“Ray!” Sally called. Ray gritted his teeth and reached the top of the car. He crouched down, one hand holding the guardrail, the other hand slipping into his pocket for the rabbit’s foot. The Hoarhound had broken an opening in the top of its boxcar and was wrestling itself out of the hole and onto the top of the train. The Hoarhound brought its metallic eyes around to meet Ray. It growled and hunched low as it crossed the cars.
Conker’s hammer struck the pin. “Hang on, Ray!” he called.
Loosening the toby’s string, Ray walked toward the Hoarhound; the clockwork beast bared its steely teeth. The Hoarhound was ridiculously large on the top of the train but kept its balance by digging its metal claws into the roof. Its eyes never strayed from Ray. The Hound readied itself to pounce.
Ray held up the hot, glowing rabbit’s foot. “Remember this? You remember me?” he shouted, mustering all his bravery.
The Hound eyed the rabbit’s foot warily, but then leaped, landing on the car not ten feet from Ray. It took every ounce of Ray’s courage not to flee. He steeled himself: the rabbit’s foot had protected him once from the Hound, but if the Hound charged and snapped its jaws quick enough …
The hammer struck again. “Nearly there!” Conker shouted.
As the Hoarhound took a step forward, Ray stepped forward as well. The Hound growled but stopped, its eyes flickering from Ray to the golden foot.
Ray felt the train shake a moment. “I got it, Ray. They’re free.”
“Ray!” Sally’s voice wailed, drifting away behind him as the caboose parted from the train. Ray desperately wanted to look back. To find Sally and lose her again so quickly caused an unbearable ache in his chest. But if he turned, if he tried to jump for the caboose to stay with Sally, the Hound would follow.
Ray heard Conker climb up behind him. The Hoarhound snarled when it saw Conker but stayed back. “Keep it right there,” Conker whispered. “Keep it back till they’re gone.”
Ray felt a tremble in his lip; his courage wavered. The Hound, sensing this, swung its jaw open and lunged into the air. Ray fell back, holding out the blazing rabbit’s foot. He saw the dark shadow of Conker rise up over him, the iridescent blur of the hammer swinging through the air. The hammer met the Hound with a burst of breaking metal and grinding gears.
Ray rolled over to watch the Hound topple onto the edge of the train beyond Conker. The beast flipped and then fell over the side of the car into the dark.
RAY SEARCHED THE DARK TRACK BEHIND THEM, BUT THE caboose was too far away now. Sally was gone, but at least she was safe. He and Conker were not.
Helping stanch Conker’s bleeding, Ray turned to look toward the locomotive as another burst of flames appeared from the collision of the two trains. He redoubled the pressure on Conker’s bullet wound, and the giant grunted. After a few more moments, Ray took Conker’s shirt and bundled it into a bandage to wrap the bleeding shoulder.
Conker pulled back his shoulder. “Enough. Ain’t going to get no better now.”
Ray placed his hands on his folded knees and bent his head. “How are we going to get back to the Ballyhoo?” he mumbled. “And Sally … ?”
Conker reached for the hammer and got up on one knee. He wavered dizzily for a moment and had to place one hand down to hold himself up. Ray touched Conker’s side, knowing he would not be able to support the giant if he fell over.
“Sit back,” Ray said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I feel I seen him, Ray.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My father. All this time, my whole life, I been wanting nothing more than a chance to see my father. But just lately, I been remembering I seen him.”
Ray shook his head, unsure if Conker was delirious. “He died when you were just a baby. I thought you never knew your father.”
“Not back then. He’s been coming to me—coming in the night, in my dreams. Only I couldn’t recollect it at the time.”
Ray remembered the night he had awakened Conker from his dream. He had seen Conker’s vision of John Henry destroying the Gog’s Machine with the very hammer that Conker now held in his hand.
“You remember your dreams about him?” Ray asked.
Conker nodded. “My father, he died fighting the Gog, fighting his evil Machine. And now my father’s hammer, it belongs to me. I’m taking it up again, Ray. I got to carry on the work.”
“You’re dizzy, Conker. You’ve got to rest.”
“No! Ain’t no time for faltering now. I’ve got to destroy him.” Conker pushed up on one knee and slowly stretched to his full height. He cocked his head to one side, as if taking the measure of his growing strength.
