The Nine Pound Hammer (30 page)

“No time to explain,” Buck barked. The four began running through the thick smoke, Si clutching Buck’s arm to lead him more quickly.

Ray looked back as they reached the track heading toward the
Ballyhoo
. Other agents had arrived. Just before the smoke and darkness obscured the men, Ray saw them throw aside their rifles, pick up the fallen men’s hammers, and begin working furiously.

Ray, Jolie, Si, and Buck ran and ran, the field fires quickly giving way to true night darkness and a pine forest. Ray looked over at Jolie. In the dim light, she looked as frail as before.

“What happened to you?” Ray asked.

Jolie was silent a moment, breathing heavily. She adjusted the bundle under her arm. “I am sorry. I thought it would help if …”

“Jolie,” Ray panted. “You shouldn’t have run away.”

“I know. But I did not want to bring more danger to you.”

“Are you okay?” Ray asked. “Did they hurt you?”

“No,” she replied. “They caught me in the forest and locked me on their train—”

“Hallo?” Shacks’s voice called from ahead. The lights from the caboose appeared around a bend in the tracks, and Si gave a call in return. Shacks blew a high whistle to his father in the locomotive, and the
Ballyhoo
roared to life.

“Conker’s already aboard with Redfeather,” Shacks said. “Get on quickly!” The train began trudging slowly forward as Ray and the others reached the ladder to the caboose and climbed aboard.

They were out of breath and collapsed on the wooden floor of the caboose. Ray quickly told them what had happened as Jolie, Si, and Shacks listened in horror.

Only Buck remained focused on what lay ahead. He ran his fingers through his pockets, scattering out cartridges to count. The train chugged faster and faster.

As Ray finished telling about the events at
The Pitch Dark Train
, he said, “I saw the Gog, and I’ve met him before! I’ve got to tell Nel.”

The train rattled, nearly reaching full speed, as Ray headed through the caboose.

“I need ammunition!” Buck hollered. “The Gog’s train won’t be held up for long, and this junker ain’t fast enough to get away. We’ll need to be ready with guns.”

“I’ll get them, Buck,” Si said, standing up to go after Ray. Jolie followed, and the three scrambled up the ladder and crossed the top of the train.

In Nel’s car, they found Marisol and Peter Hobnob standing around anxiously as Nel bent over Redfeather, who was lying on the table. Ma Everett was tearing old sheets and clothing into strips.

Conker rushed forward and hugged Jolie. “You’re okay.”

“Yes. How is Redfeather?”

Nel answered as he worked on Redfeather’s wounds. “He’s lost a fair amount of blood, but the bullet isn’t deep. I got it out already. Once we clean him up and I can put together some tonics, he should pull through fine.”

“I’d better go,” Conker said.

“Hurry,” Nel called over his shoulder. “Tell Shacks: take only what can’t be spared. Leave everything else on the caboose. What’s most important is to be quick! They’ll be here before long.”

Si rushed into Buck’s room. She returned a moment
later, her arms filled with cases of bullet cartridges. There were more than she could carry back to the caboose, so Marisol took some, as well as a pair of Spencer rifles Buck used occasionally in shows. Then the two girls were out the door.

“What’s happened?” Hobnob asked Ray. His yellow explosion of hair looked as if he’d been pulling on it apprehensively.

Nel and Ma Everett continued to work on Redfeather but listened intently as Ray explained how Conker had broken the track and they had rescued Jolie.

“But the Gog,” Ray said. “I saw his face. Do you remember how I left my sister on that orphan train? I thought she was taken in by a family somewhere … that Miss Corey was going to get all those orphans to homes. Mister Grevol, the man who owned the train,
he’s
the Gog! The orphans were kidnapped!”

“What?” Nel demanded, looking over his shoulder.

“I heard voices when I was locked up,” Jolie said. “If they were the children, I think they moved them toward the back of the train. And, Ray, look at this.” Jolie began unwrapping the bundle she had been carrying: a woolen scarf covering what seemed to be a book. “Some of their belongings were in my room. I found this.”

As Jolie tore the scarf away, Ray saw it—the blue linen binding, the title etched in silver.
The Incunabula of Wandering
.

“Ray, this book belonged to your father,” Jolie said. “Little Bill told me about it.”

