Tracks

by K. M. Tolan

  Vincent handed him the coin.

  Willy flipped the nickel between a thumb and forefinger. “Follow me to the royal reception area, if you will.”

  The hobo’s brief smile assured Vincent that King Willy wasn’t taking himself too seriously. They left the tent for a small campfire nestled in a hollow beside a creek. The hobo poured stream water into a grapefruit-sized copper teapot before setting the kettle on a granite shard next to the fire. He brought the liquid to a rolling boil, then tossed in the nickel and closed the lid. “Copper works best because it’s a good conductor. Always use clean water. The ladies don’t appreciate looking mussed up, and politeness is paramount when it comes to introductions. Especially with this rider.”

  The kettle rattled with new enthusiasm, a geyser of vapor jetting from its spout.

  Vincent’s jaw hung slack as the swirling steam formed into a discernible head and shoulders. He stared at a female figure similar to what was on the front of the hobo nickel. Top hat and all.

  Her elfin chin lowered, parting vaporous lips. Smoky eyebrows rose, the apparition abruptly circling him before hovering above the pot.

  He felt the moist touch of hot steam. “This some kind of genie?”

  “Steam child,” Willy returned, inclining his head in a courtly nod to the ghostly shape. “A rider and companion of the great engines who ply the living rails. Brass, meet the bane of Erie. This is Freedom, so named for releasing many of her sisters from my brother’s slave boilers.”

  A high Victorian collar materialized from the steam to grace the girl’s slender neck. Her hair swirled in a nimbus of misty locks beneath the translucent hat. Freedom’s voice came as a rumbling hiss. “I know you. You’re the one who left his sister alone. The one who called the tracks but didn’t follow them to save her.”

  “Freedom was captured early on by Erie,” Willy explained, raising a calming hand. “The baron’s daughter snuck her into the estate’s heating system before Freedom could be vented into the slave boilers. The two became fast friends.”

  “You didn’t follow,” Freedom repeated crossly. “You should’ve protected her.”

  “I’ll take it up with my sister, not some glorified smoke pot,” Vincent retorted. Damn, had Katy blamed him too? “And for the record, I didn’t call any tracks. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

  Her mocking laugh mimicked a steam valve’s flutter. “Those rails just appeared on their own, didn’t they, gandy dancer?”

  “Look, damn it, I…” A wet kiss on his forehead cut off his rebuttal.

  Freedom’s scorn reversed course with a steamy giggle. “You still love Katy. I’ll be sure and tell her.”

  He wiped at his brow. “I’ll tell her myself.”

  Mischief boiled into the steam child’s expression. “You can’t find her. I can, but I won’t. Not unless you help us.” Her manner abruptly changed to a wondering look. “Why is Cracker Jack still on the Westbound? He should’ve gone on by now.”

  Vincent gritted his teeth. Can you stay on one subject for at least half a minute? “What? You’re going to blame me for that too?”

  Freedom’s head disappeared in a swirl, and reformed over King Willy like an adoring cloud. “He’ll do. I’ll go see where Timepiece is moping.”

  She didn’t leave. Instead, Freedom darted around Vincent with the exuberance of an errant wisp. “I didn’t say you could keep my nickel. It isn’t yours.”

  “You’re welcome to it,” Vincent growled.

  “I’m not owned, Brass,” she continued. “I’m not a puppy to come when I’m called. I’m always where I want to be. I don’t know you.”

  “I said you could keep it,” Vincent reiterated. This girl, genie, whatever, wasn’t getting the message.

  “Don’t disappoint me, Brass.” Freedom’s visage expanded into a white puff to dissipate among the branches, reducing the kettle to a sullen “perk”.

  Vincent shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Was she even listening?”

  King Willy scratched his head. “Never can tell how these things go. The good news is she’ll help. What I hoped she’d say was more along the lines of how little chance you have of freeing your sister by yourself. Having a rider on your side is a powerful thing. They can go where you can’t. Speed a locomotive down the tracks as if it were flying.”

  “She’s flighty, I’ll hand you that.”

