Derailed

Mitch Ryals: Chuck Lawrence is breaking Rule No. 1: Don't get too drunk.

"The hell with this," he tells himself. "I'm goin' home."

He buys a bottle of Skol vodka at a corner store. Vodka's not usually his drink — he prefers beer — but it's going to be a long haul home, and vodka lasts longer. He takes a pull from the bottle and waits in the shadows of the Missoula train yard. He scans the tracks for rail cops, known by train hoppers simply as "bulls." Gusts of wind whip at his scruffy face as the sun dips below the horizon. When his train finally pulls in hours later, it's already too late: He's half shitfaced.

Chuck staggers toward the hulking steel box, as he's done countless times before,…