Open Country Read Free Page A

to look at her. When he did, she saw fear in his eyes, and more anger than any child should ever carry. “Why are you so angry?”
    He stared silently at the back of the bench in front of him, his lips pressed in a tight, thin line.
    “I know you’re upset about your mother.”
    His head whipped toward her. “Why didn’t you save her? You’re supposed to be a nurse. You should have made her better.”
    “I tried, Charlie. I wanted to help her. More than anything in the world.”
    He glared at her for a moment more, then the fight seemed to drain out of him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said and turned toward the window. “The monster would have gotten her anyway.”
    The monster again . Molly sighed. How often over the last weeks had she awakened to her nephew’s screaming night terrors? “There is no monster, Charlie,” she told him as she had so many times. “It’s just a bad dream.”
    Charlie continued to stare out the window, a wall of silence between them.
    With a sense of defeat, Molly looked down to see that her hands had curled into tight fists. With effort, she opened them, forcing her fingers to straighten one by one until they lay flat against her thighs. At least she had control over her fingers, she thought wryly, even though everything else in her life seemed to be spinning into chaos.
    A distant voice rose. More shouts, then footsteps pounded overhead as someone raced across the roof of the passenger car toward the rear. A moment later, metal squealed on metal so loudly the children covered their ears. The brakes abruptly took hold, throwing the car into such a violent lurch Charlie fell against the window frame and Penny almost tumbled off the seat before Molly caught her.
    Suddenly the train began bucking like a wild thing. A woman screamed. Men’s voices rose in alarm. The screech of metal grew deafening, and acrid smoke seeped through the rear doors from beneath the back platform where the brakes were.
    “What’s happening?” Charlie cried, clinging to the armrests as the car rocked and shuddered.
    “I don’t know,” Molly shouted over Penny’s wails. “Hold on!”
    Another lurch threw Penny out of her arms and onto the floor. Molly reached for her and was almost knocked to her knees when a falling passenger slammed into her shoulder.
    “Penny!” Molly shouted, scrabbling for a handhold, terrified the child would be trampled or smothered. But before she could reach her, big hands scooped the shrieking child from the tangle of passengers and thrust her into Molly’s arms. A flash of dark brown eyes, then the bearded man stumbled over thrashing bodies and charged into the smoke billowing at the back landing. The car rocked so hard windows broke and valises flew from the overhead racks. The screams and shouts and noise of the squealing brakes was deafening. Then with a crack as loud as a gunshot, something tore loose from the undercarriage at the rear. Feet braced against the seat in front of her, her arms wrapped tightly around the wailing children, Molly looked back out the shattered rear window to see the last three cars of the train topple off the tracks in a thunderous roar of splintering wood. Immediately their car shot forward so violently her head cracked against the backrest, before their coach rammed into the car in front of it, and shuddered to a stop.
    Dizzy from the blow to her head, Molly ran trembling hands over the terrified children. “Are you hurt? Are you all right?” Charlie nodded and swiped a sleeve at a small smear of blood on his chin. Penny tearfully held up her arm, showing a scrape on her elbow. “I’ll tend that as soon as we get off,” Molly assured her, so relieved her voice wobbled. “Hold tight onto my hands.” Working their way through the chaos of shaken passengers milling about in the smoke, Molly managed to keep a grip on the children and get them out of the car. By then, men had beaten back the flames where the brakes had caught fire beneath