The Nine Pound Hammer (31 page)

Conker lifted the broom, its flames whipping in the fierce wind of the moving train. “Hold her steady,” Nel said as he dipped the bottle’s fuse into the flame. When the flame caught, Nel pulled himself up over the top of the caboose. Ray leaned out cautiously to see what was going to happen.

“Here they come!” Shacks called.

Four of the Gog’s men fired rapidly from the back of the caboose. Other agents charged forward around the cupola. Shacks cried out as a bullet grazed his neck. He dropped the Spencer and tumbled backward, landing on the vestibule between the train cars. The rifle clattered and disappeared onto the track below.

Nel threw the lit kerosene bottle; it smashed on the cupola’s roof, encasing the dome in flames. Burning liquid spread, splashing onto the charging men. Several screamed and dropped back onto the smashed balcony. Others beat at their burning clothes helplessly and fell from the sides of the train.

Ray turned to Conker. “We’ve got to do something. My sister’s back there. It’s not just a matter of fighting off the Gog’s men. We’ve got to get her and those orphans.”

Shacks called over to Nel as he climbed back up. “I remember this stretch of track. There’s a tunnel coming up, if I’m right.”

“What good is that?” Nel asked.

“Hold your fire a moment, Buck,” Shacks said. “Nel’s flames are already dying back. They’ll try again to get through. Let the Gog’s men come up a ways. Then, Nel, you throw another one of those bombs.”

“Yes,” Nel said. “The flames will be concentrated by the tunnel. … ”

“I’ve got a plan, too,” Conker mumbled to Ray and Si. He looked at Ray with hard, dark eyes as he thought. At that moment, Conker looked terrifying. Ray had seen him this way once before: the night that he had woken Conker from the dream about his father fighting the Machine.

The whistle blew from the
Ballyhoo’s
locomotive. Conker turned at the sound.

“That’s the tunnel,” Shacks said. “Throw it, Nel!”

The top of the caboose erupted in flame.

“Come on, quick!” Conker said.

“What?” Ray asked.

“Before we reach that tunnel. Quick, up the ladder. Si, you too.”

Si looked to Marisol, who was loading the next rifle to pass up to Buck and Shacks. “I can handle this,” Marisol assured her.

The gunfire had stopped as the Gog’s men fought to escape the flames and got down before the tunnel.

Conker, Si, and Ray climbed to the top of the boxcar. Ray could see the dark form of a hill coming toward the front of the train. Conker stood, balancing himself atop
the swaying train. He slid the hammer into his belt and pulled Ray and Si to their feet.

“Grab ahold of my back. Real tight,” he added.

Ray looked ahead in terror as he saw the front of the
Ballyhoo
enter the tunnel. Any second, the masonry face above the tunnel was going to crush them from the top of the train.

“Conker?” Ray cried.

“Hold on!” Conker roared. Si reached her hands around Conker’s neck, and Ray hurried to cling on behind her. Just before they met the tunnel, Conker jumped.

The impact would have smashed any ordinary man like an insect. But carrying the Nine Pound Hammer, Conker was no ordinary man. When he hit, his enormous body absorbed the blow. Ray felt rattled as his chin struck Si on her shoulder blade, but he held on tightly.

Conker’s fingers dug into the mortar. Ray felt dizzy as he watched the trains speeding by below them. He could now see that Si had been right. Clinging to the sides of
The Pitch Dark Train
’s locomotive and its tender were men clutching rifles, ready to board the
Ballyhoo
to recapture Jolie.

Ray could not tell how many men there were as the train passed quickly beneath him, but there were many—too many. He could see other men rushing from car to car across the vestibules, all running toward the locomotive for the battle.

“Ready?” Conker grunted over his shoulder. And
before Ray could get ready, Conker pushed off with one powerful arm, flipping around to land on his stomach on the top of
The Pitch Dark Train
. As Ray rolled off his back, he felt Conker’s hand pin his shoulders to the car as they entered the tunnel, its ceiling whirling past, several feet overhead. Within a moment they were out the other side, and Conker let go.

