February, 1909
"All aboard!"
A shrill whistle went out to accompany the conductor's loud command. One which served as both an order to his men, many of whom were still dallying on the platform and which served as a warning to any passengers that they would soon be left behind if they did not get their goodbyes out of the way. To three scruffy, dirty dogs, it served as the first of several indicators that their one opportunity at riding along would be presenting itself shortly.
"You alright Peg?" Toughy checked in with the smaller dog when he noticed that she had fallen behind some ways, meandering in place.
"Fine," Peg said through gritted teeth, all of her focus on her left ear, "I've just never been this covered in grime before is all." She scratched furiously at it with a hind paw, frustrated that what had started out as dirt had went as far as evolving into fleas and other such parasites.
"Well keep up is all we ask you to do," Bull said, not turning his deathly gaze from the steaming train. "If we miss this train, we're stuck here and if we're stuck here I imagine we're as dead as the butcher's meat."
"I hear you boys," Peg said, giving up on her ear for the moment to look out ahead at where they were focused. "What's the plan?"
"Look over there," Toughy said, beckoning her head in a particular direction. "That right there is called a caboose and it's what we're going to be riding in for however long it takes to get to where we need to go."
Bull nodded in affirmation, "It's not the finest of accommodation, but it is usually the emptiest on a ride like this and the bunch of fellas who'll be back there with us probably won't give two hoots about a few dogs sitting among their belongings and their booze."
"So how do we get on it?" Peg asked, rising slightly in the tall grass when the gentle breeze pushed it to tickle her nose.
"First thing's first is that we're going to be the last to board," Toughy explained. "We'll wait for that last call from the conductor. Right after that, there'll be a particularly sharp whistle from that hulking machine itself, you'll hear the hectic sound of boys shuffling coal into a fire and then the wheels are going to start out in a slow spin and that'll be our sign to get going."
Peg nodded, impression in the movement, "Guess you boys must do this an awful lot if you've worked such a plan out."
"First time actually," Bull commented.
"What?" Toughy asked at her incredulous expression. "Wouldn't be the first time we've gone off the words of others without our own."
"Cliff and Rick's?" she guessed.
"Annoying as those two fellows happen to be, they're also as crazy as can be," Bull said in her direction. "And the craziest that they ever did was jump onto a moving train."
"Neither of you two are even a little bit worried about this?"
Toughy merely shrugged, "Worst case, we get crushed under a train. Best case, we don't get crushed under a train and get away from here as soon as possible."
Peg huffed, but chose not to press the issue any further. Rather, in the time they had to wait, she turned her attention back to her dirty state, scowling when she took note of the brown staining her paws.
Their sojourn there had been anything but smooth. Just about everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.
The carriage meant to carry them for at least three quarters of the journey had broken down only a fifth of the way in, it's wheel shattered on an unfavorably placed and sharp rock. She had sat by the horse which had been dragging them for an hour before Bull and Toughy insisted that they go the rest of the way by walking.
Not only was that slower in every way, it was also far more prone to slights and mishaps, the first of which being the pit of tar which she had accidentally wondered into. As sheepish as she had been after the fact, when Toughy had rescued her, she still maintained that the incident had not been her fault. After all, how was it that she was meant to see a hole of darkness at night, when surrounded by nothing but darkness?
The result of that mishap and all the others added up together was fur which was no longer full, a tail clumped inwardly by thorns and other prickly foliage and paws which never seemed to get clean, even if she took the effort of using water. The first time she'd caught sight of herself in a reflection after days of walking had made her shiver in disgust. Still, she went on, convinced that there was some place safer, calmer and cleaner on the other side of treachery.
"All aboard!"
Peg's attention snapped upwards, noting that Bull and Toughy seemed to be standing on the ready.
fwweeeeeettttt
"That's one of 'em," Toughy remarked.
Almost immediately, Peg could hear the heavy grunts working the fires, willing such a big piece of metal to move. Shovels cracked into coals and coals cracked in the heat of flames. A few short moments later, the train's wheels began to oscillate in a slow circle which was gradually picking up speed.
"That's our signal!" Toughy said, taking off with little warning. "Pick up the pace you two!" he yelled behind him.
Bull immediately took to following and Peg after him. They were shorter, slower, but still quick enough to catch up and in no time were running besides the train, the hulking machine still finding momentum in it's inner fire.
"What now!" Peg called out over the chugging noise of metal on metal.
"Don't run yourself short of breath!" Toughy advised. "This isn't the important part. The important part is that we get up there at the right time."
