The Nine Pound Hammer

by John Claude Bemis

  Ray felt sad for Si. That her own family could be so heartless and superstitious filled Ray with disgust.

  They started walking back toward the campsite. After a few moments Ray said, “I found out something before I left, Si. Do you know who Li’l Bill is?”

  “Sure,” Si said. “He and John Henry were thick.”

  “He was my father.”

  Si’s eyes widened. “You’re … Li’l Bill’s son?”

  Ray nodded. “And, like you said about Conker, there’s a new path for me; it’s just that I can’t see where it leads.”

  Si hoisted the load of branches in her arms. “I don’t know much about Ramblers, Ray, but it seems to me you’re on the way to being a good one.”

  “How about you?” Ray asked.

  Si cocked an eyebrow. “How about me what?”

  “Do you want to be a Rambler?”

  They were nearly to the campsite now. “Wherever Conker goes,” Si said, almost in an undertone, “I’ll go.”

  When the pair returned, Conker was bent over the smoking kindling. Ray’s eyes pulled to the Nine Pound Hammer lying on the ground, wrapped in the cerecloth. Here was the weapon that had destroyed the Gog’s Machine.

  As Ray stood watching Conker blowing a blaze up from the circle of stones, he wondered if his friend might be the hero who would finally defeat the Gog. And Ray felt, like Si, that if he did, that he would be there at Conker’s side.

  That night as the fire burned down to embers, Ray sat up. He gave up on falling asleep. Too many thoughts swirled about his head. Ray turned and was surprised to see Conker awake and sitting with his back against a log, gazing into the dying fire.

  “Can’t sleep?” Ray whispered.

  Conker gave a thin smile and shook his head. Ray got up and sat at Conker’s side.

  “I’m sorry, Conker.”

  “Why’s that?” Conker’s eyes widened curiously.

  “For using the lodestone to see your dream.”

  “Oh, that weren’t nothing.”

  “But I’m also glad I did,” Ray said. “If I hadn’t, I never would have figured out who my father was.”

  “So where’d you go anyway, Ray? You didn’t need to run off. I didn’t mean to get so mad, but you know I wouldn’t have held it against you.”

  “No, it wasn’t that,” Ray said, prodding a stick to stir up the fire. “I was mad at Jolie.”

  “Jolie? How come?”

  “Because, all that time she was the reason my father wasn’t around.”

  “That ain’t true,” Conker said. “It weren’t Jolie’s fault. You want to blame someone, blame the Gog, or blame the goodness in your pa’s heart, ’cause he was only doing what none other could.”

  Ray told Conker about finding his father as a rabbit and showed him the golden foot. Conker listened intently to all Ray had learned from Mother Salagi.

  When he finished, he and Conker sat for a time before Ray asked, “What are you going to do, Conker? Now that you have the Nine Pound Hammer?”

  Conker sighed. “Why you think I can’t sleep? I don’t know. When I pulled the Snapdragon off that shoal, I’ve never had no strength like that. It’s the hammer, Ray. That’s what I was feeling as soon as we got on that pirate steamer. I think just being near to it started to change me. But I’m afraid, afraid of the Gog, and worse, I’m afraid of my father’s hammer.”

  “But the hammer can help you,” Ray said.

  “That hammer led to my father dying,” he said solemnly. In the fire’s glow, Conker’s eyes appeared illuminated, dancing with phantom flames. “And I’m scared it’ll be my death, too. But if my father weren’t scared, maybe I need to quit hiding under Nel’s skirt.”

  Ray sat quietly a moment and then said, “I’ll help you, whatever you decide to do.”

  “I don’t know what that’ll be,” Conker said.

  “What would Li’l Bill and John Henry do? I think we need to protect Jolie. If the Gog is after her, the best thing we can do is keep her as far away from him as possible.”

  “Just because you two can’t sleep,” Si grumbled from across the low coals of the fire, “doesn’t mean you have to keep me up with your yapping.” Ray and Conker turned to see her sitting up. She gave one of her rare smiles and then rolled over.

  Ray and Conker sat in silence for a long while, watching the sparks pop from the fire and drift into the dark.

