Oregon, March 2019

Eight days after his sixty-third birthday, when Walter Bergen arrived at the yard office, where he had arrived so many mornings over the course of thirty-one years, he walked past the vending machines to the bulletin board and paused to read the notes out of habit, as though they had any bearing on his future-they did not. For today was Walter Bergen's last day at Amtrak, a milestone that had been steadily and inevitably approaching for months, and a reality he still could not quite allow himself to accept.

As a senior operator, Walter had been offered relocation before the cutbacks, but he took the buyout instead and decided to pull the pin. He'd been a stranger to his family for three decades, and he figured it was time to start making up for lost time. But what would he do with himself beyond write checks for Wendy's endless wedding arrangements?

His wife, Annie, had no shortage of plans for Walter, and truth be told Walter was none too excited about most of them. She'd been haranguing him for months to join her gym. She'd probably make him take art classes down at the co-op studio, or, God forbid, dance classes. Hell, she'd probably try to make a vegan out of him eventually. And he was 99 percent positive she had some kind of surprise retirement party planned for him that night after work, a possibility he dreaded.

With the clock creeping closer to seven a.m., the reality started to sink in a bit. This was it, the last trip through the office. No more track bulletins. No more wiseass repartee with Nate, or Bill, or Sharon, or Monty, or whoever happened to be on shift. No more tepid coffee, no more faxes, no more bowl of Almond Joys. All of these little rituals and habits that had become the window dressing of his life for the past three decades would be gone tomorrow. Walter still hadn't cleaned out his locker.

It was a point of pride to Walter that no less than four generations of Bergens had given themselves to the rails at some point, beginning with his great-great-grandfather Finnegan, one of those intrepid and criminally underpaid souls who drove spikes halfway across the prairie and blasted through the mountains all the way to Promontory Point for that historic joining of the Union and Central Pacific lines. On his heels came Walter's grandfather Emmet, fifteen years a brakeman on the O & CRR. Then there was Walter's own father, Pete, first a brakeman, then a hostler, and finally an engineer for BNSF. Walter's love affair with trains had begun before he could even walk. According to his mother, his first utterance, even before "Mama," had been "Too-too."

Walter had stopped holding out hope for Wendy by the time she was out of high school. She had no interest in the railroad or diesel engines, which was sort of ironic, all things considered. Walter had taken Wendy on countless ride-alongs since the time she was a toddler. He'd dressed her in overalls and a striped conductor's cap; bought her wooden trains, electric trains; and, the summer after her junior year in high school, tried to bribe her to do an internship at Amtrak. All of these attempts had been fruitless.

For the Bergens it seemed that the railroad, more than anything else, had delivered on the promise of America. The railroad had meant freedom and opportunity and mobility. And there was no getting around the fact that Walter's retirement spelled the end of the railroad line for the Bergen name.

It had never been Walter's idea to retire at sixty-three. He'd figured he'd be running this line for another five years, at least. Walter loved the railroad life; it was practically all he knew. Of course, the job had its drawbacks. The hours could be brutal and the shifts unpredictable. Then there was the fact that management culture had not changed since the Civil War. Hell, most of his superiors didn't know a train from a horse's ass. But every job had its drawbacks. The satisfaction that came with a job well done, the tangible result of piloting a train safely and smoothly from point A to point B, far outweighed the shortcomings.

"Wally," came a familiar voice.

Walter spun his head around to see Nate, clutching a Garfield coffee mug, cap pulled low over his forehead.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were dead," Nate said, pleased with himself.

"Get out of here," said Walter.

But he couldn't help feeling a little pang of nostalgia watching Nate go. Good old Nate; affable, familiar, consistent as hell. Pretty serious case of halitosis, but Walter had learned over the years how to keep just enough distance between the two of them to avoid breathing it in. It was hard to fathom that he'd smelled Nate's breath for the last time. Walter leaned against a folding table in the rear of the office (for the last time) and checked his forms, sipping his tepid coffee.

