“What’s the matter with you up there?” he clicked. “Gone to sleep? But
you can’t sleep now; you’ve got to talk to me or I’ll be ready for the
queer house. Something is walking up and down outside my window. I’ve
seen it twice. It can’t be a man, and animals don’t prowl about in a
storm like this. Listen to that wind. I tell you it’s walking around
the station. What am I saying? Do you believe in ghosts? It was in the
waiting-room a while back, but it got out before I had a shot at it.
What would you do if you were down here alone, snowed in like a damned
Eskimo? What would you do if it started to walk—”
Big Ben strode across the room. “Give me the key,” he thundered. His
eyes were hard gray now, like rock, with little points of fire in
them, and it seemed he would smash the instrument as he crashed down
with Donaldson’s call.
“Stop that!” went the dots and dashes, clear cut, fast, but Lordy,
they had a punch behind ’em. “Pull yourself together. Take some more
whisky. Wake up. Remember you’re an operator. You’ve got to handle the
Limited to-night. No more of that. You know damn well nothing is
walking around down there except you. Rub some snow in your face. Wake
up, I say. I’ll talk to you as much as you like, but no more spook
stuff.”
“You’re right,” came the slower response. “I won’t bother you any
more. Nevertheless, it’s walking around here. Maybe I’ll get a shot at
it. I’ll let you know if I do.”
That was all, and Ben and I looked across the table into each other’s
eyes. “Well?” I questioned.
He shook himself as if trying to get rid of something clinging. “Oh,
Donaldson is getting old,” he muttered. “It’s lonely down there, and
his fire’s out. That’s what I make of it.
“When the wind howls, and you’re on a night shift in a God-forsaken
spot like Hastings, you’re mighty apt to hear and see a little more
’an you’ve any business to.”
The next word that came flashing over the wire left no doubt in our
minds. Either Donaldson was clean crazy or—well, he _must_ be crazy!
“Ever see a face half black and half white?” stuttered our instrument.
“I had a shot at it. It’s still walking.”
Ben waited an instant then sent “J-J,” Donaldson’s call, steady for
three minutes. But he might as well have opened the window and yelled
out into the storm. The wire was either dead or Hastings wouldn’t
answer.
Presently McFlin at the junction got busy. “Just O. K.’d 77,” he said.
“Devilish night. The Limited looked like a hunk of the mountain on
wheels. Bet the snow on the car-roofs gets scraped off on the top of
the tunnels. Happy dreams.”
But we weren’t to indulge in any happy dreams for some time to come.
Hardly had McFlin shut up when “N-H, N-H, N-H” called Ben back.
“Lord,” he groaned, “hear that style? It’s Donaldson, but what’s
happened to him? I hate to listen to it.”
Dull, lifeless, flat, came the dots and dashes from Hastings. “No
use,” clicked Donaldson. “This hide-and-seek is beyond me. Its face is
half black and half white, and bullets don’t worry it. I’m a gone
duck. Never mind me. Anyhow, hell is warm and not as lonesome as this.
I’m freezing, and that’s no ghost story.”
“For God’s sake,” Ben’s reply flew forth, “can that stuff. Pull
yourself together, old man. Forget the face or whatever it is; 77’s on
time. Hold hard.”
“Sure,” agreed Donaldson wearily, “I’ll handle the Limited. How’s the
storm up there?”
“Quitting,” lied Ben, and went to the window.
Then followed an hour of silence, with only the shriek of the wind and
the thud of snow. I reckon the two of us smoked considerable tobacco
during that hour, and we played a few games of checkers, too, but our
minds wandered.
When at last we heard the shrill squeal of 77’s whistle above the
noise of the blizzard, we felt happy. Just to know there were other
people near us—believe me, that was some relief!
Far off up the line we could make out the headlight of the Limited
like a blinking, misty moon creeping toward us. Ben glanced at his
semaphore levers. Down she bore on us, the din of her drivers muffled
by snow.
