Lost on the Prairie Page 2

  I shout. “Hey! Wait! Sylvester, what’s the hurry?”

  “Conductor told us about the Krug Amusement Park on 52nd street. Now that’ll be something, Peter. But we need to get there pretty quick if we want to have some fun before we head back to the train.”

  I’m panting by the time we spot a towering wooden frame outlined against the blue sky. It twists and turns like a giant-sized version of Grandpa Hugo’s puzzles. Open cars race on tracks that plunge and swoop and surge straight up steep mountains.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a roller coaster, Peter,” says Levi. “They call it the Big Dipper. Want to go for a ride?”

  We stride into the park, which is as noisy and jam-packed as a cattle yard on auction day. Men crowd around tables toasting each other with foaming glasses of Krug’s beer.

  I see a sign with the words Tunnel of Love over a kind of cave on a waterway. Couples are climbing into little boats and rowing into the cave. “What will they do in there in the dark?” I ask Sylvester.

  “You will find out when you’re a little older, Peter . . . but look up.”

  There in the sky is a giant red and yellow balloon with a basket under it. People are leaning over the edges waving to those of us down below.

  I look up so long I get a crick in my neck. What would it be like to float that close to the clouds? My stomach dips and sways and my heart foxtrots with excitement just thinking about it.

  “We don’t have enough money for a ride in the balloon, Peter,” says Sylvester, “but I sold my accordion to cousin Valentine before we left Newton, and you can have two bits if you want to ride the roller coaster.”

  “Don’t you and Levi want to go?” I ask him.

  Sylvester scratches behind his ear. “I don’t think it’s really for me,” he admits, “and Levi says he’s rather ride the Ferris wheel. I’ll just watch you on the roller coaster, Peter.”

  I have to stand in line to get on the roller coaster, but I hardly notice time pass because there are dancing women on the stage nearby lifting their long legs high in the air and holding up their skirts while a band blares music. Suddenly a foot hits my behind so hard I kind of stumble forward. “Hey,” I yell angrily and turn around to see a girl about my age, her face radish red.

  “I’m ever so sorry!” Her freckled cheeks crumple up and her blue eyes wince. “I was trying to see if I could lift my leg as high as those ladies.”

  “Guess you can,” I say, laughing, and then, remembering my manners, I stick out my hand.

  “Peter Schmidt. I’m from Kansas.”

  “Nice to meet you, Peter. I’m Annie.” She shakes my hand hard like she means it. “My Papa runs this roller coaster and he’s letting me have a free ride tonight.”

  “My brother paid for my fare.” I point at Sylvester and he gives me a wave and a grin.

  When it’s our turn to get on the roller coaster, a broad-shouldered, black-bearded worker who is opening the door of every car asks, “Mind if my girl Annie sits with you, son?”

  “No, sir,” I say, and Annie slides in next to me. Her brown hair smells like the lilacs growing round our house in Newton, and her petticoat tickles my leg. It makes me feel sort of squirmy but real good at the same time.

  The car lurches forward, and Annie’s fingers clutch my leg. I put my palm down on top of her hand and spikes of excitement speed to different parts of my body. I hardly notice we’ve reached the top of the first steep hill on the roller coaster frame.

  As the car plummets like a falling star, Annie starts shrieking the way Mama did the time a family of bats swooped out of the root cellar.

  “That first drop always terrifies me,” Annie confesses once we reach the bottom of it. “Weren’t you scared?”

  I nod. Newton seems very far away as I tilt my chin up at the dusky sky. Is this really me? Peter Schmidt, riding a roller coaster in a strange city with a pretty girl beside me?

  Just then, there’s a skin-crawling screech and our roller coaster car stops so quick our chests lurch forward over the bar in front of us.

  “What’s wrong?” Annie looks down. “Oh no!”

  The front car on one of the trains below us has crashed through the guard rail and teeters on the brink of the roller coaster frame. For a long moment, it hangs there balancing like one of those tightrope walkers I saw at the county fair. The screams coming from the people in the train below are sharp with terror.

