The rhythm of the rails, a lulling beat,
A dying cigar's scent, the midnight haze.
Then came a moan, a heavy, final sound—
The engineer slumped forward to the floor.
I tied him to his seat, a lifeless form,
And pulled the whistle cord in frantic dread.
The fireman gone, the rules betrayed, I stood
Alone with tons of steel and speed and night.
Then in the cab, a sudden, silent shape—
A man with wild and unkempt, shaggy hair.
"You chump!" he squeaked. "See that short rod? Now pull."
My hands obeyed the stranger's sharp command.
The power died, the shuddering wheels complained,
But on the tracks the monstrous train stood still.
"Go look," he said, "upon the second car."
I saw the fireman's remains, a brutal price.
Then came the label, stark in shadowed light:
DANGER. DYNAMITE. The words burned in my skull.
He stood beside me then, that shaggy man,
And whispered of the past's unyielding law:
"If you go back and let an ancestor die..."
A truth more explosive than the freight we bore.