Uriel Fox and The Train Derailment

By John F. Zurn

In his endless wanderings through back streets, train stations, and city parks, Uriel Fox traveled incessantly, and wherever he went he stumbled upon people with difficult problems.  Whether these problems appeared to be created by the individuals themselves or by some outside force of fear and intimidation, Uriel almost always found a way to bring hope to those in need.

Despite his tattered clothes, tired shoes, and weathered brow, Uriel Fox commanded respect because of his confident appearance and compassionate eyes.  His unusual appearance made him seem unpredictable with an odd sense of mystery surrounding him.  He could act like a passing acquaintance, loyal friend, or determined foe depending on the circumstance.  However, one thing remained true.  Those who experienced his powerful presence never forgot him.

One good example of Uriel’s ability to assist others happened in the small rustic village of Compliant.  When Uriel first arrived in the town, it looked deserted, with no cars, buses, and taxis visible on the street.  As he hiked through the village streets and investigated the stores and government buildings, it became obvious that the citizens of Compliant had left town in a hurry; yet, Uriel couldn’t figure out why.  The neighborhoods all appeared secure, and there seemed to be no obvious natural calamity present that might frighten them away.

Yet, from his prior visit to Compliant, Uriel did remember one specific attitude that could be problematic for the townspeople.  They often trusted too easily and always tried to see only the good in others, even when it barely existed.  Naturally trust can usually be a good thing, but sometimes it allowed unscrupulous visitors to take advantage of these unsuspecting residents.  Nevertheless, Uriel couldn’t identify any sort of circumstances that might lead to the mass evacuation that might have occurred.  However, he began to understand a possible reason for the mystery when he crossed a back street.  There, thirty yards away, three official looking men appeared to be wearing government uniforms and toting gas masks on their belts.  Believing the men spotted Uriel before Uriel noticed them; they immediately put the gas masks back on and approached him.

“What are you still doing here?” the tall man with the commanding voice demanded to know.  “Don’t you know about the train derailment?”

“No, I don’t know,” Uriel replied cautiously.

The second man who looked stout and muscular spoke next.  “A train carrying dangerous chemicals derailed about fifteen miles from here.  Since the chemicals have been released into the air, everyone has been ordered to evacuate until the crisis passes.”

Uriel became more daring as he sought to find out the truth about the peculiar explanation.  “If the air is so dangerous, then why did you have your gas masks on your belts instead of on your heads?  And why am I still okay?”

The third man, obviously the youngest conjured up another lie.  “The chemicals in the air can be inhaled in for a short period of time or until the wind blows in our direction.  That means the gas masks can be taken off for a few minutes at a time.”

Uriel quickly discerned that the three “government workers” sounded like criminals, but he still had no idea why they happened to be in town.  Having been at the train station earlier that morning, he knew the men must have fabricated the elaborate deception, but until Uriel felt absolutely sure about the truth, he pretended to believe their account.  “So what should I do?”  Uriel asked innocently.  “I don’t own a car or even a bicycle.”

Then, the stout second criminal, crudely grabbed a bike from the front porch of a nearby house and nearly threw it at Uriel.  “Now you have a bike, so get out of here before you get yourself arrested.”

“But don’t I need a gas mask too?” Uriel asked suspiciously.

“Here, have mine,” the tall boisterous thief offered, as he flashed a quick half grin to his accomplices.

Uriel observed the sarcastic expression and now knew for sure the men had some ominous plan in motion.  However, Uriel still played along.  “Thank you, sir. Which road would be the safest to take?”

“The only town is north about twelve miles away,” the youngest criminal explained.  “I’m sure that’s where the people of Compliant retreated to after we explained the crisis.  Tell them the town will be safe by Saturday afternoon.  That’s four days from now.  Until then, the town will remain unsafe.  It will be especially dangerous for children and pets, so make certain everyone remembers when they can return.”

Uriel pointed his borrowed bicycle north and headed out of town, but as soon as he was out of sight, he abandoned the bike under a low lying spruce branch.  Then he quickly circled back to Compliant unseen.  Finally, he picked a good hiding spot on the library roof top and waited to determine the criminals’ true motives.

Uriel didn’t need to wait very long.  As he sat at his hiding place, he could see the thieves entering houses and then leaving with stolen property.  Now that Uriel had seen the thefts for himself, he waited for about a half an hour to make certain the robbers were stealing from the entire town, and not from just a few homes.  He had his answer when the criminals emptied the entire hardware store, family mart, and some private homes.  When Uriel watched the three thieves load their huge trucks, he knew he must act.

Uriel retreated north again and picked up the pace, so he could reach the evacuees and reveal the actual situation back in Compliant.  He didn’t know for certain whether they would believe him or not, but he had to try and convince them.  Fortunately, when Uriel arrived at the evacuation town, called Middleton, all the citizens of Compliant appeared to be together in the town auditorium.  The town elders and their mayor appeared to be in the process of getting a head count of their entire town including children and pets.  Their faces all looked strained and some of the children looked weary and despondent.  The town elders did their best to take an accurate count while also trying to reassure everyone, but the overall mood of the adults seemed chaotic.  When Uriel entered the auditorium, however, the people quickly stopped conversing.

