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

by George Wier

  The whole train lurched and two figures, silhouetted against the forward light, emerged from the engine and dropped into the night.

  Leo and Corky were out.

  From the passenger car ahead of us, Charlie jumped. It was too far down and we were still going too fast, but I had every hope that he would survive. And I hoped that Frank was going to jump as well.

  The engine passed over the lip of the canyon and pitched forward into it.

  JoJo banged into me and it took all of my strength to keep from falling back into the aisle. I pushed her to the open side doorway, where she braced her arms against both sides.

  I looked past her and craned my neck forward as the water car went, followed by the first passenger car.

  At the last second, I thumped JoJo hard on the back of the head, and as she began to fold up and drop, I pushed her out of the train and rode the damned car over and down into the night.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I came to in the still blackness, hardly able to draw breath. There was an impressive, bulky mass over my chest, and while it hadn’t squished me, it nonetheless held me pinned.

  I felt it’s smooth mass with one free arm, rapped on the outside of it softly with skinned knuckles, and detected a bit of an echo from inside. Then, of course, I knew what it was: Dick Sawyer’s coffin.

  His inert form was in there, inches away from me, and holding me down.

  Maybe he was grinning at me in the darkness.

  Each breath was difficult to draw, not because of the pain—there was, oddly, little pain—but due to the pressure.

  I heard it then. Jessica’s voice: “Dad? Daddy?”

  Distantly, I heard a second voice. It was Perry Reilly. “Bill! Bill, are you in here?”

  I couldn’t speak, so instead I rapped my knuckles again on the coffin.

  A light stabbed out and caught the corner of my eye. My feet were somewhere over me, around the other side of the coffin, midway up the wall of the passenger car. All around me was a jumble of dislodged seats, all wood grained and worn leather. There in the night, I could smell their age with each too-shallow breath.

  “I hear you dad!” Jessica called.

  I thumped the coffin again.

  “I see you!” she shouted. “I’m coming.”

  She moved splintered and cracked seats aside, tossed them like so much kindling, and came over to me.

  “Crap,” she said. “You’re pinned.”

  I rapped again on the coffin, once for yes.

  “Hold on.”

  I wasn’t sure that I could possibly do otherwise. After a minute, something rattled against the smooth topside of the coffin, and I heard Jessica give a grunt of effort.

  The coffin shifted an inch, and I found that I could breathe more deeply. She gave another shove as I moved towards freedom, and suddenly I was out.

  The coffin toppled over the other direction and smashed into a pile of seats.

  Jessica helped me to my feet.

  It took a moment for me to fully catch my breath, a moment in which I coughed and cleared my throat. Instead of saying the only thing I could think of to say, which was ‘thank you,’ I said, “Remember that time...?”

  “What time?”

  “On Caddo...Lake?”

  “You mean when I shot that guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “I guess I did.”

  “Like that time...this one.”

  “Oh. You mean...”

  “Don’t tell mom.”

  “Oh, by the way, I’ve got someone handcuffed to the side of the train out there.”

  “Who is it?”

  “An unsavory sort of character. He was looking for something. Probably, he was the one who brought down the bridge. I think he was looking for that!” She shined the light at the golden box that contained the remains of a Texas Governor.

  “There you are,” Perry said from behind us. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for the warning.”

  “Oh crap,” he said.

  “What?”

  “How am I going to find Nolan Ryan?”

  *****

  We found Charlie beside the track, moaning. JoJo was there with him, nestling him in her arm as he moaned and clenched his teeth. In the light of my flashlight, I could tell that his right leg didn’t look right. It was bent wrong in two places midway between his knee and his ankle. It must have hurt something awful.

  “Dad,” Jessica said. “I’ve got an inflatable splint in the first aid kit in my trunk.”

  “Bring it,” I said. “And hurry.”

  She ran back to her car, which was apparently parked not far from the wreckage site, and came back a few minutes later with the first aid kit—a big, black fishing tackle box jam-packed with everything a peace officer might need to take care of a hapless citizen.

  I watched as my daughter placed the plastic wrap around Charlie’s broken leg, affixed a small hand pump, and began airing it up. He cried out when something audibly snapped back into place.

  “Sorry,” she said, but Charlie had passed out.

  It took all three of us to get him back to her car.

  “Darlin’,” I told her, “you’re going to have to get him to the hospital all on your own. We’re probably thirty miles west of Sweetwater. You’ve got to get him back there.”

  She nodded.

  We loaded Charlie carefully in the back seat of her cruiser. By this time he was awake again, and asking what was happening.

  Jessica spread a blanket over him while JoJo spoke quietly to him. “Bill’s daughter is taking you to the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” he asked, looked around him and saw the grill between the passenger compartment and front. “Are you sure she’s not taking me to jail?”

  I laughed at that. “You’re going to be fine, Charlie. Some doctor will set your leg, give you some good painkillers, and put you in a plaster cast. You’ll be good as new before long.”

  “I guess I’m going to miss the burial service.”

