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"Maybe we'd better go on," Loren murmured, having second thoughts.
"You afraid of the bikers? They're probably weary travelers just like you and me."
"They certainly don't dress like us." She nodded at the assembly, divided equally between men and wome
n, all wearing black riding gear festooned with badges, patches, and embroidered messages touting America's most famous motorcycle.
Pitt turned the outsize steering wheel and the Pierce rolled off the blacktop up to the gas pumps. The big V-12 engine was so whisper-quiet it was hard to tell it had stopped when he turned off the ignition.
He opened the suicide door that swung outward from the front, put a foot on the high running board and stepped down. " Hi there," he greeted the nearest biker, a bleached blond female with a ponytail, wearing black leather pants and jacket. "How's the food here?"
"Not quite up to the standards of Spago's or Chasen's," she said pleasantly. "But if you're hungry, it's not half bad."
A metal sign liberally peppered with bullet holes said Self Service, so Pitt inserted the nozzle of the gas pump inside the Pierce Arrow's tank filler and squeezed the handle. When he had the engine rebuilt, the machine shop modified the valves to burn unleaded gas without problems.
Loren warily hunched down in her seat as the bikers all walked over and admired the old car and trailer. After answering a barrage of questions, Pitt lifted the hood and showed them the engine. Then he pulled Loren from the car.
"I thought you'd like to meet these nice people," he said. "They all belong to a bike riding club from West Hollywood."
She thought Pitt was joking and was embarrassed half to death as he made introductions. Then she was astounded to discover they were attorneys with their wives on a weekend ride around the Southern California desert. She was also impressed and flattered that they recognized her when Pitt gave them her name.
After a congenial conversation, the Hollywood barristers and their spouses bid goodbye, climbed aboard their beloved hogs and roared off, exhaust stacks reverberating in chorus, toward the Imperial Valley. Pitt and Loren waved, then turned and faced the freight cars.
The rails beneath the rusting wheel-trucks were buried in the sand. The weathered wooden walls had once been painted a reddish tan, and the lettering above the long row of crudely installed windows read Southern Pacific Lines. Thanks to the dry air, the body shells of the antique boxcars had survived the ravages of constant exposure and appeared in relatively good condition.
Pitt owned a piece of railroad history, a Pullman car. It was part of the collection housed inside his hangar in Washington. The once-luxurious rail car had been pulled by the famed Manhattan Limited out of New York in the years prior to World War I. He judged these freight cars to have been built sometime around 1915.
He and Loren climbed a makeshift stairway and entered a door cut into the end of one car. The interior was timeworn but neat and clean. There were no tables, only a long counter with stools that stretched the length of the two attached cars. The open kitchen was situated on the opposite side of the counter and looked as if it was constructed from used lumber that had lain in the sun for several decades.
Pictures on the walls showed early engines, smoke spouting from their stacks, pulling passenger and freight trains across the desert sands. The list of records on a Wurlitzer jukebox was a mix of favorite pop music from the forties and fifties and the sounds of steam locomotives. Two plays for twenty-five cents.
Pitt put a quarter in the slot and made his selections. One was Frankie Carle playing "Sweet Lorraine."
The other was the clamor of a Norfolk & Western single expansion articulated steam locomotive leaving a station and coming to speed.
A tall man, in his early sixties, with gray hair and white beard, was wiping the oak counter top. He looked up and smiled, his blue-green eyes filled with warmth and congeniality. "Greetings, folks.
Welcome to the Box Car Cafe. Travel far?"
"Not far," Pitt answered, throwing Loren a rakish grin. "We didn't leave Sedona as early as I planned."
"Don't blame me," she said loftily. "You're the one who woke up with carnal passions."
"What can I get you?" said the man behind the bar. He was wearing cowboy boots, denim pants, and a plaid shirt that was badly faded from too many washings.
"Your advertised ice-cold beer would be nice," replied Loren, opening a menu.
"Mexican or domestic?"
"Corona?"
"One Corona coming up. And you, sir?"
"What do you have on tap?" asked Pitt.
"Olympia, Coors, and Budweiser."
"I'd like an Oly."
