On the Wrong Track (29 page)

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Authors: Steve Hockensmith

BOOK: On the Wrong Track
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HELL ON WHEELS
Or, The Situation Takes a Sharp Turn for the Worse
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The thought that Kip’s
partner might be Diana Caveo tied my already kinked-up stomach in a knot. Yet the alternative didn’t loosen the cinch much. If Miss Caveo wasn’t in it with the kid, that meant she’d be in the engine cab as his prisoner—or somewhere else entirely as a corpse.
So when Kip’s compadre hollered up at Lockhart with a gravelly voice that was both decidedly male and disturbingly familiar, there was actually a splash of relief mixed in with my shock.
“Don’t move!” Augie Welsh barked. “Not unless you think the lady’d look prettier with a hole between her eyes!”
“You pull that trigger, you’re dead,” Lockhart said. He’d gone perfectly still except for his right arm, which snaked around behind his back, the hand curling up to wave Aunt Pauline at me as I huddled out of sight behind him.
I knew what he was asking me to do, though I couldn’t see the sense of it. I stretched out a hand and took his gun.
“You ain’t in no position to make threats, old man!”
Lockhart waggled his fingers, but I was at a loss this time. What did he want me to do? Give him a tickle?
“You better throw down your iron, Mr. Lockhart!” another man called out, and though his voice was soothingly calm, it did anything but soothe or calm me.
Mike Barson was down there, too.
“Augie’s a bit on edge,” he said, “and enough innocent blood’s been spilled already, don’t you think?”
Lockhart’s finger-wiggling grew frantic, and I finally understood what he had in mind. I took the snub-nosed Colt Samuel had given me and pressed it into his hand.
“Alright,” Lockhart said. “You win.”
He eased the Colt around, then lifted it up over his head and held it there a moment before tossing it over the side of the train.
“Thank you, sir,” Barson said amiably. “Now why don’t you come down here and join us? It’s a trifle crowded, but we’d be happy to make room for Mr. Burl Lockhart.”
I was about to lose my cover, so I scooched back a ways, spreading out flat as Lockhart reluctantly rose to his feet. He took a step forward, paused, then jumped. There was a clatter and a grunt from below—Lockhart landing in the coal tender.
The talk started up again then, but it was quieter now, no shouting necessary, and I had to slither up perilously close to the edge to hear it. I didn’t dare try for a peek—not yet.
“ … saw you jump on. Said you look pretty spry for a gent your age,” I could hear Barson saying down in the cab. Even now, after all that had happened, he had a friendly, relaxed way of talking, as if he and Lockhart had just bumped into each other at an ice-cream social. “I’m glad to see Augie didn’t hurt you too bad with that beating last night. It was nothing personal. We just wanted to get you mad, that’s all. So you and those railroad dicks would leave the train and try to track us. We didn’t intend any disrespect by it. In fact, you’ve always been a hero of mine. When I was a boy—”
“Ain’t nobody else up there, is there?” Welsh cut in, his gruff voice like a bucket of mud and twigs when set next to Barson’s honeyed tones.
“Oh, sure. I brought Sherlock Holmes himself with me. Come on down, Sherlie! They’re onto you!”
Naturally, I didn’t take this as a serious invitation, and I just lay there, barely daring to breathe.
“Well, hell—I just remembered,” Lockhart said. “Ol’ Sherl’s dead, ain’t he? Guess I’m alone after all.”
“Har har,” Kip jeered.
“I wish you
had
brought help, old man—like them redheaded sons of bitches,” Welsh said. “We owe them something real special after all the trouble they put us to.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Lockhart shot back. “Those two might be green, but they’ve got grit. You never know when one of ’em might just get the drop on you.”
“They’re gonna have a long damn way to drop, right, fellers?” Kip said. “Like a thousand miles!”
“Shut up, kid,” Welsh snapped.
