End of the Line by Nicky James

THIRTEEN

Leopold

I wasn’t an experienced rider. Our trip out of Winnipeg was only the third time I’d taken to the rails, so I was the last to realize something was wrong. No one had said much over the past hour. It wasn’t that we were sleeping, but we were all lost in our heads.

It was Tyler who drew my attention first. He lay on the other side of the well, slouched down and facing me. For a long time, he’d worn that thousand-yard stare, his face drawn, his eyes sad. I wondered if he was thinking about Elian. Then, in the blink of an eye, the expression vanished, and his gaze snapped to the present. He tilted his head to the side as though listening, alert to something I couldn’t hear or understand.

When I glanced at Dodger, who lay next to him, he too was more attentive, brow furrowed and eyes sharp.

Willow sat up, peering off into the dark night. She’d been curled up on Killian’s other side. “Are we slowing?”

“Feels like.” Killian reached for Dodger’s scanner where it sat on the pile of blankets between us.

He turned it on and played with the dial as he held it to his ear.

It was only after it had been pointed out that I was able to pick up on the shift in momentum, the telltale signs of our speed reducing.

“Probably another train,” Dodger said, crawling out from under the sleeping bag and glancing over the edge of the well, looking in both directions.

There wasn’t much to see. It was dark all around. We were miles from any city and in the middle of nowhere as far as I could tell. There hadn’t been streetlights or crossings for a long time. The soft haze of a half-moon showed nothing but fields on either side of the train. The silhouette of trees in the distance looked like a charcoal drawing against the midnight sky.

“Where are we?” Killian asked.

Tyler and Willow both brought out their phones.

“Nowhere significant.” Willow glanced at Tyler’s phone. “Is there a small station out here? I don’t have the CP map.”

Tyler shook his head. “Don’t think so.” He pinched his fingers on the screen, blowing it up as he studied it.

“Probably another train,” Dodger said again, still glancing along the tracks. “Are you getting anything?” he asked Killian.

“We’re stopping for sure, but… hang on…” Killian strained to hear the scanner above the thunderous noise of the train.

I could make out the low hum of whatever was transmitting, but it was impossible to hear details. Killian’s face contorted as he pressed the scanner to his ear.

A beat passed. Something akin to panic moved across his face.

“Fuck.” Killian threw the blankets off and scrambled upright. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“What?” Dodger and Tyler said at the same time.

“They’re stopping for an inspection. Someone reported us. They said there are possible trespassers riding who got on in Winnipeg.”

“It was those fucking guys,” Dodger snarled. “Goddammit.”

“But there isn’t anything here.” Tyler waved his phone. “Where are we stopping? If they’re pulling over for an inspection, there has to be a place nearby. The crew needs access.”

“They said Kemnay. Is that a place?” Killian asked.

“Kemnay?” Tyler typed on his phone. “Shit. Yes. It’s a tiny spec of an old station, and it’s coming up fast.”

“Pack up. Now.” Dodger was already stuffing a sleeping bag into its mesh carrier. “Be ready to haul ass.”

Killian worked on the second sleeping bag while the others tugged their masks down, covering their faces. I did the same, feeding off their panic, unsure what to do.

“What’s going on? What’s happening? What do we do?” My heart rate climbed as I looked among the group.

“We’re going to need to get the fuck off this train and run for cover.” Dodger’s tone was sharp and accusing. It was my fault, and the blame was rich in his tone.

“No, we don’t need to get off. We just need to stay low and hidden,” Tyler countered. “Maybe skip to a different car if they think they know where we are.”

“No, we need to fuck off. If they know they have illegal hoppers on board, they’ll be stripping this thing down until they find us. And if they think it’s him on board”—Dodger pinned me with a nasty glare—“then we’re double fucked because his face is all over the news, and he killed someone, so we’re just a bunch of accomplices helping him escape.”

“Hey,” Killian snapped, shoving Dodger in the chest. “Enough. Back the fuck off. This isn’t his fault.”

“It is!”

My blood drained at Dodger’s harsh words. It was my fault. I’d brought this trouble upon them. Without me, none of this would have happened. They would have left Winnipeg days ago. My father’s men wouldn’t have been camped at the tracks, waiting for us to make a run for it.

