The engineer releases the brakes and uncenters the reverser, realizing that the four blue-and-yellow GP38s won’t be able to make the hill on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Joint Line at Palmer Lake, Colorado. Black breath billows from the diesel vents and the 38s grind along on frozen steel rails with eighteen thousand horsepower. The clouds salt the air with dry flakes, and the wind helps the powder take up the orange spinning of the hood light on the lead locomotive. It’s 2:14 in the morning, and the snow has prevented us from making the hill. We come to a full stop at mile marker forty-seven just north of Palmer Lake when the flakes plop on the windshield, and I flip the wiper toggle on the conductor’s window, looking for the middle school kids trying to agitate us with snowballs, but no one is there; I only see giant flakes becoming powdery yellow in the whir of the hood light before being crushed into white dust on frigid locomotive steel. The frozen orbs play a cacophony of knells on the hood above the warm cab. The signal aspect ahead of us is blood red. I glance at my BNSF five-year gold watch and I realize I left three calves and the heifer out in the dry pasture to leech up the rest of the alfalfa stubble lying dead and dry in the snowy mud.

The engineer dials dispatch. They’ll have to connect the head diesels from the train behind us and push us over the hill. They’re heading south near Castle Rock now. It won’t take long for them to get here. The lead units will leave their train, couple to ours; we’ll send the air to the back of the train, do a brake test, and then they’ll push us over the hill and uncouple. The only problem is the wait. The waiting is the worst.

It doesn’t matter though, as long as the cows stay in the pasture. They have enough water. If it’s snowing rocks they’ll go to the lean-to; it’s just a few pieces of rusty sheet metal I nailed up between the trunks of three maples along the north side of the pasture. They won’t mind getting cold and wet, but they’ll notice the white rocks falling from above, painting their backs with that toothpaste-blue frosty rime. They will stay warm, though. They warm up when they breathe heavy, snot dripping out of soggy nostrils like hot glue. They’ll be fine. I’ve been gone for longer than this. They are used to it since my wife died. Some of them probably still remember when she left, but most I’ve sent to be slaughtered since then.

The engineer sighs, pulls the side window down, lights a cigarette, and the wind blows his black breath back into the cab. He flips the overhead lights on. I turn away from it, squint, look out the window to watch the snow, white flecks flying to the cold earth. The light’s off again. The engineer leans back in his chair; I watch the snow. It drifts against the barbed wire and oak posts collaring the pastures; it covers the yellow stalks until they disappear. While we wait a northbounder comes down the hill heading to Denver. It’s an empty coal hopper drag—a hundred or so cars, wheels clanging along on cold wet rail—carrying the haunting memories of crushed coal, but now only the cold screams of the north wind occupy them. Hollow. Frozen. It’ll change crews in Denver before it heads on to Sheridan, then Laramie, and a final stop at the coal plant in Laurel. I used to work that Powder River run from Sheridan to Laurel, breathing in snowy winds sauntering through the amber aspen leaves in October, the tiny golden coins flitting like salt in a glass shaker as they blew in the cold breeze. That was before my wife died.

The engineer snores. Broken grunts that mimic the light thuds of snow hitting the hood and remind me of my cows. We built the water tank out of sheet metal scraps—welded shards of cold, malleable tin. Built it in a day. Sharon used to fill the water tank from the rusty well lever. She would walk out on summer mornings—the cold dew wet on her feet—lift the lever, lead cattle to the constant splash of water in the murky metal basin. Tails would flip, legs would labor to the tank. Lazy legs like ones we try to walk on after we’ve sat too long that make bones and blood tingle. The tank was always full when Sharon looked after it, but she got the diagnosis two years ago. Brain tumor. They gave her ten months. Within a month she holed up on the living room couch, blankets and quilts covering tired limbs. She would lie with her eyes open, staring at the ripples in the plastered ceiling. Three months of radiation turned blue eyes pale. In the end, the only thing she worried about were the cows. Dried and cracked lips wondered if the water was full, how much alfalfa was left. I would hold her hand. Dry. Pale. She would fall asleep after that, listening to the tick of the gray cat clock on the wall.

Now, as I view the red aspect of the signal mast, I think of the cows, the water and alfalfa depending on the indiscretion of the halogen glow staring back at me along the cold, black rails, hoping that the green light will let us take these seven thousand tons of crushed carbon to the basin of a coal elevator, ship it to the black belly of the refinery; let it light living rooms, heat the recesses of a bedroom that some old man shares with ghosts. Memories. Memories of sunny days swimming in the lake up in the Pike National Forest, of trout fishing along the Gunnison River, Thanksgiving apple pies, and the soft glow of burning pine behind the glass gate of the living room stove, extinguished now. Cold. Dark.

The snow is no longer hitting the hood. A call wails over the radio. It is the other southbound train. The locomotives have cut away from their train and are waiting for us to set the brakes. They connect to us. The conductor laces air hoses, connects steel knuckles.

We are ready and the engineer engages the throttle. The cab rattles, wheels scream on frozen rails as they grind forward, like the minute hand of a watch. Finally, the conductor from the rear locomotives cuts in. We’re moving. The hill is steep and the snow breaks off the hood, banks on the window. Dry powder blows along with the swing of the wiper blades. Snow blows along the rolling grass as we begin to take the hill. The locomotives on the back will push another quarter mile; we will reach the crossing at Palmer Lake. We will roll down the opposite side of the hill, pass through the crossing. We will stop and the locomotives will cut off. We will leave them behind. I think of my cows. They will drink when I lift the heavy handle of the well, let the water run in the cold night. I will make a fire in the gas stove when I get home, listen to the tired tick of the gray cat clock on the wall. Wheels roll on frozen steel. Tired. Cold. They never seem to stop.

Scott Beard has both a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Curriculum and Instruction from Wichita State University. His writing has appeared in The Report, LEVITATE magazine, and Dime Show Review. He enjoys fishing, hiking, reading, writing, traveling, and ice hockey. He can be reached at shockers1981@hotmail.com.  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scott.beard.357