On the Iron at Big Cloud

by Frank L. Packard

Perley cut him short, and caught him almost angrily by the shoulder. “Don’t meddle!” he snapped. “Let it drop. You don’t count in this, whatever happens. Your being at the Bend that day was an accident. What’s between me and Clancy concerns ourselves. You don’t count. Unless you’re looking for another run besides the local, just remember that and don’t meddle.”

That was all. Lee never mentioned it to Perley again. Perley was right, wasn’t he? I told you there were three men in this story, but that one of them didn’t count. No, Lee didn’t count. Why should he?

What did he have to do with it? Perley was right, I leave it to you.

You’ve been over the division, and you know the Devil’s Slide just west of the Gap from here. You know the grade—the worst in the mountains. The trains crawl up at the pace a man could walk, because they can’t go any faster; and they crawl down just as slowly, because they don’t dare do anything else.

I’ve seen the passengers get off the observation and walk—so have you. Done it yourself probably? I thought so. Extra engine on the rear end to push or hold back, and one in the middle if the train’s heavy, to keep it from breaking apart—lessens the drawbar pull, you know. They’re tunneling now to do away with that particular grade, but that’s nothing to do with this story, nor, for that matter, with the night, some six weeks after that business at the Bend, when the local, eastbound, was climbing the Devil’s Slide.

It was a dirty night outside the caboose. A storm had been racketing through the mountains all afternoon, and by the time it got dark it was a howling gale, raining hard enough to float the ties.

Lee’s place was on the front end, going up that bit of track, but he wasn’t well that night, and the other brakeman was doing his snatch. Touch of mountain fever, or something, nothing serious; just enough to make him shiver and boil alternately over the little stove in the caboose, sitting with his back to the door. Up above him in the cupola, holding down the swivel chair where he could watch the train—that is, see his engine fling up the sparks, for that’s about all he could see, I guess—was Perley.

The car was swinging like a hammock with the heave and strain of the big pusher coupled right behind it—it acts queer, that does. Every time I’ve felt it I’ve always thought of a cat and a mouse. It’s like the engine had the caboose by the scruff and was trying to shake the life out of it.

You’ve felt it a little if you’ve ever been in the rear Pullman going up—the difference is that a caboose hasn’t any springs to speak of, you understand? Racket enough to raise the dead. You couldn’t hear yourself think. Not so much from the noise of the train or the storm, but from the booming roar of the trailer’s exhaust—like she was trying to cough her boiler tubes out every time the valves slid.

Now, there’s just one more thing I want you to get. The engine crew of a pusher naturally can’t see any track, road-bed, or anything of that kind, and it isn’t their business to, either. All they watch is the leader and the intermediate, if there is one. Their headlight plays along over a few cars if it’s high enough, or loses itself on the top of the door or the roof of the caboose if it isn’t, understand?