Ray stood, too, spreading his stance to brace against the train’s sway and the wild, whipping wind.
“You sure you’re—” Ray began.
Conker turned toward the front of The Pitch Dark Train, gripping the handle of the hammer across his chest. Conker broke into a full run, leaped from car to car. Ray rushed after him.
The agents of the Gog clung to the locomotive like a swarm of insects, scuttling across the sloped cowcatcher and onto the Ballyhoo’s caboose, which shimmered with the dying flames of the last of Nel’s crude bombs.
Conker charged the Gog’s men from behind, bursting from the coal smoke and shadows just beyond the bright blast of the headlamp. He leaped onto the roof of the engineer’s cab, sweeping his hammer, scattering men off the sides of the locomotive. Conker struck into the cab. The impact of his hammer blew out the glass and hurtled the engineer through the side door.
The Gog’s agents at the Ballyhoo’s caboose shielded their eyes against the headlamp’s glare, hardly knowing what they were witnessing. The shadowy giant braced himself against the smokestack, hurtling his hammer about in great arcs. Conker was no mere man, nor even a giant. With the Nine Pound Hammer, he had become an unstoppable force.
By the time the Gog’s agents opened fire, Conker had jumped down the cowcatcher, delivering a fury of heavy blows from both the hammer and his injured arm. Men fell in clumps from the sides of the train.
Conker took several shots from their rifles at close range. Roaring with fury, he pummeled his hammer into the last of the gunmen and rid them from the back of the Ballyhoo.
With one foot on the cowcatcher of The Pitch Dark Train and the other on the back of the Ballyhoo’s caboose, Conker struck his hammer against the twisted metal that held the trains together.
“Ray!” Conker shouted. “Hurry!”
Crouched on the last car before the tender, Ray looked at the locomotive and realized that with no engineer, The Pitch Dark Train was now being pulled by the Ballyhoo. Conker broke through final clinging strands of metal and grabbed the grille of the cowcatcher before the trains separated. He swung the hammer into the balcony of the caboose. The force of the two trains pulled Conker in opposite directions, and he issued a fierce roar. Thick bands of muscles across his bleeding shoulders, chest, and arms rippled under the enormous weight of the opposing trains. He couldn’t hold on for long.
Nel and Buck had already moved to the cupola, where the flames had died down, ready to hoist Conker and Ray up onto the caboose.
Ray raced through the thick smoke belching from the locomotive. He leaped from the passenger car down onto the smooth roof of the tender car. A hand caught his ankle midflight and threw him down in a tumble.
“Wait, Ray,” a voice said. “Don’t leave me.”
Ray flipped over to see Seth clutching his ankle from the passenger car’s vestibule. Ray snapped his foot back to kick Seth away but was stopped when he saw the anguish welling in the boy’s eyes.
“I was wrong,” Seth said, voice trembling. “Terribly wrong.”
Seth climbed up onto the tender after Ray but turned as the door from the passenger car opened. The Gog stepped out onto the vestibule.
“You’ve reconsidered taking employ with my … carnival?” he said to Seth.
Seth stood over Ray and raised his
cutlass over his head as the Gog approached the tender.
“Seth, put it down, son!” Nel cried through the smoke and rumble.
Seth ignored the pitchman, saying in a low voice to the Gog, “Don’t come any closer! Or I swear, I’ll kill you!”
Nel’s voice pitched with alarm, “No, Buck!”
A shot fired. The cutlass dropped with a clatter on the top of the tender. Seth stumbled and turned. Ray could see a dark stain spreading across Seth’s shirt. Ray looked back through the smoke toward the Ballyhoo, where Buck was crouched, his revolver still leveled.
“No!” Ray cried.
Seth’s eyes turned upward, and he dropped with a slap to the tender’s roof. Ray crawled over to him, touching Seth’s neck. “No, Seth. No,” he whispered. But he could see clearly that he was dead.
From the corner of his eye, Ray saw something moving along the side of the train. A pale, ghostly form rushed along in the dark, equal to the speed of The Pitch Dark Train. It galloped, its white bristling haunches moving up and down as it ran.
The Hoarhound.
