The Outlander (W&A Story)

October 1893, Marceline Georgia


The sound of a steam whistle, low and melodic, echoed from outside the building. To dreamers and wishers, it was an age old invitation to adventure, to others simply a wake up call.

The air in the pub was thick with the scent of cigar and cigarette smoke, a physical cloud visible hanging just below the tin plated ceiling and surrounding the gas light fixtures in a hazy veil. Standing behind the great oak bar, one would find a mid-20s lioness, scruffier than average with a short bang that fell between her ears. Vitani leaned back against the great wide mirror behind the bar. Looking over her little kingdom. Grabbing a damp washcloth she began cleaning the inside of a set of recently clean but still damp glasses, then setting them up on a rack hanging above the bar to fully dry. Taking a moment for her blue eyes to drift down as she examined herself in the looking glass. A habit she had gotten into just to be sure that she looked something akin to presentable. She rose a hand to gently brush out the breast of her white cotton shirtwaist. It fit snugly against her chest. It's fabric outlining the natural curves of her torso. The young lioness didn't particularly like her job, working the counter at the tavern which was aptly named “The Watering Hole,” it made her feel trapped. Constantly seeing the many faces and hearing the many stories told by the railroaders, teamsters, and farm laborers who frequented that particular dive had the effect of seeing the word run by while she stood in place. Yet she didn't fully dislike it either, the ends of her mouth turned up in a smile as she took a breath, then turned to face the inside of the counter.

The room was a great symphony of voices mixed with an orchestra of silverware and glassware from the crowd that occupied the popular pub. It was a small establishment, purposefully kept local and out of the way, its wood paneled and newspaper-wallpapered walls known mostly to railroad and steamboat men. Vitani's time was spent between the rush of lunch and dinner, and depending on the day of the week, the madness of the evening crowd.

Being a barmaid paid well and it meant that she did not have to deal with her overbearing mother. Unfortunately it did not pay enough for her to be able to strike out on her own, a fact which she greatly lamented. Vitani had come to hate life in the time-haunted old plantation she had grown up on. Born the middle child with a perfect younger brother and an unstable mess of an older brother she found her time working in town to be all her own. Getting away from her mother's snarls made working late nights at the counter worthwhile even if it meant she was filling glasses for an unruly gathering that catcalled her behind her back.

There were, however, other incentives. One of which she found was a bright beam of light on an otherwise gray existence.

“Hiya 'Tani!” A familiar male voice called, instantly drawing the lioness's attention. “Good to see you!”

With a sly smile and a roll of her eyes Vitani finished sorting the glasses, only then sauntering over to the lanky, scruffy mutt that had called her. “Hey Scamp, good to see you're back in town. The usual?”

Scamp's triangular ears flopped forward as he plopped himself down on a bar-stool. Vitani couldn't help but eye up the handsome mongrel. Countless men came to her bar, most of whom she was friends with and had no qualms about getting chatty. However there was something different about Scamp. Perhaps it was his seemingly eternal optimism? Although some, including the lioness, would call it foolishness. He reached into a pocket on his cotton shirt and quickly produced two coins which he slapped down on the hardwood counter-top. “Yep, two glasses if you will. Just got into town an hour ago, Angel is still down in the yard cleaning up so hold her's until she gets here,” He flashed a white toothed smile, “It was a rather slick trip, if I do say so myself.”

“Which way did you guys go?” The lioness grabbed two clean glasses off the rack, and ducked one under the fountain nozzle. Her thin tan tail whipped back and forth from the seat of her black rainy daisy skirt. “North or South?”

“South, to Atlanta,” Scamp spun around in the bar-stool and leaned back against the bar, placing the back of his arms on the counter-top. “Spent the night in a hostel, then back today. If I can I plan to not leave this bar-stool for the rest of the night.”

Vitani grinned, rolling her eyes playfully before placing a glass down next to the mongrel’s open hand. She couldn’t help but feel a slight upbeat at the handsome mutt’s presence. “You're welcome to it, be nicer company then most of the rats that pop in this late. Just try not to go all blotto on me.”

“No promises,” Scamp grabbed the glass and tilted his head back, taking a quick sip. “How are things since I've been gone? Going well with your folks?”

Vitani's ears flattened and her scowl told Scamp everything. The feline's tail whipped against the back of her legs as she let out a snort. Standing back, she put a hand on each of her nicely curving hips, while her long tail rigidly hung high. “Mother's doing her usual thing, wants me to find some nice male lion with dough so she can inherit something. I think Nuka's finally lost it from working in the plantation fields. He's convinced that the mansion is haunted and claims that spirits are following him around and causing mischief. Honestly, the guy is clumsier then a bull in a china shop and I'm pretty sure he's bringing it all upon himself.” She wrinkled her nose and gave her head a little shake. “So yeah, I think I'd rather spend my time in town.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Scamp's ears flicked forward and he gave her a cheesy grin from over his shoulder. Vitani could hear his tail whipping against the back of the bar. “If nothing else, it’s nice to come back to a cool drink and a warm face,”

“Good to know I’m appreciated! Especially by someone who is willing to put up with frequenting this dump to do such.” The lioness crossed her arms over her chest and smiled, it was so hard to not admire that cute puppy face. “So, how was your trip?”

Scamp huffed, blowing his wandering bang out from in front of his face. “It went pretty well until Mom gave Angel the throttle. Just for practice you know.”

“Right, Angel has been talking about wanting to move onto engine crew at some point.” The lioness felt a slight hint of jealousy about the idea that Angel was starting to forge a better life for herself.

Scamp’s tail began to wag against the barstool. “Well, she brought the train into the yard all stretched out, set up the brakes and brought the head end to a stop. Apparently she looked at my mom and said 'Wow, I got that stopped like a pro!' and then WHAM!” With a wide grin plastered on his face the mongrel held his hands out and gave an almighty clap, mimicking the railcar couplers bunching up. “The slack rolled in and banged the locomotive so hard it tossed Angel out of the engineer’s seat. My parents were not amused.”

The lioness chuckled. Scamp had a way of showing such expression. He was so outgoing, far removed from those she usually had to associate with. From outside came the low wail of a steam whistle. The Watering Hole was located close enough to the railroad yard that it wasn't uncommon to hear the goings on from the bar. Vitani had actually worked long enough to start recognizing the individual whistles. “So, if Angel is moving up to the cab are you planning on changing ends of the train too?”

Scamp arched an eyebrow, his head tilted as if he was thinking, making one floppy ear stand up at an odd angle. “Nah, I don't think so. I like being a conductor, the money's swell and I like being in charge of the train,” He rubbed a hand on his chest and that toothy grin was back. “Did you know the conductor is actually fully in charge of the train?”

“Mmmm, is that so?” Vitani wasn't sure why, but she was blushing badly under her fur.

“Yes, indeed. It's not a job just anyone can handle, lot's of responsibility that falls on my shoulders.”

“Yeah, responsibility that you like to skirt. Right tenderfoot?”

His big ears swiveled back as Angel sauntered up to the bar. Vitani flicked one ear at the sound of Scamp's nervous laugh, despite her words, Angel’s fluffy tail was wagging playfully front the seat of her brown trousers. As she slid into the barstool next to Scamp she plopped a small notebook on the bartop. Vitani couldn't help but notice a smudge of coal dust on the blonde furred dog's cheek. No doubt a small trinket from being tossed from the engineer's seat.

“Hiyah Angel, just you know...talking shop.” The young mongrel tried some spin control however little seemed to pass Angel. Vitani turned away to fetch the two ordered glasses, but kept an eye on her two customers. She felt herself deflate slightly at Angel's presence.

“Yeah, well maybe next time you'll take responsibility and do the car count instead of leaving it to me. After-all,” She fluttered her eyelashes. “You are the conductor, the big dog in the caboose.”

“But Angel, I figured you would need to walk the train anyway. If nothing else just to be sure you didn't smash any couplers on that roll in you did. ”Angel rolled her eyes and playfully shoved Scamp hard, sending him almost falling out of the barstool.

The two railroaders laughed as Scamp pulled himself back upright. The lioness secretly loved watching the pair. Even though they were always picking on each other everyone knew that the two railroaders were very much in love. Vitani couldn't help but feel a slight envy at the chemistry they seemed to have. She had no interest in such grungy and hard work as that of the railroad. Yet it seemed like Scamp and Angel were a glow of light and warmth set before such a harsh world. Her envy though, seemed to be more towards one member of the duo than the other. As she returned with two glasses full of refreshing hard drink she silently wished she had someone like that in her own life. It would make dealing with her mother and her family far more bearable.

"Oh, Scamp, when will you learn?" She asked as she placed the glass in front of him.

Angel burst out with a gruff and happy, “Oh, I don't think he'll change anytime soon. Either way, he'll always be my tenderfoot!"

The handsome gray mongrel nodded in agreement, bringing the glass back to his lips. As much as she wished she could stay and spend time with these two the lioness could see another customer finishing his glass, while yet another saddled up on another barstool. She sighed, her maw wrinkling and ears flicking back. It was going to be another long day.


*********

The sun had long vanished from behind the Appalachian range that ringed the town of Marceline when Vitani started her way home. Flipping the sign on the front door to 'closed' she plucked a fob-watch, sans chain, from her breast pocket and sighed. Another day wasted behind the bar counter and not much to look forward to on the return home. Brushing off her weather-beaten skirt and blouse the lioness started to silently plod down the sidewalk, her eyes drifting down to the cobblestones. A cool wind fluttered her skirt and pulled on the fur of her tail. A recent rainfall had left puddles in the street and long lines of standing water in the gutters. Turning the dirt roads into a surge of mud and muck. Reflecting back the glow of the gas-streetlamps.