Lockhart whistled. “A thousand miles? Don’t tell me you’re sneakin’ to California just to catch the next boat to Panama or Peru or some such. And here I figured ‘the Robin Hoods of the Rails’ was goin’ after the S.P. on its home turf.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what the gang thinks we’re doing,” Barson said lightly, gliding back into the conversation smooth as soft butter across hot bread. “They’re up in the Humboldt Mountains at this very moment leading Colonel Crowe and Jefferson Powless on a merry little chase while we slip out to San Francisco unseen. You see, Augie and I needed special travel accommodations on account of our legions of admirers. You know how it is, Mr. Lockhart. Fame does have its drawbacks.”
A new voice joined the conversation—though it wasn’t new to me.
“You say the gang
thinks
you’re going after the Southern Pacific,” Miss Caveo said. “So what is it you’re really doing?”
Her words rang out strong and clear: She didn’t sound like a woman who’d been brutalized or injured. Yet I allowed myself only a small measure of satisfaction from that. Anything more would have been presumptuous, as there were still opportunities aplenty for brutalizing, injury, and worse.
“You know what, miss? I’m going to tell you,” Barson said. “Because once you see how harmless it is, you won’t mind helping us.”
“Helping you?”
Miss Caveo scoffed.
“By serving as our escorts,” Barson explained. “We might need to take on more coal and water before we find a good spot to ditch the train. If we run across a stationmaster who’s not inclined to be accommodating, you’ll provide a little additional persuasion.”
“By standing there with guns to our heads.”
“Exactly! That’s all it’ll take!” Barson enthused, glossing over the scorn in Miss Caveo’s tone. “And then we’ll slip out of the country, and the Southern Pacific will be rid of its two greatest enemies. Why, you’ll be heroes, really.”
Barson kept going, speaking faster, his manner so slick it finally crossed over into outright oily.
“You see, miss, lucking into that gold shipment changed everything for Augie and me. The prospect of living rich … it can lighten a fellow’s outlook. We don’t feel the need to carry on this feud with the railroad any longer. Unfortunately, the rest of the Give-’em-Hell Boys aren’t inclined to be so practical. They think we’re taking a share of the gold back to California so we can wage war on the S.P.—pay off assassins, buy dynamite … blow up the Oakland terminal!”
I couldn’t hear Barson’s sigh or see the rueful shake of his head, but I sensed them even from my hiding place.
“Insanity. They’re good men—but at heart they’re still just angry farmers. They’re bitter, and it’s going to get them killed. Augie and I aren’t like that anymore. We’ve changed.”
“Into what?” Lockhart sneered.
“Professionals,” Barson said. “Speaking of which, it’s time we—”
“I have something to say,” Miss Caveo announced.
“Sit back down,” Welsh growled at her.
“Don’t rile the man, miss,” said a panicky-sounding fellow I hadn’t heard yet—most likely the engineer.
“No. I won’t sit down. Not until I’ve had a chance to speak my mind. I know what’s in store for us, and—”
“Shut your damn mouth!”
“Or what, Mr. Welsh? You’ll shoot me? That’s not much of a threat, considering it’s what you’re going to do eventually anyway.”
“Jesus, lady … do like he says!”
“You can’t leave witnesses behind who know your plan,” Miss Caveo went on, ignoring the engineer’s pleas. “But tell me this: Will killing us really keep you safe? Anytime
your backs are turned,
you’re in danger. You’ll be
looking at your next victim,
and the law will
sneak right up behind you
. You might be in control
now
. But
now
can end awfully fast.”
If I’d waited much longer, she probably would’ve just come right out and said, “For God’s sake, Otto—do something!” Fortunately, I realized what she was up to before she had to be quite so blunt. Lockhart’s crack about Sherlock Holmes had tipped her off that either my brother or I was with him, and she’d done her part by whipping up a distraction. Now, it was my turn.
I got up on my knees and pointed Aunt Pauline down into the engine cab.
And there they were. As Miss Caveo had hinted, Barson, Welsh, and Kip all had their backs to me. And a glance at those backs was all it took to solve the final mystery: how Barson and Welsh could be there at all. The bandits’ clothes were powdered white with dust, just as El Numero Uno’s had been the day before. So after killing the King of the Hoboes, they’d made like hoboes themselves, hitching a ride underneath the Express. They got into the Wells Fargo car sometime later—probably in Carlin, when Kip was “guarding” the train while we were in the ticket office.
