The Hanging of Samuel Ash (20 page)

He leaned over and could just see the pipe fitters, like mine mules, at work in the dimness of the pit. Grease and soot covered their faces and brightened the whites of their eyes.

“How long?” Hook asked.

“Have lots of work in the shop here,” one of them said. “Most the day, maybe longer.”

“You seen Frenchy?”

“Yeah,” one of them said. “He's even uglier than I remembered.”

“Know where he is?”

“Sleeping rooms. Said he'd check back later.”

“Thanks,” Hook said.

Unwilling to spend the day roaming the yards, Hook went back to the caboose, where he found Mixer still curled up alongside the casket. Mixer whopped his tail against the floor and then turned back to his sleep.

Inside, Hook sat at the table and read for a while. Between the heat and the size of his breakfast, he soon grew sleepy. Slipping off his shoes, he crawled into his bunk and fell sound asleep.

*   *   *

When he awakened, the sun had set, and the yard lights winked through the windows of the caboose. He put on his shoes and went out on the caboose porch. Mixer had disappeared. Given several weeks had elapsed without a scrap, he'd probably set out to hunt strays.

Hook leaned against the casket and watched the moon rise.

“Well, Samuel Ash,” he said, “another delay, but, don't worry, we're going to get there one way or the other.”

He walked to the roundhouse to check on the engine, only to find the second shift on.

He leaned over the drive wheel. “How long?” he asked.

“What the hell difference does it make?” someone said. “She'll be melted into washing machines by summer's end, anyway.”

Hook didn't answer but picked his way over the maze of tracks and out into the yards. Steam rose up into the lights, and the chug of engines filled the evening.

The hostler had sided a diesel next to the machine shop and had planted a blue stop-flag in her nose. Her engine thumped and throbbed in an idle. The smell of sulfur and oil drifted down track on waves of heat, and insects swarmed in the yard light overhead.

Hook had turned to go when he noticed a man, large and slightly bent, standing at the front of the engine. He had a gander feather stuck in the band of his hat.

“Barney,” he said quietly to himself.

Hook moved back into the shadows of the engine, uncertain as to whether he'd been spotted or not. Barney had probably come for the girl like she said he would, to take her back or to silence her, or maybe to silence him as well.

Barney moved behind the nose and out of sight. Hook checked the area for places he might escape. The yard light lit the distance between the engine and the machine shop, and no other cars or engines were close enough for cover. Barney's only escape would be to follow along the other side of the engine, wait until it was clear, and then make a run for it.

Hook slipped toward the nose, the rumble of the engine quaking underfoot. He pulled his P.38. If this guy was half as stealthy as Jackie claimed, he didn't want to take any chances.

Nearly to the front, he paused and tried to listen through the drone of the engine. He squatted down, leaned against the wheel, and peered into the darkness under the engine. There was only a couple feet of crawl space, but as long as that blue flag remained in place, the engine would not be moved, clearing the way for him to maneuver under and take Barney by surprise.

Tucking his sidearm into his belt, he lay down on his back and worked his way under. The rail ground into his spine and the cinders scrubbed against the back of his head and shoulders as he scooted under inch by inch. Water dripped from the maze of pipes and cables that ran overhead, and the stink of diesel drifted down on the engine heat.

He tried not to think of the colossal weight above, the steel and iron, the raw power that crushed everything in its path.

With barely enough room to breathe, he pushed and wormed his way farther under the engine. Leaning his head back, he could just see the other side. And then he saw a foot, a boot the size of a journal jack. Barney, the son of a bitch, was waiting for him to come around the nose. And then just as quickly the boot disappeared.

Hook shoved his shoulders under the bracing that cut at an angle across the undercarriage. If he could just get out far enough to draw his weapon, he had this bastard right where he wanted him.

Halfway under, he realized he couldn't move. The harder he pushed, the tighter his body wedged itself beneath the bracing. Hot water from above dripped into his face and eyes. He couldn't move forward or backward or to the side.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to lie still, to think it through. The engine had been flagged, and as long as that flag stayed put, the engine wouldn't be moved. He had plenty of time to work himself free. If he got under, he could get out. Simple as that.

