"The siding switch is padlocked," I said, leaning toward the frosted dash as the gray silhouette of the Norfolk Southern feeder line emerged through the scrub oak. "Garrett had the county road crew drop gravel across the ties three weeks ago. If you try to pull onto the rail right-of-way, you'll bottom out on the ballast."
"Garrett dropped county stone on the public crossing," Arthur replied, his voice raspy as he reached up with his left sleeve to wipe a fresh smear of blood from the bridge of his nose. "He didn't touch the commercial transfer siding. The limestone spurs operate under federal commerce leases issued in seventy-four. A county sheriff has about as much legal right to drop an easement across an active rail bed as he does to auction off the post office steps."
He swung the truck hard left into a weed-choked drainage swale, the leaf springs groaning as the tires sank six inches into dead reed beds before grabbing the submerged slag of the old foundry approach. Fifty yards ahead, past a rusted chain-link enclosure stenciled with faded Department of Transportation warnings, stood the depot siding office: an eight-by-twelve corrugated shed mounted on creosoted pilings above the ditch line.
Beside the shed, parked dead center across the dual steel tracks with its tires buried to the hubcaps in freshly dumped crushed shale, sat Garrett Vance’s personal patrol Suburban.
The vehicle was empty. Its engine block ticked quietly in the wet chill, heat shimmering off the dark green hood. Garrett had left the driver’s door unlocked with the county frequency squawking through the cracked vent window, monitoring the backhoe operator’s progress at the diner. On the Suburban’s front passenger seat, stacked inside two plastic grocery crates, lay six manila folders marked with red grease-pencil stamps: Mercer County Transit Authority—Special Assessment Deeds.
Arthur cut the Dodge’s engine. The sudden silence inside the cab was thick, broken only by the scrape of his heavy work boots against the rusted floorboard as he reached down into the footwell. He didn't reach for a tool or a tire iron. He pulled a yellow carbon receipt from the pocket of his field jacket—the freight bill he had signed nineteen years ago when the last bulk delivery of diner fixtures arrived by boxcar from Wheeling.
"Check the glove box," Arthur said, nodding toward the metal latch in front of me. "There's an inspection key on a brass wire loop behind the operator manuals. The shed switch operates the manual semaphore for the southern block."
"If we trip that signal," I said, my hand freezing against the cold latch, "the rail dispatch out of Bluefield will flag the line as obstructed. The state police barracks will have an emergency road block on the crossing within twenty minutes."
"The state police won't cross Garrett’s county line for an obstructed track," Arthur said. "They'll refer it to county jurisdiction unless the obstruction involves an interstate carrier. But the four-fifteen freight from Roanoke isn't carrying coal this morning. It's carrying four cars of federal survey gear for the river levee project, and the transport authority has a deputy federal marshal riding the cab to certify the bridge loads."
He pushed his door open into the mud, his boots hitting the gravel with a heavy, unsteady thud that forced him to lean against the Dodge’s quarter-panel for three long seconds. His knees shook visibly, the grey wool of his trousers wet with dirty ditch runoff, but his back stayed straight. He walked around the Suburban’s tailgate without looking inside, his eyes fixed on the padlock securing the siding office door.
I found the brass wire loop under the dried vehicle manuals. It held two flat, notched steel keys coated in heavy cosmoline. When I climbed down into the ditch, the mud came up past my ankles, freezing water soaking through the seams of my work boots.
Inside Garrett’s Suburban, the police radio hissed through another transmission.
"Unit Two to Unit One," Hollister’s voice crackled through the speaker, distorted by rain interference. "We've got the south corner post down. The structure is shifting off the footings. Road crew wants to know if you want the coolers dragged into the right-of-way or left inside for the scrap weight."
There was a five-second delay before Garrett’s voice answered from a handheld unit somewhere near the highway bridge, flat, bored, and completely sure of itself.