“I’ll bet this road was the eighth wonder of the world, once upon a time,” Susannah said, “and look at it now. It’s a minefield.” “Old ways are sometimes the best ways,” Roland agreed. Eddie was pointing west. “Look.”
Now that the high concrete barriers were gone, they could see exactly what old Si had described to them over cups of bitter coffee in River Crossing. “One track only,” he had said, “set up high on a colyum of man-made stone, such as the Old Ones used to make their streets and walls.” The track raced toward them out of the west in a slim, straight line, then flowed across the Send and into the city on a narrow golden trestle. It was a simple, elegant construction—and the only one they had seen so far which was totally without rust—but it was badly marred, all the same. Halfway across, a large piece of the trestle had fallen into the rushing river below. What remained were two long, jutting piers that pointed at each other like accusing fingers. Jutting out of the water below the hole was a streamlined tube of metal. Once it had been bright blue, but now the color had been dimmed by spreading scales of rust. It looked very small from this distance.
“So much for Blaine,” Eddie said. “No wonder they stopped hearing it. The supports finally gave way while it was crossing the river and it fell in the drink. It must have been decelerating when it happened, or it would have carried straight across and all we’d see would be a big hole like a bomb-crater in the far bank. Well, it was a great idea while it lasted.” “Mercy said there was another one,” Susannah reminded him. “Yeah. She also said she hadn’t heard it in seven or eight years, and Aunt Talitha said it was more like ten. What do you think, Jake . . . Jake? Earth to Jake, Earth to Jake, come in, little buddy.” Jake, who had been staring intently at the remains of the train in the river, only shrugged.
“You’re a big help, Jake,” Eddie said. “Valuable input—that’s why I love you. Why we all love you.”
Jake paid no attention. He knew what he was seeing, and it wasn’t Blaine. The remains of the mono sticking out of the river were blue. In his dream, Blaine had been the dusty, sugary pink of the bubblegum you got with baseball trading cards.
Roland, meanwhile, had cinched the straps of Susannah’s carry-har-ness across his chest. “Eddie, boost your lady into this contraption. It’s time we moved on and saw for ourselves.”
Jake now shifted his gaze, looking nervously toward the bridge loom-ing ahead. He could hear a high, ghostly humming noise in the distance— the sound of the wind playing in the decayed steel hangers which con-nected the overhead cables to the concrete deck below.
“Do you think it’ll be safe to cross?” Jake asked. “We’ll find out tomorrow,” Roland replied.