The Hanging of Samuel Ash

by Sheldon Russell

“Look, Eddie, I’ve got these pickpockets on the run. But I think the main man is working out of Kansas City.”

  “Surprise us all and arrest him, Runyon.”

  “It’s not that simple. Trains don’t stand still, you know. I need someone herding him this way, someone to help box him in.”

  “Can’t you keep it simple, Runyon?”

  “I’ll try for your sake, Eddie. Look, I want to send that greenhorn on ahead to Kansas City, so we can squeeze those bastards from both ends.”

  “So, send him.”

  “You’d think the company could come up with a goddang pass by now, wouldn’t you? It’s important I get him up there tonight. I want to put him on the Super.”

  “Taking up a seat on the Super costs the company a lot of money.”

  “If the word gets out that she’s crawling with pickpockets, it will cost a hell of a lot more.”

  Eddie fell silent and then said, “What is it exactly you want?”

  “Arrange with the operator here for a ticket. I’m pretty sure we can nail these bastards if we move on it now.”

  Eddie thought for a while before answering. “Alright,” he said. “But why do I feel like I’m getting screwed?”

  “It’s just a passing fantasy, Eddie. You’ll get over it.”

  * * *

  Hook, Junior, and Jackie waited on the platform for the Super Chief to slide in. Hook handed the Super Chief ticket to Jackie.

  “This will get you back to Kansas City,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “You mean you’re not going to arrest me?”

  “Lack of evidence,” he said. “But if I catch you on my trains again, it will be a different story. Do we understand each other?”

  Jackie went forward to give her ticket to the conductor. She waved her fingers at Junior before turning to Hook.

  “Barney wears a gander feather stuck in the brim of his hat,” she said. “You can’t miss it in a crowd.”

  * * *

  Hook and Junior waited on the platform as Jackie searched out her seat. She folded a stick of gum into her mouth and watched them from the window as the Super Chief pulled away.

  Junior sighed. “Real nice of you, Hook.”

  “Nice had nothing to do with it, Junior. Had I the evidence, she’d be sitting in jail with Moose Barrick this very minute.

  “I saw you ogling that girl, Junior. A detective has to keep his head clear at all times. You start getting all involved, and you’re likely to get into trouble.”

  Junior looked at his feet. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Hook. Anyway, you’re the best yard dog I know.”

  “I’m the only one you know, Junior.”

  “Are we going back to Clovis now?”

  Hook pulled at his chin. “There’s still a pickpocket on the loose. I want you to go on ahead to Kansas City and start working your way back. Lay over at the depots along the way. Wander around like as if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”

  “Sure. I can do that, Hook.”

  “If you come up with something, call Popeye or Eddie. I suggest you call Popeye since Eddie doesn’t like things to get complicated.”

  “The Super goes to Kansas City, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’ve a Super Chief ticket for me, too?”

  “It’s rare to find boes and pickpockets riding in the Super’s dining car, Junior. It’s important to get out amongst them if you claim to be a real yard dog.”

  “Then how am I supposed to get there?”

  “There’s a stock train coming through at three A.M. I asked the operator to call in a slow for you, seeing as how you haven’t mastered the skill of hopping a train yet.”

  “Aw, jeez, Hook, again?”

  “And keep it a little more tidy, Junior. Poor hygiene reflects on the company.”

  Junior looked down the track. “So, what are you going to be doing?”

  “I’ve got a casket to deliver.”

  “Couldn’t you just send it on the train?”

  “Someday you’re going to make prosecutor, Junior, and when that day comes, no matter where I am, I want you to give me a call.”

  “Why’s that, Hook?”

  Hook turned and walked off down the track. “’Cause that’s the day I’ll be killing myself,” he said over his shoulder.

  21

  MIXER, BUSY WORKING a burr out of his paw, looked up at Hook and then lay back down next to the casket. He’d taken a fancy to the spot and had refused to come into the caboose lately, even to eat. Hook, understanding that Mixer lived by a set of rules known only to him and God, had started leaving food and water outside the door.

