“Which one?”
“Green!”
I went back inside.
The bus floor vibrated violently.
I found the backpack wedged beneath a seat and threw it through the door.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
The locomotive struck Hammer’s Road King behind us.
The sound was not what I expected.
Not an explosion.
A brutal mechanical tearing.
Steel meeting steel with no concern for memory.
I turned before I could stop myself.
The black motorcycle vanished under the front of the locomotive.
The windshield shattered.
One saddlebag spun across the gravel.
Chrome flashed.
The fuel tank disappeared beneath the engine.
Hammer stood off the track with his back partly turned, both arms around Earl.
He had wrapped his leather vest over the old man’s head and shoulders.
Then the train passed between us.
For three seconds, I could not see either of them.
I heard one child yell, “The bikers!”
“They’re okay,” Carla shouted.
I hoped she was right.
The locomotive kept coming.
Slower now.
But coming.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
A boy had crawled beneath a seat.
Noah went after him.
“Come on, buddy.”
The child screamed.
“No!”
Noah lay flat on the bus floor.
He didn’t grab the boy.
Didn’t threaten.
Didn’t rush him.
“What’s your name?”
No response.
“Mine’s Noah.”
The boy shook his head violently.
“You like dinosaurs?”
A tiny pause.
“What?”
“I said dinosaurs. You look like a dinosaur guy.”
The train was maybe two hundred yards away.
My heart felt too large for my chest.
The boy whispered, “T-Rex.”
“Excellent choice.”
Noah extended one hand.
“Let’s go be T-Rex somewhere that isn’t on railroad tracks.”
The boy grabbed him.
Twenty-one.
Carla shouted from the front.
“One more!”
“Where?”
“She was here!”
We searched.
Nothing.
Then I heard a sound from beneath the third row.
A hearing aid squealing.
A little girl had wedged herself between the wall and a seat post.
Black hair.
Pink jacket.
One shoe.
She had both hands locked around the metal frame.
“Hey.”
She didn’t look at me.
I reached toward her.
She recoiled.
Carla dropped beside us.
“Lucy!”
The girl’s eyes flicked upward.
Carla pointed toward the back.
Lucy shook her head.
“She can’t hear us over the horn!” Carla yelled.
The locomotive was close enough now that the windshield reflected its headlight.
Then Hammer climbed into the bus.
I don’t know how he got around the train.
Later he said there had been enough room in the ditch after the locomotive passed our crossing.
At that moment he simply appeared.
No leather vest.
Gray shirt torn at one shoulder.
Hands bleeding from the Harley.
He saw Lucy.
Crouched.
Everybody yelled at once.
Hammer ignored us.
He brought his face into Lucy’s line of sight.
Then pointed to his own eyes.
She looked at him.
He pointed to himself.
Then to her.
Then toward the door.
Lucy trembled.
Hammer held out one hand.
He waited.
Three seconds.
Maybe four.
At the time, those seconds felt unforgivable.
Later I understood.
Hammer did not drag a terrified child away from the thing she was using to feel safe. He gave her a choice in a moment when everything else had been taken away.
Lucy let go.
Hammer lifted her.
“Last one!”
Boone jumped out.
Carla followed.
Hammer passed Lucy into my arms.
The locomotive reached the bus.
Hammer jumped.
The steel pilot struck the front corner.
Glass burst.
Yellow metal folded inward.
The bus rotated off the rail with a grinding scream.
Everyone in the ditch ducked.
Then—
nothing.
Not silence.
Air brakes hissed.
Children cried.
Branches shook.
Adults shouted.
But the locomotive stopped.
Its nose rested less than seventy feet beyond the crossing.
The bus was empty.
Twenty-three children were alive.
I sat in wet dirt holding Lucy while her arms locked around my neck.
Across the ditch, Hammer lay on one knee.
Carla crawled toward him.
“You okay?”
Hammer nodded.
Then looked back through the trees.
Toward the pieces of his motorcycle.
His expression did not change.
That somehow made it worse.
4
The first thing Earl said after the train stopped was:
“I’m sorry.”
Hammer stood beside the destroyed Road King.
What remained of it had been scattered for nearly a hundred yards.
The frame twisted beneath one rail.
The front wheel had folded.
The windshield was gone.
Part of the engine casing rested upside down beside the signal cabinet.
Hammer’s leather vest was still around Earl’s shoulders.
Nobody approached.
Not even us.
The whole club understood that there are forms of grief a man should be allowed to meet privately.
Earl walked toward him anyway.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Hammer stared down the track.
Earl swallowed.
“I chose it because of the crash bars. Your motorcycle was wide enough. Heavy enough. The other bikes—”
Hammer turned.
Earl stopped speaking.
Hammer’s hands closed.
For half a second, I remembered stories about the man he had been before prison.
Then Hammer looked past Earl.
Twenty-three children stood near the ditch wrapped in jackets, blankets, and whatever adults could find.
Lucy sat on a rock wearing Boone’s leather vest almost to her ankles.
Hammer opened his hands.
He stepped forward.
Earl braced himself.
Hammer hugged him.
The old man made a small sound.
Not surprise.
Something deeper.
His knees nearly gave out.
Hammer held him upright.
“You chose right.”
Earl buried his face against Hammer’s chest.
That was when I noticed the old man crying.
Not because he had nearly been hurt.
Not because the train had stopped.
He was staring over Hammer’s shoulder at the red signal.
The lamp still flashed.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
Like a heartbeat.
A railroad investigator arrived forty minutes later.
Then sheriff’s deputies.
Then ambulances.
Then parents.
The crossing became chaos.
Names.
Statements.
Phone calls.
Questions.
Somebody wanted to know why Earl had trespassed inside the railroad right-of-way.
Someone else wanted to know why the emergency cabinet had been locked.
A deputy asked Hammer whether he wished to report the destruction of his motorcycle.
Hammer stared at him.
“The train did that.”
“The elderly gentleman intentionally placed it—”
“No.”
The deputy blinked.
“No?”
“I placed it.”
I started to speak.
Hammer looked at me.
I understood.
The deputy tried again.
“Sir, witnesses say—”
“My bike. My key. My decision to leave it there.”
Earl stepped forward.
“No.”
Hammer sighed.
Earl pointed at him.
“Don’t steal my bad decisions just because you’re bigger.”
Boone coughed to hide a laugh.
Even Hammer’s mouth moved slightly.
Chapter 4
The railroad investigator, a woman named Dana Pierce, looked at Earl’s jacket.