by Jake Logan
She shook her head. “Not badly. She had just enough time to lunge at me…I was too near the door…”
“She?” said Slocum. “That woman in the veil?”
Augusta paused, eyed him a moment, then nodded.
He sighed again. This was getting confusing and annoying. “So, you really think I had something to do with it, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because who else would know where the key was hidden? I am convinced you are their inside man.”
He closed his eyes for a long time, then he said, with eyes still closed, “Then why the hell would I come back, unarmed and looking like I been on the receiving end of a stampede?”
“That’s simple, Mr. Slocum. Now that you and your cohorts have the key, you want the chest.”
“Ahh,” he said. “Fine, then. If it makes you feel better, keep the gun pointed at me. Just not on full cock, please. If you were to flinch, I’d have me a new belly button, and one’s enough for this old ringtail.” Slocum looked up at her from his kneeling position, a smirk on his face. But even that little stab at charm didn’t work on her.
“Look,” he said, resting a hand on one knee, the other draped over the open stove door. “If I were in cahoots with those rascals, would I show up looking like this?” He thumbed the ragged lapel of his sheepskin jacket; the front of it had been scraped raw from dragging himself up the embankment. “And what about my gloves and hat? Not to mention my Colt.”
Her eyes widened. “They hurt your horse?”
“What? No, no, I mean my pistol. But now you mention it, I hope my horse is still on board.”
“Oh, I see.” She didn’t say anything more, but slipped the small pistol into a coat pocket and brought him a box of matches. He took that as a sign of progress.
In no time, they had a blaze kindled. There were a few silent moments when they waited for the smoke to back up into the room. Slocum crossed his fingers that it would leave through the chimney, and almost whooped for joy when it did. One less trip into the cold. “Whatever they plugged the chimney with must have blown out between there and here. Probably used a rag. Hell, I don’t really care. All I need is heat…” Slocum closed his eyes and held out his hands toward the young flames.
Though he frowned at the fire, Ling nonetheless set a pot atop the stove to boil coffee.
A short while later, they sat around the table, eating and talking.
“So,” said Slocum. “Has anybody from the train bothered to check on you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “They think you’re still here, providing protection. And when a man such as my father requests that his private car is not to be disturbed, well, people tend to pay attention to such demands.”
“Fat lot of good I was at that, eh? I end up getting chucked off the roof of a boxcar and no one knows I’m gone.” He munched a second cold ham sandwich as Ling poured coffee all around.
“You really did, didn’t you?” Any trace of the hardness that had been on Augusta’s face before had now been replaced with a look of growing sympathy.
“That what he say!”
Slocum and Augusta looked at Ling. It was the first thing he’d uttered since they’d let Slocum back into the car.
“Ling believes me,” said Slocum, smiling around a mouthful of ham. Then he saw the little man giving him a stern look, and Slocum raised his battered hands. “I know, I know—Triple Tiger. No worries.”
Ling padded off to the kitchen, smiling and nodding.
“Who are these people, Miss Barr? I think I should be told the whole truth. I’m willing to put my life in jeopardy for the right reasons, but when this job was pitched to me, there was no mention of death threats or getting tossed off trains. Now, you keep saying ‘they’—so who are they and why do they want me dead? Seems kind of harsh just for a box full of gems, doesn’t it?”
She reacted as if he’d slapped her, then just as quickly her face relaxed. Even in the darkened car, he saw in her downcast eyes that he still wasn’t going to get the whole story out of this woman.
“Okay,” he said, setting down his coffee cup gently in its saucer. He moved to the stove, and stood before it, holding his hands out for warmth. “I can see you’re not ready to tell me. Not yet anyway.”
She stood beside him, also feeling the warmth with her outstretched hands. And looked at him, tears welling in her eyes.
“And I guess it doesn’t really matter. Yet. But it will soon, and then I’ll ask again. Until then, we need to figure out a plan. Because they haven’t gotten what they want, but it’s obvious they want it bad. So they’ll be back.”