She had long known that she had a crush on him, just his happy outlook on life and his seemingly bottomless level of optimism drew her to him. These were two things Vitani felt she needed more of in her life however he was happily with another girl. A fellow dog who seemed to match him in every way possible. The lioness had no reason to openly dislike Angel, other then the fact that she was with Scamp. They were a cute couple and the three had been friends, or at least acquaintances, for a long enough time that she felt reprehensible for her developing affections.

Her ears perked up, and her eyes glanced up as the wail of a steam whistle reached her ears. She wasn't far from the W&A RR's yards. Lonesome and melodic, it sounded like a cry from somewhere in her heart and for a moment the very ends of her mouth turned up as she imagined that it was Scamp, calling out into the night for her. The town was closing up for the night, other then the railyard and the distant clopping of the occasional horse-drawn wagon echoing down some distant street one could be forgiven for thinking that Marceline was abandoned.

“Shit, I have it bad,” the lioness tiredly whispered to herself. Admitting openly for the first time that something was happening her mind was so preoccupied that she misjudged the drop from the sidewalk to the muddy street. Her foot twisted and her eyes burst open as her leg turned out from underneath her. Vitani stumbled forward, throwing out her hands to keep from falling completely into the mud. She landed on her side, hands sinking into the muck as she fell to the street.

“Oh, for god's sake,” Vitani moaned, laying sprawled out in the gutter. Mud splattered on her skirt and blouse. Looking down at her leg she found that one of her heels had snapped, the old worn material giving way to leave her muddy and unbalanced for the rest of the way home. It was enough to break the poor girl's heart; her lower lip trembled as she balled her fists up and did her best to keep from roaring out in anger. She could no longer keep her head up, her shoulder sagging in defeat and dropping her head down. Her eyes fluttered shut as she lay prone in the gutter.

But she would not remain that way for long as a dark skinned, slender-as-toothpicks, very human hand slid under Vitani's chin and slowly forced her head to rise up. She saw no eyes as they were covered by the rim of a black and red hat, only a roguish grin with a thin black mustache welcoming her.

“Looks like you could use a hand there 'darlin'.” Those were the hauntingly friendly words that hummed out through this sinister smile, "How'ya doin'?"

Vitani instantly recoiled. Eyes narrowed and teeth set, she whipped her head out from his grasp and scrambled back in the mud, a dirty hand fumbling into her blouse for a blade she tended to keep there. The man stepped back, holding his hands up for her to see that they were indeed empty. That smile, sharp and thin, never wavered.

“Now hold up there little one, no cause for alarm. Allow me, if you please, Miss Vitani,” He plopped the hat back atop his head, then extended a hand for her to grab.

Vitani's expression turned to one of shock. “How did you know my...”

“Your name? Why sweetie, it's all in the cards.” In the glow of the street lamp's flickering flames, the man cast a long shadow against the brick building facade. Vitani hesitantly slipped a hand into his, and allowed him to pull her out of the puddle. She quickly discovered that he was a lot stronger then he initially appeared. Once she was upright, and attempting to wipe the muck off her blouse and skirt the man pulled his top hat off in a greeting, revealing the square-shaped hair-style of his.

“Excuse me?” The lioness started to back away, her steps uneven due to her broken shoe heel.

“The Cards, the Cards. The Cards will tell...” He laughed, with a roll of a hand, soon, a set of tarot cards were in his hand, all the suites and Arcana visible as he fanned them out perfectly, before closing again, to which they vanished. Another roll of his hand and a new card appeared. “Allow me to introduce myself, here's my card.”

Taking the card and looking it over Vitani read it out loud, an eyebrow raising as she took in it's odd wording. “Dr. Facilier, Tarot Readings, Charms, Potions...” Looking up from the card she saw from the corner of her eyes the dark form of his shadow behind her, the way it moved odd to the lioness's own motions. "Dreams made real... I must say I'm skeptical.”

Dr. Facilier chuckled, curiosity killed the cat. Leaning on his cane, he looked to Vitani with a gaunt grin. "Yes ma'am, my power is unmatched for miles! I can see your future, change it around some too and I can see you have a dream for sure. One that perhaps I can help you abide to.”

Vitani pressed the card back at the man then stumbled past him with a roll of her eyes. “Yeah, I don't think so.”

“You don't think you deserve him?” His voice stopped the girl in her tracks as she turned her head to look back at the strange man from over her own shoulder. “There is nothing wrong with desiring the company of someone your heart yearns for, especially when life can be, well, less then pleasurable.”

Vitani opened her mouth to retort when the evening air was split by the shriek of a steam whistle. The way it blew, with such a lonesome wail her mind made it out to be Scamp's train, calling to her in a voice that used no words. The lioness closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring while the card somehow found it's way into a pocket. “Dreams...made true?”

The Shadow Man nodded ominously. “Mmmhmm. What's his name, if I may be so bold?”

“Scamp,” His name fell from her lips as a tender whisper, her head bowing to cast her gaze at the sidewalk. “He's just, such a nice guy. Goofy! But...well...”

His movement was oddly quick, suddenly putting an arm around her. "Say no more. Why, with a little encouragement my dear..." he promised, tapping her chest with the head of his cane. Almost instantly his shadow shifted from his feet, grinning devilishly as it rubbed its thin fingers together. "Ain' nothin I can't do, with the right connections! All it takes is the right price."

“I don't have much money,” Vitani started to say.

“Leave that to me,” The Shadow Man whispered before giving his cane a spin, and bringing it down on the ground. In an explosion of purple smoke and light Dr. Facilier's shadow seemed to swirl around the glow of light from the nearby street lamp, protracted onto the brick wall of a building facade. Vitani's head whipped side to side, peering up and down the deserted street to see if there was any other witnesses to what seemed to be occuring.

“Don't be alarmed, parlor tricks, my sweet feline friend,” The man laughed. “But, like a good magician, their secrets are not to be told. Now then, let's look at the cards, shall we.”

With one arm wrapped around her shoulders, he held her close, his hand before her face suddenly had three cards between its thin fingers. The center one was flipped around with a twist of those digits, the image on its front showing a very stylized heart with a sword through it.

“Ah, love. So sweet and innocent,” the man began. The right hand card turned and to the lioness's bewilderment showed a portrait of the smile tousled face and floppy ears of Scamp. This had to be magic, either that or some crazy fluke. Regardless, she saw the pup she admired in those chocolate eyes, no matter if it was intended or not.

“Scamp...” Vitani whispered again, feeling emotions well up in her chest.

“He would be perfect for you miss. Such strong features and healthy spirit, oh the good it would do to have him in your life...oh, but what's this?” The final card turned, its image being that of a set of lovers, hand in hand. “Why, it would would seem that he's already spoken for. Someone else stands in your way! A jezebel incarnate!”

“Her name is Angel,” The lioness admitted, feeling all resistance to admitting the truth slip away. “She's his girl, she has been for as long as I've known them.”

“So he needs a nudge, I think I have just the thing,” The cards vanished with a fold of his hand. In their place, his fingers unfolded to reveal a small glass vial. Vitani's eyes widened and her ears flattened back, her long tail flicking back and forth behind her legs. The vial seemed full of a pink liquid that gave off a similarly colored glow, the vial had a cork in it's flute and it's glass surface was etched with strange runes. “Just a few drops of this and your face will be all he will be able to think about.”

Vitani felt her heart in her throat as he slipped the vial into her hands and closed her fingers around it, letting go of her and stepping back. It felt so light, as if she was holding nothing at all, yet she could feel it pulsating with heat. “Just a few drops?”

“Just a few,” His shadow mimicked chugging down a glass on the wall behind them, “And he'll be all yours.”

“Wait! What about Angel? Surely he won't just forget about her?”

“Hmm, well....don't worry about her.” His grin split his face and sent a shiver down the lioness' spine. On the brick and glass facade of the closed store, in the glowing orb of light cast from the streetlamp, the shadows began to swirl and morph. Creatures slithering along the very edge while in the center formed a remarkable shadow silhouette of a particular female dog. Vitani recognized the folded ear and curly tail. The figures danced around the shadow dog, pointing and jeering without noise while the ghostly Pomeranian stood stock still, as if trapped and bound in place. “Magic is never free however nothing says someone else can't foot that bill...”

The shadows swirled, curling around 'Angel' like a serpent till only her head, screaming silently was visible. Vitani's heart skipped a beat as the edges of the circle of light closed down atop the phantasmal image of her romantic rival like the closing jaws of some great beast.

“Wait, this won't hurt her?” Vitani's tail whipped around one of her own legs as she took a step forward, stumbling slightly on her missing heel.

The Shadow man gave an exasperated gasp, dramatically planting a hand against his chest. “Ma'am, you offend me. Of course, nothing will come of Miss Angel.”

Vitani couldn't see the laughing shadow behind her back. She looked down at her hand, where the cracks between her fingers pulsed with pink light. “Scamp...”

“Will. Be. Yours,” The Shadow Man's smirk never died. “C'mon, don't you think you deserve that? Someone in this world who actually cares about you and will give you something to live for. A bright spark in an otherwise dull life, sandwiched between an insane mother and a retarded brother...Vitani, this is all for you.”

“All. For. You.”

Her hand slowly released it's grip and the vial seemed to call with the song of a siren. Her own eyes glowed with the same deep pink hue, throbbing in time to the vial and it's strange brew. It would be so easy. Then, just as if a gust of wind blew past her, she felt her skirt rustle and the light from the gas streetlamp flickered. Looking up from the vial, breaking whatever spell it seemed to hold, she saw that the strange man had vanished. Vitani's heart was by now thundering in her chest, her ears perked and she whipped her head one way then the other, the tuft of fur between her ears flopping as she did. The street was deserted, only her own footprints in the mud could be seen. It was as if he had never been there to began with, only his final three words echoed about her skull.

She quickly dropped the vial into the breast pocket of her blouse right next to his card. It would be a long walk home and on a broken shoe no less. Taking a deep breath to settle her nerves, she pulled her skirt up so that it wouldn't drag and catch her foot and started her way home. The clouds moved from in front of the moon and their shadows seemed to creep along the building fronts and streets making Vitani feel all the more as if she was being watched by many eyes. She could feel the heat from the vial palpitating against her chest.

