The Lone Star Express (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 13)

by George Wier

  *****

  Ten minutes later we were walking beneath the immense oaks alongside the Capitol grounds, me in the center and Penny and Clarence Freel to either side. Penny listened as Freel talked.

  “I’ve cleared it for your train on our tracks all the way to Temple,” he said. “There you’ll switch tracks to Burlington Northern for the run to Abilene. I’ve got a call into one of my friends at Burlington, but we’re playing phone tag. Hopefully I can get through to him before you leave and get it all cleared in advance.”

  “Nice. Thank you.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you with regard to, uh, refrigeration issues. It would be nice if you could lace-up a riff to—”

  “Lace-up? Riff?” I asked.

  “Oh. Railroad lingo. Some people say ‘couple-up’ cars—hitching a car up to the train. But we call that ‘lacing-up.’ A ‘riff’ is a refrigerator car. Riff, refrigerator.”

  I shivered, but neither of them noticed. “Got it. It looks like I’m going to have to learn a whole new language.”

  “It’s a limited vocabulary. No more than about a thousand words, probably.”

  “Good to know. Penny, this is your ‘coming-out’ event. Everyone you don’t already know is going to want to know who you are. I get to introduce you as my partner.”

  She smiled at that, but demurred comment.

  “I’ve got to remember to have the sign painted out front,” I said.

  “Already hired a contractor,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “That crazy friend and client of yours, Sol Gunderson.”

  “The goat farmer?” I chuckled. “Perfect. I didn’t know he was a painter.”

  “He’s a jack-of-all-trades.”

  “And master of none.”

  We lapsed into silence as we crossed 11th Street to the southwest of the Capitol over to the Governor’s Mansion, where the parking lot was already filled to capacity. There was a jam-up of foot traffic around the gate, where the Ross Volunteers stood stoic to either side of the gate, all decked out in gleaming white uniforms, bearing rifles with shimmering bayonets. In front of them was a table where two State Troopers were checking everyone’s ID and had the men strip off their belts and the women reveal the interiors of their purses before permitting them to step through a portable metal detector, and thence up the front steps, thus establishing somewhat of order amid the muted chaos.

  The occasion was indeed somber, but I noticed old friends—including an old West Texas pilot named Hap McCorkindale, who had to be in his eighties now; Lief Prescott, a highway engineer from East Texas—I had helped him with a special problem a few years back when the highway he was putting through Robertson County got halted by a court injunction; Larrabeth Williams, the former black female sheriff of Brazos County; and a fellow named Moe Keithley, a bankruptcy lawyer-turned-travel- guide-writer who had penned a famous photo series on Texas small towns.

  The three of us went through the security meat-grinder then walked up the front walkway. Knots of people stood out in the front yard beneath the shade of the spreading oaks in the soggy grass. Many were strangers to me.

  I hadn’t been in the Governor’s Mansion in years, and I was suddenly swamped in the flood of images that intruded: Dick Sawyer looking out the front window into the night and the past, him walking down the stairs to meet with me. And yet another time when I breakfasted with him in the formal dining room, right before he stepped down from the post and into the obscurity of permanent retirement.

  Nat Bierstone was waiting at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor. There was a golden rope across the bottom step at about waist height, and he reached down and unhooked it, and bade Penny and me to come up.

  “Give me a minute, Clarence,” I said. “If all goes well, I’ll be able to introduce you to the Governor in a little while.”

  “Sounds fine.” He nodded and stepped aside to allow us to pass.

  Penny and I followed Nat up the stairs.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Bill Travis,” the Governor said. “And Penelope!”

  I was surprised that Penny, my former secretary, knew the current Governor, while I did not.

  Oliver Romero Sandoval was a historic first for Texas; a Hispanic Governor. He would never become President of the United States because he was born in Mexico. He was a migrant worker as a child and a young man over the southwest.

