Ironhorse

by Robert B. Parker

  We continued walking forward. When we crossed through the rain from one platform to the next, there was a hard jolt in the movement of the train.

  When we reentered through the rear door of the uphill coach the passengers turned in their seats and looked back at us. They were wide-eyed watching us as we hurried up the aisle.

  Virgil opened the front coach door, and when he did we quickly understood why the train had previously jolted.

  We had been disconnected and were drifting away from the first passenger car and engine. Rain was swirling and it was dark, but we could vaguely see the silhouette of someone on the back platform. He was watching us as we faded away from the front section of the train.

  “Hellfire,” I said.

  Whoever it was, whoever had disconnected us, whoever had outmaneuvered us, was now traveling on into the distant darkness.

  Virgil said nothing.

  The train was now in three separate sections: the engine and first coach with Emma and Abigail on board, the second and third coach with us, and the fourth coach back to the caboose with Vince, the remainder of the bandits, Bloody Bob, and, if they were still alive, the governor and his wife.

  I got down on my knees to check the air-line valve and quickly determined it had already been closed.

  We were still moving forward from the momentum, but in no time we would soon be rolling backward.

  “Looks like we’re now gonna be bumping into Vince and Bloody Bob sooner than we expected,” I said. “That’s a fact.”

  I got back to my feet.

  “And a hell of a lot sooner than they expected,” I said.

  Virgil just shook his head slightly.

  “They will roll slower than us,” I said. “With us in just these two coaches, we’ll be rolling downhill faster.”

  Virgil didn’t say anything. He just remained looking forward.

  “And when we do,” I said, “we’ll need to ride these handbrakes, controlling our speed.”

  Virgil continued looking up the track as if he didn’t believe what was happening.

  “They got a head start, but we’ll catch up to them,” I said. “Hopefully before they bottom out. They got more friction, more cars.”

  I felt as though I was just talking so Virgil wouldn’t think what he was thinking.

  “Vince and the others on those cars back there have to control their speed; otherwise, there will be a train wreck if they don’t,” I said. “Us too, we have to control our downhill speed or we will get to rolling too fast and lose control. We should turn off the lamps so we are dark. Don’t want them to see us coming up on ’em.”

  “The fox got in the henhouse,” Virgil said as he continued looking up the track.

  “The Yankee?”

  “Might well be the Yankee,” Virgil said.

  “You’re not thinking that sodbuster we left with my eight-gauge,” I said, “or the dandy had a hand in this, do you?”

  Virgil stayed looking up the track.

  “You didn’t see that preacher fellow back there, did you?” Virgil said.

  “Preacher fellow?” I said.

  “In this car. The preacher fellow that had been sitting row five, west side, aisle,” Virgil said.

  24

  I TURNED AND looked back into the coach, row five, west side aisle. The seat was empty.

  “No,” I said.

  Virgil moved his head up and down very slowly.

  “He’s not there,” I said. “There is no preacher sitting there.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Virgil said.

  Virgil did not turn around; he just remained looking forward up the dark track in front of us. We were still rolling north from the train’s forward momentum.

  “I remember him, too,” I said, “but he’s not there now. There’s a freckle-faced redhead by the window.”

  “Yep, she was holding on to him and was crying when we came by.”

  Virgil had already identified the culprit. The fact that Virgil knew the man who had held up the Bible was not sitting where he was previously did not surprise me. Virgil saw way more than most. Even when things were on tenterhooks, Virgil had the ability to remain perceptive and steady.

  Virgil turned and looked back through the open door into the coach. Except for the preacher who was previously sitting in row five, the west side aisle, everyone was looking at Virgil as if they needed some sort of answer. Virgil gave it as he crossed the threshold and walked a few steps down the aisle.

  “Everybody get your this and thats in order,” Virgil said. “We will need you to turn off these lamps in a bit, and it will get dark.”

  We dragged the dead gunmen out to the platform and slid them off the side. Virgil moved back down the aisle to row five. The redheaded freckle-faced woman who had previously been crying and holding on to the preacher was sitting by the window, looking up at Virgil. Sitting in the west side aisle seat was the preacher’s discarded Bible. Virgil picked it up. He opened the Bible and leafed through it as if he were looking for a passage or verse, then closed it. He looked at the back side of the Bible. Then he dropped it into the seat.

  The freckle-faced woman offered Virgil a crooked smile.

  “The preacher fellow who was sitting here holding this Bible,” Virgil said. “Was he somebody you knew?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, sir.”

  “How long had he been sitting here?” Virgil asked.

  “Not long,” she said.

  She looked around at a few passengers sitting near her.

  “He just plopped down here, short time before y’all two come through the front door shooting them robbers.”

  “He came through the rear door here?” Virgil said.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “The robbers pointed their guns at him. I thought they was gonna shoot him, but he held up his Bible, talking about Jesus, and they didn’t.”

  The other passengers sitting nearby nodded in agreement.

  “Just preaching he was,” she said, “talking about going to hell. Spewing like it was just shy of noon on Sunday. The robbers told him to sit down and shut up.”