******************



The reflection that looked up from the polished bartop showed a level of fatigue that matched the churning inner realms of Vitani's gut. Drawing her rag over the surface, distorting the reflection, the lioness let out a soft grunt. Returning home the previous night she had dropped the vial into a drawer in her room, trying to put it out of her sight and out of her mind. All night, the lioness tossed and turned in her lonely bedroom, it was as if the vial called to her with a silent siren's song. It would be so easy to just let a few drops into Scamp's drink the next time the mongrel came by the Watering Hole. Angel would be fine, she was a strong canine and would support Scamp no matter what choices he made.

Even if those choices were not his own.

What would happen to Angel afterwards? The Shadow Man's words rang around the cat's head...what was the price Angel would be forced to pay? The same loneliness that haunted Vitani? That was something Angel could have! Or, was there something more? The vial seemed so unnatural. By morning's light, she grabbed the vial without thinking and quickly washed up for her first shift. The scent of cigars and cigarettes seemed thicker then usual, and the young lioness felt seemingly more aware of the shadows that filled the corners of her bar.

“You look like death rolled over,” A familiar voice snapped Vitani out of her string of thoughts. The lioness looked up, her ears flicking back and a hand drifting to the back of her head to rub her fingers down her own neck nervously.

“Oh, uh, hello Angel,” Her throat was raw and she could practically feel the trepidation rising in her chest.

Angel sat bent over at the bar, one arm laying causally across the counter top. Her head was tilted, making one floppy ear stand up at an odd angle while an eyebrow rose. It seemed the dog could see something was off. “Wow, anything I could do to help?”

“Oh, it's nothing,” Vitani brushed it off. Pulling herself up and quickly swallowing, her eyes darting around the blonde furred railroader, looking for the very soul she was dreading seeing the most. “Where's Scamp?”

Angel shot her friend a questioning look but answered anyway. “Still in the yard. He'll be here soon, we have a small rest before we set out on a coal train this afternoon.”

Vitani gulped and her heart skipped a beat as she clearly saw the shadows start to grow from the corners of the building behind the dog, slowly spreading from the corners of the windows and above the door. The lioness' ears perked as she wondered if anyone else could see them, or if she alone was to bear witness. The vial sat in her pocket, seeming like it grew heavier every passing second. “Oh, well can I get you anything while you wait?”

“Yeah, my usual,” Angel rapped her fingers on the bartop, her curly tail giving great swooshes side to side above the seat of her pants. “In fact, pour a glass for Tenderfoot!”

The lioness' heat skipped a beat. A glass for Scamp? The vial felt like it resonated a pulse that echoed through the girl, she wasn't sure if that was real or if she had just imagined it. Vitani put her back to the Pomeranian as she reached over the back counter for the glasses that hung over the great mirror. Seeing beyond her own reflection and the look of fatigue that seemed etched into her thick feline muzzle, her throat became dry as she could see the shadows behind Angel stretchering towards the unsuspecting dog. “S-sure, coming right up” she stuttered.

Two glasses were pulled off the rack, set down on the counter with a soft “clink”.

“So, you and Scamp. You guys have known each other for a while?”

Angel's ears perked up and the dog let out a soft chuckle and playfully rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“But you had a life...before him? Right?” The cork was removed from a bottle.

“Oh sure. When I first met him he was this little mutt who spoke endlessly about adventure and being a wild soul and traveling the world.” The end of Angel's mouth cocked up in a sly smirk. “He tried so hard, it was beyond adorable.”

“I can imagine that,” The very tip of Vitani's tail flicked back and forth as the girl shifted her weight from one leg to the other. A hand reached for the vial, tucked away, was she really going to do this? “So, and forgive me from asking...but could you go back to that life? Without Scamp?”

Angel's big, floppy ears went backwards for a split second at the abruptness of the question but she perked them back up. “I've, well, never thought about that. He's just such a part of my life. Why?”

The lioness started to pour the two drinks with one hand while the other had it's fingers wrapped around the vial. If she was going to do this it would have to be slick. With her back to Angel, the blonde furred railroader couldn't see what the lioness was up to while Vitani had a full view thanks to the mirror of both herself and her victim. “Just, you two seem like you work so well together.”

Angel had an eyebrow raised in her direction now, clearly wondering where all this was leading towards. One end of her mouth tipped up in a slight smirk as she reached out with a guess.

“You like someone, don't you?”

It was like she was hit with lightning, the sudden jolt that rippled through her body caused Vitani's hand to shake spilling a small amount of drink on the counter. The feline looked over her shoulder, the look in her eyes saying everything.

Angel was quiet for a while the sounds of the bar's few patrons becoming faded background noise. Barely registering. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft.

"I see everything in him, he's my entire world," Her blue eyes were sparkling while the weak sun caught her fur through the dirty window, making it shine a bright and beautiful gold. The shadows that swirled around the back-wall seemed to retreat at that. "He saved me from the streets, I couldn't imagine anyone I would want to be with more." She went on warmly.

“Saved you?” One of Vitani's ears perked in interest, the vial held tightly between her fingers as she slipped it out of her pocket. The lioness realized that for as long as she had known the two railroaders she had never once asked about their past. “That bad, huh?”

“You wouldn't believe it,” Angel motioned with her hand. “Let's just say that I was not in a good place. Scamp found me and I found him. Together, we found the railroad, we found a future.”

Vitani could feel her heart pounding in her chest and she looked down at the vial, its substance seeming to pulsate in time to her heartbeat. She wanted Scamp, oh how badly she wanted him. To be saved herself, much like Angel had been.

All it would take was one drop.

Her thumb passed over the cork in the lid, pressing up till the cork popped free. Looking up into the mirror, the lioness gazed at her own reflection, holding the vial over the glass she intended to give to the mutt. Behind her sat Angel, casually tapping a finger against the rough wood of the bar top unaware of the shadows that crept towards her figure from behind. Could she even see them? Or where the specters Vitani's personal hell?

“That's what I want,” Vitani's voice was low and wistful so that one she could hear, her head bowed slightly. “A future...”

“So, who is he?” Angel's voice, upbeat at the prospect of hearing some news, cut through the lioness's thoughts like an arrow. “Is he one of our railroaders?”

She put the vial down on the counter-top and turned around to face Angel, planting a hand on the counter to each side and leaning back. The shadows appeared like arms, fingers outstretched over Angel's head. She couldn't do this, could she?

“Do I know him?” Angel's voice was innocent.

The lioness opened her mouth to answer when a familiar tousled maw appeared behind Angel. The shadowy spectators retreated back into their corners. The pom looked over her shoulder at him as he slid up to the counter, a big goofy smile plastered across his face. Vitani felt her heart sink at the sight of him. From those warm brown eyes to that bang that fell between her ears, she just felt a natural attraction. The vial behind her seemed to cast a heat into her chest from the base of her tail on up.

“Hey 'Tani! Angel. What's up?” Scamp yipped as he plopped down on a bar-stool. Vitani felt sick at the fact he mentioned her first.

“Fashionably late as always, eh Tenderfoot?” Angel reached out and gave a playful tug on Scamp's sleeve. “Had you been any later I would have taken your drink for myself.”

“Hey, I was late cleaning up your mess Miss Engineer-in-training. You know how much sand you threw on the ground getting that cut of cars moving? I had to help hand buckets up to load that dome again,”

Angel visibly blushed causing Vitani's heartbeat to pick up instantly. She wondered if Scamp's ears could detect the sound she was sure it was making. On the wall behind the lovebird pups the shadows showed two silhouettes, one of Scamp the other of Vitani. Sitting side by side, arm in arm.

“Well, perhaps I should buy your first round them, provided we don't distract Vitani any more then we already have.” Angel playfully rolled her eyes.

“Right, I'm on that,” Vitani blurted out before swiftly spinning back around.

She grasped the vial in her shaking fingers, looking at it's patterned glass and the liquid it held. There was Scamp's glass. There was Scamp. One drop and she and he would be together. Did it work instantly? Would she have to explain to Angel why her boyfriend suddenly got affectionate to her? What would happen to Angel? At this point Vitani was sure that whatever the price to pay was, Angel would suffer. Emotionally for sure...and perhaps worse. Those shadows seemingly spiraling on the walls and in her head were pushing her, telling her it was alright. They might have been real, or figments of her imagination however their actions certainly drove her. Making her hand slowly move the vial over the glass.

One drop, just one drop.


*****************


“See you later 'Tani!” Scamp gave a smile and a wave of his hand and he and Angel passed through the door to the pub.

The sun was starting to drop and as the door closed behind them the lioness could see them through the big window as Angel slipped an arm though Scamp's, leaning her head to rest on his shoulder. The two were off into the evening. Off to wherever it was that railroaders went when they waited on their next assignment. In so many ways it was like Scamp and Angel both gained their wishes. Angel got her rescuer, Scamp his adventure. Both facing life together while Vitani faced it alone.

The lioness took a deep breath, there were still some customers in the dining room however she couldn't really focus on them at the moment. Instead, she dropped her towel on the counter and swung around to walk through the door that led to the kitchen. As soon as the door shut behind her, it was like a flood of shadows suddenly swirled around the room.

“STOP IT!” The lion screeched, waving her arms in the air, attempting to disperse them. They flew to the far corners of the room and she reached for a door that led out back to the ally behind the pub.

If the shadows inside had been bad, outside in the setting sun it was worse. The alley may have been empty, aside from the number of casks, crates, and garbage bins that lay scattered around its stone slabbed avenue. Looking around the dark alley Vitani felt as if the great shadows looked down from the buildings, glaring at her, waiting for something. Glancing up she scowled and opened her arms as if to say 'now what'. Reaching into the pocket in her shirtwaist she pulled the vial out, instantly her face was lit by the ebbing pink glow as she held it up. She felt her face drop slightly as she took in it's phosphorus glow.

