Wilder Boys (6 page)

Taylor's grin disappeared. “Are you serious?”

Jake nodded.

They both fell silent as the train continued rumbling
past graffiti-covered warehouses and under bridges. Soon they were passing through the last of Pittsburgh's western suburbs, and brush and forest began to line the rails—running away from home was beginning to feel
very
real.

The boys turned away from the door to check out the inside of the freight car. One end of it stood empty, but six large wooden crates filled the other. Each one had the word
MECHANICAL
stenciled in large red letters on its sides, and Cody was curiously sniffing the base of one of them.

“What do you think's in here?” Taylor asked.

Jake shook his head. “Engines, maybe.”

Taylor placed both hands on one and tried to move it. The crate wouldn't budge. “Wow, these are heavy. Let's open one.”

“Leave 'em alone,” Jake told him. “We've got enough trouble without damaging someone else's property.”

Taylor shrugged and the two of them sat down and leaned against one of the crates. Cody squeezed in between them. The weight of what they were doing seemed to press down on them—even on Cody, who rested his chin on Taylor's knee.

“Do you think Mom's going to be all right?” Taylor asked, rubbing the dog's head.

“Yeah, I think she—”

Jake was about to tell his brother that everything would be fine, but then he stopped himself. He'd always looked after his brother and shielded him from the worst
of things, but maybe now he needed the truth. They were in this together, after all.

“Taylor . . .,” he began. “She looked pretty bad. She was already weak to begin with. . . .”

Taylor stopped petting Cody and turned his eyes toward Jake. Jake expected to see tears in his brother's eyes, but instead he saw a determination he'd never seen before.

“Mom's stronger than you think, Jake. Only a strong person could have put up with Bull for the last four years.”

“Well, yeah, but . . .”

“I think she's going to make it, Jake. We just gotta find Dad and tell him what happened. Then we can come back and get her.”

“Taylor, it's more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Jake said, now petting Cody himself. “First we have to get to Wyoming—which isn't going to be easy. Then we've got to find Dad, and I don't even know if we can do that.”

“Get the journal out,” Taylor said.

Jake unzipped his backpack and pulled out the frayed book. Taylor took it from him and began flipping through the diagram- and note-filled pages.

“All these notes and drawings are from western Wyoming, right?”

“Yeah,” Jake confirmed.

“So that must be where he's waiting for us.”

“Sure, but that's a huge territory.”

“Whatever. Look, here he makes a note:
Bridger-Teton
. Didn't you say that's a national forest?”

“Yeah, but it's bigger than Rhode Island!”

“Where's that?”

Jake looked at him. “Are you serious? You don't know where Rhode Island is?”

Taylor grinned. “Gotcha.”

Jake punched him in the shoulder. “Very funny.”

“So anyway, maybe he's in the Bridger-Teton Forest.”

“Maybe. But that could take years to explore by itself. Besides, a few pages later, he mentions Caribou-Targhee National Forest, and a few pages after that, Grand Teton National Park. Dad explored thousands of square miles, Taylor.
Thousands
.”

“But we don't have to look through all of it. Dad sent Mom that letter, right?”

Jake reached into his pack and pulled out the envelope. Together they read the letter again, and then they looked at the map.

“See, right there,” said Taylor, pointing. “He even wrote it down—Teton National Park.”

“Look across the moose's neck,” Jake murmured, half to himself. “What does that even mean?”

“Well, there's gotta be a ton of moose in the Grand Tetons, right?”

Jake laughed. “Yeah, but there isn't going to be one moose standing in the same place year after year. No, it's gotta be something else.”

“We'll ask for help—whatever it takes, we can make it,” Taylor said, determination edging his voice.

“Okay,” Jake said. He was tired of arguing. In fact, he was just tired, period. Outside, the sun had set, and the sky had grown to be a dirty gray color.

“Let's try to get some sleep,” he told Taylor. “Wake me up if you feel the train start to slow down. We don't want more of those railroad police catching us.”

“What would they do to us?”

“Probably send us back to Bull.”

Taylor got up and spit out the train door. “Jake, I'm never going back to Bull.”

Jake saw the same determination in Taylor's eyes as when he was talking about their mom. Now he felt the same way.

The boys tried to get comfortable behind the wooden crates, and they managed to sleep for a while. A couple of hours later, though, they both woke up. It wasn't the thought of their badly beaten mom or psychotic Bull that invaded their sleep; it was the cold of the freight train. Even though it kept them sheltered from the wind, the car's metal floor sucked heat from their bodies like a meat locker. Eventually, as daylight flickered through the doorway, Jake
gave up, and stepped toward the opening. A moment later Taylor and Cody joined him.

“You know where we are?”

“No idea. Ohio maybe?”

Even though trees blocked some of their view, the land was flat, and they could see that they were passing through towns.

Suburbs,
Jake thought.

Suddenly Taylor pointed. “Jake, look!”

In the distance, the boys spotted tall buildings reaching above the horizon. Jake recognized one of them from TV.

“Where is
that
?” Taylor asked.

“Chicago,” Jake answered.

“Chicago! Oh, man! I've always wanted to come here. Wrigley Field's here, Jake. Do you think we can go see a Cubs game?”

“Taylor, we have to stay out of sight.”

“Can't we just look around a little bit?” his brother pleaded.

“I don't know. Maybe,” Jake said, shaking his head. “But before we do anything, I've got to get some real sleep. I feel like an elephant was kicking me in the butt all night.”

