by Logan Jacobs
“He’s trying,” she replied. “But he’s not much for fighting. I’m not sure he really knows what to do with that knife he carries.”
“What about with a gun?” I asked. “It’s easier than using a knife in some ways.”
“I don’t think he’d be much better with a gun,” she snickered. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking about that queer conversation we had the first time the train stopped,” I mused.
“Ah,” Sorcha remarked. “I think Darwin got to the bottom of that. Ahmed is here because the bank is sending a substantial amount of money to an office in Willsport to pay for the next expansion. They didn’t want anyone to know that the money was onboard, which Ahmed’s father decided meant no extra security or tons of bank employees on the train. So Ahmed was charged with seeing that the money arrived.”
“Ah,” I chuckled. “I’ll guess that’s why Joker Riley was so quick to welcome us onboard. He would have known about the transfer, and when we showed up with the guns, it must have seemed like an answer to his prayers. Or something that was too good to be true.”
“Lucky for everyone he decided to take a chance and let us ride on the train,” Sorcha replied. “But it does make me wonder just how much of a coincidence it is that we suddenly found ourselves under attack from ranchers and mutants.”
“You think someone found out about the money?” I suggested. “Maybe. Anselm would certainly fit into that group. And what better way to stop the train than to steal the money that makes it possible. He wouldn’t even have to use his magic to set that up. Just tell them they could keep the money.”
“And if that’s true, then I doubt any of Anselm’s recruits will stay away for very long,” Sorcha noted. “I’ll be happy when we’re moving again.”
“Which will require an engineer,” I pointed out as we neared the scene of the battle.
Most of the linemen were on the ground once again, and they sat in a group as they tended to their wounds. Darwin and Freya hovered nearby, their eyes locked on the treeline. Darwin had a bloody cut along one arm and Freya had a bruise on her chin, but otherwise, they both looked okay.
“I left some of the medicines with Billy along with instructions,” Sorcha told the group of linemen. “I’ll tend to the engineer, and once he’s back on his feet, I can take care of everyone else.”
The linemen nodded, but no one started back toward the passenger car.
“Shelton has the telescope out and is keeping watch on top of the passenger car,” I added. “Might not be a bad idea to have an extra set of eyes on top again.”
“I’ll go,” Freya offered. “I’m not sure any of these old men are up for climbing to the top one more time.”
Darwin shook his head, and a few of the linemen groaned, but no one offered any serious protests. Freya winked, then started back toward the passenger car. Barnaby watched her go, apparently torn between staying with us or following the rabbit woman.
“Go with Freya,” I told the dog. “Help her watch for another attack.”
The silver dog bounded after the mutant, then circled her excitedly when he caught up with her. Freya told him to behave, which only set his tail wagging, and I could still hear the mutant moments later as she tried to coerce the dog into walking calmly by her side.
“What a pair,” Sorcha laughed quietly as the two of us started to move again.
We reached the engine and climbed up. The surviving coal man had placed his jacket over the head of the dead man making it look like he had been decapitated. Sorcha drew a sharp breath when she first saw it, but then relaxed slightly when her eyes adjusted and she saw the cloth.
“He’s not breathing very well,” the coal man said when he spotted us.
Sorcha crouched down next to the engineer and then studied the hole left by the bullet.
“Help him lie down,” she instructed as she opened the pouch. “I need to see if the bullet passed through.”
The coal man and I eased the engineer onto the floor, then Sorcha carefully turned him onto his side. She used one of the scalpels to slice open the back of the shirt, and then she set him back down.
“It’s still inside,” she murmured. “We’ll need to get it out before I clean the wound and seal it.”
“Do you have what you need to do that?” I asked.
Sorcha looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded.
“I can use the knives from the barge and my own knife,” she replied. “The main problem will be keeping him still. It will hurt when I start looking.”
“We’ll hold him down,” I said with a nod to the other coal man.
“Okay,” she said as she took a deep breath. “I need water and more light.”
“We have fire sticks,” I stated.
“And there’s extra water in the cattle car,” the coal man added. “A whole barrel of it.”
“If you’ll get the water, I’ll get the firesticks,” I suggested.
The coal man nodded, and we left the Irish mage with her patient as we clambered out of the engine again and dropped into the snow. The one good thing about going back and forth, I decided, was that the slog was becoming easier as we wore a path alongside the rail.
The linemen were up and had posted guards along both sides of the rail. They watched us slosh by, but didn’t ask about the engineer. At the cattle car, the coal man clambered inside while I continued toward the passenger car. Once there, I leapt onto the platform and nearly slid into the door as I hit a patch of ice. I grabbed the door handle to steady myself, then opened the door and stepped into the relative warmth of the passenger car.
“Fire sticks,” I explained to Darwin as I grabbed one of the packs and started to dig around inside.
Darwin grabbed another pack and produced a handful of firesticks to go with the three that I had found.
“How’s the engineer?” Darwin asked.
“Sorcha’s going to remove the bullet,” I explained. “Hopefully, the salves will work after that.”