  Once in the caboose, Hook lit the lantern and checked out the remains of his pants. Having been dragged downline on the tinder ladder and scrubbed through the cinders by half the signal gang, his pants were now torn and ragged.

  He fixed himself a Beam and water and lined his collection of books across the table. The 1902 Hound of the Baskervilles slid into its slot like a new brass bushing, the final piece that turned the parts into a whole.

  Hook liked things completed, finished. He liked knowing that nothing remained to be done. Finding the final piece to the puzzle, the last remnant of a life’s work, provided pleasure unparalleled in the world of collecting.

  Hook sipped his whiskey and ran his finger down the spine of the purloined book. Left on its own, it would most likely have ended its life in a landfill. No doubt the library didn’t even know that it had been taken, that a lesser book now reigned in its place. In any case, who would care? No one understood its value like him. No one appreciated its place in the world like him.

  He drained his glass and poured another, shorting the water, which had grown tepid in the hot caboose. Walking to the door, he opened it and looked out on the casket. Mixer lay curled in the same spot.

  Junior had a point. He could have sent the casket on by train or, for that matter, left it to be buried in the pauper’s grave in Carlsbad. The body he’d taken down from the wigwag would return to dust no matter where it lay.

  For Hook, death had always been a companion, a friend of the most serious kind, one who visited sometimes in the wee hours. Often, he waited for it in the darkness to share his secrets. How could he now abandon it for the sake of convenience? What compelled him to take this stranger home, he didn’t know. Perhaps death, like his purloined book, deserved its place in the scheme of things. He needed the boy returned to where he belonged, and he needed to do it personally. He needed it finished.

  Closing the door, he fixed another Beam and slid the bottle to the side. He thought about the events of the last few weeks. For days he’d been unable to shake the feeling that someone followed his every move.

  Twice now he’d been attacked by unknown assailants: once dangling from the tinder ladder and another when someone took a potshot at him. It could have been Moose, a man capable of violence, or it could have been the allusive Barney, who, according to Jackie, carried a firearm and had no qualms about using it. Even Jackie herself could not be left out of the equation, though she may well have saved his life at the hoptoad.

  Finishing off his drink, he hung the glass upside down on the bottle neck, took off his prosthesis, and crawled into bed. Mixer’s leg thumped on the platform outside as he dug at an ear. Hook put the pillow over his head and closed his eyes. It had been a trying few days all around. But tomorrow, being payday, promised to be better.

  * * *

  Frenchy arrived at sunup and had coupled in before Hook could get his coffee made. When Hook opened the door, Frenchy stood there about to knock.

  “We’re pulling out,” he said. “You got any girls in there, you better send them home to their mommas.”

  Hook rubbed the sleep from his face. “I haven’t had my breakfast yet, Frenchy. What the hell is the rush?”

  Frenchy lit up his cigar and pushed back his hat. “Engineers run on a fast clock, unlike some folks I know. You
riding with me or sleeping your life away in here?”

  “Alright. I’m coming.”

  “And do something with this dog. The son of a bitch tried to bite me.”

  “Jesus,” Hook said. “I wonder why?”

  * * *

  Hook poured coffee out of Frenchy’s thermos and took up his perch in the back of the cab. The old engine bore down as she hauled at her load. By the time they hit the limits of Panhandle, she churned along at a top speed of forty miles an hour.

  Frenchy lit his cigar and leaned back in his seat. “We’ll be laying over in Canadian, Texas, Hook. I think this old gal’s sprung a leak somewhere, and she won’t hold pressure. I’m taking her into the roundhouse to see the pipe fitter.”

  Hook lit a cigarette and shook his head. “This old clunker spends more time in the hospital than she does on the rails, Frenchy.”

  “Wait ’til you get as old as her and see how hot you can run, Hook.”

  Frenchy slowed as they approached the hoptoad. The engine bumped and rolled when she hit the loosened rails. Only one of the derailed cars now lay on her side in the right-of-way. The crew, still working to upright her, stepped back and waited as they idled by.

