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Two solitary piers rose like forlorn sentinels fron of the 500-foot truss they had once supported The bridge had never been rebuilt; the main track was constructed further south to cross over a newer and stronger suspension span

Pitt knelt on his haunches for a long while trying to visualize that fateful night, alrow sreat center truss, hearing the shriek of torturedriver

His reverie was interrupted by another sound, a high-pitched wailing in the distance

He rose to his feet and listened For a few moments all he could hear was the whisper of the wind Then it ca off the forbidding cliffs along the Hudson, the naked limbs of the trees, the darkened hills of the valley

It was a train whistle

He saw a faint, swelling yellosteadily toward hi clatter and the hissing of steam Unseen birds, startled by the sudden noise, flapped into the black sky

Pitt could not bring himself to believe the reality of what he apparently saw; it was i over the nonexistent rails of the forsaken track bed He stood unfeeling of the cold, searching for an explanation, histo accept his senses, but the screahter

For maybe ten seconds,the track bed The adrenaline surged through his bloodstreaates of fear burst open and swept away all established thoughts of logic He began to lose reality as fingers of panic tightened around his stomach

The shrill whistle shattered the night again as the horror laid into the curve and pulled up the grade to the lare

Pitt never re he watched petrified at what deep down he knew to be a superstitious apparition Faintly the cry of selfpreservation broke through and he looked around for a way to flee The narrow sides of the abutment dropped off in the blackness; behind him was the sheer drop to the river

He felt trapped on the brink of a void

The ghostly loco of its bell audible now above the roar of the exhaust

Then suddenly anger replaced the fear in Pitt, an anger that stemmed partly from his own helplessness, partly from his slowness to act The moment it took him to make a decision seemed a lifetirabbed it

Like a sprinter off the rade on a collision course with the unknown

The blazing light abruptly blinked out and the claht