Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“The chain is free of the wheel, dragging behind us,” I said.

“No way of reaching it?” Virgil said.

“No.”

“What do you figure?”

“We get to the end of the other car,” I said. “If we got the same situation, at least the chain will be dragging behind. Maybe we can get ahold of it and somehow stop us. Otherwise—”

“Otherwise, we’ll have to ask everyone to jump,” Virgil said.

“We will,” I said.

Virgil and I moved quick through the door. Virgil carried the lamp as we hustled with pace up the aisle. The lamp’s shadows twisted and turned as we moved through the two coaches. The faces of the passengers looked back at us, and we moved toward the uphill end of the coaches: the undertaker, the Apache woman, the widow, the young fellow with the spectacles, the old man, the chubby man, and in the uphill coach the freckle-faced woman watched as we moved briskly past her. The moving light made the passengers’ faces look eerie, almost dead-like. When we exited out the front-end door we had picked up speed. I quickly lowered myself onto the platform floor and Virgil was by my side with the lamp. Right away it was obvious we had the same situation we’d had on the downhill coach. The chain was trailing us, dragging between the rails.

“Same thing. The chain is off the wheel,” I said. “Get ahold of the back of my belt, Virgil, let me see if I can reach it.”

I leaned over the rear of the platform. Virgil grabbed the back of my belt, and I reached, stretching out, trying to grab the snaking chain as it moved back and forth over the railway ties. After my third, fourth attempt, I snagged it.

“Got it,” I called out.

Virgil gave a pull on my belt and I was back up, secure on the floor. The chain, however, was short.

“There’s no way this will reconnect to the wheel, Virgil!”

“Let’s get the folks off before we get going any faster,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

The young fellow wearing spectacles poked his head out the door.

“Sir? Marshal?” the young fellow said. “Maybe I can be of some help. I’m a train hand for Frisco, well, in the Fort Smith yard. I figure we got a situati—”

I interrupted, “You got any idea why when I open the valve on the air pipe the brakes don’t apply?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Must be for some reason the K-triple valve is bypassed,” said the young fellow.

“How do we fix that?” I said.

“You don’t,” he said. “Unless you’re stopped.”

I held up the chain.

“The chain is not connected to the wheel,” I said.

“Both ends,” Virgil said.

“That ain’t good,” said the young fellow. “This track is downhill for a long ways.”

The young fellow leaned over for a closer look at the chain.

“I got an idea,” he said. “Be right back.”

The young fellow moved off quickly just as a bolt of lightning cracked across the sky. We could see we were in heavily wooded country, with trees close on both sides of the train, and it was obvious we were rolling faster.

The young Frisco yard hand came back through the door with a long iron bar that was flat on one end and pointed on the other.

“Slip the chain end over this end,” he said. “Keep a strain on it, pull like hell, leveraged against the platform. It ain’t easy, but it might work, unless we get a goin’ too darn fast!”

I understood the method and followed his instructions. I slipped a link of chain over the pointed end of the bar, and the kid pulled back steady on the bar, leveraging it against the platform. We could hear metal-to-metal grinding and could see sparks flying. I stood and added my strength on the bar, helping the yard hand.

“Thing is,” said the yard hand, “gotta keep the pressure steady yet firm. If the chain snaps or the bar bends, well...”

“We jump,” Virgil said.

“Yes, sir,” the yard hand said. “Believe that’d be best.”

The bar was being used as a lever pulling on the chain that connected to the coach brakes and the upper edge of the platform, but we were rolling faster. The yard hand and I pulled harder on the bar, causing more flying sparks and louder grinding.

“Don’t want to break it!” the yard hand said as he was straining, red-faced. “Don’t want to break it!”

“Come on! Come on!” I cried out as I put my weight firm but steady on the bar.

It was a matter of odds now: the downhill grade, the strength of the chain, the makeshift brake handle, the coaches’ weight, and Newton’s law, but thankfully, miraculously, we started to slow, and eventually, very slowly, the coaches came to a creeping stop.

The young fellow and I kept holding the pressure on the bar.

“Marshal,” the young fellow said. “There’s a set of chalk blocks there under the first seats.”

Virgil grabbed the two wooden wedges made of oak that were bound together with thick rope. He jumped from the platform to the ground, knocked one block under one wheel and, after a moment, wedged the other under another wheel.

“Okay,” Virgil called out.

The yard hand looked to me, and we let off on the leverage of the bar. The coach moved a bit, but no more. We were stopped.

“There you go,” Virgil called out.

The yard hand and me leaned back against the coach platform wall and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Lightning flashed again, and it was shockingly bright as Virgil climbed the steps. He growled like a coyote as he set foot back on the platform.

“George — by God — Westinghouse.”

“What’s your name, son?” Virgil asked the young yard hand.

He took off his spectacles and wiped the sweat from the lenses with a pocket handkerchief.

“Lee, as in Robert E.,” he said. “Folks, though, call me Whip, on account I’m good with one.”

“You work on trains?” Virgil said.

“I do.”

“I got a question, Whip,” Virgil said.

“Sir?”

“As you know, we got a hell of a situation with this train. Part of it is headed north, part of it headed south, and of course this part, these two cars, are sitting stopped right here in the middle.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you think there’s a way for you to repair the handbrake on the downhill coach?” Virgil said.

“I can have a look underneath,” Whip said, “see if I can figure out what the situation is.”

“Good,” Virgil said. “What we need to do is leave this uphill car right where it is with the women and the law-abiding others and get the downhill coach disconnected, rolling freely and headed south on this downgrade.”

Whip gave Virgil a sharp nod.

“I’ll have a look,” Whip said.

Whip gathered up the lantern and the pinch bar and stepped off the platform.

“Need a hand?” I said.

“I’ll holler at ya if I do,” Whip said, and he was off.

I stepped into the coach, took out the matches the undertaker had stuffed in my coat pocket, and got one of the lamps burning. The passengers were, for the most part, wide-eyed and uneasy. Some of them were asking questions about what was going to happen, some were just talking to be talking, and some remained silent, but they were all unsettled and afraid.

Virgil moved past me, and I followed him as he walked slowly down the aisle.

“Everybody,” Virgil said. “Let me vow to you, right here where you are is the safest place you could be. So do me the good deed of remaining pleasant and unparticular.”

The chubby man offered us a cigar as we walked by.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Virgil said.

Virgil lit the cigar and, after he got it going good, thanked the fellow, and we walked out the back door. Virgil shared the same safety information with the passengers in the rear coach, and then we stepped out the door and onto the downhill platform.