Uriel took advantage of this silence to stride up to the front wall in order to share his observations to talk with the town officials.  “You don’t know me,” Uriel asserted, “but you need to listen to what I have to say.  Today, I witnessed three men disguised as government officials who seem to be actually professional robbers, and they’re stealing everything they can fit into their trucks.  They wore gas masks to deceive you into believing their story about the train derailment.  They lied to you.”

“Then why did they wear gas masks?” the doubting mayor wanted to know.  “They seemed very well trained and trustworthy.”

“Yes!” Uriel responded sharply.  “They’re all con men.  They expected you all to leave home, so they could take advantage of you.”

“But,” the mayor insisted, “they all wore government badges and showed us legal documents.”

Suddenly, Uriel remembered the innocence and gullibility of the citizens of Compliant, so he knew he would have to be more persuasive.  “All right, if I can’t tell you, I’ll have to show you instead.”

By this time, Uriel decided to take charge.  He realized the people of Compliant, including the mayor, seemed much better at taking orders than giving them.  He ignored the elders and waited for the crowd to calm down.  Before long, even the children stopped squirming and crying.

“People of Compliant,” Uriel began.  “You need to know the truth.  I just visited your town a few hours ago and saw the three government officials.  These men you consider trustworthy are actually thieves.”

The crowd again grew restless, and many seemed incredulous.  Their trusting nature refused to accept that the “government officials” could fool the entire town.  By then, Uriel had anticipated their reactions, so he again explained the crisis,  “Since you need real proof about the crimes occurring in your town, I’ve decided there’s a way you can determine the truth for yourselves.  First, I need some volunteers to track down as many gas masks as possible, and bring them here.  I also need four brave volunteers to secretly drive to the train station and search for the derailment.  You must be sure to avoid your town Compliant, so you don’t create suspicion, and don’t forget to ignore any fake barriers you encounter.  The rest of you here in the auditorium should gather your belongings and get ready to return home.”

As if by magic, Uriel’s charismatic manner inspired some volunteers to immediately leave the auditorium and search for gas masks.  A few moments later, he acquired four volunteer scouts.  When they pulled up to the side door, Uriel instructed them to return from their patrol as quickly as possible after they discovered the truth about the train derailment.

Uriel left the auditorium and it quietly emptied out.  Then other volunteers organized a search in the parking lot, and by the time Uriel walked outside, the scout jeep with the four volunteers inside were already heading for the train station.  He waited patiently for the helpers to return from their search for the gas masks while making a serious attempt to reassure the children.

Finally, about two hours later, volunteers returned with nine functioning masks.  Although these proved to be far fewer than Uriel had hoped for, he knew he could still make his unusual plan work.  He called all the people milling around outside the auditorium, and they quietly reentered the building.  When they had all returned, they sat down, and Uriel stepped up on a table and called out,  “I know you don’t totally trust me, but I have an idea that depends on all of us.  If we wait to return to Compliant until Saturday, the robbers will be gone and all your possessions will have disappeared with them.  So, we must return today.”

Immediately, there emerged a muffled panic from the group because they remained very frightened about breaking the law.  The government officials had specifically told them they could only return in four days.  In the end, Uriel could only persuade eighteen out of over one hundred citizens to return.  The others remained determined to stay in Middleton until the government permitted them to return home.

So Uriel distributed the nine gas masks and urged the recruits to each share with one another.  Then the eighteen citizens – with Uriel beside them – began to make their way back to the village of Compliant.  At first, they drove in a bus, but when they reached about five miles from town, they decided to walk in order to remain undetected.  Finally, they advanced slowly behind long rows of evergreen trees and along large town buildings until the townspeople could see for themselves the crimes being perpetrated against Compliant.  Stunned and angered, the group ditched their gas masks and tried to figure out what to do.

Meanwhile, the scout jeep followed the train tracks thirty miles in both directions, but they discovered no derailment.  Clearly, it now proved to be a time for action, so the four men drove directly toward their homes to act on their discovery.  They had no idea what they might do, but they decided to at least confront the three culprits.

As the scout jeep rapidly approached the town, they noticed some of their fellow citizens first.  It seemed they too had uncovered the deceit and began planning their own assault.  Finally, the cunning “government officials” came out of the church through the back door.  Their initial surprise led them to freeze for a moment, but then they sprinted to their getaway car near the alley.  However, what they couldn’t observe were a number of citizens who had silently jogged up behind them.  After long and painful consideration, the townspeople all concluded at last, that Uriel’s stunning accusations turned out to be accurate.  As the mob grew more aggressive, they pulled the thieves from their car and brutally attacked them.  It appeared as if the robbers wouldn’t escape with their lives.  The citizens felt so violated and vulnerable, they showed no mercy.  After the residents’ vicious attack, the three criminals literally “dropped dead.”

