All day long I waited at the side of the highway, sheltering in the scant shade of a mesquite tree, cocking my thumb at the few cars and trucks that approached. They were very few; this was wartime and not many people had business in the backlands of Arizona. I would have walked, but had sense enough to perceive that the desert sun could make walking not merely unpleasant but hazardous—even suicidal. I did not have sense enough, however, to understand that most southwesterners, in those years before the advent of air-conditioning, stayed passive and shaded up during the summer days and did their driving at night. And nobody in Needles cared to take the enormous trouble of telling me about it. Nearby, across the broken glass, the weeds, the junkyard, the ditch, ran the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (“Holy Faith”) Railroad. Now and then I could see a freight train forming up in the yards, brakemen hanging one-handed to the ladders, some old hog in bib overalls, blue-striped cap and necktie peering out of the engine cab. I waved; they waved back like all good railroaders.

At evening time, drinking my third quart of milk that day, still stranded, I became aware of a black man standing in the brush between me and the tracks. He was watching me with care. There’s something in my face that never fails to catch the eye of panhandlers. I’ve never been missed by a bum yet. And so, when the white-haired old black man came close and mumbled a few words at my ear, I had to go into the café across the highway and buy a couple of hamburgers and another quart of milk and bring them back to him. He tried to explain why he didn’t want to go into the café himself, but at the time I couldn’t quite figure it out.

We had supper together under the mesquite tree at the edge of the quiet highway. Exchanged intelligence. His name I no longer recollect, but his destination was Chicago. Mine was Home—Home, Pennsylvania. He offered to show me how to get there.

After sundown, in the lavender loveliness of the desert twilight, we crept through the junk and creosote bushes toward the railway and squatted down in a comfortable ditch within spitting distance of the rails. From the division yards to the west came the clash and shock of coupling iron, the screech of hot metal, the rumble of switch engines. We waited, smoking my companion’s hand-rolled Bull Durham cigarettes.

We heard two sharp whistles—the highball signal. Presently the train came slowly through the gloom, three big diesels pulling a string of boxcars so long we couldn’t see the caboose. Ponderously the cars rolled by, slowly picking up speed; I could see the wooden ties sinking under the wheels, rising between them. Sealed boxcars passed us bearing brands from all over the nation: Southern Pacific, Great Northern, New York Central, Denver and Rio Grande, Union Pacific, Baltimore and Ohio, Pennsy, Santa Fe, Wabash, Lackawanna, Eastern Seaboard (Route of Phoebe Snow)…. The first empty appeared, doors open; we stood up, stepped into the cinders and gravel of the roadbed, began to trot along beside the train. As the empty came abreast of us, my new friend threw his bundle in, grabbed hold of the edge of the doorway, pulled himself up and half into the car. He turned to give me assistance as I ran along. I was clutching at the edge of the sliding door with one hand, holding my pack and bedroll with the other, reluctant to toss them inside because now I wasn’t certain I could get aboard. The floor of the boxcar was chest high and the train was gaining speed. As I hesitated, the old black man grappled me at the wrist with both his big paws and hauled me halfway in; I danced along the ties on tiptoe at twenty miles per hour. “Come on, boy,” he hollered, “pitch your roll up and get in here.” I made it.