“Y’all okay?” he asked. Ray sat up, grabbed a guard rail, and looked around. They were midway down the length of
The Pitch Dark Train
, far behind the shouting voices and gunfire.

Si grunted and gasped for breath. Apparently, he had been holding her down, too. Conker helped her sit up, and Si held a hand to her chest. “Knocked … the wind … out of me,” she managed to say.

“Sorry,” Conker said.

“Big … oaf,” she wheezed.

Getting to his knees, Ray held the guardrails tightly to keep steady against the sway of the train and the tremendous gale-force wind. Conker pulled the Nine Pound Hammer from his belt and clutched it with one hand.

“Do you know where the children are?” Conker called over the howling wind.

“Jolie said they were toward the back of the train,” Ray shouted. “But they could be in more than one car.”

“We’ll check the others,” Conker said. He nodded toward the middle of the boxcar’s top they were on. Ray and Si followed him.

Conker crouched over the handle for a hatch in the roof of the boxcar. He stuck his head down into it. “Not here,” he said. “Get on and try the next one.”

It was slow moving across the top of the train car, and only Ray’s eagerness to find his sister kept him brave against the fear of being flung over the side. They jumped across the gap between the train cars and checked the next hatch. The boxcar had an assortment of crates and foodstuffs, but no children.

“Just a few more,” Si said, closing the hatch and leading them to the next car. As she opened it, she turned her head curiously. “Something’s in there.”

The rabbit’s foot was blazing through the toby.

A roar exploded from the opening and a heavy smash rocked the ceiling, nearly knocking the three from the top of the boxcar. Ray swung around onto his back, holding on with one hand to the guardrail.

“Hoarhound!” Conker shouted. They were toppled again as the beast leaped into the ceiling, this time cracking the joints of the boxcar’s frame beneath their feet. The three scrambled to the end and leaped onto the next car, the one where Jolie had been prisoner. The Hound continued to shake the train ferociously.

They kept going, to the next one. Squealing voices of terror issued from inside the boxcar—children’s voices. “In here!” Ray said. Before he could reach the hatch, a man climbed up the ladder on the far end of the car. His bowler hat flipped away in the wind as he reached the top.
He pulled out a pistol and tried to aim it as he swayed on the top of the train. Conker charged across the car. The man’s eyes widened in terror as he fired.

Conker pulled back slightly as the bullet thudded into his shoulder. The man’s next shot went wild, and Conker swept him from the top of the train with his hammer. The man shouted as he disappeared into the dark.

“You okay?” Ray called.

Conker held his hand to his shoulder and nodded. Ray turned back and tore open the hatch, calling into the dark, “Sally!”

Some of the children were crying, others murmuring and whimpering in terror. But a small, shaking voice rose above them, “Ray? Is that you?”

“Sally,” he said again, and slid his feet in through the opening of the hatch. The children moved aside as Ray dropped in among them. There was no light except for the dim glow from the square of starry night at the hatch above. The children surged forward from the benches all at once to grab on to Ray. There were many more than those who had traveled with him from Miss Corey’s orphanage, but those who knew Ray called out his name and clutched his arms.

“It’s okay,” he assured the group. “We’re getting you out of here. Where’s Sally?”

“I’m here!” Ray heard her voice in the dark but could not see her. Trying to be gentle with the scared children that clung to his arms, Ray pushed toward Sally’s voice.

“Sally!” he cried. He could not see her, but when he felt the arms go around his neck, smelled her hair, and heard her voice in his ear as he lifted her, he knew it was her. “I found you,” he choked.

“Ray—Ray—Ray,” she said over and over.

Conker’s face darkened the hatch above. “Ray, Si’s opening the door on the caboose side. Get them down there.”

Ray felt the train rock once more and knew the Hoarhound was working its way out of its cage. When he led the children—there must have been thirty or more—toward the door, he heard the lock click. Si opened the door onto the vestibule.

The Pitch Dark Train
shook again. Si led them into Grevol’s parlor and then down the hallway of his ornate sleeper car until they reached the door for the caboose. “Come on,” she said, waving her hand to hurry the children. “Get in quick.”

