Deadly Trail

by William W. Johnstone

  “I’ve taken this trip before,” the first passenger said. “We’ve never gone this fast through here. They must really be scared up there to be going this fast.”

  As the speed of the train increased even more, the cars began jerking back and forth, throwing the passengers from side to side.

  The conductor came into the car then, and he was barely able to stand, negotiating the center aisle only by holding onto the backs of the seats. The expression on the conductor’s face was one of fear.

  “Conductor, what’s going on?” Matt asked. “The danger is over now, why are we going so fast?”

  The conductor shook his head. “God help me, I don’t know!” he said. “After we clear Thunder Pass, we’re supposed to go down the hill not much faster than we went up it. But we are going over sixty miles per hour! If we don’t slow down before we get to Miller’s Curve, we’ll go off the track.”

  “Well, that will certainly slow us down,” Matt said.

  “No, you don’t understand! There’s a fifty-foot-high trestle at Miller’s Curve. If we go off the track we’ll tumble down into a gulch.”

  “Oh, my God!” someone shouted.

  “We’ll all be killed!”

  “Why doesn’t the engineer do something?”

  “The engineer isn’t driving this train,” Matt said.

  The conductor looked at Matt in surprise. “How do you know the engineer isn’t driving this train?” he asked.

  “Because I saw the robbers kill the engineer,” Matt replied.

  “Oh, my God,” the conductor said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “George’s wife just had a new baby.” He shook his head.

  “Well, if the engineer isn’t driving the train, who is?” one of the passengers asked.

  “It has to be the fireman,” the conductor said. “He can operate the engine as well as the engineer.”

  “If he can drive the train as well as the engineer, he should know better than to go this fast, shouldn’t he?” Matt asked.

  “Yes,” the conductor replied. “He certainly should know. I have no idea why he is running the train this fast.”

  “It could be that he isn’t,” Matt suggested.

  “I thought you just said that he was.”

  “No. What I said was that the robbers killed the engineer. I know that to be true because I saw it. But it could also be true that they killed the fireman as well. I did see someone fire into the engine cab just before he fell from the train.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. If both of them are dead, the train wouldn’t even be moving,” the conductor said.

  “Unless the fireman got the train started before they killed him,” Matt suggested.

  “Oh, Good Lord in Heaven, do you mean to tell me there’s nobody driving this train?” one of the women passengers asked, her voice choked with fear. This was the woman who had pointed out to the other passengers that Matt was not one of the robbers.

  “I’m beginning to think that is very possible,” the conductor said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be running downhill with the throttle full open!”

  “So, what do we do now?” the woman asked fearfully.

  “About the only thing we can do is pray,” the conductor said.

  “Praying is always good,” Matt agreed. “But I’ve always heard that the Lord helps those who help themselves. I think I’d like to have another option available.”

  “At this point, there is no other option,” the conductor said.

  “No, I can’t accept that. There is always another option,” Matt insisted. “All we have to do is get to the engine and stop it.”

  The engineer shook his head. “The problem is, there is no way to get the engine.”

  “Why not? Seems to me like all you’d have to do is go through all the cars until you get to the tender,” Matt said. “Climb over it, and you’re in the engine.”

  “Not possible,” the conductor said.

  At that moment, the train whipped around another curve, going so fast that it threw the conductor down. A couple of the women passengers screamed, and one of the men passengers began praying out loud.

  Matt helped the conductor back to his feet.

  “Why can’t we get to the engine?” Matt asked again. “Because there are two express cars between the passenger cars and the engine, and you can’t get through them,” the conductor said, holding onto the seat to keep his balance. “The only way you are going to get to the engine is if you climb over the top of those two cars.”

  “Is there a brakeman on board?” Matt asked. “Someone who is used to doing that sort of thing?”

  The conductor shook his head. “No need for brakemen on this train, mister. This is a passenger train. We’re equipped with Westinghouse air brakes.”

  The train seemed to increase speed, and the back-and-forth whipping motion of the car became even more extreme.

  “Damn,” Matt said. He started toward the front of the car.

  “Where are you going? What are you doing?” the conductor asked.

  “I’m going to go through this train and get to the engine,” Matt said.

  “You’re crazy, you’ll never make it.”

  “Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, does it?” Matt replied. “I either die trying to stop this train, or I die when it goes off the trestle and crashes into the gorge. So I’m going to try. Now the question is, once I get there, how do I stop it?”

  “It’s impossible,” the conductor said again.

  “Stop telling me what is impossible and tell something that can help me!” Matt shouted. “Now, once I get to the engine, how do I stop this damn train?”

  “There will be a big lever running horizontally across the cab from the left to the right,” the conductor explained. “That’s the throttle. Pull it all the way back. Also, there’s a Johnson bar, which is a sturdy-looking ratcheted lever with a hand release; this is a vertical bar on the right. And right next to it you’ll see a chunky-looking brass handle sticking out to the left. That’s the air brakes.”

  “What do I do with the Johnson bar?”

