On the Wrong Track

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Why’d you tell folks he was a swamp adder?” my brother jumped in before the drummer could kick up a fuss about his lost pet.

  Horner heaved a defeated sigh. “I’m a salesman. Saying I just bought the most poisonous snake in the world … it makes me memorable, keeps the talk going. A lot of the people on this train are merchants, grocers, potential clients. They might be on holiday, but I’m not. I never am.”

  “Alright,” Gustav said. “I suppose that makes a certain kinda sense.”

  “Oh, I’m so happy to hear that,” Horner snipped. “Can I go now?”

  My brother slipped a hand into his coat pocket. “I got just two more questions for you.”

  The train was now moving through a gently sloping woodland thick with tall firs and pines, and perhaps because we no longer seemed to be dangling over a bottomless pit, Old Red felt steady enough to step away from the door, toward Horner.

  “This mean anything to you?” He brought out the little cup he’d found in the desert.

  “Why, yes, it does,” Horner said. “It either means it’s time for tea or you’re a complete crackpot. Which is it?”

  Gustav put the cup away and reached into another pocket. “How ’bout this?”

  The toupee’s golden rings of hair writhed in the wind like something alive.

  “What about it?” Horner growled, his face turning a shade of purple I’d seen only on certain grapes up till then.

  “You don’t know what it is?” I asked innocently.

  That’s when Miss Caveo got it. I saw her gaze flick from the hairpiece to Horner’s head then back to the hairpiece again, her eyes crinkling with amusement.

  “What does that have to do with me?” Horner snapped at my brother.

  “We been lookin’ for the man it belongs to, and we hear you might be able to help.”

  Horner muttered something under his breath, then snatched the hairpiece from Gustav’s hand.

  “Fine—let me see it,” he said gruffly. He rubbed his thumbs over the top of the toupee. “It’s well made. Small, though—not as large as the ones some men wear.”

  I glanced at the mud-brown hair bun atop Horner’s head and realized what he was saying: His bald spot was surely too large to be covered by the puny little wiglet he was holding now.

  “This is for someone who’s only begun to bald,” Horner went on. “Someone in his twenties or early thirties, maybe. Obviously, the hair he has left must be curly. This”—Horner gave the toupee a little wave—“would look pretty ludicrous on a man whose hair is straight.”

  Horner turned his head sharply to the right to face Miss Caveo, then to the left to face me, showing off what was left of his natural hair—which was as straight as straw.

  “But if you really want to find out who this belongs to …”

  Horner turned the toupee over and ran his fingers over the rough interior. He nodded, gave a self-satisfied grunt, and picked at a spot along the edge, where the outermost ring of tresses was woven into the leatherish material that held the hairpiece together.

  A tiny, pink tag had been tucked inside. Horner slid it out and squinted at it.

  “ … you should talk to ‘Msr. Philippe of San Jose.’”

  “This ‘Miz-year Phil-leap’ … he a wigmaker?” I asked.

  “No.” Horner tossed the toupee back to Old Red. “He’s probably a blacksmith. Sticking his name in men’s hairpieces is just a hobby.”

  The drummer turned to Miss Caveo. “Thank you,” he said.

  Then he headed for the door again. This time Gustav stepped out of his way—which was a good thing. Horner was moving with such fuming determination a brick wall might not have stopped him.

  “Before you ask, let me assure you,” Miss Caveo said after Horner slammed the door behind him, “that hairpiece wouldn’t fit me, either.”

  “Thank you, miss,” Old Red said gravely, stuffing the toupee back in his coat.

  “Saves us the trouble of havin’ you try it on,” I added.

  A sudden shriek snapped my spine straight, while Gustav gave such a start his knees almost buckled. Miss Caveo, on the other hand, was more startled by our reactions than the blast of the engine whistle, and she watched in a way that seemed both tickled and sympathetic as we caught our breath.

  The engineer gave the whistle another long, ear-piercing toot, and the train began to slow. The woods on either side of us thinned, then disappeared, and soon we were rolling into a small town. Most of the houses and storefronts and whatnot were squat and ramshackle, but a large, freshly whitewashed structure rose up from among them like a glacier from the mud.

