I was reaching for the boards when the thunderous noise came again, and I lurched forward, which almost threw me into the empty container. Scrambling, I counterbalanced, slapped my hands against the rungs of the ladder, and clung there, my right arm reminding me that it wasn’t 100 percent.
I turned back to the job at hand and counted in my head—ten cars to go. It was an estimate, but the high-rail driver had impressed me as a man who knew whereof he spoke.
Grabbing the end of the top board, I leveraged it from the car and began the arduous task of trying to balance it on the edge, turning it toward the middle and getting the end up onto one of the nearest supports.
The edge of the board tipped, so I was going to need the other board to span the length of the car. Following the same maneuver, I leveraged the second board up and clattered it onto the supports parallel to the first one, but I was sweating like a bottle of beer in a biker bar.
Climbing onto the nearest board, I pushed the other one ahead, watching it slide on the ice and go about half the distance I wanted it to. Trying to gauge just how many of my sixty seconds were left and figuring not many, I loped a few steps ahead, grabbed the end of the second board, and pushed it, watching as it shot forward, bumping on the far edge and sliding past the end of the board where I now stood, creating a gap of about two feet.
“You have got to be kidding.”
I crept forward onto the unsupported four feet that was left of the first board, feeling the length of the thing tip up behind me. There wasn’t anywhere to stand, so I backed up and hunkered down in a three-point stance. I was getting an idea of the timing of the loaders and figured I could use the momentum of the moving cars to assist me in the traverse.
Clutching both sides of the board, I waited, and it didn’t take long for the loading to recommence.
Nine cars to go.
Feeling the surge of the train as it continued pulling all its tonnage, I threw myself forward when I was sure we were moving together at peak speed, clomping down the two-by-twelve as if it were a wooden boardwalk.
Feeling the first board begin to give way beneath me, I leapt and watched as the train cars continued at their steady pace, leaving me to fly forward like a cue ball on a clean break.
I really hadn’t had to worry about the gap as I sailed over that with no problem. What I should’ve worried about was landing halfway onto the frost-covered second board and sliding over the side between the two cars.
Gripping the two-by-twelve like a lemur, I put a hand out and was able to stop my forward momentum enough to slide sideways with my legs hanging down between the last and next-to-last cars.
Swallowing hard, I threw a leg back onto the board, reached out, and grabbed the lip of the next car just enough to allow me to get mostly back on the board—wondering how Tom Mix did this shit on a regular basis.
I pushed the top of my body over the edge and looked down into the car and, in the contrast of dark and light, there, sticking out into the flat beam of the mine’s arc lights, half buried in the drifts, was a woman’s leg.
I forced the name from my mouth with all the air I could muster. “Jone!” Staring at the leg, hoping it would move. There was no response. “Jone!”
Nothing.
Edging to the side, I figured the only way to get down into the car, and, more important, back out, was on the board that had just tried to kill me. With a boot on the ladder, I brought it forward and tipped it down past her leg.
I looked at the angle, trying to judge if I’d be able to climb back out on the thing with a woman on my shoulder, and every voice in my head answered with an absolute negative. I thought that if I rigged the board from side to side as opposed to lengthwise, it’d certainly be a shorter distance and the side of the car would provide a better brace anyway.
Still listening to the noise of the loader, I braced myself on the ladder for the next short burst forward, throwing my arms over the side and hugging the lip as the thing clanked ahead for the anticipated distance and the noise began again. I wasn’t sure, but it was almost as if it were becoming more violent.
Eight cars to go.
I grappled my way over the edge and turned toward the hateful board, hugging it so as not to take the entire slide at once, alternately gripping it and loosening to allow my descent into the darkness. It seemed to take forever, but I finally felt my boots kick against the steel of the car, notifying me that I’d reached bottom.
The snow had drifted on the trip from Arrosa, the bulk of it seeming to have flowed to the back of the car where Jone Urrecha lay.
Stepping around the board, I stooped to pull her up. She was lean and half-starved, and I lifted her easily, her long hair slipping against my chest; I could see the matted blood where her head must’ve struck the edge, but she was still breathing.
She was wearing a pair of jeans and a stained sweatshirt, and her body convulsed in shivers; even unconscious, she wanted to live, but she was not only drugged but concussed as well.
I pulled her face up and shook her gently. “Jone?”
Nothing.
“Jone?”
There was the slightest movement under her eyelids.
“Jone?” One of her eyes opened slowly, and then the other did the same, almost as if they’d been glued. Without the benefit of the flashlight all the doctors on television and in the movies seem to have handy, I was still pretty sure that her eyes were lacking any constriction. “Jone?”
A hand came up feebly but then dropped to her side, and she groaned, all good signs. “Jone, I’m going to need your help. We’re in a pretty lousy situation, and I need you to do some climbing.”
Her head jogged to one side and then lolled down with her chin resting on her chest.
“Great.” I looked back at the board angling up to safety and wondered how far I could push her before she slid off the side.
When I removed my jacket, I noticed blood on the collar—my wound must have been seeping—but I gently wrapped the coat around her anyway. I moved onto the board, straddled the thing, and took a deep breath, looking at the angled climb as if it might as well be to the moon. I gripped the wood and started up, my boots slipping on the surface like a gerbil on a wheel.
I dug in a little harder and got enough momentum to slide my hand up and regrip. My boots continued to slip but provided just enough traction to allow another increment of advance—I figured at this rate we’d likely be out of the car by Valentine’s Day.
I paused and took a deep breath, trying to calculate how many of my sixty seconds had gone by, figuring about thirty, which meant I had another thirty seconds to get Jone and myself out of harm’s way.
I was almost to the point where I could grab one of the cross supports but was afraid that if I did, I’d lose traction on the board and we’d just go over. We needed to get a hell of a lot higher than this. So, repositioning my hand, I nudged us again. I pushed her even farther but was struck by the fact that she weighed less this time.
I raised my face and looked up to see Fry smiling down at me as he grabbed the young woman and pulled her up the board toward him. “Couldn’t just sit there. Thought maybe I could help if you got her far enough.”
I laughed. “How did you get up there?”
“The front of the high-rail is jammed onto the locomotive, so I just put it in neutral and climbed on the way you did.”
“Did you get a hold of the men doing the loading?”
“No, so we need to get you out of there now.”
As he pulled her from the car, I risked moving my left hand from the board and placed it on the support brace that ran from side to side. “Where’s Lucian?”
He pulled Jone over the side and draped her over his shoulder. “Pretending to drive the truck, not that you have to—I think he enjoys being in charge.”
With the force of a T-bone crash, the car suddenly vibrated in a clacking din, jarring the three of us like fleas on a shaking dog. I watched Fry grab the side of the car with one hand, still clutching Jone with the other so she wouldn’t slip away. The two-by-twelve did its usual slide and clattered to the inside of the car, and I scrambled to hang on to the cross-member, finally giving up on the board and grabbing the support with both hands. Hanging there like a high plains piñata, my right arm reminded me that it was still half numb, leaving my left to support my two hundred and fifty pounds.