Cover Your Tracks

by Daco Auffenorde

  “Sit down and hold on tight,” the man said, then turned back toward the door, which was now flapping in the wind.

  Why was he going to leave her alone? That thought, and not the cold, made her shiver. Alone, she was helpless. Trying not to sound panicky, she said, “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t answer, so she got up and followed him. She’d placed her life in his hands, and she wasn’t going to sit passively by and watch him leave.

  “Go sit down,” he ordered.

  She remained standing and kept her balance by holding onto a side table. He didn’t argue any further but instead stepped outside the car and onto the platform.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  He kneeled, then lay facedown and began tampering with the coupling apparatus. She now understood what he was trying to do and why. Was it even possible? One wrong move, one hard jolt, and he’d be thrown from the train. He was either mad or brilliant. She’d settle for either if he could get this done.

  “Be careful!” she cried.

  Some moments later, the coupling wires flailed in the air, like the arms of a drowning victim. He lifted a lever, which caused a metal bar to flip up. The private car, now separated from the train, went dark. Without electricity, the heat shut off. The wind sweeping inside immediately made the room cold. The man began turning a wheel on the platform—a handbrake, obviously. The car slowed quickly, putting space between them and the rest of the train.

  Frigid air continued to rush inside the cabin, stinging her cheeks. What if the main train stopped in time? They’d look like fools, might even be charged with criminal vandalism. She covered her belly with one arm, again needing to feel the baby move, needing confirmation that she’d made the right decision.

  Their detached car slowed at a smoother pace, and soon they came to a complete stop.

  The man got to his feet, walked inside, and muscled the door shut. Margo stared at him, unsure whether to thank him for saving her life or to berate him for doing something so foolish. The response became clear when she heard the ungodly roar of the approaching avalanche.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Without exchanging another word, they hurried to the middle of the car and watched through the large picture window. The train rounded a tight curve, and moments later its entire length was consumed by a massive white shroud. A fraction of a second later, the harsh sounds of steel bending and grinding and snapping penetrated the air. The tsunami of snow lifted, twisted, and tossed the remaining railroad cars down into the deep ravine as if they were nothing more than toys being hurled onto the floor by an angry child.

  Margo feared her heart would stop. She wanted to scream. She did scream.

  She couldn’t bear the awful sights and sounds, so she turned away, retreated to the couch, and covered her ears. Tears flooded her eyes. All those people. Angry and scared. Shouting, threatening. That older man who’d refused to come with them, his wife who’d wanted to but didn’t even though she knew what lay ahead. Those teenagers who’d barely had a chance to live, just kids.

  When the baby nudged Margo’s belly, she forced herself to sit upright. She and her baby were alive, but they were also stranded deep inside a mountain wilderness.

  All was quiet except for the wind and snow that continued to beat against the side of the car. The storm was worsening. The man walked over to where she was seated. Her head spun, and every inch of her skin was prickling to the point of sharp pain. All at once, clarity returned. She was isolated in the wilderness with a strange man powerful enough to uncouple a moving train car.

  “We have to call for help,” she said. Instinctively, she reached to her side for her purse that wasn’t there. She checked her pockets. They were empty—no phone, no gloves—nothing. “I don’t have my damn phone. I left it in my purse. What about you?”

  He patted his pockets. “When I went into the viewing car, I’d just come in from stretching my legs at the last stop. I left everything in my cabin.”

  She faced the window again and sat staring into the beyond, trying to make sense of what had occurred. She couldn’t. She needed to walk, to feel ground beneath her feet, so pushing her weight forward, she stood. “We have to go down there and help while there’s still light left in the day.”

  “No one survived, ma’am.”

  “You’d be surprised what people can live through. I’m a doctor. I’ve seen it all.” Over the years, she’d learned that human beings were remarkably resilient and often lucky. Survival was always possible. She’d witnessed the impossible. A six-year-old girl came out of a mangled car with multiple fractures, including a partially crushed skull, and made a full recovery when no one thought she had a chance; an eighty-year-old man fell down a flight of stairs and broke only an index finger; patients lived for decades after being told they had stage-four cancer or ALS. No human being wore the crown of God when it came to deciding who lived and who died.

  “No one survived,” he said.

  “You don’t know that.” Her legs turned to jelly. She wobbled and stretched her arms to keep her balance. Walking on that moving train seemed like a cakewalk compared to this light-headedness. She took a step back and collapsed into the chair. “We need to find out. It’s the least we can do.”

  He shook his head. “Even if you weren’t expecting a baby, you couldn’t walk down that steep mountain cliff in a blizzard. And it’s getting dark.”

  “I’ve taken an oath. My duty—”

  “I understand how you feel. Disasters like this are hard. I know. I’ve seen more than my share of death and destruction.”

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  “I was an Army Ranger.”

  “My God, no wonder you were able to uncouple a train car. We’ll go down there together. We did this together, so …”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Margo Fletcher.” Through all this, she hadn’t once thought to ask his name.

  “I’m Nick Eliot. Now, Margo, look out the window. Do you see the train?”