  “And the preacher fellow just sat here?”

  “He did . . . but I’m not real sure he was a preacher,” she said. “Well, if he was a preacher he was rather unpreacherly.”

  “What was unpreacherly about him?” Virgil asked.

  “When the shooting started, I grabbed on to him and I could feel he was carryin’ guns.”

  “Guns?” Virgil said. “More than one?”

  “Yes,” she said as she looked back and forth between Virgil and me. “Two I know of. One on his hip, one in his coat pocket.”

  “When he left this seat,” Virgil said, “was he carrying anything?”

  The woman looked up to the luggage rack overhead, then to a few of the passengers that were watching her.

  “He had a fancy black suitcase,” she said. “He took it with him when he left through the front there.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Virgil tipped his hat and started to move, but the freckle-faced woman spoke up.

  “It was hard for him with the luggage,” she said. “He had but one arm. His left arm was wood, and he had a hand that was carved and painted to look normal, but it was not.”

  “Thank you,” Virgil said. Virgil looked a me. Then he looked to the rest of the passengers.

  “We need to get these lamps off, folks,” Virgil said.

  25

  I FOLLOWED VIRGIL to the rear of the coach, and the passengers did as they were instructed and started turning off the lamps. With the exception of Virgil being downright hornswoggled by Allie French, he was a man who did not get the wool pulled over his eyes, ever. The mere fact that we were now coasting and eventually would be rolling backward in disconnected coaches down the track in a rainstorm because of an oversight wasn’t setting well with Virgil.

  “If there is a Yankee,” I said, “that must be him masquerading
as a conductor, masquerading as a God-fearing preacher?”

  “Hard to say,” Virgil said.

  “He must have double-crossed the others,” I said.

  “Might have.”

  “Looks like he made off with the loot,” I said.

  Virgil stopped at the rear door and looked back to the passengers turning out the last few lamps.

  “That’s not all he’s made off with,” Virgil said without looking at me.

  “I know,” I said.

  The notion we left the governor’s daughters in harm’s way prompted Virgil’s eyes to narrow and grow cold. I’d seen that look on Virgil’s face many times before, but it was always right before he killed somebody.

  “Emma’s got fight,” I said. “She’s got six rounds in a short-barrel Colt; she’s got a steely resolve and she’s got fight.”

  “One thing for certain,” Virgil said. “They’re heading north, we’re heading south, and there ain’t nothing we can do about the inevitability of that fact. Least not at this very moment there ain’t.”

  Virgil opened the door. We stepped into the falling rain and crossed to the next coach. I followed Virgil down the aisle. The undertaker had done what Virgil had asked him to do. The dead man had been laid to rest on a seat and was covered by a blanket. An old Apache woman wearing a stove-collared black dress was now sitting with the grieving widow.

  “Everyone,” I said. “We need you to turn out the lamps. So take care of what you need to take care of, then do just that, turn ’em out.”

  By the time we stepped out the rear door the rain had subsided some, but it was still coming down solid as if it had settled in for the night. The two coaches we were riding were now rolling very slowly backward down the slightest grade. Virgil was looking down the track, but there was really nothing to see other than darkness and rain.

  “This is it,” I said.

  “It is,” Virgil said.

  “Now we just ride the brake,” I said. “Ease up on Bloody Bob, Vince, and the others.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “First sign of that rear section,” I said, “we stay back, watching ’em. Stop when they stop.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Mix things up a bit,” I said.

  “We will,” Virgil said.

  For the moment we didn’t need to brake; we were traveling very slowly, but I released the foot latch on the handbrake wheel and gave the wheel a slight test turn to the right. The wheel turned, but there was no friction, no braking.

  “No good,” I said.

  “No good?” Virgil said.

  I turned the wheel again, this time a few revolutions, thinking maybe the chain to the brakes might have just slacked off, but there was nothing, the wheel just turned.

  “Don’t work?” Virgil asked.

  “No,” I said. “It don’t.”

  “You think with the George Westinghouse brakes,” Virgil said, “they’re no longer hooked up?”

  “Don’t know. We’ll need to stop, though, figure out what is what,” I said. “I’ll open the air-line valve on the other end, get us stopped, have a look.”

  26

  VIRGIL STAYED ON point on the downhill platform, and I worked my way back through both coaches. Nobody was talking. The passengers were settled and the lamps had all been turned off. It was quiet except for the sound of the slow rolling wheels on the track.

  I thought about the many brakemen who lost their jobs because of George Westinghouse; brakemen with the dangerous job of helping the engineer regulate a train’s speed by moving from coach to coach, tweaking the wheels of the handbrakes.

  With the exception of the faint glow from a passenger’s cigar or cigarette, we were now traveling in complete darkness. When I opened the door and stepped out onto the uphill coach’s platform it was obvious we were rolling faster. Not a lot faster, but some. I got down on the floor plate of the platform and opened the angle cock valve and heard nothing—nothing happened, no braking, no slowing, nothing.

  I got to my feet and released the foot latch on the handbrake and gave the wheel a turn.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said out loud.

