On the Wrong Track (15 page)

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Authors: Steve Hockensmith

BOOK: On the Wrong Track
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“As am I,” Chan panted, straining alongside me like a farm horse in harness—with a limp Lockhart as the plow. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, gentlemen,” Miss Caveo replied. “But, please—let’s not call it lying. I’m merely …
persuasive
.”
Footsteps echoed out of the darkness behind us, and I got set to
drop Lockhart and bring up my fists. The gunbelt around Lockhart’s waist—
my
gunbelt—would offer no help if Pat and his friends were having yet another change of heart. The holster was empty. My Colt was gone.
Fortunately, there was no need for either gunplay or fisticuffs: It was Kip dashing down the street toward us.
“Hurry!” the news butch called to us. “Wiltrout’s tryin’ to—” He skidded to a stop and pointed at Lockhart. “Is he dead?”
“Dead
drunk,
” I said.
“Well, we better get him to the train quick.” Kip circled around and grabbed Lockhart by the feet. “Your ten minutes was up five minutes ago.”
We set off again at as quick a pace as the toting of a potted Pinkerton will allow.
“So did my brother just leave it to you to find us or is he actually out lookin’, too?” I asked Kip.
“No, he ain’t lookin’ for you,” the kid said. “In fact, he’s been makin’ it a point not to go nowhere.”
We rounded a corner and came within sight of the station. Up ahead, a group of men were gathered by the engine, tugging at something stretched in front of the cowcatcher. For a moment, I thought we had yet another corpse to contend with. But then I saw that the body on the tracks was very much alive and kicking—kicking hard, too, for Bedford the fireman took a boot to the balls that dropped him to his knees.
“That’s it!” Wiltrout roared. “Open up the throttle and flatten the bastard!”
“No need for that, Admiral!” I shouted. “We’re back, Brother!”
Gustav sat up straight. “Alright—we can leave now, Wiltrout.” He got to his feet and walked over to Bedford, who was still doubled up, gasping for breath. “Sorry ’bout crackin’ your
huevos.
I swear I wasn’t aimin’ for ’em.”
And off he went, heading around the engine to meet the rest of us at the steps into our sleeper. Wiltrout stalked after him, spluttering
curses vile enough to strip the paint off a church. Old Red did his best to ignore the abuse, as if it was the buzzing of an angry bee he’d vowed for some reason not to swat. Yet the conductor didn’t abandon his harangue, ranting and raving even as we hoisted Lockhart up into the Pullman.
“You’re through, do you hear me?” he said, hopping in behind us and slamming the door shut. He stomped through the narrow vestibule toward my brother, jostling Kip, Chan, and even Miss Caveo out of his way as he went. “First chance I get, I’m sending another wire to Ogden and San Francisco. Mark my words: You’re going to see some
real
Southern Pacific detectives on this train before long. If you’re lucky, all they’ll do is toss you and your imbecile brother off. Personally, I’m hoping you’re not so lucky. Now get out of my way—and stay out of my way.”
Wiltrout didn’t wait for Old Red to step aside, shouldering him roughly into the wall as he marched off into the passenger compartment. And just as my brother was getting his footing back, he was stumbling again—as were we all.
The Pacific Express had heaved forward. We were leaving Carlin, hurtling back into the black desert night.
NUTS
Or, We Get a Whiff of the Future—and It Doesn’t Smell Good
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It was quite the
caravan that moved through our sleeper as the Express left Carlin behind. Chan, Miss Caveo, and Kip were in the lead, while my brother and I brought up the rear with Lockhart stretched between us like a whiskey-soaked hammock. We tried to keep our little cavalcade quiet, most of us practically walking on tippytoe, yet we needn’t have bothered: Lockhart was snoring up such a ruckus one passenger after another popped out to shush us. Only one found anything funny about it all.
“Thank God he’s snoring—it’s the only way I know he’s still breathing,” said Mrs. Kier, leaning out of her berth as Gustav and I struggled to shove Lockhart up into his. “You know, he’s lucky you two are so forgiving. After some of the things he said to you tonight, you’d be within your rights to chuck him right off the train.”
With a final grunt, Old Red and I got Lockhart stretched out on his bed.
“We’ll have our revenge yet, ma’am,” I said. “When he wakes up, he’s gonna have such a hangover he’ll
wish
he was dead. Killin’ him now would be sweet mercy.”
Chester Q. Horner poked his head out into the hallway, his pompadour even more askew than the last time I’d seen it—it didn’t seem to grow from his head so much as balance atop it like a puffy brown mortarboard.
“You wanna show some mercy, Otto?” the drummer said. “Hush up and let folks sleep.”
When he saw Miss Caveo was with us, he grinned at her lecherously.
