195 I walked into our anniversary party with a man my husband had never met. He laughed in front of everyone and asked, / Chapter 24 / 86

Chapter 24 - Runaway at Raton

The five-minute drive from downtown Trinidad back to the rail yard felt like plummeting down a sheer cliff.

Jonah pushed my father’s old Ford truck to its absolute limit, the heavy V8 engine roaring as we blew through the red dust of the service road. Through the windshield, the horizon was dominated by a colossal plume of black diesel exhaust rising from the southern throat of the switching yard.

"Mack! Status!" Jonah barked into the radio mic, steering with one hand while keeping the accelerator pinned to the floorboards.

*"The switch is jammed!"* Mack screamed over the roar of twin turbocharged diesel engines. *"It’s an old GP38 locomotive—no markings, no corporate decals, running fully throttled from the high timber line! It’s lined straight for the new maintenance shed! Mateo and six apprentices are trapped inside the transfer pit!"*

"The transfer pit," I gasped, my blood turning to liquid fire. "The hydraulic jacks are down. If that locomotive hits the shed, it’ll crush the concrete roof right in on top of them!"

Jonah didn't hesitate. He slammed the brakes as we skidded into the outer perimeter, throwing the truck into a violent slide across the ballast gravel. Before the truck had fully stopped, Jonah kicked his door open.

"Arthur, call the Las Animas emergency line!" Jonah shouted over his shoulder. "Nina, stay by the truck!"

"Like hell I will!" I grabbed the heavy iron switch bar from the truck bed and sprinted directly behind him.

The deafening rumble shook the very earth under our boots. Coming down the two-percent grade from the foothills was an unpainted, primer-gray locomotive, its heavy steel cowcatcher battered and rusted. Its cab windows were completely blacked out with sheet metal. Nobody was driving it; it was a ghost train, throttled wide open and sent down the mountain like a four-hundred-thousand-pound missile of kinetic destruction.

Fifty yards ahead, the maintenance shed stood directly in its path. Through the open bay doors, I could see Mateo frantically trying to haul two younger apprentices up the vertical ladder of the concrete pit.

"The manual derailer!" Jonah roared, pointing toward a secondary lever twenty yards ahead of the main junction. "If we throw the manual frog, it’ll dump the locomotive onto the dead siding into the dirt bank! But the latch pin is rusted solid!"

"Get the lever!" I yelled, running beside him, the switch bar heavy in my arms.

We reached the manual switch housing just as the locomotive cleared the outer signal bridge. The air horn wasn't blowing, but the scream of dry steel flanges grating against the outer rail was an ear-splitting shriek that rattled the teeth in my skull. The sheer wall of heat and displacement wind hit us like a physical blow.

Jonah threw his entire weight onto the iron throw-bar. The rusted mechanism shrieked, moving two inches before jamming against three decades of mineral corrosion.

"It won't throw!" Jonah shouted, his veins bulging against his neck, his boots sliding in the loose gravel. "The lock dog is seized!"

"Move!" I swung the heavy iron switch bar with everything in my body, driving the wedge-shaped end directly into the rusted locking collar.

*CLANG!*

Sparks erupted from the impact. The iron collar fractured, but held.

Jonah dropped down, slamming his heavy steel-toed work boot onto the pry bar with a violent, bone-jarring stomp. The rust shattered like brittle glass.

Together, we grabbed the main throw-lever.

"Now!" Jonah roared.

With a joint, desperate heave, fueled by the sheer terror of what was waiting in that maintenance pit, we threw the lever all the way over into the notched cradle.

The iron points snapped shut with a hollow *thud* just four seconds before the runaway locomotive arrived.

The GP38 struck the switch points. The entire frame of the six-axle engine lurched violently to the right, its front trucks jumping the rails with a deafening, catastrophic boom. Thousands of sparks shot into the Colorado sky as the steel wheels plowed deep into the timber ties and ballast rock.

The locomotive plowed sideways off the roadbed, tearing through the dirt bank like a wounded behemoth before grinding to a halt less than fifteen feet from the concrete corner of the maintenance shed. A massive cloud of pulverized dust, steam, and sulfurous brake smoke engulfed the entire yard.

For ten seconds, the world was entirely gray and silent.

Then, through the haze, came the frantic coughing of our apprentices.

"Mateo!" I called out, stumbling forward through the dust, my hands trembling uncontrollably. "Mateo! Are you whole?"

"We're good!" Mateo’s voice cracked through the smoke. "We got out! We’re all up!"

Jonah caught me as my knees threatened to give way. His arms locked around my waist, his face covered in gray ballast dust, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He buried his face in the crook of my neck for a single, shuddering second, letting out a breath that sounded like a prayer.

"I have you," he whispered, his grip tightening until I could feel the violent hammer of his pulse. "I have you, Nina."

Mack and three senior mechanics came running up with fire extinguishers, spraying the hissing undercarriage of the derailed engine.

"Look at the cab door!" Mack yelled, pointing his wrench toward the cab of the locomotive.

The heavy steel door was welded shut from the outside with fresh, silver bead welds. But painted across the rusted primer of the cab wall in dripping white stencil paint was a single message: