by Frank Tuttle
Someone muttered, “No shit.” Another fellow, this time the elder Piddins, raised his hand timidly, as though I was a schoolmarm.
“Captain?” he asked. “If we disembark, before our scheduled stops—will the railroad honor our tickets, on another train?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m Army, not railroad. They might make you buy a new ticket—but if the alternative is winding up dead on the floor, I’d say that was still quite a bargain.”
A chorus of protests began to swell. “Aren’t you here to see to our safety?” was the emerging theme.
“I am seeing to your safety. I’m giving you a chance to get the hell off this rolling iron casket before it’s too late. If you stay, you’ll follow my orders and my rules and anybody who doesn’t will get put off the train on the spot, and notice I didn’t say a damned word about stopping the train first. Is that clear?”
“You can’t do this,” said Mrs. Krait, her shrill voice slicing through the din. “You have no such authority.”
“I can and I do,” I said. “Take it up with the Army, if you want. I hear they’re more receptive than ever to earnest complaints by inconvenienced civilians. I assume you’re getting off at Wetherneck?”
She put her nose in the air and feigned deafness.
“Right,” I said. “Decision time. Hands in the air, everyone getting off. Right now, people. I’m fresh out of patience.”
Whispered conversations and worried looks were exchanged. One by one, hands began to lift.
I waited. By the time the whistle blew, signaling we were close, thirteen hands were raised.
Which left nine fools, not counting Evis and Gertriss and Darla and I, still determined to keep heading West.
“What about our things?” asked a woman. “You have to let us back in our compartments!”
“I suppose I do,” I said. “But one at a time, and only one. Gertriss, accompany the lady, will you? Give her two minutes.”
The look Gertriss shot her silenced any protests.
The Western Star was squealing to a halt by the time the last of the disembarking passengers managed to shove their shirts in bags and gather near the door. There was a lot of grumbling about lawsuits, which I ignored.
The single lantern that adorned the tiny railroad station at Wetherneck drifted into view. The train slowed and rattled and finally stopped.
Gertriss flung open the door, and the assembled passengers burst out onto the rickety platform. A sleepy-eyed station attendant, still pulling up his trousers, stumbled onto the platform, followed by a pair of wary Ogres and a massive black wolfhound.
The mob descended on the attendant. They shouted, waved ticket stubs, shook their fingers in the man’s face, all at once.
I shut the door to the din.
“Probably take an hour to unload their belongings and fill the tank car,” I said.
Evis sauntered in, grinning.
I didn’t ask, not in front of the passengers. But I didn’t have to. His grin said it all.
He’d found something.
He righted a chair and perched upon it. Gertriss moved to his side, her eyes never wandering from the nine hardy souls who had opted to stay.
“Why don’t we stretch our legs,” Darla whispered to me. “Might be our last chance for quite a while.”
I nodded. The light seemed more or less normal, so I snubbed out the smoldering smoke-stick in an ashtray. “Good idea,” I said, wrapping the stick in a linen napkin and putting it in a pocket. “Let’s go.”
Out on the platform, the station attendant was still trying to both fasten his belt and determine why he was facing an angry mob in the middle of the night. The Ogres leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes shut. The wolfhound sat on her haunches between them and took in the scene with an air of canine bemusement.
There was a gravel walkway at the bottom of the platform steps. A second lantern flickered maybe ten yards away, lighting a narrow path that probably led to the stables or what passed for an inn. Darla and I only made it as far as the lantern, which we put to our backs in favor of the wide dark sky.
There was a kiss. Perhaps two. Then a bright, silent streak of light crossed the heavens, flashing from East to West.
“Good luck,” said Darla. “We saw a falling angel.”
“Stitches claims those are just stones,” I replied, holding her tight. “Stones moving so fast they burn.”
“Stones or angels, what’s the difference?” Darla replied. “Either way, it’s lucky. That tickles, mister.”
“We could use some luck,” I said.
“Think the guilty party is one of the ones yelling on the platform?”