  Willy emptied the kettle in the grass and dropped the hobo nickel into a white kerchief. He folded the cloth and handed it back to Vincent. “Best you keep this close. My brother wants Freedom in a bad way. She hurt him. Freedom snatched every rider out of the boilers up at the estate. I suspect Bram had a use for them beyond keeping the power plant going. Never mind what she told you. A rider will come calling if you use her coin. It’s a display of trust, and in the wrong hands can get them sucked up in a vacuum bottle.”

  “Then you keep it.”

  Laughing, Willy raised a warding hand. “Hey, dealing with Freedom is your problem, not mine. Nobody knows your sister better, Brass. Not even Samantha.”

  The words cemented his legs. What else was there to find out? Tidbits like his sister hating him as much as Mom did? That he called those tracks those many years ago? The idea was to find Katy, not end up mired in everyone else’s bullshit. Vincent found his feet again. “Keep it. I’ll get back to you. There’s a lot to think about.”

  “Probably the wisest thing you’ve said so far.” Willy stuffed the cloth into a vest pocket with a resigned expression. “Running into a yegg or two is one thing. Taking on their master is something else. Sleep on it. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Not if I’m gone.

  Four

  The Blue Island yard was easy to find despite the late hour. Trudging up a wooded rise, Vincent kept his eyes on the flickering orange glow along the crest. The smell of burning wood and harsh coffee brought him to a line of small campfires strung along the edge of a steel plain. Ruddy hues played across weathered faces of hobos who studied the tracks beyond like hunters surveying dark savannah.

  He took in a fire’s warmth, folding his arms while wishing for his long coat’s missing sleeves. His duster looked worse for wear even when compared to some of the coats the tramps around him wore. At least the scratches on his forearms were now little more than red welts.

  Vincent peered out over the yard and licked his lips. How exactly did one hop a train? Just run out and leap into the first open boxcar headed east toward Cleveland? He shouldered his bindle; the stick’s other end supporting a bulging red handkerchief. Contained therein were a few cans of beans, a couple of apples, and some dried meat he hoped was beef. All bought with wooden nickels. How a merchant woman stuffed and folded everything into a tight wrap was a mystery he hoped he could repeat later.

  Blue Island rumbled in a concert of movement and sound. Boxy silhouettes clattered across a backdrop of yellow haze cast by steam-wreathed floodlights. Bright headlamps huffed their way along serpentine curves of rail, the steel ribbons revealed in the locomotive’s unblinking eye. Hooting whistles accompanied the rolling thunder of coupling cars. The scent of coal and oil carried across the yard on coils of moist vapor. Hobos emerged from the yard at a trot, pausing at the fire to exchange hurried words with other tramps who would dart toward the tracks. A sense of electricity existed here, crackling with the kind of adventure not found at a bus station. Vincent readied himself for a quick dash.

  Fingers tapped on his shoulder. “Not yet, pilgrim.”

  He swallowed his irritation at the hobo’s intrusion, noting the brown derby perched upon the man’s head. The fellow’s other hand curled around a stout oak staff. “What?”

  The knight inclined his head toward the yard. “That little red speck out there, my lad. See it?”

  Vincent focused on a minute flicker looking like someone’s cigarette several yards out near an outlying track.

  “Yard bull,” the knight grunted. “Best let him pass. Where ’bouts you goin�
��?”

  “Erie,” he answered firmly, hoping to quash any incredulous remark sure to follow on the heels of such a statement.

  The snide reply came as expected, but from another quarter. “He means straight to a Cleveland jail if he’s lucky,” a familiar feminine voice interjected. “Tossed into a ditch, more likely than not.”

  Vincent sighed. “Hello, Samantha.”

  The young woman pushed aside an escort’s intervening staff. “Thought it was you I saw. So what happened? Willy’s deal not to your liking?”

  “I’ll find Katy my own way.”

  A corner of her lip crinkled. “Like you found your own way here? You’d be in shreds beside the track if not for me.”

  “Fine, I owe you. Look me up when you figure out a payment plan.”

  She threw her hands up. “The plan requires you becoming a gandy dancer like your father, idiot. Red Socks lives in an Ohio you won’t even find without the proper guide. You have to know what track and when to make the stop. Get off on the wrong side and there’s no telling where you’ll be, trust me on that. We need a train conductor. Only they can schedule the right stops, even when there’s no station to stop at.”