There was the thunder of moving tons, a blast of cinders against the
tower windows, and a snaky line of black as the Pullmans flashed past
under their white-caps. We watched her red tail-lights around the
curve.
“J-J, J-J, J-J,” clicked Ben, back at the table. And directly Hastings
answered in the same lifeless style.
“Limited just passed O. K.,” went on my side partner. “How are you
feeling?”
Donaldson’s wire-talk was worse than ever. “Fine,” he stuttered.
“Maybe I can hold out. The damn thing’s always near me. It’s cold
here. I’ve got my feet on the stove. Say, this stove is a joke. It’s
so empty it’s going to cave in pretty soon. Wait a minute, let me try
another shot.”
Nothing more. Not another word, though we took turns at the key. And
when Ben relighted his pipe I didn’t like the look on his face. “Jim,”
he began, “there’s things in this world none of us can understand. I
reckon after all that maybe, I misjudged Donaldson; perhaps he’s up
against one of ’em.”
“Quit!” I bellowed. “You watch yourself or you’ll be splitting a
switch, too. As you said a while back, Donaldson’s nervous and cold.
That’s what’s the matter with him; nothing else.”
Ben, mumbling a reply, turned again to the window. If possible the
storm was worse.
I don’t exactly remember how it happened; I must have dozed off about
then, being pretty tuckered out. Anyhow, the first thing I knew Ben
was shaking the life out of me. I’ll never forget the expression of
his face as I opened my eyes.
His eyes were all red, his hands were working, his jaw set. “Wake up,
Jim,” he hissed. “I heard it, too.
“No,” he went on as I instinctively looked toward the window. “Not
there; over the wire. Listen!”
I listened, but for a long time nothing broke the vibrating stillness
of the tower. And I got to thinking it was another case of nerves.
Then, Father above us! may I never again hear such a sound!
Our instrument started to whisper. You laugh, do you? But if you’d
been there you wouldn’t have laughed. We went over to the table on
tiptoe, hardly daring to breathe. The little steel bar trembled; moved
down; snapped back, barely closing the contact.
It was like a dying man framing words he couldn’t utter. I followed in
my mind the course of the single, drumming wire over the trestles,
through the ravines, under the mountains. What manner of thing was
pressing the key at the other end?
Ben dropped forward with an oath and pillowed his elbows on the table
as if his nearness might aid him. “Listen!” he begged. “Oh, Jim,
_listen_!”
Presently the instrument quivered again, but this time the impulse was
stronger. Horribly flaccid, monotonously regular, like the labored
effort of an amateur, came the message which shall forever sear my
memory with unspeakable horror.
“God—in—heaven—help me. I—can’t—stand—this. They—chained—cross—
ties—to—the—rails. They—will—ditch—the—Limited. I’m—done—for.
Hell—is—nearer—now. Help. Dear—God—help—me—”
That was all. Ben tore at the key, sending out into the night, “J-J,
J-J, J-J,” until my head swam.
But no response came; not the least flutter. Only agonizing, storm
shrieking silence.
Then he gave it up and staggered to his feet. His face was as gray as
slate. “Jim,” he gasped, “Donaldson is dead! I know it. It was a dying
man who sent that message.”
I grabbed him by the shoulders. “You fool!” I yelled. “He can’t be
dead—he sent it. Don’t you understand? They’re going to wreck the
Limited. Donaldson was telling us. He _may_ be wounded. We’ve got to
get to him.”
Slowly, as if his body was awakening from sleep, the muscles in his
shoulders under my hand tightened. “Sure, I get you,” he whispered.
And before I knew what he was doing, he shook me off, rushing blindly
for the stairs. “Come on, Jim. For God’s sake, hurry!” he called.
“Bring my gun and some torpedoes. It’s only five miles by the road;
thirty down the mountain by the track. Let’s try the car—”
I stopped long enough to be sure the revolver we kept in a drawer was
loaded, stuffed some torpedoes in my pocket, and followed him. Out
into the gale he sped to where he kept his little second-hand,
mud-spattered gas-wagon. I had always kidded him about it, laughed at
it; but now I prayed.
