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“We gotta shunt her aside before she sets off the whole yard”
“Leave the train right here,” Bell ordered calet me those tools”
The foreman ran off and returned in a moment Bell took the spike puller and the heavy crowbar and shae as fast as the hole in his chest would let him On the way, he passed the Wrecker’s still form huddled between the rails The train had passed clean over hi al spikes out of the fishplates that held the rails on the upstreae
He could feel the bridge shaking violently now that the train was off it A glance beloed the Cascade Canyon River raging like an ocean in a hurricane Mind reeling froiddy as he desperately pried up spike after spike
Who’s the Wrecker now? he thought The tables were turned Isaac Bell, chief investigator for the Van Dorn Detective Agency, was battling with every ounce of his failing strength to derail a train
It was getting harder to breathe, and he could see a bubble of blood rising and falling from the wound in his chest If Kincaid’s sword had punctured his chest cavity and he didn’t get help soon, air would fill it and collapse his lung But he had to free an entire length of rail first
THE WRECKER WAS NOT as grievously wounded as Bell, but he was equally deterained consciousness as Bell shaed between two ribs, he was running, doubled over, as fast as he could toward the coal train The detective’s spike puller told hi train into the river to divert floodwater from the weakened piers
He reached the locoed himself up to the cab, and shoveled several scoops of coal into the firebox
“Hey, what are you doing?” shouted a train the ladder to the cab “Mr Bell said to leave the train here”
Kincaid drew the long-barreled revolver he had taken from his Thomas Flyer and shot theahead with a sure hand on the throttle and sand valve The drive wheels bit smoothly, the couplers unslacked, and the locoe The Wrecker saw the probing white bea to loosen the rail
THE HEAVY COAL TRAIN da the difference, Bell looked up into the blinding beaer shot had not killed Charles Kincaid
The loco the rails Now he saw Kincaid thrust his head from the cab , his face a rin of triumph, and Bell heard the steam huff harder as the Wrecker opened the throttle
Bell ripped the final spike out of its crosstie Then he hurled his weight against the crowbar, battling with fading strength to shift the loosened rail before Kincaid ran him over
Bell felt the front truck wheels roll onto his rail The weight of the engine was holding it down Suth, he moved it the vital “one inch between here and eternity”
The locomotive slipped off the rails and slammed onto the ties Bell saw the Wrecker with his hand on the throttle, saw his triu the burning train off the bridge and down to the river