Her expression changed.
“Whitaker?”
Earl turned.
“Yes.”
“Earl Whitaker?”
“Yes.”
Dana removed her hard hat.
I noticed that.
“You worked signals here.”
“Forty-two years.”
Dana stared at the red lamp.
“My father knew your name.”
Earl said nothing.
Hammer looked between them.
“Why?”
Dana hesitated.
Earl answered.
“Because I built the obstruction circuit.”
Every Iron Lantern turned.
Boone frowned.
“You built the thing our motorcycle just triggered?”
Earl looked toward the curve.
“After another bus got stuck here.”
Something in his voice closed the space around us.
Hammer stepped nearer.
“When?”
Earl’s eyes stayed on the rails.
“Thirty-one years ago.”
The crossing seemed to grow colder.
“A church bus lost an axle during a winter storm,” Earl continued. “Eleven children inside. No obstruction system. Emergency telephone failed.”
He rubbed his thumb over the lantern handle.
“I was seven miles away repairing another signal.”
Nobody moved.
“My granddaughter was on the bus.”
Hammer’s face tightened.
“How old?”
“Twelve.”
The old man’s eyes glistened.
“Her name was Emily.”
He looked toward the signal.
“The train stopped too late.”
Boone took off his cap.
Earl continued.
“Three children d.i.e.d.”
The red lamp flashed behind him.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
“I spent four years trying to get this crossing upgraded. Railroad said cost. County said jurisdiction. State said studies. So I built a prototype in my garage.”
Dana nodded slowly.
“My father told me about it.”
“They installed one.”
Earl smiled without humor.
“One crossing. One prototype.”
“And you came here every Sunday?”
Earl looked toward the west.
“The scheduled freight passed Sunday mornings.”
“How long?”
“Thirty-one years.”
Cruz whispered something under his breath.
Hammer stared at Earl.
“You came here every week?”
“Some weeks I was sick. Some weeks snow closed the road.”
Earl shrugged.
“But mostly.”
“Why?”
The old man’s jaw trembled.
“Because once you’ve listened to a train coming toward a child you love, you spend the rest of your life listening for it.”
No one answered that.
No one could.
We thought we finally understood Earl Whitaker.
We didn’t.
5
By afternoon, the story had spread across northern Arizona.
A video from a diner parking lot showed the beginning.
Twelve bikers running toward an old man.
An elderly man swinging a lantern.
Hammer pushing his motorcycle across active rails.
Red lights activating.
The train appearing.
Another video showed the children climbing from the bus.
A third captured Hammer shielding Earl as the locomotive destroyed the Road King.
People online decided who we were within minutes.
Heroes.
Criminals.
Idiots.
Angels.
Thugs.
Saviors.
We were called everything except tired.
Nobody slept much that night.
Hammer stayed at his garage.
I found him there around midnight.
Pieces of the Road King covered a workbench.
Railroad workers had allowed us to collect what was safe after investigators finished.
A mirror.
One saddlebag latch.
Bent spokes.
Half a footboard.
Part of the speedometer.
A section of exhaust.
No fuel tank.
Hammer stood over the pieces.
“You eat?”
“No.”
I set a sandwich beside him.
“You should.”
He looked at it.
“I should do lots of things.”
I leaned against the bench.
For ten minutes, neither of us spoke.
Finally I said, “Abby would understand.”
Hammer’s eyes lifted.
I immediately wished I had kept my mouth shut.
Nobody told Hammer what his daughter would have thought.
Nobody.
I started to apologize.
He interrupted.
“Maybe.”
He picked up the bent mirror.
“She hated this mirror.”
“Why?”
“Said the skull looked stupid.”
“It did.”
Hammer almost smiled.
Then put it down.
“I told her skulls were classic.”
“She tell you they were stupid again?”
“Every week.”
His fingers moved over a fragment of black paint.
“She once asked me why I kept helping strangers.”
I waited.
Hammer looked toward the closed garage door.
“I told her about a bus.”
I straightened.
“What bus?”
He frowned.
“Nothing important.”
“Hammer.”
He stared at the metal.
“Long time ago.”
My pulse changed.
“How long?”
“Thirty years. More.”
I thought of Earl.
“What happened?”
Hammer shook his head.
“I was riding north. Twenty-five years old. Drunk too often. Angry all the time.”
He paused.
“There was a bus wreck near some tracks.”
My skin went cold.
“Here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“It was snowing. I wasn’t from here then. Didn’t know the road.”
He rubbed his beard.
“Train had already hit it when I got there.”
I stopped breathing.
Hammer continued slowly.
“People were screaming. I pulled a little girl out through a window.”
“How old?”
“Six maybe.”
“What happened to her?”
“Ambulance took her.”
“You never found out?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Hammer’s jaw tightened.
“Because police arrived.”
He looked down.
“I had a warrant.”
I knew about the assault charge.
I had never known the timing.
Hammer sat on the stool.
“I left before they took names. Two months later, I went to prison.”
The garage suddenly felt too small.
“Did Abby know?”
“Some of it.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That once I helped a kid from a bus.”
I thought about Abby’s blue handprint.
“Why?”
“She was eleven. Asked whether I’d ever done anything good before getting sober.”
Hammer gave a short laugh.
“Kids don’t waste time protecting your feelings.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her I didn’t know if one decent thing counted.”
“And?”
“She said it counted to the kid.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then Hammer added, “That was the day she put her hand on the tank.”
I stared at him.
He looked puzzled.
“What?”
I grabbed my jacket.
“We’re going to Earl’s.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Mack.”
“That old accident was thirty-one years ago.”
Hammer’s face changed.
I continued.
“Earl said three kids d.i.e.d. You said you pulled one out.”
“So?”
“So what if it was the same bus?”
Hammer stood.
“That’s a big if.”
“Then we ask.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His answer came immediately.
“Because his granddaughter d.i.e.d.”
I stopped.
Hammer’s voice grew quieter.
“If I was there, what exactly do you think I give him? A nice story about one kid I got out while his didn’t?”
Chapter 5
“You might give him a piece he never had.”