On the Wrong Track

by Steve Hockensmith

  “How did that big bastard get in here?” I panted.

  “How the hell do you think?” Gustav shot back. “He didn’t shut that door himself.”

  Which meant we finally had our proof, much as we might dislike the shape it had taken (a slithering S at that particular moment). There was most definitely a killer still aboard the Pacific Express, and he hadn’t had his fill of killing.

  Once the snake abandoned its life-or-death struggle with my boot, it began wriggling this way and that around the room, its head lifted a good six inches off the ground as it slid from wall to wall. It looked a little like the rat snakes I’d seen around the farm a thousand times when I was a kid, though it was darker and sleeker, with more shimmer to the scales—and a much nastier disposition.

  “He’s as anxious to get outta here as we are,” my brother said.

  “Ain’t nobody or nothin’ could want outta here as bad as me.”

  “You recognize him?”

  “Well, we ain’t been properly introduced, but I assume he’s the snake we saw crated up in the baggage car.”

  “Of course, he’s the snake from the baggage car! I mean, do you know what kind of snake he is?”

  “The black, ornery kind I don’t care to get to know any better—that’s all I know. You ain’t seen its like before?”

  “Never.”

  The snake had finally accepted that there was no way out—and it wasn’t happy about it. Instead of circling the room again, it took to eyeing us. Blacker, more soulless eyes I’ve never seen on anything alive. It was like staring into the barrels of a shotgun.

  For a moment, the snake curled up atop my brother’s holstered Colt and shook the end of its tail rattlesnake-fashion, though it had nothing to rattle. Then it stuck its tongue out at me and moved in underneath my feet where I couldn’t see it.

  “Keep your legs up, Otto!” Gustav cried. “High as they’ll go!”

  I strained to keep my legs stretched out straight, but they were tiring fast and started to sag.

  Something nudged my right calf from below.

  “Oh, hell! He’s nippin’ at me, ain’t he?”

  “Nippin’ and missin’,” Old Red said, struggling to calm his voice—and not particularly succeeding. “Just hold on a little longer, and he’ll—”

  I felt another bump from below. There was a sharp edge to it this time, as if, for a split second, someone had clamped a clothespin onto my left heel.

  The snake had gotten its mouth on me—just not quite enough to sink in its teeth. On its next try, it’d get me for sure.

  “Well, crap,” my brother spat, and he jumped off the john and grabbed for his gun.

  But the snake was on him quick, before he could reach his iron. Old Red stutter-stepped backward across the room, ending up pressed against the door. He brought his left hand up behind his back and groped for the handle.

  “If I can slip out without him slippin’ out, I’ll get help. But there’s women and kids out there, so I can’t—” His fingers found the door handle and gave it a jiggle … and nothing happened. “Oh, you are shittin’ me! The goddamn door’s been—”

  The snake turned itself into a black arrow aimed at Gustav’s shins. But my brother was already on the move, scurrying back toward his porcelain fortress, and the snake flew between his legs. It whirled on him fast, though, and by the time Old Red was climbing atop the toilet again it was right on his heels.

  And it stayed on them. The snake started pushing itself up against the smooth white side of the commode, and before long its head lifted up over the rim.

  “The bastard’s actually comin’ up after me!” Gustav gasped, wide-eyed. “Quick! Distract him!”

  “How do you distract a snake?”

  “I don’t know! Whistle him a tune! Offer him a bowl of milk! Something!”

  I hopped down from the sink and staggered on aching legs over to the towel rack beneath the washroom window.

  “Here, snaky snaky snake-snake,” I said.

  The snake ignored me, flicking its tongue out toward Old Red’s ankles like they were a couple of barbecued ribs it couldn’t wait to taste.

  I whipped down one of the towels and flapped it at the snake’s head. The edge snapped just over his darting tongue.

  “Olé,” I said.

  As if accepting a challenge for a duel, the snake curled around and slid toward me, its obsidian eyes locked on mine.