  “Probably,” JoJo said. “If we don’t hurry things along, I think we’re all going to miss it. Including...our friend in the coffin.”

  I closed the back door gently, and Charlie rested his head against the glass.

  “Okay, dad,” Jessica said. “I’ll see you in Midland.”

  “Take care of that old man,” I told her.

  “I will.”

  “You’ve always done your job well,” I said. “I’m proud of you.”

  She nodded and smiled up at me from inside her car. She turned on her red and blue lights and moved slowly forward.

  *****

  It took almost an hour for us to fish the coffin out of the wreckage and get it to the side of the canyon. By that time we had some help from the Colorado City Lake Community locals; Colorado City having been the most recent town, and the arroyo where we had crashed fed into a small lake community around which a sizeable population had sprung up.

  A rancher backed his pickup to the edge of the arroyo above us and dropped a cable with a hook on the end down to us. I laced the cable between all three of the handles along one side, hooked it back to itself, and gave him the signal to hoist it.

  As it slowly came upward, I grasped one of the handles on the other side and used it to repel me away from the cliff and upward and onto the coarse, wild grass of the land above.

  I unhooked the coffin from the cable and patted it. It lay there on the grass and reflected the red taillights of the rancher’s truck.

  The wreckage of the Old ‘19 and its cars was strewn about the narrow valley beneath us. Steam slowly escaped the engine, and as the last of it played out, it gave out a low whistle—which sounded eerily like the moan of a dying animal; a whale, perhaps—and fell silent.

  “Well,” JoJo said, coming up beside me. “I suppose that’s that. Thanks for saving my life, Bill. I never would have jumped on my own. I think I would’ve been kille
d in all of that,” she gestured to the wreckage. “You got lucky, yourself.”

  “When the passenger car went over,” I said, “Sawyer’s coffin went airborne. I landed on it and rode it down. Of course, I ended up under it. I couldn’t have predicted that in a million years.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  Corky—who had a noticeable limp—and Frank walked down the track in the direction of the Maintenance and Construction car. After a few minutes we heard a series of loud beeps and turned to look as the car backed toward us down the tracks.

  Cap showed up about that time and I took him over to the fellow that Jessica had handcuffed to the roof of the undercarriage of the caboose. Cap uncuffed him from the car, then cuffed his hands together behind him.

  “This ought to be interesting,” Cap said, and led the man away.

  *****

  Perry Reilly drove away with my explicit instructions to inspect every inch of track between the wreck and Midland, but before leaving he made sure to let everyone who would listen to him know that they should be on the look out for his prized baseball, a signed Nolan Ryan original. I had to shanghai him back into his car and turn the ignition key for him in order to make him leave.

  Once he was headed west down the narrow roadway and back in the direction of the interstate, half a mile away, I walked back to the little Maintenance and Construction car and noted that Corky was sitting in the driver’s seat. Next to him, Leo was pointing out various switches and making comments. I figured that between them—two old fossils left over from the age of steam—they would piece together how to run the damned thing.

  “All we need,” I said, “is a couple of Texas flags, and we’ll be in business.”

  “Already accounted for,” JoJo said, coming up beside me. In her hand she had the flags from the engine. The were scraped and dirty, but red, white and blue were still their primary colors.

  “Ahh,” I said. “Thank you, ma’am. Let’s make it official, and find some place to mount these.”

  Once this was done and the Lone Star floated free to both sides of the car, Corky moved a large gear knob, and tromped on the gas.

  And we were off!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  We’ve got them in custody,” Cap said. We were stopped by the tracks, no more than about thirty miles remaining before Midland, having gone through the towns of Westbrook, Coahoma, and Big Spring. The Lone Star Express was little more than the cramped cabin space of a small Maintenance and Construction car with a flat bed behind it. Dick Sawyer’s coffin was tied down to it with a pair of safety-straps. Our top speed was forty-five miles per hour—the speed we had started with, and the speed we would end with.

  I stood by the side of the highway next to the tracks, my hand on the roof of Cap’s cruiser as the sun slowly rose into the sky.

  “Who’s in custody?” I asked.

  “Two different guys, mainly, and about twenty other cretins from both families.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Okay. First there’s the Crofts. They’re a Houston crime family. The FBI, the DEA, and even the Border Patrol has been trying to get them for decades. We traced the helicopter back to a Waco outfit and leaned hard on them. They gave up who their employer was.”

  “Croft,” I said.

  “Right. He’s cooling his heels at the moment in the Harris County Jail.”

  “What about the other one?” I asked. “You mentioned another crime family.”

  “Yep. Jim Wade. He’s the head of the Wade crime family.”

  “Don’t tell me. They run drugs, like methamphetamines. Also, they’re into the wrestling world.”

  “They’ve been trying to break into wrestling for some time. Yeah. When our prosecutor told my prisoners about the lifetime prison sentence for the commission of a crime while having meth—and the toxicology results show high concentrations of meth in their systems, which is also evidentiary—they both caved and fingered Jim Wade. A raid on the Wade house in Houston netted the main Wade, his kids and his attorney. This little adventure of yours just brought down two crime families.”

