Chapter 1 #2
“Eve,” she began. But just then the train began to round a bend in the track. As it did, one of the coaches, the back one, slid out of alignment and the shadow swayed to the side.
Evelyn shrugged, never one to take anything too much to heart. “Okay, so how do we fix it?”
“We have to go out there and see what happened. I’m hoping that it’s just one of the ropes that slipped out of the rings on the side of the flatbed. That would be easy to fix,” Clary said. “Anything else and we have a problem.”
“Right,” Isaac agreed. “Even that might be a big problem. Just getting out there isn’t going to be a cakewalk.”
It was clear that was the case. The rain was pouring so that it seemed to be forming a sheet that covered the whole base of the car.
Clary wasn’t sure if Eve’s idea of the ropes around their waists would even work.
What would happen if they went careening off the side of the flatbed?
Would they be held off the ground, dangling there like puppets on short strings?
Still, it was clear that something had to be done. Quickly.
“Isaac and I can go out again,” John said, looking at Clary. “You can hold the ropes and?—”
“Are you serious?” Evelyn asked, looking shocked. “How would we pull you two back if something happened? There’s no way. We should be the ones to go.”
Clary would give her sister that much—she might simper her way through life more than was to Clary’s liking, but Evelyn didn’t lack courage or brains when it counted most.
“No, you can’t—” John protested, his eyes wide and his jaw set.
Clary sighed. “But we’ll have to. It’s the only way.”
“We can’t let you,” Isaac protested. “You’re passengers. We just needed to let you know that there’s a problem.”
“This is our livelihood,” Clary insisted. “We’re going to save it. Now, hand us some oilskins and the ropes.”
“Yeah,” Evelyn said.
Clary looked over at her sister and saw a determined look in Evelyn’s eyes. It was the same defiant, determined look that meant she had made up her mind.
With great reluctance, the two men gave in. Clary liked to think it was her great negotiating skills, but she suspected that it was more about the logic of the situation. Two men could hold two women up more easily than two women could lift two large men.
Clary donned the oilskin poncho and hood as Evelyn did the same.
She knew it was folly, but it was all she could do.
Saying a silent prayer for this to go well and to not be their death, Clary steeled her nerves.
Then she and her sister tied ropes around their waists and slid the door open a fraction. Rain poured in.
“Here we go,” Evelyn said with a grin. “See you on the other side.”
Clary was about to say something to her sister when Evelyn pushed the door all the way open and stepped out onto the flatbed. Her foot instantly slipped out from under her.
“Eve!” Clary cried, shock rushing through her. Flinging herself out after her sister, Clary had no idea how she was going to save Evelyn, who had fallen on her backside on the flatbed. Not wanting to fall herself, Clary held onto the door handle and tried to reach Evelyn.
Evelyn sat on the flatbed, her hands on the wood as though holding on.
Her shoulders shook. Evelyn never cried!
Had she hurt herself? It was hard to see in the pelting rain that fell like a sheet.
The storm was terrible, and the wind was strong.
It pulled at Clary, wanting to throw her from the train.
She tried to inch out to Evelyn, but she couldn’t seem to let go of the door handle.
Come on, Clary, you can do this!
With a jolt of added courage dredged up from somewhere deep in her soul, Clary let go of the door handle and stepped onto the flatbed. The rain was sliding across the surface like it was an ice floe or a shallow stream she had to cross.
“Hold on, Eve! I’m coming,” she cried.
The wind whipped her words away, and she had no idea if Evelyn had heard her. Perhaps she had because Evelyn turned, and Clary could now see she was laughing. Her heart rate slowed ever so slightly.
Typical Evelyn. I have a heart attack thinking she’s in trouble, and she’s laughing.
Clary tried to take a step toward her sister but soon found she couldn’t walk.
Between the lashing rain, the wind, and the speed the train was still going at, there was no way.
She sank to her knees. That was much better.
The wind had less of a hold on her like that, and she could inch her way to Evelyn, who had slid along the bed almost to the first stagecoach.
Lord, if ever there was a time to lend me a helping hand, I’d have to say this is it, Clary prayed silently. This was going to take more than just her own skill; a little divine intervention would definitely be necessary.
Sliding and crawling, Clary made her way to Evelyn. It didn’t take long to reach her. Leaning as close as she could, the rain hitting her in the face as it splashed up from the flatbed, she tried to speak.
“We can crawl!” she yelled to Evelyn.
Her sister gave her the thumbs-up signal, and they began to crawl forward together.
The full extent of the peril only dawned on Clary when she saw how much the tethered stagecoaches could shift and move on their ropes.
Even the one that hadn’t come partly loose was gliding back and forth across the flatbed.
They had to crawl in single file or risk being bashed and knocked off the train.
Perhaps getting them on the train hadn’t been such a marvelous idea after all. She’d been so proud of herself for thinking of it back in Indiana. The conductor and everyone had told her it was a bad idea, that it would end in disaster. Flatbed carriages were meant for logs, not stagecoaches.
In her pride, Clary had meant to show them exactly how wrong they were. Yet, here she was, on her hands and knees, drenched, crawling out on the flatbed that was like a lake, with her own coaches trying to squash her as they strained against their tethers.
Slipping and sliding along, climbing over the tethers in the rain, Clary and Evelyn made their way to just in front of the second coach. Luckily, there was quite a bit of space between the two, and they were safe from being hit for the moment.
“Can you see how it came loose?” Clary asked Evelyn as she peered through the dim light and the rain.
Evelyn shook her head. “Nope. I’m going to the other side to see.”
“Okay, but be careful!” Clary warned.
Her sister crawled around to the other side of the coach.
While she was gone, Clary moved closer to the back wheel, which seemed to be more stable.
It was only rocking a little from side to side.
She could see that it was still tied by a rope to the ring on the side of the flatbed.
If she looked along that line, she could see that the rope on her side that held the front wheel in place was still tied.
She made her way around the coach to Evelyn’s side. Sure enough, the rope in front was flapping in the wind. It had slipped free of the loop.
Evelyn was moving down the coach toward it.
Clary could have wrung her neck. Hadn’t she said to only take a look? Why didn’t Evelyn ever listen?
Just then she felt the flatbed shift under her, and she noticed that they were going around another bend. It wasn’t sharp, but the coaches were sliding toward the right, toward where Evelyn had gone.
Gritting her teeth, Clary went after her.
Something jerked her back. It was the rope around her waist. She tugged on it and then shook it, and finally it came free.
But by then the coach had shifted to the limit the ropes would allow.
Its front end was close to the edge of the flatbed, so Evelyn was dangerously close to falling off.
Clary abandoned all pretense of staying safe. She struggled and slipped her way around the coach, praying fervently as she went. Evelyn was lying on her stomach, reaching down to the loop. She was intent on her task, not paying any attention to the coach behind her.
It was going to hit her and push her off into the wilderness. As Evelyn leaned over the side, Clary grabbed hold of her sister’s rope and leaned back, bracing herself again on one of the coach’s wheels.
Every muscle in her body screamed at her, but Clary didn’t care. She wasn’t losing her little sister to this storm.
A cry reached her ears, and she opened her eyes to find Evelyn leaning precariously over the side, her eyes wide.
“Oh, thank you, Lord,” Clary said into the whipping wind.
After taking a moment to compose herself, Clary began to pull her sister back to safety.
Evelyn helped and crawled quickly up to her. Clary hugged her hard.
“You crazy woman!” Clary cried. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”
Evelyn smiled. “Yeah, well, I still got the job done. Look, the coach is hardly moving now.”
It was true. The once-sliding coach was a lot more stable, only shifting as much as the other one.
Clary was relieved, but she wasn’t about to praise Evelyn too much. If she did that, her little sister would take it into her head to do even more crazy things.
“Come on, let’s go back inside,” she said, and they turned to head back to safety.