by Tonia Brown
This total assessment of the man was more than just a keen observation on Dodger’s part. It was a natural reaction for him to evaluate and make note of folks, a practice ingrained into him early in his career as a soldier, and though he hadn’t seen the inside of a uniform in many a year, this full measurement of folks was a habit he could never seem to shake.
The other fellow, however, seemed to take no notice of Dodger.
“Torque!” he shouted into the car. “Where are you? Come to me, you copper pansy!”
The metal man cringed at the insult. With a loud whistle of a sigh, he laid down his towel and duster, then went to meet the man in the doorway. “Yes, Professor?”
“I’m expecting a visitor at any moment.”
“Yes, sir. I gathered as much.”
“Go and fetch Ched. If he’s with Ludda, instruct her to remain in quarters until I send for her.” The man rubbed his hands together in the most disturbing of ways. “No need to overwhelm the poor boy.”
“Or you could just call Master Ched on the tubes, sir. It would be much quicker and save me the trouble of walking all the way-”
“Or I could just melt you down into a piss pot. Couldn’t I? Now do as I say! Chop chop!”
Mr. Torque turned away from his master to do as asked. As he passed by Dodger, he said in a soft voice, “He’s all yours.”
Dodger couldn’t tell if the metal man was speaking to him or to the character across the car.
“I swear,” the professor said. “I don’t know where I went wrong with that one.”
Still clutching the flyer, Dodger got to his feet and cleared his throat to gain the other man’s attention. When this proved useless, Dodger asked, “Excuse me?”
The sound of his voice seemed to startle the older man, as he jumped in place with a loud shout. “Good Lord! Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been here the whole while.”
“Have you?” The professor stared hard at the seat from which Dodger had just risen, then back at Dodger. “Extraordinary. That’s quite a trick, sneaking up on me like that. You’re almost as crafty as Feng. Good show!” A light applause filled the car as the professor clapped in glee.
As much as Dodger wanted to take credit for this supposed feat, he suspected that the professor was the kind of man who remained so unaware of his surroundings that he could be ambushed by a ten-piece brass band playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” Besides, there were other matters to attend to.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Dodger said, “what was that thing?”
“No,” the professor said.
“No?”
“No I don’t mind you asking. Go ahead. Ask away.” The professor stood in silence, as if waiting for just that.
Dodger waited, to see if the man was serious. He appeared to be, so Dodger repeated his question. “What was that thing?”
“Mr. Torque.”
“So it said, but what is it?”
“He’s my personal manservant. Well, he’s not a man, but I am, and he serves me, so the title still applies. At least I think it does.”
“But it talked.”
“Talked?” The man gave a short snort. “If you can call it that. I only wish Mr. Torque would just talk. In my sorrowful experience, the most he ever does is whine. The hunk of junk.”
Dodger couldn’t help but chuckle. “But he’s amazing. Where did he come from?”
“Well … I made the blasted thing.” The professor shrugged, as if the walking, talking mechanical man were nothing more than the product of an afternoon of mild tinkering. “Though, admittedly, most days I wish I hadn’t. I mean, sure, he can dust up a storm better the Devil himself, but at what cost? My sanity. That’s what!”
Hearing the creator reduce the fantastic machine to a handful of ordinary complaints sort of took the wonder out of it. Which, Dodger supposed, was just as well. He wasn’t here to marvel at a jumped-up automatic butler. He was here seeking employment.
Dodger took a few tentative steps toward the professor and held out the parchment. “Are you the man who posted this ad?”
The professor eyed the thing for a long moment before answering “Yes.” Then the man screwed up his face and shook his shaggy head. “Actually, the real answer is no.”
“No?”
“I mean it wasn’t me, per se. It is my advertisement, but I didn’t post it. And that is what you asked. Wasn’t it? So I suppose the answer is no. I am not the man who posted that ad. I believe Ched made the rounds to a few towns in this area last week—yours might have been among them—so he would be responsible for the actual posting.”
Dodger sighed. This man was impossible to talk to. “But it is your ad?”
“Yes. Indeed. Are you interested in the position, Mister …?”
Holding out his empty hand, Dodger took the bait of the man’s name-fishing. “I’m Arnold Carpenter.” Of course that wasn’t his real name, but he had been living under an assumed moniker for so long that it was all too easy to forget who he really was.
The man snatched up Dodger’s hand, giving it a short shake. “I am Professor Hieronymus J. Dittmeyer. Ph.D., M.D. and D.G.E. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Carpenter.”
“Nice to meet you too, Professor. Do you mind if I ask what D.G.E. stands for?”
“Damn Good Egg!” The professor punctuated his proclamation with a delightful, girlish giggle, the sound of which coaxed a smile from Dodger. After they relinquished each other’s hands, the professor asked, “So then, Mr. Carpenter, you’re interested in the position of security? It’s an opportunity you aren’t likely to find anywhere else. The Slapnire is the world’s leading-”
“Schlipnear,” Dodger corrected the man, almost reflexively, and at once regretted his disloyal tongue. Early in life, Dodger discovered that most folks preferred the company of those with either average or lesser intelligence than theirs, and in his adulthood, he found this went double for potential employers. While Dodger never considered himself a genius, he often found that he comprehended things a bit more than he wished he did. Sometimes, too well for his own good.