  “What the heck is that?” I asked.

  “Summit House,” Miss Caveo replied. “A hotel. We’ve reached the highest point on the line—Summit, California.” She smiled. “It’s all downhill from here.”

  The train was barely moving now, and a long wooden platform slowly slid up beside us. We were stopping at the station.

  “Miss Caveo,” Gustav said as we finally lurched to a halt, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got a question or two for—”

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Miss Caveo blurted out. Something behind my brother had caught her eye, and her smile dimmed like a lantern running out of oil. “I just remembered something I have to attend to. If I don’t hurry I’ll—”

  Whatever else she said, we couldn’t hear it. She was on the other side of the door, bustling through the observation car.

  “Now what was that all about?” I mused.

  “Them, I reckon,” Old Red said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Standing outside the station house not thirty yards away were two men so absorbed in conversation they didn’t even notice us gawking at them. One was a young fellow with a bowler hat set upon his head at such a rakish angle it seemed to be dangling from one of his ears. He was scribbling frantically in a notebook with a stubby pencil.

  The other man was a barrel-chested, fortyish fellow who was dressed for the city and the range in equal measure: suit jacket, necktie, and straw boater up top, boots, jodhpurs, and gunbelt below.

  He was also wearing a badge.

  Twenty-nine

  SUMMIT

  Or, A Top Dog Sends Us to Chase a Wild Goose

  “He’s an S.P. man,” my brother declared.

  It was hard to be certain from where we stood, but the shape and color of the man’s badge did seem familiar. And even if it hadn’t, Old Red’s got eyes so sharp he can sex a mosquito from a hundred paces, so I was willing to take his word for it.

  “Why, sure,” I said. “He must be here to pin our medals on us.”

  “Come on,” Gustav grumbled, opening the gate on the platform side of the railing. “He’ll have questions for us … and I got questions for him.”

  As we headed toward the railroad detective, a flurry of activity at the front of the train caught my eye. A second locomotive had been hitched there—to help haul us up the mountainside, no doubt—and a crew of yardmen was moving in to get it uncoupled. Our fellow passengers were taking advantage of the delay, escaping the cars for some fresh air and a stretch of the legs while they could get them.

  A burly figure burst from their midst.

  “Mr. Powless!” Wiltrout called out, barreling the same direction as us—toward the S.P dick. “Mr. Powless! A word, please!”

  The man with the badge turned to look at him.

  Gustav and I turned to look at each other.

  Apparently, we were about to meet our boss: Jefferson Powless, chief detective of the Southern Pacific Railroad Police.

  Wiltrout reached him before us, and the first thing the conductor did was turn and point our way, talking fast and low. Yet despite whatever poison Wiltrout poured in his ear, Powless offered us his hand when we stepped up a moment later. There was a quick round of introductions, and we learned who Powless’s companion was: a San Francisco Examiner reporter named Johnny Schramm.

  “So … you’re the boys Colonel Cro
we hired yesterday,” Powless said coolly. “Quite a first day on the job you had.”

  It was hard to tell if he was being critical or comical or ironical. He had a puffy face that seemed to mask his feelings, as if he could hide behind the extra blubber padding his cheeks and chin.

  “Yeah,” Schramm jumped in. “You look a little worse for wear. The Give-’em-Hell Boys lived up to their names, huh?”

  The newspaperman pressed pencil to paper, ready to get scribbling.

  Powless gave his head a shake so quick you could miss it in a blink.

  “They tried to,” I said with a shrug, and I stopped there.

  Old Red never got started—he didn’t say a word.

  “How about Burl Lockhart?” Schramm pressed us. “Is it true he was on the train? What kind of fight did he put up?”

  “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.” Powless laid a meaty hand on Schramm’s shoulder in a way that seemed both fatherly and vaguely menacing. “Can’t you see the boys are exhausted? Let them rest a minute before you start pelting them with questions.”

  Schramm didn’t look convinced. “Well …”

  “I’ll tell you who you really ought to talk to,” Wiltrout said. He pointed at the express car. “Milford Morrison, the Wells Fargo messenger. The whole gang was outside his door throwing down threats. But would he open up? No, sir. Now there’s a hero for you.”

