The Cordwainer

by Christopher Blankley

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Red Line

  Evening had fully fallen on Marmont's town square as the cheese plate and coffee emerged from within the café. The crowd in the square was growing thicker as people shuffled to and fro from the various cafés. The dinner hour was starting in earnest. All around us, the outdoor tables were filling with people, laughing and yelling out salutations to friends passing by. The air was beginning to chill and the sunset behind the mountains was coloring the sky a deep saffron. Mitchell's mood had grown grim as he finished his monologue, staring down into his coffee, contemplating the fate he had outlined so succinctly.

  I felt the need to comfort him, assure him that things were really not as bad as all that. But I couldn't bring myself to make an utterance. I drank my coffee and sliced off cheese, topping it with quarters of apple and pear. I watched the faces of the other patrons sitting at the tables around us at the café; happy, warm, energetic faces enjoying a beautiful evening at the tail end of a beautiful summer. Here in Marmont.

  Mitchell finished the last of his coffee and pulled himself up out of his seat. He clapped his hands together, rubbing is palms, announcing, “But I've wasted enough of you gentlemen's time. You have a train to catch!”

  “What?” The three of us said in unison, equally insulted by the proposition that we should move even an inch after such an outstanding meal.

  “We're free to go?” I asked. Perhaps I had already assumed it, but the fact had not been explicitly stated. It was not three hours ago that we'd been under an armed guard.

  “Of course!” Mitchell said, with a dismissive wave. “I could never live with myself if I delayed you gentlemen any longer. Not with such an important mission to perform.”

  “What?” Fluky said despondently. “Leave?” But Mitchell was already on his way, returning back to his jeep. Fluky looked between Mitty and myself, all of us silently communicating our deep and resounding disappointment. “Why would anyone ever wanta leave this place?”

  The summer evening. The food. Despite Mitchell's dire prognostications, I had to agree with Fluky. But I wearily pulled myself to my feet, and put a hand under Fluky's arm, pulling him to his. I moved him physically back to the jeep, lifting his dead weight back into the rear set.

  Mitchell again fired the engine to life and accelerated in a wide arc around the square. Back, speeding through town, he drove rapidly up towards the winding country path and The Cordwainer – back to our train and his men faithfully standing guard.

  He kept up the conversation as he drove, “I have to admit that I'm envious – envious of you gentlemen, with your very own enterprise sitting there, that you have struggled for and fought for and feared you'd lose at every turn.” A heavy truck turned out onto the country road, forcing Mitchell to swerve. We missed it only by inches, but Mitchell hardly paused. “I can only envy you. With all of that within your grasp, almost in the free and clear, without owing it to anyone or anything...”

  The jeep skidded to a halt twenty yards from the engine of The Cordwainer, right back at the spot where our detour had begun. Mitchell pulled on the handbrake and killed the engine, but he didn't step out of the car, “That you are up against great odds, I concede to you. That you may end up paying an awful price to find out the value of your enterprise, I sympathize. But I suggest that perhaps no one has yet fully grasped the value of the endeavor you have chosen to undertake, its true value beyond the simple worth of your cargo.”

  The men Mitchell had posted to guard our train came over to the jeep, grumbling about the lateness of the hour. Mitchell ignored them, hands still on the wheel, speaking into the evening air.

  “That the Concession has reacted so violently to your enterprise, that it has conscripted the government into helping it, that it is acting to stop you any way it can, is only understandable. To allow you to slip through, even this one train with the world watching on, would so undermine its legitimacy... It would set an example for everyone living under the Concession's thumb that there can be commerce outside of its direct control.”

  He nodded at The Cordwainer, sitting quietly on the tracks, “That lesson is cargo on that train, in addition to those hoppers full of boots. And the Concession is hell bent on making sure that the three of you pay the full bill, for the whole value of everything you're hauling. Yes, what you are attempting to do is dangerous; and yes, those opposing you will kill you if they must. But to cross these mountains and to deliver your cargo into the Big City... it would be to earn the right to say you did this thing, and that the profits from the enterprise were honestly yours and fairly earned. The value of that, I can only envy. That's value only you three – when you reach the terminus of these tracks – will truly be able to understand.”

