***
The train swept smoothly across the countryside like brushing leather with a knife. The ride was so silky, that the passengers would have been forgiven if they had thought they were falling into the abyss instead of clattering against steel beams. And as the train dove deeper into the bottomless night, the dandelion of snowflakes grew, as if the forge of hell was coughing up ash from tis black lungs. Even the thick beam of light that shone from between the locomotive’s teeth could barely scythe the cotton snow. It would have reminded the lost souls from shipwrecks of what the ocean floor looks like, a graveyard at night where the corpses rain down.
To the men packed inside of the locomotive, it definitely felt like hell. Gordon, who was manning the firebox like he always did, was spooning coal into the always-hungry furnace. As each shovelful of coal was dumped, it kicked up a tremendous flurry of embers like mosquitos. Sweat poured down Gordon’s face and neck but he didn’t need a towel. The fire was thirsty too, and the heat licked the water off his skin with its long tongue. It was a job that took two or even three men on any other train, but Gordon found a strength that didn’t belong to him. And Gordon found it tiring – not in that it sapped his muscle, but the constant shoveling felt like a hypnotist’s watch, the routine rocking him to sleep.
The conductor, however, was not nearly as tolerant of the heat. Allen stood at the rear of the locomotive, where he had one of the windows cracked open. Fingers of freezing air wrapped around the edge of the glass and tried to push the window open even more. With a wrinkled nose, Allen looked at Gordon’s swampy clothes and asked, “When was the last time you took a bath?”
Gordon managed to look thoughtful, even as his arms pulsed with pounds of coal. “Good question – who’s the president now?”
“That’s revolting. The second we come to a stop in Cheyenne, I’m ordering you to get a bath. I can’t have you tramping around the train, looking like an ogre. You’ll scare the peasants.”
Gordon snorted. “Let’s compromise. I’ll roll around in the snow for a few minutes. It’ll clean me up, and it’s good for the soul.”
“All you’ll do is turn the snow black,” Allen said before turning to the man propped up at the controls. “How is our train holding up, Mr. Patton?”
Victor Patton was a poor man, but he was told to never show it. With a polished mustache and neatly cropped hair, Patton never let on that he was homeless, a victim of gambling debts unpaid. Like a prince without a country, he spent what little he had left on himself and nothing else. He chirped, “Things are going well, Mr. Allen – for now.”
“Caution never got anyone anywhere fast,” Allen pointed out.
“Maybe, but neither does an empty water tank. I just checked a few minutes ago. The water level is low.”
Allen was flabbergasted. “You didn’t think to fill up the tank before we left the last station?”
Patton’s eyes darkened. “Of course I did. The only thing I can think of is the night before, when the temperature dipped below freezing. Some of the water inside of the tank must have frozen and expanded. Now that the tank is all warmed up, the water’s settled down and we know just how low the levels are. The fact that you’re making us push the train like this isn’t helping. You know what I think we should do?”
“What?” Allen asked.
“I think we should stop, melt some snow, and refill the water tank. It would take an hour, maybe two, but we’ll definitely have no more trouble after that.”
Allen shook his head fiercely as the train rounded a hill. “No, no, no. I didn’t speed us up just to slow us down. We have to get to Cheyenne on time, even if that means spitting in the tank.”
“Don’t be a fool about…”
The locomotive suddenly jackknifed to the left, throwing the three men onboard to the right. Gordon, who was standing in front of the firebox, screamed as he lurched forward. His hands had instinctively shot out to shield himself from the fall, and he heard the sizzle of flesh against hot metal. Patton cracked his head against a lever, knocking himself out cold. Allen managed to grab ahold of the pull cord for the train whistle before he could fall forward. The whistle sounded a funeral dirge, and Allen thought for sure that he was going to die. The locomotive brutally overcorrected itself and veered to the right, causing the men to tumble just when they were beginning to find their balance again. For a bizarre moment, Allen heard someone chanting a prayer in Latin and thought that an angel was standing behind him. He didn’t realize that he was the one speaking, reciting prayers that he hadn’t heard since he was a child.