He looked at her. That she was a stunning beauty was a given. That she was a wealthy heiress, also a given. That her life was in danger because she was playing mule for her rich daddy, yep. That the people who would do whatever it took to get at the precious cargo, including killing anyone who stood in their way, were on board the train, yep. That she wasn’t fully convinced of his innocence, yep again. He sighed. And yet she was so damn pretty.
He watched the slightly parted lips, pushed forward just a bit in what could be a pout, her eyebrows drawn together in worry. A tendril of blond hair slipped from behind her ear and swayed in front of her face. He reached up to tuck it back there and her eyes locked on his.
Their faces were close, each felt the warm breath of the other, then she turned. “I…this is not possible, Mr. Slocum…”
21
A loud whomping sound came from the kitchen, and Slocum and Augusta raced in to find Ling holding a frying pan beside an intricate stack of furniture wedged between the fixed cabinets and the door. Somehow Augusta Barr and Ling had jammed enough bits of cutlery and other implements into the locking mechanisms that they didn’t turn when the man had tried the key.
Slocum motioned Ling over to them. “He have the key?”
Ling nodded.
“He’s trying to catch us by surprise again,” said Augusta.
Slocum nodded, then smiled. “But this time, we let him.”
“What?”
“Look,” he whispered. “You did a great job of keeping them out, but maybe too good of a job. He thinks I’m dead, right? So we let him in, and I’ll distract him. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so he’ll freeze, thinking he’s seeing a ghost, and that’s when you hit him on the head with that cast-iron fry pan. Hit him hard, though. If it’s that big boy I think it is, then he’ll need a good slam to the bean.”
“But what if…what if she’s with him?”
“Then we make sure one of us has a gun aimed where she’ll be. You have any other shooters on board, other than the purse pistol, I mean?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Okay, Ling, you use the fry pan on the big boy, I’ll have one on me, too. I also have a knife.”
The entire time they whispered, the door received hard blows every few seconds. It didn’t sound as if the human battering ram was tiring in the least. “Let’s move this stuff out of the way. Miss Barr, you tell him you’ve had enough and you’re going to open the door, but only if he stops ramming into it. Okay?”
She nodded, then held out the tiny Wesson pistol toward him. “You should have this, not me.”
“You sure you trust me with it?”
She nodded and smiled. “Let’s face this man head-on.”
“Okay,” he said, checking the pistol. Both barrels were loaded. “I’ll be over here. We’ll try to get him to step into the kitchen, then he’ll see me first. And while he’s hopefully amazed at seeing a dead man come back to life, Ling, you hit him hard. Okay?”
Ling offered a grim smile and a tight bow. Augusta swallowed and nodded that she, too, was ready. “Stop hitting the door!” she shouted. “I’m going to open it now. Do you hear me? I’m tired of this. I’ll give you what you want, just stop hitting the door!”
She had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when Ling and Slocum slipped the last two pieces of wedged furnitur
e out of the way. On Slocum’s nod, Augusta swallowed once and cranked the knob on the lock and turned the door handle. The door swung open, and for a few moments, other than a grunt of curiosity from the intruder, there was no sound.
Slocum could just see Augusta’s face around the edge of the door. He wagged his fingers, as if to say, ‘Keep talking,’ so she did, wondering if that was what he meant. “You…you have nothing to fear here. I have had enough of such goings-on and would like it to end. Please do come in—there will be no chicanery.” She paused, and Slocum saw her face and rolled his eyes.
It must have worked, because they heard another grunt and a footstep as a pistol barrel and one large boot, then the other, crossed the threshold. In outline, Slocum saw the massive bulk of the big man more than filling the doorway. The wide shoulders cloaked in the shaggy coat, with a red-hair-covered head and that silly hat topping the entire pile.
It was difficult to tell just what the man could see yet, as they’d kept the kitchen darkened intentionally. But Slocum knew it would be but a matter of seconds before the man sensed a trap of sorts.