Ripe nausea churned my gut, and I thought I was going to be sick.

Killian snagged my jacket and got in my face. He’d pulled his mask down, so all I could see were his eyes—hazel in the light of day, but black pits under the moonlight—and they were focused and steady. “Ignore him. He’s talking shit. Listen to me. When this train is slow enough to jump off, there will be bulls everywhere. They’ll have the place lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. Stay close and do exactly as we say. Understand?”

I nodded, a deep tremble making me shake uncontrollably. “I’m sorry. I’m so—”

“No.” Killian shook me, his gaze intensifying. “Don’t say that. Don’t listen to him. We’ll figure it out.”

“I should turn myself in. This isn’t fair to you or to them. If I—”

“Not a chance.” Killian snagged the back of my neck and drew me in for a hug. I went limp in his arms, sagging and letting him take my weight. I was scared, and Killian was the one person who helped me feel less alone.

With his mouth by my ear, he said, “I promised I would be with you until the end of the line. I won’t abandon you, Leo. I’m with you.”

Killian pulled back and patted my cheek before joining Dodger at the side of the well. Tyler and Willow were peering along the tracks on the other side. I stood like an idiot in the middle with no clue what to do and the urgency of the situation eating at my core.

“I see them,” Tyler said. “We’re close. Christ, there’s a ton of them.”

“We’re still going too fast,” Willow said.

“My guess is we won’t be going slow enough until we’re in the middle of the fray,” Dodger said. “Fuck.” He slammed a fist against the metal side. “Okay, everyone get down. Stay low. Let me figure out the best plan.”

When everyone crouched low, I followed suit, sinking down into the well and paying attention to what was going on so I’d be ready. Dodger was the only one who kept an eye out. He moved from the left side of the car to the right, scanning and evaluating.

Willow pressed her body close to my side and wrapped a protective arm around me, bringing her mouth to my ear. “It’s okay, Green. He’s growly right now, but Dodger is a beast when it comes to getting away from the bulls. We’ll be okay.”

“Has this happened before?”

“Yep. Consider it initiation. You don’t hop freight and avoid the bulls forever, but you do get good at evading them for the most part. Every now and again…” She shrugged.

“We’re going out on this side,” Dodger said. “Killer, what are they saying on the scanner?”

“Nothing yet.” Killian had the scanner against his ear.

“Stay ready. We need to jump before we get lit up.”

The freight slowed, and the metallic squeal of brakes added to the already unbearable noise. I felt it in my bones and teeth. There was an intensity in the mighty freight beneath us. It was a beast of a machine and demanded respect.

“They’re planning to go car by car,” Killian said, squinting as he strained to hear the voices on the scanner. “We should be at a full stop in three minutes. They’ll be going hard and fast from front to back and moving the train forward in intervals.”

Dodger nodded. “We’re about two dozen down. It’s not enough. We’ll be under those lights if we wait for it to stop. We gotta go while it’s moving. They’ll have eyes watching for runners, but we’ll see what we can do. Aim for the trees over there in the distance and stay low. We’re fucking lucky it’s still dark. It will help cover us.”

Another minute passed before Dodger deemed the train was at a reasonable speed. He waved us all over to the edge, and we scrambled, packing in tight behind him. Dodger peeked down the line, and Killian kept shaking his head when Dodger eyed him, looking for new information.

“We go now,” Dodger barked.

The train was almost at a full stop. Trucks with blazing headlights sat in the near distance, lighting up the tracks on both sides. There were about a dozen rail workers—bulls—ready to sweep through the cars. Willow said there would be bulls on ATVs as well, and they would drive along the tracks in case we tried to make a run for it.

Blood pulsed in my ears louder than the train. My palms grew slick inside my gloves, and the wool of my balaclava kept getting stuck on my lips since I was breathing heavy. My pack weighed a ton, pulling on my shoulders, and I worried about landing on my feet. The last time we’d jumped off a moving train, I’d been able to toss it down first so I didn’t have to fight for balance. I didn’t have that luxury this time.

Killian squeezed my shoulder. “You ready?”

“Yeah. Don’t fall.”

His eyes smiled. “And don’t get caught. Run like your ass is on fire.”

I exhaled a shaky breath and nodded.