  She rose up on her haunches and did her best to gaze out the left-side window and down into the sheer ravine to the south. Another blast of wind rocked the car, as if forewarning them of the dangers out there. The snowfall was thick, but she could see where the avalanche had taken out the trees and filled much of the gorge with white. There was no sign of the train. Her stomach roiled and churned acid again, which burned her throat. She used her fingers to wipe away the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “You can’t be sure there are no survivors,” she insisted. “We can’t just sit here waiting for rescuers to arrive. What happened to no soldier left behind?”

  It was an insulting thing to say, but the man—Nick—didn’t react.

  A brilliant flash of lightning filled the sky, followed seconds later by an ear-shattering blast of thunder, the loudest she’d ever heard. Nevertheless, she rose from her seat again and headed toward the door, moving slowly in the dimming light. But this time, she was more determined.

  Nick followed her, and when she reached the door and gripped the handle, he grabbed her wrist. “Do not open the door. Think of the baby.”

  “Please let go of me. It’s not for you to decide.”

  Their eyes met. She drew in a breath, holding it for a long moment.

  He released her wrist. “It’s true that we leave no soldier behind. But we don’t put ourselves in harm’s way when it’s hopeless, and we don’t look for survivors at the expense of protecting the living. But I’ll go out there, if only to stop you from putting yourself and the baby in further danger. You have to promise me you’ll stay put.”

  She nodded. Staying was the right thing for the baby.

  He gestured for her to step aside, and when she did, he opened the door. She looked down toward the ravine. A fine powder filled the air, and she could see only ten, maybe twenty feet into the distance. She tried to locate the railroad tracks, but everything was now covered in white. How swi
ftly the weather had changed; how swiftly the snow had blanketed the ground.

  Nick stepped outside onto the back platform and shut the door without saying another word.

  His footsteps pounded on the metal and down the side stairs. Soon, the ping of metal faded, replaced by the rustle of the wind and the occasional roar of thunder. She returned to her seat, but in a fit of remorse sprang up to try and see where he’d gone. There was no sign of him. How would he find his way back with such poor visibility?

  Had she sent this man, her protector—her child’s protector—on a fool’s errand? Perhaps to his death?

  CHAPTER 5

  Alone in the passenger car, Margo waited for Nick to return. A chill crept over her skin, and it didn’t come from the cold outside. She pulled her coat up around her neck and reflexively hugged her belly before tucking her cold hands underneath her armpits. No matter what happened, it wasn’t her life that mattered now—it was the baby’s.

  She thought back to her first pregnancy when she was only seventeen. On the day everything was set in motion, she sat inside a small room, breathing in the stale, antiseptic air. The doctor was instructing the nurse, but what they were saying escaped her. The door flew open, and her father shouted, “Margo, get up and get dressed! Now! We’re leaving.”

  How had he found her? He wasn’t supposed to know.

  “This is none of your business, Dad!” she said, mortified, instantly teary-eyed.

  “You are not going to kill an innocent being!” He glowered at the doctor and his nurse. The nurse backed away as the doctor rose from his stool.

  “Sir, you don’t have a right to be in this room,” the doctor said. “Or to make this decision for your daughter. She’s seventeen.”

  “I beg to differ. She’s a minor who lives under my roof.”

  “Under the law, she’s competent to make her choice without parental involvement.”

  Her father’s eyes were so lethal that when he glanced at the nurse, she took another step back. The doctor didn’t budge.

  “Let’s go, Margo,” her father repeated, then lunged at her and grabbed her wrist with an aggression he’d never shown before—the act so jarring that she struggled to think straight. Her father didn’t believe in violence, or so he’d said, despite having served as an officer in the navy.

  The doctor looked at Margo and then took a step forward, jaw clenched.

  “I’m okay,” she said to the doctor. That was a lie. She was frightened and angry. The fear won out. She was too terrified of her father to argue with him, even though lately she’d been arguing with him all the time. Her decision was made—partially for him but also for herself. Deep inside she really didn’t want to go through with the abortion. But she was only seventeen, and up until then had seen no other way out.

  Shakily, she stood up and looked at her father. “All right, Dad. You win. Can I have some privacy while I get dressed?”

  Her father refused to leave the room. He probably thought she’d bolt, or have the doctor lock the door and go through with the procedure. Finally, after she promised on her mother’s life that she wouldn’t defy him, he relented and went outside.

  She didn’t go through with the abortion, and even up to this horrid day of the avalanche, she was glad she hadn’t terminated that first pregnancy.

  Yet she still lost her baby forever.

  Her parents had forced her to place the baby for adoption. She was too young, too naïve, to resist their demands that she sign over irrevocable rights to the child. The Fletchers’ family skeleton was now locked away in a hidden closet.

  Now, a scraping at the back window of the passenger car startled her. Pushing her weight from the chair, she hurried to the rear and entered the bedroom. A window covered with curtains obscured the view outside. She yanked the panels out of the way and saw that a portion of the back window had been wiped clear of ice and snow. With cupped hands, she peered outside. Nick was standing there, on the tracks. He held a large pine branch that he must’ve used to wipe the window. He waved his free hand, and she beckoned him to come back.