No flags, no holdups, no obstacles. A little snow in the forecast, but surely not enough to foul up the schedule. Swilling the last of his coffee, Walter walked out the back door, tossing his paper cup in the garbage pail. Hopping off the platform and crossing the yard, Walter paused to watch the goat clatter slowly up and over the hump. God, the beautiful racket of it all: the sighing and hissing, the rattle and clack of the cars over the rails. These were the sounds that had made America the greatest country on earth. More than any other sound, Walter would miss the deafening but plaintive cry of the horns, which no matter their proximity always managed to sound far away. For this was the very sound that had captured Walter's imagination as a child, the sound of possibility, the sound of faraway places, the sound of American ingenuity.

Walter looked up at the sky just in time for the first wet snowflake to hit his face before he continued on across the yard.

Bill Boyce was waiting in the roundhouse, clipboard in hand.

"Wally," he said. "I heard you died."

"Eat me," said Walter.

They began their walk around, inspecting the running gear back to front, as Bill checked the boxes. There was a little water leakage under the engine, but nothing excessive. Bill had checked the seals and the head gasket as recently as last week and found everything in order.

"So, when's the big wedding?" said Bill.

"July," said Walter.

"Bet that's gonna clean you out."

"Pshh. You're not kidding. You have any idea what a caterer costs?" said Walter. "A dance floor? Twenty-five blown-glass votives? Damn flower arrangements?"

"I don't wanna know. Should have had a boy, Wally."

"Don't make much difference anymore," Walter said.

"Suppose not. Riggings look good," said Bill, checking the box.

"Hell, Wendy thinks she's a man, as far as I can tell. I guess I'm okay with that. You just figure she might have some interest in trains, considering."

"What's her partner's name again?"

"Kit."

"Like Kitty?"

"Just Kit."

"What kind of name is that?"

Walter sighed, "I dunno, Bill. There's a lot I don't know anymore."

Bill set a supportive hand on Walter's shoulder and gave him a clap on the back.

"Let's go ahead and check the cab," he said.

Before he mounted the cab, Walter took a deep breath and savored the familiar smell of the yard one more time. It had taken him a few years, but he'd grown to love the smell of diesel. It clung to every stitch of his clothing and even his skin, according to Annie. Wasn't a laundry detergent in the world that could get rid of the smell, but it meant a paycheck. And it meant a lot more: It meant speed, and power, and passenger satisfaction. It was a noble fuel, diesel; it burned slowly and efficiently.

"She still getting shaky at seventy-nine?" said Bill.

"Little bit," Walter said. "Not so bad as she used to. About threw me out of my seat a couple years back."

"How about acceleration?"

"Full of oats."

Bill paused in his box checking to scratch his neck and peer out the cab window as the snow began falling harder, splatting in fat drops against the windshield.

"So, what are you gonna do with yourself, Wally? You gonna start doing crosswords? Model trains?"

"Thinking about a second career," said Walter.

"Porno, huh?"

"Haven't got the necessary equipment, I'm afraid. Always did want to play center field for the Mariners, though."

"I'd say you're strictly DH material with that gut," said Bill.

"Look who's talking," said Walter.

After Bill checked the last box, he gave Walter another pat on the shoulder that nearly morphed into an awkward hug but came up mercifully short.

"Well," said Bill.

"Get out of here," said Walter.

Once Bill was clear of the ladder, Walter turned on the wipers and began activating the switchboard with robotic precision. He ducked down the corridor to the engine room and primed the engine, then, returning to the cab, he set the brakes. He could have done it all in his sleep.

Wishing he had another cup of coffee, Walter walked the length of the corridor past the passengers, nodding to the occasional soul who looked up to engage him. Once he released the hand brake, he walked past them again in the other direction. If Walter did his job right, some of those folks would be napping by the time he delivered them. That was the real sign of a good engineer: sleeping passengers.

Once the train was prepped and ready to roll, Monty assigned Walter a clear track, and Walter eased the throttle forward a notch and began crawling out of the yard, right on schedule.

The Bergens

Atlantic Ocean, 1851

Alma and the twins huddled atop their tiny pallet in the darkness, all that was left of the Bergens of Cork. Their throats scorched, they cloaked their faces against the fetid air. It was the only way. Stomach clenched, head...