  The following day Si led them to the Ballyhoo in the dusty hill country of eastern Mississippi. The show was nearly set up and there were hours until it was to start. Seth was practicing with his swords as they walked into camp.

  “You again,” was all Seth said in a flat voice to Ray before returning to his routine.

  “Like to see what would happen if he’d been on the Snapdragon,” Si said out of the corner of her mouth. “Try using those swords for real for once.”

  Eddie, as soot-covered as ever, stepped from the locomotive and broke into a big grin. “Ma, they’re back. And Ray’s back, too!” he called. Ma Everett poked her head from the kitchen car and ran out to greet them, giving each a big kiss on the cheek.

  Marisol’s face peered curiously from the window at the sleeper car. Several windows down from her, Redfeather called out a hello. Buck sat in the shade of the locomotive, his head cocked. As Ma Everett hustled the three to the mess car for a meal, Peg Leg Nel strolled out in his bandy-legged fashion. His smile went to surprise and faded to a curious scowl as he saw the black roll of cerecloth in Conker’s arms. He turned without a word of greeting and went back into his car.

  Conker gave Ray an anxious look. “It’ll be okay,” Ray said. “I’ll be there in a second. Save me a bite.”

  Ray turned to jog up to the locomotive.

  “I met someone you used to know,” Ray said before handing the envelope to Buck.

  The cowboy ran his fingers over the wax before breaking the seal. He lifted the envelope to his nose and inhaled its scent. A vague smile twitched on his thin lips.

  “How is Lorene?” Buck asked.

  Ray assumed this must be the Pirate Queen’s name. He wanted to laugh. The sudden realization that she had once been a girl with a normal name before becoming a feared outlaw caught Ray off guard.

  “Good, I suppose,” Ray replied.

  Buck shook his head and chuckled. “You never cease to surprise me, Ray.”

  “I do my best. I have something else, too, but I can’t show you here.”

  “Come with me.” Buck led Ray to the cowboy’s sparse room, where Ray took out the siren-song music box from the small painted case.

  Buck ran his fingers over it. “What is it?”

  “A music box. It’s got a wax cylinder,” Ray said as he assembled it and turned the crank. Buck tilted his head as the sweet, eerie singing began.

  “You got this from Lorene?”

  “Yes. The Gog attacked her ship trying to get it. He could use the music box to control Jolie … if he captures her.”

  Buck stopped the turning cylinder. “He won’t. We’ll put it somewhere safe.”

  The cowboy took the box and slid it under his bed.

  “Buck, I have something else to tell you. … ”

  Buck sat at the table, his hands folded in front of him as he listened to Ray. Ray told him everything—about the lodestone and about seeing Li’l Bill in Conker’s dream, about the rabbit’s foot and the Nine Pound Hammer. As Ray spoke, Buck’s craggy face remained placid and expressionless. When he finished, Buck muttered, “He ain’t going to like this.”

  Ray was about to ask what he meant, when the cowboy stood. “Come on. Let’s get Conker. It’s time we talked to Nel. It’s time you knew.”

  PUZZLED, RAY FOLLOWED BUCK TO THE MESS CAR. Conker was halfway through a plate of grits, fried wild tubers, and jelly-slathered biscuits. “Come with us,” Buck said.

  Conker looked up anxiously, his spoon perched before his open mouth. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking to Ray.

 
Ray said, “We’re going to talk to Nel.”

  “Now?” The giant’s eyes widened. Picking up the Nine Pound Hammer as he stood, Conker said, “Just one moment, Buck. Need to go to my room first …”

  “Bring it with you,” Buck growled.

  Conker gulped and joined Ray behind Buck. As they entered Nel’s car, the pitchman was chewing anxiously on the end of his briarwood pipe and gazing out the window. When he saw the boys enter behind Buck, his eyes fell immediately to the bundle of cerecloth in Conker’s hands.

  “Sit down,” Buck said to Ray and Conker.

  As the four sat around the table, Buck began, “Nel, we’ve got some talking and it ain’t going to be quick. First, you need to know what these boys have been up to. And then, I think it’s time we told them a few things.”

  Nel shifted in his seat, his elbows cocked awkwardly as he squeezed the arms of the chair. Nel looked first at Conker. “Where did you get it?”

  “What?” Conker asked.

