Tracks

by K. M. Tolan

  “You won’t be able to move after you lay your track, Vin,” she pointed out with a growing frown. “I remember when you first put down track with Red. You both sat there afterward as if run over by a train. I can’t drag you, but I can buy some time by drawing them off when they come for us.”

  He smiled at her use of his shortened name. “You just haul me to my feet. We’re together on this.”

  Samantha hugged him. “You really, really want to marry me? After everything I’ve done?”

  She was one for changing subjects. “Because of everything you’ve done,” he clarified. “Come on, before someone gets lucky and notices us.”

  “Then I accept,” she chirped as they left their concealment at a leisurely gate.

  He laughed. “You already did, remember? That bit about marrying me if I made it through the trial?”

  Her voice sobered. “That wasn’t real. This is. What’s inside me is gone. At least I think it is.”

  “There’s still my sister to free,” he returned with the same level tone. “Along with Timepiece. The baron will try and use them both against us before all of this is through.”

  “I know.”

  Now I’m in the right frame of mind to tear my heart out again. He twirled his cane, not looking forward to the hurtful place it would send him.

  There were no shouts to dog him across the final stretch of tracks. No gestures from the plant workers, nor a sudden surge of bodies down the hill bordering the estate gardens. He spied the first tentative probes into the eastern yard by a mix of yard bulls and workers, but nothing substantial. “Think this is going to work.”

  The tall smoke stacks across the tracks abruptly came to life in belches of heavy white billows. Three rockets shot above the twin mushrooming clouds, the contrails twisting and intertwining in a mad dance. Moments later he hardly saw anything, so thick was the envelopment of moist air roiling over him.

  “You were saying?” Samantha spat, unlimbering her rifle. “The whole world knows we’re here. There are three riders I’d like to bottle about now.”

  “Might want to keep your voice low on that last bit,” he warned, barely able to see the rails before hopping over them in their rush forward.

  Vincent kept Samantha close, and for good reason. He turned to her the moment their feet dug into the strip of castoff land beside the last track. “Okay, baroness. Let’s see if that ring’s going to work.”

  “You have my permission to lay your track.”

  “That’s it?”

  She fidgeted with the ring. “You were expecting a proclamation? Hurry!”

  He took a long breath, finding little confidence in her reply to bolster himself. The cane elongated in his hands as he raised it, the weight pulling at his arms as if the lining rod couldn’t wait to drag him under. He kept his mind focused on King Willy and the train waiting at Big Creek. Would this ever get any easier?

  Vincent jammed the rod’s point deep into the hard-packed ground, his emotions plunging after it in a collapse of memories he wished to forget. The field on that day he lost Katy, with its smell of sun-warmed grass. The thunder of a locomotive appearing on phantom tracks while he stood there like an idiot grasping his sister’s hand. Then those little fingers were gone. Everything was gone. His life, family, hope. Gone.

  Gritting his teeth, he reached beyond the roiling fear and denial of a stricken twelve-year old to reclaim the whimsical desire for knights and far away adventures his father described. An unexpected glow filled him. Here he was now with every wish fulfilled, and a princess’s hand in the bargain. Vincent rose on Samantha’s beckoning smile with the fervency of a drowning man seeking the ripple of sunlight above him.

  The bright rails he lay between were real enough to ease any doubts about his success. An umbrella of wispy black hair surrounded him. He grinned as she cradled him, feeling the kind of peace last experienced when he stepped into the Westbound’s coach. “I love you,” he whispered.

  Samantha gently rested his head on the ties. “And I love you.”

  Then she was gone.

  Bewildered, he struggled to his feet, using the lining rod to steady himself. Fog surrounded him. All he saw was a gray curtain, but the shots from her rifle were clear enough as they rebounded off distant boxcars. Pounding footsteps, lots of them, receded into the murk. Once more, his fingers closed around emptiness.