  She returned to the door and waited, anxious to hear what he’d learned, hopeful that there might be survivors. He didn’t come. She opened the door and looked into the void. The chilling wind soon forced her to retreat. He should already have walked around to this end of the car. What was taking him so long? Then it occurred to her that maybe he’d never intended to come inside. Maybe he was merely pointing out that he was heading not toward the avalanche site, but away from it. If that was the case, it seemed logical that the opposite direction might be the only way down into the gulch. After some long moments of waiting, it was clear he wasn’t coming back inside, so she headed to the couch.

  The sky became dimmer with each passing minute, and eventually—how long she couldn’t say—the outside world turned black. Eerie shadows skittered across the window frames. The metal walls creaked as the car swayed and attempted to resist the harsh winter elements. The longer Margo sat, the more the noises unnerved her. She was accustomed to waiting on test results, for patients to respond to treatments, but this was altogether different. Clearly, her mind was playing tricks. She was safe, but it was hard to maintain clarity. Deep breaths usually helped her relax, and so she closed her eyes and began focusing only on breathing.

  Just as she started to settle down, from somewhere outside the car, a loud, agonizing cry pierced the air. Her eyes popped open. This sound was a sound she’d heard all too many times in her job. This was the wail of a man crying out in pain.

  Oh, damn. What had she done?

  CHAPTER 6

  Margo’s forehead and chest broke out in beads of sweat. She braced herself on the couch and tried peering out the window. The glass was frosted, and nothing was visible through it. Had she heard a man cry out? Maybe it was only the wind, maybe it was the sound of tree branches snapping, or maybe it was the death rattle of entire trees collapsing under the weight of the snow. More mind tricks. She couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t sure of anything, except she’d insisted that Nick go out into the wilderness alone and in the dark. If he was hurt, this was her fault.

  Her nerves fired hot. She tried to breathe, but the air only caught in her throat. She covered her ears and shouted, “Stop it!”

  The volume of her own voice impelled her off the couch. She walked to the door, hoping to find Nick coming up the platform steps. She placed her bare hand on the metal door handle. The frozen steel bit at her flesh. She jerked her hand away. No way she was going to be imprisoned inside this car, not if Nick needed her help, and she couldn’t rule that possibility out. Ignoring the pain, she gripped the handle and tried turning it. The metal creaked but refused to give. In desperation, she twisted the knob harder, her hand slipping back and forth. She pulled and yanked, and the door opened a few inches.

  A sharp gust of wind met her face, stinging her nostrils. A winter coat and mid-calf designer boots weren’t nearly sufficient to stave off this kind of weather. She told herself she’d only feel the first shock of the cold, that she’d surely get accustomed to the temperature. She cupped a hand over her eyes and stared outside into the dark. From inside, it had been difficult to appreciate how much snowfall had accumulated since they’d separated from the train. No matter. She pulled on the door until it opened more.

  “Nick!” she cried as loud as she could. “Nick!”

  No answer.

  She secured the hood of her coat and slowly put the weight of her leg onto the platform, which was covered with snow. Her boot sank below the level of the snow. She held onto the doorframe and took another step until she was outside and exposed. The temperature must’ve been in the low twenties and dropping. Everyone who lived in Chicago understood cold, yet somehow this cold was different—malevolent.

  She carefully stepped forward and gingerly grasped the railing at the back of the platform. The mere touch burned her flesh. She jerked her hands away. The cold wasn’t the only problem. Her hands were n
ow moist with nervous sweat. She recalled a boy in her fifth grade class back home in Spokane who, on a dare, licked a flagpole in freezing weather and lost a piece of his tongue when he pulled away. Using the sleeve of her coat as a makeshift glove, she grasped the metal again.

  A sudden blast of wind swept across the platform, thrusting the hood of her coat off. Her shoulder-length hair flew crazily into the air. Bracing her legs against the railing, she quickly replaced the hood around her head and drew the toggle strings tight.

  “Nick? Are you there? Answer me!”

  No reply. Of course, he couldn’t respond if he were severely injured and lying in the snow.

  She inched over to the right-hand side of the platform, the side closest to the mountain. Lightning flashed, and a low rumble sounded in the distance. In that brief moment of light, she caught a glimpse across the snowy barren land where the train had been lost. A hollow feeling shot throughout her body. Never had she felt such loneliness and despair. She leaned a few inches over the railing and gazed in the opposite direction and down the length of the car, where she’d last seen Nick. Another flash of light revealed a shallower depth of snow along the path of the railway tracks. Away from the tracks and toward the mountainside sat a high wall of snow made by the train’s front-end cowcatcher, a temporary but impenetrable barrier.

  Thunder boomed again and again as if a giant in lead boots was clomping toward her. Flinching, she gripped the rail. As a small child, she’d been terrified of thunderstorms. Her mother would come into her room and hold her until she fell asleep. But when she turned five, her father started saying, “Stop babying her, Isadora. She’ll never grow up if you keep running to her.” That left only the comfort of a pillow pulled over her head and the sound of her own whimpers.