About twenty more yards down the road she slowed and dodged to the right through an opening in the fence, her coat snagging on the wire and holding her up.
Running faster, I got within an arm’s length, but she shrugged off the heavy garment and left it hanging as she leapt forward and then began climbing the short hill leading toward the tracks. I tried pushing myself through the area where the chain-link had been cut and pulled apart, but the opening was too small. “Connie!”
At the top of the incline, she stepped onto the ties and turned to look down the tracks where the whistle blew again, closer this time. Then she turned and looked back at me, the breeze blowing her hair across her face, hiding half of it.
We stood there as before, looking at each other, but this time I could move no closer.
Seeing my situation, she seemed to relax, and then spoke. “I used to come here when I was a kid; we’d put pennies on the rails and then come back and get them.”
I pulled her coat from the wires and held it out to her through the opening. “Come take your coat; it’s freezing out here.”
She stood there, unmoving.
The train horns sounded again, and she turned toward them, the hair blowing back from her face. “I used to dance.”
I looked down the rails but couldn’t see anything yet.
“I was really good.”
I turned back to look at her and watched as she stretched her neck.
She went up on tiptoes, placed her arms in position, and turned, slowly at first, but then gaining momentum until she spun like a dervish. Coming to a stop, she faltered a bit and leaned forward, catching herself and laughing. “I’m a little out of practice.”
I pulled at the fence, but the opening was only wide enough for me to fit one leg and a shoulder through, my face pressed up against the chain-link.
Her voice was high and just a little bit manic. “I used to practice all the time, trying to keep my weight down I got stuck on amphetamines and a bunch of other stuff . . .” She moved her feet up onto the rail and balanced there. “It never goes away, you know.”
The train horns sounded again.
“You’d be amazed at the things you’ll do; things you can’t even imagine.” She began walking the rail as if it were a balance beam in a portrait of poise, flexibility, and strength. “Dave got me involved in all this, and I helped him. It got more involved, and he sold Linda to some guy in Florida.”
She twirled again and then stopped.
“I had this plan for my life, but when that fell through I decided I’d teach and help other people with their dreams . . . But I guess that didn’t work out, either.”
I could hear the train now, the vibration of the thing pounding the rails like punishment.
She stopped and turned to look in its direction. “I don’t think I can watch it—don’t have the stomach for it.” Then she turned to look at my face. “I guess that makes me a coward, huh? I might jump out of the way or something.” She turned on the rail and continued her performance. “Can’t have that.”
The horns sounded again, and now I could see the four headlights of the locomotive pushing through the fog, bound and determined to get somebody this time. Pulling on the post at the other side, I felt my jeans tearing and the canvas of my coat shredding as I tried to get through the ragged edges.
Struggling against the opening, I felt the wire ends drag across the side of my face, pulling at the bandages on my neck, and the sudden warmth of my blood as it trickled down my cheek and saturated the collar of my coat.
Breaking my head free, I yanked at the rest of me, but the opening wasn’t big enough, and I just hung there like a side of beef and watched the big train coming down the line like a juggernaut of justice, inevitable and unstoppable.
She took a few more steps on the rail but then stopped and folded her arms over her chest, still facing the other way. “I guess it’s time to go.”
I grunted and pulled hard, and with one sudden yank, I staggered forward and fell on the ice in the ditch on the other side.
Pushing myself up, I could see the coal train only a couple hundred yards down the tracks, rumbling toward us at speed. I scrambled off the ice up the incline toward the woman, but slipped and slid down on the snow, gritty with coal dust.
When I looked again, it was a lot closer.
I figured it would take a few seconds to get the rest of the way up the incline and another few to get a hold of her and snatch her from the tracks.
I looked back as I dug in with my boots and, taking an angular route, scrambled up and could now see the details of the giant orange and black conveyance, the front rails with the safety chain hanging between, the treads that led over the hood, and even noticed that the front had a modified cowcatcher—that would be the part that struck us.
No way I was going to make it.
Even with the approaching roar of the train, I could hear the siren of a car pulling onto the road behind me and could see the revolving illumination of the blue lights on the snow. Doors slammed, and I could hear Sandburg and Dougherty calling from behind me but couldn’t understand the words.
Catching a few good footholds, I felt myself going up the hill before I was even aware that I was trying, the snow and coal dust passing under my eyes as I just kept digging and trying not to look to my left, focusing so hard that all I could hear was my breathing.
Reaching the top with a roaring rush of my own, I finally glanced back and could see the train was on top of us, the horn blaring in a din that was deafening. I threw myself into her and felt the toe of my boot hit the end of a tie, and all I could think was that I was going to trip and land the both of us on the rails.
The train bore down with a sudden rush of wind, carrying the fog and thunderous din with it. Making sure to use my left arm to wrap her up, I carried the two of us across the tracks onto the downslope with a tremendous thump, tumbling and sliding to the bottom.
Still holding her next to me, I watched silently as the thing passed by, car after car after car. She began crying and clutched me, finally converting the sobs into a low and steady moan that unintentionally mimicked the train’s whistle in a sad and wrenching lament.
EPILOGUE
The taxicab driver said that the regular route to Pennsylvania Hospital would be a parking lot this time of morning, especially with the snow piled to the curbs and the fact that it was New Year’s Day and therefore the Mummers Parade but that he knew a shortcut.
He patted the dash of the run-down Crown Vic. “Beena will get us there, she used to work for the police department.” He turned to look at me. “Baggage?”
“More than I can carry.”
“Where is it?”
I closed the door behind me. “Sorry, I was joking.”
He nodded and turned back toward the meter. “Cash or credit?”
“Cash.”
“We’ll get there even faster.” He punched the button on his dash and then the accelerator. We drove, and he continued to smile at me in the rearview mirror. “I have to tell you, that’s one bad hat you’re wearing.”
“Thanks.” We drove on, taking a banked loop underneath the highway, which was, as he’d predicted, jammed.
“Texas?”
I watched the floating snow flurries, somehow different from that of the high plains. “Wyoming.”
“Where’s that?”
“Above Colorado and below Montana.”
He edged the Crown Vic forward and then hit his horn as an individual in another cab cut in front of him and attempted to crowd his way into the lane escaping the airport. “There’s a state in between those two?”
“Since 1890.”
I could see him still studying me in the rearview mirror, probably taking note of the bruises, stitches on my face, bandages around my neck, and that little piece of my ear that was missing. “Don’t they have doctors there?”
I breathed a tired chuckle. “Yep, but my daughter lives here, and she’s the one having the baby.” On cue, I felt the phone vibrating in my pocket. One of the flight attendants had been kind enough to plug the thing in and recharge it after giving me a glass of champagne or it would’ve been long dead. I pulled it out and recognized the number. “Sweet-pea?”