by George Wier
“Okay,” she said.
I looked at the other one and noted that it was Cap calling me. I answered.
“Bill, I think you’ve got company, and I think it’s the wrong company.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a helicopter coming up on your tail, and it doesn’t appear to be one of ours.”
At that moment JoJo’s radio squawked. It was Frank, from the caboose: “Crap! Duck and cover! Fire in the hole!”
JoJo and I leapt to our feet. In the next instant we heard and felt the blast wave move over us. I fell down and JoJo fell on top of me.
It took a second for me to realize what was happening. First of all, my ears weren’t functioning properly, and therefore neither was my balance. Second, I had to remember to breathe.
I left both phones lying where I had dropped them and tried to get to my feet while helping JoJo get to hers. It was a slow-going affair.
By the time we were both up and moving, my ears began popping. The effect was of sound turning on and turning off again.
Behind the passenger car, half of the top of the refrigeration car was gone, and sunlight was on the frosty floor of the interior, illuminating the golden casket with several shards of the roof sticking out of it. The glass in the doorway and the last several windows of our car were also gone. I glanced to the roadway along beside us to see Cap firing upward with one hand while he drove. I looked up to see a helicopter, sixty or seventy feet overhead, and a cable with a huge iron bar on the end of it dropping downward.
At that moment, JoJo climbed half of the ruined ladder and dropped into the exposed refrigeration car. I was right on her heels. In the last second before the top of the caboose disappeared from view—and I noted that all of the windows of the cupola were likewise missing—I saw Frank raising a shotgun upward toward the helicopter. If he fired, I didn’t know about it, because I couldn’t hear a damned thing.
The bar descended, and I knew what it was the second it dropped down into the car. It was an electromagnet. They were trying to jack the coffin.
JoJo pantomimed needing my assistance, and I got what she was telling me. She gave a shove and the coffin moved half a foot toward the rear of the car. I got beside her and gave a shove and together we pushed it about fifteen feet until it thumped against the back of the car.
The bar abruptly lifted into the air and I took several steps back to watch it go. The helicopter was in definite trouble, and pitched sideways and disappeared from view. A few seconds later my hearing returned. I walked over to the ladder along the rear wall, climbed up it, figured out the hatch mechanism at a glance and lifted the hatch and poked my head out in time to see the helicopter crash to the left rear of the train. I’d expected a fireball, but there was none. The rotors shattered into the ground one by one and pivoted the wrecked fuselage in a slow circle. I noticed Frank looking that way through the missing glass of the cupola. After a moment he turned back toward back front, saw me from twenty feet away, and smiled a devilish grin.
Cap was stopped on the side of the road. I watched as he ran over the tracks and to the fence line where he quickly crawled between the barbed wire.
“Let’s stop!” I yelled at Frank.
“Huh?” he shouted back. I had little doubt that his hearing was done for.
“Stop!” I shouted again.
He nodded, lifted his radio and said something. I was pretty sure it was, “That’ll do.”
The train instantly lurched with a squeal of steel wheels on steel rails, and came to a slow stop.
I had to help JoJo up and out onto what was left of the roof. We climbed down the outside rear ladder, and by the time the train came to a stop, we were able to step down onto the rail and exit the train.
Together, we walked back half a mile, and took turns helping each other cross the fence.
When we got to the crash sight, Cap was standing twenty feet away. He had his radio out, talking to someone about the wreck.
“You two okay?” Cap asked when he was done with the radio.
“Huh?” JoJo asked.
“We’re having hearing problems,” I told him. “What the hell was that?”
“I think it was a grenade. Either that or a landmine.”
“Crap,” I said.
“Anybody alive in there?” JoJo asked.
“Nope,” Cap said. “Two of them. Thoroughly deceased.”
“This is getting interesting,” I said.
“Yeah. Not only that, but I received word about two minutes before the chopper showed up. I didn’t get a chance to tell you because of the timing.”
“What?”
“There’s been a murder.”
“Who? Where?”
“The funeral director at Abington & Smith Funeral Home was killed last night.”
“That was...it was the man who prepared the Governor’s body.”
“Yeah,” Cap said.
“I think it’s time we had a look at what’s in that casket,” I said.
“It’s the same one that was on display at the Capitol, isn’t it?”
“To my knowledge, it is.”
“Then you’ll find Governor Sawyer’s body in there.”
“Yeah, but with what else?” I asked. And, of course, the question was rhetorical.
During the walk back to the train, JoJo’s hearing must have returned, because she stopped me with a clutch of my arm and said, “What was said back there just now?”
Over the last quarter of a mile, I had to give her the play-by-play of the conversation all over again.
*****
While the train was stopped, a number of cars and trucks stopped along the shoulder of the highway and people got out and gawked. After a few minutes a news truck showed up and began breaking out their equipment.
I remembered that I had left Julie hanging on the phone and went to retrieve it. She had hung up long before, of course. I called her back.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Then what the hell was that?”