We jumped like ninjas into the night, one after another in quick succession. The clatter of the train provided us with noise cover if nothing else. The terror of making a mistake was so ripe in my brain, I felt like I was burning from the inside out, and I couldn’t stop shaking.

My landing was not as graceful as the others, and I ended up overcompensating for my pack, crashing to my hands and knees and skidding along the unforgiving ground. Thankfully, the gloves we’d bought saved my barely healed palms or else they would have been shredded against the sharp rocks. My knees weren’t as lucky, and I knew right away I’d torn a hole in my pants and taken all the skin off one knee.

Tyler yanked me to my feet by the collar, waving Killian ahead when he spun back to help. “Go, go, go,” he hollered.

It was a whirlwind experience, and we joined the group as they ran into the dark, crouching along the edge of the moving train, hightailing it away from the inspection crew looking to arrest us.

Killian was ahead of me with the scanner still at his ear when he hissed, “Fuck! They saw us. They saw us. We need to split.”

“Go! Run! Into the field and stay down.” Dodger urged us ahead, shoving us away from the train one at a time as he peered back down the line.

I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder—a mistake that bit me in the ass. A pair of ATVs were moving in our direction, picking up speed, and it felt like there was no conceivable way for us to outrun them. We were caught.

The nearly invisible field thirty or so yards from the tracks consisted of tall, chest-high grass, dry and brittle with the season’s end. I was only half paying attention, concerned over our pursuers and how quickly they were closing in on us, so when I hit the wall of grass, I stumbled.

I faced forward and managed to get my footing, but the grass tangled around my boots and tripped me up before I’d gone ten feet. I went down hard and cursed. The others had run ahead, but Dodger had taken up the rear. He heaved me to my feet, shoving me along so forcefully I almost went down again.

“Move your rich punk ass, or I’m leaving you here.”

The rest of the gang was farther ahead by the time I was on my feet, and I struggled to keep up. Pushing through the dense prairie grass and over the uneven ground teeming with unexpected dips and holes, I managed to find a solid running pace. When I glanced back again to see how close the bulls were, Dodger growled at me to look where I was going.

I listened but only after I took note of what was happening behind us.

We’d escaped the spotlights, and the long grass seemed to prevent the crew on ATVs from following. The men behind us had dismounted. There were more of them now, and they were coming after us on foot using flashlights.

We made it to the tree line and pushed on. There was no more grass, and the dense trees stole our moonlight, camouflaging us. I couldn’t see where the others had gone, but Dodger snagged my jacket and dragged me along with him so I couldn’t get lost.

We ran. We ran for what felt like hours. I lost track of time. The frantic urge to get away paralleled the night I’d run in Montreal. My lungs burned anew. My muscles screamed. The only saving grace was that my body was more healed.

A molecule of panic grew in my gut after we’d been running for a while. Where were Killian and the others? Had we lost them? Had we gotten separated?

I could no longer hear the train or the men who’d been after us, but I didn’t dare turn around for fear of smacking into a tree. The black depths of the forest seemed endless.

My chest ached with the strain of our run. When I didn’t think I could keep going, a chain-link fence jumped out at me from the dark, and I ran smack into it. It shivered and rang in the quiet night, bouncing me backward and into Dodger. Stunned, I managed to grab the little holes and stay on my feet as I processed my surroundings.

“Over. Climb.” Dodger was already halfway up, glaring down at me.

The fence sat at the very edge of the tree line, marking the property of a shipping yard. A massive concrete pad lay beyond under a few dimly lit security lights mounted to the back of a building. Killian, Willow, and Tyler were on the other side.

I scrambled up and jumped down once I cleared the top. It was an eight-foot drop, and I landed on my ass again. My legs trembled from exhaustion, having turned to jelly.

Killian gave me a hand up, and once I was on my feet, I registered our frantic rush to escape seemed to have passed. I heaved and gasped, panting as I tried to catch my breath. Killian wrapped me in his arms and whispered in my ear. “I thought you were right behind me. You scared me for a second.”

“Dodger helped me keep up.”

Everyone was in the same state, out of breath and coming down from the chaos of our escape.

Dodger placed his hands on his knees and spat a wad of phlegm onto the asphalt. “Jesus fuck. I need to quit smoking. I think I’m dying.”

“Are we safe?” I asked no one in particular.

