On the Wrong Track (27 page)

Read On the Wrong Track Online

Authors: Steve Hockensmith

BOOK: On the Wrong Track
11.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
COMINGS AND GOINGS
Or, We Run into Some Friends … at Forty Miles an Hour
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You might think the
word
fortunately
has little place in any retelling of a collision with a train. In fact, it’s hard to believe a collision with a train could be retold at all, except perhaps by the horrified onlookers.
Fortunately,
the train in question wasn’t moving at the time, which was what gave me and my brother the extra second we needed to hurl ourselves from the handcar before it smashed into the back of the Pacific Express.
Unfortunately,
though I bounced my way to a stop with only new bruises atop old to show for it, Gustav let out a sharp cry that told me he hadn’t been so lucky.
As soon as I stopped rolling, I hopped up and started running, fearful that I’d reach my brother’s side only to find a broken rib or a railroad spike poking from it. So I was almost relieved when he sat up, face twisted with pain, and clutched his right ankle.
“Broken?” I asked, kneeling next to him.
“I don’t think so.”
He put his foot down and tried some test pressure on it—and collapsed on his back again, his foot in the air and a curse on his lips.
“What in God’s name … ?” a deep voice rumbled behind us.
I turned to see Wiltrout standing about twenty feet away, gaping at the back of the Express. Our handcar was wedged under the observation platform, its pump arms smashed.
“How the hell did you end up
behind
us?” the conductor asked, more bewildered than angry—for the moment.
“Ain’t no time to explain,” Old Red said, forcing himself back into a sitting position while straining to keep his injured foot up off the ground. “Have you seen Kip the last few minutes?”
“Or Miss Caveo?” I added.
“No time to explain
this
?” Wiltrout shook a finger at our handiwork, his voice growing louder as rage shouldered surprise from the forefront of his mind. “No time to explain destruction of Southern Pacific property and the endangerment of—?”
I jumped up and stalked toward him. “Listen, you big dumb son of a—!”
“Otto,”
Gustav said sharply. “There ain’t time for that, neither.”
I stopped. He was right, of course. Damn him.
“Look … you,” I growled at Wiltrout. “At this very moment, a female agent of the Southern Pacific Railroad Police is in mortal danger—from
your
news butch, who has already killed two men on
your
train. If the slightest lick of harm befalls her,
Captain,
you can rest assured I’ll tell Jefferson Powless and Colonel Crowe and the
San Francisco Examiner
and anyone else I can get to listen that you didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. Now … have you seen Kip or Miss Caveo?”
Wiltrout glowered at me as I speechified, his jaw clenched so tight I could almost hear his teeth cracking like walnuts. But when I was done, he let up the pressure and opened up his mouth.
“No. I haven’t seen them.”
“I have,” Samuel said from the back of the observation car.
Gawkers had crowded out onto the deck—Horner and Mrs. Kier among them—and the porter had to squirm his way through the
throng to reach the mangled railing.
“Maybe five minutes ago,” he said. “Kip was talkin’ to the lady, all serious and whispery. Then the two of ’em headed up to the baggage car. I thought it was peculiar, but—”
Samuel gave me a gloomy
How could I have known?
shrug.
“Alright,” Old Red said, “I ain’t got time to pussyfoot around it: Samuel, you gotta find us some guns—quick.”
The passengers packed around the porter gasped and murmured, while it seemed to require every bit of willpower Wiltrout could muster not to explode like a bottle of nitro whacked with a hammer.
“Ask around,” Gustav went on, giving no heed to the fuss he was stirring up. “I bet somebody’s got an iron we don’t know about.”
Samuel nodded grimly and turned to go, but a plump hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Is Miss Caveo really in danger?” Mrs. Kier asked Old Red.
“We think so, ma’am.”
“From
Kip
? The news butcher?”
