AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothing!” Monk lied. “Excuse me!” He jerked free and went on forward, Baltimore on his heels now.
Then Dundas had been accused of the fraud, and Monk had forgotten about brakes in the fear and dismay of trying to prove his innocence. But there was too much evidence, carefully placed. Dundas was tried, convicted, sent to prison.
Less than a month later there had been the crash . . . a day exactly like this one, another train roaring through the peace of the countryside, belching steam and sparks, blindly careering toward a death of mangled steel and blood and flames.
Monk had realized it all, but it was too late to do anything but save what he could out of the pieces, and stop Baltimore from doing it again. Dundas had been more than willing to give everything he owned to stop it.
That was it! The last piece falling into place, sickeningly, making Monk halt where he stood at the end of the carriage behind the engine. Baltimore, a step behind, knocked against him and all but drove the air out of his lungs.
He had not known it at the time he had handed the money to Baltimore to bribe the enquiry, he had known it afterwards, when it could not be undone. It was not to protect Dundas’s reputation, or the Baltimore company, although that mattered, a thousand men and their families. Nolan Baltimore had said he would implicate Monk in the faulty brakes. It had been his signature on the banking forms that had provided the money for their development. It had been to save Monk that Dundas had been prepared to sacrifice everything he had left.
As he lunged forward, forced open the carriage door against the onrushing air and stepped out onto the narrow ledge at the side, clinging to the door frame, it was more than the wind, the steam and the smuts that stung his skin and his eyes, it was an agony of memory, a sacrifice, a loss, the price of his own escape from ruin and prison as well.
He turned to see how far he had to inch along the carriage until he could scramble onto the plates that connected the carriage to the coal wagon and the engine.
Baltimore was screaming something behind him.
By then Dundas had understood what the price was. He might even have felt the jail fever in his bones and known he would die there. Certainly he knew the hatred of the injured and the bereaved after the crash. Blame for it would have destroyed any man, dogged him for the rest of his life. Poverty was a small price in comparison. Perhaps he trusted that his wife would have borne that lightly compared with Monk’s ruin. He might even have discussed it with her.
Maybe that was why she had smiled even as she wept for him when she told Monk of his death.
He must move. The train was still increasing speed. If his hand slipped, if he lost his hold on the door frame, he would be dead in seconds. He must not look down. The countryside was a blur, like something seen through a rain-smeared window.
He started to inch along, moving his hands then his feet. It was not far to the front of the carriage, two yards maybe, but they were the longest two yards on earth.
There was no time to delay, no time to think. He put one hand along as far as he dared, and stretched his foot to grip. He let go with the other hand and jerked his body forward. The carriage swayed and he slipped, and grasped again. He almost fell onto the footplate behind the coal wagon, the sweat breaking out on his body until his clothes were cold and wet against his skin.
He turned to see Baltimore teetering on the edge, white with terror, and shot out his hand to haul him in. Baltimore’s knees crumpled and he sank down onto the plate.
The noise was indescribable. Monk gestured toward the coal wagon.
Baltimore clambered to his feet, waving his hands.
“He’ll never hear us!” he shouted desperately. His hair flying, whipped about his head, his face wild-eyed, wind stung, already splotched with smuts.
Monk waved at the coal wagon again and moved toward it.
“You can’t!” Baltimore screamed at him, shrinking back against the carriage wall.
“I damn well can!” Monk yelled. “And so can you! Come on!”
Baltimore was plainly terrified of the thought of struggling to climb up the wagon into the loose coal and trying to crawl on hands and knees over it in the teeth of the choking steam as the train careered over the rails, growing faster and faster, lurching from one side to the other. The long slope was steepening ahead of them, and Monk could see the sweep beyond and down to the viaduct as if it were in his mind’s eye.
He swiveled around to face Baltimore. “Is there anything else due on this line?” he shouted, driving his hand the other way to illustrate his meaning.
Baltimore put his hand up to his face, now ashen gray. He nodded very slightly. Like a man in a nightmare, he stepped forward, swayed, righted himself, and put his hands onto the coal wagon. It was a more powerful and terrible answer than any words could have been.
Monk followed after him, scrambling up onto the rough lumps of coal and feeling the wind batter him and the wagon’s bucket around like a ship at sea.
The stoker turned, shovel in his hand. His mouth fell open at the sight. Baltimore, his fair hair streaming back, his face fixed in a grimace of terror, was clambering over the coal toward the engine. A yard behind him, Monk followed, more agile.
; The stoker threw down his shovel and lunged toward Baltimore.
Baltimore screamed something at him, but the sound was torn from his lips.
The stoker came forward, hands outstretched.
