76. Jacob
Jacob
Outside the window, wide-open range flew by behind the graying heads of the Fishers, who happily chatted and shared memories while I jotted notes in my journal. The gentle, rhythmic clatter of the train hummed in the background.
Mr. Fisher said, “I tell you, his legs alone were as long as I was tall.”
“Impressive. Thought it was all his hat,” I said. “That’s how it looked in photos.”
“The photos make him look dour, but in the flesh, it seemed he was always about to wink at an inside joke. Best day of my young life, meeting my hero, good old Honest Abe.”
Mrs. Fisher nodded along, well-versed in this particular story after several decades of marriage.
The train picked up speed, rocking us gently from side to side.
I flipped the journal closed and slipped it into my satchel.
Viola had picked it out for me. Someday, maybe she’d come with me.
Not sure I’d be able to leave her behind.
She would’ve charmed the Fishers and been delighted by their warm company.
She probably would’ve bounced a little in her seat. The thought tightened my chest.
I said, “When I was a kid, my hero was Wyatt Earp, and I would strut around our farm pretending to mete out justice to the cows and the chickens. Made it to Tombstone a couple of weeks ago and took a good look around.”
“If you want a real whopper of a tale for your paper, I should tell you about the best day of my whole life.” His wife’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Without a doubt, it was the day I met my Mary.” He patted his wife’s hand, and they smiled at each other.
I pictured Viola and me, riding the train thirty years from now—graying hair, smile lines, her warmth beside me as we visited with other passengers.
Mrs. Fisher turned her kind attention to me. “Do you have a pretty young wife at home?”
“I’m working on it.” Green eyes. Dimple. Hand that fit perfectly in mine. Heat rose to my face. Viola. Thinking of her steadied me—and then unsteadied me. In ten days, I would be in Chicago. She would say yes. I hoped she would say yes. Mercy, she would… wouldn’t she?
Mrs. Fisher said, “Handsome young man like you should have a sweetheart.”
Mr. Fisher said, “Wyatt Earp, you say? Back in my day, it was Wild Bill and Calamity Jane.” He lifted his hands and mimed a pistol fight.
“My sister and I would stage pretend shootouts at high noon. Drove my mother mad.” He shook his head.
“Dear old Ma. Always had a scheme. Hid my toy guns and bought me a top hat. Was mighty pleased when I started acting all presidential-like. Probably why she took me to see him speak. Hoping for a better role model.”
“Mothers are special folks,” I said. Viola would scheme just like Mr. Fisher’s Ma.
Mrs. Fisher leaned over to me. “Please share our lunch, Jacob. I have fresh bread, cheese, ham, some sweet biscuits?—”
A deafening boom erupted from the front of the train.
Metal screeched and squealed. Shocked silence filled our compartment. Were we braking?
Our train car tilted, and I braced myself to keep from falling on top of the Fishers. A sudden stop flung me forward. With a groan and a crunch, our car came to rest angled on its side. Dust and muted cries filled the air.
Lord, have mercy.
The Fishers huddled in a heap below me, and I lowered myself down to them.
They were stunned but uninjured. With my help, they made it back to the aisle, and we crawled toward the daylight streaming through the rear door.
Along the way, we helped a few other people.
The passengers in my car had been lucky and suffered only minor cuts, bumps, and bruises.
I jumped to the ground, then turned back to assist Mrs. Fisher down the four-foot drop.
Steady. The worst was over. I wiped my forehead, and my hand came away bloody from a small cut at my hairline.
I slung my satchel across my back, pressed fingertips to the wound, and wandered forward along the track toward the front of the train.
Screams from somewhere up ahead.
Those I passed stood silent, faces slack as they took in the wreckage. Smoke stung my eyes and throat. Papers fluttered around like confetti.
The engine had jumped the track and yanked the rest of the train along with it.
The mail car was crushed, and papers were strewn about as if dynamite had gone off in the middle of all the mailbags.
The first passenger car was cracked like an egg, with the rear two-thirds propped up at a forty-five-degree angle.
The second passenger car had turned sideways, and it had lifted the tail end of the first car like a plow turning up the earth.
I moved across the loose gravel toward the wreckage of the broken first car. The front third of the car had collapsed and crushed in on itself. Screams and cries came from the second portion of the car, which was slanted up in the air with no easy way in or out.
A boy’s panicked voice called for help.
I craned my neck, but no one appeared at the elevated back door.
It was probably the only way to access the intact back end.
How could I get up there? The ladder up to the roof of the second car hung out over a slope.
If I could get onto the roof of the second car, I should be able to get to the back end of the first car.
I moved around to the base of the ladder, but couldn’t quite reach the lowest rung because of the steep slope.
I jumped. My fingers closed around the metal but slipped free, and I landed with a crunch on the uneven dirt.
I wiped my sweaty hands in the dust, and with another jump, I pulled myself up the ladder.
Soot scraped into my lungs as I sucked in a breath. I blinked away the ash. A flash of memory—Viola beside me in the fire. Thank goodness she wasn’t here.
I reached the cold metal of the second car’s roof and cautiously pushed myself upright. I shuffled to the back of the first car, where it angled up toward the sky.
The cries were louder. Closer.
The rear door of the first car tilted skyward and hung four feet above where I stood on the roof of the second car. I couldn’t see inside, but I could reach the door. I could help.
I pulled myself up and into the back of the car. The smell hit me first—coal, blood, bile, and under it all, something slightly sweet. I retched. Oh, mercy.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was movement nearby. A glance around found passengers who were terrified or injured—and some who were beyond help.
I leaned out the back door, cupped a gritty hand to my mouth, and yelled to the people gathered on the ground twenty feet below.
“There are injured people in here who need help.” I held tightly to the door but lost my footing for a moment.
My knees banged into the floor as the train car shifted, its shell collapsing farther onto the broken front end.
The angle of the car made it impossible to walk down the aisle.
I used the benches for support and turned to where I had noticed movement.
Focus. One at a time.
A man was wedged in the space below a bench near the back door with a crying woman clutching two boys beside him. The older boy was five or six and called, “Help,” when he saw me, his voice raw and weak.
I leaned over the bench above them.
“My name is Jacob. I’ll help you.” The woman’s face was ashen, her mouth slack. “What are your names?”
The older boy answered hoarsely, “I’m Jake, too. This is Billy.”
“All right, Jake and Billy, I’m going to help you up to that door and get you out of here.
Then I’ll help your parents. Jake, you first.” When I reached out a hand, he looked to his mother, who nodded.
He had a firm grip and no major injuries.
I lifted him and showed him where to brace his feet as we climbed back up to the door.
I leaned out the back door and lowered him onto the roof of the second car. “Wait here while I get Billy, and then”—I pointed—“crawl over to that end where there’s a ladder. Call for help getting down.” He nodded, and I ducked back inside.
Billy was small enough—probably only three—for me to cradle with one arm as I pulled myself again to the door.
He clung to me, sobbing, as Viola had at the station.
My chest tightened. His brother wrapped a protective arm around him, and the two set off slowly as I’d instructed. Their hair lifted in the rising wind.
Next.
Their mother was more difficult, unwilling to leave until I helped her husband. I worried there was little I could do. “Come on… your boys. They need you.” She was weak or in shock and had only one good arm, but I got her to the roof.
Again.
The man was alive but barely breathing. I tugged and pulled, but he was wedged tightly under the bench, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t budge him.
If only I had some tools or someone else to help me.
Viola. She had appeared the last time I needed help.
I clenched my jaw against the rising frustration and moved on to help those I could.
A shadow crossed the door, and a young man joined me.
Farther into the car, we found three men struggling toward the door.
Two of them made it with our support. The third waved us on, “I’ll wait my turn to get saved by you brothers.
” I didn’t correct him. When I went back, his eyes were closed.
I shook him and leaned my ear to his chest. Nothing.
The coppery scent of blood filled my nose, and the memory of finding Viola that day—lying by the track—filled my mind. So lucky to have found her when I did. I was meant to be there. I was meant to be here.
Focus. Help those who can be helped.
Together, the other man and I pulled out as many survivors as we could—including the man who had been with the woman and boys. But there were far too many who no longer needed us. They needed the good Lord to ease their way to paradise.
The car shifted. Jolted down and forward. Groaning as the broken front collapsed. The man and I stared at each other. The car’s elevated rear began to rock.
Get out.
Now.
We scrambled to the back door.
Jumped free.
He went left. I went right.
I pushed off the swaying end of the first car and tumbled out of control, missing the roof of the second car except where the edge struck my flank and knocked the breath from me.
Sharp pain.
At least one rib broke with a crunch I could feel in my teeth.
I slid off the side of the car. Down—fifteen feet.
I hit the ground and rolled into a ball with my head tucked to my chest, sliding along the pea gravel until at last I lay still.
The train car tilted above me and blocked out the sky.
The terrible crunching of the shifting, broken car filled my senses.
Oh, Viola.