Chapter 28 - The Ghost Train of Sector Four
The tunnel of Sector Four was narrower and lower than the main drift. The ceiling was ribbed with heavy fir beams black with age, weeping mineral salts that hung in white, crystalline stalactites.
As they rounded a wide subterranean curve, the beam of Clara’s lantern fell upon an iron monstrosity half-swallowed by shadow.
It was an old locomotive—a squat, timber-burning Porter 0-4-0 switch engine, coupled to two flatcars and an enclosed caboose that had once served as a mobile paymaster's office. It sat on the tracks, covered in decades of dust and spiderwebs, looking like the skeletal remains of some iron beast that had crawled into the mountain to die.
"Lord in heaven," Martha breathed. "It’s the *Iron Mule*."
Nathaniel was already at the engine’s cab, leaping onto the rusted iron steps. He wiped the glass face of the steam gauge with his sleeve. "The brass is intact. Tank is dry, but the water seepage from the ceiling has filled the lower tender cistern."
"Boone, you can't be serious," the old miner said, shaking his head. "She hasn't had fire in her belly since the silver panic of seventy-three. The flues will be rusted through. The boiler will burst and scald us all to death before we move ten yards."
"Then we die warm instead of freezing in the drift," Nathaniel snapped. He climbed down from the cab, turning to the women. "Martha, get the children into the enclosed caboose. Stack the baggage against the walls—if Vane’s men are waiting on the other side, that timber will stop a bullet. Clara, find every scrap of dry wood, old grease barrels, and kerosene cans along these drift ribs. We need steam, and we need it in twenty minutes."
The cavern transformed into a hive of frantic, silent industry.
Women who had never touched a shovel began clearing debris from the iron tracks ahead of the engine. Young boys hauled broken shoring timbers and stacked them inside the tender. Clara worked with Nathaniel inside the engine cab, using whale-oil rags and sulfur matches to kindle a fire inside the massive, cold firebox.
The draft was stubborn. Smoke billowed out into the cab, stinging Clara’s eyes and making her choke, but gradually, the draft caught the flue. A low, hollow roar began to build within the iron belly of the locomotive.
*Clink. Hiss.*
A tiny jet of white steam spat from the safety valve on top of the boiler. The needle on the pressure gauge shuddered, lifted off its rusted brass pin, and began a slow, agonizing crawl upward.
*Five pounds. Ten pounds.*
Suddenly, from deep in the darkness behind them, down the long drift they had traversed an hour ago, a sharp, echoing crack shattered the subterranean quiet.
It was the distinct sound of a pickaxe striking fallen stone.
Then another. And another.
Clara froze, the lantern trembling in her hand. "Nathaniel... the collapse."
Nathaniel stepped to the rear of the tender, levering a fresh round into his Winchester. He listened to the rhythmic, metallic ring of iron against granite.
"They brought up the engineering corps," Nathaniel said grimly. "They’re digging through the cave-in. And they aren't using picks alone."
*Muffled thump.*
A low concussive shockwave rippled through the air, extinguishing one of the lanterns. The cavalry was blasting through the rubble with black powder charges.
"They're less than four hundred yards behind us," Nathaniel said, jumping back into the cab. He grabbed the heavy iron throttle with both hands, his knuckles turning white. The pressure gauge read barely forty pounds—barely enough to move the engine, let alone three loaded cars.
"Boone, she won't pull!" the miner yelled from the tracks.
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"She will," Nathaniel said, his eyes wild with desperate resolve, "or she’ll tear this mountain down on all our heads. Everybody inside! Now!"
***