  “You don’t have to do anything with it. I was just pointing it out to you to help you find the air brakes, is all. The Johnson bar controls the direction the steam takes in going into the cylinders. That’s what makes the train run forward, or in reverse. But when you close the throttle, no steam will be going into the cylinders anyway.”

  The train bucked again and the car rattled as it ran over a rough section of track.

  “Hurry, man, hurry!” one of the men in the car shouted. “Don’t stand here talking about it!”

  “God go with you,” the woman said.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Matt said. He started to open the door, then paused long enough to take off his coat.

  “You better keep that coat on, mister,” the conductor said. “It’s not more’n ten degrees outside, and with the wind blowin’ on you at sixty miles per hour, you’re likely to freeze to death before you get there.”

  “I think I’ll feel more secure up there if I’m not bound up by the coat,” Matt explained.

  Matt stepped out onto the vestibule, then into the car ahead. Here, the people were as frightened as they were in the car he had just left.

  When Matt reached the second car, Layne gasped when she saw him.

  “Thank God you are alive!” she said. “We thought you had been killed!”

  “What’s happening, mister?” the mother of the children asked, her voice tinged with fright. “Why are we going so fast?”

  “I’m not sure,” Matt said. “But I intend to find out.” He looked toward the body of the robber, who was lying facedown in the aisle near the front door.

  “A couple of you men, drag this body out onto the vestibule,” he said, pointing to the dead robber. “There’s no need for the good folks to have to look at it any longer.”

  “I ain’t settin’ foot on that vestibule, goin’ as fast as we are,” one of the men said.


  “I’ll do it,” another said.

  “I’ll help,” his seat companion added.

  “Thanks,” Matt replied.

  Matt passed through four more cars before reaching the first of the two express cars he was going to have to negotiate.

  When he reached the vestibule platform here, he saw why he would not be able to go through the express cars. Unlike the passenger cars, the express car had no end doors. He was going to have to climb up to the top.

  Matt grabbed a ladder rung, then jerked his hand back. The metal rung was so cold that it had almost the same effect as if he had grabbed a piece of hot iron from a blacksmith’s forge.

  Matt steeled himself, then grabbed it again, this time forcing himself to hold on. He put his foot on the bottom rung, then climbed to the top of the car. Just as he reached the top, though, his foot slipped off the icy rung, causing him to fall. He managed to grab the top rung, though his face hit the corner of the car, cutting a deep gash in his cheek. Disregarding the bleeding wound, he held on until he was able to gain purchase with his foot. Then he propelled himself up over the edge, and onto the top of the car.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sleet had taken effect on top of the car so that it was covered with a sheet of ice. Also, the train was traveling so fast that he was in a sixty-mile-per-hour slipstream. In addition, the top of the car was like the end of a pendulum, so that the lateral movement was more extreme up here than it had been down inside the cars.

  Matt tried to stand up, hoping he could sustain himself by bending forward against the wind. But his foot slipped on the ice and he fell, painfully barking his shin, managing to keep from falling off only by grabbing hold of a small pipe that acted as a smokestack coming through the roof. After that, he quit trying to stand and instead, moved forward on his hands and knees, crawling as quickly as he could.

  When he reached the front end of the car, he realized that, under these conditions, he would not be able to bridge the gap between them without climbing down this car, and then up on the next.

  Taking pains to be more careful this time, Matt climbed down, stepped across the connecting plates, then climbed up the other side. As he raised his head above the top of the car, though, he saw that they were approaching a tunnel. He ducked back down as the train entered the tunnel, then hung on for dear life as the noise of the train roared back at him from the tunnel walls.

  Finally, the train emerged from the tunnel, and he crawled across the roof of this car as he had the previous one.

  The tender was a little easier to navigate because he was down inside, rather than on top. That way, he didn’t feel as if he were about to be thrown off. Then, climbing down the front of the tender, he stepped across the footplate until he was inside the engine.

  The cab was lit by a storm lantern, which put out just enough light to be able to see the valves, levers, handles, protuberances, coils, chains, and gauges that made up the mysterious workings and mechanical contrivances of the engine. The light also showed what had happened to the fireman. He was lying on the floor with a black hole in his forehead.

  The engine was loud and vibrating, and Matt could feel the heat emanating from the boiler. That, at least, gave him some relief from the bitter cold.

  As he wiped some of the blood away from his cheek, he studied the back of the huge, round boiler. There was a large gauge on top, with a needle that was quivering just inside a red wedge on the face of it. Attachments, hoses, coils, faucet handles, cylinders, canisters that looked like coffeepots and deep-fry cookers protruded, extended, sat upon, and hung from every part of the boiler. Then he saw the long, horizontal bar that the conductor told him would be the throttle. It was in a full forward position. He pulled it all the way back while, at the same time, he pulled the brass handle back that the conductor had identified as the brake handle.

  Matt’s action had an immediate consequence as he felt the driver wheels lock into place, allowing the train to slide along the rails. But the rails were coated with ice and, even though the heavy train and the friction of sliding steel wheels on steel rails generated enough heat to cut through the ice, Matt realized that it wasn’t braking effectively enough.