Like father like son, he supposed.
At the slip of Dodger’s tongue, the professor stopped, mid-rant, and cocked his head to one side. “Excuse me?”
Too late to make excuses, Dodger reckoned he should just go with it. “I think the pronunciation you are looking for is Schlipnear, not Slapnire.”
“And what leads you to believe such a thing?”
“Well, if you named your eight-car line after the eight-legged horse of the Norse Gods, then you might want to pronounce it correctly.”
Narrowing his eyes at Dodger, the professor asked, “How do you know that?”
And there it was: the lilt in the voice that insinuated that a man of Dodger’s cast should not possess such higher knowledge. Dodger almost fibbed—he even had a good story ready—but something warned him this man wouldn’t take to being lied to. So he settled for a half truth. “I tend to read a bit, now and again.” The deeper truth was that Dodger was a voracious reader, with old-world myths being his favorite subject. It was sheer coincidence that the professor’s train had been branded with a mythical name with which he was familiar.
Or was it?
“Extraordinary,” the professor said in a low whisper.
That gleaming smiled returned, and with it, Dodger got the creeping sensation that he had just passed some kind of test. He wondered how many other tests he would be subjected to before this whole thing was said and done.
The professor rushed across the car, to the far side, where he pulled open a secretary resting against one wall. Unscrewing a fountain pen then unfolding a pad of paper, he poised himself to take notes. “Shall we start with your previous employment?”
It took Dodger a moment to realize they had fallen into an interview. It seemed this professor kept about as focused as a hot and hungry pig tethered between a full slop trough and a cool mud pit. It was hard
to keep up, but Dodger did his best. “I worked as a farmhand for the last few years.”
“Duties?”
“I did whatever I was told. Tilling the fields, sowing, harvesting, repairing equipment and the likes. Mostly heavy lifting and working in the sun.”
“Hard work, you mean. I don’t envy you.”
“Hard work keeps a man honest.”
“That it does.” The professor made note of this. “And now?”
“Now?”
“You worked as a farmhand. Past tense. And now?”
“Mrs. Bolton, the owner of the farm, you see … well … she passed away last winter, and her son opted to sell the place rather then keep it going. My job disappeared when someone else bought the farm.”
“How unfortunate. You know, I’ve always admired farmers. Salt of the earth. Yes. Her very salt. And do you possess any experience with locomotives?”
“You could say that. I worked almost ten years on two different lines, one cargo and the other livestock. I did pretty much everything from fireman to driver to foreman. Even pulled some security on the side. We all did from time to time.”
Scratching arose from the pad. “The names of the lines?”
“I’d rather not say, sir.”
The professor turned to face Dodger, a look of concern flitting across his face.
Dodger’s throat went dry at the man’s anxiety. “I’d rather not say if that’s all right with you. If you need proof of my abilities, I can show you. But if you want verbal confirmation from others, then I’m afraid I can’t comply.”
“Why? Are you afraid others might speak ill of you?”
“I don’t rightly care what others say about me. My work is speaks louder than any talk. That should be enough.”
Dodger worried his candor would anger the man, but instead of arguing, the professor nodded and began writing again. “Perfectly fine by me. I don’t care for the rail conglomerates anyway. Bunch of liars and thieves, as far as I’m concerned. Snatching land in the name of progress, and lining their wallets at the expense of the American people.” The professor clutched the paper, nearly wadding up his notes as he continued his assessment of the corrupt rail system. “Imagine denying a decent man use of their rails as if they were they only ones in the world who can put down a layer of steel and wood and call them tracks. Tracks? Ha! They have no idea what tracks are. The Sleipnir is the only locomotive in the world that makes real tracks. Genuine tracks!”
Dodger had no idea what that last part was about, but he couldn’t agree more with the professor’s assessment of the rail barons. It had also been his experience that the various rail companies were more interested in making money than providing a service to their nation. Then again, it had been his experience that most folks felt that way.
“And by the by,” the professor added, as his grip on both his anger and his notepad relaxed, “I hope you don’t think I’m being nosy about your work history. I just like to keep precise records on my employees.”
“Employee?” It wasn’t that Dodger was opposed to being offered a job, he just didn’t remember agreeing to the work. “But, sir, I’m not your employee.”
With another gleaming grin, the professor said, “I rather think you will be. I dare say before the hour is out, good sir, you will be all too glad to work for me.”
Before Dodger could protest, the door to the front end of the car thumped open. In strode the lankiest, thinnest, most emaciated man on whom Dodger had ever laid eyes.
He was a little taller than Dodger, but slouched so much that they came to about an even height. He didn’t so much wear clothes as serve as a hanger of flesh on which they dangled. His baggy overalls were held up by the straps alone, and his too-large checkered shirt billowed freely underneath. The exposed bits of the man’s body were a collection of knobs and bumps, with his sallow skin pulled taut across his bony frame, showing every joint and juncture like an orthopedic map. His facial features were set in an odd rictus, clenched and stiff in the manner of a man who suffered lockjaw, giving him a perpetual sneer. Hollow cheeks and sunken eyes completed this horrific scene, making for more of a skull than a face. The man was the victim of either unfortunate malnourishment or deliberate starvation.
