1940. On the Pelican Road, an isolated stretch of railway between Meridian, Mississippi and New Orleans, two trains travel toward one another through the snow. A.P. Dunn, engineer aboard the 4512, a southbound freight, can remember every detail of the last trip he made in the snow, in 1923. What he can t recall are the events of a few hours ago - where he ate his breakfast, how he got the troublesome gash. On the northbound Silver Star, a luxury passenger train packed with returning college students and gift-bearing families, brakeman Artemus Kane has his own memories to contend with. Memories of French trenches and German snipers, of a failed marriage, of a too - short layover spent with Anna Rose Dangerfield, the brilliant and lonely woman he has just left behind in the Crescent City.

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