“Oh. I think it was a little misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? Was there or was there not an explosion?”
“Oh. That. Well, yes. There was a little explosion.”
“Stop downplaying everything, or I’m hanging up right now.”
“Okay,” I said, thoroughly chastened.
“Are you really okay?”
“None the worse for wear,” I said. “I promise.”
“All right. Just so you know, Jessica left early this morning. I think she’s headed your way. She made the excuse that she needed the day off from work. Patrick called me back and I covered for her. I think she’s headed your way.”
“Dammit,” I said. “When is she going to learn she can’t—”
“And when are you going to learn that you can’t...anything...without the rest of us? Hmm?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be on the lookout for her. I think the worst may be over.”
“Now you can tell me exactly what happened.”
I told her and she took it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For not holding back. That’s all I’ve ever needed from you. The whole story.”
I almost went weak in the knees. Maybe it was my exhaustion. Possibly it was an after-effect of the explosion, but I suspected it was something else entirely.
“Say,” I said, “do you remember eating barbecue for breakfast out behind Lawrence White’s house?”
“How could I forget?”
“That was the moment I fell in love with you,” I said.
“What made you fall in love with me? Specifically?”
“You clucked three times with your tongue, then you said the pudding was too sweet.”
She laughed. “I suppose I did. And that was it?”
“Yeah. That’s all it took. That and the shadows of
the willow fronds on your face. And your strawberry blonde hair.”
“Stop it,” she said. “Okay, get back to work. Or to sleep, maybe. You sound tired.”
“I’m tired to the depths of my soul. But we’ve still got miles to go, and now I have to do the worst thing in the whole world.”
“Do I want to know?”
I thought about the prospect of opening Sawyer’s casket, and shivered. “No. You really don’t.”
“Okay. Goodbye.”
“I’ll see you in a day or two. Goodbye, my love.”
And that was it.
*****
By the time I stepped back off of the train, JoJo was talking to a reporter while a cameraman took it all in with a shoulder-mounted high-definition camera.
I walked up, careful to remain out of the range of the camera, and waited.
The reporter ended the question-and-answer, turned to the camera and gave a statement. I listened in.
I saw that JoJo had noticed me and was about to get the reporter’s attention to notify him of my presence, but I waved her off. Instead, I walked toward the front of the train, looked up at Corky, who sat there with his eyes closed and his arm on the sill, as if he were no more than a fixture—a part of the train itself, like a cogwheel or the whistle.
“Hey, Corky!”
He slowly turned his head, opened his eyes and regarded me.
“I’m going to have a look in the coffin. See what they’re after.”
He nodded, wordlessly.
I walked back to the JoJo. “Still got that key to the lock on the refrigeration car?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s open it up.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that. Is it okay if I’m not in there with you.”
“Sure. I wouldn’t ask you to be.” And then something occurred to me. There was something there, etched into the lines of her face. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve got a history with him.”
“Who?”
“With Governor Sawyer.”
She nodded, slowly.
“What is it?”
“It’s...private.”
“Right now, JoJo, nothing is private. Please tell me. I’ll keep it in confidence, unless it’s pertinent. If it is, I may have to reveal it later.”
She sighed, tossed her head to peer far off and over the horizon.
“I once loved him,” she said.
“He didn’t love you back, did he?”
“No. He used to love somebody else. A long time ago. He couldn’t see past her.”
I thought about Julie, about my kids. If there had never been any kids, I still would have loved her. If she hadn’t gone with me that first day together, I would have loved her anyway. I would have spent the rest of my life loving her. But only her? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think so. The heart has to be big enough to encompass the whole world, or it’s not much of a heart.
“I’m sorry, JoJo,” was all I could say.
“My name’s not JoJo. That’s my train name. It’s really Sarah Ann. Sarah Ann Blake.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah Ann,” I said. “And it’s really good to know you.”
“Thank you,” she said, and began sobbing.
I wanted to grab her and hold her, but that wasn’t what she needed from me. What she needed, I had already given to her: my understanding.
“On second thought,” I said, “I’m not ready to inspect his body. I think I would have to mentally prepare for that.”
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “Not in a million years.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Corky came back and pronounced the refrigeration car fit for travel.
It took some doing, but with all hands employed, we managed to fight the coffin into the passenger car. Then, we got moving again.
My dream, I reflected, had been somewhat prophetic. Dick Sawyer was in the passenger car with me as we got underway. The coffin was battered and beaten, but it was still functional. He was in there, locked safely away. I had by now dismissed the notion of opening the golden box, secured as it had been with a long, narrow hexagonal “key” inserted through a tiny hole in the side. If there was a hex key anywhere on the train, it was likely to be something Frank had back in the caboose.
Whereas before, I had wanted to open it and take a look inside, now I did everything I could to keep from making eye contact with it.
