The Christmas Train

by David Baldacci

  the falling snow more than kept pace and quickly replaced the amounts blown away by the wind.

  Most people chose not to eat dinner in the dining car, preferring to stay in their rooms and either snack or not eat at all but rather stare out the window helplessly. That helped with the food-supply burn rate, but at some point people would have to eat, and the Chief only had food for about another day or so. Roxanne had sent a team of men out to check under the train cars for freezing pipes. There were none as yet, they reported back. The men had been dressed in layers of clothing, yet when they came back in from such a short period outside, they were covered with snow and shivering uncontrollably.

  The fuel problem was even worse. Higgins explained the situation to Tom and Eleanor as they quietly ate their dinner in the dining car. “Once the fuel runs out, we have lots of problems that will rapidly get worse. No water, pipes bursting, no heat.”

  “And if we do run out of fuel, even if they reach us, how can the train move? It’s not like the air force where they can refuel a plane in the air,” said Tom.

  “Well, they’ll attach engines with full tanks to the Chief and pull her along. But, like you said, they have to get to us first. I went up into the lead engine, and I saw how much snow is piled across the tracks up ahead, and it’s a lot. It’ll take a while to clear that.”

  “So maybe instead of waiting for help to get to us, we need to get to help.”

  “Where?” asked Eleanor. “Look around, Tom, we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Any ideas on that score, Herrick?” asked Tom. “You probably know the Amtrak route system as well as anyone.”

  Higgins thought about this for a bit. “Well, there’s actually an interstate highway, I-25, that runs parallel to the pass between Raton and Trinidad and then veers north to Denver.”

  “A highway, that’s something,” said Tom. “We get to a car, that car gets us to help.”

  “Only they shut it down because of the storm,” said Higgins.

  “Okay, what else?”

  The veteran railroad man thought a bit more and then finally shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t work.”

  “What, say it.”

  “It wouldn’t work,” he insisted.

  “Herrick, right now, I’d take the craziest idea you have. Maybe we can make it work.”

  Higgins shrugged and hunched forward. “There’s a resort near here, in the mountains. It’s a ski resort in the winter and then a dude ranch in the summer called the Dingo. It’s only been in business a few years, but it’s a big place, very well equipped and organized with lots of manpower. I went there a few times with my sons and their families and met the owners, a couple of transplanted Aussies who made a fortune on Wall Street and headed west for fun and something different. Problem is, you have to travel over some pretty rough terrain to get there, maybe a four-hour hike. It can be done by people in good physical shape in fair weather, but it would be impossible on foot in this storm.”

  Tom stared at him. “But not on skis.”

  “You have skis?” asked Higgins.

  “I was going to Tahoe for Christmas. I’ve also got every conceivable sort of outerwear, boots, gloves, flares, compass, helmet light, you name it.”

  “It’s really rough terrain, Tom.”

  “I’ve skied just about everything there is, Herrick, in all sorts of conditions. All I need from you is what direction and anything else you can tell me about the lay of the land.”

  “Do you really think you can manage it?” asked Higgins.

  “I can promise you my best shot, that’s all. And what do we have to lose?”

  “How about your life?” Eleanor said.

  “Well, it’s my life, isn’t it? It’s not like I’ve got anyone to mourn me.”

  On that, Eleanor got up and left.

  Higgins quickly gathered together the conductor, Roxanne, and the train engineer in the dining car with Tom to discuss it further. Neither the engineer nor the conductor liked the plan at all.

  The conductor said, “He’s a passenger. And while I appreciate the offer, Tom, I really do, if anything happens to you it’ll be my responsibility. I can’t let you go. We just need to sit tight and help will come.”

  “Can you get Amtrak Central on the communications phone? Or maybe we can contact the owners at the Dingo and they can send someone here,” Higgins said to the engineer.

  The man shook his head. “The storms disrupted the signals. My last call in to Central was hours ago. Haven’t been able to get them on the horn since.”

  Roxanne added, “We’ve even tried all the cell phones on the train, and nobody’s got any signal strength. We can’t reach Central, the resort, or anybody else. Might as well be in the Stone Age.”

  “Look,” said Tom, “I’m not going to just sit here and let this storm devour us. I’ll sign any waiver you want, absolving you of all liability in case something happens to me. I had to sign one when I was reporting overseas. I’m a big boy, I’m used to taking care of myself.”

  “It’s not just that, Tom,” said Roxanne. “We don’t want anything to happen to you, honey. It’s not exactly a walk in the park outside right now.”

  “I’ve been in worse conditions, Roxanne, trust me.” He gazed at each of them. “Just let me try. That’s all I ask. If I can’t get through, I’ll come back, simple as that.”