  They weren’t just cold as ice, those eyes. They turned all they touched to ice, too, and a shiver ran along my back like a fistful of snow stuffed down my shirt. I couldn’t stand that death-cold gaze another second—so I tossed my towel at it.

  The snake ended up covered almost head to tail, and it started rolling and thrashing beneath the rough cotton. I threw on another towel before it could fight its way free, then another and another till the rack was bare. Instead of having a slithering black serpent before me, I now had a fluffy white pile—albeit a pile that was undulating wildly.

  I scooped up the whole heap in my hands.

  The snake’s wrigglings grew so frenzied it was like trying to keep a grip on a cracking bullwhip. One towel, then another, dropped to the floor. There was only one towel left when I reached the window, and I stuffed it—and the snake wrapped up in it—out into the black nothingness whipping past the train.

  Something settled on my shoulder, and I only barely managed not to jump through the window myself.

  “Good work, Brother,” Gustav said. He took his hand from my shoulder as I turned around. “You alright?”

  “Ask again in about five minutes … I ain’t done with my heart attack yet.”

  I walked to the door and gave it a try. I didn’t have any more luck than Old Red a couple minutes before.

  “We’re gonna have to bust this open,” I said.

  “Yup. But let’s be careful about it.” My brother gathered up his boots and sat on the john to start pulling them on. “For all we know, whoever sicced that snake on us is right outside.”

  “Oh, I hope he is.” I started getting myself shod as fast as I could. “That’ll be one snake I won’t be afraid to stomp.”

  Gustav crouched down to get his gunbelt. While he was squatting there, he scooped something else up off the floor—a golden brown doodad only a little larger than a silver dollar.

  “That mean you want this back?” He tossed me the S.P. badge.

  “Not especially,” I said … as I pinned it to my shirt. “But I’ll wear it all the same. I’m warnin’ you, though—the second we’re done with this business, I’m doin’ to this badge what I just did to that snake. And I just might do it to you, too, we don’t clear up a thing or two. Now you’d best get that gun in your hand … cuz here I go.”

  I was mad enough to get the door open with one kick.

  Twenty-four

  KEY INFORMATION

  Or, We Get Some Answers, but None Unlocks Our Mystery

  There was no one waiting for us in the little nook outside the privy. Which isn’t to say the nook was empty: A small crate done over with chicken wire on one side sat on the floor near the door.

  I prodded the snake’s box with a toe as Old Red holstered his gun and bent down to inspect the door handle I’d just busted with my boot.

  “What’s all that noise?” someone said.

  Kip and Wiltrout poked out from behind the curtains of the nearest berths, their faces stacked atop one another like the heads on a totem pole.

  “What are you doing over there?” Wiltrout asked gruffly (though quietly).

  “We had us a tangle with one of our fellow passengers, Admiral.” I held my hands about four feet apart. “A skinny black feller yay long.”

  “The snake?” Kip pointed his bulging eyes at the floor. “Jeez! Is he still loose?”

  “I suppose so … about a mile back. I chucked him out the window.”

  Wiltrout rolled from his bunk and came charging at us, and Kip quickly dropped down to follow him. Both we
re fully (though wrinkly) dressed.

  “What’s all this about a snake?” the conductor demanded, somehow managing to sound like he was whispering and shouting at the same time. “And what the hell did you do to that door?”

  “I opened it,” I said.

  Old Red finally turned away from the door handle. “Somebody locked it from the outside—with us and the snake on the inside.”

  Wiltrout’s puffy face went so hot-iron red his bushy mustache should’ve burst into flame. “What snake, damn it?”

  “An Indian swamp adder. It was boxed up in the baggage car,” Kip answered for us. His voice went flat. “Joe showed it to me yesterday. Before we left Ogden.”

  “What sort of imbecile would bring an Indian swamp adder aboard my train?” Wiltrout fumed.

  “The kind that sells peanut paste,” Gustav said.

  “And sports a he-wig,” I added.

  Wiltrout gave us a glare that said we were in no position to cast stones at imbeciles of any variety. “Who?”

