Читать книгу The Last Narrow Gauge Train Robbery - Robert K. Swisher Jr. - Страница 11

CHAPTER 6

Matthew Crane took a deep breath and opened the refrigerator door. Nothing had changed during the last thirty minutes when he had last opened the door. He shut the door, turned, walked, and sat down at the small wooden table. He hated nights like this, nights when sleep did not come alone in a house that held no memories or warmth. He looked at his watch. It was still hours before it was time to be with the train. The bars were closed, Grace would not be at the restaurant for several hours. Nobody to talk to or smile to. Old age was hell at times. He stood, walked, and looked out the window that faced directly towards the railroad tracks. His house stood not fifty feet from the tracks. The red caboose sat even with his door, then the seven passenger cars, then the engine. He stopped them this way every evening. Matthew looked at the darkened caboose, old and outdated, but fresh with its coat of new paint.

Wish somebody could paint me, he thought as he turned and walked slowly back to the bedroom to lay back down. There was a time, he thought, shutting his eyes but knowing that sleep would not come. At times like these, his thoughts drifted to when he was a boy.

When Matthew was a boy in Kansas, he would still be asleep when his father went off to work. But, he would hear the cry of the locomotive that took his dad from Tribune to Topeka and back. His father didn’t have a glorious run, cattle and pigs, but it was still a train. From the day he was born, Matthew was taught trains. He knew the names of the engineers and firemen, the brakemen. He knew the routes, and the speeds at which the trains ran. When it was time for him to find work, it was natural for Matthew to join the railroad. When both his mother and father were killed in a fire, Matthew left Kansas, moved to Durango, Colorado, and became the chief engineer for the narrow gauge railroad that ran up and over the passes to Silverton and Ouray hauling out the gold and silver. It was different coming from the plains of western Kansas to the mountains of Colorado, and coming from the large engines of the long trains to the small narrow engines of the mountains. But, he loved the line. It was the most beautiful run in the country.

In Durango, he married a Colorado girl and had two children: Bill, who was killed in Vietnam, and James, who died in a car wreck in California, trying his best not to work for the railroad. Three weeks after James’ death, his wife died in bed, without suffering, a lost and bewildered look on her face. A year later, the narrow gauge shut down and Matthew finished his railroad work in Texas. After retirement, he moved to New Mexico with its sun and warmth, and he grew old and lonely. Erasing the sound of the engines and the flashes of his family that appeared before his eyes, he was tough, not asking for anything, sitting, growing older, waiting to die.

With his retirement fund, he moved into an old folk’s home and began to remember about life. This led to his job with the Chama train. When this happened, he discovered that he was the last narrow gauge man in the country. Matthew was