Anyone can imagine a train accident which could result in a head being find near the driving wheel and the body never found. Well, the body not found without a lot of trouble. Drunk and sleeping on the tracks is one possible scenario, and walking home along them is another. And if we are talking about the husband of a Southern black girl from the Thirties or earlier, it is a good bet the body would be "never found" because the effort to find it just wasn't about to be expended on someone of so little concern to the authorities.

And if this "railroad man" -- which could mean anything from a trackwalker to a tie-hauler, and not necessarily an oiler, fireman or engineer -- was the sole support of his wife she might be sleeping in the pines out of depseration, having lost her ability to pay rent.

'Leastwise that's how I always imagined it.

I think it is drawing a long bow to impose the lynching metaphor across these verses, although I can understand the temptation.

A