  The deep folds and wrinkles around Nel’s eyes relaxed until Nel looked both patient and sad.

  Conker took a deep breath. “From the Pirate Queen.”

  Nel looked at Buck, and Buck said, “I gave the Nine Pound Hammer to her to keep years back. You wanted it off the train, remember? You worried that it put the children at risk. Her steamer was the safest place I knew.”

  Buck then cocked his head toward Ray. “Go ahead, Ray. Tell Nel who you are.”

  Nel frowned, “What do you mean?”

  Ray picked at the edge of the table nervously. “I’m not Ray Fleming, sir.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No, my real name is Ray Cobb.”

  Nel’s eyes were bright and wild as Ray began telling him about the lodestone and how he had found his father and gotten the rabbit’s foot. “… the lodestone disappeared, too. Well, not exactly. I still have it but it’s buried inside my father’s hand.”

  “His hand?” Nel gasped. “Severed by the Hoarhound! Ray, is it made of silver? Can I see it?”

  “It’s not silver,” Ray said as he took out the toby and removed the rabbit’s foot. “It’s gold.” He handed it to Nel.

  Nel looked down at the rabbit’s foot for a long time, before saying, “This is troubling to an old man, boys. There are many things I hoped to protect all of you from. But those wicked hounds won’t get off my trail.” He gave a dry snort. “Metaphorically and literally, I suppose.” Still gazing down at the golden foot, turning it over and over in his hands, Nel added, “It would seem the Hoarhound’s jaws have taken another.”

  Conker and Ray exchanged a puzzled look. “What do you mean, Nel?” Conker asked.

  Nel placed the rabbit’s foot on the table. He removed the tasseled fez from his head and loosened the cravat to unbutton the top buttons of his shirt. His fingers located a cord of rawhide around his neck and pulled up what seemed at first to be a pendant. It was large and heavy and fashioned of silver. As Nel held the object up for the boys to see, Ray realized it was a foot—an animal’s paw.

  “This old fox paw”—Nel nodded to the silver paw—“was once here.” And he tapped his peg leg with a knuckle.

  Ray snapped his eyes to Conker to see if Conker had known this, but the giant’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he was able to speak. “You were a Rambler?” Conker whispered.

  Nel nodded as he returned the paw back inside his shirt. “Long ago. Until a Hoarhound took my leg off.”

  Nel sighed and Ray could see the struggle in the pitchman’s face before he continued. “It happened not long after your father died, Conker. The Machine was destroyed, but not the Gog. I was part of a band of Ramblers—along with your father, Ray—who hunted him down. There was a battle against the Gog’s army: men and beasts of clockwork and frost. Many Ramblers were killed. I was attacked by a Hoarhound. I was fortunate to only lose part of my leg. In the end, the Gog’s army was defeated. But the Gog escaped.

  “The battle broke me. To see so many of my friends die, it destroyed a part of me, in a way I can never explain. And my Rambler powers, too; once my leg was severed, I lost them. I don’t know why.

  “If it had not been for your mother, Conker … I loved Polly Ann very much. She was like a daughter to me. She was fearful that agents of the Gog might come for her. There were Ramblers disappearing, being killed … their families, too. The Gog knew who she was. He might find her.

  “Fortunately the Gog thought I had died in the battle. You see, Ray, you are not the only one who has had to take on a pseudonym in order to hide from the Gog’s agents. Cornelius Carter is not my real name. I’m Joe Nelson. Not so flashy, is it?” He chuckled. “No, the Rambler Joe Nelson was dead. And the pitchman Peg Leg Nel Carter was born. I took you in, Conker. I took in other children who were in danger from the Gog. I was a Rambler no longer—in both name and ability. But I knew how to do root work. I could make tonics. That is how the medicine show began.”

  Ray stumbled for words, but the revelation that Nel had once been a Rambler left him speechless.

  Conker’s jaw tightened as he asked, “Did the Gog … did he kill my mother?”

  Nel’s expression saddened again. “She tried to hide. She moved around, keeping to the wilderness—for what you don’t realize, Conker, is that Polly Ann was a Rambler, too.”

  Conker’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “But the Gog tracked her down?”