  Fluky, Mitty and I climbed slowly out of the jeep, letting Mitchell's words slowly sink in. His men quickly and noisily took our places in the jeep, complaining about the cold. I came around to the driver's side and held out a hand for Mitchell to shake. He took it and shook it warmly.

  “These tracks,” he said, pointing his free hand over his shoulder, back towards town, “are old but still serviceable. We've maintained them for some distance into town – we use them at harvest. They will lead you below the village, through the saddle of the valley. As the valley climbs again, on the far side of town, the land will open up onto our Commons. The old tracks bisect this. You can rest the night there in perfect safety. I'll inform the town that, at sunrise, if they make their way to the commons with goods for trade, you'll be waiting.”

  “All right...” I replied.

  “Beyond that, it's a steep climb, along the north side of a valley. There's a tunnel, still passable, which will bring you out at the mouth of the pass.” Mitchell turned over the engine of the jeep, took off the brake and put the jeep in reverse. He looked back over his shoulder as if to pull out, but paused, “All summer, army trucks have been moving up that valley. Word is, the army has the Polypigs penned up in that pass – penned up from the west and the east. Every other day we see planes, circling. You might need these.” He leaned back and took our pistols off one of his men, handing them back one at a time. “Remember: The word on the radio is you're running guns up to the Polypigs; the army won't want you hauling that load of yours through their lines. And as for the Polypigs... well, you can never predict their reaction. They raided into Marmont once or twice a few years ago, but we bloodied their nose well enough they haven't tried since.”

  “Thanks,” I said, handing pistols back to Fluky and Mitty, holding mine by its barrel. “Thank you for everything... for dinner.”

  “You're welcome,” Mitchell replied. Again, looking back over his shoulder. He accelerated quickly back, turning the jeep, then slammed it into first. “Remember, sunrise on the commons!” he yelled as the jeep sped away. “I'll bring wine!” his voice vanished into the distance.

  What a singular evening. It felt like a dream. My belly was still full, but already my memory was beginning to fade as to the details of the dinner and conversation with Mitchell. The reality of The Cordwainer – its physical fact – came flooding back, pushing out everything else from my mind. I loaded my pistol and returned it to my waistband and climbed up onto the running board beside the cockpit. Fluky was already inside, looking over the gauges.

  “That was one crazy-ass dinner party,” he said, turning on the valve for the fuel tanks. Mitty was forward, by the flywheel, turning it by hand. As soon it was spinning under its own power, steam began to pour from the exhaust pipe.

  “Food for thought,” I said.

  “You wanta hang around over there in that there meadow? For tradin'? We could push on in the dark, maybe make up some lost time.”

  “Mitchell said he'd bring wine,” I smiled. “Seems like that's worth the wait.”

  “Hell yeah,” Fluky agreed.

  In the encroaching dark, we moved The Cordwainer slowly down through the valley, past the low, squat barn-like building that covered
the valley floor, and up into the wide open, treeless field that constituted Marmont's Commons. The town glittered silently across the valley from us as we locked down the train for the night, and huddled up in the caboose attempting to catch what sleep we could before sunrise.

  I was blissfully lost to the world when the first of the villagers came across the valley bearing goods in trade. One became two and two quickly became a crowd as the whole town of Marmont evidently had woken with the sun and made its way to the Commons. We did a brisk business. Bread, cheese, cured meats – the caboose was quickly full of all the food and provisions we could possibly require for the rest of our journey. Mitchell showed up with two cases of Marmont's best claret, in real glass bottles, like had been served to us the evening before. This we traded him for a dozen pairs of boots and three pairs of loafers.