“New gun?” Darwin asked with a nod toward the rifle I still carried as I stepped back outside.
“Got it off a mutant,” I replied as I jumped back down. “I’ll explain afterwards.”
And then I was off once more on the slow run through the snow. I saw the coal man just in front of me with several canteens slung over his shoulders. We arrived at the engine together and climbed back inside without exchanging a single word.
The Irishwoman accepted the canteens while I activated three of the fire sticks and placed them around the engine. It was almost too bright, and I wished I’d asked Darwin if I could borrow his sunglasses, but Sorcha insisted she needed that much light.
The blonde mage had already cleaned off the knife and scalpels, as Darwin had told me they were called, but I watched as she cleaned them again using one of the salves. She nodded to me and the coal man, and we each took a spot on either side of the engineer. I found myself directly behind Sorcha, where I could pin the engineer’s legs down while the coal man held his shoulders.
“Here goes,” Sorcha warned.
At first, the engineer barely reacted to Sorcha’s work, and I hoped that we might be able to finish the operation quickly before he started to wake up. But as the Irishwoman’s work continued, the engineer started to thrash and then to scream.
“We’ve got to do this, Augie,” the coal man cried out as he tried to keep the engineer in place. “Let her finish, and then we’ll have you right as rain again.”
Augie tensed and whimpered, but the coal man had managed to get through to the engineer. He stopped thrashing, at least, though he still squirmed sometimes. I tried to peek over Sorcha’s shoulder to see how it was going, but all I could see was the fall of blonde hair and the desperate look on the coal man’s face. I gave up on trying to watch and focused on keeping the engineer still.
“I need to add some medication,” Sorcha announced several minutes later. “Don’t let him go, though. Not until I tell you it�
��s okay.”
I nodded even though Sorcha couldn’t see me. The engineer started to groan and then buck a few moments later, and I heard the Irish mage offer a few quiet words of encouragement.
“All right, that should do it,” the mage declared after one last attempt to kick me off.
I could still feel how tense the engineer was, but as the Irishwoman sat back, I felt the engineer’s muscles start to slowly relax. I waited a moment longer, then released Augie’s legs and sat back.
“Will he be okay?” I asked as I inched forward to peer over the mage’s shoulder.
“I think so,” she replied as she rinsed off her hands and the knives in what was left of the water. “I gave him some painkillers as well, but I didn’t give him anything to help him sleep because I know we want to get the train moving again.”
I studied the engineer, whose face was still pale beneath the layer of grime and coal dust, but his breathing was steady, and though he squinted at the bright light, it was a good sign that he was more alert.
“I think he has to stand up,” I noted.
“He’ll get there,” Sorcha huffed. “Even with all the magic medicine I used, it will still take time.”
“Any idea how long?” I pressed.
“An hour, maybe,” Sorcha sighed. “But that’s just a guess. There was a lot of damage. I can see why the mages call them wicked.”
“Can we at least get him out of the blood?” the coal man asked.
“Let me clean him up a bit more, and then you can move him to the other side,” Sorcha replied. “We can clean up the rest of the blood after we do that.”
Sorcha turned the engineer onto his side again, then did her best to clean up the engineer using cloth scraps that I realized must have come from a shredded bunk and the contents of one of the vials we’d taken from the Brook Island barge. When she was satisfied with her work, she gave us a wave and the coal man and I carefully moved Augie to the other side of the engine while Sorcha did what she could to scrub away some of the blood.
“So now what?” the coal man asked.
“So now we wait,” Sorcha said with a shrug as she found a dry place to sit down. “I’ll stay here to keep an eye on him unless someone else really needs my help.”
“I’ll get you some more water,” I volunteered, “and I can check to see if there’s anyone else who needs your help.”
Sorcha smiled as she settled her back against the hard iron of the engine. I smiled back, then collected the unused fire sticks as well as two of the canteens, and returned once more to the snow. This time, as I walked rather than fast slogged through the snow, several of the linemen asked about the engineer.
“He’s recovering,” I said each time. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the train running again soon.”
It wasn’t the best news they could have heard, but they seemed happy enough to hear that the engineer would survive. Now all we had to do was hold out until the engineer felt well enough to get the train moving again. An hour didn’t seem all that long, but it was long enough for the mutants to try and regroup their forces once again. Our best hope, I knew, was that the survivors would decide the money, or whatever else they were after, wasn’t worth it and would leave the area.
“Anything moving out there?” I called out when I reached the passenger car. Freya and Shelton were still on the roof, though they looked to be more involved in conversation than checking the area for returning mutants.
“Nothing,” Freya assured me. “Though we think there’s a wolfpack nearby so we’re watching for that as well. How’s the engineer?”
“Recovering,” I assured her. “But maybe next time the company should put two people on the train who know how to run it.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Shelton called out. “Maybe we could teach one of the other employees on how to handle the train during an emergency.”
“Too bad we’re not hanging around,” Freya replied. “I’ll bet it would be fun to drive one of these.”