Yet this was nothing compared to the smell that accompanied him.
As this fellow approached the professor, he brought with him a miasma of unwashed socks, fresh cow manure and a strong blast of liquor. Rotgut whiskey, to be exact. The cheap and vile and easily attainable kind. There was a top note of something else in there as well. Something sickly sweet. Distantly familiar. The whole of the man’s odor wasn’t unbearable, but it wasn’t by any means intoxicating.
“Ya wanted ta she meh?” the living skeleton asked. His words were awkward, a collection of harsh consonants and guttural vowels as he struggled to speak through clenched teeth. Either that or it was the slur of a drunkard. It was very hard to tell.
“Ched!” the professor shouted. “Come here, lad. I want to introduce you to Mr. Carpenter.”
Ched turned his hollow gaze on Dodger, then dipped his head in greeting. “Nish ta meetcha.”
At the disconcerting sight of the too-thin man, Dodger all but forgot who Mr. Carpenter was, missing the cue to rejoin the greeting. Instead he stared at Ched, wondering what circumstances could have left a man so very, very wasted.
“Mr. Carpenter?” the professor asked. He snapped his fingers in Dodger’s direction. “Are you with us?”
“Yes,” Dodger said, shaking his bewilderment and shifting his eyes to the floor to keep from staring.
“This is Ched, our chief engineer. Driver, fireman, mechanic. He does it all. And we’re lucky to have him.”
Dodger hesitated a moment before offering his hand to the sickly man, unsure he wanted to press his healthy pink skin against this pale specter. But manners forced it of him, and so out went his right palm.
Ched grabbed it in a firm grip and gave it one short, curt shake before releasing it.
His touch was leathery and chilled, and Dodger hoped and prayed that he would never, ever, ever have to lay hands on the man again. For as long they both shall live. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Connecting with the man, palm to palm, was very much like shaking hands with a desiccated corpse.
And that’s when Dodger recognized the familiar smell amidst the haze of rotgut.
It was the lingering funk of death.
Death was a scent that Mother Nature herself had granted mortals the ability to recognize without a basis for comparison. It was also a scent that, once inhaled, never quite washed clean from the nostrils. Dodger had experienced the rancid reek of death many times over. The field of combat was a nasty playground for the Reaper and his carrion minions. A thousand corpses rotting in the Southern sunshine was a smell that tended to stick with a man. Whether he liked it or not.
Dodger’s mind connected a wild array of dots as he nodded in return at Ched and said, “Nice to meet you too, dead.”
Ched raised a thin eyebrow.
“I mean Ched!” Dodger shouted.
Where Ched but sneered before, he now bloomed into a full grimace, pulling his lips back across the width of his face until he was all tooth and jaw. A low rumble rolled up from the skeletal throat, the distinct sound of laughter, and with it, Dodger understood that all the scowling was the man’s attempt at a smile.
“Nothin’ like an honesht man,” Ched said, then turned back to the professor and added, “Hesh a keeper.”
“I thought as much myself,” the professor said with the distinct air of pride. “Mr. Carpenter here is applying for our vacant security position.”
With this news, Ched considered Dodger again, his yellow eyes scraping over Dodger in a slow assessment. When he was done, he shook his head and returned his attention to the professor as he announced, “Never fill Boon’s shoosh, but he’ll do in a pinsh, I shupposh.”
This observation brought a frown to the profe
ssor, and seemed to dampen the old man’s spirits. “No, no one will ever quite take Boon’s place. I know that. I’m not trying to replace him. But we do need help, Ched, especially now he’s …” The professor paused as he hung his head and then said in a soft, sad voice, “gone.”
Ched tapped the professor lightly on the shoulder with a withered hand. “Not yur fault, Doc. Shtop blaming yurshelf. Coulda happened to any one of ush. Boon wash jusht in the wrong plash at the wrong time.”
“Thank you, Ched. I appreciate that.”
The professor reached up to cover Ched’s bony hand with his own, leaving it there as the pair shared discomfort of some private pain. In their moment of silence, Dodger got the distinct impression he was missing a whole lot of something, but what it could be, he had no earthly idea.
Quick as a bolt from the sky, the professor flipped moods, dropping the frown in favor of another grin and perking up considerably. “Yes, well, let us not dwell upon the past when we have the future among us. Ched, can you prime the engine for a little demonstration?”
“Yesh, shir. How far we gonna run her?”
“Only a few miles out and back. That should do.”
“Alwaysh doesh.” The gaunt man tipped his head again at Dodger. “Nish ta meetcha again, Carpenter. She ya in a few.”
Dodger gave the departing man a nervous wave.
“Oh, and Ched?” the professor asked, just as the driver reached the door. “Will you let the others know that we will be giving a demonstration? Don’t want to alarm anyone.”