“Give my thanks to your gunslinger,” the Gog said to Ray. He blew a sharp whistle, and the Hoarhound jumped, its front paws tearing into the metal of the tender. Ray rolled away, and Seth’s body was knocked from the train as the Hound pulled itself aboard. Its shoulder was crushed like a rotting melon where Conker had struck it with his hammer, and its head hung gruesomely to one side. But when the Hound bared its teeth, Ray knew it was still deadly.
The Gog climbed the steps of the ladder and walked to the Hoarhound with one hand on his walking stick. When he reached the Hound—the mechanical beast towering beside him—the Gog rubbed his fingers up into its frosty fur.
“There was a time when I would have considered him my greatest construction.” The Gog smiled at the beast. “But I have been working on another, one that will soon reshape this sad world into something truly great and useful. I am missing but a few final … necessities.”
Buck fired from the back of the Ballyhoo, unloading the chambers of his revolver in quick succession. Shots sparked off the Hound’s hide. The Gog did not move or take his eyes from the Hoarhound. He simply held up his ebony walking stick, and the bullets scattered harmlessly around him.
The Gog looked at Buck and shouted, “Pity, it’s not so simple, cowboy!” The Gog took a step toward Ray, who was still lying on his back. The metal beneath him was growing painfully cold. Shards of ice formed across the top of the tender and on his clothing. The Hound might have been injured, but his powers were little diminished.
Ray pulled the rabbit’s foot from his pocket and held the shining talisman out before him for protection.
“No need for that either.” The Gog swatted with his walking stick. The golden foot flew from Ray’s hand and tumbled off the side of the train.
“No!” Ray cried.
“Now, if we can get down to business,” the Gog said, standing over Ray, one hand reaching up to massage the Hoarhound’s broken shoulder, the other making small, theatrical motions in the air with his stick. Grevol called out to the Ballyhoo, “Old Joe Nelson. Or is it Mister Cornelius Carter? I assume you are back there as well.”
Nel called from the back of the caboose, “You can have me. I’ll turn myself over to you. Just let the boy go.”
The Gog laughed. “I have no more use for a crippled old man than a foolish young brat. You were a great Rambler once, Mister Nelson, but what are you now? Don’t play the fool. It insults us both. You know what I want.”
From the Gog’s feet, Ray called out, “Conker, let go!”
Conker could issue little more than a strained groan.
Ray looked up at the Gog, “We don’t have Jolie,” he lied. “She’s on your caboose, gone with the rest of the children you kidnapped.”
“Jolie? Is that what the mermaid’s called?” The Gog smiled, the corners of his mouth curling beyond his silver mustache. “What a lovely name. No, the orphans are disposable. I can get more to feed my Machine. But the siren—this Jolie, who I know is still on your train—she is a rare thing indeed.”
“She can’t help you,” Ray said. “Her song is not as powerful as other sirens’.”
The Gog raised his crooked eyebrows, flashing black, oily eyes. “A valiant attempt. Oh, I suspect her voice will work just fine.”
The Gog patted the Hoarhound. “Mankind is a pitiful lot. Weak and superstitious. I want to raise them out of the muck of savagery that they’ve lived in for thousands of years. They are crude and they will need to be remolded, reshaped. But alas, they won’t come willingly. Your Jolie—more specifically, her siren song—will help me influence them, to lead them to a new destiny by way of my Machine. She can come willingly … or I can use the music box your swordsman so generously delivered.”
“If I come, you will let him go?” a voice called.
Ray turned to look over his shoulder. Jolie was standing on the caboose, on the other side of the cupola from Buck and Nel. They turned in surprise, but Jolie rushed past them before they could stop her. She jumped from the Ballyhoo onto The Pitch Dark Train’s cowcatcher, where Conker was holding the trains together.
“Stop, Jolie!” Nel yelled.
Jolie grasped the headlamp of The Pitch Dark Train and was pulling herself up when her fingers gave out. She slipped.
Conker jerked the hammer from the caboose and swung around to catch Jolie, pinning her to the front of the cowcatcher. One fraction of a second more, and she would have fallen to the track beneath The Pitch Dark Train’s wheels. As Conker held Jolie, the two trains parted. The Ballyhoo quickly moved ahead on the track; The Pitch Dark Train began its slow deceleration. Nel and Buck’s shouting voices faded as it departed.