I hitched my legs up over the seat in front of me and tried to take a nap, but sleep refused to come. After awhile, I abandoned the passenger car—and Governor Sawyer—and made my way up to the engine. For the remainder of the trip, Frank was going to be isolated in the caboose, and the only time anyone would ever see him was if we stopped the train and went back there. Then again, I thought that he probably liked it that way. No one would be bothering him, and he could take it easy.
Leo, JoJo, Charlie and Corky were in the engine, and it was a cramped and crowded space.
The hours drifted by and we passed a number of little towns, some I had been through before, and others of which I had only heard rumor: Goldthwaite, Zyphr, Brownwood, Bangs, Santa Anna, Coleman, and Tuscola. We traveled good and fast—somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty miles per hour—and Corky blew the whistle and rang the bell for those who came out to see The Lone Star Express going by. Whenever I could, I stuck my hand out a window and waved. The day began to wane into the evening, and there was little motion but the rocking of the Old ‘19 on the steel rails.
The towns played out and night began to fall. I realized that we had covered more than half the distance to Midland. Somewhere to the northeast of us was Abilene, a town I had visited far too few times. In places like Abilene, Lubbock, and Midland, there are few actual topics of conversation available to any given stranger. A good conversation starter in such places is mostly limited to where there was a good steak to be had, high school or college football, and religion. That’s about it.
At some point we must have crossed Interstate 20, because Frank’s voice came over the radio and instructed Corky to slow down in preparation for a stop. I asked if my services were needed to switch the track, and Corky let me know that it wouldn’t be for several hours. We were to have a coffee there until well after midnight, to allow the Texas & Pacific tracks to clear before proceeding on the last leg of the journey.
I had to get out and go examine the roadway sign a few hundred yards ahead, then called Cap to let him know we were at the junction of County Road 109 with the tracks. I had no idea what county we were in, nor how he was to get to us, but he punched the information into his GPS system, figured out where we were, and gave me an estimate of ten minutes.
I checked in with Julie. She hadn’t heard back from Jessica, and I had yet to see her. It was possible she was lost somewhere in North Texas. I grinned at the thought, then decided to call her. In between the two phone calls, I noticed that my own phone was down to a ten percent charge. After the call, I was intent on shutting it off, and only turning it back on for emergencies.
Jessica answered on the first ring.
“Dad.”
“Where are you, kiddo?”
“What do you mean?” she tried to sound innocent.
“I happen to know you are up here somewhere, in North Central Texas. Are you lost?”
“Of course I’m not lost. I’m keeping tabs on you.”
“Well, we’re not near any major roadway at the moment. We’ll be parked here for a few hours. I’ve got a friend in the State Troopers who will be stopping by in a few minutes. We’re well protected, which is why I want you to go home.”
“Dad, the picture of you on top of that blown-up train car is all over the newspapers, the news and the internet. You’ve been attacked by trucks and guys with guns, propane tanks, and helicopters throwing bombs at you.”
“And yet, we’re still here. Look, this run is almost done. We start on the last leg of this journey in a few hours, and I think we’ve weeded out all
the idiots.”
“But you don’t know what the future holds,” she said. “You may be smart, dad, but you don’t have a crystal ball that tells you that nothing is going to happen. Okay, I’m hungry. I’m going to stop in Sweetwater and get something to eat. Do you want anything?”
“How about six sub sandwiches and a gallon of soda.”
“That I can do. We’ll meet up somewhere after Sweetwater. I’ve been looking at the map. The train tracks run right alongside I-20 once you get into town, and is off to the side for most of the rest of the way to Midland. I’ll be able to pace you and watch over you. Once you get into Sweetwater, slow down. I’ll be looking for a blown-up train. When you hear me honking, stop and I’ll get you your sandwiches.”
“Sounds fine. And after that, you can turn around and go back home.”
“Huh. You’re not the boss of me.”
“You want me to call Driesel?”
“Driesel’s not the boss of me either. Neither is mom. Besides, I’m going with you to the funeral. It wouldn’t be right for me not to.”
I ground my teeth together, then said, “Okay. Just...if something happens, stay back and out of danger. Will you do that?”
She laughed. “No way.”
“Okay. Bye, darlin’. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Bye, dad. Be...good.”
“Shut up,” I said, and hung up.
*****
I slept for three hours—a magical time that seemed to not contain time, in that I didn’t dream—and when JoJo shook me awake, my eyes snapped open as if mere moments had passed.
“Time to switch us,” she said, and for an instant I got the mental image picture of cutting a branch from a tree with a pocket knife in preparation for giving the train crew a whipping with it. I dismissed the image and got to my feet.
The lantern, the bucket of axle grease with the brush, the can of WD-40, and the big monkey wrench were waiting for me on the bottom step of the caboose. Frank was walking around outside smoking a cigar.
“I’m going to help you,” he said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“This one’s a bit more complicated. There’s two sets of tracks here. We need to be on the one that will take us south. It’s a double switch.”