“Still out gallivanting with the boys at this hour?” He shook his head and gave her a teasing tsk-tsk. “Diana, Diana, Diana … if you’d wanted a reputation, you should’ve come to
me
.”
He winked and slipped back into his berth before I could box his ears.
“Never mind him, dear,” Mrs. Kier said. “You gallivant all you want. I would, if I were your age.”
She winked at
me,
and then she was gone, too.
“Well, I don’t know about ‘gallivanting,’” Miss Caveo whispered, “but I certainly don’t feel sleepy—not after what we just went through. Would anyone care to accompany me to the observation car?”
Of course, I would have gladly accompanied the young lady into the fiery pits of hell had she but asked. Yet I didn’t wish to appear overeager.
“I guess that sounds alright—I ain’t all that tired myself, now that you mention it,” I said. “Only I think the dinin’ car would suit me better. My brother and me ain’t touched a crumb since breakfast.”
“We haven’t, have we?” Old Red muttered absentmindedly, rubbing a hand over his stomach.
“You can count me in, too,” Kip said. “I’m so keyed up I don’t think I’ll
ever
sleep again.”
So it was decided. Our rescue party would become a dinner party, with one abstention: Chan begged off, saying he needed rest and peace more than food. But before we went, he expressed his gratitude to us all, singling out yours truly for a particularly warm handshake.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to come looking for me. If you hadn’t … I’m afraid to think what would have happened.”
“Don’t mention it, Doc. As a great philosopher once said, ‘It’s every man’s business to see justice done.’”
I probably don’t have to tell you who that “great philosopher” was. I certainly didn’t have to tell Gustav.
As we headed for the dining car behind Kip and Miss Caveo, my brother lagged behind, letting the distance between us and the others stretch out.
“So,” he said, his voice just a quarter notch above a whisper, “Lockhart wasn’t tryin’ to hire hisself a horse when you found him, was he?”
“Not unless he was doin’ it in his dreams.”
Old Red grunted, looking pensive, and said no more.
“Did you finish whatever you was up to at the station while I was out roundin’ up strays?” I asked.
He gave me a reluctant shrug. “I got me a few things done.”
“Anything you’d care to tell me about?”
“Not now.”
Gustav nodded at Kip and Miss Caveo up ahead, but I had the feeling they weren’t the only reason he didn’t want to talk. He looked haggard, pale, and his pace seemed to slow with every step. His sickness had been coming in waves all day, and it looked like high tide was rolling in again.
“Look,” I said, “maybe you oughta head back to our bunk and—”
“Later. There’s still detectin’ to be done.”
Old Red sped up and left me behind, though I could tell from his limping gait that he had to spur himself hard to do it. But I didn’t try to slow him down. I figured the sooner he
detected
a plate of hot food, the better.
The train’s electric lights had been turned down so low the aisles felt more like tunnels, and when we finally exited the vestibules connecting the third sleeper and the dining car, it was like stepping out of a coal mine into a sunny summer’s day.
“Can I help you folks?” someone asked, and after a bit of blinking I managed to get him into focus.
It was Samuel. He was sitting at a table covered end to end with
shoes. In one hand he had a black half boot, in the other a brush. Two younger porters, each with shoe in hand themselves, sat at similarly laden tables, while Negroes dressed for kitchen work and table service were slumped on chairs nearby.
“Kitchen’s closed,” said a man wearing a grease-splattered apron. He sat up straighter as he talked, and all the other Negroes straightened up with him. Some of them had been wearing grins when we walked in, but their smiles melted quick as icicles in an oven. It reminded me of the way ranch hands’ high spirits come crashing down to earth whenever the foreman barges into the bunkhouse.
“We don’t mean to be no bother, Samuel,” I said, “but we just had a hell of a time in town, and my brother and me ain’t had a bite all day.”
“No bother, folks,” Samuel said (not entirely convincingly). He put down the shoe he was polishing and headed for the car’s boxy little kitchen. “Pick yourselves out a place. I’ll be right back.”
We filed to the far end of the dining car and settled in around one of the tables. The porters and kitchen help watched us sullenly, but once we’d taken our seat, they relaxed, and before long they were chuckling and talking in low voices.
“Here you go,” Samuel said, returning with a tray laden with sliced bread, plates, a butter knife, and a large, opened jar. “I’m sorry we can’t do any cookin’ for you, but hopefully this’ll get you through till morning.”
“Thank you, Samuel,” Miss Caveo said.
“Yeah, thanks,” I added. “There’s nothin’ better for settlin’ a rum-blin’ stomach than—”
I leaned forward and peeked into the jar, expecting to see a colorful jam or preserve or marmalade. Instead, I found myself gazing into a pool of viscous brown oil.