She couldn't do it, as much as she wanted to she just couldn't. Angel did not deserve whatever fate would have awaited her and if Scamp was to become attracted to her, then she wanted him to do it under his own volition. Not one that was created by a cursed object. Vitani took a deep breath, settling her nerves. Dropping to a knee, she leaned over and gently placed the vial on the stone pavement.

For a few seconds, she sat there, on one knee as if she was proposing, looking at the strange vial and the pink ripples of light it cast on the damp stone of the alley-floor. She rolled her lower lip and softly bit it, her tail curled around a leg. She could try again, just lay in wait until she had enough courage.

As soon as that very thought crossed her mind Vitani stood up, her shoulders steady and a determined look on her face. She raided a foot, and the heel was pressed against the vial with a sharp 'tink' of glass. The lioness closed her eyes and felt her heart swell, the corners of her eyes growing moist as she recognized that her only sure fire chance was about to be scattered. With a shift of her weight, she heard the vial crunch before her foot sank down suddenly.

It was like a great wave washed through her body, Vitani kept her eyes clamped shut feeling energy surge through her body. She didn't know what was real and what was imaginary or what forces she had unleashed. Her back arched, and her arms felt as if they where pushed up as if she was falling into a body of water. The rush of air moaned as if a thousand voices called out and where suddenly silenced.

With a great exhalation of air Vitani's eyes snapped open and her mouth dropped in a wide “O”. She was alone in the alley other than the shards of broken glass underneath her foot. There was no sign of the substance inside the vial or anything out of the ordinary. Her eyes slowly passed around the brick and wooden walls that made up the urban valley she stood in. The long shadows of the end of the day were steady and still, no figures danced and no eyes glared down at her. Just the final rays of the day slowly retreating.

A hand absentmindedly rose up and down an arm and one ear slipped down. It was as if an immense weight had been released from her while a small smile lifted the ends of the feline's mouth. She wrinkled her nose while she gave her head a little shake. Hands coming up to rub at her eyes removed any remaining traces of wetness from the corners of her eyes and cheeks.

Taking one final deep breath and a sigh of content, Vitani spun on her heels and passed through the rear door of the Watering Hole. Her shift would end soon and she had a long walk home. Leaving behind a few traces of broken glass and gaining a resolve to bring change in her own way, and her own time.

Somewhere, not far away, a steam whistle blew.

The End 

The Yonah

 The Yonah

Snow slowly fell from the gray skies above a cold January evening. The streetlamps had been lit early in the blustery atmosphere, their flames flickering inside the frosty glass of their iron housings. The whole of the town of Marceline was covered in a layer of slush, the blanket of snow that once created a scene akin to a Christmas card now beaten and muddied to a harsh ugly mire. Winter had started its grasp on the Blue Ridge Valley in the mountains of Northern Georgia. Freight traffic on the Western & Atlantic Railroad had blossomed in the holiday season. A new vein in the mines was being opened up, so coal drags where steadily rolling out of the hills, their little four wheeled Jennie hoppers clattering along. The local passenger trains where filled with holidaymakers returning from their family gatherings, and the manifest freights where lining up to climb the hills. The yard in Marceline was a harsh pattern of sleek black rails cutting across the muddied and gray drivel. The switch lamps glowing red and green, their colors standing out bitterly against the general gray that seemed to permeate the world. The sound of a yard engine, her wheels slipping and screeching on the wet rails, echoed as she set to work. Reaching into a jumble of switches and pulling out strings of freight cars, before kicking them onto other tracks. A thick cloud of exhaust, made all the more visible due to the frigid air, hung above her like a coat.

The Tramp kicked his boots on the threshold of the door, before entering the warmth of the railroad depot. He dusted off a sprinkling of snow as he was hit with the heat from the blazing potbelly stoves. His coat collar was pulled up to try and ward off the chill, and his gray furred hands were wrapped in a series of cloth bindings to help keep the blood in his fingers circulating. If the truth was to be told, he couldn't wait to get in front of a locomotive firebox. Passing through the door to the waiting room, he could hear a crowd of passengers, their voices all jumbled into a low racket as they did their business, waiting for the night passenger train to Atlanta. He shivered for a brief second before coming to a pause in front of the first stove, reaching his hands out to attempt to thaw them.

It had been a while since he pulled a solo-trick. He had become rather used to working with his mate, Lady. So used, that there was a mix of feelings to be on his own again. A nostalgia of his youth spent traveling district to district and riding trains as a free mutt, but also a feeling of exhaustion from no longer being so young and carefree. Sure, he was physically still in his prime. But when the call-boy had summoned him, and him alone, he couldn't help but feel a tad bit envious that Lady got to stay snuggled up under the warm blankets in bed while he had to go freeze himself in the railyard.

As he approached the main office, he saw another crew coming out the door. During the day the office was a busy place with engineers and firemen standing before the desk getting their orders while a clerk perched on a stool copied them in longhand into an impressive ledger. When he entered the office Tramp checked the call board. This was a giant chalkboard punched with holes in which dowels with T-shaped heads were inserted. On each head was printed a name. Whenever a call list was made they would shift the names to correspond with crew assignments, in this way the train crews were made up. Interestingly, he noted that both his and Lady's pegs where still in the “Off Duty” mark. His boots clunking on the polished wood floorboards, he gave a nod of his head to the clerk at his desk, before putting his hand on the door to the Road Foreman's office. If his assignment wasn't on the board, that meant the foreman had something else up his sleeve. The ruffled furred mongrel stopped for a second, hand on the doorknob, one triangular ear perking as the muffled sound of raised voices echoed from behind the oak door. One of which was distinctively familiar, and very female.

As the road foreman, Chief Slade was in charge of train movements and crew assignments plus any number of other problems that hit his desk or were whispered into his ear. He was a coon hound with something of a mean streak in him who cared about the equipment and not much else. He would rather a locomotive kill a dog then break a coupling. His hard glare had the effect of chilling even the warmest of souls. As the Tramp entered the office, the ragged hound was standing up behind said deck, his chair knocked backwards, and his cold stare was pinned on the other occupant of the room.

“Ah, finally. Someone with some brains! Tramp, get in here and weigh your thoughts!” Chief growled, before spitting a wad of hash into a nearby brass spatoon.

The female lupin whipped around to welcome the newcomer, upon which the glare she had been casting at Chief quickly turned into a broad smile. Her fur was a light gray and cream, or at least what could be seen from around her denim coat and long thick trousers, and her long mousy brown hair rolled back between her pointed ears to end at the small of her back. Sharp strong blue eyes and beautiful eyelashes accented her wolfish muzzle with its black nose. It was those sharp eyes that grabbed the Tramp's attention. They visibly glowed at his arrival and despite her soft feminine features, they held an iron clad determination. As she swung around, her thick bushy tail flicked back and forth behind her legs.

“Yes, someone with brains indeed,” She rolled her eyes before extending a hand. “Good evening Tramp. Long time, no see.”

“Same to you, Miss Aleu,” The Tramp gave the wolf a hearty handshake. There was a surprising amount of strength behind those slender fingers. “What brings our grand Chief Mechanical Engineer up from Atlanta?”

“She put us in a right state,” Chief spat, “We have a emergency, which is why I had you pulled into service. We're down on power, and right when we need it most. ”

Aleu scowled at the Road Foreman before turning back to the Tramp. “When lady luck gives you the icy stare,” She told the mongrel “Well, no use arguing the matter.”

“It's too late for arguing,” The Tramp agreed. “Just what kind of flea is lurking in our ointment.”

“You are quite at liberty to classify that insect on your own,” Chief plopped back down at his desk. As he spoke, he opened a tin that was laying next to a pile of ledger books, and pulled a wad of hash out to stuff into the corner of his maw. “We've a shortage of motive power because Miss Aleu here tossed a number of our own at a fellow railroad, that lumberjack hook, the Lepanto Valley, bringing their cow into our house. The situation has become more annoying then anything in tarnation, because while we HAVE a yard goat to relieve power from yard duties, our keeper of the power won't let me use it!”

The Tramp looked over at Aleu, who had crossed her arms over her chest. He could see something was up by the look in her eyes. He had known Aleu for many years, from the time when the she-wolf was a fellow member of the engine crews. She had fought off and defied many who said she wouldn't have been fit for engine service, as well as many a suitor who attempted to woo her from her rail-born calling. To say she was attractive was an understatement. Even under the layers of denim and wool, the fine curves of her slender wolven body where unmistakable. If he had been on his own and in his more carefree days, the Tramp wouldn't have thought twice of making a pass at her. As it was, he considered the woman a friend, and held her in respect as a fellow railroader. She had gone into her position through a combination of tenacity and intelligence. She wasn't one to make uncalculated decisions. “What's the goat's name?”

“Yonah,” Aleu growled.

“Yonah!” The Tramp recoiled. “Not that lunk of bolts! I though that animated scrap-pile was melted down for pig iron years ago! Or turned into a stationary boiler?”

“Not so,” The she-wolf put in. “She was away with an iron smelter. She's back now.”

“And ready for the road,” Chief finished.

“No, she's ready for the shop!” Aleu barked, her eyes narrowing as she aimed her anger at the road foreman.

“I think you mean the torch.” Tramp hissed under his breath.

“She'll do the job.” Chief growled around his wad.

“Must've been reborn,” Tramp said. “I know that scut. We used to have her here in the yard before I grabbed a coal scoop. Never was any good. Wouldn't run, wouldn't pull, wouldn't lubricate. It took four mules and a horse to reverse her!”