“It can’t be …,” Ray murmured, a white-hot heat blazing behind his ribs. “If you found this on the train, then Sally must still be …”

“What?” Jolie asked.

Ray frantically tried to explain. “Mother Salagi told me the Gog was stealing people to use their souls, their spirits, to feed his Machine!”

“Ray, slow down,” Nel said, trying to follow Ray’s words and tend to Redfeather.

“My sister is on that train back there! We’ve got to save her!”

Nel’s eyes grew wide, his voice trembling as he spoke. “Ray, you’ve got to hurry and stop Conker. We needed a way to stop the Gog, and I told him … He’s going to release the caboose!”

“No!” Ray shouted. He looked once at Jolie, her storm-cloud eyes filled with terror, and then Ray flew to the door and out onto the vestibule.

As he climbed onto the top of the train, he felt the first lurch of the
Ballyhoo
as Conker tried to remove the pin holding the caboose to the rest of the train.

If his sister and the other orphans had not been on
The Pitch Dark Train
, it would be a perfect plan. The released caboose would smash into the locomotive of the Gog’s train, certainly causing it to wreck, and the
Ballyhoo
might
easily escape. But if Conker got that pin out before Ray stopped him, Sally might be lost forever.

Ray could not waste time crawling on hands and knees across the top of the train. He stood and sprinted. The cyclone-force wind pushed against him, but Ray steadied his steps and leaped from one car to the next until he reached the caboose.

Ray jumped over the gap between the boxcar and the caboose, landing on the edge of the caboose in a tumble. He fell to the deck of the vestibule, nearly knocking Shacks and Si off their feet.

Conker had his feet across the gap in the cars, the Nine Pound Hammer perched in the air as he readied to strike the pin loose.

“NO!” Ray screamed.

Conker looked up in fright. “What? What’s the matter, Ray?”

“Don’t pull that pin! My sister’s on
The Pitch Dark Train
.”

Conker got up onto the vestibule and helped Ray to his feet. Buck and Marisol were in the doorway to the boxcar, where they had been moving supplies from the caboose.

“If we don’t release the caboose,” Buck said, “the Gog will catch us.”

“But if you do, my sister will be killed,” Ray answered. “We’ve got no choice.”

Buck turned to go back into the boxcar with Marisol. “Shacks,” he said. “Let’s get these rifles loaded.”

Ray, Conker, and Si looked at one another as they stood on the vestibule, the fear of what was going to happen sinking in.
The Pitch Dark Train
would catch them now, and the Gog’s agents would attack. They would fight their way onto the
Ballyhoo
to get Jolie. The Gog had too many men even for Buck to hold off for long.

Ray asked, “I wonder how long those soporifics we used to knock the Gog’s men out will work?”

“Not long,” Conker answered. “Nel said he didn’t have much of the herbs left, so he made a mild version. That way he could spread it into more phials.”

“So he can’t make any more?” Si asked.

Conker shook his head.

“What about the bottletrees?” Ray asked. “Couldn’t we use them to keep the Gog from getting onto the
Ballyhoo?
”

Buck called from the doorway of the boxcar, “They won’t work on the train. They have to be placed in the earth. That’s where they draw their power from.”

“The
Snapdragon
’s going to meet us at the Mississippi,” Ray said, struggling to find some faint spark of optimism. “We’ll have to hope the Gog won’t reach us before then. … ” He trailed off as he touched his hand to the toby. The rabbit’s foot was growing warm.

At that moment, the train buckled heavily and a terrifying screech wailed as the wheels tore against the track. Ray found himself thrown, flying through the air along with Si and Conker. The three tumbled together through the doorway into the boxcar where Buck and Marisol and
Shacks had been flung into a storm of flying crates and loose supplies.

The caboose pushed against the groaning vestibule, nearly crushing into the boxcar. But the wheels settled again into motion, and although they were moving slower, the
Ballyhoo
was still going.

“What just happened?” Ray shouted as he rolled over.

“The Pitch Dark Train,
” Buck said, getting to his feet stiffly. “It caught up with us.”

Ray could see the blaze of
The Pitch Dark Train’s
headlamp illuminating the back of the
Ballyhoo’s
caboose in harsh yellow light. The two trains were ominously close to one another. Gunfire blasted over the caboose, scattering glass down from the cupola onto the floor below; Ray and the others ducked back into the boxcar.