  Many, however, came with cold hard cash in hand, and we started selling boots to these people at thirty dollars a pair. It quickly became obvious that we were well below market value – the demand could have easily bore a higher price – but in part I was considering the hospitality Marmont had shown us when I'd decided on the thirty dollar figure. I felt no need to maximize our profits here, as much as I knew Mitchell would object. Thirty dollars, to me, seemed fair, and by nine o'clock, we had sold over three hundred pairs. Mostly, to people buying six or seven pairs at a time, stocking up. As the crowd began to disperse, Fluky and I looked down into our hands and realized we had over ten thousand dollars between us. It was more money than I had ever seen in my life – more money that I could have earned in two years working at The Shop. We tried hard to stay calm, not to be overwhelmed by the extent of our success. In the caboose, we found a hemp sack and filled it with the cash, stowing it away under one of the bench seats.

  I should have been watching Mitty. While Fluky and I were trading for goods and cash, he was near the rear of the train making deals for himself – quite astutely, I should add. He was not taking advantage of anyone or being taken advantage of. He came away with over a thousand dollars of his own from our morning of trading. But the problem was, he also came away with a shiny Thompson submachine gun and a pair of rotary magazines he traded for sixty pairs of boots. I was flabbergasted: Mitty with a machine gun! I almost made him give it back, but he was vague about exactly who he had traded with and what exactly for. The sun was rising in the sky and we were eager to continue our journey... and... well, the damn thing made him so happy... sitting on the roof of the caboose holding the gun across his lap.

  By ten, our profits nestled snugly away out of sight, we had the turbine of The Cordwainer belching steam and the nose pointed up towards the steep climb, and the tall pines above us. The valley that divided us from Marmont began to open up towards the south as we climbed, the tracks splitting away from the mountain road that climbed the opposite face of the valley. A morning mist hid the valley floor beneath us as the rock walls climbed steeply up the mountainside to our right.

  The Cordwainer scuttled along the thin ledge between cliff face and precipice, gaining altitude with every hour of our journey. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the ledge that the rails clung to began to grow thinner as we climbed. If we were to derail here... I tried not to think about it. I was in the rear, in the caboose with Mitty, while Fluky was at the controls. I had to resist the urge to look out and over the edge as we steamed on. I knew it'd do me no good to know how far the fall really was.

  “Quite the ride, wouldn't you say?” Mitty said. He was sitting at the bench across the table from me, gripping the table's edge with white knuckles. With each big lurch this way or that he flinched visibly.

  “Stimulating,” I agreed. I reminded myself that a century of rail freight had ridden these rails daily, without a mishap. Of course, the track back then had had the benefit of routine maintenance. Nothing and no one had traveled these tracks in over thirty years. We hit a solid bump and I could feel the caboose list dangerously to the left. I grabbed at the table's edge, like Mitty, hanging on for dear life.

  “I've been thinking,” Mitty began. The cigarette in its holder had burned down to its nub. Mitty hadn't attempted to replenish it; to do so would have required letting go of the table. “What Mitchell said back there, in Marmont...”

  “Yeah...”

  “Well, that is us, isn't it?”

  “What?” I hadn't been listening, looking tentatively out the caboose's left window. “What's us?”

  “The slowest runners. Well, at least me. Back of the pack, so to speak.” He paused as the train gave another lurch. “But if everything he said – if the race isn't won by the fastest. Well, I'm better off being me, aren't I? In the end. That I could do this.” A hand came up momentarily to gesture around the caboose, but quickly clamped back down tight as The Cordwainer wavered. “It proves it, doesn't it?”

  “Yes, Mitty,” I replied with a smile. “I think it does.”

  Mitty smiled back, making himself ever so slight taller in his seat.

  Then The Cordwainer lurched again.

  But this time it was different. Until that moment, as The Cordwainer circled clockwise around a rock face, the old rusty tracks had been tipping us left and right, but this lurch was backwards. The Cordwainer was suddenly picking up speed. Mitty and and I looked at each other with concerned interest. That was wrong – if anything we needed to slow down our accent, not speed it up.