“I think Evis found a second sorcerer,” I whispered. “Which means—hell, I have no idea what that means. I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay here, catch the next train back to Rannit?”
“Not a chance,” Darla replied. “I’ve seen the way that Krait woman looks at you.”
“We’ve got a special bond,” I replied after a moment. “Loathing at first sight.”
“Ha. I’m staying anyway, husband.” She looked up, smiling at the stars, which shone much brighter than they ever did among Rannit’s street lamps and windows and rooftops. “It’s beautiful out here at night,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sky quite so lovely. Look, another falling angel!”
Maybe I was tired. Maybe I’d inhaled too much magic Troll smoke.
But what I saw streak across the sky was no angel.
Quite the opposite. Worse, it didn’t burn up. No, it leaped down from the heavens and it tumbled down out there ahead of us, bright wings trailing feathers, lost in the starlit grass.
I took Darla’s hand. She was still smiling, and I knew she’d not seen anything but an ordinary falling star. “We’d better get back, let Gertriss and Evis have a break,” I said.
She nodded. As we reached the station, the Ogres rolled back the big loading doors on the side of the luggage car, and began hauling out crates while their anxious owners yelled out names and exhortations to be careful.
Ogres hooted. People shouted. The station attendant and his wolfhound, though, had wandered to the edge of the dim lamplight, and were staring back along the tracks the way we’d come.
“What’s he up to?” asked Darla.
“Let’s go see.”
We came up behind him. His dog looked back over her shoulder and wagged her tail at us, bumping the man’s knee in a warning.
He glanced back at us, nodded. “Damndest thing,” he said. “Look back East and tell me what you see. Maybe my old eyes are playing tricks.”
We joined him, and looked.
At first I saw nothing but the vast empty prairie, touched here and there by the silver sheen of starlight.
Then Darla gasped. I saw it too—a tiny shapeless blob of light, here one heartbeat and gone the next, bobbing above the tracks.
It vanished. Reappeared, danced, twinkled out again. Darla squeezed my elbow. “Radiant child,” she whispered. The words sent a chill creeping down my spine.
“What’s that?” asked the attendant.
“Nothing,” said Darla. “Could it be the headlamp of another train?”
“I reckon not,” he said. “Ain’t another train due for three days. And that ain’t no headlamp.”
“We saw a Troll earlier today,” I said. “He was friendly. Maybe that’s a campfire.”
“Been seein’ a lot of strange lights out there of late,” said the man, reaching down to scratch his dog’s head. “I reckon if every one of them was a campfire, it must be getting damned crowded out there, some nights.” The man straightened, spat, and turned back toward the station. “I’m getting indoors. I advise you and your wife to do the same. Good evening to ye both.”
He tipped his battered hat and trudged off, the wolfhound close on his heels.
Darla still peered off into the dark.
“Can’t fault his homespun rustic wisdom,” I said
. “Let’s get back on the train.”
“I hope that’s Buttercup,” Darla said. “But I don’t think it is.”
“Somebody probably tossed a cigar out a window, started a grass fire,” I said. I hid a shiver as I remembered seeing something that was no angel fall from the sky.
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe the Ogres are nearly finished unloading,” I replied. “Come on, hon. I’ll get a drink, and you can field-strip both your revolvers. That always soothes your nerves.”
She laughed, and turned away from the dancing light.
“I might just surprise you and have a drink as well,” she said. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the train. “Last one aboard is a Troll’s big toe!”
I let her win, just so she wouldn’t be tempted to cast a final glance back toward that damned distant spark.
Chapter Ten
It was two hours past midnight before the Western Star once again began chugging her way toward Railsend.
Only nine passengers opted to remain, and we’d herded them into the bar car despite their objections. Mrs. Krait put up the biggest fuss, but in the end, Gertriss stared her down and she’d fumed silently ever since.
Jiggles slouched in. His makeup was smeared and runny and I’d seen healthier eyes in corpses, but he didn’t slur his words and he wasn’t wobbling.
“Locked up tight,” he said. Then he lay down in a booth, his overlarge shoes hanging out in the aisle. “Wake me up before you murder me, please. Night-night.”
“What did he mean, ‘locked up tight?’” demanded Mrs. Krait. She didn’t deign to look at me as she spoke, lest my humble countenance soil her well-bred eyeballs.
“He means no one is going any further forward than the second sleeper car,” I said. “Not until after sunup, anyway. If anybody remaining aboard is bent on mischief, they’ll not aim any at the engineers or the mechanics.” I stood. “Like I said before, you stay, you follow the rules. First rule is this—nobody goes anywhere alone.”
“I shall go as I damned well please,” replied Mrs. Krait.
Jiggles the clown began to snore.
“As long as you damned well please to go with someone, you may,” I said. “Gertriss, what happens to people caught wandering about alone?”
Gertriss smiled. “I happen, boss.” She raised the scattergun. “It won’t be pretty.”
“Next rule. Everybody gets a new compartment. Assigned by me, at random, right before bedtime. We’ll be watching the gangways. Anybody planning to make surprise visits, maybe do a little amateur surgery, gets shot, beaten, stuffed, then shot again. Is that clear?”
A grudging chorus of nods and muttered complaints rose up, but even Mrs. Krait refrained from outright mutiny.
“Good. I’m just trying to keep you people alive. I doubt any of us are ready to turn in yet. Might as well get to know each other. It’s a long way to Railsend,” I said. “Why don’t you start, Mrs. Krait?”
“Go to hell.”
“All in good time,” I replied. I sought out the embalming fluid salesman, who was whispering to Dame Fabbers over the back of his booth. “Mr. Sands. You’re a salesman, I understand. What is it you sell?”
He turned a bright red, starting at the apex of his bald head, the crimson spreading quickly down across his fat wet face. “Mortuary products,” he said, his voice cracking. “The very finest, I might add. Crucible and Harrod’s, mostly. Preservatives, restoratives, cosmetics—the whole line.”
Dame Fabbers chirped up. “Why, I know the Crucibles,” she said. “Lovely people! Have you ever met the elder Crucible himself?”
It seems Sands had, and I lost him to a whispered but animated conversation with Dame Fabbers.
“What about you?” I said, speaking to the graying gentleman in the black frock coat seated across from Sands.
“Dr. Gall,” he said. His voice was hoarse and raspy, and for the first time I noticed the faint neck scar that showed through his thick white beard. “And before you ask, yes, I still practice. Have an office waiting in Spirit Hills.”
I nodded. The scar ran up the right side of his face as well, and I was willing to bet he was missing an ear, though his wild mane of gray hair hid it well.
“Lot of call for doctors out here,” I said.
He shrugged. “We’ll see. Suits me just fine if nobody ever gets sick and never steps on a rattlesnake and everybody lives forever.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” said the tall rangy man in the Western hat seated at the front of the car. “Spent a lot of time in these parts. I figure you’ll be plenty busy, Doc. You and the undertaker’s man.”
“Safe bet,” I said. “You are?”
“Drum. Drum Killins. Bound for Witch Dance, then south of that.”
He was sunburnt and muscled, square-jawed and clean-shaven. He wore a gun belt, though his weapons were locked up in the luggage car per C&E regulations. I suspected he might have, purely by accident, left a smaller handgun in his boot or back in his compartment or both, but I figure everyone is allowed to be forgetful now and then.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Mining?”
He grinned. “You got it, mister. I prospect for the Calymont Mining Company. Copper, iron, silver—if it’s worth finding, I can spot it.” He finished off with a wink aimed at the prim brunette sitting alone in the next booth. She pretended not to see, but her sudden blush gave her away.
“You must be Miss Hasty,” I said to the brunette. Darla smiled at her.
“Norabeth,” said the diminutive woman, so softly the word barely carried above the train’s constant roll and rattle. “Bound for Railsend.”