  “How do you know my partner, Governor?” I shook hands with the man. His grip was that of smooth iron.

  “I’ve been to your office more often than you have, apparently, to talk to Nat,” Governor Sandoval said. “I’ve even met your daughter, Jessica.”

  “Oh. I sometimes have been known to take off into the blue.”

  “That’s for sure,” Penny said, and cleared her throat, then took her turn shaking the Governor’s hand.

  “He finally made you his partner, huh?” he said to Penny.

  “Finally.”

  As Penny stepped beside him, he expertly put an arm around her shoulder and drew her to him. This surprised her, and her eyes crinkled and she smiled in embarrassment. I tried to recall whether Governor Sandoval was married or not. I recalled that some of Penny’s former boyfriends very easily redefined the word ‘grundge’ to include new lows. But there, with the Governor’s arm around her and pressed to the side of his big, puffed-up chest, she looked natural and wholesome.

  “I understand that you will be escorting Governor Sawyer’s body to Midland for burial,” Governor Sandoval said to me.

  “That I will,” I said.

  “I’ll be flying out there in five days for the ceremony.”

  “Five days?” I said. “I don’t know if that’s enough—”

  “Wait. Let me see if I have one...” He reached into the inner breast pocket of his neatly-pressed jacket, withdrew a small pamphlet, and handed it to me.

  I flipped it open and my eyes focused on the dates and times.

  “When was this printed up?” I asked.

  “This morning, downstairs. I have a small publishing office here. Part of the renovations.”

  “This is your itinerary, then? I mean, you and your staff put it together?”

  He reached over and thumped me on the upper arm. “No need to thank me. Just part of the job.”

  I stood there on the hardwood floor of the Governor’s residence, and began calculating the miles and the speed of the train in my head. There were a few variables that I didn’t yet know, such as whether the train would have to stop for water; and then there was how long it took to switch tracks, as well as whether or not there would be any wait for other trains. My head swam.

  A very short, older woman came up to us and whispered something to the Governor, who had to bend down to hear her.

  He raised up and said, “It’s time to get this show on the road. We’ll be walking to the Capitol Rotunda, and there will be a brief ceremony. Bill, you, Nat and Penny and about thirty other people who are waiting downstairs will walk with me. We’ll go two abreast, with me out front. After that, the whole state will follow.”

  “I’ve got a friend downstairs, Clarence Freel. He’s a veep for Missouri-Pacific. If it’s okay, we’ll pull him along after us. Later, I’ll want him to meet you formally.”

  “That’s sounds fine. Let’s go.”

  I nodded.

  *****

  The state troopers had blocked off 11th Street between Lavaca and Brazos Streets. The procession wound across 11th and to the front gates of the Capitol and up the hill. As all state capitols in the former Confederate States, the Texas Capitol faces south—under the theory that our backs will forever be to the north—and stands majestic and proud on a promontory that slopes gently down in toward the Colorado River.

  When we reached the Capitol steps, I turned to glance behind me, and saw that the line stretched all the way back to the front of the Governor’s Mansion. I figured that this was only the beginning. The real crowd waited at t
he junction of Congress Avenue and 11th, directly across the street from the front of the Capitol, and it appeared that thousands were assembled there.

  The rotunda of the State Capitol is a grand place. The smoothly-polished marble floors bears an ornate, gold-trimmed Texas Lone Star, with an smaller, golden sister beneath the apex, some two hundred feet directly above. Each succeeding floor up from the ground floor is bordered by a thick, many-spoked balustrade. Interiorly, as exteriorly—and most don’t know this—the Texas Capitol is very nearly a carbon copy of the Capitol at St. Petersburg, Russia, apart from the fact that the Russian building is black with a golden dome, while ours is rose granite, quarried around eighty miles west of Austin. As such, it inspires awe and quiet respect.