  “Mr. Horner, Captain—the drummer,” Kip said. “I heard him braggin’ about his snake to some of the other passengers. Said he bought it at the Exposition.” The news butch gawked at me and my brother like he couldn’t quite believe we were actually still alive. “One drop of its poison’s enough to kill a dozen elephants.”

  There was a high-pitched gasp, and we turned to find a nightgown-clad woman watching us from the car’s main passageway. She was pallid and gaunt, with hair that hung as straight and black as the curtains lining the aisle around her. I would’ve sworn I’d never laid eyes on the lady if not for the children she clutched to her nonexistent bosom: twin boys.

  “A dozen elephants,” either Harlan or Marlin murmured. He and his brother were in their nightshirts, grinning with that devilish glee peculiar to little boys.

  “Gee whillikers,” the other twin said, looking positively covetous. What I couldn’t do with a critter like that, he seemed to be thinking.

  “Boys, hush,” their mother said, tugging them to her more tightly. She gave us a beseeching look that seemed to plead for comforting lies no matter what the truth might be. “Did I hear something about a poisonous snake being loose on the train?”

  “Nothing of the kind, Mrs. Foreman,” Wiltrout said soothingly. “It’s all a simple misunderstanding. Here. Let me escort you back to your berths.” The conductor reached down and ruffled the twins’ thick gold locks. “Tell me, boys—do you want to be conductors or engineers when you grow up?”

  “Neither,” Harlan or Marlin replied as he and his brother and mother were hustled out of sight.

  “We wanna be train robbers!” his twin chirped.

  I didn’t hear a yelp, so I could only assume Wiltrout resisted the urge to smack the backs of the boys’ curl-covered heads.

  “So … you said the door was locked, not jammed, right?” I said to Gustav.

  He nodded grimly. “Ain’t no question about it now: The killer’s got a passkey. Otherwise, there’d no way to fetch that snake out of the baggage car or lock us in the jakes. Though it does make me wonder.” He turned to Kip. “Why are there locks on the outside of the privies?”

  “The porters have to lock ’em up when we’re stopped at a station,” Kip explained. “The crapper empties right down onto the tracks, so if you let people keep goin’ in there—”

  “It wouldn’t be long ’fore every station on the line smelled like a shepherd’s underdrawers,” I finished for him.

  “Or worse—like a cowboy’s underdrawers,” the kid cracked.

  “Given what we just been through, it’s a wonder mine don’t smell a hell of a lot worse than they do,” I said.

  “Kip, would that key you lost work on the door to the jakes?” Old Red cut in with weary impatience. Our tussle with the snake had forced him to stoke up his boiler right quick, but now that it was over, he was losing his steam almost as fast.

  “Passkeys work on everything,” Kip told him. “I sure hope there’s some other explanation, though. I’d feel awful bad if it was my key that—”

  “Get back to your berth,” Wiltrout snapped at the kid as he returned from getting the widow and her sons tucked in (or perhaps, in Harlan and Marlin’s case, tied down).

  “But I—”

  “Now, Hickey!”

  The news butch cringed like a scolded puppy and slinked away toward his bunk.

  “The same goes for you two,” Wiltrout said. “I don’t know what this is all about.” He glowered at the empty box and busted door in a way that said he would’ve found our story every bit as believable if we’d claimed to have been attacked by rabid fairies. “I just know wherever you go, there’s trouble. So let’s see if you can at least sleep without stirring up some kind of fuss.”

  I expected Old Red to retort that he had clues to pursue, so full speed ahead and damn the fuss. Instead, he gave a resigned nod and began shambling away.

  “Oh. Just one question before we go,” he said, stopping next to the conductor. “What was it Dr. Chan said that got you so riled up a ways back?”

  At first, Wiltrout’s face puckered with its usual scorn. When he heard the question through, though, his expression changed, and for once he seemed pensive rather than pissed.

  “He wanted me to let him into the baggage car … alone. He even offered me a bribe. Of course, I turned him down.”

  “Of course.” Old Red started toward our berth again. “Well … night, Wiltrout.”