  “Or I can just head east like I’m about to do.”

  “And end up in the wrong Ohio. Don’t give me that stupid look of yours, either. I’m not the one in over my head. Willy can get his hands on a conductor.”

  He tried to push her confusing explanations out of his head. “Look, Samantha, I can’t stay here and get wrapped up in somebody else’s plans. Yes, I owe you, so tell me what you want and I’ll see about getting it done before I leave.”

  She smoothed back an ebony tangle lying across her forehead. “You’re not ready for what I want done. I’m not even sure I am.”

  “Hold up, darlin’,” one of her escorts interrupted. Long Tommy walked up to the fire, tapped the knight next to Vincent on the arm, and pointed out across the darkened yard.

  The other hobo leaned forward on his staff, his brow furrowing. “Aye. North side. Lights are all gone.”

  A steam whistle shrieked in the distance. Then another. More locomotives joined the alarm with banshee wails.

  “Oh God,” Samantha half-whispered, shrinking back among the knights guarding her. “Oh God, no.”

  The knight who first restrained Vincent now regarded him with a warrior’s resignation, his words softly spoken. “You needn’t worry about get’n to Erie, my lad. Erie’s coming here.”

  “Coming for you, most likely,” Long Tommy added, grabbing Samantha’s slight shoulder.

  She tried in vain to twist free. “Let me go. I can outrun them.”

  Tommy’s voice rose. “Everyone not wanting a fight get your arses down the hill! Someone high tail it to King Willy. Tell him we got yegg. Lots of ’em.” He shoved Samantha into one of her escort’s big arms. “Get her down to camp. She’s leverage we’ll be need’n.”

  Vincent stared across the yard as distant lights winked out; leaving the kind of bleak void only a phantom could wish for. A cold wind rushed across the rails, sending a firestorm of sparks swirling from fires along the perimeter.

  The knight beside him swallowed, grounding his staff with a heavy thump. “Best you be going back to camp.”

  Vincent slipped on his brass knuckles and grabbed a hefty branch next to the campfire. If nothing else, life had taught him never to run from a fight. Life had a nasty tendency to stab you in the back if you did. “Not a chance.”

  The knight grinned. “Good lad. Just stay clear of my blade less’n you want to end up a bit shorter.”

  Blade? He didn’t notice any knife on the man, but took his advice to heart. That piece of lumber the fellow held looked to be incentive enough. Vincent edged away, gripping his impromptu club. Other hobos followed suit, their expressions no less grim as they picked up everything from sticks to shovels. They tossed more logs on fires along the line, raising bright orange beacons in challenge to an utter blackness advancing across the yard. Knights rushed up the embankment and formed a determined skirmish line.

  A few wide-eyed tramps stumbled out of the darkened yard, the fear written on their faces telling him all he needed to know about what came next. Never mind the campfire threatening to scorch his backside. Every bit of extra light would shortly be a blessing.

  Silence arrived in stomach-curdling waves. The heralding dread gave way to pounding boots and skittering claws. The enemy’s approach beat an unnatural rhythm across the rails and ballast. Around him, knights gripped the hafts of their staves and raising them in salute.

  His heaving lungs expelled breath across arid lips. Vincent braced for the worst.

  Shadows broke upon the knights in a chorus of hellish howls. Something halfway between man and black horror leapt at the hobo next to him. Firelight flashed off the knight’s sweeping staff. Vincent swore he saw thin steel rather than wood. Instead of knocking the hapless yegg into the fire, the blow literally halved the thing’s body in a wet spray.

  There was no time to register shock. The night lunged at him with talons and snapping teeth. Screaming, he rammed his club into the yegg’s face. Off balance, he nearly toppled into the flames behind him. The beast, wrapped in foul vapors, recovered and charged. Vincent shifted left and lashed out a leg, sending the monstrosity into the blazing pile of logs. The yegg thrashed and burned amid high-pitched howls. A shower of hot embers stung Vincent’s cheeks. He turned away, knowing somewhere beneath this nightmare a real person died horribly.

  He met a second yegg with a sweep of his stick, slamming the thing sideways. Instinct sent the club repeatedly down into the vaporous mass, silencing the monster’s shrieks.