"Easy for you to say!" Bull lamented. "Not all of us are so slender and lean!"
"They come with the good looks!" Toughy answered without skipping a beat. "Alright it looks pretty fast now. You guys ready?"
"On your count then!" Peg called out, visibly beginning to struggle. "Make it quick!"
"One!" Toughy called out, straining for his voice to be heard over the chugging of the train.
"Two!" Bull called out next.
"My count!" Toughy protested.
"I don't see a difference between my count and your count, if you ask me-"
"Oh brother!" Peg whined and then steeled herself to shout: "One!"
As if synchronized, all three dogs leaped toward the caboose. Just as they reached for the railing, a sudden jolt from the train threw them off balance. Peg's heart raced as she felt herself slipping.
"Grab on!" Toughy yelled, reaching out to catch Peg's scruffy fur just in time. Bull steadied himself against the caboose, pulling both Toughy and Peg aboard.
With adrenaline still pumping, they found themselves sprawled on the floor of the caboose, panting but relieved. The train's rhythmic chugging beneath them reassured them that they had made it.
"Thank you," Peg said in gratitude once a beat had passed. "But also." She smacked him over the head with a paw, glaring all the time.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"I don't know... getting in the middle of an argument in the middle of trying to hop on a train?" she suggested, looking at him in disbelief.
"The good news," Bull interjected, "is that we're all well and safe and through with the hardest part of the plan. Now all we need to do is lay back and wait for this fine piece of machinery to take us to where we need to go."
"I owe you a smack over the head too," she said sternly. "Count yourself lucky that to me the two of you share the same head."
"Relax would ya Peg," Toughy pleaded. "We made it up here didn't we?"
"We almost didn't because the two of you wanted to of you can't ever do nothing without using what's between your legs instead of what's between your ears."
"If what's between my legs had a personality to call it's own, then it's to that which we owe our transit," Bull reasoned.
Frustration having yet to leave her, Peg fixed him with a deathly glare, "We almost didn't make it because of your bickering."
"We almost didn't make it cause Toughy here has to make everything about himself," Bull said, attempting to redirect the blame.
"It ain't my fault that I'm the only one between the two of us that can actually put a plan together!"
"Says you!"
"Says me indeed ya nincompoop!"
"Don't call me a nincompoop!"
"Sorry," Toughy seemed to concede, "I meant to say popinjay."
Bull looked at him skeptically for a moment and the turned to Peg for help, "Is that any better?"
"No."
"Why you little..."
She shook her head in exasperation and tuned out the way which they barked insults back and forth, considering that there would be more productivity in finding somewhere soft to put herself to rest.
The crowd was certainly as they had earlier described it.
Sweaty and drunk on the best of nights, stained and conscious enough to take note of three dogs in their carriage on the worst of nights.
Peg found that it was not as bad as she had expected. The worst of the ride being the boredom that came with having nothing to do but sleep and occasionally stare out through the little crack their cabin afforded, watching as rocks and cacti flew by.
Sometimes the only entertainment she could find was in listening to them ramble on about a future which would never come and dreams which had already come crashing to the ground. It could all be a bit eerie, but grounded in reality, she was hardly ever affected by any of it.
"Soon as I get back down south, I'm gonna do right by her. I'm gonna drag myself up onto the doorstep and say sorry, say it a thousand times if I have to. I'm gonna tell her about the hole her absence has dug in my life and I'm gonna kiss her, real good, well and good. I'm gonna kiss her and show her how a real man makes love to his woman. I'm gonna show her that I'm a real man, that she don't have to worry about bread or a home no more. I'm gonna be the husband that she never had."
She could not help but feel sympathetic, especially when the reaction among the rest of the motley crew was either to snicker or to mock. At the very least, his words were poetic, much more graceful than the drunken ramblings of the alcoholics.
"And lemme tell ya, I was, like, the absolute best cowboy, no kiddin'. Had it all, ya know? Me and the gang â€" we were like this tight-knit family, did everything together, said it all together, man. Me, the wife, that little urchin girl we picked up â€" can't recall her name, sorry â€" us three and ol' Mason. Sarah and Jack, they were in the mix too. Six of us and four dogs. Ten in the crew, kinda small, but we rocked it. Sometimes, Henry Walker and his wife joined the posse, another cowboy who just vanished, man. Given what happened to the rest of us, can't even fathom what went down with poor Henry. Then bam, everything went to hell, lost everything that made me me. And now, here I am, ready to dance and put on a show for you fine folks. May we all find our souls rotting in the depths of hell where I'm sure the devil has a special spot reserved for each and every one of us... oh, did I mention I was the absolute best cowboy ever? Yeah, that's right!"