  And then the first car plunges off the edge, pulling along the three cars behind it. The lead car lands upside down on the ground with a thud that sends a rippling tremor through the whole frame of the roller coaster.

  The other cars don’t make it all the way to the ground and crash onto one of the lower tracks. Miraculously none of them flip over. They land like coins that have been tossed into a basket and all turn up heads.

  “Look,” Annie shouts pointing below us. “Papa is climbing the roller coaster frame. He is going to try and rescue those people.”

  Annie buries her face in my shoulder and grabs my neck as hard as Mama did at the station saying goodbye. “I can’t watch,” she says.

  Annie’s papa makes his way up to the derailed cars and, one by one, helps the people get out. He guides them as they climb down the roller coaster frame to the ground.

  Annie and I can’t tear our eyes away from the rescue being carried out down below, even though watching it is terrifying. We can see that some of the people have blood running down their faces. Annie’s papa has two of the children crawl onto his back and he carries them to the ground. He does the same thing for a woman who seems to have broken her leg.

  Once all the people from the crashed cars are safe, Annie’s papa starts making his way up to our train. Annie is shaking and sobbing as she watches him. Her hand holding mine trembles.

  We are in the last car of our train, so Annie’s papa reaches us first. He squeezes her shoulder and gives me a confident nod before we begin the treacherous trip. Her papa’s smooth, strong voice tells us where to carefully put our feet next and where to grasp the wooden frame with our hands. In between these instructions he chants over and over in a low, rolling river of comfort, “Everything will turn out just fine.”

  Levi and Sylvester are waiting at the bottom of the roller coaster when my feet finally touch grassy ground. They each grab one of my hands.

  “We’ve got to go, Peter!” shouts Sylvester. “We’re going to miss the train.” They start running, pulling me along with them. I twist my head around for just a second and see Annie being hustled away by an older woman. “Annie,” I call out. She turns and gives me a little wave.

  “Run, Peter. Run!” my brothers holler. I start to run, faster than I ever thought I could.

  If we miss the train, what will happen to the chickens and pigs?

  To Prince and Gypsy?

  Will my gopher family survive?

  And what will Mama say if the train shows up in Canada without us?

  When we arrive at the train station, my lungs feel as huge and hot as the air balloons at the amusement park. I’m drenched with sweat.

  The conductor shakes his head. “I was mighty worried about you fellows. We’re pulling out directly.”

  Sylvester and Levi swing up into their cars and as I run down to mine, the last one on the train, I can hear them holler, “See you in Fargo.”

  I jump aboard and collapse in the straw. Before the conductor even slides the door shut, I’m asleep. I don’t even notice when the wheels screech and we begin rolling north, but even in my dreams I can feel the train chugging along beneath my body like a lullaby following the beat of my snoring.

  Chapter 4

  ''SAVE HER!'' I SCREAM, AS Annie’s wrist jerks from my handhold. She tumbles down from the roller coaster car. Her papa waits below, arms wide, boots rooted, but before I find out whether he catches her or not, I wake up.

  I’m shaking. Curly threads of steam spiral from Prince and Gypsy’s nostrils. Arrows of sun seep
through the slits in the corners of the railcar, but they can’t pierce the block of icy air trapping me.

  I rub my head to erase the image of Annie falling from my mind. I shudder as I remember the people who dropped from the roller coaster last night with no chance of being caught in someone’s open arms. I think about Annie. Will I ever see her again?

  My crazy dream keeps bouncing around in my brain, so it is a few minutes before I realize the train isn’t moving. Have we arrived in Fargo?

  I expect the conductor will come and open the door soon. I’m awful hungry. The mama gopher has finished the last crumbs from my food sack, and we left Omaha in such a hurry that Sylvester and Levi didn’t buy sandwiches and apples from the lady selling them outside the saloon like we planned.

  It’s powerful quiet. The train station in Omaha was louder than our churchyard after a wedding. Whistles shrieking, conductors hollering “all aboard,” babies bawling, peddlers trying to out-bellow each other. But here there aren’t any sounds at all. Is everyone in Fargo still sleeping?