Fortunately, Augusta must have sensed the same, for she spoke: “Come in, please,” she said from the shadows to the right of the door. “My man is fetching the chest now.”
For a second, the big man stood still, then strode into the little room, angling himself to fit through the narrow door. “Why?” he asked, a pistol gripped firmly in a head-sized hand.
“I should think that would be clear to you. Your unrelenting siege has worn us down. We have lost the man sent to guard the chest, and with him, any possibility of retaining it. In short, sir, you have won.”
Slocum saw the raw, inflamed, frostbitten skin of his face. He also saw a slight smile form on the man’s mouth. He guessed smiling wasn’t something the giant was used to.
Slocum swallowed once, thrust the little pistol in his coat’s side pocket, and stepped out from behind the stack of furniture. “Hey, Big Red, remember me?”
The brute spun, and gave Slocum the reaction he’d hoped for—his whiskered jaw dropped open and his eyes headed in the other direction. He pawed at his eyes with a meaty hand and shook his head, but there was Slocum, still standing in front of him. “Huh? But I throwed you off the boxcar!”
“Yeah, well, you know what they say about bad pennies.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’?”
The big man growled and lunged forward. Slocum recognized the pistol in his hand—it was his own Colt Navy, the business end pointed right at him. Slocum dodged to his right just as a bullet spanged off a steel support column beside him. “A little help? Ling? Miss Barr?”
From behind the man, he saw Ling leaping up and swinging his fry pan…and missing twice. “Here, try this,” said Augusta as she dragged a chair over.
You must be joking, thought Slocum, feinting left. He grabbed in his pocket for the Wesson and dodged the sightline of the angry, confused Big Red at the same time. The little pocket pistol caught on the inside of his pocket. Just when he’d been cornered, and had raised the side of his coat upward, figuring he’d have to shoot the pistol through his pocket, the kitchen echoed with a loud, hollow clang.
A long, shuddering wheeze drained out of the big man’s slackening mouth. His eyelids fluttered and the whites of his eyes rolled like two pigeon eggs. He pitched forward, and threatened to crush Slocum under his lifeless bulk. The lean cowboy dodged the brute one last time, stepped to his left, and as the man went down, he snatched the Colt from the big pink hand. The man hit the floor and his derby hat popped off his hair and rolled away, upside down, its grimy white satin interior glowing dully in the meager light filtering into the kitchen from the parlor.
As soon as the man dropped, Slocum stepped over him and inspected the passage, before untwisting the stolen key from the lock, pocketing it, and closing the door. “Looks like he was alone. But if she sent him, and she doesn’t hear back from him soon, she’ll be back. If she wasn’t here and made her escape as she saw this scuffle taking place.” He waved the Colt at the fallen man and the mess surrounding him.
“Thanks, Ling, princess. You’re quite a team.…” As he said this, he looked at the little man still standing on the chair, still holding his fry pan. “But honestly, a chair?”
Augusta Barr’s voice rose. “We weren’t tall enough to hit him. You see how big he is, what would you have us do? And don’t call me ‘princess.’”
“Of course I saw how big he is, he was coming at me, don’t forget, shooting and ready to do me in, once and for all!”
The big man began to groan and roll his facedown head back and forth on the floor. Ling leaped off the chair, landed on the big man’s back, and whanged him on the head one more time. The groaning ceased.
“No time for shouting,” said Ling. “Now we tie up!”
“Single skillet,” said Slocum, nodding toward the lethal implement in the little man’s hand.
Ling hefted the black pan as if testing its weight. He nodded and shook it at the two of them. “You tie him up!”
Augusta and Slocum watched Ling stalk out of the room, still wielding the pan. They did their best to suppress their laughter, then gave in to it as they dragged the big man’s limp arms out from under him.
“How’d you meet Ling anyway?” said Slocum as he trussed the man’s hands tight behind his back.
“He’s always been with us. Always been with the family. I’ve known him as long as I knew…as long as I’ve known my own father.”
Slocum paused at the unintended slip, but said nothing. After a few moments, he said, “So, I’ll need help dragging this bull into the other room.”