  I pulled myself to my feet, up onto the table, and slipped through the sunroof of the caboose. I yelled a query up the length of the train to Fluky in the cockpit. He was hunkered down over the controls. At the sound of my voice, he glanced back and then started pointing frantically to the port side of the train. I looked off into the mist, attempting to make out what he was gesturing at.

  At first, it was all a haze – a wet, misty blob of gray – then something through the clouds resolved into view, a silhouette of something up against the south wall of the valley. I strained my eyes to see through the mist. The haze began to clear and I could, momentarily, make out the outline of a canvas-covered truck, parked on the mountain road, idle in the distance. My brain took a moment to center itself on its significance.

  The Army.

  If only the fog has remained as thick as we pushed on up along the edge of valley, but luck was not on our side. The heavy truck, still in the distance, began to resolve into ever clearer focus. The mist was lifting. I pulled myself up out of the caboose and scrambled across the hopper cars toward the cockpit. By the time I had reached Fluky in the cockpit, the scene had cleared enough for me to plainly make out the sandbagged machine gun nest, pointed west up the valley.

  “Fluky!” I yelled, and he turned to face me. I could see his fist had the big red button on the console mashed down. The Cordwainer was picking up steam as diesel was injected into the hydrogen peroxide mix. The steam from the exhaust had turned black, thick with the soot of the burning petroleum.

  Across the valley, I could see that we'd been spotted. Figures were moving behind the sandbags, but the machine gun was pointing in the wrong direction – up into the mountains – they weren't prepared for any threats approaching from the east. They were scrambling to move their weapon, bring it around to bear across the valley.

  “Fluky!” I yelled again, though I'm not entirely sure why I wanted his attention. He didn't raise his hand up off the big red button, but he pointed frantically towards the nose of the train. I looked up, my attention had been so absorbed with the threat across the chasm of the valley I hadn't bothered to look where we were going. Small in the distance, but distinctly there, was the mouth of a tunnel cut into the cliff face. It was perhaps a quarter mile ahead, but the distance between us and it was entirely open to the far side of the valley. If they got that machine gun brought around... The Cordwainer was picking up steam, but...

  The machine gun belched a few test rounds of fire. I heard the whiz of the bullets over my head and the bone-shaking crack as they hit the cliff wall. I dropped flat to
my belly, hugging the roof of the foremost hopper. Then a long burst of fire came and I pressed my face firmly down against the steel. I could hear the sound of ricochets all around me. I dared not move. I stole a quick glance up and could see Fluky curled up in a ball as low down in the cockpit as possible, his hand shooting up bolt straight, keeping his palm on the red button.

  The mouth of the tunnel was approaching.

  There was a pause in the shooting and I took the opportunity to slide off the right side of the hopper onto the running board, with only inches between me and the moving rock face. I was more satisfied with the cover this position afforded me, and risked raising up my head high enough to look across the valley. The machine gun was jammed or out of ammunition; the two men manning it were pulling off a belt and putting on another one. The gun was resting unattached to any mount on top of the stacked sandbags, slightly off kilter. They'd had to dismount it from its base to bring it around to bear. They finished up whatever they were working on and the gun barked to life again. I ducked down, dropping to my knees on the running board, but not before I saw how much the machine gun was kicking around as they fired it. They weren't going to hit anything that way.

  The tunnel was well within view now. I could see into its darkness as a chain of massive thumps slammed into the side of the hoppers. I ducked down deeper, almost laying flat on the running board, fearing the bullets would cut right through the hoppers full of boots. Another burst of fire came and flecks of rocks rained down from above me.

  Then, from the rear of the train, I heard another string of shots – this time much closer and louder. I looked up, heaving myself up to my knees to see. Mitty had his upper torso through the sunroof of the old woody station wagon, the Thompson in his hands. He had let rip with a long stream of fire from one of the rotary magazines. Cigarette in its holder, pinched between his lips, he had a look of dogged determination on his face. The hose of bullets seemed to fly wildly across the valley, harmlessly peppering the far cliff wall; but Mitty's torrent of fire seemed to do its trick. The men manning the far machine gun ducked down behind the cover of their sandbags. When Mitty's weapon ran dry, they tentatively poked their heads up over the edge, then frantically attempted to return the machine gun to action. But we were another two hundred feet closer to the tunnel by the time they managed to bring their gun back to bear.