  Hook stepped to the door and looked through the faces. Recognizing none, he returned to his perch and stretched out for a nap.

  “Keep an eye out for trouble,” he said. “There’s been a lot of derailments of late.”

  Frenchy pushed back his hat. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ve been running these old smudge pots for nearly forty years, and I ain’t tipped one over yet.”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Frenchy lay in on his whistle as they approached Canadian. Hook got up and stretched out the kinks.

  “Leave me off at the depot, Frenchy. I need to find the paymaster.”

  “It’s a rare yard dog what puts a dime away for tomorrow,” Frenchy said.

  “And it’s a rare engineer what takes it with him beyond the grave,” Hook said. “I’ll catch up with you at the roundhouse.”

  * * *

  After collecting his check, Hook made for the Harvey House to eat breakfast. The smell of bacon cooking greeted him at the door, and a Harvey girl, fresh as the morning, guided him to his table.

  He ordered three eggs, sunny-side up, sugar-cured ham, scratch biscuits topped with white gravy, hash browns, tomato marmalade, and a cup of Chase and Sanborn coffee.

  “Anything else?” the waitress asked, lifting her brows.

  Hook thought it over. “A rack of bacon, crisp.”

  After breakfast, he went to the reading room, where he caught up on the news. President Truman was still threatening to nationalize the railroad because of all the wildcat strikes. Hook folded the paper and lay it aside. “And he thought the war was tough. Wait ’til he tries to run a railroad,” he said to himself.

  Afterward, he went to the depot and called Popeye, who said he hadn’t heard from Junior yet, thank the Lord, and then he reminded Hook that today, being payday, might be a good time to settle up on that three dollars he owed.

  * * *

  Hook walked to the roundhouse and found the caboose and the salvage engines sided a short walk from the turntable. Like a giant cat, Frenchy’s engine straddled the work pit in the third stall of the roundhouse. Hook could hear voices emanating from underneath the engine.

  He leaned over and could just see the pipe fitters, like mine mules, at work in the dimness of the pit. Grease and soot covered their faces and brightened the whites of their eyes.

  “How long?” Hook asked.

  “Have lots of work in the shop here,” one of them said. “Most the day, maybe longer.”

  “You seen Frenchy?”

  “Yeah,” one of them said. “He’s even uglier than I remembered.”

  “Know where he is?”

  “Sleeping rooms. Said he’d check back later.”

  “Thanks,” Hook said.

  Unwilling to spend the day roaming the yards, Hook went back to the caboose, where he found Mixer still curled up alongside the casket. Mixer whopped his tail against the floor and then turned back to his sleep.

  Inside, Hook sat at the table and read for a while. Between the heat and the size of his breakfast, he soon grew sleepy. Slipping off his shoes, he crawled into his bunk and fell sound asleep.

  * * *

  When he awakened, the sun had set, and the yard lights winked through the windows of the caboose. He put on his shoes and went out on the caboose porch. Mixer had disappeared. Given several weeks had elapsed without a scrap, he’d probably set out to hunt strays.

  Hook leaned against the casket and watched the moon rise.

  “Well, Samuel Ash,” he said, “another delay, but, don’t worry, we’re going to get there one way or the other.”

  He walked to the roundhouse to check on the engine, only to find the second shift on.

  He leaned over the drive wheel. “How long?” he asked.

  “What the hell difference does it make?” someone said. “She’ll be melted into washing machines by summer’s end, anyway.”

  Hook didn’t answer but picked his way over the maze of tracks and out into the yards. Steam rose up into the lights, and the chug of engines filled the evening.

  The hostler had sided a diesel next to the machine shop and had planted a blue stop-flag in her nose. Her engine thumped and throbbed in an idle. The smell of sulfur and oil drifted down track on waves of heat, and insects swarmed in the yard light overhead.

  Hook had turned to go when he noticed a man, large and slightly bent, standing at the front of the engine. He had a gander feather stuck in the band of his hat.