Yes, funny when you think of it, me praying! But I did—prayed it would
run; prayed there was gas and oil in it.
Once away from the lee of the building, the storm wrapped around us,
flinging the snow in our faces, making us gasp for breath. We were
taking desperate chances and breaking all rules—this leaving a tower
vacant, but what could we do? What in God’s name could we do?
When I caught up with Ben he was cranking the engine desperately. I
propped the shanty door open, though the blast of wind threatened to
fairly tear it from its hinges.
Fortunately the radiator of the car had antifreezing mixture in it.
After an agonizing moment, the engine gave a couple of disgusted
coughs and died. But Ben went right on. He spun that thing till I was
dizzy as I sat with my hand on the throttle, feeding it raw gas.
When there seemed no chance left, and I could see the Limited a
burning, blackened mass, and hear the cries of the injured, the engine
started, missing like thunder, to be sure. Ben leaped in beside me and
let in his clutch.
Once beyond the shanty our headlights ended in a whirling bank of
snow, and the cold stabbed like a driven nail. But the engine was
running better now.
How my side partner found the road, or how he kept that rickety piece
of junk from chucking us down a ravine I’ll never know. But he did.
Yes, by the grace of the Lord, he did.
Pitching like a ship in a storm, sinking now and then up to our hubs,
we jounced on down that mountain. What everlasting miles of emptiness!
What biting pain as our ears and hands and noses turned red, then
white.
Once we heard the shriek of the Limited below us on the grade; once we
saw the flash of her furnace door. Seconds turned into minutes;
minutes into hours. Would we be in time? I set my teeth and prayed
some more.
Ah, we had hit the last stretch and through the smother we could see
the semaphore lights of Hastings station. Also the light in the
building itself. Our car snorted and groaned as Ben fed it the gas,
skidding to the edge of a precipice or flinging us half out of our
seats, but we never thought of that.
And now came the wail of the Limited’s whistle, this time above us.
Her headlight flickered across the cut, touching the station with
uncertain fingers. The semaphore was set green.
I shivered, but not from cold. If only we had half a chance, but the
everlasting snow—how it clung to our wheels! And under it our
tire-chains spun gratingly in red clay which flecked the white of the
road like blood.
Bearing down on Hastings station, gathering speed with each pound of
her drivers, thundered the Limited. We were playing the passage of a
minute against a pile of cross-ties—and the forfeit was death!
Now we reached the nearest point to the right-of-way, and as we jerked
to a halt, a black figure appeared on the depot platform against the
light. I saw the flash of a gun and heard a bullet sing past.
But Ben paid no heed. Throwing himself from the car, he floundered
over to the track. I ran toward the station, firing as I went. Once I
looked back. Ben was kneeling down, adjusting torpedoes under the very
pilot of the plow.
Now there isn’t any use of my explaining how the Limited roared by,
her engineer satisfied with the green of the semaphore; nor how he
gave her the air when the torpedoes warned him.
Nor, for that matter, of the futile pursuit of the bandits who had
intended to ditch her. All that came out in the morning paper. If I
remember, there was even a picture of the pile of cross-ties chained
to the track.
The fact that will interest you is what we discovered in Hastings
station. Without bothering to explain to 77’s wondering crew, we
dashed into the waiting-room and threw open the door of the ticket
office.
At the table sat Donaldson. He was stiff and rigid, and from an ugly
blotched hole in his neck there crept a frozen stream of blood. His
right hand still rested on the telegraph-key.
“Good God!” I muttered. “Dead! He never moved after he was shot.”
And then, somehow feeling Ben’s eyes upon me, I looked at him. His
smile was ghastly.
“Sure?” he said. “I told you so back in the tower. He never moved
after he was shot? Then what about that message? How did he know about
the cross-ties?”
“Shut up!” I shrieked. “Here, let’s get him out of this. We’ll go down
on 77. I’m through!”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 31, 1920 issue
of All-Story Weekly magazine.]