The locomotive tilted, and Allen thought that he was going to slide off the world. Then everything went sideways, and what was the floor was now the wall, and the gears and levers and the firebox were now the floor. The men laid crumpled in the peace of the chaos for what felt like an eternity. Then, Allen slowly picked himself up, wincing from a cracked rib. He looked over and saw Gordon huddled and softly crying over his hands. Numbly, Allen looked at the hands, which were seared from the firebox’s grates, so badly burned that the meat was beginning to peel off. Allen then remembered Patton and turned and looked. The engineer was a few feet away, lying awkwardly on his side, a lever rammed through his right eye socket.
“Oh, God,” Allen moaned. He turned to Gordon. “William, can you get up?”
“My hands,” Gordon said through his tears. It was the first time he had cried since his mother passed almost two decades before.
“I know, I know. We have to get out of here,” Allen said heavily. “We’re on a – ledge or something. We’re going to fall any moment and take the whole train with us. Come on.”
Allen ripped two strips of cloth from his undershirt and wrapped them around Gordon’s blistered palms. Then, locking the engine stoker’s arm with his own, Allen awkwardly scrambled up the steep floor. As he did, Allen nervously heard the locomotive groaning all around him. When they reached the door, Allen stretched out his hand and grabbed ahold of the handle. He turned the handle and tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t budge – the door was jammed.
“William,” Allen said softly. “I know it’s going to hurt like hell, but try to hold onto something. I have to get the door open.”
Gordon nodded and, using the crook of his elbow, latched onto one of the levers that lined the ceiling. Meanwhile, Allen continued to yank on the door handle. He had never wanted to open a door so much in his life. And still the door wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t until he launched himself off the floor and used all of his weight that the door finally became unglued and swung open. Surprised, Allen almost lost his grip on the handle and plummeted to the firebox below. But he held on and, taking Gordon by the collar, managed to pull both of them out of the wounded locomotive.
Even with his heavy wool uniform on, Allen felt the blizzard down to his soul. He had never felt so cold in his entire life, and it took his heart all it could not to freeze in mid-beat. Gasping, Allen spun around, trying to survey how the world came to an end. Through the blizzard, he could make out the dim outline of a bulging hill to his left and a valley to the right. Beneath his feet was a wolf pack of snow that had buried the tracks and caused the derailment. What he didn’t know was that it had snowed in the area just a week before, and the old snow that had accumulated on the hilltop had just crumbled away earlier that day, its stitching melted away by the noon sun. The avalanche had drenched the train tracks, and the blizzard caused the soft snow to harden again.
It was a miracle that the rest of the train was still on the tracks, but not even miracles last. The coal-car, which was seated behind the locomotive, was already beginning to lift up on the left side. Allen watched as the car swayed in the strong wind, and he realized that the right kind of gust could cause the tender to fly like a bird’s wing. Taking Gordon by the arm, the conductor rushed over to see what could be done. The link-and-pin coupling between the locomotive and
the tender was mangled from stress. There was no way he could knock the pin out of the link.
He rushed to the next car, which held the baggage for everyone onboard. The coupling between the tender and this car wasn’t as badly damaged, but Allen could see where the pin was still slightly bent. They were running out of time, though, and he couldn’t risk running to the next car and uncoupling it there. If the tender went, so did the rest of the train. That was when he spotted an ax hanging on the door for the baggage car and grabbed it.
Gordon watched on, helpless, as Allen struggled with popping the pin out of the link. The conductor was already weak, and the cold was sapping his strength. But it only took a few swings, hitting the head of the pin at an upward angle, before the pin popped out and landed in the snow. The second he did, Allen felt a blast of wind in his ear, deafening him. The same gust pushed with its thousands of hands against the tender, causing it to lose its grip on the tracks. There was a sharp grinding of metal before the locomotive and tender were lapped up between the teeth of darkness and sent falling to the stomach of the valley.
Chapter 6