  Nel nodded. “His agents. Yes. Those were hard times. With John Henry’s sacrifice, the Ramblers had struck a terrible blow to the Gog. He was weakened. He needed to rebuild his Machine. The Gog still had his servants. And one by one the Ramblers were hunted down and killed.”

  Nel paused to light his briarwood pipe. After drawing on it, he motioned with the pipe to Ray. “I wasn’t the only one who left the Ramblers. Your father, Ray … he had met a wonderful woman, your mother, and fell in love. He had seen so much death and destruction at the hands of the Gog. He no longer wanted to wander the fringes of the world as a warden. He wanted more than ever to be a part of this world.

  “He left the Ramblers, left the wild. But years later, when you must have been just a youngster, word got to him that the Gog was building a new machine, one far worse than the first. And for reasons the Ramblers didn’t know at the time, the sirens were threatened.”

  “How did you know all this?” Ray asked. “If you were no longer a Rambler. Who told you?”

  “I did,” Buck answered, crossing his arms on the table. “Nel and I became friends after I left the Snapdragon. But I was also helping the Ramblers, and they sent me to find your father. It took several visits to convince him.”

  “You?” Ray asked.

  Buck nodded. “Li’l Bill was afraid that your mother might be threatened, that the Gog might come for his family if they found out about you. So she moved around and changed her name.

  “Ray, your father”—Buck put his hands together as he continued—“he wanted to return to you, to his family. All those years, he didn’t even know that your mother had given birth to a daughter. It was hard on him, Ray. Hard to be away from those he loved. But it was a sacrifice he had to make.”

  Ray could not help but feel the jealous anger toward Jolie well up in him. Jolie had said his father had loved her as a daughter. Had he loved Jolie more than his own family?

  Ray asked, “What will happen to Jolie?”

  Buck cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Mother Salagi said the Gog needs Jolie—her siren voice—to capture people for his Machine. What will happen to her? You can’t hide her on this train forever!”

  Buck frowned as Nel said, “The truth is, we don’t know what we are going to do with her. We’re just worried about getting her healthy and strong again. Then we will look for a place—not on the train, I assure you—where she can live safely.”

  “But the Gog might find her,” Ray said. “You think he doesn’t know about you, Mister Nel, but he knew that the Pirate Queen had a sir
en-song music box. He will find her eventually.”

  “And what are you proposing?” Nel answered, his brow darkening.

  “We need to stop the Gog!” Ray frowned.

  Nel spread his hands wide on the table, looking from Conker to Ray several times. “Don’t you understand all that I just told you? Weren’t you listening? The Gog is more powerful than you imagine. Do you think that because Conker now has the Nine Pound Hammer and you have your father’s hand, that you are going to be able to defeat the Gog?”

  Conker leaned forward, his jaw trembling as he spoke. “But Nel … if we had your help and Buck’s and Si’s … she’s awful tough!”

  “Three children and a couple of old men aren’t going to defeat the Gog!” Nel shouted. He winced, closing his eyes and trying to calm himself. “Don’t you see, Conker? I promised your mother I’d protect you. I have the lives of all these children aboard our train to think about. Get it out of your heads, boys! We stand no chance against the Gog.”

  A long silence followed. Finally, Nel pushed back his chair. “Go eat, boys. You’ve had a long journey. You probably need rest. But please think about what I’ve said. Promise me you won’t do anything foolish.”

  Ray looked at Conker, but the giant’s eyes were downturned. Nel looked sharply at Ray. “Promise me.”

  Ray nodded. “Okay, Mister Nel. We won’t do anything foolish.”

  When they had stepped back into the blazing sunlight, Conker turned to Ray. “What are we going to do?”

  “Figure a way to stop the Gog,” Ray said.

  “I thought you promised we wouldn’t do anything foolish?”

  “Foolish would be pretending that the Gog isn’t going to find us, isn’t going to track down Jolie, isn’t going to rebuild his Machine!”

  Conker waved a hand to shush Ray.

  Ray frowned at him. “Remember what you said, about not hiding under Nel’s skirt anymore?”

  “Yeah,” Conker mumbled, as he headed up the steps to their sleeping car to hide the Nine Pound Hammer in his room. “But it ain’t that simple, Ray.”