“I looked her over when she came back,” Aleu chimed in. “Spring lever is cockeyed and her running gear is out of tram. There's a kink in the Johnson bar linkage, and I'm pretty sure her pilot truck is slewed. She'd jump the track if you looked at her cross-eyed! Rougher then sin and harder to ride then a vibrating bar stool...and don't ask me how I know that!” Aleu rolled her shoulder-blade to toss a lock of hair back. “ Throttle leaks and sticks. Her last trip was a short jog through the doors of the roundhouse and into the turntable pit. Now you want me to hit her with a lick of paint and lock horns with an emergency!”

Chief was unmoved. “The Yonah is a serviceable locomotive. I have carefully considered your case, and decided that the power in the yard right now would be far more useful on the road. Thus, I need that goat. You have a fireman, and I'm sending out a callboy for an engineer. Unless of course, you want to take her yourself. As good as an engineer as you are, you shouldn't have any trouble holding down such a wild pony.” A sly smile split the coon hound's maw. Tramp swallowed. He knew Aleu could never take a challenge when it came to her skills as an engineer.

Aleu's brow furrowed, her long bangs falling in front of her narrowed eyes. “You know what comes at taking chances on the railroad. I won't lecture you on that, nor can I stop you from yanking a locomotive capable of steaming off my paws. But if that wild pony tosses a rod, I'd rather it do it to me then anyone else.”


“Uh, sorry to butt in fellas. But do I get a say in this mess?” The Tramp put his hands on his hips. “I know I've been called to work this shift. But I can refuse the locomotive if she's not safe.”

“There's an extra day off for you and your cocker if you pull the trick.” Chief barked, before leaning over and spitting into the spatoon. “Hows that sound for safety.”

Tramp cocked his mouth, and looked over at Aleu. His brown eyes seemed to ask her silently if it was worth it. If worse came the worse, she was there to shoulder responsibility, and she could condemn the locomotive. Which was probably the first thing she planed to do upon seeing it, and he gathered would partially be the motive behind her taking the road foreman's proposition.

“You know, I'm just going to put that thing back in the roundhouse and officially knock her out of service,” Aleu smirked, as if echoing the Tramp's thoughts.

Chief was unmoved. “The Yonah is a serviceable locomotive. If you knock her out, then we won't have power for the Horse and Cart. When it arrives, it will have to wait, possibly overnight. I can't force you to take the job, but if you don't care to tackle the proposition, then that's all there is to be said.”

Aleu's pointed wolven ears dropped down, pinned to the back of her head. She and Tramp exchanged glances once again and the mongrel could read the question set in her eyes. Would he join her? For one, there was the pride in his railroad. In the other, a warm day at home snuggled with a loved one and no care in the world. Chief had the two of them by the nose, and he knew it. The Tramp gave a soft nod of his head. As if saying “I'm in.”

“Fair enough,” Aleu finally grunted. Speaking for the two of them. “Just hand me the orders and let's do this thing before hell freezes over.”




**********************



The snow had stopped falling when Aleu and the Tramp trudged out of the office and started to make their way towards the roundhouse. Their footprints crunching in the snow covered ballast. Tramp's jacket flapped in the chilling wind, and Aleu flipped up the collar on her shirt all the way up her neck, before closing her overcoat. The Yonah was to work the yard, relieving the locomotive that currently bashed about the sidings to pull the Horse and Cart. A cloud of smoke seemed to hang in the air, kept low to the ground by the chilly atmosphere and adding to the many shades of gray that coated the train yard.

“Sorry you got roped into this mess,” The she-wolf apologized softly as they stepped over sets of rails.

“Nothing to apologize for,” The Tramp replied, following her with a lunch pail in one hand and a set of brass fireman's goggles in the other. “We got gunned by the fickle finger of fate, or so it seems.”

“Yeah, but imagine drawing a scut like the Yonah on a night like this to do a mainline job. It's enough to give a dog the worms,” Aleu said.

Tramp chuckled. “You think you'll be able to handle her?”

“Oh, I'll handle her,” She frowned. “But somebody's going wish they'd never been born by the end of the night.”

“Likely it'll be us,” The mutt predicted. “What exactly needs to be done on her to make her sea-worthy?”

“What doesn't need to be done?” Aleu said dubiously. “Be easier to jack up the stack and whistle and build a new locomotive underneath. But we'll just muddle through.”

Trudging through the snow past the boilerhouse, they made their way towards the turntable, where they stopped and looked at the line of tenders stabled. Locomotives where stabled in the roundhouse head in, with the back of their tender's facing out. On the W&A, the locomotive names where painted on the back of the tenders, so the crews could quickly see which iron horse was where without having to peer into the house. Tramp recognized his and Lady's own steed, the Dispatch, sitting cold with her fire dropped in one of the stalls, but one name was conspicuously absent.

“Where's the critter?” Aleu barked.

“I don't see her...maybe the hostlers took her up to the coal stage already.” Tramp suggested, peering into the gloom down the roundhouse lead and towards the fuel rack.

“Wait...” Aleu held a hand up, her wolven ears perking and one eyebrow raised sharply. “Do you hear that?”

Borne on the sharp sting of the winter breeze came the harsh sound of steam escaping from the open cylinder cocks of a locomotive. Turning on their heels, both Aleu and Tramp instantly spotted the lame smoke plume drifting from behind the water tank.

“That'll be her!” Tramp growled.

“Up to her old tricks again. She's gone and left us!” Aleu snapped.

“If she gets out over the lead she'll get into the yard,” The Tramp started running, kicking up snow. “We gotta run her down.”

But Aleu needed no encouragement. The young women practically bounded across the distance between the roundhouse and the water tank. Plunging through the snow in pursuit of the straying locomotive. Her bushy tail fluttering in the breeze behind her like a banner. Tramp himself was not far behind her, his triangle-shaped ears flapping with each jog. The sound of escaping steam grew louder as they rounded the corner by the water tank and jogged up alongside the Yonah, who was proceeding leisurely, but resolutely, backwards, towards a closed stub switch. Swinging up the gangway and boarding the locomotive, Aleu grabbed the large silver Johnson bar, unlatched it, and threw it all the way over, putting the locomotive in forward. The Yonah was old enough that while she did have an air compressor for the brakes on cars, she herself was not plumbed for brakes, and relied on her handbrake to hold the locomotive. With steam entering the cylinders from the reverse side, the locomotive gently hissed to a stop, with Aleu spinning the handbrake-wheel up on the tender.

The throttle latch it seemed was sprung, and steam had leaked around it into the cylinders, sending the locomotive sleepwalking out of the roundhouse. Another twenty seconds, another twenty yards, or had Tramp and Aleu been a little longer walking through the yard, and they would have come to find the wanderer sitting in the dirt blocking the entrance to the roundhouse. So far, luck was with the railroad.

Tramp placed the pail on the footplate of the locomotive before slipping the goggles around his floppy ears and head. He held them against his forehead rather then slipping them down over his eyes. “Oh, uh...Aleu.” He said, looking down under the tender.

“What?” the she-wolf grunted as she gave the handbrake-wheel an almighty turn.

Tramp stood up, holding in his wrapping clad hand the broken end of the handbrake chain.

“Really?” Aleu's eyes narrowed, before she threw her hands up in defeat. “Well, let's see if the toolbox is stocked.”

Tramp sighed, getting on his knees in the snow and jamming a nearby chunk of random cast-off wood under a wheel. “Emergency, hell,” He went to work slipping the brake rod back into place and threading the chain into it's clevis. “We've been handed a water logged tomato.”

“Maybe we should heave it back!” Aleu chuckled, getting on the ground next to the mongrel, and while he held the end of the chain in the clevis, she began tightening the end bolt with an adjustable wrench. “Once we get our own heads out of the set of stocks we're in.”

Once they got the brake chain reattached, Aleu kicked the brakes on, adjusting them with the heel of her boot. “You know Tramp, I'm a loyal servant of the railroad.”

“As am I,” The mutt agreed, climbing up into the cab. He let out a grunt when he saw that the sight glass and main pressure gauge were both leaking a feather of steam.

“But I get the feeling that our loyalty is going to be tested today.” The wolf slipped a hand under her coat to pull a fobwatch out from a breast pocket.

“I think I could do without the testing.” Tramp responded, looking into the tender bunker to check the level of coal. “At least she's got a full bunker. Maybe the weight will hold her on the tracks.”

Aleu pocketed the watch, then swung aboard the locomotive. Her mechanical eye quickly taking in the state of the cab, a swift sigh escaping from her lips. Smoke rolled lazily out of the diamond shaped stack. She grabbed the oil can off the shelf, and dropped back down into the snow to began the task of oiling the locomotive.

The Yonah was an elderly eight wheeler. The old locomotive looked spidery next to the larger and more modern power that was being used. Her drive wheels seemed so large with slender spokes and the drive rods like thread, all packed under a boiler that seemed to leak steam from both check valves and around the cylinder packing. The paint, well weathered with small patches of dust from miles and miles of rails, was a deep green, and the locomotive's name was spelled out in gold lettering upon a name plate set against the boiler jacket: YONAH. They had been signed up for a yard shift. Which composed moving a locomotive light, without any cars, across the yard and doing some switching. The old locomotive was not equipped with air-brakes, and like other locomotives of it's age, was originally intended to be stopped by either closing the throttle and coasting or slamming the locomotive into reverse with the Johnson-bar. Thus the massive size of the object.

Tramp leaned out the cab, and watched Aleu checking over the locomotive, silently cursing under her breath. Still, she went about the iron horse, fretting and petting and messaging. He knew that she had a secret fondness for the earlier locomotives with their neat and tidy designs, and she would match the iron horse trick for trick. For his part, he opened the firedoor, and looked over the fire and the rear flue sheet. There was an insane amount of clinker hanging around, and he could spy what looked like the blade of another coal scoop inside the firebox. The wooden handle long ago burned away. Thankfully, he didn't see anything beyond some weeping on the rear flue sheet. Which told him her innards at least where tight.