  “Yeah?”

  Schramm jotted something in his notebook, thanked Wiltrout, and scurried off toward the express car.

  “He won’t get anything,” the conductor told Powless. “It’s not just robbers Morrison won’t open up for—it’s reporters. There were two of them waiting for us in Reno, and the only quote they got was ‘Go away.’”

  Powless gave a curt nod. “Good man.”

  “If you don’t mind my askin’,” Old Red said, “why bring along a reporter if you don’t want anyone talkin’ to him?”

  “I didn’t bring Schramm,” Powless said. “Word got out about the robbery—and that ‘bounty’ on our board of directors—and he came up here to meet the Express on his own. I assume he’ll be on the next train to Carlin, just like me.”

  “Mr. Morrison? You in there?” Schramm rapped on the express car’s side door. “Johnny Schramm from the Examiner here! I’d like to ask you a few questions!”

  “Go away!” Morrison called back from inside the car. “I’ve got nothing to say!”

  Powless grunted out a gruff chuckle. “Well, that won’t hold Schramm long. Wiltrout, you and I better find someplace private to talk. You two”—he turned to me and my brother—“there’s another S.P. agent who might be in town, at Summit House. Dan Woodgate. Run up and see if he’s there. If he is, get him down here.”

  When Gustav and I were a safe distance away, trudging up the sloping street toward the fortresslike hotel overlooking town, I crooked a thumb back at Powless.

  “Whadaya make of him?”

  “A w w w , he’s just gettin’ us out of the way so he can hear Wiltrout’s side of things,” Old Red replied glumly. “By the time we get back, he’ll probably want our badges.”

  “Why that ungrateful bastard.” I kicked at a rock. “And after all we’ve done for the Southern Pacific … .”

  My brother picked up his pace.

  It took us five minutes to reach the hotel; five minutes to establish that there was no Dan Woodgate inside, outside, or anywhere nearby; and another four minutes to come back down the hill to the station—where we found Powless waiting for us alone.

  “Well, thanks for looking, boys,” the S.P. man said. “Dan probably cleared out as soon as he got the wire this morning. The directors are in a real lather about that bounty: Every man we’ve got’s either babysitting a board member or on his way to Nevada to get after Barson and Welsh. By tonight, you two’ll be the only S.P. agents west of the Sierras who aren’t sitting around some mansion on guard duty.”

  Not only was Powless making no move to snatch off our badges, he was acting as chummy as a lodge brother. I looked around for Wiltrout, thinking maybe we’d misjudged the man. Instead of bad-mouthing us, it seemed more like he’d put in a good word.

  I spotted him off near the train, talking to Schramm, who was jotting down notes and nodding and grinning. The reporter had apparently given up on Morrison, settling instead for an interview with the heroic conductor who’d so bravely faced down the infamous Give-’em-Hell Boys at dire risk to life and limb. At least, that’s how I assumed it would play out in the Examiner.

  Wiltrout caught me looking at him, and the scowl he gave me in return was so blistering hot I could’ve branded a steer with it. He stepped away from Schramm and hollererd, “All aboard!” almost as if he’d been waiting just for us.

  “Off you go, boys,” Powless said. “Better stay on your toes. If anything happens between here and Oakland, you’re more or less on your own.”

  We said our good-byes and headed for the Express.

  “It don’t make no sense,” Gustav mumbled, racing for the train with all the eager, hard-charging speed of a Kentucky-bred colt. With a broken leg. Who knows he’s being led to the glue factory. “He didn’t even ask us for a report. No questions. Nothin’.”

  “All aboard!” Wiltrout barked again entirely for our benefit. All were aboard except for him and us.

  Old Red shuffled to the stairs into our Pullman and got a foot planted on the first step.

  And there he stopped, half-on, half-off the train. I could practically hear his stomach squirming in his belly as he considered what lay ahead: a long ride down the mountainside with only the Express’s newfangled air brakes between us and a quick plunge into the nearest gorge.

  I clapped a hand on his back.

  “Just remember, Brother … I’m right here behind you,” I said. “For God’s sake, don’t fall on me.”

