Chapter 12 - Blood on the Rails
The world narrowed to a tunnel of sound and fire. Thomas knelt in the crushed stone ballast, clutching his bleeding shoulder, watching the gunman rack the bolt of his weapon fifty feet away. The massive steel wheels of the boxcar continued their steady, rhythmic clatter right beside him, pulling Elena and Leo away into safety.
""Thomas!"" Elena screamed from inside the moving car, reaching her bloody fingers out into the empty air.
Thomas looked up. Standing in the open doorway behind Elena was Leo.
The child wasn't crying anymore. His little face was set with an ancient, terrifying resolve. He raised his small arm and hurled the heavy, crushed silver dollar coin he had retrieved from the floor, throwing it down at the gunman with all the strength in his toddler frame.
The coin clattered harmlessly against the gravel twenty feet short, but the movement drew the shooter’s eye for a fraction of a second.
That fraction was all Thomas needed.
Ignoring the blinding fire in his shoulder, Thomas lunged forward, grabbed the iron ladder on the side of the boxcar with his uninjured left arm, and swung his legs off the gravel. He hung suspended over the churning steel rails, his boots skimming inches from the grinding wheels.
The gunman fired wildly. The bullet sparked harmlessly against the iron coupling behind Thomas's feet.
Elena grabbed Thomas’s leather belt with both hands, screaming as she pulled backward using the entire weight of her body. Leo threw his little arms around Thomas’s good wrist, pulling with a desperate, sobbing grunt. Together, they dragged him across the wooden threshold into the dark interior of the boxcar.
Thomas collapsed onto his back, gasping for air, clutching his blood-soaked shoulder. Elena immediately ripped the sleeve from her blouse and pressed it hard against the wound, tears streaming silently down her pale, sweat-streaked face.
The freight train accelerated, clearing the mill yard and rattling out onto the wide, open plains. The gunmen dwindled into tiny, motionless specks against the receding horizon before disappearing entirely behind the tree line.
They were moving. They were alive.
May you like
Leo crawled over on his hands and knees, sitting beside Thomas’s head. He reached into his little overall pocket, pulled out the battered, flattened donut, and carefully broke off a small piece of the golden dough.
""One dollar,"" Leo whispered softly, placing the crumb gently onto Thomas’s dry lips. ""We bought safety.""