Aleu slipped the lid down on the tallow cup before swinging aboard the locomotive, oil can in hand. “Alright, let's see what the old scut has,”

Slipping the Johnson bar into the forward position, a move that forced the wolf to grit her teeth and throw her strength into the great bar, they soon got the iron pony trotting towards the yard. The air was full of cinders, and the scent of coal was thick. The snow had ceased, but a bitter wind had started to blow in from the hills. The cab was drafty, and snow kicked up from the drive wheels filtered through the cracks and crannies of the cab. Tramp tried to draw the cab curtain down, only for it to rip off it's bracket. Useless, he tossed it over the side and into the snow.

“With a few changes,” He called, hopping into the coal pile to grab a coal scoop that was laying in the tender. “She could make a first class cooling plant for beer,”

Opening the window, Aleu pulled herself up onto the sill, and stuck her upper body outside. One of her ears was perked, while the other slipped down. Listening to the mechanical misery of the clanking drive rods and exhaust. Their locomotive was lame, the exhaust giving three mighty blasts, and then a weak one. Woof, woof, woof, woo. Woof, woof, woof, woo. No doubt due to the derangement of the valve gear and only god knew what else.

Tramp hopped down from the coal pile, and standing in the entrance of the bunker he dug his scoop into the pile of black diamonds. Snatching a load to swing around to the fire-door, he had some trouble getting the antiquated chain operated door to open. It kept wanting to swing shut once he unlatched it. Finally, he swung it hard enough to revel the hungry flaming maw of the firebox. Tramp's body was highlighted briefly by the sturdy light, and he gave a hard nod of his head to drop the goggles over his eyes. With a quick upward swish, he launched the scoop load of coal into the firebox. Aleu gripped the throttle, and yanked it a few times. Expectancy in her eyes, and the Yonah responded with a set of groans and clanks and struggles. Yet she remained at the same slow pace.

“What's keeping her?” Tramp asked.

“She won't go any faster,” Aleu' mouth as a grim line. “Valve timing is all out of slop. I'll pull up on the Johnson bar. See if we can get anything more out of her.”

Yet they didn't. The old teakettle only lurched. Pounding, jolting, and making so much racket that they could barely hear the bell ring as they approached the yard throat. Aleu sighed once again, relegating herself to the locomotive's whims. Tramp started to wonder if a stick of dynamite would fix most of the Yonah's ailments.

Aleu brought the locomotive past the yard ladder, and with their switch orders in hand and following the signals created by the swinging lanterns in the switch-mens' hands, they started switching the yard. Stopping and starting frequently as they picked up cars from the sidings. Kicking them from one track and to the other in order to break down strings of random cars into cuts, ready to be made into trains. With a lurch and a clank of iron, Yonah and her crew started the ongoing chores.




****************



Switching in the yard was a test of an engineer's skill at making slight and controlled movements. While the new Janney couplers where becoming more and more common, the old style link and pins still were the bread and butter of the industry. The Janney coupler worked on the same principle of the hooked fingers of a human hand. A pin behind the knuckles kept the coupler locked, and the pin could not be raised as long as the coupler was under pulling strain. To unlock the coupler, all a switch-man had to do was relieve the strain and pull the pin.

The impact of the coupling was usually enough to drop the pin. If the pin did not shake down, then the switch-man stepped between the cars and pounded it down, usually with a spare link. Oftentimes it was necessary to walk between two moving cars. Wary feet, a chilled mind, and alert senses were needed every minute. One only lived long enough to make one mistake on the railroad.

As the evening wore onto night, Tramp kept knocking at the firedoor. His green-tinted goggles hiding his brown eyes. He had a fine bed of red coals glowing in the firebox, however he was finding it hard to control the draft, or amount of air running over the fire-bed. The longer they ran, the more the bed seemed to clog. Aleu looked over and saw the mongrel opening the door once again, and take a look into the firebox, pulling his bandanna up to protect his tousled muzzle from the heat as he peered into the flames. They coasted through the yard ladder with a string of flatcars, and the Tramp glanced up at the pressure gauge. The needle was slowly, but steadfastly falling.

He looked over at Aleu, who had likewise noted the same. Opening the firedoor, he found that what had once been a clear red fire was now a smoldering hump of half-burned coals. The fire was going out.

“Having trouble?” Aleu asked.

“Irritatingly so. I was never any good at dancing, and this Scut isn't a very good partner.”

“Well, lets see if we can't amend this problem with a little prowess,” Aleu closed the throttle and climbed down off the engineer's seat. The locomotive drifted to a stop into the siding, the cut of flatcars lashed to the front pilot beam bouncing to and fro as the slack ran in and out. As it was, they would run out of steam were she to keep the locomotive moving.

“We can,” Tramp stood up and grabbed a thick iron bar with a hook on it. With a practiced hand, he reached into the firebox with it, and spread the coals to the sides and back, leaving a low bed glowing in the middle. His body twisting in a gathering rhythm as he put his energy and weight into it. Breaking up the pile and putting holes into it for air. “The damn fire-bars are all kinds of cockeyed, the coal hops to the front and fills up so thick it smothers itself. Every time the exhaust lets out a beat, the coal takes another hop.”

He reached into the tender and fetched the shaker-bar. With it, he gave the grates a mighty shake before slamming the door shut and slipping back into her seat. “Don't you worry Aleu, I'm not licked yet. The pressure will come back in a minute. See, the trick is to leave the middle low. That way, rather then hopping up front, the coal will just hop into the middle and burn there.”

Sure enough, when Tramp pulled the doors back open, a nice thick fire was burning.

“Now that's more like it,” The she wolf declared, relieved that their fire was back. The needle on the pressure gauge was starting to rise again. She looked over at the Tramp and gave him a wide grin. “Can't let me forget I've got one of the best firemen on the road, can you?”

Tramp gave her a theatrical bow. “Miss, you have yet to see me begin to fight. Now, Let's see if we can't cut the rug with this old scrapyard dodger.”

Aleu tugged at the Johnson-bar. It had gotten stuck in neutral. Her lips tightened, and her eyes narrowed as she wrapped both her hands around the bar and put all of her weight into it. The whole of her canine body was required to unlock the bar and slip the locomotive into reverse. A soft yelp escaped her lips as the bar suddenly dropped.

“Maybe it's time she stopped dodging,” The wolf hissed as she stumbled back to her feet, before eyeing the bar coldly.

They continued their work. Talk dwindled down to a bare minimum. Aleu focused on keeping the Yonah from kicking, and Tramp put his attention on the firebox and the pressure gauge. Looking over at the she-wolf sitting on the engineer's seat, the mutt couldn't help but compare her running style to his own Lady. Lady had a gentle touch, motherly almost, in how she ran a locomotive. But Aleu had an all together more mathematical style. It seemed that she was always making some small adjustment. How much of this was the Mechanical Engineer's need to tinker, and how much her heading off the Yonah's tricks, the Tramp couldn't say.

They had just finished marshaling a cut of wooden coal gondolas and were digging through their lunch pails when the Tramp leaned out the gangway and saw Chief hotfooting it through the snow towards the Yonah, a cigar caught between his scowl. The flurries of snow seemed to melt on the gray hound dog's brow, so hell bent he appeared.

“Uh oh, somethings up,” Tramp pointed out with a half eaten sandwich.

“Does he have a noose in his hands?” The she-wolf asked before taking a swig from a bottle of cream soda.

“None that I can see,” What was left of the sandwich was stuffed into that tousled gray maw.

“Good, then it's not our execution he's setting up,” Aleu finished her bottle before slipping around the big Johnson-bar and leaning out the gangway. “What's up?”

Chief stumbled through the cloud of leaking steam from one of the cylinders. He slipped his hands into his coat pockets and glared up into the cab. “We got a problem, the Dutchman has gone and lost her air-pump, and she's stranded up the road about four miles out of town.”

Aleu's eyebrows arched, and her ears dropped back. She looked over at the Tramp. “The Dispatch is cold, and I have her fireman...we can take the Yonah and rescue them. If she doesn't convert herself into a stationary boiler in the process.”

The Tramp crossed his arms, “I can barely keep a good fire just jogging about the yard. The only thing she'll be good for is the steam heat in the coaches.”

“She's the nearest locomotive we have,” Chief fumed. “And she won't have to pull anything. All she has to do is keep the air off. The locomotive on the head of the Dutchman can do the rest.”

“I bet you anything I can fix the pump and get the Dutchman back out while they take on the mail here in town,” Aleu smiled. “Can't delay the plush, no sir. We'll horse the scut down there and supply a brake.”

“Good,” Chief tossed the stub of his cigar into the snow, before stomping it into the ballast with the toe of his boot. His tail whipped side to side. “The General Superintendent is on that train, and they'll be murder if they don't get moving soon.”

“There is gonna be a murder once they get moving. The Dutchman's schedule is a mile a minute,” The Tramp gave a snort. “If they need a brake, then they've got it. And they won't need a crew. Look at her, she's a natural lump of resistance. From stem to dudgeon.”

“Well, look at it this way,” Aleu leaned out and snatched up the set of tissue paper orders that Chief had brought with him. The orders thus giving them right of way. She handed it to the mongrel to read over himself. “You'll have a story to tell Lady when you get that rest.”

Slipping back into the engineer's seat, the she-wolf cracked the throttle, and left it cracked. As they drifted backwards, out of the yard and onto the main, she reached into her lunch pail and produced a loaf of bread and a bone of ham. The Yonah could barley keep herself at a twenty mile clip downhill. Other then the occasional tug at the throttle, little was needed from the engineer to encourage the lame duck. The Tramp tossed a few strips of bacon over the firedoors, and used the rake to spread the bed.

The Flying Dutchman was a crack passenger train and one of the fastest on the division. Lady and the Tramp had tackled it's schedule before with the Dispatch, and on a good locomotive, it was a fast paced and expedited run. On the limping Yonah, the Tramp thought, it was promising to be a ride from hell. The mongrel plopped himself in the fireman's seat shelf, and put his back against the cracked glass of the window. He found himself longing for the warm bed next to his warm wife.

