The Mine by John A. Heldt Read Free Book Online Page B

cigarette grinned and shook his head. His plump, middle-aged wife scowled at him and gently nodded at Grace. A thinner, younger woman held up both thumbs.
    "Do it, honey."
    Blood rushed to Grace's cheeks as she turned to face Paul.
    "There's no hurry, sweetheart," he said. "I know this is kind of sudden. But I had to tell you where I stood before I shipped out. I don't want to lose you."
    Grace took the box from Paul and removed the ring. It was no dime-store trinket. The half-carat diamond solitaire practically lit up the room. She shuddered to think what it had cost but figured it had probably cleaned out his savings. She looked again at the smarmy waiter, who remained on the fence, and the fat lady, who crossed fingers on both hands. Nearly a dozen others smiled and waited. Grace looked at her sailor.
    "You're right. This is sudden," she said, taking a deep breath. "But that's OK."
    Grace held the white gold ring between a thumb and a finger and examined it for several seconds before lifting her head. Nearby conversations ceased.
    "You're a good man, Paul. I know this means a lot."
    She put the ring where she thought it belonged, snapped the box shut, and pushed the package away. The fat lady fainted and the thin woman gasped.
    "I love you too. My answer is yes."
     

CHAPTER 17
     
    Mr. Smith went to Washington, but his whistle-stop tour hit the skids in Spokane. Several bulls, or railroad police, cleared out the boxcars when the train rolled to a stop. They arrested those too slow to sprint across the sprawling Great Northern rail yards to the relative safety of the rough-and-tumble Hillyard neighborhood.
    Joel spent the last day of May learning the ins and outs of hobo life. Scruffy, who went by the name Hobart Katzenberger, taught him how to get a meal in a restaurant by offering to work for food and then waiting for guilt-laden patrons to pick up the tab.
    Charlie, the five-foot-two leprechaun, directed him to a nearby machinist shop that was easy to enter through unlocked windows on evenings and weekends. Once in, the homeless and jobless had access to well-equipped rest rooms and a large washbasin. Never one to squander resources, Joel made use of both.
    "Don't you guys ever stay in one place?" he asked.
    "I do when I can," Scruffy said. He spoke with the gravelly voice of a longtime smoker. "But work's hard to find. You know that."
    Though Charlie and Scruffy had marveled at Joel's shirt, they had not asked many questions. They no doubt figured he had stolen it or traded for it or found it in the garbage. One did not care about coordinated ensembles when riding the rails. The veterans treated Joel Smith like any young buck looking for employment or adventure. Joel, however, asked many questions of his new friends. He asked how they made it through a day, where they were from, and how they had come to be transients.
    Scruffy, forty going on eighty, said he had once cut logs in Wisconsin. When his mill closed, he headed for the still profitable forests of the Pacific Northwest. He had bounced from one timber town to another for more than five years.
    Charles Prescott had a sorrier tale. He lost a Chicago factory job and his wife on the same day in 1938, his thirtieth birthday. Delores Prescott had found happiness in the arms of his sister . Charlie hopped a train when the bills piled up.
    As the day wore on, however, Joel became less interested in sob stories than how he could board a westbound train in Spokane without running into railroad security. He found out at ten the next morning, when Charlie guided him to a grassy field north of the rail yards. Scattered islands of tall bushes masked their approach. Not that it mattered. The bulls rarely ventured beyond the yards and this day was no exception.
    They stood at a popular departure point only thirty minutes before they saw a long freight train, moving at glacial speed, pull out of its berth a half-mile away. When the locomotive approached the open field, Charlie