“Won’t that hurt his arms?” she said when she saw Slocum grab the rope binding the fat man’s wrists.
He snorted. “After what he did to me? He’s lucky I haven’t…” Slocum saw her staring at him. “Ah, never mind. Let’s get him in there, see if we can make him talk. You may know everything you need to know, but I could use a few answers, and this big goober is the one who’ll provide them.”
“Are…are you going to hurt him?”
He stopped dragging the man across the kitchen floor and leaned back, breathing hard. “Why are you so concerned with his health? Is this all part of the information I’m not supposed to know about?”
She said nothing and grabbed the rope binding the giant’s feet. He sighed and resumed dragging the man into the parlor. Once they shucked his buffalo coat from him and had him sitting upright on the floor, his back to the sofa and facing the stove, Slocum wrapped extra ropes around him. Even without his great hairy coat, the man was massive.
“Isn’t that too tight?” said Augusta.
Slocum nodded. “You’re absolutely right. We wouldn’t want him to be uncomfortable when he wakes up.” He finished knotting the rope and stood up. “Look, princess, this entire situation has grown to be about two degrees hotter than crazy. This giant and some mysterious veiled woman want to kill me, you won’t tell me the truth, this train is stuck in a snow drift, and he”—Slocum motioned toward Ling—“just wants to kick me.”
He yanked tight on the ropes binding the man’s wrists, before reknotting them. “The way I figure it, this fool is my only card. If he won’t talk, then no one will. And he’ll talk in the morning.”
That night, Slocum and Ling took turns standing watch over the prisoner. Despite the series of blows to the head he’d taken from Ling, Big Red’s head hadn’t bled much, though it had swelled and purpled. But Augusta Barr had insisted on bandaging it. “Just in case,” she’d said.
Slocum hadn’t asked in case of what. He also hadn’t pointed out that he’d been in far worse shape when he’d stumbled back to the train earlier, and yet she hadn’t offered him much in the way of doctoring. As he watched her fuss over the unconscious brute, Slocum could think of a few procedures he figured would help ease his own suffering. But he kept his mouth closed on that matter. The trip wasn�
��t over yet. And he had more important things to figure out just now.
As it turned out, the big man wasn’t much use to them. Ling’s fry pan treatment had rendered him pretty much useless right straight through the morning. Slocum knew the man would live to menace another day when he heard him snoring away as if he’d just finished a cask of ale.
Once in the night, Slocum had peeked in Miss Barr’s bedroom door to make sure she was safe. In the low glow of his oil lamp, he saw her sleeping soundly, her golden hair spread on her pillow, the smooth, flawless skin of her cheeks touched with pink, her lips parted just enough. She was a vision, he thought. Enough to make a man promise most anything. Well, almost. He shook his head and turned back to the parlor and the snoring giant on the floor.
As he turned, he came face to face with Ling, who stood before him, arms folded and ready, Slocum knew, to dole out another round of the Triple Tiger. Here was a watchdog to watch, he thought. But he was glad the girl had such a protector. Lord knew he hadn’t been much of one.
No attacks occurred the rest of that night. They suspected such activity would all but cease with the capture of Big Red. In the morning, the snoring man awoke, looking more refreshed than either he or Ling did, listening as they had to his rumblings all night long.
The train squealed and spun and slowly but steadily cut its way through the last of the snowslide, then began rolling forward within an hour. And Slocum set about quizzing the prisoner.
“So, big fella. You going to explain to us just why you’ve been bothering this fine lady as you have been?”
The man, muscled fat bulging out from between the ropes trussing him, said, “I ain’t saying nothing. She told me to keep my mouth shut, if’n I should get caught doing anything.”
“Who’s she?” said Slocum as casually as he could sound.
“My sister, of course.”
“Your…sister?”
“Well, yeah.”
“The woman in the veil?”
“Who else would I be talkin’ about?” Big Red shook his head as if he were having a conversation with an idiot.
