Chapter 18 - Dead Man's Trestle
Nathaniel raised the iron crowbar with the last ounce of his strength and drove it directly into the emergency pressure blow-off cock on the main steam line.
*CRACK.*
The brass fitting sheared completely off.
A monstrous deafening roar filled the cabin as a geyser of white steam blasted into the roof. The pressure dropped instantly. With a shriek of tortured steel that echoed across the entire valley, the locomotive's massive iron driving wheels locked solid. Sparks flew fifty feet into the night as steel ground against steel, shaving metal curls from the frozen tracks.
"JUMP!" Nathaniel roared, grabbing Clara by the waist.
He didn't wait for her consent. Bundling her against his chest to shield her from the jagged rocks, Nathaniel hurled them both through the open gangway into the blizzard.
The world turned upside down. Clara felt the violent, bone-jarring impact as they struck the steep snowbank on the embankment shoulder. They tumbled together through three feet of powdery drift, crashing through frozen briars and pine branches before coming to a violent stop against the trunk of an ancient hemlock tree.
Above them, the Baldwin locomotive slid across the threshold of Dead Man's Trestle.
The sheer momentum carried the forty-ton engine onto the weakened span. The wooden timbers, rotten and fractured by the rockslide, groaned in agonizing protest. Then, with a series of concussions resembling cannon fire, the trestle’s center trestle beams gave way.
The bridge folded like a house of kindling.
The roaring, hissing locomotive plummeted into the five-hundred-foot darkness of Black Canyon, accompanied by a rain of burning embers and splintered timber. Seconds later, a tremendous, muffled explosion echoed from the riverbed far below, sending a plume of dark smoke curling up through the frozen mist.
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Governor Bell was gone. The iron serpent was dead.
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