  “What about the guy who blew up the railroad bridge?”

  “Take a guess.”

  “Given his aspect, I’d say he was working for Wade.”

  Cap nodded. “Yep. He admitted it when I was taking him to jail in Big Spring.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Was there anything in all of that information concerning what they were after?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Jewelry.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Ten million dollars in jewelry from the Sawyer family. By that, I mean the Governor’s father.”

  “Governor Sawyer never saw a dime of his father’s money. He wouldn’t have received a brass ring from the son of a bitch. I don’t believe it.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “You do remember that we just opened the coffin and x-rayed the inside of it at the side of the tracks.”

  “I know. I was there.”

  “Then I repeat once more, bullshit.”

  “Okay. Bullshit. I hear you,” Cap said. “Still,” he smiled, “not bad for a day’s work.”

  “You mean two days of work.”

  “Okay, two days. Not bad at all. You sure you don’t need help with that?” he gestured over to the small, yellow railroad maintenance car. The tied-down coffin winked at us in the sun. All four members of the Lone Star Express crew sat there, staring forward down the track.

  “No,” I said. “We’re fine. Hell of a way to end the run, though, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, it’s by rail. You said that’s what he wanted.”

  “I guess it is what he wanted. All right, now that the dogs are all off our back trail, I suppose you can go home. Your wife is probably worried sick about you.”

  “She is. It’s been all over the news. The truck crash back when this whole thing started, the propane tank deal, the helicopter crash. It’s made national and international headlines.”

  “No crap,” I said. “International?”

  “Yeah. Someone snapped a picture of you standing on top of the refrigerator car right after the grenade and the helicopter crash. It’s gone around the whole world.”

  “Oh my God!”

  Cap laughed at me. He was enjoying himself a little too much at my expense.

  “I’m following you all the way in to Midland. Get used to it. They might make a Ranger out of me yet over this.”

  “Hell, I’ll give you my badge, if you want it.

  “Nothing doing. I want my own, and I want to earn it!”

  “You’ve already earned it. I’ll put in a call when this whole thing is over. Also, since you’re coming all the way with us, I’ll see what I can do about getting you into the graveside service.”

  “That would be mighty fine,” he said. “Yes sir, that would be mighty fine.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Ten miles to Midland, and it looks like we have a tailwind.”

  “Saddle up, Hoss,” he said.

  *****

  The Lone Star Express entered Midland with fanfare.

  A marching band accompanied us, the Midland High School Bulldogs Band, decked out in Blue and White, played the Imperial Death March from Star Wars Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back, and I thought it was damned appropriate. It is, after all, a death march of sorts.

  The Rotarians and the Shriners showed up and turned it into a parade.

  We stopped the cramped yellow car on the tracks in downtown Midland. The band halted and ceased playing when the hearse showed up. A limousine with the Texas Governor and the Ross Volunteers pulled up behind that, with a retinue of state vehicles.

  Corky, Leo, Frank, JoJo and I climbed out and into the suddenly quiet throng. It was an odd, juxtaposed event. The cheer of a marching band and a parade, contrasted with the loosening of the coffin tie-downs and the loading of the coffin into the hearse.

  The Governor came
over and shook my hand. I was surprised to see that he had Penny in tow. She had come with him, and I found myself wondering whether or not the two were now an item. Surely not!

  “Bill,” he said, “you sure know how to have a party.” He shook my hand at the same moment that several amateur photographers began snapping pictures of us. I must have been a sight. My clothes were dirty and worn and practically in tatters. I found myself hoping there wasn’t a mirror anywhere within miles, because I would be embarrassed as all hell the minute I took a look at myself.

  “Thank you, Governor,” I said. “I mean, I suppose I do.”

  Then it happened. A chant rose up: “Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech! Speech!”

  Governor Sandoval snapped his fingers and one of his assistants ran to the limousine and came up with a bullhorn. Then he began shaking the hands of each of the crew of the Lone Star Express in turn, and there were far more flashes.

  The bullhorn magically appeared in his hands. He thumbed a button and raised it to his lips.

  “Folks,” he said, “thank you for the warm welcome on this solemn occasion. We’re not so solemn, however, that we can’t give applause to the brave men—and woman” he gestured to JoJo, “—who brought Governor Sawyer back home, in fulfillment of his final wish.”

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Bill Travis, who will introduce the amazing railroad crew of the Big Thicket Steam Train Association.”

  My eyes widened as a small platform appeared in front of me and the bullhorn came into my hands.

  I stepped up. “Shoot,” I said. “None of us were expecting this.” My voice carried out over the square, which was rapidly filling—the marching band and the Rotarians and those who wanted to get closer all mingling together, all becoming one. “But here we are, and here are all of you.”

  There was a cheer, and it spread across the crowd and then died out.

  “Richard Donegal Sawyer was a working man. He was an oil man. He was a Midland man.”