The timber landing on the overhead frame stairs was three feet wide, twelve feet long. Then it hung suspended thirty feet above the grease-churned gravel of Track One by four rusted iron tie-rods. Every time a loaded coal-heavy cart hit the approach ramp below, the landing shook with a sharp, sickening shudder that traveled straight up the soles of Tavi Rusk’s boots into his shins.
He didn’t look at the drop. A runner who looked down in the dark was a runner who ended up with his head split on a rail-frog.
Instead, Tavi braced his thighs against the wet pine handrail, his left elbow pinning Len’s zinc-bound slate firmly against his ribs. In his right hand, the rawhide loop of the iron signal rattle was wound twice around his wrist, the heavy, notched ratchet wheel resting cold against his knuckles.
Below him, the throat of Track One was collapsing into chaos.
A heavy two-wheeled heavy cart loaded with seven damp straw mattresses and four feverish children had snapped an iron tire on the crossover frog. The wagon had dropped four inches with an ugly, splintering crunch, its left hub wedging itself between the stock-rail and the timber guard-board. Two wagon drivers—big men from the lower brickworks with animal fat-stained sheepskin coats—were screaming at each other through the mist, their faces mottled with rage. One was trying to heave an iron prybar under the dropped axle. Meanwhile, the other was whipping the lead mule across the ears with a length…