“What in the Sam Hill is that?”
“
That
would be ‘the wonder food of the future,’” Old Red said, his voice quiet and quivering.
He wasn’t just queasy again. He’d ended up seated next to Miss
Caveo, as well, and the idea that his arm or leg might accidentally brush against those of a pretty young female had him positively petrified. If he was a tortoise, he would’ve drawn up into his shell.
“Nut butter,” he wheezed miserably.
“‘Professor Pertwee’s Health Miracle Nut Butter,’ to be exact,” Samuel told us. “Mr. Horner gave us a case so passengers could sample it, if they wished.”
“I don’t think I wish,” said Kip, eyeing the stuff skeptically.
“Seems to me the ‘wonder’ of a ‘food’ like that would be if anybody actually ate it,” I threw in.
Gustav looked like he was about to throw
up
.
“You gotta mix it together some first,” Samuel said. He picked up the knife and plunged it into the yellow-brown goo.
As he stirred, the aroma of peanuts that went up into the air was so overpowering I nearly swooned—and my brother actually did.
“For God’s sake, take it away,” he moaned. He clapped a hand on the table to steady himself. His other hand he clapped over his mouth.
“Yes, sir! Right away, sir! It’s goin’, sir!”
Samuel snatched up the jar and whisked it back to the kitchen lest something even uglier than nut butter put in an appearance on our table.
Gustav bent over and sucked in deep breaths while I slapped him on the back, Kip fetched him a glass of water, and Miss Caveo fanned him with a menu.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I don’t need no nursemaids,” Old Red huffed after a moment, embarrassed by all the attention. “Somebody talk, dammit.
You
.” He shot me a look that was both imperious and pleading. “Walk me through what happened back in town.”
So I did. Everyone settled back into their seats, and the story of our escape from Thornton’s Boiler proved to be just the distraction my brother needed to get his wind back and his gorge down. He listened intently as I served up the details, even tolerating the assorted asides and attempted witticisms with which I garnished the yarn. He only interrupted
once, when I got to what I described as “Miss Caveo’s fortuitously timed debut as a thespian.”
“That took some nerve, walkin’ in there and makin’ like you was something you ain’t,” he said to the lady.
“Well, it wasn’t
really
my debut,” she told him. “In high school, I played both Lady Macbeth and Juliet. It was the perfect training for tonight, actually. I just hope I didn’t overplay the pathos.”
“You were magnificent,” I said. “Irene Adler herself couldn’t have done any better.”
Old Red looked downright renauseated by my fawning.
“So you know something of the stage, do you?” he asked Miss Caveo. “Playactin’ and makeup and wigs and the like?”
“Oh, I’ve dabbled,” she replied airily. “But we haven’t heard the end of the story.” She focused on me again, cutting off Gustav’s line of questioning as cleanly as if she’d used shears. “You’ve left me in agonizing suspense, Otto. Did we escape?”
“You’ll just have to listen and find out,” I said, and I carried on with the tale. Old Red remained deep in dour thought through the end of my account, acknowledging its conclusion with only a muted “Interestin’.”
“‘Interesting’? I think our adventure deserves better than that. At least an ‘incredible,’ if not an outright ‘amazing,’” Miss Caveo teased. “So what were you doing while we were escaping from the bloodthirsty natives of Carlin, Nevada? It certainly looked like the situation at the station became rather …
interesting
.”
The young lady was being playful, as was her way, but it had about as much effect on my brother as tickling a tombstone.
“Nothin’ to tell,” he mumbled at the tablecloth. “Wiltrout was anxious to leave, and … well … I ain’t as good at persuadin’ as some.”
He was wrong about that. His immutable gruffness seemed to persuade Miss Caveo it was time to go. She noted the late hour, thanked Samuel (who’d lingered nearby after returning with a jar of plain, old-fashioned honey), and pushed back her seat. As good manners dictate,
Kip and I stood as she got up. The best Old Red could manage was a sort of crouching lean that took his butt cheeks all of an inch off his chair. He held the position only a few seconds, plopping back down, tearing off a chunk of bread, and chewing morosely as Miss Caveo walked away.
“What a peach,” Kip sighed when she was out of earshot.
“She’s somethin’, alright,” I said, trying to keep my gaze from growing too dreamy (or from lingering too long where it shouldn’t) lest she glance back for a final wave.
“Yeah, you hit it on the head there, Brother,” Gustav said. “That lady is
somethin’
.”
I wasn’t sure what had kindled his doubts about Miss Caveo, but I could see them gleaming in his eyes plain enough, and I knew exactly what words he was leaving unspoken.
“That lady is somethin’,” he’d said.
I just don’t know what
.

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