  “Barney,” he said quietly to himself.

  Hook moved back into the shadows of the engine, uncertain as to whether he’d been spotted or not. Barney had probably come for the girl like she said he would, to take her back or to silence her, or maybe to silence him as well.

  Barney moved behind the nose and out of sight. Hook checked the area for places he might escape. The yard light lit the distance between the engine and the machine shop, and no other cars or engines were close enough for cover. Barney’s only escape would be to follow along the other side of the engine, wait until it was clear, and then make a run for it.

  Hook slipped toward the nose, the rumble of the engine quaking underfoot. He pulled his P.38. If this guy was half as stealthy as Jackie claimed, he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Nearly to the front, he paused and tried to listen through the drone of the engine. He squatted down, leaned against the wheel, and peered into the darkness under the engine. There was only a couple feet of crawl space, but as long as that blue flag remained in place, the engine would not be moved, clearing the way for him to maneuver under and take Barney by surprise.

  Tucking his sidearm into his belt, he lay down on his back and worked his way under. The rail ground into his spine and the cinders scrubbed against the back of his head and shoulders as he scooted under inch by inch. Water dripped from the maze of pipes and cables that ran overhead, and the stink of diesel drifted down on the engine heat.

  He tried not to think of the colossal weight above, the steel and iron, the raw power that crushed everything in its path.

  With barely enough room to breathe, he pushed and wormed his way farther under the engine. Leaning his head back, he could just see the other side. And then he saw a foot, a boot the size of a journal jack. Barney, the son of a bitch, was waiting for him to come around the nose. And then just as quickly the boot disappeared.

  Hook shoved his shoulders under the bracing that cut at an angle across the undercarriage. If he could just get out far enough to draw his weapon, he had this bastard right where he wanted him.

  Halfway under, he realized he couldn’t move. The harder he pushed, the tighter his body wedged itself beneath the bracing. Hot water from above dripped into his face and eyes. He couldn’t move forward or backward or to the side.

  Gritting
his teeth, he forced himself to lie still, to think it through. The engine had been flagged, and as long as that flag stayed put, the engine wouldn’t be moved. He had plenty of time to work himself free. If he got under, he could get out. Simple as that.

  This time he’d relax, lower the height of his torso, which had gone rigid from adrenaline. He had plenty of time. Blue-flagged engines sometimes sat for weeks in a state of disrepair.

  He let the tension go, worked it from his jaws, down his spine, and out the bottoms of his feet. He dug his heels into the cinders and inched back a fraction. The bracing rode up on his rib cage, tearing at his shirt and his skin. Pain, like an electrical current, pooled in the glands under his arms.

  He turned his head to the side, the stink of creosote in his nose. Hot water dripped into his ear and ran down his neck. He could see the faint glow of the yard light seeping under the front of the engine, a thousand miles of steel waiting to crush him into a gore ball.

  At first he thought it no more than the thump of his heart, but when it came again, he recognized it as footsteps moving down the length of the engine. He started to call out for help, but then it might be Barney returning to kill him.

  When the footsteps stopped nearby, he turned his head up once more. He shoved his chin as high as possible, but he failed to see anything.

  The footsteps turned then and moved off toward the rear of the engine. Hook lowered his head and struggled to catch his breath. Once again, he pushed his chin up in an effort to see. This time he did see, and what he saw froze his heart into a block of ice. The blue stop-flag had been tossed under the engine only feet from where he lay.

  22

  THE VOICES DRIFTED in from a distance and then grew louder. Someone coughed, and the smell of cigarette smoke wafted in. Hook called out just as the brake compressor thumped on, his voice fading beneath the racket.

  He pushed against the bracing, his ribs firing off waves of pain into his neck and jaw. And when the diesel engine revved up, the ground under him shuddered. His scalp tightened, and once more he shoved against the bracing, his flesh tearing beneath his shirt.

  Air shot into the night, releasing the brakes, and Hook clenched his jaw. He held his breath and waited for the disemboweling, the stringing of body parts down the track.