All Old Red needed to put it together was one Morrison’s purple hands (which must have been bound for hours, I could see now) and
the dust covering the express-car floor. All
I’d
needed was to have the facts shoved in my face like a fist.
This was no time to fret about my shortcomings as a deducifier, though. I had something much more important to stew on: how to get through the next couple minutes alive.
Barson, Welsh, and Kip were lined up in the center of the cab, facing the controls—and Miss Caveo. Her hair was mussed, and there were smudges on her dress and a bruise just to the left of her jaw that someone was going to regret. But her back was so straight and her gaze so steady you’d have thought riding in hijacked locomotives was her hobby, something she squeezed in between suffragette rallies, choir practice, and bicycle rides in the country.
In contrast, a terror-stricken man in engineer’s dirty overalls cowered at the controls, his eyes bulging from his soot-blackened face like a couple baseballs floating in a bucket of tar. Lockhart was sprawled atop the coal in the tender, and though Barson and Kip were looking at the lady, their .45s pinned him in place. Welsh had Aunt Pauline’s sister, Virgie, pointed at Miss Caveo. The gun’s shine was gone, replaced by a darker, wetter sheen—Milford Morrison’s blood.
There was no way I could shoot Barson, Welsh,
and
Kip without at least one of them squeezing off a shot, as well. So I could sacrifice Miss Caveo or I could sacrifice Lockhart. Or I could try to do things the hard way, lawman style … and maybe just sacrifice myself.
“Hold it right there, boys!” I called out. “I got the drop on you!”
“Well, it’s about damn time,” Lockhart grumbled.
“Really, Mr. Amlingmeyer—I was beginning to think I’d have to send up a flare,” Miss Caveo added.
For once, I was in no mood for joshing with the lady.
“No tricks,” I said, squinting at Barson, Welsh, and Kip in a way that I hoped was intimidating. (I had to hope so, for the squinting wasn’t voluntary—the wind and smoke blowing into my face had my eyes watering as bad as peeling an onion.) “Y’all just ease your guns down and let ’em go.”
Kip looked at Barson. Barson looked at me. Welsh kept his eyes on Miss Caveo. And not a one of them lowered their guns.
“No. I think you’re the one who’d better disarm himself,” Barson said, genial and composed, and even from my perch more than twenty feet away, I could see his piercing blue-gray eyes crinkle with what looked like amusement. “I hate to tell you this, but if you don’t, Augie here is going to blow your lady friend’s brains out. And I know you don’t want to see that.”
“You’re right. I don’t,” I told him. I swiveled my wrist just a bit, pointing my gun squarely at Barson’s oh-so-pleasant face. “Which is why I’m going to kill you—you, Barson,
you
—in three seconds if he doesn’t lower his gun. One, two—”
I counted fast. I didn’t want to give Barson—or myself—time to think. He didn’t know if I’d shoot, and
I
didn’t know if I’d shoot, but ultimately he was the one taking the bigger risk if I reached three.
“Alright, alright!” Barson blurted out, finally losing his air of unflappable cool. “Do as the man says, Augie.”
Welsh cursed bitterly, but pointed Aunt Virgie downward all the same. He finally looked over his broad shoulder at me, hate etched into his feral, stubble-covered face as plain as the name above a mausoleum door.
“That’s a start,” I said. “Now I wanna see all them hands empty.”
“Sure, sure,” Barson said, and he and Kip and Welsh began to bend slowly at the knee, lowering their six-guns toward the floorboards.
“Miss,” I said, “why don’t you move over to—?”
Just a flick of the eye toward Miss Caveo—that was all the opportunity Barson needed. He spun around, bringing his Peacemaker up while simultaneously stepping back and pulling the engineer in tight to his chest. He got off a wild shot that thudded into the side of the express car beneath me, and either from the kick of his hogleg or the struggles of his would-be shield, he jerked back hard into the train’s controls, pressing down on a red bar that protruded from amongst the various gauges and valves.

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