Peg shook her head at nonsense like that. It was yapping was all that it was and to her, it never made sense to waste a voice on yapping, not when it could be spent singing instead.
Some nights, late as they might have been, she liked to sneak over the protective wall which Toughy and Bull formed with their bodies, to creep past the mass of torn pants and dirty shoes and to settle down at one part of the carriage where the moon manages to sneak in a sliver of light. It was not much, but just the right amount to give her hope of the future and ambition in assuming that her dreams still burned.
"You sure do look like you never let 'em tell you who to be."
That was a voice she recognized. Not one bogged down by virtue of the depression which alcohol brought about. It was that same sweet, singing voice which brought peace to even the most troubled of souls.
"Sebastian?"
There was a disbelief in her voice which quickly gave way to the type of excitement that only a dog could harbor. Her tail wagged and her entire countenance looked like it was ready to jump onto another moving train.
The man in question merely shrugged his shoulders in that same careless way which his life had at one point promoted.
"It's been a couple of years."
Peg ran into his awaiting arms then, faster than Hermes on winged sandals. She licked the man's face all over, not caring that he tasted like the past and dreams long gone; they were together again. He was Sebastian and she was the dog on his doorstep.
"Yeah," he remarked, letting her slowly drop back down onto the moving ground below, "I figured that you'd be alright so long as you followed my advice. Though, it does look like you've gotten yourself into a bit of a tizzy here."
It felt good to hear his voice again, to be reminded of the fact that there was some semblance of sanity in the world. It was too terribly easy to forget of that simple concept when there had been no break to her days for weeks on end. That was only amplified when considering the fast moving train she was on, days blending into days and the nights joining them in their own bizarre painting.
"You have no idea," Peg sighed in bliss. "Things have just gotten so messy since the last time I saw you. Some of it was nice and I kept on singing and singing, I found someone to call my own, I had a kid, but the rest? The rest is why I'm on this stinking heat trap in the first place. Which gets me thinking, how did you get yourself on this stinking heat trap?"
"The usual really," he said with a shrug, "work in this world is hard to come by. When you do come by it, you've gotta go wherever it tells you to."
Peg hummed in sympathy, gazing up at his deep brown eyes, easily visible even in dim light. Then something struck her as strange. Strange enough to be scary and scary enough to be funny. "For a second there," she chuckled, "I would have sworn that you just understood me."
"You planning on taking that swear back? Cause I understand you just fine."
"Y-You," she stuttered in a mix of disbelief and amazement, "you understand me?"
"I do," Sebastian said, nodding his head to ensure that she was assured of his sincerity. "Dog sounds a lot like German to me, I can't speak it, but I sure do understand it."
"You understand me!" Peg exploded in joy for the second time that night.
"I do," he assured once more.
"Th-th-there's so much I want to say to you, so much I want to tell you!"
"We've got the night," Sebastian said, settling down cross-legged on the ground. "Ask away."
"Well what have you been getting up to all these years? How'd you end up on this train? Is John still okay? Tell me that John's still okay. Where's your guitar?" she asked each question one on top of the other.
"One at a time," he stopped her with a chuckle. "One at a time."
"Sorry," Peg backed away sheepishly before clearing her throat and asking what the one question which had bothered her the most over the years. "When you told me to follow my own path, to be who I am, did you ever think that so many people and dogs would try telling me what I should be?"
"Peg ole dog, that was more than a simple piece of advice. It was a warning," Sebastian drew closer, his voice taking on a gentle edge. "I've lived in this world for long enough to know about all the snakes slithering around out there. That guitar I used to carry with me everywhere I went, it wasn't easy to get my hands on. Go work in the mines, they told me everyday and when I got the guitar it turned to get a real job! Fact of the matter is that nobody in this world really wants you to go out there and do what you gotta do. People'll always make you feel like you're the crazy one and then even when you get to the top, they'll still tell you everything that you did wrong."
There was a frown on her face when she asked: "Are you speaking from experience?"
"Someone's experience," he clarified. "But that was a long time ago."
There were more questions to be answered and plenty more to be asked, but with the night drawing on, she ultimately fell into a deep sleep upon the lap of her hallucination, muttering the entire time of food, drink and all else which he could finally comprehend of her speech.