  Matt looked down at the Johnson bar, remembering that the conductor told him that its only purpose was to make the train go in reverse.

  Getting an idea, Matt pulled the Johnson bar all the way back; then he pushed the throttle all the way forward. Once more, the cylinders and actuating rods began operating, but this time in the opposite direction. The huge driver wheels started a backward rotation, and Matt was rewarded by seeing a tremendous shower of sparks flying out from either side of the engine, generated by the wheels spinning in reverse.

  Gradually, the train began to slow, but as he looked ahead in the beam of light thrown out by the gas headlamp, he saw that the track ahead was making a sharp curve to the left and onto a trestle. The light also picked up a sign along the edge of the track.

  ENGINEERS:

  PROCEED SLOWLY

  “I’m trying to, I’m trying to!” Matt shouted at the sign as the train slid by, still at considerable speed.

  The braking became more and more pronounced until, finally, just as it was entering the curve, the train came to a stop.

  Matt breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived as the train suddenly started backing up.

  For a moment Matt was surprised, then he remembered the Johnson bar. He closed the throttle and put the Johnson bar in the middle, and the train stopped. He stood there in the engine cab for a long moment, listening to the hiss and gurgle of the boiling water.

  “You did it! By damn, you did it!”

  Turning, Matt saw that the conductor had climbed the boarding ladder and was stepping into the engine cab with him.

  “Yeah, I did it,” Matt said. “But now what?”

  “What do you mean, now what?”

  “How are we going to get this train into the station?”

  “Not to worry,” the conductor said. “There is an engineer and fireman deadheading back to Denver. They’ll take us in.”

  “Yeah? Where were they a few minutes ago when I needed them?” Matt quipped.

  For a moment or two, the conductor didn’t realize that Matt was joking. Then, when he did realize it, he laughed, his laughter greater than the joke deserved, but brought on more by relief than by humor.

  “Strayhorn, hold up!” Hennessey called.

  Strayhorn stopped, then looked around. “What do you want?”

  “I thought you had this all planned.”

  “Things don’t always go like they are planned.”

  “This didn’t even come close. We were supposed to come away from this little adventure with twenty-five thousand dollars. How much did we get?” Hennessey asked.

  “What are you trying to say, Hennessey?”

  Hennessey pointed back in the direction from which they came. “I’m not trying to say it, I’m saying it,” Hennessey said. “We left four men dead back there because of you. You let Boone hang because you wanted to be the leader? You couldn’t lead a starvin’ horse to oats.”

  “Do you think you can do better?”

  “Yeah, I think I can do better. Taylor, Decker, and me robbed a stagecoach. We got money, and nobody got killed.”

  Strayhorn laughed. “You got what? A hundred fifty dollars?”

  “That’s one hundred fifty dollars more than we got from the train,” Hennessey said.

  “Look,” Strayhorn said. “The greater the reward, the greater the risk. If you are afraid of risk, then I suggest you go into another line of work. Try being a store clerk.”

  Some of the others laughed at Strayhorn’s derisive comment.

  “I’m not afraid of a little risk, if I think there is really some chance of a reward,” Hennessey said. “With you, I doubt there is a chance.”

  “If you don’t want to ride with me, don’t,” Strayhorn said.

  “I don’t intend
to,” Hennessey said. He turned his horse away from the others.

  “Hennessey, wait,” Taylor called. “I’m coming with you.”

  Hennessey stopped, then looked back at the others. “Anyone else want to come with us?” he asked.

  Although a few of the others looked nervous, none of them joined Hennessey.

  “Decker?” Hennessey called.

  Decker shook his head. “I’ll stay with Strayhorn,” he said.

  “All right,” Hennessey said. “Have it your own way. But you might want to ask yourself who is going to be the next person to get ground up like Mills.”

  The arrival in Denver of the Midnight Flyer caused quite a stir. The city police came to interview Matt, the conductor, and many of the passengers. Upon learning that in addition to the two bodies on the train, there were at least four bodies back at the site where the robbery attempt was made, a telegram was sent to order the next train to stop and retrieve the bodies.

  The passengers were full of praise for Matt, not only for confronting the robbers, but also for saving the train. However, Matt tried to downplay it, explaining that he really had nothing to lose because if he had not attempted to stop the train, he probably would have died anyway.

  “There’s nothing heroic about saving your own life,” he insisted.

  “Maybe,” the police captain replied. “But you have about one hundred and thirty people who don’t agree with you.”

  When all the interviews and reports were over, Matt excused himself and got a room in a hotel, certain that he had heard the last of it.

  When Hennessey and Taylor rode into Denver a couple of days later, they saw a crowd gathered around the front of a hardware store. Approaching to see what was drawing the crowd, they saw the flash of a pan of phosphorous powder.

  “What was that?” Taylor asked.

  “Somebody’s takin’ a picture,” Hennesey said. “Ain’t you ever seen nobody take a picture before?”

  “What are they takin’ a picture of?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Hennessey replied. “I just got into town, same as you.”