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There was trouble in being good at what you did daily, and that was in always having too much work. Thomas didn't mind, most days, but recent weeks had begun taking their toll. He couldn't recall when he'd seen his room last, or his books, and the thought of a shower sent pangs of disgust down the center of his chest. Train work was dirty work, and Thomas was as filthy as they came.

Eight days now on the Big Car, Lottie, Ol' Red--her name changed with the details, but she was still the largest engine they had. Eight days as the chief mechanic, friend to the conductor but not friendly enough to warrant wasting good water on--especially since every shift, the never-ending shift, had him digging in coal and bathing in oil. "Christ," the conductor said with a cloth covering his face. "Don't you boys know a thing about cleanliness?" It was a cheap shot, and entirely uncalled for, because both men knew that Thomas wouldn't be welcomed in the caboose or the compartments, and that was the only place for a man to get closer to God. But here it was, eight days coming on nine, and the man just wanted to get home.

Home. It was a strange word to him, foreign on his lips, and he wasn't quite sure what he thought of when he thought of it. Was it small-time, small-town with a mama and a papa and a home-cooked meal? Was it his one-room let with piles of books and broken shelves? Maybe it was that damn bed and its wire frame. The mattress was good enough, for sure, and Thomas would've given anything to be sleeping on a mattress tonight. Whatever it was, it wasn't here--a hundred some miles from the city, or his station, cutting through mountains that never looked happy to see him.

Speaking of happy, or speaking of seeing, these recent strings of train trips had come up quickly and left him completely cut off (or so he thought) from Ames. Anderson Ames. Strange to be thinking of him, half in Hell and trying to figure why this damn engine wouldn't top 50 bloody miles an hour. But there he was: one fading image of a photographer who called himself in memory three steps after Thomas thought of his mangy bed.

"Don't be a fool," he said aloud, but the young boys shoveling the coal couldn't hear him for the roar of the flames. It didn't matter, though, because Thomas wasn't talking to them. Don't be a fool, he said in his head, and pushed out every last thought of flashing bulbs just as a gut-deep screech rocked through the cars and sent those flames roaring his way.

He jumped ship, so to speak, at close-to-fifty, without ever sparing a glance out the side of the car. One death was as good as another, sure, but certains deaths weren't so welcome to a man who spent his whole life around fire. A boy came with him, but the other stayed--and less the lad's luck, because they'd find his teeth in the morning. It was pure luck, pure goddamn luck, that left Thomas rolling in marshlands that muted the fall. He could feel his shoulder wasn't in the right place, and his trousers were bloody from something he hadn't noticed yet, but the man was breathing and conscious and glanced up through hooded eyes (his head was a bit hazy) to survey the damage.

Disaster would've been more likely. Catastrophe. The cars had bucked and piled, flame ripped through the latter half, and those dumb souls in the rear were more interested in clutching their meager belongings and smashing to their deaths than in leaving the last of their gold behind. With a sigh, Thomas gathered up the surviving boy--who'd landed on a rock and was bleeding out the ear--and dragged himself and his charge back up the embankment to see who'd survived.

He'd like to say only the good men did, but that was rarely the case. Instead, he was left with a ragged crew of idiots, the conductor (who sat crying in his own piss), and two dozen folks who wanted nothing more than to get home.

"Don't think we're getting her running again," Thomas said with a broad hand stroking Nelly--his name for the Big Car. "Do we still got that radio running?"

"It's in," the conductor sniveled. "It's in. They'll come for us when they can."

"When's that?"

"When they can, Tom," he said, and walked away.  Thomas sighed, dragged his crew from their wounds, and began righting what they could, which wasn't much without hands and tools. The entire track would have to be replaced, though it needed replacing well before the accident and, when all was said and done, looked to be the cause of the slip. The engine hit a weak iron, twisted into the mountain, and her cars didn't stand one chance. Nope, Thomas thought, this just became a graveyard.

It would be six more days before Thomas saw the train yard again, and he'd be surprised--when finally pulling in--to understand that this was home, even more so than his bed or those books. This, right here--and those men who came to greet him for nothing more than a tale and a chance to confirm, for their own souls, that their leader lived.

But Thomas didn't know or didn't care that he was a leader. All he cared for now was avoiding the press, avoiding the cops, and finding one clear bucket of water to drown himself in. Short on that, he scrubbed what he could in the sink and slinked out to the yard, catching a nap beside the boys cleaning out the stock cars. He figured, at least for today, if anybody really needed him, they'd know where to find him.