  Gustav sighed and shook his head—and hauled himself up the steps.

  Wiltrout climbed up after us into the vestibule at the front of the Pullman, and soon the train was rolling again. Almost immediately, the car took on a downward tilt that grew steeper with each second, and my brother grabbed for the handrail.

  “Better hold tight, Amlingmeyer,” Wiltrout jeered. “We might hit fifty, sixty miles an hour on this stretch … assuming we stay on the tracks.”

  “Oh, ain’t you got something to conduct somewhere?” I said.

  “It just so happens I do,” Wiltrout snapped back. “I have an express train to conduct. And just because you’ve got friends in high places, don’t think I’ll put up with—”

  “‘Friends in high places’?” Old Red cut in. “What are you—?”

  The door to the passenger compartment flew open, and Burl Lockhart leaned in.

  “There you are!” he said to Wiltrout. “Did you see the Chinaman get back aboard?”

  “I never saw him get off,” the conductor said.

  “How ’bout you, Big Red?” Lockhart turned to Gustav. “Or you?”

  “I ain’t seen Dr. Chan since last night,” my brother said.

  I shrugged. “Same for me.”

  “We gotta get back to Summit, then,” Lockhart declared. He jerked his head at Kip, who’d stepped up behind him to peer into the passageway at us. “Cuz he ain’t seen him, neither.”

  “That’s right,” the news butch confirmed with a wide-eyed nod. “The Chinaman’s just plain gone.”

  Thirty

  MOMENTUM

  Or, Old Red and I Discover There’s No Turning Back

  “Chan ain’t on the train?”

  My brother’s spine snapped so straight so fast it’s a wonder the whiplash didn’t pop his head right off his neck.

  Wiltrout had the exact opposite reaction, slouching and shaking his head.

  “Nonsense,” the conductor said.

  “I tell ya, he’s gone!” Lockhart insisted, his whiskey breath so strong a blind man might’ve thought we were passing a distillery. “I’ve been from one end of this train to another,
and there ain’t a sign of the little bugger.”

  “You missed him, that’s all.” Wiltrout sounded like he couldn’t quite decide whether to be irritated or bored. “It happens all the time. People go into hysterics, and then it turns out junior or grandpa or whoever was just taking extra long in the john.” He threw a sharp-edged glare at Kip. “I would’ve thought you’d know that by now.”

  “I looked in the damn crappers,” Lockhart said.

  Wiltrout shrugged blithely. “So the Chinaman came down the aisle while you were in one. You passed each other. It happens all the time.”

  “Not to Burl Lockhart, it don’t.”

  The wiry Pinkerton stepped up close to Wiltrout, a strip of beef jerky going toe-to-toe with a Christmas ham.

  “You stop this train—now—or I’m gonna pull the bell cord and stop it for you.”

  “Pull it, then!” Wiltrout roared with sudden fury—or fear masquerading as fury. “Then you can walk back up to town! Because not only is this train not going back to Summit, it can’t go back. We’re down to one engine again, and we’re already a mile down the mountainside. We don’t have the boiler power to get up that grade again. So just get ahold of yourself. I’ll find your little friend for you.”

  The more the conductor spoke, the more Lockhart seemed to shrivel, as if his outrage had been the only thing pumping him up to man size. Another minute of it, and I would’ve expected the old lawman to wither into something impossibly tiny and wrinkled and shapeless—a prune, perhaps.

  “He ain’t my friend,” Lockhart said hoarsely. He backed off, eyes down, and nodded at the door with a sideways snap of his head. “Alright. Let’s go.”

  Wiltrout took the lead, followed by Lockhart and Kip. Old Red joined the parade, so I did, too. We all filed down the aisle wordlessly, passing the widow Foreman and her twin tornadoes and, a little farther on, Miss Caveo, who peeked up from her book just long enough to give us a quizzical look.

  The moment we’d stepped past the young lady, Old Red stopped and whirled to face me, his finger to his lips. For the next few seconds, we just stood there, silent, as Wiltrout, Lockhart, and Kip trooped into the passageway to the next car. Before the door had quite closed behind them, Kip turned and slipped back through.