I left them to the rest of their conversation and climbed back up to the car. I managed to avoid the ice this time, and my entry into the carriage was a good deal quieter. The security guard had moved outside to the back platform, and I could just see his back through the glass in the door. A muffled bark indicated that Barnaby was out there as well. Ahmed had his book out again, though he didn’t appear to be actually reading it. Two of the linemen were there, both with nicks and bruises that Darwin was tending, though they barely looked up as I replaced the unused firesticks in one of the bags and placed the guns on one of the seats.
“Sorcha asked me to check if there was anyone else who needed her help,” I commented as I watched the ex-trooper dab some salve onto a nasty looking cut.
“This is the last bit,” Darwin said a moment later as he watched the salve do its work. “I think we’re okay. How are things up front?”
“Okay,” I replied. “We’re down to one man with a shovel, and the engineer is out of it for about an hour or so. I’m hoping we did enough damage to the mutants that they won’t return before we get the train moving again.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” the lineman currently enduring Darwin’s care agreed.
Darwin dabbed more solution on both men, then proclaimed them fit to return to work. They thanked the ex-trooper, then filed out of the passenger car. Darwin finally turned to study me, then shook his head.
“I see blood, but I think that’s somebody else’s,” he noted.
“It is,” I agreed as I wiped the back of my hand across my face.
“You should clean it off,” Darwin warned as he grabbed a clean cloth and soaked it in an orange liquid. “You don’t want to catch whatever germs they were carrying.”
He handed me the cloth and while I scrubbed off as much blood splatter and brain matter as I could, he leaned over the back of the seat to look at the guns.
“Do you know what they are?” I asked. “That one’s a forty-five, but the other one is really strange. And there aren’t any markings on it.”
Darwin picked up the rifle and quickly ran through the check before he set the safety, then examined the weapon.
“A Marlin Camp Carbine,” the ex-trooper murmured. “You’re right, it’s a forty-five. Easy to handle and will do a good deal of damage at medium range, so it’s a great upgrade to the Ruger you have been using.”
“One of the mutants had it,” I noted.
“And it still has bullets so it was probably fully loaded when they attacked,” Darwin mused. “Someone’s been hoarding ammo it seems, because these casings are not homemade.”
“It’s possible they found it or stole it from someone,” I remarked, “but I think it’s more likely that someone gave it to them.”
“Gave it to them?” Ahmed chimed in as he finally looked up from the book he wasn’t reading.
“What could be more terrifying than a mutant with a gun?” Darwin explained. “That would shut the railroad down for sure.”
Ahmed gulped and looked out the window.
“It would,” he agreed quietly.
“And this,” Darwin said as he set the Marlin on the seat and picked up the pistol. “I take it this is the one that was used to shoot Hank?”
“I think so,” I agreed. “Someone tossed it into the cattle car, probably hoping no one would find it until they’d had a chance to get far away from the train.”
Darwin started to clear the odd pistol, and as he did so, Ahmed gave up on the pretense of reading and sidled closer. The banker’s eyes were wide as he watched, but at least he didn’t run away or accuse us of being evil incarnate.
“This,” Darwin said with a shake of his head, “was a rare gun, even in the pre-meteorite days. They didn’t make a lot of them because they weren’t sold to the public like these other guns were. And it was really only designed for one purpose.”
“Aren’t all guns?” Ahmed asked.
“Yes, but that’s not quite what I mean,” Darw
in noted. “All guns are designed to shoot a target, but this one was designed to do so in secret without anyone noticing.”
“That’s why it barely makes any noise,” I declared.
“Exactly,” Darwin agreed. “And see, if you pull the magazine off, all you’ve got is something that could be anything.”
“An assassin’s weapon,” Ahmed stage whispered.
“A Welrod, to be exact,” Darwin mused. “It was designed by the British Secret Service during World War Two, though it was called Special Operations back then. It wasn’t meant to be carried into battle, but to be smuggled into places where agents could then shoot and kill the enemy. The baffles ensure that no one would hear the gun being fired.”
“There aren’t any marks on it,” I pointed out as Darwin pulled the magazine out again.
“Well, when it’s supposed to be a secret weapon used to commit secret activities, you wouldn’t want to broadcast anything about it,” he chuckled. “There’s not a lot known about these, though the British were probably using them up until at least the early 1990’s, and maybe beyond.”
“Someone must have known something about them,” Ahmed pointed out. “It would be too much of a coincidence that someone intent on sabotaging the train would just happen to find an assassin’s gun.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “But I have a hard time believing Anselm could find one.”
“But his backers probably could,” Darwin mused. “I’m telling you, there’s a lot of money behind this attempt to stop the train.”
“But the bargemen don’t have that much money,” Ahmed protested.
“Who said anything about bargemen?” I shrugged. “Someone else wants to stop this train, someone else with a lot more money and power than the bargemen.”
Ahmed started to protest, but he closed his mouth without saying anything. I could see him start to sort through the possibilities, and after several moments, he returned to his seat and pulled a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He started to scribble furiously on the pages while Darwin and I looked on.
“I’ll stow these with the rest of our gear unless you want to carry one,” Darwin suggested.