  “Yeah, see ya in the mornin’, Admiral.”

  Wiltrout was too lost in thought to give us more than a growl for a good-night.

  As we passed by the first berths, I caught a glimpse of Kip peeping out at us.

  “Sleep tight,” he whispered. “Don’t let the swamp adders bite.”

  “Pleasant screams,” I replied.

  When we reached our berth, Old Red stared up at it dolefully a moment, clearly wondering if he had the strength to get himself inside.

  “Alright, step aside,” I said. “I’ll go first.”

  Once I was up in the bunk, I reached back down for Gustav. He wasn’t much help, weak as he was, but I was able to haul him up and roll him over me toward the wall—which seemed to be all of five inches from the curtains. Being blessed as I am with more me than most (folks don’t call me Big Red for my mouth … though I suppose they could), I would’ve found the berth a tight fit even without a brother to share it with. Nevertheless, after a lot of squirming and flailing, Old Red and I managed to get ourselves laid out side by side like a couple corpses squeezed into the same casket.

  “Well … now what?”

  “Now we sleep.” Gustav dug out his gunbelt and plopped it atop my chest. “You nighthawk first.”

  “Oh, sure. I’ll either wake you in an hour or when the killer slits my throat, whichever comes first.”

  “That’ll work.”

  He seemed tempted to leave it at that. But he knew I wouldn’t, so he kept on.

  “Whoever set that swamp adder on us knows we’ll be on our toes now. I don’t think they’ll try anything again tonight.”

  “But we ain’t on our toes, are we? We’re on our backs—where anyone could get at us.”

  “Which is why you’ve got that gun.” Old Red turned his back to the aisle—and me—and pressed his face up against the berth’s small window, which he cracked open to let in just a hint of brisk, gently whistling wind. “I admit it—I ain’t in no shape to take first watch. But just let me get a little shut-eye, and I can take over.”

  “I don’t give a shit about that, Gustav. I’ll take watch all night. It’s them other things I wanna talk about. Them brother things.”

  “Not now, Otto. I swear I’m too tired to talk.”

  “But—”

  “In the morning.”

  “But—”

  “In the morning.”

  “Alright. Fine.” I rolled over on my side, Old Red’s Peacemaker sliding off onto the bunk beside me. “Good goddamn
night, then.”

  Gustav just snuggled in under his covers like a prairie dog burrowing out of reach of a coyote’s snout. After that, we lay back-to-back, Old Red doing his thinking and me doing mine, the only thing between us a thick padding of silence.

  Of course, quiet was nothing new to us. If he’s not working out some deduction, my brother prefers not to open his mouth at all, except to take in air and food and expel the occasional sigh. He and I talked, sure, but there were long stretches where we didn’t—and there was plenty we didn’t talk about.

  Five years before, I’d watched as our childhood—family, farm, and friends—was washed away by a river so swollen it seemed to swallow the whole wide world. And Gustav had never once asked me to speak of it. I’d been a burden to him in the days after that flood, a lame calf hitched to a maverick steer, yet he’d never spoken of that. Words weren’t needed for certain things, because the mere fact that we kept on together said all that needed saying.

  Or so I’d thought. Now it turned out there was something Gustav hadn’t been saying for reasons all his own.

  Trains made him sick. So what? Why hadn’t he just told me?

  I lay there waiting, hoping, desperate for Old Red to break his silence. Which, after a few minutes, he did.

  He started snoring.

  Twenty-five

  NIGHTHAWKS

  Or, My Mind Wanders—While Someone Else Wanders the Train

  It was so late it was early, but there was little chance I’d fall asleep on my watch. I’ve done enough cattle-drive night-herding to know how to glue my eyelids open. And even if I didn’t, it’s easy to stay awake when you’re bunked up with a murderer.

  I could hear the wheezings of sleep from the berths around us, and the longer I lay there listening, the more all the log-sawing filled me with a jumpy dread.

  That could be the killer, I’d think after a particularly loud snort.

  Or, Could a man sleep that sound with fresh blood on his hands?