Hello everyone! I know this wasn't the update to Before You Go that you were expecting, but I've had a rough go of it lately and some writer's block to boost (it will be updated though, no worries). So Simona suggested I give you the start of another story I've been working on. I think we have Simona to thank for a couple new stories. Also thanks to Randy Travis for the inspiration.

Hope you like it.

Chapter 1- Third Boxcar Midnight Train

I bounced on the balls of my feet and rubbed my hands together, blowing into them in hopes I could warm them even a little before I shoved them into the pockets of my jacket. The leather was stiff. It pulled and crinkled when I moved, scratching against my skin, and I could feel how it was frozen clear to the thin silky lining. Even that was cold and hard, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to move more in hopes of warming it up or hold real still so my skin didn't touch the material any more than it had to. The jacket hadn't been new when it was given to me, and it was even older—and thinner—now.

The damp cold had seeped its way into my shoes a long time before, after the snow had soaked them clean through, and I was thankful for the bread sacks I'd thought to wrap around my feet before I started out for the woods. Of course, my shoes weren't new either, so it was to be expected they wouldn't stay warm. Especially with the mixture of ice and white snow that had been steadily falling for the last few hours.

And it was only going to get colder. The day had started out almost warm, but now I needed to find shelter. Or catch the train.

I eyed the sky warily. I knew the moment that the clouds had moved in—the wind had picked up something fierce and a low rumble had started up in the tops of the trees where it blew the hardest—that I would be in a for a cold night. I should have found a place to hole up then, but I was hoping to catch the night train. 'Course I didn't have a watch—I'd traded that old thing for a sack of rolls back in Bowling Green- and with the clouds blocking the stars I had only my own sense of time to go on. I'd gotten better at estimating time over the past months, but it ain't real easy without the sun or the stars, and I was getting mighty cold, so I wasn't sure how much longer I had to wait. The train had been due at midnight, and it seemed to me it was a lot later than that. I had managed to doze under a big pine for a little while, its branches bowing and forming a small cocoon, but it ain't easy to sleep when you're that cold. Besides, I hadn't slept good in a long time anyway, so I knew there was no way I'd missed the train.

I held my breath and listened real good, hoping I could hear the old boxcars clanking back and forth in the distance, or maybe the whistle when the engineer got close to town. But there was nothing. No birds. No cars driving the nearby road. Just the wind shaking the last remaining leaves up high in the trees and the pitter of freezing rain hitting the crisp snow.

I stamped my feet and blew into my hands, wishing for a cigarette, but I'd smoked the last of mine two days ago. I did have half a cigar that I'd picked up at the old church around the corner earlier in the day. For a minute I thought about walking down there…Reverend Smith always left the front door unlocked—for wayward wandering souls, he said—and even if the heat was turned down it'd be a lot warmer in there than it was out here. But then I'd miss the train when it finally came and I'd have to hang around almost a week until the next one that was headed south, and four days was an awful long time to spend in one place relying on handouts and sneaking into the backs of stores and such—there was always unlocked doors in these little pokey towns. But if I spent too much time in one place I'd end up breaking two of the rules I'd set for myself—Don't hang around any place too long and don't get caught doing anything illegal. Breaking either one could get me snatched up and put into a boys' home right quick. Or even worse, arrested and stuck in some reformatory.

So, I made sure that no matter which town I was in or how nice the people were, I didn't hang around more than a couple of days at a time, and I only circled back every couple of months or so.

I stuck my hands under my arms and looked down the tracks again, second guessing whether the train was even coming. Maybe it couldn't run in such shitty weather. Maybe it was stuck about an hour down the line on that big hill—its wheels rolling and spinning on the icy tracks but not able to get traction and just stuck there. Maybe some punk kid had put a nickel on the tracks and forgotten about it, and when the train had come it'd derailed- I heard leaving anything bigger than a penny there could do that- and maybe Jim or Frank or whoever was supposed to be engineering today was laying in the ditch hurt with all the cars turned over and no one knew…

I shook my head and forced a laugh at my own expense—there was my over-active imagination, running away with me again. Dad had always said that I had a wild imagination. Too much reading, he'd tell me. But when he said it, he'd be smiling real big and finish up by saying I got me a real smart boy.

And just like every time I thought about him, an ache started down deep in my chest and I tried to stop remembering the way he'd shake everyone's hands at the end of a long day and thank them for helping, or the way he'd mutter "Jesus Christ" under his breath when one of the boys did something stupid and should have lost their job. But then he'd look at me later and say Pony, everyone deserves a second chance. And I never saw him fire nobody. I tried to stop thinking about him and think of the boys instead, though that didn't make me feel much better. If you asked me, it wasn't the books that made my imagination what it was, but all the tales the cowboys used to tell while we was sitting around waiting to help load the steers into the cattle cars at the depot.

But those days had been a long time ago.

A whole lifetime even.

"Another time, another train," I whispered to myself.

