Page 5 of Healing Hazel

It slid just a bit.

Nella sucked in a breath through her teeth. She cried out as Hazel pulled again, moving the bench farther away and making the train car creak with the shifted weight.

When Hazel returned back around the bench, her friend was leaning forward, holding her ankle and breathing heavily.

With slow movements, Hazel loosed the strings and pulled off her friend’s boot and stocking. Nella’s ankle was purple with one large lump on the side. Her foot bent at an unnatural angle. “Oh, Nella.”

Nella readjusted her skirts, covering her feet. She dabbed at her face with the napkin. “Check on the captain’s bleeding again,” she said. “Then you must go for help.”

The bleeding had slowed but hadn’t stopped completely. Hazel applied fresh napkins to the captain’s head wound and retied the scarf. “What happened?” she asked Nella even though of course her friend had no more idea than she.

“I don’t know,” Nella said. “Did you elevate his head?”

Hazel put the bag beneath the captain’s head. She stood, brushing herself off, and braced herself against the wall as the compartment tilted. She paused at the door, peeking through the window into the passageway and holding herself tightly. Passengers stumbled through the corridor, trying to walk along the slanting floor. Some held injuries; others looked dazed. Would she be safe outside?

The hesitation lasted only an instant. Her friends needed help. She pulled the door, managing to slide it only partway because of the debris.

Hazel squeezed through the opening, stepped along the tilting passageway, bracing her hands against the walls, and climbed down out of the train. She was immediately surrounded by chaos.

Children cried and women screamed words she didn’t understand. Some just sat staring. Hazel turned in a slow circle, unsure of where to go or what to do. She felt lost and overwhelmed. Smoke hung in the air, and her ears were still ringing. The train car was indeed off the track and leaned on damaged wheels.

Hazel stumbled along the track, staring at the damage and the other passengers, who looked around them with the same blank confusion she felt.

Another of the train cars balanced precariously, looking as if it might topple at any moment. A piece of broken railing fell to the ground, hitting the metal of the track with a crash. The noise jolted Hazel out of her daze, and remembering her friends lying injured inside the train, she spurred herself forward. She hurried between the people, searching for whoever was in charge, but the conductors looked as lost as everyone else. Whom could she ask for help?

She came to the area that appeared the most damaged, where two train cars were completely separated and looked as if they had been blown apart. One of them lay on its side. Between them the track was a giant hole of broken wood and twisted metal. The ground was scorched, and some small fires still burned in the underbrush. The sickening smell of burning skin met Hazel’s nose. Had there been an explosion? Would there be another? Pieces of luggage lay all around, their contents strewn over the ground and in the trees. Some of the piles weren’t clothes at all, but people. They didn’t move. Hazel’s insides felt as though they were falling, and she breathed heavily. People had died. Others were moaning in pain.

Seeing two men carrying an injured woman, she followed them, stumbling away from the crater. Once the woman was settled in the shade, Hazel approached the men.

“If you please, por favor, senors, my friends need help. I can pay you; please, senors.” She motioned for them to follow, using gestures to explain her friends’ injuries and that she would happily compensate the men for their trouble.

They came to the car and climbed inside. The men stood in the compartment doorway as Hazel checked on Captain Bryant. “Nella, I brought help,” she said and then made her way through the mess to where her friend rested against the wall. Hazel looked toward the captain. “He still hasn’t woken?”

Nella shook her head.

“Should he be moved?”

“I don’t know.” Nella sighed. “Typically, that is a doctor’s decision. But in this case...” She glanced around the tilting compartment and at the hanging luggage rack that looked as if it could break free at any moment. “I think it is not safe for us here.”

Hazel dug among the glass and broken dishes and found her handbag, offering the men a wad of bills and explaining with signs that her friends needed to be moved from the train.

The men declined the money but still carried Captain Bryant from the compartment.

Hazel crouched down by her friend. “Your ankle is broken, I think, Nella. What should I do?”

Nella shook her head. “For now, there is nothing to do but wait for the swelling to dissipate.”

“Have you anything for pain, perhaps in your bag?”

Nella shook her head again and closed her eyes.

Seeing the pain in her friend’s face, Hazel did not ask her any more questions. She held Nella’s hand instead, settling down among the wreckage to wait.

After a few moments, the men returned and carried Nella from the car.

While her companions were being relocated, Hazel gathered their things. The three of them had only their travel bags and a few hatboxes in the compartment. The larger traveling trunks were in the luggage car.

When she joined them outside, the two men tipped their hats and departed, leaving Hazel, an unconscious Captain Bryant, and Nella on a grassy spot in the shade. Hazel set down their bags and sat on the ground beside them, surrounded by other burned, broken, and bleeding train passengers.

---