  Nineteen

  Vincent eyed the surprised group of yard bulls with a dawning realization. I’m an idiot. He skidded to a halt on the loose ballast. This wasn’t him finding Samantha. This was him joining her in captivity. He hoped she was still out here, but an hour’s frantic searching only turned up the wrong kind of search parties. At least this bunch weren’t yegg, though they came after him with no less bloodlust.

  He darted through a line of boxcars and ran like hell. Erie’s railroad police pounded along the roadbed in bellowing pursuit. “Mischief, your turn.”

  Squealing with malicious delight, the steam child darted out from between two cars. She spread a wall of hot vapor between him and the bulls. This time the ploy didn’t work. A fast look over his shoulder confirmed this crew hadn’t missed a step. They charged through the steam with brandished truncheons and undiminished enthusiasm.

  “Christ!” He dug his toes into the loose rock. There was a maze of boxcars at the yard’s center. He’d lose them there. These guys weren’t only after him, not with those big tanks strapped across their backs. He waved down Mischief with his cane while trying not to trip over a jutting tie. Bad enough that Samantha might be back in the baron’s hands without his getting the other girls in equal trouble.

  Mischief curved in toward him in a rush of white vapor. Her lips curled back in a hiss. “I’ll take care of them.”

  “No!” he managed between breaths, still keeping some distance between him and his pursuers. “They’ve got vacuum bottles. Get Glory and Quickly. Head back to Lima and forget you ever saw this place.”

  “I will never forget,” she seethed.

  He cut between two cars and doubled back. The steam child stubbornly kept pace with him. He tried reasoning on her level. “There’s nothing fun going to happen here, Mischief. Go home.”

  Her eyes were miniature thunderstorms. “You need us.”

  “Those new engines back in Lima need you more,” he rasped. “Get the hell out of here before you become something a lot worse than what’s chasing me.”

  “I’m not a storm!” she wailed, spiraling up into the afternoon sky in the manner of a distraught tornado.

  “Then find the others and go,” he pleaded.

  Her kind of innocence didn’t need this crap, and God knew what being held captive twice would do to her. He dashed along the side of the cars. The bulls passed by on the other side. Almost. Damn if the last one didn’t catch sight of him again. He swung south for the second time. He was but a grasp away from being collared. There was only a scattering of clouds above him now. Gratified to see the stubborn rider taking his advice, he sought for an escape of his own.

  A keening howl augmented the snorts and bellows behind him. Yegg. The one thing he couldn’t outrun.

  Ahead, a steam whistle’s hooting blast answered in challenge. That kind of full-throated sound came only from a Berkshire. “About damn time you boys show up,” he gasped. Vincent pumped everything he had into a sprint in the direction of his new tracks.

  A writhing pool of blackness bounded around the corner of a tank car in front of him. The yegg let loose a blood-curdling howl upon seeing him. It leapt with fangs gleaming.

  There wasn’t room to think. His cane had already elongated into the weightier lining rod by the time he swung it like a bat. The shock of impact nearly took his arm off.

  The pack of bulls closed what little distance he’d built between them. Vincent grabbed hold of a ladder leading up the tank car’s side and hauled himself up. He needed high ground to buy time.

  “Help over here!” he shouted. Please, Lord
, let those reinforcements aboard that Berkshire hear him.

  Vincent braced himself, his legs astride the oily valve cover and his back up against a railing. He used both of his hands to smash his rod upon the first blue police cap he saw. The bull dropped from sight. Pure terror scrambled up the ladder’s other side.

  Screeching, the yegg lunged for his throat, its needle-sharp talons extended. His long coat’s armored sleeve took the brunt of the slashing attack. He shoved the rod’s pointed end into the whirling miasma, sending the yegg back down with claws flailing.

  A hard blow from behind knocked him off balance. He turned too late to avoid another bull’s charge. The impact hurled him off the car and on top of the hapless yegg. His world quickly reduced itself to heavy boots and billy clubs. He curled up as best he could, hoping the baron still wanted him alive.

  The arrival of fresh combatants interrupted the dismal end to his ill-conceived search for Samantha. Battle swept over him in a crimson gale. A glittering blade severed a yegg’s head. Hobos in bowler hats and shining coats met his attackers with steel. Blood rained in dark globules, filling the air with a coppery stink. The snap and pop of small arms fire punctuated the hoarse cries.