“Mrs. Kier, just look at me and my brother,” I said. I brought up my hands and stood there a moment, showing off my newest contusions and ripped, mud-splattered clothes. “This is what Kip did to a couple of full-grown men within the last hour. And what he’s done in the last twenty-four is a whole lot worse. Yeah, he’s just a kid. But trust us. He’s a
bad
one.”
“Well, then.” The lady—and I still thought of her as such, even though I now knew her to be a sharper—reached into her handbag and drew out a shiny derringer, which she offered to Samuel. “Miss Caveo may be a spotter … but I like her.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” I had no hat to tip, so I offered her a little bow. She gave me a little curtsy in reply.
“Bring any other guns you can round up to the baggage car’s side door,” Gustav said to Samuel. “We’ll meet you there.”
“Oh, and while you’re it,” I jumped in. “Fetch Mr. Lockhart—and tell him to bring Aunt Pauline.”
I turned back toward Old Red, expecting some snip from him for
inviting Lockhart to the party. But he’d apparently decided there was no time for
that,
either. All he said was “Help me up.”
He couldn’t so much as set toe to earth without swooning, so he tried hopping to the baggage car, one arm slung over my shoulder. It made for slow going—what with my extra height and his boogered-up foot, we were hobbling like a three-legged mule.
“What’s more important?” I asked after we’d taken a few staggering steps toward the train. “Miss Caveo’s safety or your dignity?”
“The lady, of course. What kinda question is that?”
I answered by swinging my left arm down behind his knees and scooping him up off the ground.
“Oh, Lord,” Gustav moaned. He didn’t tell me to put him down, though.
I started toward the baggage car again, my pace much improved despite the big, mustachioed baby cradled in my arms. (He wasn’t much of a load to bear, really—Gustav’s got about as much fat on him as a licorice whip.) As we passed the observation platform, I noticed Chester Q. Horner eyeing us anxiously.
“Hey, Horner—you gonna help us?” I asked, thinking it’d be nice to have him around to step behind should bullets start flying.
“Well, I … I … I think I should leave it to the professionals,” he said, his smooth talk coming out lumpy for once.
“Good thinkin’,” I called back as we hustled away. “Let me know when they get here.”
Wiltrout drew up beside us, striding fast with firm, manly purpose—all the better to impress the passengers watching us through the windows.
“Why’d the train stop?” Old Red asked him.
“I have no idea.” The conductor didn’t look over at us as he answered—I think conversing with a man wrapped in another man’s arms made him a touch uncomfortable, for some reason. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to the engineer. I assume someone pulled the damn bell cord again.”
When we got to the baggage car, I settled Gustav on the ground, leaving him balanced precariously on one foot like some long-legged bird. A moment later, Samuel dropped from the nearest Pullman carrying three guns: Mrs. Kier’s derringer, a snub-nosed Colt pocket .41, and a dinky, ring-triggered .22 so squat and rusty brown it could’ve passed for a dog dropping. I took the Colt, brought the derringer to my brother, and offered the .22 to Wiltrout—who refused it with a shake of his head. There was no audience for him now, and he was keeping a discreet distance from the side door.
“Mind if I hold on to that gun?” Samuel asked.
“Mind? I’d appreciate it.”
I gave the .22 back to him.
“Joe Pezullo—he was alright,” the porter grumbled. “But I never did like that damned kid.”
“Where’s Lockhart?” Old Red asked him.
“He had to … ready himself.”
“Sober up, you mean,” Lockhart said, stepping stiffly from the passenger car. Aunt Pauline was holstered at his right hip. “No time for java, though, so you’ll just have to take me as I am. Now—what’s the trouble?”
I filled him in quick as I could, noticing as he moved from the train’s shadow into sunlight that his face was glistening wet. Either he’d just splashed himself with water or he was sweating up a river.