  I try doing Grandpa Hugo’s puzzle, but my fingers are so cold they can barely move. I lace them together and bring them up to my lips to warm them with my breath. Why isn’t the conductor coming?

  “Hey! Open the door!” I get up and start pounding on the door with my fist. “Is anybody out there? I’m starving and freezing in here.”

  Has the conductor forgotten about me? If he has, surely Sylvester and Levi will come to let me out. Unless . . . the conductor has forgotten about them too.

  I flex my muscles and attack the huge wooden door panel, but it won’t budge. I can see it is anchored shut on the inside because of a curved metal hook that has slipped into place through an iron loop. It looks an awful lot like a link in one of Grandpa Hugo’s puzzles. I study it for a bit. If I could just get that metal hook up through the loop, maybe I could slide the door open.

  I try hammering the hook with my fist till my skin tears and bruises stain my hand. I go check on my gopher family to see if they are staying warm. But they look real cozy inside the sugar sack, snuggled deep in the crater I’ve made for them in the hay. Next to their nest I see the shovel I used to kill the copperhead.

  I take it back to the door and start pounding on the metal hook with the shovel blade. It edges upward just a tiny bit with each ringing blow. I start counting one, two . . . and when I get to fifty the metal hook pops out of the loop. I fall backwards into the hay, exhausted. Prince snorts and Gypsy nudges me up with her nose.

  I pull on the door and it opens just a sliver. I wedge my body sideways in the crack I’ve made and shove back. The door moves a little more. I give one last heave and the opening becomes wide enough for me to jump down out of the car.

  My feet slip right out from under me as I land and I tumble down a rocky ravine. The jagged edges of stones rip my jacket and pants and scrape my skin as I bounce down, down, down like a ricocheting rifle bullet. I put out my foot to brace myself as I crash into a pine and lie there in a bleeding ball.

  After a moment, I try to stand up, sliding my back along the wide tree trunk for support, but I sway and shake and when I open my eyes everything around me is spinning in blurry circles. My foot hurts something terrible. I stand like a crippled crane. Sweating and exhausted after just a few seconds, I sink back down on the rusty pine needles carpeting the base of the tree and shake my head to clear it.

  Minutes later, I try to carefully rise again. My shoe is suffocating my swelling ankle. I look up, way up, at the train tracks at the top of the ravine I’ve landed in.

  “Land sakes!” I scream.

  The whole rest of the train is gone.

  Not there.

  Vanished.

  The engine is gone.

  The cars carrying my brothers are gone.

  All the boxcars are gone.

  My car sits alone on the tracks. I must be dreaming again, or maybe my fall has done something to my eyesight. I squeeze my eyes closed and count to ten and then look up again. No. The train has definitely disappeared.

  I drop back down. I drag my legs up to my behind. My jacket and pants are so ripped from my rocky tumble down the ravine that I may as well be naked. My skin is shredded and in places thin strips of it twist like stringy noodles dangling from my bruised bones. There is scarcely an inch of my body that isn’t pierced with pain.

  Slowly, I raise my head again to my lonely railcar, and then I throw my head back and scream at the sky. “Herman, this is all your fault! Why did you up and die? If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here!”

  I drop my head onto my bloodied knees. I start to cry in great gulping sobs that shake my shoulders and rattle my rib cage.

  I CRY SUCH A LONG spell that eventually my tears dry up and even the slime from my nose stops dripping.

  The sun is straight and true above me when my ears catch a faint neighing and nickering coming from the train car. It’s Gypsy and Prince. They must be scared and worried and wondering where in the world I’ve got to.

  My horses need me.

  My gophers need me.

  My mama needs me safe so she won’t stay all sad forever.

  My papa needs me to work with him, and he needs the horses even more, to help us start farming in Canada.

  Surely Sylvester and Levi will send someone back to get me once they notice I’m gone, but will they find me way down here? I need to get back up to the train car somehow, and I have to do it before nightfall.

  I scan the ravine. About thirty yards away, a steep path snakes up the slope. It’s clear of trees and bushes and dirt packed. I drag myself over to a dead branch and pick it up to keep steady as I try to stand. The rough bark stings my palms, criss-crossed with cuts, but the branch gives me balance and keeps some of my weight off my ballooning ankle.

