It took a second for Karl to realize what he was seeing and his immediate reaction was denial. “What?” he exclaimed.

Once more, a figure stood on the tracks as the locomotive rushed north. This man, dressed like the last, even with the wide-brimmed hat and frontier coat blowing in the wind as a gale of snow swept between the train and man.

“That’s impossible,” Silas echoed from the other side of the cab as he looked out his window.

Reaching up blindly, Karl grasped the whistle and pulled a warning blast, knowing it was too late for the man.

The figure never moved, remaining in front of the train. Then he was gone, hidden by the front of the locomotive.

Both Karl and Silas winced as they imagined the impact and the body sucked under the onrushing steel.

“Was that the same guy?” Karl looked at Silas, who responded with a shrug. He had not seen the first man.

Cold seemed to seep into the cab from the front of the boiler. Looking at his gauges, Karl saw the boiler temperature was falling again. “Add coal,” he ordered.

“Should we check to see…?” Silas gestured towards the front of the train.

The light at the head of the train flickered.

Karl leaned over the air brake manifold and past the curve of the boiler to get his face as close to the window as possible. The train’s light had never gone out; he had never run the night blind. Yet as he watched, the light flickered again, then went dark for a moment. When it returned, the light was weaker, a pale yellow to the silver just seconds before.

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“Where did the light go?” Karl said to himself.

Something moved at the front of the train, the light shifting to the action. Then settling as if someone was standing on the fore platform, just above the cowcatcher and knuckle. Both men now leaned into the narrow confines between the boiler and the sides of the cab as they searched the night for an answer. Unknowingly, they both used rags to wipe the windows as they stared into the dark.

The light shifted again, this time a flap of cloth waving past the side of the boiler head. Thick cloth moving heavy in the stiff wind, cloth that looked like dark fur for the briefest of seconds.

Jerking back from the window, Karl could not close his open mouth, a scream trapped in his throat. He looked to Silas for some kind of denial of the impossible.

The man with the strange hat was standing on the front of the train, impervious to the frigid wind.

Karl’s hand drifted towards the throttle, preparing to slow the train, but blocked by Silas’s firm grip. “Don’t,” the man advised with desperation, his eyes boring into Karl intently. “Whatever that thing is, it’s not good.”

“It’s a man,” Karl replied with a catch to his voice, knowing the words were wrong as he said them. That was no man on the front of the train.

"No, you’re wrong.” Leaning close to Karl, Silas peered out the front window with the engineer. “This thing has nothing to do with God.”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with a Baptist.” Karl regained some of his strength and pulled his hand away from the throttle.

The man moved once again, occluding the light, leaving only the dim red light from the small direction signal to the side of the stack. With the bright light flickering on the coat, Karl could not understand what the man was doing for a few moments. All came clear as the coat pulled up and out of the light, followed by the shadow of a leg and boot. It stood on the top of the boiler just ahead of the exhaust stack with legs spread wide, balancing against the torrent of wind as it seemed to study the train.

Both men in the cab of the locomotive instinctively drew back from the windows, holding their breath as they waited for this thing to act.