  Governor Sawyer’s coffin was there in the center of the great star beneath the dome, it’s lid removed, and bound about with a Texas Flag. A company of Ross Volunteers, each of them hand-picked from the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, stood in white facing outward in a circle, with a small opening in the circle to the West. This would be the closest point of approach for the viewing.

  I don’t care much for viewing bodies, whether it is respectful or not. Some do, I realize, but for my part, the body has little to do with the person I once knew. The person who once inhabited the body has usually taken off for parts unknown and unknowable, and what remains is no more than a husk.

  Governor Oliver Sandoval stopped between two Ross Volunteers on the west, bowed his head and said a brief silent prayer. I watched his lips move. He then filed on past.

  When Penny and I came by, we slowed and went on past. I gave no more than a quick glance, and continued on.

  After the viewing, we joined the Governor and whispered briefly with him. I was able to make the introduction between Freel and the Governor, who shook Freel’s hand warmly, thanked him for his help, and then we filed out.

  Out in the warm sunshine, we paused on the Capitol steps. I reached in my pocket and brought out the itinerary and handed it to Freel.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “That,” I said, “is my doom.”

  He unfolded it and began reading. Then he laughed. “Five days, huh?”

  “Three days. We can’t leave until tomorrow night. And I don’t know yet whether or not those steam guys from Palestine have got the Old ‘19 running yet. I have no idea if it’s going to be here on time or not.”

  Freel laughed and nodded. “Sorry, but I can’t help saying how glad I am that I’m not you.”

  *****

  The day passed, as all days do, and the first day of Penny’s new life as my partner ended with me dumping a huge load of cases and phone calls to return on her lap. She had been so much my partner for the past previous two years that it had become somewhat ridiculous, and naming her so formally had been the most natural thing in the world.

  Nightfall found me bound for home. I was stopped in backed-up traffic, waiting for my light to turn, when I rolled down my window to peer closely at a bright spot in the sky. It was Venus, shining ever-so-bright, and this started me on a Shakespearean mental track, thinking about the life of Dick Sawyer, and ultimately, my own life, and which of the stars in their courses, if any, had established the measure of my existence.

  The following evening I was to embark on an adventure, of sorts, if all went well and if the Old ‘19 was to make it from Palestine to Austin. I would have to trying calling Charlie Ferguson again when I got home. Three separate attempts to reach him during the day had been unsuccessful, and it was my hope that it was no more than an issue of cell phone reception along the way. Either that, or he was busy each time I tried. I’d find out, though, soon enough.

  When I pulled up to the house, an old friend was waiting there for me in my driveway. Patrick Kinsey, my old friend from the Sheriff’s Office, got out of his cruiser and directed me to park on the street.

  “Hey Bill,” he said, when I got out and walked over to him.

  “Hey yourself. What are you doing here?”

  “Got a call from your wife. She wants someone watching the place.” He must have recognized the look on my face, because he said, “Now I know that you’re perfectly capable of watching over your family. But it’s for that very reason that I’m going to watch over you tonight, and up to the moment that you’re on that train and headed out of town. After that, I’ll plant myself right here for a minimum of a day, and I’ll even leave a cruiser parked right here in your driveway until you return as a deterrent to anybody, and I’m not taking no for an answer on any of it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Hell, come on in the house and have something to eat.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  *****

  The next day passed with no contact from Charlie Ferguson, or anyone, for that matter, from the Old ‘19. Around seven in the evening I got a call from Clarence Freel—yet another person in my life, quite abruptly, with the initials C.F.—letting me know that he had received a signal from the terminus in Temple. The Old ‘19 was due in an hour. I was to meet with the train and the hearse bearing Sawyer in Taylor, to the east of Georgetown. Specifically, the exchange would take place at a certain railroad crossing at a certain hour. The train would come to a stop, the casket would be loaded under the watchful gaze of the State Troopers, and I would climb aboard for the long trip north and west. And that would be it.

  I hoisted our little kids one by one, kissed them, kissed Julie as well, and headed out.