This time he'd relax, lower the height of his torso, which had gone rigid from adrenaline. He had plenty of time. Blue-flagged engines sometimes sat for weeks in a state of disrepair.

He let the tension go, worked it from his jaws, down his spine, and out the bottoms of his feet. He dug his heels into the cinders and inched back a fraction. The bracing rode up on his rib cage, tearing at his shirt and his skin. Pain, like an electrical current, pooled in the glands under his arms.

He turned his head to the side, the stink of creosote in his nose. Hot water dripped into his ear and ran down his neck. He could see the faint glow of the yard light seeping under the front of the engine, a thousand miles of steel waiting to crush him into a gore ball.

At first he thought it no more than the thump of his heart, but when it came again, he recognized it as footsteps moving down the length of the engine. He started to call out for help, but then it might be Barney returning to kill him.

When the footsteps stopped nearby, he turned his head up once more. He shoved his chin as high as possible, but he failed to see anything.

The footsteps turned then and moved off toward the rear of the engine. Hook lowered his head and struggled to catch his breath. Once again, he pushed his chin up in an effort to see. This time he did see, and what he saw froze his heart into a block of ice. The blue stop-flag had been tossed under the engine only feet from where he lay.

 

22

 

T
HE VOICES DRIFTED
in from a distance and then grew louder. Someone coughed, and the smell of cigarette smoke wafted in. Hook called out just as the brake compressor thumped on, his voice fading beneath the racket.

He pushed against the bracing, his ribs firing off waves of pain into his neck and jaw. And when the diesel engine revved up, the ground under him shuddered. His scalp tightened, and once more he shoved against the bracing, his flesh tearing beneath his shirt.

Air shot into the night, releasing the brakes, and Hook clenched his jaw. He held his breath and waited for the disemboweling, the stringing of body parts down the track.

Suddenly the engine bumped, and the wheels screeched, iron against iron as the engine backed up a few inches. White lights flashed in his eyes, and the engine howled in his ears. The engineer paused to gather up power, and in that moment Hook realized that the brace had loosened.

If only he could make it between the wheels in time, life lay but a few feet away. Reaching up, he caught the frame with his prosthesis and pulled with everything he had. He slid between the wheels and rolled out onto his side. Muscle spasms jerked up his body as he scrambled into the shadows. The engineer's profile lit against the cab instrument lights as the engine growled off down track.

For several minutes Hook waited in the darkness, his life returning with each gulp of oxygen. Barney could not have gotten far. He had to be somewhere out there in the yards.

From there, Hook could see the roundhouse, the machine shop, and the turntable cabin. When he spotted a shadow slipping past the dingy window of the machine shop, he cocked his P.38.

Holding his arm against his ribs, he slipped through the darkness. Ducking low, he moved into the machine shop and squatted in the shadows to wait for his eyes to adjust. Empty of employees, the building creaked and settled in the coolness. Great lathes and grinders lined the walls. Belts shot down from the maze of overhead pulleys mounted in the high reaches of the ceiling. Driver wheels and trailing trucks stretched down the walls, along with smoke boxes, boilers, and mammoth-sized tools. Babbitt and lead vats smoldered, their smells acrid in the still evening air.

He stepped into the light just as Barney came from behind a drill press. He came with murder in his eyes, the full force of his weight, and hit Hook in his midsection. Pain exploded up Hook's rib cage, and his lungs emptied. His P.38 spun out onto the machine-shop floor.

Barney, stinking of sour and whiskey, buried his head into Hook's belly. His hat fell away as he struggled to tip Hook off-balance, shoving him back again and again with his legs. Sweat soaked the collar of his shirt and glistened on his neck.

Hook squared off to counter the attack. Barney fought to encircle him, to crush him into submission, but the booze had taken its toll.

Hook thrust Barney back on his heels. “It's time for a fishing lesson,” he said.