After the gunfire receded, Buck and Shacks rushed out onto the vestibule. The back half of the caboose had been crushed by the collision, and although they could not get through it to return gunfire, neither could the Gog’s men get through the damaged car. They would have to go over the top of the caboose.

As Buck and Shacks climbed up the ladder to the top of the caboose, bullets whizzed and sparked around them. The two lay flat against the roof and began returning fire, round after round.

“Give me another rifle!” Buck shouted. Marisol grabbed one and rushed up to exchange it with Buck’s empty rifle.

Shacks dropped back down from the top of the caboose. “Do you know how to load a rifle?”

As he explained, Marisol picked up one of the Spencers and began loading. Ray, Conker, and Si brought the extra rifles and boxes of cartridges out onto the vestibule so they could keep handing reloaded rifles to Buck and Shacks.

Si leaned out around the side of the train to survey
The Pitch Dark Train
. She pulled back as a bullet buzzed past her face. “The Gog’s men are all over their locomotive. If they ram us again, they can hold their train against ours while their men storm the
Ballyhoo
.”

“What should we do to help?” Ray asked.

Shacks pushed past Conker and Si to climb back up with one of the Spencer rifles. “Just keep down so you don’t get shot!”

The Pitch Dark Train
collided once more with the back of the
Ballyhoo
. Buck and Shacks took cover at the top of the caboose, crouching side by side on the ladders as the gunfire thickened. As it slowed momentarily, they popped back up to return fire around the cupola.

“Nearly got me!” Shacks snarled, and wheeled back up to fire over and over.

Nel stepped out onto the vestibule carrying a broken-off broom handle, its splintered end wrapped in damp, vaporous rags. He handed it to Conker along with a box of stove matches. “Get this lit,” he said. Nel slowly climbed the ladder to Buck, pulling himself up by his arms.
He stayed low, keeping his head beneath the top of the train car.

“Our caboose seems to be the worse for wear,” Nel said.

Buck grunted and fired the Spencer. “Rear brakes are certainly ruined. Going to have a hard time stopping the
Ballyhoo
.”

“How are you faring?” Nel asked.

Buck steadied the Spencer and fired, hitting one of the Gog’s men as he sprang around the cupola. The agent tumbled from the side of the caboose.

“Been in worse spots,” Buck said. “Nevertheless it’s hard to sniff them out with this wind.”

Ray took a quick peek around the side of the caboose.
The Pitch Dark Train
had crushed its way into the back of the caboose. The two trains were now joined, allowing the Gog’s men to crawl across their own locomotive and leap onto the back of the
Ballyhoo
. Many of the Gog’s men held positions on the broken balcony of the
Ballyhoo’s
, caboose and some seemed to have made their way up behind the cupola, firing across the top of the caboose at Buck and Shacks. So far, Buck and Shacks had managed to pick off any of the Gog’s men who came around the cupola.

“They’ll be preparing to come across the roof at us soon,” Buck said.

“And then?” Nel asked, reaching back to take a reloaded rifle from Marisol.

“I’m a realist, Nel. We’ll take quite a few with us, but not all of them.”

Nel nodded. Buck discharged the last bullet in the Spencer and dropped it down to Marisol. Nel placed the reloaded rifle in Buck’s hand. An eruption of gunfire came from the Gog’s men, scattering sparks across the top of the caboose.

“I’ve prepared something. It just might meliorate our injurious standing,” Nel said.

“English, if you don’t mind,” Buck said. He took aim and fired at one of the Gog’s agents. His shot missed, but the man was forced to take cover behind the cupola.

“I made something that might help,” Nel said.

Shacks glanced over at Buck and Nel, and then leaned around the side of the caboose and shot one of the Gog’s men. Ray listened anxiously with Conker and Si.

“More potions?” Buck asked.

“I had no time for root work, but given the urgency of the situation, I was able to put something together that might be just as effective.”

Shacks took a new rifle. “There’s nearly ten of them on the back side of the cupola. They’re readying to storm us.”

From a satchel twisted over his shoulder, Nel pulled out a bottle with a bit of cloth snaking from the mouth. Ray looked at it curiously.

Buck sniffed and then gave a grim smile. “Kerosene.” The whine of a bullet passed Buck’s ear.

Nel called down the ladder. “Conker, have you got that torch lit?”

“They’re about to charge!” Shacks shouted.