“Is the Hound out?” Ray called up to Conker.

From above, Conker leaned over. “He’s near through, Ray.”

“What are we going to do?” Ray asked.

Conker came down the ladder, his sleeve wet and dark with blood. “Got to get these children to safety.”

“How?”

Conker nodded down beneath their feet to the pin that held the caboose to the rest of the train. “Going to bust that pin out and set the caboose loose.”

The Hoarhound roared, its voice loud now in the open air. “It’s free!” Ray said.

“I got to have time to work the pin loose,” Conker said. Ray understood and began climbing up the ladder toward the top of the train and the Hoarhound. He would have to hold off the Hound to give Conker time to save the children.

Si herded all the children into the caboose, but Sally was pushing her way back through the mass of children. “Ray!” she cried.

“Stay there,” Ray said over his shoulder. “Stay with Si.”

“Ray!” Sally called. Ray gritted his teeth and reached the top of the car. He crouched down, one hand holding the guardrail, the other hand slipping into his pocket for the rabbit’s foot. The Hoarhound had broken an opening in the top of its boxcar and was wrestling itself out of the hole and onto the top of the train. The Hoarhound brought its metallic eyes around to meet Ray. It growled and hunched low as it crossed the cars.

Conker’s hammer struck the pin. “Hang on, Ray!” he called.

Loosening the toby’s string, Ray walked toward the Hoarhound; the clockwork beast bared its steely teeth. The Hoarhound was ridiculously large on the top of the train but kept its balance by digging its metal claws into the roof. Its eyes never strayed from Ray. The Hound readied itself to pounce.

Ray held up the hot, glowing rabbit’s foot. “Remember
this? You remember me?” he shouted, mustering all his bravery.

The Hound eyed the rabbit’s foot warily, but then leaped, landing on the car not ten feet from Ray. It took every ounce of Ray’s courage not to flee. He steeled himself: the rabbit’s foot had protected him once from the Hound, but if the Hound charged and snapped its jaws quick enough …

The hammer struck again. “Nearly there!” Conker shouted.

As the Hoarhound took a step forward, Ray stepped forward as well. The Hound growled but stopped, its eyes flickering from Ray to the golden foot.

Ray felt the train shake a moment. “I got it, Ray. They’re free.”

“Ray!” Sally’s voice wailed, drifting away behind him as the caboose parted from the train. Ray desperately wanted to look back. To find Sally and lose her again so quickly caused an unbearable ache in his chest. But if he turned, if he tried to jump for the caboose to stay with Sally, the Hound would follow.

Ray heard Conker climb up behind him. The Hoarhound snarled when it saw Conker but stayed back. “Keep it right there,” Conker whispered. “Keep it back till they’re gone.”

Ray felt a tremble in his lip; his courage wavered. The Hound, sensing this, swung its jaw open and lunged into the air. Ray fell back, holding out the blazing rabbit’s foot.
He saw the dark shadow of Conker rise up over him, the iridescent blur of the hammer swinging through the air. The hammer met the Hound with a burst of breaking metal and grinding gears.

Ray rolled over to watch the Hound topple onto the edge of the train beyond Conker. The beast flipped and then fell over the side of the car into the dark.

R
AY SEARCHED THE DARK TRACK BEHIND THEM, BUT THE
caboose was too far away now. Sally was gone, but at least she was safe. He and Conker were not.

Helping stanch Conker’s bleeding, Ray turned to look toward the locomotive as another burst of flames appeared from the collision of the two trains. He redoubled the pressure on Conker’s bullet wound, and the giant grunted. After a few more moments, Ray took Conker’s shirt and bundled it into a bandage to wrap the bleeding shoulder.

Conker pulled back his shoulder. “Enough. Ain’t going to get no better now.”

Ray placed his hands on his folded knees and bent his head. “How are we going to get back to the
Ballyhoo?
” he mumbled. “And Sally … ?”

Conker reached for the hammer and got up on one knee. He wavered dizzily for a moment and had to place one hand down to hold himself up. Ray touched Conker’s side, knowing he would not be able to support the giant if he fell over.