  The wheel just turned, like the other end, it just turned.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  I got down to look under the coach. It was dark, and nothing was visible on the underside. I reached under to feel underneath the shaft of the handbrake. There was no chain connected to the brake. I got to my feet quick, stepped back through the door and down the aisle toward the other coach. My mind started to race. Had this been by design? Were we dealing with a train hand? A saboteur? Was there a getaway plan? A backup plan?

  Whatever, whoever, however, we were rolling without any way of stopping or controlling our speed. I stepped into the next coach and grabbed a conductor’s lantern hanging by the door.

  “A match!” I said. “Who’s got a match?”

  The undertaker pulled out a box of matches. He struck one and cupped his hand around the flame. I lifted the reflector glass. He lit the wick, then slid the matchbox into my breast pocket. I turned up the lamp flame and stepped out the door and back onto the platform.

  “We got a situation, Virgil!” I said.

  “What sort of a situation?”

  “The back wheel brake is not working,” I said. “It’s disconnected.”

  “What about the George Westinghouse brakes?” Virgil asked.

  “Not working, either.”

  “Not?” Virgil said.

  I shook my head.

  “That’s not good,” Virgil said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “And this one here,” Virgil said. “It’s busted, too.”

  “Is,” I said. “I’m going to get down and have a look at this handbrake. See if I can make out what’s broke about it. Hold this.”

  I handed the lamp to Virgil.

  “Hold it down here,” I said. “Below the platform.”

  We were picking up speed as I leaned out over the platform and looked back under the coach. Virgil held the lamp down under the platform so I could see. I was upside down, the ground passing by swiftly below my head as I tried to figure out what the problem was with the brake. It was hard to see, but there was enough light to determine what the problem was right off. The chain had separated from the wheel shaft and was dragging back under the coach between the tracks. I lifted myself up quick.

  “The chain is free of the wheel, dragging behind us,” I said.

  “No way of reaching it?” Virgil said.

  “No.”

  “What do you figure?”

  “We get to the end of the other car,” I said. “If we got the same situation, at least the chain will be dragging behind. Maybe we can get ahold of it and somehow stop us. Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise, we’ll have to ask everyone to jump,” Virgil said.

  “We will,” I said.

  27

  VIRGIL AND I moved quick through the door. Virgil carried the lamp as we hustled with pace up the aisle. The lamp’s shadows twisted and turned as we moved through the two coaches. The faces of the passengers looked back at us, and we moved toward the uphill end of the coaches: the undertaker, the Apache woman, the widow, the young fellow with the spectacles, the old man, the chubby man, and in the uphill coach the freckle-faced woman watched as we moved briskly past her. The moving light made the passengers’ faces look eerie, almost dead-like. When we exited out the front-end door we had picked up speed. I quickly lowered myself onto the platform floor and Virgil was by my side with the lamp. Right away it was obvious we had the same situation we’d had on the downhill coach. The chain was trailing us, dragging between the rails.

  “Same thing. The chain is off the wheel,” I said. “Get ahold of the back of my belt, Virgil, let me see if I can reach it.”

  I leaned over the rear of the platform. Virgil grabbed the back of my belt, and I reached, stretching out, trying to grab the snaking chain as it moved back and forth over
the railway ties. After my third, fourth attempt, I snagged it.

  “Got it,” I called out.

  Virgil gave a pull on my belt and I was back up, secure on the floor. The chain, however, was short.

  “There’s no way this will reconnect to the wheel, Virgil!”

  “Let’s get the folks off before we get going any faster,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  The young fellow wearing spectacles poked his head out the door.

  “Sir? Marshal?” the young fellow said. “Maybe I can be of some help. I’m a train hand for Frisco, well, in the Fort Smith yard. I figure we got a situati—”

  I interrupted, “You got any idea why when I open the valve on the air pipe the brakes don’t apply?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “Must be for some reason the K-triple valve is bypassed,” said the young fellow.

  “How do we fix that?” I said.

  “You don’t,” he said. “Unless you’re stopped.”

  I held up the chain.

  “The chain is not connected to the wheel,” I said.

  “Both ends,” Virgil said.

  “That ain’t good,” said the young fellow. “This track is downhill for a long ways.”

  The young fellow leaned over for a closer look at the chain.

  “I got an idea,” he said. “Be right back.”

  The young fellow moved off quickly just as a bolt of lightning cracked across the sky. We could see we were in heavily wooded country, with trees close on both sides of the train, and it was obvious we were rolling faster.

  The young Frisco yard hand came back through the door with a long iron bar that was flat on one end and pointed on the other.

  “Slip the chain end over this end,” he said. “Keep a strain on it, pull like hell, leveraged against the platform. It ain’t easy, but it might work, unless we get a goin’ too darn fast!”

  I understood the method and followed his instructions. I slipped a link of chain over the pointed end of the bar, and the kid pulled back steady on the bar, leveraging it against the platform. We could hear metal-to-metal grinding and could see sparks flying. I stood and added my strength on the bar, helping the yard hand.