  They all looked at each other, and finally the conductor and the engineer slowly nodded. “Okay.”

  Tom went to the baggage car with Roxanne and retrieved his ski equipment. Back at his compartment he was readying things when he felt someone behind him. It was Eleanor.

  “I’m just getting ready,” he said quietly.

  “I see.” She just stood there.

  “Is there something you want? I’m kind of busy here.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “Okay, stop right there. I’m going.”

  “I guess you think you’re going to save the train and everybody on it.”

  He looked up sharply. “Yeah, that’s the general plan. No need to thank me for being a hero.”

  She came forward and perched on the edge of the seat. “Don’t you think you might be running away instead?”

  “I’m going out in a blizzard and risking my life to get help and you’re calling me a coward. Thanks a hell of a lot.”

  Eleanor didn’t shrink from this verbal attack.

  “Do you really want to know why I left you in Tel Aviv? Maybe you should hear it, since you might not be coming back.”

  He looked at her a long moment and then he sat down too. “Well, I have to say your timing is as bad as mine but, sure, lay it on me.”

  She took a moment to compose herself and then said, “You’re a loner, Tom, and that’s how you like it. You’re responsible for yourself only, no one else.”

  He started to erupt, but she froze him with a look.

  “I’ve been waiting years to say this, and I’m going to say it and you’re going to listen.” She paused and continued, “I loved you, Tom, with everything I had. I loved you. You had me totally and completely.”

  “Had you, past tense.”

  “Don’t you realize that just while we were together you were kidnapped once, imprisoned, and almost killed three times? You kept taking those crazy risks for the next story and you never thought about what that was doing to me. Every time you went out the door I didn’t know if you were coming back. Didn’t you notice I was doing less and less reporting and more and more worrying? I just wanted to go home. I wanted one place where you and I could stay and be together. I didn’t want to get on another plane. I didn’t want to watch you go on another assignment wondering if I’d ever see you again. After all those years of wandering I wanted a white picket fence, a backyard garden, and a husband who left at nine and came home at five. Only you never asked. I guess the wandering was more important to you than I was.”

  “You gave me an ultimatum, Ellie. You gave me a few
minutes to make a life-altering decision.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’d been asking you for years, you just didn’t want to hear it. When I came back that morning and told you I wanted to leave, it wasn’t spontaneous. It took me weeks to work up the nerve. I went out for a walk to finally gather the courage. Well, I got my answer.”

  She rose to leave. “Now, you can get on your skis and go and try and rescue the train. Off on another adventure, all by yourself. I hope you’ll be safe and I hope you write a great story based on it. But don’t think that you’re doing it for anyone other than yourself.”

  She left. Tom sat there, staring after her, his hand in his pocket, idly fingering the ring.

  chapter thirty

  The dining car was full of hungry passengers for breakfast, and Roxanne watched worriedly as the supplies in the kitchen dwindled rapidly. The food in the lounge car had been exhausted the night before and tempers were already starting to flare, keeping her busy as she put out each fire using all the good humor and diplomacy she could muster. There were a number of infants on board, and as diapers and milk started running low too, their cries, which ran the length and breadth of the train, put everyone further on edge.

  Father Kelly finally found the courage to hold a prayer service in the lounge car, and it was well attended by all faiths and denominations, even a few agnostics who were looking for solace. The priest was a little rusty and stumbled at times, but his effort was sincere and people came up to him afterward and thanked him for lifting their spirits.

  He confided to Agnes Joe, who’d helped him during the service, that it was the best he’d felt in years, and it actually made him reconsider his retirement.

  When Higgins wasn’t consulting with the train crew on how best to conserve fuel and power, he went out into the storm and personally checked under the cars for evidence of freezing pipes. When he came back in it was lunchtime, and over several cups of coffee he regaled the dining-car patrons with stories of the Wild West starring Jesse and Frank James, Billy the Kid, and other desperadoes. Not only the children but adults listened to these tales with wide-eyed awe. He also told the story of legendary Pullman porter John Blair, who practically single-handedly saved an entire trainload of passengers caught in a forest fire in Minnesota in the late 1800s. “They were in pretty desperate circumstances,” said Higgins, “because there’s nothing worse than fire. You put fire up against snow” — he motioned out the window — “and I’ll take snow every time. May not seem like it, but we’re pretty lucky on that score.”

  Roxanne smiled in appreciation of the point Higgins was making and poured him another cup of coffee.

  Agnes Joe had been staring out the window of the dining car for quite some time. When Roxanne asked her what she was looking at, the woman pointed at something that Roxanne had to squint to see through the falling snow.

