interested in her; they were focusing on loading the ship instead. Depending on what the cameras covered, they might not have seen her leave the grainer, and might have just picked her up flying across the lot. If they weren’t paying attention, and the cameras were far away, she might have looked like a pink seagull.
Now what? There was no way she could get another car near the elevator, there simply wasn’t any cover. And even if she did, the best she could do was get a ride back to the yard she’d gone through a mile or so back. Maybe she could pick up a westbound train there, maybe not.
Maybe there was no more west. She hadn’t gotten a really good look on her flight, but she’d seen the mainland end on a spit of land with an airport. The river was widened out, her island had what looked like tidal flats around it; maybe she was practically to the Pacific already.
She turned that thought over in her mind as she snacked on a tube of Pringles and watched for airplanes or boats. Maybe she’d seen the land’s end out of the corner of her eye, maybe she hadn’t. But the river had widened out a lot, and rivers only did that near bigger bodies of water or behind dams. She could rule out dams since there was a freighter tied up to the dock. She had to be close to the Pacific.
By her estimation, Centralia had been a couple days flying from the Pacific. Even if this harbor was significantly inland, she had to be close. She could follow the north shore of the river, see if there were any more railroad tracks, and if she didn’t find a ride, she could simply fly all the way to the beach.
Her ears perked as a gust blew across the island, carrying salt air with it.
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Have to be careful following the smell of the salt water ocean. You could end up in the middle of the land mass circling a brine extraction facility over a hydrothermal permeated salt dome?
I like her alertness to possible emergency escape strategies and random musings.
Also, how she's not superpony and can still let her guard down.
I wonder why Sweetsong doesn’t just have a library or FedEx Office print out and laminate a one page map for each state she is passing through of active railroad lines, or buy a pocket sized map book (no rail lines probably, but still useful)? That would save her a lot of guesswork. Or does she like winging it (bad pun definitely intended)?
Fast food train drive thru!
Almost there!
That cardriver that honked, are you merging universes with ADIS now Biscuit?
I like her eye for surrounding and detail. It paints a rich picture of her environment.
"they were on the outside of the cure; she"
"they were on the outside of the curve; she"?
11183887
Not quite, you're right that that's definitely a nod to another story, but it isn't one of mine: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/399438/drive
Though I did provide the Cord picture for the blog. Auto photography is one of my other hobbies.
I also had a cameo, but that was back a few chapters.
She hooked her forelegs over the ladder and stuck her head cautiously out over the side, once again looking down the length of the train. There was nobody to see her.
Until the train ran across an overpass, and she clearly saw a surprised driver in a light blue Mustang looking up at her.
Not that there was anything he could do about it. She waved at him as the train carried her back off into the woods.
11183654
As I’m sure you know, there are a number of brine operations right next to the ocean (it’s a good place to get salt water, after all). It would be funny if she followed her nose and wound up landing at one of those instead.
11183747
It is my opinion that at heart, many pegasi are philosopher-poets. Also, it’s always wise to have an exit strategy, especially when you’re doing something illegal.
Yeah, and it’s a balancing act between hiding in a nearly discovery-proof location and actually enjoying the journey and scenery. Which means sometimes she isn’t paying attention in the direction she should have been and gets caught out.
That would be smart, and honestly a somewhat decent (but not overly-detailed) mapbook of the US wouldn’t be that big or weigh that much. For that matter, she could also get a Garmin or a cell phone and a portable charger. She does prefer winging it, though.
Back in the day, crews sometimes stopped at/near their favorite restaurants for lunch (not on the mainline, but for local switching trains and the like); given how many road crossings they’d be blocking, I doubt that a train crew would stop at this particular McDonalds to get a meal, although they could stop a few roads back and walk the rest of the way.
She’s very close
11183887
That wasn’t him in that car; that was a nod to Poppy in Highway 502, Solo, and Drive. As he mentioned, though, he did get his own cameo a few chapters ago.
11184526
Thank you!
It’s actually really fun to do that research. And sometimes it’s a nice virtual tour for readers as well.
11185846
Correction made; thank you!
Impossible.
What would humans (golfers aside) have against pegasi resting in their gardens?
And even if they do, how could they possibly surpass the wrath of a unicorn who feels like their tower is threatened?
Even then the drive-through better managed by a fellow pegasus, because that would be the only way for her to actually receive her order.
Humans probably can't follow her.
But what if she is spotted by those two:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/10/27/1867587.gif
Edit: picture is too big.
See it on DeviantArt or Derpibooru instead.
11200046
Some people are jerks. When I moved in, my neighbor asked me how I felt about free-range chickens wandering onto my property (I live out in the country). I said I didn’t care; apparently some people had.
Unicorns probably just yell a lot, but don’t get out the shotgun.
That’s true. Maybe if she used the app and ordered ahead, they could toss it onto the train as it went by.
A Night Guard? Yeah, that would do it.
That’s a great picture
11201005 I let a pegasus stay in my garden. It ate all my carrots!
11264486
That’s a small price to pay IMHO.
derpicdn.net/img/2014/9/28/731297/large.png
Almost there!
11394845
She's very close to her goal