  They had the rear of The Cordwainer in their sights by then, and Mitty and the caboose took an awful hail of fire. Mitty dropped down back through the sunroof and the wood of the old station wagon threw up a cloud of splitters. I feared that Mitty had been hit and pulled myself to my feet to move back toward the rear of the train; but before I could move, I was distracted by a call from Fluky. I turned to look and noticed the walls of the fast approaching tunnel. There wouldn't be room for me and it along the side of the train. I quickly shimmied back and slipped into the gap between two hopper cars as the tunnel engulfed us.

  Still the machine gun rattled away, sending bullets down the tunnel after us. We plunged into darkness, deeper and deeper, until the sound of gunfire faded behind us. Then I could feel the speed of The Cordwainer yield. The choking steam of the exhaust abated, and the train slowly began to roll to a halt.

  In the darkness I fumbled for a hand hold and pulled myself blindly up and onto the roof of a hopper. There was a number of feet of clearance here, and I reached up on my knees until I touched the dank, soot-encrusted ceiling of the tunnel. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, but still there was little I could make out: The faint glow of the tunnel's mouth in the distance behind us and the soft luminescence of The Cordwainer's turbine cowling in front of me. Fluky must have really red lined her to make it glow like that, I contemplated. I could hear the hiss of steam as water condensed on the engine and evaporated again – the creaking of the steel as the turbine cooled.

  I was contemplating moving – if I should fumble around in the dark – when then beam of Mitty's pen light came flicking from the rear of the train. It danced around like a miniature spotlight across the ceiling of the tunnel, then scanned down until it was shining right in my face.

  “Are you okay, Mitty?” I asked, raising a hand to shield my eyes.

  “I'm hunky dory,” Mitty replied. “But a case of that Marmont wine was forced to give its life so others might live...”

  “Fluky?” I called back up toward the nose of the train.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Fluky replied. “Can't kill ol' Fluky that easy.”

  “And The Cordwainer?” I asked. “The engine?”

  “Buried that temperature needle right past the red line. Think that maybe we should let her cool down a little.”

  “They had a machine gun,” I stated. “They were trying to shoot us with a machine gun.” I breathed heavily, the adrenaline only then starting to hit me, making me dizzy.

  “Yeah, good thing they can't shoot worth shit.” Fluky laughed.

  “They seemed to be getting the hang of things near the end there,” Mitty added. His pen light was flashing between the faces of Fluky and me.

  “Shit, shine that damn thing someplace else!” Fluky objected, holding up a hand. Then he asked Mitty, “Were that you? At the end there, rat-a-tattin' away?”

  “Yes!” Mitty said with pride, holding something up in the darkness. I could just make out the shape of the submachine gun in his hand. “However, I don't believe I hit anything.”

  “Didn't much matter,” I said. “It was good shooting nevertheless. You got another drum for that saw?”

  “Somewhere in the caboose.”

  “You might want to load it up and keep an eye peeled that way,” I pointed in the dark, mostly for my own benefit. “Can't imagine they'll be in any serious rush to follow us down into the tunnel, but might as well be on the safe side.”

  “Understood,” Mitty snapped to attention, then the pen light flashed around and snaked back into the caboose. Fluky and I were left again standing in the blackness.

  “Mitchell said the pass is just beyond the other end of this tunnel.” I could just make out Fluky's silhouette against the glow of the turbine cowling. “We must have run the army's eastern position. It'll be Polypig country from here on out; at least until we reach whatever machine gun emplacement the army had waiting on the west side of the pass.”

  “Just full of good news, ain't ya?”

  “We still have our weapons... The Cordwainer is still moving under her own steam...”

  “Heck,” Fluky sneered in the dark. “What I want to live forever for, anyway?”