“We lost them, but they’ll probably send a truck up that service road there, so we need to clear out,” Willow said, indicating the road beyond the warehouse.

“There’s a campground about eleven miles northwest of here. Looks like they’re closed for the season. We can walk in and pitch our tents while we regroup and figure out what we’re doing,” Tyler said.

Eleven miles. I wasn’t sure I could go another eleven feet.

It was decided, and once we’d all caught our breaths, we were off.

We stayed away from the road, sticking to the shadows of trees, traipsing through farm fields, and taking a more direct route to the campground. My feet hurt after two miles, and I was sure I had a blister. The weight of my pack strained my neck and shoulders. Killian walked beside me, urging me along when I dragged my feet too much. At one point, he took my hand and wove our fingers together.

Dodger seemed upset and stayed a good clip ahead of everyone, setting a brutal pace.

No one spoke for a long time, and my guilt compounded and grew.

The sky lightened on the horizon a couple of hours into our journey. I didn’t know where we were. The landscape was flat from horizon to horizon. The odd farmhouse appeared in the dim morning light. Otherwise, our journey was nothing but a spectacle of random barns and fenced fields. Sometimes we saw combines or tractors that had been left in the open where I assumed a farmer had called it quits the previous night with the intention of returning in the morning.

The sun had properly risen by the time we were making our way through a grassy pasture. It was cool and damp. My nose dripped, and I wished I had a tissue. Birds called out, their songs echoing across the land.

We’d hopped a low wooden fence a few acres back. Tyler had claimed we were getting closer to our destination. The morning light glistened on the grass underfoot, wetting our boots and the bottoms of our pantlegs. A thick fog had risen with the sun, growing denser and denser and hovering like a blanket over the ground. It hampered our view, making it impossible to see anything beyond thirty yards or so.

“It will burn off as the day warms,” Killian said.

“It’s like something out of a Stephen King movie.”

He chuckled.

I could see my breath, and every time I exhaled, I pretended I was smoking, which made Killian laugh and roll his eyes. It was a calm morning, peaceful after such a frantic night. Everyone had relaxed during our trek to the campground.

Including Dodger.

He’d rejoined the group and was walking with Tyler and Willow, chatting quietly. He still wouldn’t look at me. From what Killian had explained, Dodger was heading home to visit his parents in Moose Jaw. He had somewhere to be, and I was the reason his plans had been delayed.

A noise in the distance brought us up short. We stopped walking as a group and stared off into the thick fog.

“What the hell am I hearing?” Killian asked.

We stayed quiet, ears cocked, listening.

I couldn’t identify the sound, but the ominous quality made a sense of panic rise in my core. I wasn’t the only one. Tyler’s tall, lanky body coiled like he was ready to spring into action.

Dodger moved back a step, hands in a fighting stance like he was ready to defend himself against an attack.

Killian grabbed hold of my jacket, his knuckles turning white.

“It sounds like…” Willow was the only one who stepped forward, squinting into the fog.

When the ground vibrated under my boots, I wasn’t the only one who felt it.

“Oh fuck.” Tyler’s eyes widened as the sound became more distinguishable. He stumbled backward from where the growing rumble emerged from the unseen pasture ahead of us. His eyes blew wide, and he screamed, “Run. Fucking run!”

We all took off, racing back the way we’d come as fast as our legs could carry us.

“What is it?” Dodger yelled.

But I thought I knew. The pieces clicked.

“Stampede!” Tyler shrieked.

I envisioned a herd of long-horned bulls like the ones I’d seen on TV, ready to skewer us. Then I imagined a thousand bison who would flatten us to the earth if they caught up. I’d seen bison on my last trip to Canada, and they were massive, terrifying creatures. Then I pictured wild horses—which was far more likely. Lastly, when the sound grew too loud to bear, I convinced myself it was elephants, even though Canada didn’t have wild elephants, but what else could possibly make the ground shake so violently?

The thunderous rhythm of hundreds of hooves hitting the packed earth grew louder and louder. The vibrations climbed up from the ground and shivered over my limbs. I prayed I didn’t trip over my feet and fall because I was certain no one would save me, and I’d find my death under the unforgiving feet of some crazed animals.