“Quite a tale … almost good enough for a dime novel,” he said when I was finished. “So you wanna try the side door first, huh? Good. Best to keep things out of doors—we got women and children about. Still, somebody’s gotta cover the door in from the vestibule.” He clapped Samuel on the shoulder. “Keep an eye on it, would you? You, too, pork chop.” He glanced at Wiltrout just long enough to jerk his head at the steps into the Pullman.
Samuel paused a moment before leaving, looking like he didn’t want to miss whatever was to come next.
Wiltrout scurried away with no hesitation whatsoever.
“I do so hate it when bystanders go and get themselves shot—even
the ones who deserve it,” Lockhart said, staring at the conductor’s back. He drew Aunt Pauline and cocked her hammer. “Alright, boys … shall we?”
I helped Old Red hobble closer to the baggage car as Lockhart gave the side door a rap with his gnarled knuckles.
“We need to talk, son,” the Pinkerton said, pressing back flat against the train and pointing Aunt Pauline up at the door. It was obvious just what kind of “talking” he was fixing to do. “Kip? You in there?”
No one answered.
“We gotta try the door,” Gustav said, sounding unhappy about the idea—and I wasn’t exactly in love with it, either. If the door was unlocked, whoever poked his head through first might very well get it shot off.
Nevertheless, I was about to step up and volunteer when Lockhart holstered Aunt Pauline and flattened his palms against the door.
“I’m comin’ in, Kip,” he said. “Don’t lose your head, now. I just wanna chat.”
He pushed, and the side door slid open, leaving him totally exposed—a thin, wizened target, but an easy target all the same. Yet no on tried to hit it.
Lockhart started hauling himself inside, but he could barely get a foot up into the car. After he’d dangled there a few awkward seconds, I crammed my Colt under my belt and climbed in myself, doing some extra grunting and puffing so as not to bruise the old Pinkerton’s pride any further.
“Let me scout it out, chief,” I whispered once I was crouched inside.
“Well … alright,” Lockhart replied as if he just might argue me on it. He dropped back down to the ground. “But be careful.”
“Yeah,” Gustav added, bringing up Mrs. Kier’s derringer and pointing it at the shadows ahead of me. “
Very
careful.”
I nodded and pulled out my borrowed Colt.
“Hey, Kip … it’s Otto,” I said as I crept farther into the car. “I
ain’t mad about what happened—Gustav and me made out alright. So why don’t you just let Miss Caveo go, and we’ll settle this thing peaceful-like. What do you say?”
He said nothing—because he wasn’t there.
“Empty,” I announced once I’d checked the whole car. I opened the door to the vestibule—slowly, so as not to startle anyone on the other side with their finger on a trigger—and waved Samuel and Wiltrout through.
“Check the gold,” Old Red said.
I walked over and pushed back the lids on the Give-’em-Hell Boys’ coffin-shaped piggy banks.
“Looks like it’s all here.”
Wiltrout gaped at the caskets’ contents, clearly stupefied to finally see proof my brother and I weren’t raving lunatics.
“If you can’t believe your eyes, you could always try touchin’ it,” I told him.
Samuel peeked over my shoulder. “Personally, I’d be afraid to touch that much gold. I might never wanna stop.”
“They can’t have gone far,” Lockhart announced, turning to survey the terrain. A thick tree line set in not far from the tracks, rising to rocky bluffs high enough to serve as perches for harp-strumming angels. “There’s nowhere to go.”
“Maybe Morrison spotted ’em,” Old Red suggested. “Unscheduled stops don’t exactly sit easy with the man. I’m surprised he ain’t poppin’ off with his Winchester already.”
“Good thinkin’,” Lockhart said with only the slightest hint of resentment, and he turned and headed for the express car.
I jumped down from the baggage car and threw my arm around Gustav’s shoulders again. Samuel and Wiltrout followed us as we stagger-hopped after Lockhart.

Other books

Moon Sworn by Keri Arthur
Take (Need #2) by K.I. Lynn, N. Isabelle Blanco
DAC_II_GenVers_Sept2013 by Donna McDonald
THE INNOCENCE (A Thriller) by RICHARDSON, Ruddy
Whole Latte Life by DeMaio, Joanne