“Maybe we should ask them if they can use her to heat the shaving water in the palace cars,” He chuckled.

Aleu was sitting on one knee, using a jackknife to whittle and slice slivers from her ham. She took her time, confident in the outcome. “Let 'em wait,” She said, thrashing her sharp teeth on the bone. “They will appreciate it all the more.”

The Tramp craned his neck in order to look over the rocking tender. “Aleu, you are one hell of a pup. No wonder you're still single, you'll out eat any man, and out stubborn him too.”

“Wise words coming from The Tramp”, the wolf laughed, tossing the bone out the cab window. “Wasn't it you who once said; 'When you're footloose and ring-free...you take nothing but the best'?”

The mongrel smiled. “I might have said that, once, long ago,” He held up a hand, the wrappings giving a slight bulge where his wedding band sat.

“How is she? It's not often I see one of you without the other.”

“She's tucked in bed at the house, warm, and probably asleep,” He chuckled. “Wish I could say the same. What about you? Still got a boy in every town?”

Aleu gave a mischievous grin. “I wouldn't say every town.”

Tramp gave a knowing smile, being a veteran of the lifestyle that Aleu led, before turning his attention back out the frosty window to the tracks. He had been the same way before he met Lady, and understood the calling the rails provided. There always seemed to be adventure just over the next horizon. All theirs for the taking.

But tonight, their adventure lay sitting on the main, hissing steam. The Flying Dutchman was waiting with her lamps doused as the Yonah arrived. However, their troubles had only just started. As the Yonah was coupled on, a message was handed up to Aleu through the gangway. She read it out-loud to the Tramp while the air-pump clunked into life, wheezing and squeaking as it worked to build air for the brakes.

“We recognize conditions but urge that you recover as much time as possible. General Superintendent states that Yonah is capable of scheduled speed and safe as houses...who the flying fuck does he think he is?” She chucked the message into the firebox. “I'm the bloody Chief Mechanical Engineer. I'm not his little girl. I tell HIM what condition the locomotives are in and what they are capable of.”

“Maybe he means powder houses?” The Tramp suggested, tossing another load of coal through the firedoor atop the ash of the message.

“It's gonna be hell on wheels,” Aleu dropped herself into the engineer's seat. “I'm going to just let her drift. But we're gonna need to help them start the train. But after that, the Dutchman's locomotive will have to handle the train until we get back to Marceline.”

“We'll never be able to ride her,” Tramp said. “She's rough enough at fifteen.”

“Just wait until we get up to thirty!” The wolf laughed. “We two dead dogs will probably be fertilizing geraniums and rosebushes when the night is over!”




***************

Aleu knocked the brakes off, and gave two blasts on the Yonah's whistle. The Dutchman's locomotive responded in kind, and they started. The Tramp sat on his seatbox, one hand gripping the windowsill, the other braced against the frame of the cab. After half a mile of being pushed, the she-wolf cracked the throttle, and the effect was instant. Ahead, the headlamp danced against the snow covered trees and dales that bordered the tracks, while behind the passenger locomotive belched smoke and cinders. The exhaust was a deep-throated roar.

Faster they went, the Yonah rocking like a buoy in storm-tossed waters. Aleu kept just enough power at the throttle to keep the coupling between them and the Dutchman stretched, but it wasn't long before the pilot of the larger locomotive was baring itself into their rear tender beam. At the lower rates of speed, she would have lurched and jolted, but now she shuddered. The long Johnson-bar clanked and vibrated. Aleu sat up on her knees to keep her legs away from the long lever should the quadrant shatter and send it flying back and forth.

“Having fun yet!” She hollered at the Tramp.

“Loads!” The gray mutt practically yelled. “I'm going for the scoop! Don't toss me off!”

“No promises!”

 The mongrel carefully crossed the pitching cab deck, and grabbed the scoop from the tender. Rods and boxes pounded, and coal slithered out from the bunker, and danced on the cab apron. The Tramp found it hard to get his scoop buried, with the way the coal pile seemed to shift like a breathing creature. Once he got the fire-door open, it was a whole other game to toss and load in.

Suddenly, the steam gauge fell off the cluster. Both Aleu and the Tramp nearly fell out their respective sides of the locomotive as searing vapor filled the cab. The mongrel held the coal scoop up to shield himself and he groped around for the shut-off cock. “Son of a bitch!” He barked.

“If you can't find the cock, smash the pipe with the scoop!” Aleu yelled. She was now crouched on her seat, most of her body out the cab window as she tried to keep out of the cloud of steam.

There was no need, as the Tramp found the tiny valve and sealed the pipe. The bell rocked and clanged at random intervals like a church bell tolling for a funeral as they tobogganed down the grade. The passengers eating in the dining car or lounging in the saloon had no idea of the figurehead hanging on by the strength of a coupler pin.

“I damn well hope they don't call for us to dynamite the train from up here!” Tramp shouted over the wail of the wind. Somehow he had managed to pull his pocket watch out without falling out the window. They where actually starting to make back the lost time.

“Not for a million!” Aleu laughed. “She'll turn somersaults for five miles if I so much as glance at the air gauge! Look at her dance! Look at the stars! They're underneath us!”

Careening along the outskirts of Marceline, the mutt couldn't believe that Aleu had somehow kept them just ahead of the passenger locomotive. He honestly didn't think they would have got this far. But he could practically see the railyard and the depot just ahead of them in the din of the night. For all the speed and clatter, the Yonah had actually held herself together. He wondered if it was her own rust and paint holding her, or himself and Aleu pined in the corners.

“You know, I just realized,” Aleu laughed again. “That mogie behind us is doing all the work, and this scut is going to get the credit!”

“And so far, she's done nothing but exist!” Tramp laughed back. “Hows that for luck! The lousy old bitch is gonna make it! Even speed won't do her in!”

“Don't uncross your fingers and toes just yet,” Aleu leaned out into the snow, her eyes narrowed and grim set under her engineer's goggle. “We still have to stop this monster.”

She carefully lay a hand on the brass valve that made up the automatic brake. Up till now, all adjustment braking had been done by the Dutchman...but now they needed air to stop. Air that had to come from the Yonah. The she wolf brought the handle over to the first position...just a light love tap on the brakes. There came an unholy screeching from below as the train's brakes applied. And they began to slow.

The Tramp bit his lower lip as he looked at the air gauge. One of the two needles was not moving. But he could see by the remaining needle that they had only enough air to make one good solid brake application. It would take the skill of their engineer to truly stop them. Looking at the she-wolf, he was quickly reminded that they did indeed have such an engineer. With a few quick twists of her wrist, and precision timing, she slowly drew down the train brake as they slid up to the platform at the Marceline Depot. She looked over at the Tramp, smiled, and held one hand up, fingers crossed. The mongrel chuckled, before repeating the action.

One final set of the brakes, and the Flying Dutchman, with the Yonah balanced on the head, slid neatly into the platform.




************




After cutting the Yonah free from the Dutchman, Tramp and Aleu moved their locomotive through the yard, and towards the Roundhouse. Already, Aleu was talking over how she planed to yank the airpump on the Yonah off and use the valve to fix the one on the Dutchman.

“This old scut definitely doesn't need it!” She hissed as they thumped over a stub-switch. “But I gotta give credit where it's due...I wasn't expecting her to hold together.”

“Only but!” The Tramp was struggling with the firedoor. All the shaking and rattling had jammed it wide open. “Someone up there must like the two of us.”

“You know...I'm gonna hate having to go to Ol' Cheif and tell him that the damn thing made it. He's never going to shut up about it, and I have no proof to say otherwise.”

As they moved to the coaling stage, they found that the stub-switch just ahead of the roundhouse lead was frozen. Aleu hopped down to give the yardmen a hand with getting the switch thrown over, while the Tramp busied himself banking the fire. Looking out the cab window, he found a swell in his heat at seeing the Dispatch with her fire raised and smoke rolling from the stall smoke-jack. That meant a real locomotive was ready, and he could ditch this rolling pig-pen and have his old home back. She would have her steam up by the time he and Lady came off their elongated rest. Already, he could smell his cocker wife's fine shampoo and the warmth of their bed. It was all waiting just through the Roundhouse lead switch, and across the turntable.

Aleu swung into the cab, and slid back behind the throttle. Tramp wondered for a second how she did it. Her job was just starting. Once they got the locomotive into the roundhouse, she would set to work on the airpump...and then it was onto the next emergency. She was as he once was, a boomer. Married to the railroad and the adventure. The Yonah heaved and shuddered, like a draft horse gathering it's legs from under it, and shot forward in a cloud of sparks, smoke and cinder.

Aleu shoved the throttle open...and it instantly got stuck, as it had a habit of doing, when she tried to ease it. “Oh, shit...” She groaned, looking at the turntable and the empty stall ahead of them...and stub switch in front.

Almost instantly, the steamer derailed. Her pilot, then drive wheels leaving the rails at the switch and bumping over the ties towards the turntable. Lurching wildly and threatening to somersault into the turntable pit.

“Tramp, Jump!” The she-wolf shouted, wrapping her hands around the Johnson-bar and trying to lock the cutt-off.

“And leave you! No way!” The mongrel leaped across the cab apron and grabbed the handbrake. With Aleu trapped behind the Johnson-bar there was no way she was going to get it. “Just, hold it! Hold it!” He bellowed, his arms a blur as he spun the wheel. One triangular ear flopping back over his head.