I nodded. Darla spoke. “That’s a long way to travel,” she said. “Do you have family there?”
Miss Hasty shook her head. “No. I’m going to be a nanny, on a ranch west of town.”
“Teach kids to read and so forth, will you?” boomed Drum. “Good for you. I like a book myself. They’re good company, out in badlands.”
Miss Hasty looked up. She had blue eyes beneath that pillbox hat. “Oh?” she said.
“Why sure!” The prospector leaned forward, smiling. “History books, mainly. Some poetry, too. I do like the way words can fit together.”
Miss Hasty blushed, but worked up the courage to turn and face the man directly.
“Oh,” she said, followed a moment later by, “yes.”
Darla chuckled softly, as the pair began an awkward conversation. “Obviously, she’s our killer,” she whispered to me.
“Might be,” I replied. “Could be an act. That’s how I’d play it, if I wanted to hide in plain sight.”
“What about you?” Gertriss asked of the nervous little man perched on his seat, his feet planted flat on the floor beneath him as though he was planning to jump and run at any moment.
He took his time gathering his words. “My name. My name is Colliers.” His eyes, rendered huge behind his oversized spectacles, never stopped moving.
“You’re a jeweler, I hear,” I said. Some people need a little prodding now and then, and if I was any judge, Mr. Colliers the jeweler might require pokes from a stick to keep him talking. “Got a good position waiting for you out west, do you?”
He gulped and nodded. “I do,” he said. “A very good position.”
Silence lingered for a moment while the man blinked and wrung his hands.
“I suppose that leaves me,” announced the last of the passengers. He turned in his seat to face me. “Forn Foley. Heading for Railsend to start surveying a couple of grazing tracts west of the Natchet. Haven’t murdered anyone all week, if that’s what you want to know.”
“You sure about that?” I asked.
“I’m sure I’m tired and hungry and ready to get the hell off this train,” he replied.
“You could have gotten off at Wetherneck.”
He shook his head. “My boss bought me one ticket. I know the man well enough to know he isn’t going to buy two or liste
n to excuses. I’m stuck here.” He stood. “I’m going to bed.” He glanced at Gertriss. “Lady, you want to shoot me, go right ahead. At least I’ll get to lie down.”
I rose too. “I’ll go with you. Gertriss, save the round for later. I’ll be back in a moment for anybody else who’s ready to turn in.”
Rowdy met us at the door. “Where’s he sleeping, Captain?”
I shut the sleeper car door behind us. Then I picked a compartment at random. “This one empty, kid?” I asked.
Rowdy nodded yes. I had him open it, and we deposited the frowning Forn Foley inside.
“One down,” I said. “Eight to go.”
One by one, my charges drifted off to bed.
Mrs. Krait was the last to go, delayed perhaps by composing the litany of insults she delivered on the way to her new compartment. My response—a cheery, “With bells on, I’m sure!”—garnered me a fierce glare that probably sent many a headwaiter scurrying, but we finders are made of sterner stuff.
With the last of the passengers abed, Evis sidled over and sat down beside me.
“Anybody aboard named Crutcher?” he asked in a whisper.
I shook my head no. “I assume you found something?”
“Crate with that name on it. Stuffed with these.” He pulled a folded waybill from his pocket and spread it open on the table.
TIDE TURNS AGAINST KINGDOM, it read. TROLL VICTORY BY YULE!
The date was more than a decade ago, during the grim mid-point of the War.
“There were hundreds in there, all from around the same time,” he said. “Somebody used them as packing for the box inside the box.”
“Which contains?”
“No idea,” he said. “Opening it would be tantamount to suicide. It’s a Triplett chest. A genuine Triplett chest.”
“Pretend for a moment I’ve never heard of a Triplett chest,” I said. “Elaborate.”
He smiled. “The House uses them extensively, to store our own valuables. They are sorcerous in nature. Intended to guard items of great value. As such, they can only be obtained at great expense. Whatever is inside this particular chest is no ordinary sack of ill-gotten gold.”
