"Sit down," Marshall pointed to a chair, "and tell me about you."
"What do you want to know, mein Herr?"
"First you should stop this 'mein Herr' Zeugs. Even if we are talking German now, we're on first names in the Lokschuppen. We're all workers here."
"But you are the 'boss', mein-Marshall."
"No matter. Tell me what you think I should know about you. And take your time."
Wolfgang looked at the table. There was his "form," so Marshall already knew his career. But not his aims. Wolfgang looked up again. While he was gathering his thoughts, his eyes traveled through the room, and then out through the window.
The steam wagon he had seen before was just passing by. But something was wrong. There was no longer a young man sitting on the chair. And that steering wheel was missing, too.
Completely forgetting where he was, Wolfgang jumped up to look at the lower part of this wagon. The young man was dangling there upside down, his foot entangled somewhere on the wagon, his head pounding against the cobblestones of the street.
"Jessas, Maria und Josef!" Wolfgang shouted, falling into his Erzgebirgisch.
Marshall followed his gaze with his eyes and then jumped up.
"Come with me," he screamed and ran out of the room.
Wolfgang followed him. Out in the yard he could just see the wagon disappear into one of the buildings, crashing through a large wooden door, followed by the young men who had been cheering before but now were yelling and crying.
Then "Thump, thump, thump" a continuous thunder came from the building, where the wagon had disappeared. Wolfgang ran after Marshall. They entered the building, where Wolfgang suddenly felt at home. This was obviously a foundry. A small furnace could be seen on the other side of a large room. Sand, coal and several types of metal were heaped up along one wall.
And in the middle was that wagon thumping against the furnace.
"Oh my God!" Wolfgang shouted. The furnace was obviously heavy enough not to be moved by the wagon, but another-older-man was also lying under the thing. Some of the young men tried to approach the wagon, but the heat of the furnace drove them away. The force of the wagon had opened the furnace door, and even some of the melting dripped down to earth.
Other men were helplessly standing there and looking.
"Where's the master?" Marshall asked, and several men pointed to under the wagon. "Shit!" The American looked around, apparently as helpless as the others.
Wolfgang's eyes examined the room. There had to be. .There! On a shelf lay a founder's clothes. A heavy leather apron; gloves and spats from the same material. He ran to the shelf and started to don these things.
When Marshall recognized what he was doing, he followed Wolfgang and helped him into the heavy garments. "Here," he said and handed Wolfgang something uncommon. It was a kind of hood, but with a window to look through.
"Do you have water? Can you wet me?" Wolfgang asked, while he was putting on the hood.
"Sure," Marshall said.
"But only me! Don't hit the furnace!" A small part of Wolfgang's mind was wondering what would happen afterwards. He was just giving orders to his prospective employer.
But he wiped the thoughts away. Saving lives was now top priority. Firing before hiring was to come later. Through the hood, he could see-not very well-but hear nothing, so he didn't know if Marshall had heard him.
He started in the direction of the wagon, when he suddenly noticed Marshall pounding on his shoulder. He lifted the hood again.
"There's a lever on the locomobile."
Wolfgang's eyes followed Marshall's finger. "Yes, I can see it."
"Push it down. That will stop the thing."
"In Ordnung." He nodded, and then lowered the hood again. When he approached the wagon, he noticed water beginning to pour over him. Continuously. They have a hose. That's good.
He could sense the heat, but it didn't really bother him. But the lever did. He could barely reach it, and that infernal vehicle was still moving back and forth. There was only one possibility.
When the wagon hit the furnace again, Wolfgang seized the pole where the steering wheel had been. He leapt onto the vehicle and just got hold of the lever, when the wagon hit the furnace again. In spite of the shudder that threatened to throw him down, he kept his grip and forcefully lowered the lever.
It worked.
The wagon ceased moving.
Wolfgang took a deep breath; then climbed down. He looked at the young man, but he was obviously dead, his head a mass of blood.
But the master under the wagon-
"Meister Loffler, is that you?" Wolfgang shouted, but the hood muffled his voice. He had seen that man in Austria; he had been one of the masters in Prettau.
The master's face was red and burned, but he opened his mouth.
Then closed it again. He was alive.
Wolfgang managed to get his hands under the older man's armpits and started dragging. A loud shriek penetrated the hood, but at this moment he couldn't consider this.
Backwards he moved, until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Marshall was there. Wolfgang removed the hood. Marshall had a tankard in his hand. "Water?"
"Oh, yes, thank you." Wolfgang seized the tankard and gulped half of its contents, then poured the rest over his head.
Two young men appeared with a litter and proficiently sped Master Loffler away.
"What about Peter?" Marshall pointed to the body of the young man who still dangled from the wagon.
Wolfgang shook his head. "He's dead. Do you have a rope? We must move the wagon away from the furnace. It's too hot there."
"Can you manage that?"
"I've managed worse things." And so Wolfgang once more covered his head with the hood, took the end of the rope Marshall handed him, and wrapped it around the wagon's rear axle.
While the other men were slowly hauling the wagon out of the foundry, Wolfgang supported the body of the young man so the wheels couldn't torture him anymore.
Outside, a crowd had gathered. Many hands took the young man's body and helped Wolfgang to remove the heavy protective clothing.
Although all of them were obviously shocked, he received a huge amount of backslapping. It seemed he had introduced himself properly.
Then he followed Marshall back to the office building.
"When can you start working here?" Marshall asked.
Wolfgang was puzzled. "But we have not yet had the interview."
"Do you think it could tell me something I don't know yet? After this?" He pointed to the foundry.
Wolfgang shrugged. "Perhaps not. What do you want me to do?"
"Isn't that obvious? We need a leader for the foundry team. Loffler is definitely out for the next few months. The doctor said he doesn't know if the old man will ever return."
Wolfgang was stunned. "But I'm no master."
"We'll change that as soon as possible. But we need you now. You've seen these youngsters. They can build a steam car, but they fail completely if something unexpected happens."
Marshall rose and extended a hand. "Deal?"
Wolfgang nodded and his hand. "Deal!"
Nikki's classroom, Jena Lokschuppen
The next day
It had been a horrible school day. The day before that dreadful accident with a steam car had happened, and Peter, one of Nikki's students, had lost his life. Everyone was still in shock, so she had decided to let her students read and translate sentences from a Washington Post article on the Challenger catastrophe in 1986.
The students were rather astonished that such accidents still happened up-time. It seemed that knowledge helped them.