  King Willy’s arm reached through the cacophony of violence to pull him to his feet. “You still in one piece, son?”

  “Barely,” he admitted between breaths, grateful his ribs survived the kicks. Every breath still hurt. He stepped across the skirmish’s grisly aftermath, careful not to slip. “Baron’s up at the house. Until now, it’s been his game. He’s got Timepiece, my sister, and probably Samantha.”

  Willy thrust a pearl-handled pistol into his purple vest. “He’s welcome to her. The girl’s got you wrapped around her finger, Brass. Taking her here instead of me wasn’t the plan.”

  “That girl’s going to give you back your damn ring,” he retorted, brushing himself off. “Says you’re welcome to it. Cannoli showed us the way in, but wanted her marrying him as part of the bargain. The only one Samantha’s hooking up with is me, and I’m not looking to be no rail baron either.”

  Erie Railroad’s former master gaped at him with an expression reserved for those hit over the head with a mallet. “She what?”

  “Damn it, Willy, she had the rock candy in her hand. In her hand. You know what that rock meant to her. She gave it to me instead in order to save my life. Tried to become yegg afterward when things got bad, but she couldn’t. All bets are off. Got it?”

  The hobo king stared at him. His laugh was loud enough to be heard over the fighting. “Damn, son. You telling me that crazy niece of mine wants to marry you?”

  “When the dust settles,” he affirmed. “As soon as I get her back from the baron,” Vincent quickly corrected.

  King Willy clapped his shoulder. “Well let’s go get your woman before she changes her mind. Never mind about Cannoli. He, ah, missed the train. Man never could hold his liquor.” Willy nodded toward the sounds of battle. “Party’s not waiting for us.”

  Vincent gathered what strength his burning lungs afforded him and kept pace with King Willy in the push across the rail yard. At first, the clashes were sporadic and haphazard, Erie’s forces slow to realize how their hunt had become something far more daunting. The first indication of a more organized resistance came with the report of rifle fire along the hill below the estate gardens.

  “Keep after them!” King Willy urged, bullets tearing chips out of the boxcars. Crouched behind a wheel, he reached into a vest pocket, but not for his gun.

  Vincent caught a polished coin’s glint. “That what I think it is? You calling in a rider?”

  Willy nodded. “Glory’s nickel. She might’ve hightailed it, so I need her back to lay down some cover for the boys.”

  He stayed the hobo king’s hand. “I sent her and two others we freed back to Lima.”

  “What’d you do that for?”

  “Does it mean anything when they’ve lighting for eyes?”

  Willy’s face paled far more from Vincent’s words than the whiz of nearby bullets. “Sweet Jesus.”

  “I take it you’ve heard of storms,” he surmised. “From the look of it, I’d say I did the right thing.”

  Willy whooshed out a breath. “Everybody here would be fighting on the same side if you hadn’t.”

  “Those riders we let out of the boilers were headed toward crazy. Hopefully playing around Lima for a spell will set them to rights.”

  Stuffing the nickel back in his pocket, Willy peered over the boxcar’s wheel. “Guess there’s nothing for it, then. Can’t afford to give my brother time to think straight. His boys dig in and there’ll be waiting lines for the Westbound.” The king stood and waved his hat at the knights bunched up behind the freight. “Let’s go, fellahs. Man here wants his sister back.”

  They charged over the last set of rails between them and their foe. Their shouts rebounded off the opposite slope. His heart threatened to hammer its way out of his chest as he leapt over the rails. Bullets cracked through the air. The sound of falling bodies did little to stoke his courage. Bracing for the worst, he kept running alongside King Willy, his eyes fixed on the bunched-up police and yegg. Every barrel seemed aimed straight for his head. Either his desperate fear imagined a few of those rifles wavering, or he witnessed a lack of resolve in the railway workers’ ranks. They were pointing fingers instead. Not at him, but at their former baron. Rifles dropped. Fistfights erupted among their company even before the knights plowed into the confusion.