The Yonah landed with her pilot sticking out over the turntable pit, coming to rest with a heavy “thud” in the snow and ballast. But she remained out of the pit and off the turntable bridge. She had the bone in her teeth unfortunately, and by the time the two railroad canines had gotten her stopped, every wheel from the pilot axle to the rear tender truck was off the rails and in the grit and snow. The engine and tender had parted, and the tender lay cockeyed to the side, cross the track. Tramp grabbed a lantern, and slowly dismounted the cab. Already a few of the yardmen where running over to join them as he walked along the locomotive and examined the damage. Ice, snow, twisted rails and crunched ties lay underneath her. With her pilot over the pit, she was down by the nose, and over to one side. Her cab tilted at a precarious angle. But the prime feature of the derailment was that the Yonah had parked her bulk across the turntable track...blocking all locomotives from entering or leaving the roundhouse.

“This...” Aleu commented as she swung down out of the cab, and seeing how effectively the roundhouse was obstructed. “...has all the earmarks of a genuine emergency.”

“What put her off?” Tramp asked. “The switch was thrown over.”

“It wasn't the switch,” Aleu put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “She went off at the frog...and a good thing she did too! That throttle was jammed and had she not eaten the dirt, you and I would be pulling brick out of out teeth!”

The frog was the jointed section where one rail crossed over the other. Looking around, the Tramp knew immediately this was going to require a crane. Already yardmen where gathering, and he could see Chief practically sending the door to the depot off it's hinges as the road foreman stomped out to see what sort of calamity had landed in his yard. Soon, the scene was alive with section hands, train crew, and hot eyed officials. The Flying Dutchman was sitting at the depot, waiting on the air-pump that was now laying in the snow, and there would soon be at least one hotshot freight that would need power and another whose power would need to go to the house for servicing. On the outbound shop-track, facing them, were two locomotives with steam up and safeties popping, fresh from the shops to handle the lack of power...and there sat the Yonah, like a foundered battleship sitting crosswise in a canal. Never mind the General Superintendent and his entourage were in a private car at the end of the now stranded Flying Dutchman. If there was one certainty, it was that there would be blood on the moon when the old man got a hold of this.

Among the chaos and confusion, Aleu seemed to be the only one with a cool head. Ignoring all the half baked ideas and plans being tossed at her on how the might be able to get the track cleared, she waved the Tramp over and they simply climbed up into the cab and went to work. The temperature was dropping and she knew that with the water hose bags torn apart, there was a good chance that the boiler could freeze, causing heavy damage. Without a word, the Tramp went about dumping the fire into the snow, and Aleu kicked the blow down cock open, before popping out the window and onto the running-board and started going at the air-pump.

The result was a massive cloud of steam, that enveloped the stranded locomotive and hid the rest of the world from them. That is, until Chief popped out of the mist with the General Superintendent in tow. The mongrel had met the GS only a handful of times. He had been able to address the man in boxcar language, and he knew that the canine-hybrid was antiquated with the art of heavy transportation. Having fought tooth and nail to reach the point he was at today. Something the similarly stray-minded Tramp could relate.

“Aleutian Chabert! I will HANG your sorry ragged ass from the gallows on the turntable!” The ol' hound dog shouted. “I swear! What on god's good earth is this fine fuckup you've dropped on us?

The Tramp smiled smugly as the she-wolf groaned. “Well, I guess it's time we faced the music,”

“Well, let's at least go to the noose together,” Aleu sighed as she slid back through the window and into the cab. “Who knows, maybe I can talk out way out of this one.”

The two railroaders dropped down into the snow, and Aleu head her head high as she walked over to the General Superintendent, ears erect and a thin line set across her mouth. The Tramp stepped in behind her, slipping his hands into his coat. His ears folded down against the top of his gray mop furred head. Chief crossed his arms over his chest, and strangely...Aleu completely ignored him. The Tramp raised an eyebrow as she padded right past the hound and stepped right up to the GS. She took a deep breath before addressing him; “Hi, Papa...”

Balto stood in his fur coat, a mushers hat perched atop his head. His yellow eyes looked over the situation, and one eyebrow rose in speculation. “So, mind telling me what happened here?” He addressed her as a parent would a child who had just been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“Just what you see,” Aleu shrugged. “She went off at the frog before I could stop her. And there she lies.”

“Before you could stop her? Did the throttle jam open or the reverse quadrant snap?” Balto's ears peeled back as he looked at the smoke shrouded locomotive. His voice was stern, and his sharp wolven muzzle set in a frown.

Aleu nodded her head “The throttle stuck open and the brake wouldn't hold her. I had the Tramp with me and he grabbed the handbrake and anchored her before she went into the pit. But It's a damn fine thing she did! All of hell wouldn't have reversed that mildewed scut. Had she not gone on the ground, she would have gone right through the back of the roundhouse and only god knows what else.”

The wolf-dog hybrid looked over his daughter's shoulder at the Tramp. Who could only hold a hand up and give a half hearten wave with his fingers, his mouth cocked to one side. Looking back at his daughter, his eyes relaxed and the ends of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Well, then it's a good thing you and your fireman are safe. We can fix everything else...but I'm sure Mrs. Dear wouldn't appreciate getting her mate back with his fur loaded with brick dust. Nor would your mother upon finding out you tried to stop a locomotive from hitting a wall with your face.”

The Tramp let out a solid sigh of relief, and Chief would have to practically pick his jaw out of the snow.

Balto peered through the steam cloud, “Now, what kind of monstrosity do you guys have here? Shut off that steam a moment.”

Tramp slipped back into the cab and shut off steam. Once the air had cleared, there the Yonah sat, reveled in her native element. Balto stared dumbfounded.

“Where did that thing come from?” He demanded generally. No one answered. Looking around him, he turned to Aleu. “Aleu...explain.”

“She didn't come,” The Tramp hollered from the cab. “She'd always been. Turned loose with the other animals when the ark grounded I suspect.”

Aleu had to stifle a chuckle. “Well, Papa. I came down here to pull this locomotive out of service and put her in the shop or the scrap pile. Whichever seemed the most suitable. But Mr. Slade said he needed power. Pulled me a fireman, and because I wouldn't let anyone else get stuck with a defective piece of motive power. I took her upon myself.”

Balto swung around to face Chief. “So, is it possible that you allowed this derelict, knowing that it had mechanical problems that needed sorting, to operate in your territory?”

The old hound took it standing, although it did not like how he was being singled out. “Well now, you see here...there is a bit of a shortage of motive power. So, in the emergency, we have been using her as a switcher.”

“Shortage of motive power?” One of Balto's eyebrows arched. He looked up and his gaze roved the scene. Seeing the two locomotives on the shop track, and the Dispatch in the roundhouse. “What are they,” He demanded, pointing a finger. His tail whipped back and forth at the back of his trousers. “Musical instruments? I perceive the emergency, as I'm aware that my daughter had been playing fast and loose with our fleet; but what do you mean by a shortage of motive power? And...correct me if I'm wrong...but you have a locomotive in steam whose fireman has been put on a shift unable to take it until he gets his rest. Where you planning on making Mr. Dear pull a double? Answer me!”

“Papa,” Aleu interjected. “Listen...I went with it. It was decided to use the Yonah until her flue time had been completed.” She stated smoothly. “However, I'm not sure if she would be fit for service even with a major rebuild.”

“Do you think she should be withdrawn?” Balto asked, his tone of voice far calmer as he addressed his daughter. Aleu nodded. Balto got the hint. Turning around to wave to the auxiliary crew and the hand derrick that had been wheeled into place. He shouted; “Get in there boys, Take her apart! Take her away! Take her to hell!”

He then swung around to Chief. “Shortage of power...I'll look into it. But there's a matter of the Tramp.”

“Well, I did offer him and his mate a full day off ontop of their rest, if he fired on this trick.” Cheif admitted.

“Hear that Tramp!” Balto laughed. The mongrel perked up. “You and Lady get a week off!”

“A WEEK!” Chief bellowed while Aleu burst out laughing.

“Much obliged sir!” Tramp beamed.

“Take your wife, and enjoy yourselves. Hell, go have a nice dinner tonight, and invoice the company.” The general superintendent chuckled. “And let Mrs. Lady know that I give my well wishes.”

“Will do!”

“Now then,” Balto turned back to his daughter, “Aleu, get this railroad running again.

“Yes papa!”

Balto gave a snort though his nose before striding away to join his aides back in the private car. Moving like an army commander departing from the scene of combat. As he vanished into the snow, Aleu and the Tramp turned their attention to Chief.

Aleu chuckled. “You and your phony emergency...” she waved a hand at the Yonah as the crew went to work yanking the locomotive off to the side in order to build a track under her. “Behold the genuine article!”

“What I wonder,” mused the Tramp, putting a forefinger under his muzzle and scratching at the tufts of fur on his chin. “Is what put her off just here, out of all places.”

“I wonder that too...” Chief glared suspiciously at Aleu.


“It was that cockeyed frog, there, under the tender.” Aleu pointed at the twisted chunk of rail. “The lead pilot truck caught it and, with the throttle stuck, the rest had to follow.”

“I examined the frog!” Chief barked “There was nothing wrong with the cotton-pickin' thing!”

Aleu reached deep into a side pocket of her jacket. The Tramp leaned forward, wondering what the she-wolf was up too. With a grin so wide it dug into her furry cheeks, Aleu pulled out a jagged and battered chunk of iron. She handed it to a confused Chief, who accepted it with a raised eyebrow

“Look at the front pilot wheel, engineer's side...notice the piece broke out of the flange. Well, it's in your hands. Flawed too, but I bet that's not what dislodged it. Only being banged about the main at speed on the head of the Dutchman broke it loose. That piece lodged in the frog and derailed her.”

“Maybe you can keep it as a paperweight.” suggested the Tramp.

Chief glared at both grinning railroaders. “Go to hell! Both of you! Before I send you myself!”

He tossed the chunk of iron into the snow, where it vanished into the power, before stomping off to his office in the depot. Aleu and Tramp watched him until his thin tail vanished around the corner of the roundhouse.

“Well...” Aleu stated matter of factually. “You'll have a fine story to tell Lady when you get home. Make her jealous of all she missed.”

“Yeah...” Tramp shook his head. “If she'll believe me.”







The End