12

FOLLOWING behind me, T.R. crouched low and took a few careful steps onto the trestle. Then, whining, he turned and crawled back to solid ground, tail between his legs, and commenced begging me to come back, too.

When the dog saw I was laughing at him, he wet on the rail, scratched with his back paws in the dirt, and dashed off, trying to get me to play chase. After that didn't work, he bounded down the brambly path to the creek below, where we had just come from, and splashed over to the other side, trying to show me a better way to get there. Standing in the shallow water, T.R. barked and bragged his white-tipped tail like he'd done something to get praised for.

"Old yeller belly!" I called down to him, laughing. My voice echoed spooky between trestle and water and gorge. I sure wished Pink Predmore and them were up here with me.

I put one bare foot on the rail. It was hot but not enough to burn, so I walked on it a piece, arms spread-eagle, balancing with my fishing pole like a tightrope-walker at the circus. I remember wondering if any birds ever walked through the sky up there instead of flying over the gorge. I soon passed the sand barrel that was bolted onto the trestle beside the tracks. People have been known to jump into a trestle barrel if a train comes at the wrong time and they get trapped.

Two thirds of the way across, I stepped off the rail onto a crosstie and sat down, elbows on knees, to look around. I thought about putting a penny on the tracks for the train to flatten, then decided not to. The penny would fall in the creek. So I just sat there, looking way off, and tried to think who lived in that little white farmhouse with green shutters down in the valley. From up here the house looked like a fresh-painted toy. I wondered why nobody ever painted their houses out in Banks County, where Grandpa Tweedy lived. He didn't know what a can of paint looked like.

Enjoying the breeze, I stretched out, face down, to look through the crossties at the water below. Leaves floated on the creek like tiny boats. And here came a long stick, a wake trailing behind it. When the stick turned against the current to swim toward the bank, I saw it was a water moccasin and threw a cinder at it. I missed the snake, but my next cinder hit the white spot on old T.R.'s rump. He barked at me till he got distracted by a big terrapin crawling on the creek bank.

It sure beat being in mourning.

All of a sudden I saw T.R. raise his head to listen. Then he dashed up the path on the far side of the creek, barking all the way, and went to jumping around at the edge of the trestle. He like to had a fit for me to come on. Shoot, you'd think he heard the train or something. Wasn't near time for the train. I didn't hear anything myself except that dern dog barking.

But just to make sure, I moved my head over to the rail and put an ear against it, lazy-like, and—I could hear the clickety-clack! The train was coming! Well, I could make it easy. But as I scrambled to my feet, the fishing pole got wedged somehow between the rail and crosstie. Couldn't leave it that way. Might derail the train. By the time I got it loose, the clickety-clacks were plain as day and getting louder, louder, LOUDER!

I stumbled and fell. Jerking myself up, I saw I couldn't possibly get off the trestle before the train moved onto it. Like a fox who runs into a hound, I turned and sprinted the other way. From somewhere, as in a dream, I heard a scream and looked back just as the big smoking engine roared around a bend.

I knew the engineer saw me. His whistle was going whoo-whoo-whoo in quick fast blasts. The trestle shook like a leaf as the train hit it.

I thought to aim for the sand barrel.

God A'mighty help me, I wasn't go'n make it! Jump! No, too far, creek too low.... Whistle screeching in my ears.... Train heat almost at my heels.... Whoo-whoo-whoo!

At that moment I thought FALL!

Like a doll pushed from behind, I fell face down between the rails and lay flat and thin as I could, head low between crossties, arms stretched overhead. As I was swallowed up in fire and thunder, I hugged my arms tight against my ears.

The engine's roar pierced my eardrums anyway, making awful pain. I was so scared I could hardly breathe, and there was a strong smell of heated creosote. Hot cinders spit on me from the firebox. Yet even as the boxcars clacked, knocked, strained, ground, and groaned overhead, it came to me that I wasn't dead. If there wasn't a dragging brake beam to rip me down the back, I was go'n make it!

Boy howdy, I did some fancy praying. All it amounted to was "God save me! Please God save me!" And then it was "Thank you, Lord, thank you, God, thank you, sir...." I guess what made it seem fancy was the strange peaceful feeling I got, as if the Lord had said, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," or something like that. I wasn't dead! Boy howdy, boy howdy, boy howdy! I was buried alive in noise, and the heat and cinders stung my neck and legs and the bottoms of my feet. Still and all, that was what kept reminding me I wasn't dead.

I found myself counting boxcars, by the sound of them, which was a long sight different in this position, with my eyes shut tight against the dust and cinders, from being in Cold Sassy waiting for the train to get by so I could cross from South Main to North Main. The train had to end. Trains always do. It seemed like this one never would, but brakes were screeching and the clickety-clacks on the rails were slowing, so I knew the engineer was trying to stop.

I felt blistered from the heat. My straw hat was gone. My arms were so tight against my head that my ears felt numb, yet it wouldn't have hurt more if knives were being jabbed into my eardrums.

But boy howdy, I was alive! Thank you, Jesus.

All of a sudden I felt sunshine overhead. Opening my eyes and raising my head, I saw the red caboose getting smaller and smaller as it neared the end of the trestle. The shaking of the trestle stopped. All sounds were muted, as if I had a wad of thick cotton in both ears or was shut up in a padded closet. I felt limp and dizzy. And as knowledge of what could of happened hit me, I started shaking and crying.

I heard T.R. barking from what seemed like far off, but all of a sudden his tongue was on my face! By gosh, he had run out over that trestle he was so scared of! I grabbed and hugged him, crying, "Good ole dog, good ole T.R.!"

When the train finally stopped, its caboose was maybe a hundred feet beyond the trestle. Just then, despite being deafened, I heard a girl's voice scream out, "Will! Will Tweedy! You awright, Will?"

And then she was on the trestle running toward me, her arms outstretched. "I'm a-comin', Will!" she called. "I'm go'n holp you!"