Chapter 17 - The Ledger of the Damned
The Governor let out a guttural howl of agony, his grip breaking as he stumbled back against the furnace door. His woolen trousers instantly smoldered against the blistering iron.
Clara collapsed to the iron grate floor, coughing violently, drawing freezing air deep into her bruised lungs. The engineer seized the moment, grabbing a heavy brass spanner wrench and smashing it across Bell’s jaw. The corrupt politician crumpled into the coal dust at the base of the tender, groaning and clutching his bleeding leg.
"Shut it down!" Clara shouted to the engineer, pointing at the massive brass reverse lever. "Cut the steam! We’re coming up on the trestle!"
"The linkage is jammed!" the engineer shouted in terror, pulling frantically on the iron lever. "The heat warped the throttle valve! I can't close it from in here!"
Through the cabin door, Nathaniel suddenly appeared. His shirt was soaked in blood, his face pale from exhaustion, but in his hands he carried a heavy iron crowbar from the caboose.
"Nathaniel!" Clara scrambled to his side, catching him before his knees buckled.
"The rear cars... are loose," he panted, his breath whistling through cracked ribs. "Agnes and the men pulled the handbrakes on the parlor car. It's slowing down. But this engine... is going to cross that bridge."
"The throttle is stuck!" Clara said.
Nathaniel looked at the high-pressure steam line running above the firebox. His eyes narrowed with grim understanding. "If we breach the release pipe, the boiler pressure will vent. The wheels will lock up. But the steam... it’ll blow through this cab like a furnace."
"We jump," Clara said immediately, looking at the snowbanks lining the outer curve just three hundred yards before the wooden trestle began.
"Look at Bell," Nathaniel murmured.
On the floor, Governor Bell was weakly dragging himself toward a steel dispatch box tucked under the jump seat. He pried it open with shaking, bloody fingers, trying to feed bundles of vellum documents and black-bound ledgers directly into the roaring mouth of the firebox.
Clara moved faster than thought. She kicked the box out of his grasp, scattering the documents across the cabin floor. There, stamped with the official seal of the state capital, were the real deeds of Black Ridge, alongside payroll receipts detailing payments to the saboteurs who brought down the North Shaft.
"The whole town died for these pieces of paper," Clara whispered, scooping the ledger into her coat.
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"Ten seconds to the bridge!" the engineer screamed, terror stripping his voice of sanity.
***