The wrath of the Compliant residents seemed bizarre but also understandable.  Nevertheless, it would probably be very difficult for the town to explain the deadly incident as a matter of self-defense, when it actually involved so many citizens.  The mayor, the elders, and even Uriel knew that robbers, even caught in the act, didn’t usually merit the death penalty.  They all clearly needed a believable explanation that would satisfy any state trooper or police officer who might discover some evidence related to the murder in their town.

Within a few minutes, many poorly formed solutions came to light that involved hiding the evidence and moving the corpses to distant places.  Yet all these ideas seemed naïve and made the situation possibly more dangerous.  It might be better to simply tell the truth.  Considering how many people took part in the crime; however, it would be impossible to keep their stories straight.  Besides, Uriel knew the citizens of Compliant were lousy actors and awful at subterfuge.  In the end, they themselves realized that telling the truth seemed better.  Even they knew that a detective could make many mistakes and still arrest a criminal, while a criminal could make a single error and get caught.

Uriel smiled knowingly.  “You’re all correct.  We can’t hide these murders because if we do, there’s a good chance we’ll automatically look guilty.  In our crisis it’s better to be honest.  But do you understand that the law might have some leeway in our case.  Just because the crime looks like murder doesn’t mean it will be seen that way.  So now we must call the police.  If you tell them it involves three dead men in your town, they will probably arrive here in a hurry.”

Fortunately, when the officers responded, only one squad car appeared.  The others appeared to be monitoring a major brush fire that had jumped the highway.  Since the rest of Compliant remained quiet, the two officers took their time with interviews.  The officers quickly observed that the children seemed exhausted, and the adults looked very nervous.

After a few interviews, the officers demanded to see the bodies that Uriel and some others had stashed at the ice cream shop.  Both troopers quickly identified the three robbers as violent prisoners who had escaped from federal custody six months earlier.  When the officers finished their inspection of the three corpses, they ordered everyone to exit the shop, so they could talk privately.  Without much deliberation they agreed on the circumstances of the crime, so the officers decided the men’s deaths had been committed in self-defense.

Despite this exoneration however, the people of Compliant felt certain they deserved to be punished.  Certainly they must be guilty of something.  They waited anxiously believing the officers would change their minds.  Perhaps, the people needed to be tricked to allow more time for other police officers to arrive.

Nevertheless, the world isn’t always as rigid as the people of Compliant believed.  Sometimes natural laws are more essential than the accepted civil ones.  After the officers again appeared to the mayor and the elders, the troopers acted mysteriously.  The first one seemed especially secretive when he blurted out,  “These men were violent criminals.  We’re going to take them off your hands.  It’s a good thing you didn’t attempt to confront them.”

“But we did confront the robbers!” the mayor corrected him.  “We even killed them!”

The second officer decided to speak more directly,  “Look, you residents aren’t capable of killing deadly criminals like these three.  I could tell when we examined them that they died somewhere else.  Maybe they killed each other, or perhaps some vigilantes eventually picked up their trail.”

At last, the town elders apprehended the officers’ deception.  The whole incident now had the official seal of the state, so now it became acceptable.  The people, now relieved of their tremendous burden, even helped the officers load the corpses into the back of their squad car.  Before long, the citizens of Compliant began restoring their town, even as Uriel prepared to leave.  But before he left, the mayor asked him an important question.

“Mr. Fox,” he began.  “Why did you give so much advice while you stayed here with us?”

“Mainly because you failed to make important choices on your own,” Uriel answered.  “You need to make decisions more independently, which means you can’t always trust others to tell you what to do.  It may be stressful to decide things for yourselves, but others don’t necessarily have your best interest in mind.”

“Yes, you’re right,” the mayor continued.  “Trusting others to make decisions takes away our choices and eventually leads to doubt.”

“Or worse,” Uriel commented quietly.

Just as he turned to leave, the citizens of Compliant presented Uriel with a new bicycle and a majestic key to the town.  Uriel appreciated the bike, however, he couldn’t accept the key, and soon he headed for the road.  He understood that the people of Compliant seemed incapable of real change.  After turning over their town to violent criminals, Uriel had now been offered the symbolic key to the town as well.  In a way, their lack of independent thinking made it easy for them to relinquish their town yet again.  Uriel left Compliant before nightfall feeling frustrated but not surprised.  He understood it remained easier to give up their will than engage it.

John F Zurn grew up in Elmira, NY and has an M.A. in English. He spent his career as a teacher and a counselor at a developmental training center.  Now retired, he has published a number of poems and short stories.  For many years writing has been an integral part of his life.  As soon as he finishes one poem or story, he immediately begins planning for the next one.  Mr. Zurn has been married to his wife, Donna, for over forty years.