  I could see no stars overhead, the sky having covered over by a thick caul of clouds, with a silvery moon no more than faint shimmer above them.

  By the time I made it to Pflugerville, fat raindrops were peppering my windshield, and I had to switch on my wipers. While I slowed in the downpour, I realized I hadn’t made any disposition for the old Mercedes. It seemed likely that I would have to leave her parked on the side of the road, leaving her open to theft, vandalism, or pure meanness.

  But this, I was certain, would prove to be the least of my worries.

  I turned off the feeder road from the Interstate with no more than twenty-five miles to go and thirty minutes to get there. Despite this fact, I know how things work in the real world, and gunned the engine, breaking the speed limit law as discreetly as I could.

  Turning off yet again down a back road, I came to the stop.

  There were two sets of tracks there, so I decided that one of the two would be what Charlie had referred to as the alley where trains could stop and wait for another train.

  There was no train.

  I got out, walked over to the tracks and peered both directions. Nothing. I got back in my car, checked my cell phone GPS and assured myself that I was at the exact spot. Consulting my watch, I saw that I was five minutes early. I got back out, stacked my overnight bag, my suit bag, and a suitcase on the hood of my car, got back in and waited. I was soaking wet.

  I was just north of the switch where the Santa Fe began. According to my mental notes on it, we would be on the Santa Fe rail line all the way to Sweetwater, with perhaps one or two switches along the way, the first being in Temple. Miles to go, before I sleep.

  *****

  The hearse finally came, with a State Trooper escort both fore and aft. They parked to the side of the road, piled out, and walked over to me.

  As I was shaking the hand of the first trooper, a shrill whistle blew.

  We stood in the rain and chit-chatted as the Old ‘19 backed down the track toward us. In my mind’s eye, I could see her backing several miles from the switch ahead, which meant that the last several miles of her journey had to be done at a snails pace. I figured that somehow it must have been easier for the train crew to turn her around somewhere up ahead and back her to us, than it would have be to turn her around on the trip coming back. Likely, it had something to do with the refrigeration car. Then again, I had no way of knowing. By the time the trip was done , I would likely know far more about railroads and trains than I ever dreamed.

 
The Old ‘19 pulled back toward us at crawl, and a man, backlit from the lights of the train, leaned out from the caboose—a real caboose!—and waved his hat to us in broad, sweeping strokes.

  “The Old 1919 is here for her last run!” he shouted as the brakes squealed and the train slowed to a stop.

  He climbed down onto the roadway, walked up to me and shook my hand.

  “Bill Travis?”

  “Unfortunately,” I said. “And you must be Charlie Ferguson.”

  “I am. Not looking forward to the trip, are ya?”

  “Can’t say as I am. So let’s get her done.”

  “Where’s the cargo?”

  I motioned back behind me into the rain and the night, where two men from the hearse and three state troopers were unloading the casket.

  Out of respect, we ceased talking when the casket trundled up and past. I could see that there was going to be an issue with the train right off. The casket wasn’t going to fit up the narrow, wrought iron steps, angle around and through the doorway.

  “Hold on, fellahs,” Charlie said, then lifted a walkie-talkie, keyed the mic and spoke into it.

  The train lurched and slowly begin backing. We waited as three cars passed.

  “That’ll do,” Charlie spoke once more into the hand-held radio. At the forth car, the brakes squealed, a jet of water vapor emerged horizontally from the engine, and the train came to a ponderously slow halt. A man climbed down from the top of the train, unhooked a door and used the weight of his whole body to slide the door aside. When he hopped down from the train and into the glare of the flashlights from one of the state troopers, I could see that the man was a woman. She was in her mid-sixties, she was wiry and lean, and looked tough enough to pound bricks into dust with her rough hands.

  “This is JoJo,” Charlie said.

  JoJo shook my hand.

  “That the freight?” she gestured at the casket.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there. Load ‘im up!”