  Another attacker materialized, catching him off guard. His companion’s staff intervened with its odd metallic flicker. Warm blood spattered Vincent’s face. He wiped the gruesome splash from his eyes in time to stare at a man’s head tumbling across the ground. His savior pulled him back, the knight’s voice hoarse. “Can’t hold ’em here, lad. Get back to the camp.”

  Vincent ran behind the fire, trying to keep his footing among weeds and branches. Behind him, a wall of clawed shadows pressed their advantage. Yells, screams, and curses punctuated the downhill fight. He lost his club in a violent crash of bodies, resorting to hammer blows from his brass knuckles to drive attackers away. He used the wash of burning fires along the crest to silhouette half-visible foe, avoiding disemboweling slashes. The knight stayed beside him, covering gaps in Vincent’s luck and reflexes with his staff.

  Everything went straight to hell once the incline became a treacherous tangle of roots and slick blood. A swirling mass drove into him, sending them both tumbling down the slope. He crashed into one tree trunk after until his well-aimed kick got the yegg off him. The body doubled over with a hissing gasp, allowing him time to smash his brass rings into what he saw of the yegg’s forehead. A sickening crunch and he was free to stagger up to a ragged line of knights standing before the wagons in a last-ditch defense.

  Clusters of fireworks shot from outside the adjoining white tent, signaling the entry of the visiting union into the fray. Pyrotechnics popped overhead, revealing only the shifting shadows of trees and undergrowth up the hill. Behind Vincent, the calliope erupted in a shrill volcano of steam and sound, as if the devil himself were at the keyboard. He caught a glimpse of vengeful shapes in the billowing vapor, one wearing a top hat. The calliope’s discordant blast rippled along the rise, daring the creatures above to come down. One of the steam children jetted before the line of panting men, drawing a defiant line with the blistering hot vapors streaming from her hair.

  The enemy chose not to take up the challenge, even though their numbers nearly quenched the orange flicker of fires along the crest. Feeling the burn of fresh injuries, Vincent sagged against a wagon wheel. His throat felt like raw sandpaper, and the trembling in his legs threatened to crawl up and shake him like a leaf. He clenched slippery fingers to keep the brass knuckles from sliding off. S
o where were the cops? The ambulances? Surely, this private little war hadn’t escaped notice.

  He heard no sirens. No cavalry. Only the same ugly quiet as preceded the first assault. He expected a snarling horde to pour down the incline. Instead, he beheld a single flashlight. The man’s strut and uplifted chin suggested a preparedness to carry the battle by himself. Curly brown muttonchops rose to frame a balding crown. What strands of hair the man possessed lay back across his temples in severe lines. A heavy business coat shielded him within folds as dark as the glare in the man’s eyes.

  The defenders parted to allow King Willy through to meet the advancing figure. The jungle’s ruler walked up with the aplomb of a man on an evening’s stroll, right down to the twirl of his gold-handled cane. “Evening, Bram.”

  The other’s voice came out like chipped ice with an authoritarian garnish. “William.”

  King Willy glanced around the ranks of defenders. “You could’ve simply asked for a meeting, brother.” His response elicited low chuckles from the gathered knights.

  Vincent straightened. So this is the railroad baron Willy spoke of? The one who held Katy? He suppressed an urge to confront the man himself, knowing to do so would only bring hell down on upon them all.

  The baron winced at the amusement. “You will return Samantha to me. Immediately. Did I not warn you to leave her alone?”

  Willy shrugged. “Actually, your daughter arrived here on her own accord…again.”

  Vincent tried to digest the conversation. Were they talking about Samantha? An exasperated breath growled up from deep within his parched throat. Yeah. A member of the Erie household. Wasn’t that what Willy said about Samantha? Talk about understatement. If Samantha was the errant daughter of this baron, then what about Katy supposedly being the baron’s adopted daughter? How many lies had he been gulping down along with the mulligan stew?

  Bram Van Erie jabbed out a gloved finger. “Consider this a final reminder not to interfere in affairs you chose to walk away from. I would have thought you understood my wishes after we cleaned out this pestilent camp last year.”