  He waded into the melee, not knowing whose head to crack with his rod. He laid out anyone still pointing a weapon or charging him. There were few volunteers. Most were scrambling up the hill toward the gardens. Other workers sat with their hands raised, the fight no longer in them. Apparently, not everybody was wild about Taylorism and the current baron. He stared toward the estate. King Willy and most of the knights were already up the hill and hot after the retreating forces. He needed to be up there too.

  A yard bull rushed him, perhaps more out of confusion than bravado. Vincent ducked, using the cop’s momentum to send the fellow flying over one shoulder. Two more of the blue-uniformed goons snorted in his direction and ran. Not upslope, however. He watched them push and kick their way through workers and knights alike, making a beeline for the switch house sitting off to the right. Others had the same objective in mind. An avalanche of yegg crossed the foot of the hill to surround the brick control center.

  What the hell do they need the…oh, shit! Chest heaving, he looked around. Willy and the majority of his knights headed for the main house. The baron wasn’t going to be there when they arrived. Switch houses routed trains. The son-of-a-bitch was jumping into that hybrid diesel of his and making a run for it. Taking everything important with him.

  Vincent ran toward what remained of Willy’s knights left behind to handle the many prisoners. He recognized a particular crop of red hair sticking out from beneath a bowler. Willy’s right-hand man, whatever his name was. “Hey. Hey, Irish.”

  The hobo scowled back in his direction. “The name’s Long Tommy, boyo. Can’t ya see we’re busy?” The knight’s admonishment trailed off, his gaze sailing over Vincent’s shoulder to the menace beyond.

  “They’re throwing switches. The baron’s making a run for it.”

  “Then good riddance to the blaggard.”

  Best not tell you about me and Samantha, then. “I need your help. He’s got my sister on that engine, damn it. Also a conductor friend of mine.”

  The tall knight rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Aye, he would at that.”

  Swearing, Vincent started sprinting along the hill for the house, not giving a damn if they followed him or not.

  Pounding feet made him swing around with his lining rod at the ready, the wedged end barely missing the grinning Irishman who fell in beside him. Nor was Tommy alone. Scores of knights, and even a few of Erie’s workers, joined them.

  “I’ll not be forgetting your name, Brass, ol’ b
oy,” the knight laughed, brandishing his staff. Late afternoon sunlight glinted off the weapon’s true nature.

  “Then let’s make those bastards wish they could forget.”

  The score of yegg guarding the switch house didn’t wait for the fight. Their feral cries chilled his blood as the horrors leapt across the well-tended grass slope. The largest of their number bounded ahead of them, rending the air with claws like meat cleavers. Jake.

  Gritting his teeth, Vincent gripped his lining rod and headed to confront the baron’s chief foreman a second time.

  The yegg angled to meet him. Jake’s howl assaulted Vincent’s senses worse than scraping chalk. “Come for Sammy, did ya?” he yelled.

  Vincent knew better than to rush forward like some stupid yard bull. He dodged the battering-ram assault at the last moment. He swung his lining rod hard. And missed.

  Jake ducked under the haymaker in a vaporous black rush. The yegg’s talons raked across Vincent’s right shoulder. The duster kept the claws from opening his upper arm to the bone, but the blow sent him sprawling.

  “You gotta be good if’n you want to protect my little girl,” Jake roared. He threw himself on top of Vincent.

  Rolling, Vincent smashed the wedged end of his rod against Jake’s skull. “That good enough?” he spat, rolling to his feet after the yegg fell back.

  Jake’s answer was a flurry of clawing attacks. A big fist flashed out from the shifting ebony swirls to connect with Vincent’s jaw.

  Dazed, he connected with his rod in turn. A countering blow tore the weapon from his grasp.

  Jake was on him an instant later with punches and kicks. A solid boot slammed into his stomach, sending him gasping to the ground. Those big talons sank into his throat. Screaming, he stretched out his arm for the rod beside him.