  “It’s Christmas Eve, you know,” said Agnes Joe.

  Roxanne nodded. “You’re right, honey, and when you’re right, you’re right.”

  A bit later Eleanor came into the car and joined Agnes Joe and Roxanne. They were looking out the window, and Eleanor followed their gaze. Two men, heavily clothed, were struggling to bring something covered in a tarp into the train.

  “What’s going on?” asked Eleanor.

  “You’ll see,” said Roxanne.

  As the first man came back on board, hefting his end of the load, she saw that it was Barry, the sleeping-car attendant. The tarp had fallen off the object he was carrying, and Eleanor saw that it was a stunted pine tree that had been growing on one of the slopes. Most of the snow had been shaken off outside, but hard clumps still clung to its branches and the pine’s skinny trunk. As the second man climbed aboard, his hood fell away and she gasped, for it was Tom.

  “Christmas deserves a Christmas tree,” he explained. “Actually, it was Agnes Joe’s idea.”

  They set it up in the lounge car on a hastily fashioned base, and children came and decorated it with anything they wanted. After an hour’s time, the little pine was truly beautiful — or at the very least interesting — having been strung with everything from fake jewelry to bubblegum baseball cards hung with rubber bands to plastic action figures to a long strand of tinsel that a woman had brought with her for a family Christmas in Albuquerque. Several of the children made a big star from paper and glue, colored it a shiny silver, and hoisted it on top of the tree, which was an easy enough thing to do, since the tree was only about four feet high. Yet to the folks trapped on the Chief, it was a thing of breathtaking beauty, bubblegum cards, action figures and all.

  Tom had sat with a hot cup of coffee and watched as the fabulous holiday tree overcame its modest origins.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He looked up. Eleanor was gazing at the tree and then glancing at him.

  He nervously fingered his coffee. “Well, takes people’s minds off things. And it’s nice to hear a kid laugh right now.”

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  He motioned to the empty seat.

  “I thought you’d be gone by now,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, sometimes plans, if not people, change.”

  “How have your plans changed?”

  “I decided not to go. I decided to stick it out here. One for all and all for one.”

  She sat back. “I have to say, I’m surprised. I didn’t think anything I could possibly say . . .” Her voice tapered off.

  He finished for her: “Could get through my thick head?” He smiled weakly. “Look, Ellie, I just decided that it would be better to stay here and help. By the time I got to the ski resort, if I got to it, the storm would probably be over and the cavalry arrived.” He paused and then added, “And if not, well, then better to be here too.” Their eyes locked for a long moment, and then he abruptly stood up.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’ve got some things to take care of. Long overdue.”

  A few minutes later Tom stopped in to tell Lelia his decision on marriage was a no. “I really like you and care about you, but I’m not going to marry you and have eight kids. I hope you understand.”

  She didn’t look like she understood at all. Tears streamed down her face, and she clutched at his arm.

  “Isn’t there anything I can say or do to change your mind? We seem so right for each other.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t love you, Lelia. And I’m pretty sure if you think about it enough, you’re going to see that you don’t love me either.”

  “It’s just that we’ve been together for so long.”

  “Complacency doesn’t equal love.”

  She sniffed into her handkerchief and said in a trembling voice, “I don’t know, maybe you’re right.”

  At that moment Kristobal emerged from her bathroom and looked at them both.

  “Kristobal?” Tom said, clearly surprised.

  “Am I interrupting something?” the young man asked.

  “No,” said Tom, as he shot a stern glance at snuffling Lelia, “but apparently I am.”

  She looked at him innocently. “He’s been helping me through these trying times. And he gives a wonderful pedicure and back massage.”

  “I’m sure he does.” He looked at Kristobal. “Ciao.”

  Tom left and walked down the hall more relieved than he’d been in a long time, now that Cuppy the Magic Beaver was no longer bearing down on him. In a way he felt sorry for Kristobal, but he was a big boy.

  One positive if surprising event had occurred. All the items that had been stolen on the Chief — and many of the items that had been taken during the trip on the Capitol Limited — had been returned to their rightful owners. No one had seen anything, and no one could explain why the thief had experienced such a dramatic change of heart. Roxanne and Father Kelly simply put it down as a Christmas miracle.

  After dinner, which was served with red and white garnishes in honor of the holiday, everyone was asked to gather in the lounge car. As peop
le arrived, they were surprised to see that a mock stage of sorts had been set up at one end of the car. Max served as the master of ceremonies, whipping the crowd into a mass of expectation before pointing at the stage and calling out, “Do I hear something? Do I hear a special something coming?”

  All attention was riveted on the stage when a puppet appeared