  I shuffle over to the path and start climbing. I carefully count ten steps and then stop to rest. On parts of the trail where it is very steep, I sit down and wiggle myself up backwards so I won’t lose my balance.

  When I plop down about halfway up the slope I notice the bushes all around me are covered with gooseberries. I grab as many as I can and stuff them in my mouth. Their bitterness bites my tongue and their juice puckers the inside of my cheeks before it dribbles down my chin. I drop some of the berries in my pockets for the gophers and Prince and Gypsy.

  As I walk, I keep my head down because looking at the steep climb ahead makes me dizzy. With my eyes to the ground I spy some hickory nuts and black walnuts. Maybe I can crack them open later in the railcar with my shovel. I carefully slide my shoe off my swollen foot and fill it with the nuts. Then I tie the shoe around my neck by the lace. My ankle feels better freed from its leather prison.

  The sun is sinking huge and orange when I finally reach the tracks. I won’t be able to get in on the side of the railcar where I left because there’s a good chance I’d just tumble back down the ravine. I limp over to other side and open the door there using the iron handle.

  Prince and Gypsy toss their manes, wave their tails and nicker loud and long to greet me. I feed them berries but I’m too tired to crack the nuts. I drop a few berries into the gopher sack, and then I lay my hands on Prince and Gypsy’s broad backs.

  “Let’s lie down,” I say. They obediently lower themselves to the floor of the railcar. The straw is mighty stinky from their dung and pee, but it doesn’t matter. I cocoon myself between their warm, hairy bodies and quickly fall asleep.

  Chapter 5

  THE MINUTE I WAKE UP in the morning I know I have to get Gypsy and Prince out of this foul smelling boxcar and into the sunshine. In Omaha the conductor and my brothers easily placed a wide board to make a bridge to the ground from the railcar for the horses to walk down. Moving that heavy board in place all by myself is powerful tiring work. It takes me a long while and leaves me weak as a newborn calf.

  My throat is dusty dry. My stomach is rumbling and rattling like a rusty truck engine. The crusted-over cuts on my body have stopped bleeding b
ut some are oozing yellow and green stuff as thick as pond sludge. My ankle’s still swollen and twisted.

  I’ve got no real choice but to go looking for food and water. I’m not sure how far away we are from Fargo, but the soonest anyone will notice me missing is probably when the train gets there, and then who knows how long it will take to send someone back for me. I can’t just wait around. I have to be strong and smart like Papa told Mama I was, and brave like Harvey grew to be in Captains Courageous. I have to find help.

  Gypsy is my favourite horse. She seems to always know how I’m feeling and she’ll give me a little nuzzle with her nose on my neck when I’m sad, or a nudge in my behind when I’m scared. But Prince is stronger, faster, and braver too when it comes right down to it. He can best carry me on his back and help me face whatever dangers lie out there over the rolling ridge in the distance. It is Prince I need to take to go for help and I need to leave Gypsy behind, hard as that may be.

  After I get the horses outside, they start grazing on the grass growing fresh and full beside the tracks. I use the shovel to crack the nuts I found as I climbed up the ravine yesterday and I give them to my gophers. I know I have to let the gophers go. I have nothing more to feed their mama and no notion how long I’ll be gone. They are so tiny they could easily be dead by the time I get back. I have to set them loose and hope their mama can find food and a safe place to dig a burrow where she can protect her babies.

  So I take their sugar sack out of the railcar, lay it on the ground, and step away. The mama gopher comes out first, her head darting this way and that in the bright sun, and then her young ones scoot out and scatter like little bullets into the brush. Their mama races after them.

  I don’t even realize I am crying till the saltiness of my tears stings the scratches on my hand. “Gruss Gott,” I whisper to my gophers, just the way Grandpa did when I left Kansas.

  I’m wishing so bad I had a pencil and piece of paper, but I don’t. I get my pocket knife and carve four words in the trunk of a white birch tree near the tracks. Headed over ridge. Peter S. The sun has moved straight up overhead by the time I’m done.