As they drew closer to the city, the train slowed, and the air filled with the smells and sounds of the big city—diesel fumes, traffic on nearby roads, jet airplanes flying overhead, and the sour smells of garbage and trash. Finally
the train slowed to a crawl, and the boys saw more than a dozen parked trains in the rail yard up ahead.

“C'mon,” Jake told Taylor. “We'd better jump off here.”

The boys put on their packs, then Jake sat on the edge of the doorframe and let his legs swing down toward the track. He literally hit the ground running, letting his back foot hit the gravel first, and just about managed to stay upright. He kept running alongside the car while Taylor handed Cody down to him. Then Taylor dropped to the ground too, gravel flying up from his sneakers.

The boys hurried away from the rail yards along a canal, where homeless people had set up shacks of cardboard, corrugated iron, plywood, and even canvas. Some of the shacks were occupied, and a few of the grizzled faces nodded at the boys as they passed, but no one bothered them. That didn't stop Taylor from feeling a shiver run up his back.

“I don't like this place, Jake,” he said, running a hand nervously through his hair. “We shouldn't stick around here.”

“We won't be here for long,” Jake replied. “We just need rest. Otherwise, we'll collapse before we even get started.”

Down in the gulley between a railway track and the fence, the boys found a shelter that looked like it hadn't been lived in for a while. It looked like it might be a half-decent place to get some sleep.

“C'mon,” Jake said. “Let's crash here for a couple of hours. Then we can figure out our next move.”

The boys stretched out on the dirt floor, using their
packs as pillows. A slight chill still clung to the air, but the day was warming up fast, and in no time Jake and Taylor drifted into sleep. Jake slept fitfully, at one moment dreaming of his mom, then the dad he barely knew, and then the nightmarish image of Bull floated in front of him, taunting him.

But then, even worse, the nightmare spilled into reality. Sudden sharp pain erupted in Jake's side. His eyes snapped open. A man with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard and wild red eyes was standing over them. He held a thick branch over his head.

“Get outta my house!” the man cried as he swung the stick at Jake's head.

8
Cody leaped to his feet, barking, but the man just kicked him away. Jake and Taylor scrambled out of the shack.

“No-good trespassers!” the man bellowed.

“Get your pack!” Jake yelled to Taylor as Cody again hurled himself at the man's legs.

Taylor ducked back inside the shack and seized his backpack.

“Let's get outta here!”

The boys and Cody raced back the way they'd come, following the canal. Behind them, the crazy man yelled, “You'd better run! You come back, and I'll kill you kids—and your ugly mutt, too!”

As they approached the rail yards, the boys finally slowed down.

Taylor looked up at Jake, terror still etched on his face. “Whew, was that guy insane?”

“I don't know. Maybe,” said Jake, panic making his voice waver. “We've got to be more careful from now on.” Jake couldn't help but think that the encounter might have been much worse. They had barely started on their journey, and they'd already been chased and threatened twice.

“Okay,” Taylor agreed, “but right now, I could really use a restroom. . . .”

Jake glanced at Taylor and then at himself. Whatever Taylor's bathroom needs, they both needed to wash up. Their clothes were already filthy from the train ride and from sleeping in the crazy man's shack. Toward the rail yards, Jake and Taylor spotted a large building that looked like it belonged to a railroad company. The boys and Cody hid behind a large Dumpster and checked it out long enough to see three or four company employees in blue uniforms exit the building.

“C'mon,” Jake whispered. “Now's our chance.”

Taylor picked up Cody, and the three of them rushed to the side door of the building. Inside, they found a long corridor, and from the far end they could hear the hum and shuffle of a copy machine, and the squawk of a radio.

“In here,” Taylor said, pushing open a door with a sign that said
EMPLOYEES ONLY
.

Inside the room, they found several little cul-de-sacs of lockers with benches next to them. Beyond that, they saw four shower stalls, toilet cubicles, and sinks.

“This is what I'm talking about!” Taylor exclaimed, setting down Cody and his backpack and dashing into a toilet cubicle.

While Taylor took care of business, Jake opened their packs and did a quick inventory of their belongings.

“What are you doing?” Taylor asked from inside the toilet stall.

“Just checking what we've got with us so we can decide what to do next.”

“So what do we got?”

“Let's see . . . Some cans of beans, Swiss Army knife, extra socks, flashlight, Dad's journal, the letters . . .”

Jake heard the toilet flush, and a moment later the door opened.

Taylor said, “Now we also have one more very important thing.”

Jake looked up at him. “Yeah? What's that?”

Taylor grinned and held up a white roll. “Toilet paper!”

Jake laughed and stuffed the toilet paper into Taylor's pack. “Good thinking. C'mon, let's get washed up.”

“Let's take showers,” said Taylor. “You stink, brother.”

Jake gave him a sour expression. “Oh, look who's talking, sewer breath.”

“So c'mon,” Taylor said, starting toward one of the shower stalls.

Jake reached out to stop him. “No, Taylor. It's too risky. Let's just wash up in the sinks and get out of here.”

Taylor sighed. “Okay.”

They went to the row of sinks and began washing. Jake pulled off his shirt and scrubbed under his armpits, and Taylor did the same. As they dried off with some paper towels, an overhead speaker suddenly burst to life. The boys stopped to listen.

This is dispatch. Train 661 from Omaha now arriving on track fourteen. Would the replacement engineer please report to the main office? Also, all railroad employees, be on the lookout for two male runaways, early teens, traveling with a small brown-and-white dog. Boys are thought to have boarded at our Duquesne yard near Pittsburgh with unknown destination. They are not thought to be dangerous, but if you see them, report in immediately. Out.