When we reached the fence we’d crossed earlier, we dove over the top and rolled on the ground after we landed, scrambling to our feet, backing away, unsure if we’d gone far enough. The approaching threat closed in on us, and for a brief moment, I wondered if they’d crash through the fence and run us over anyhow. Based on the wide-eyed fear on everyone else’s faces, I wasn’t the only one who thought that.

A moment later, large shapes took form as they emerged from the thick fog. As a group, the bodies of dozens of big animals shifted and turned sharply as they changed direction and raced along the side of the fence. It was only then we saw them for what they were.

Cows.

It was a herd of cows.

Some brown, some white, some two-toned, and all of them in some frantic race to go nowhere. They vanished out of sight, the rumbling of their hooves diminishing into the distance not long after.

Cows? Since when did cows stampede? Was that a thing?

My jaw hung open as I stared in awe at where they’d disappeared. My heart banged so hard against my ribs, I was sure it would go through the wall of my chest. For a long minute, we all stood there, stunned, motionless.

Then, Tyler burst out laughing.

It broke the tension, and everyone collapsed to the ground, laughing with him. It was laughter born from intense relief, a fizzling of overwrought emotion.

“Cows,” Willow said, incredulous. “Since when do cows do that? I thought they were lazy, docile animals that laid around and ate grass all day. I didn’t even know they could run.”

“This is too much,” Killian said, dragging himself to his feet, the fit of laughter fading. He wiped his eyes. “We need to get to this campground, preferably without getting killed by runaway cows or caught by bulls—which, ironically enough, are not the same thing. I need to fucking rest.”

In the end, we went the long way around the pasture.

Tyler, fascinated by the whole event, googled everything there was about stampeding cows as we walked. “Holy crap. Listen to this. Did you know a sixty-one-year-old farmer in Ruawai survived a stampede after his herd of one hundred and eighty dairy cattle trampled him? The dude walked away with some broken bones, and that’s it. Freaky.”

It was another hour before we reached the campground. By then, we were all exhausted. We found a small walk-in site deep in the woods and as far from the main buildings and access roads as we could get—not that it mattered since the park was locked up to the public and the rangers weren’t patrolling.

Everyone pitched a tent. I helped Killian the best I could, but as usual, I was useless, and he ended up doing it by himself. He smiled and said he didn’t mind. He looked like he meant it, but I couldn’t help feeling like a burden.

Instead of hanging around and getting in the way, I stuffed my pockets with candy and headed off for a walk to explore the area. Ever since we’d run from the train, I’d felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility for what had happened. Dodger seemed to be the only one who blamed me, but I couldn’t help wondering if everyone else was just hiding it better.

Including Killian.

My presence had to have altered his plans too.

I went far enough down a dirt road that our makeshift campsite was no longer visible. In a vacant lot, I sat on top of a rickety picnic table facing a cold fire pit filled with dark ash and partly burned logs. I unwrapped a Starburst and tucked it into my cheek as I found the two Transformer toys I’d gotten at McDonald’s. Turning them in my hand, I reflected on the past week and all that had happened.

I replayed the news interview with my parents and tried to see what Willow had seen when she’d looked into my father’s eyes. From there, I tumbled down the hole of memories surrounding Barrett.

I should have seen it coming. I should have read the signs. Even before we’d tried a whole relationship thing, he’d taken far too much of an interest in my private life. He’d had an opinion about everything. Where I’d once seen him as protective, I now saw him for what he truly was.

I let my mind wander back to the night in the penthouse, replaying everything that had happened, questioning my actions for the hundredth time. He’d backed me into a corner. He’d not given me the means to escape. If I hadn’t grabbed his knife… If I hadn’t…

My hands quaked with the memories, and I dropped a Transformer in the dirt.

I couldn’t go back in time. How could I ever live with the person I’d become?

Where did I go from here?

I was running, but where did I stop? How far would be far enough?

Would I ever escape the nausea?

Would my actions forever taint my life?

Hot tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared at the small plastic robot in the dirt. Who was I kidding?

Even if I could somehow come to terms with what I’d done to Barrett, then what?

I wasn’t a rail rider. The past few hours had proven that.

I was a joke.

I was an over-privileged billionaire’s son who didn’t know the first thing about living a hard life.

I buried my face in my hands and let the tears fall. I didn’t know what to do.