Only it didn't seem like the train would be coming this time. I kicked at the snow. I supposed sleeping in the church again wouldn't be so bad…

But just when I'd started to turn, the rumble of the wind grew louder, and the ground seemed to tremble until the very earth shuddered. I grabbed up my little bundle and moved back to the edge of the tree line, keeping to the shadows. I kept movin', down to near where the tracks began to curve as they headed out of town…the place where the engineers would have to slow down to make sure they made the turn.

And then- just barely over the wind- I heard it. A low whistle.

The train.

I hid in some bushes next to the track, thinking how everything looked different…almost peaceful… this late at night. The clouds blocked the moon, but they still let through just enough of the pale light that I could see good enough to get around, and the mixture of the moon's rays shining through the clouds and the snow that covered the ground and the trees made everything look a little blue. I sniffled and figured my lips probably matched the blue tint of the night. It was so damn cold my face hurt and every time I breathed in I could feel the inside of my nose go stiff and freeze.

That's how I knew it was time to head south. I'd spent the summer wandering around up north, but it was too cold to sleep outside and I couldn't risk sneaking in somewhere every night.

I crouched in the bushes, just after the turn. The train had to slow to almost a crawl in order to make the sharp bend in the tracks, and it was just after that curve that I'd hop on. I'd have to hide in the bushes until the light passed me, though. If it wasn't one of the regular engineers drivin' they'd kick me off awful quick if I was spotted.

The train was moving slow, but it still rounded the bend with an unexpected suddenness, the dark hulk of the engine appearing seemingly out of nothing like a ghost, the black engine shadowed behind the watery head light.

The ground shook harder and the whistle broke the night the closer the train got. I leaned forward, on my toes with one hand on the ground and the other on my bundle, waiting until the moment the engine passed.

"One…two…" I counted the cars behind the engine as they clanked and swayed by, and as the third approached I saw the door was left open just a little, "…three."

I darted alongside the train and threw my bundle inside, huffing as I grabbed at the doors. The train wasn't moving too fast, but the cars sat awful high and it was hard to get a good grip with my ratty shoes slippin' in the snow and with my hands frozen like they were. The metal was so cold it felt like it was burning my skin when I grabbed it…

With a grunt I managed to pull myself inside.

The boxcar wasn't any warmer than the air outside, if anything it might have been colder, what with the rusting metal of the car as cold as an icebox and the door wide open. I didn't dare shut it though. What if I couldn't get it opened again when the train stopped? Then I'd surely freeze or starve 'fore somebody found me. I could just see them unloading on one of those sidetracks where they kept the cars until they needed them for something. It could be days, weeks even, before they needed this car and opened it up. Weeks of it just sitting there. No, sir, I wouldn't close that door for anything.

I scooted into the corner, drawing my knees up close to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. But it wasn't any warmer that way so I cupped my hands and blew on them. The whistle screamed loudly once, then went silent. As far as I knew, the next crossing wasn't for a while, and I was counting on that whistle blowing again when we got close so I could keep the time. It was too cold to sleep so I wasn't worried about that. When it was warm I'd sleep on the trains, counting on that whistle to wake me when we got close enough to town I could be ready to jump off the train and run, and even though I was bone tired I didn't see how anyone could sleep in this cold.

The train rocked and swayed as it clacked loudly down the tracks. Occasionally the middle of the boxcar would glow as we passed near a town or the clouds broke enough to let the moonlight in. The train didn't slow as it skirted the towns, but rumbled steadily on, roaring over the tracks, pushing south with an almost gentle sway. After a while, with the little warmth I could find huddled in the corner and the rocking motion of the car, I could feel my eyes start to drift and I rested my head on my knees. Then, as if far off in the distance, was the long and lonely sound of the train's whistle. But by then I was too far gone to care.

The horse's hooves thundered against the dusty ground beneath me. The blades of grass that had once been tall and thick had been unceremoniously stamped into the earth by the small herd of cattle we drove before us. I had fallen into an easy rocking rhythm in the saddle when we'd left the ranch for town. As far as I knew, we were the only outfit that still drove our cattle to the stockyards to be shipped off.

The dun, being a good cowpony, swung wide to the right of the small herd and stopped a group of bunch-quitters from turning back around for home as they were prone to do. We made good time, and by noon all the cattle had been driven into the stockyards and we was all sitting around in the saddle waiting on the train.

In the distance came the long and lonesome sound of the train's whistle.

Dad reined his horse next to mine and leaned over to put a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, Pony…"

"Hey Pony! Ponyboy! Come on kid." Someone was roughly shaking my shoulder and I groaned, trying to push their hand away. It was almighty cold, and I just wanted to curl up and go back to riding horses where it was warm and where the air smelled like grass and cow instead of stale and metallic.

Stale and metallic.

I shot up, pushing back from the bundle I'd been using as a pillow. I must've laid down and fallen asleep at some point. Only this time, the whistle hadn't waked me up. The train was stopped, and two sets of eyes stared back at me.