Barney snarled, and he charged in again and then again. But with each failed attempt, his strength lessened, and his determination waned. He gasped for air, and his eyes rolled as he struggled to focus on Hook.

Each time, Hook countered the attack, sidestepping, moving just out of reach, forcing him to expend his energy even more. Water dripped from Barney's nose, and his face reddened in the yellow lights of the shop.

Gathering up his resolve, Barney rushed Hook full bore. But this time Hook came in straight and yanked his prosthesis up into Barney's crotch. Barney's eyes widened, and his scream reverberated within the confines of the machine shop. Hook leaned in close to Barney's ear.

“First, bait the hook,” he said.

Hook cuffed Barney and rolled him onto his back. Barney pulled his knees into his stomach and issued strange barking noises. Spittle drooled from his mouth, and his face churned with blood.

Hook searched him for a weapon and found a pistol tucked in his belt. He wondered why carry a firearm and not use it? But when he held the weapon under the lights, he understood why. No
sane
man draws a Roy Rogers cap gun in the middle of a fight.

*   *   *

When Frenchy coupled in, Hook rolled out of the bunk, his ribs protesting. He'd spent the better part of the night getting Barney situated in the local jail. The cops pointed out that anything more serious than resisting-arrest charges would probably be in vain, since toting a Roy Rogers cap pistol failed the attempted-murder charge even in Texas. They further advised that blaming the incident on some blue flag, or even a red flag for that matter, would most likely result in a jury laughing off its collective ass.

Hook declined Frenchy's invitation to ride in the engine cab, deciding instead to stay in the caboose. Frenchy shrugged and lit up his cigar.

“I ain't stopping for that dang dog, Hook. If he falls off, it's just good-bye Mixer.”

“Mixer's been riding this caboose damn near as long as you've been railroading and without half the complaining.”

“And I ain't hauling dead bodies up and down the line no more either,” he said. “You want to ride my train, you have to be alive.”

“Tell that to the bakehead,” Hook said.

“And this here train don't go into Carmen, as you know.”

“Side me off in Avard. And while you're at it, maybe you can arrange for the Frisco to take me on into Carmen. I hear they're less particular about helping a man out.”

“That's 'cause hauling wheat cars back and forth fifty miles a day with a bobtail don't make for a real railroad.”

“Right,” Hook said. “When you coming back through?”

“You wanting a free ride home, too, I suppose?”

“I don't know yet how long this is going to take. I'll check in with Popeye from time to time. In the meantime, maybe you can side me off someplace quiet in Avard.”

Frenchy puffed on his cigar. “There ain't no other kind of place
in
Avard,” he said.

*   *   *

Hook slept for a couple of hours, secure in the clack of the wheels as Frenchy's steamer lumbered through the night. When he woke, he climbed into the cupola to see if he could make out their location. The sky spilled over with stars, and the moon sat on the horizon like a fat pumpkin, but not a sign or light to place him in the world.

He rubbed at the soreness in his ribs and made a mental note to never climb under another engine for any reason whatsoever.

He wondered if Jackie had made it home, and if she had, whether she would stay there. Her infatuation with Barney's big talk might well draw her back into a life of crime.

He figured that Barney, too, would soon enough return to business as usual. But unlike some crooks Hook had encountered on the rails, Barney's taste for violence didn't extend much beyond moving stop-flags and brandishing his Roy Rogers cap gun.

Even though moving that flag could have been lethal, he figured Barney's actions stemmed more from panic than intent to murder. After all, no one carried a cap pistol for anything more than a prop. In the end, the more disturbing proposition for Hook lay in the likelihood that whoever took that potshot at him still remained at large.

There'd been no shortage of enemies for Hook over the years, and they never made life easy. But at least he'd known who they were and what their motivations might be. In this case, he knew neither.

*   *   *

When they'd stopped at Avard, Frenchy said, “A Frisco switch engine comes in for those wheat cars over there in the mornings. Without an order the engineer can't legally run you into Carmen. Been my experience that it's hell seeing past the third hopper car, though.”