Diana smiled, scanning it with her handheld reader. “You’ve got thirty seconds. Next time, don’t argue with the alarm clock.”
At Milepost 47, near the old trestle bridge, a deer froze on the tracks. Diana felt the lurch before the horn even sounded. She braced herself in the vestibule, radio in hand. “Easy now,” she said quietly, as if the deer could hear. The engineer braked just in time. The deer bolted into the trees. diana rider train conductor
He grinned and bolted inside. Diana followed last, pulling herself up the steps, and signaled the engineer with two short whistles. As the train lurched forward, she walked the aisle—not checking fares so much as reading faces: the tired commuter, the nervous traveler, the child pressing a nose to the window. Diana smiled, scanning it with her handheld reader