captain?”
“I’ll call him. And I’ll ask around, see if I can get us a ride back to Denver. That chopper won’t be coming back.”
“Okay. Good.” I was tired. And cold. All I wanted was to get home, have a drink or two, take a shower, and crash. “See you in a few minutes.”
I called Albers, told him he’d be clear to head out shortly. Ten minutes later, with all of the sheriff’s men accounted for, I gave Albers the go-ahead.
A chunk-chunk-chunk rattled down the line as the brakes came off the wheels. A few minutes later, cars clanged and rattled like cannons firing as the slack in the couplers was taken up or buffeted out. Taking the slack out of a string was a lengthy process; it would be several minutes before any motion reached the flatbed near where Clyde and I stood. Albers’s engine would travel seventy-five feet or more before the last car in the string even began to move.
An old yardmaster had once told me that a train is Newton’s first law etched in steel. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Ditto for an object at rest.
The couplers quieted, which meant that all the slack had played out. Wheels shrieked on iron. The train was under way.
While Clyde trotted restlessly back and forth at the end of his lead, I followed the train with my eyes as it dug a slow path through the falling snow, watching that series of bright-silver scratches on the coal car until they winked out in the gloom.
Nik called again. “You coming in, Sydney Rose? I’ve got us a ride.”
“On my way.”
I hung up. Stared at the darkness. Clyde whined and pulled on his lead, no doubt as ready as I was to get out of the storm.
“C’mon, boy, let’s go home.”
He trotted toward me then spun around and darted toward the train, the suddenness of his leap jerking the leash out of my numb hands.
“Clyde! No!” I lunged after him. “Come!”
Clyde paid me no mind. Without a sound, he disappeared beneath the wheels as Engine 158346 rumbled north.
C HAPTER 7
In a moment of crisis, your body takes over. It knows what it needs to do to keep you alive, and that’s exactly what it does.
This instinct for survival comes from your reptilian brain—the most basic, simplistic part of who you are. Your reptilian brain breathes for you. Digests and defecates for you. Watches out for you.
And—if it deems the threat high enough—it kills for you.
—Sydney Parnell, ENGL 0208, Psychology of Combat
I dropped to the ground and peered under the train.
Clyde had vanished into the snowfall on the other side of the tracks, chasing whatever scent he’d caught.
I sprang to my feet. Narrowing my eyes against the pelting snow, I first took note of my distance from the bridge and then zeroed in on a landmark as it flashed into and out of sight between the cars—a twisted piñon pine bent over a shattered pile of sandstone.
I turned and sprinted south, running against the direction of the cars. Clyde was my partner. As long as we were separated by a moving train, his life was at risk. No time to tell Albers to stop—if Clyde decided to come back, he could be crushed many times over before the train settled.
Learning to catch out isn’t part of a railway cop’s education. All we hear in training is to stay clear of a moving train. Want to survive until your retirement? Then do not get in an argument with fourteen thousand tons of steel. Handle whatever needs handling after the train stops.
The instructors never said what to do if your partner was trapped on the other side of that rolling steel.
The wheels rat-a-tatted on the rails. Four cars down, a hopper glowered in the dreary late-afternoon gloom, her platform sitting empty on the north end. I estimated the engine’s speed at twelve miles an hour. Another two minutes, the train would be going more than eighteen miles an hour. Jumping then would be nothing but suicide.
But I’d made a promise to Dougie. And to Clyde. I put on more speed, slid sideways in the
“I’ll call him. And I’ll ask around, see if I can get us a ride back to Denver. That chopper won’t be coming back.”
“Okay. Good.” I was tired. And cold. All I wanted was to get home, have a drink or two, take a shower, and crash. “See you in a few minutes.”
I called Albers, told him he’d be clear to head out shortly. Ten minutes later, with all of the sheriff’s men accounted for, I gave Albers the go-ahead.
A chunk-chunk-chunk rattled down the line as the brakes came off the wheels. A few minutes later, cars clanged and rattled like cannons firing as the slack in the couplers was taken up or buffeted out. Taking the slack out of a string was a lengthy process; it would be several minutes before any motion reached the flatbed near where Clyde and I stood. Albers’s engine would travel seventy-five feet or more before the last car in the string even began to move.
An old yardmaster had once told me that a train is Newton’s first law etched in steel. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Ditto for an object at rest.
The couplers quieted, which meant that all the slack had played out. Wheels shrieked on iron. The train was under way.
While Clyde trotted restlessly back and forth at the end of his lead, I followed the train with my eyes as it dug a slow path through the falling snow, watching that series of bright-silver scratches on the coal car until they winked out in the gloom.
Nik called again. “You coming in, Sydney Rose? I’ve got us a ride.”
“On my way.”
I hung up. Stared at the darkness. Clyde whined and pulled on his lead, no doubt as ready as I was to get out of the storm.
“C’mon, boy, let’s go home.”
He trotted toward me then spun around and darted toward the train, the suddenness of his leap jerking the leash out of my numb hands.
“Clyde! No!” I lunged after him. “Come!”
Clyde paid me no mind. Without a sound, he disappeared beneath the wheels as Engine 158346 rumbled north.
C HAPTER 7
In a moment of crisis, your body takes over. It knows what it needs to do to keep you alive, and that’s exactly what it does.
This instinct for survival comes from your reptilian brain—the most basic, simplistic part of who you are. Your reptilian brain breathes for you. Digests and defecates for you. Watches out for you.
And—if it deems the threat high enough—it kills for you.
—Sydney Parnell, ENGL 0208, Psychology of Combat
I dropped to the ground and peered under the train.
Clyde had vanished into the snowfall on the other side of the tracks, chasing whatever scent he’d caught.
I sprang to my feet. Narrowing my eyes against the pelting snow, I first took note of my distance from the bridge and then zeroed in on a landmark as it flashed into and out of sight between the cars—a twisted piñon pine bent over a shattered pile of sandstone.
I turned and sprinted south, running against the direction of the cars. Clyde was my partner. As long as we were separated by a moving train, his life was at risk. No time to tell Albers to stop—if Clyde decided to come back, he could be crushed many times over before the train settled.
Learning to catch out isn’t part of a railway cop’s education. All we hear in training is to stay clear of a moving train. Want to survive until your retirement? Then do not get in an argument with fourteen thousand tons of steel. Handle whatever needs handling after the train stops.
The instructors never said what to do if your partner was trapped on the other side of that rolling steel.
The wheels rat-a-tatted on the rails. Four cars down, a hopper glowered in the dreary late-afternoon gloom, her platform sitting empty on the north end. I estimated the engine’s speed at twelve miles an hour. Another two minutes, the train would be going more than eighteen miles an hour. Jumping then would be nothing but suicide.
But I’d made a promise to Dougie. And to Clyde. I put on more speed, slid sideways in the
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