Karl looked at the windows and finally saw what Silas had not told him. A thick layer of frost covered all the windows, ice bound frost that had trickled down to form dams at the base of each pane of glass.
How could that happen so fast? Marks on the left cab windows and the wood wedge lying on the chair told Karl that Silas had been reacting to the strange event until he had fallen back into the cab.
“How long was I up there?”
“Only a few minutes.” Silas turned his attention to the window ahead of Karl. “If this keeps up, we may have to slow down. The ice was forming faster than I could scrape it off.”
Before he could stop himself, Karl said. “No, they need us as soon as possible.” He looked at the gages and tried to understand the state of his locomotive while still bemused by the encounter. The readings were odd, as if the boiler had lost fifteen degrees of heat in the time Karl had been outside. They were slowing slightly, but there seemed to be no damage to the train and as he watched, the boiler regained a few degrees of heat.
“God help us if we hit a cow while we’re blind.” Silas retrieved the wooden wedge and set to clearing Karl’s window.
“No, no. Give it to me.” Karl held his hand out for the wedge.
Silas looked at the engineer in surprise. The man was changing as he watched, softening his rigid discipline.
“He had one of those wide-brimmed hats on.” Karl began clearing the ice from his window.
“Like Buffalo Bill?”
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“No,” Karl finally stopped shaking as he worked on his side window. Once again, the track ahead continued in unbroken twin lines in the thickening snow. How many times were they going to need to clean the windows before they reached Cloquet?
The dull thoughts that had hampered him seemed to fade away as cleaned windows allowing unfettered sight into the night. How far had they come?
“Have you seen any station lights?” Karl bent forward to peer out his window.
“Nope, we be close to Rush City by now.” Silas looked at Karl in concern. Nothing about this night had been as he expected. The truth might have been laying in plain view, but he could not understand it. “Karl, the time for games is over. I need to know what you are thinking.”
Karl nodded and dabbed a rag to his split lip and handed the wooden wedge to Silas. “You think I hate the color of your skin and I said no. You want to know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Silas glanced at Karl.
“I live truth. I can not tolerate men who will not speak the truth. Sometimes they know they are lying,” Karl held up a forestalling hand to Silas, then pointed at the fire-man. “And sometimes they don’t know they believe a lie.”
“This is truth; you and your father were never men living as slaves, as property owned and abused by other men.”
Once again, Karl nodded at the protest on Silas’s lips and held up a hand to stop the comment. “You have lived the life of a man restrained by the thoughts and actions of others, but the real chains come from yourself. I know this because I have lived the same life. When I arrived in America, I received similar treatment. Skin color is not the difference we face from those people who would command us; it is their feeling of superiority that makes them inhuman.”
It was the longest statement Silas had ever heard from the engineer and ran contrary to every feeling he had to his core.
Karl sat in pained silence as he watched Silas mull over his words, occasionally taking glances at the gages to ensure the boiler was continuing to warm.
“How is this truth?” Silas looked at Karl, his brown eyes locked on the engineer as if waiting for a trap to spring closed.
“I have told no one of this. You are the first, and it is hard.” Karl touched a hand to his face; the skin was cool despite sweat that rolled from his hairline. He was frostbitten. “I was one of those men who believe they are superior to all. I was one of those fools.”