Dawn had begun to break. In a thin blue glow, the forests surrounding the tracks gave way to the low marshes and creeks that fed the Mississippi River. Dark birds swooped over the cypresses and grasses.
The Gog smirked at Ray. Ray pressed one foot against the guardrail and reached back with one hand to pull away from the Gog. As Ray moved to the edge, he saw a golden glow on the side of the tender.
“What a fine morning.” The Gog waved a hand out to the silver sky. “Fine indeed. I see why you are so fond of her, your Jolie. She has initiative. So rare a quality in these times. And you, young Ray, you have admirable qualities as well … the very reason I couldn’t keep you aboard my train back when we first met.”
Ray’s eyes flickered again over the edge. The rabbit’s foot clung magnetically to the tender’s iron frame, just four feet down.
The Gog backed away a step, allowing the Hoarhound to inch forward. The beast pressed close to its master, its gleaming jaws slack and eager.
The Gog sighed. “Your willingness to leave your sister on the pale hope that she would have a better life without you … well, it’s striking. Pity that after all this, I have no real need for you. There’s plenty of fuel for my Machine. You are not necessary … not anymore.”
The Gog took another step back.
“No!” Jolie shouted. She slipped from Conker’s grasp, climbing up onto the top of the locomotive, just as the Gog released the Hoarhound.
The Hound lunged, jaws snapping.
Ray kicked his foot against the guardrail, propelling himself over the side of the train. With one hand, Ray held tightly to the guardrail, swung down along the side of the train, and reached for the rabbit’s foot. With a sharp click, it came loose from the black metal of the train.
The Hoarhound’s teeth flashed as it snapped at Ray. Jolie screamed and rushed toward the Hound and its master, who was pressed against its side.
Ray got his foot to the lip above the wheel well and pushed himself up onto the tender. When the Hound saw the rabbit’s foot, the beast reared back into the Gog. Ray landed on the top of the tender, rolled once, and grabbed the Hoarhound’s icy leg.
The Hoarhound’s mechanical insides ground to a sudden halt, setting the beast into an eerie stillness. With the
jarring motion of the train, the Hound toppled to one side.
The Gog’s eyes widened as his clockwork monster fell toward him. He shouted once and then disappeared beneath the mass of its body, pinned to the roof of the tender. The train shuddered beneath the immense weight of the toppled Hound.
With one hand, Ray clutched the golden foot. With the other, he clung to the Hound’s frosty fur. Jolie grasped Ray about the shoulders, quaking at what had almost been Ray’s end. From beneath the Hound, the Gog issued an angry, bubbling grunt. A gloved hand extended toward the ebony walking stick that lay inches away.
Conker crossed from the locomotive onto the flat top of the tender.
“Ray!” Conker said. “His stick!”
Ray turned to see the Gog’s finger touch the walking stick and pull it into his grasp. Ray had time only to let go of the Hoarhound’s leg and push Jolie down against the surface of the tender car before the Hoarhound’s body exploded away from the Gog, smashing into Conker. The blow sent Conker across the locomotive; the Hoarhound tumbled and disappeared off the side of The Pitch Dark Train. Clutching his hammer, Conker slumped down the front of the train, toward the cowcatcher.
“Conker!” Ray cried.
The Gog rose. His suit was smeared with oil and grime from the Hoarhound. His face was horribly gashed. The Gog brushed a gloved hand across his sleeve and glared down at Ray and Jolie. His eyes flamed; his lips curled into a snarl.
“You are becoming quite a nuisance,” the Gog spat. “Let me make myself clear. I am taking the siren.”
The Gog reached out and snatched Jolie by the arm, hurtling her to his side. Ray jumped up, but the Gog swung his ebony walking stick. An invisible force flipped Ray sideways and threw him against the rear of the locomotive.
Jolie struggled against the Gog’s clutches, pulling and kicking. “Yes, we will go in just a moment,” the Gog patiently explained. “But your friend hasn’t yet departed.”
Jolie stopped pulling against the Gog and locked his eyes in her fierce gaze. Her lips trembled, and she began to sing her siren melody.
A pleasant smile settled on the Gog’s mouth as he listened to Jolie. Then his gloved hand swatted her across the mouth.
The Nine Pound Hammer Page 24
