The Insane Train
Authors: Sheldon Russell
To Nancy, who brightens my days
Nurse Andrea Delven looked out the upstairs window of the women's quarters at the Baldwin Insane Asylum in Barstow, California. Her feet ached, and the evening shift had only just begun. Over its course, the war in Germany had drained away almost all available help, leaving her with long and demanding hours.
When she spotted a light across the way in the boys' ward, she paused. At first she thought it flickered, like a lamp or a candle might. But inmates were not permitted matches, not even for their cigarettes.
She finished rounds and returned to the window to stand in the cool breeze. The smell of smoke drifted in. The Mexicans who worked section gang for the railroad often built campfires in the desert nights.
Andrea clicked the lights on and off to signal bedtime. She waited and then clicked them again, her third try that evening to settle in the patients. Earlier, Bess Henson had refused to get undressed, and, when Andrea had insisted, Bess pulled all her bedding onto the floor.
Back at the nurses' station, Andrea prepared meds for Esther Ringwood, a dementia patient. Esther claimed her meds turned her stool green, and that taking them made her vulnerable to malaria and other dreaded diseases. Twice now Andrea had found Esther's meds in the toilet. Last week she'd discovered a pill hidden in Esther's ear canal.
The smell of smoke that came through the window was even stronger now. Sometimes the Mexicans burned old ties that had been replaced along the tracks. The creosote in them made a hot fire, but the smell drifted for miles in the wind. On a hot day in Barstow even the desert sun could release the pungent odor from out of the ties.
Andrea settled back with a cola. She preferred the night shift. There were fewer bosses and less confusion. The women's ward, which also housed the younger girls, was generally the easiest to control. There was still the potential for trouble under the right circumstances, though typically her patients were more annoying than violent.
Frankie Yager, the orderly over in the boys' ward, had been hired shortly after Doctor Bria Helms's arrival at Baldwin. Though Frankie was not a nurse by any stretch, his physical presence served well in controlling the male adolescents, many of whom were diagnosed idiots and defectives. Even though by legal definition they were children, and seperated from the older men for their own protection, the males in Frankie's ward could blow out of control with the slightest provocation.
A breeze swept in and stirred the curtains. Andrea rubbed at her eyes, which now burned from the smoke.
At least she didn't work in the security ward, the lockdown unit for the criminally insane, which sat on the far side of the compound. Having committed heinous crimes, the inmates there were secured day and night. Even so, duty in the security ward was the most dangerous assignment at the Baldwin Insane Asylum.
Employees in that ward were not permitted weapons to protect themselves, though their lives were in jeopardy each time they entered. A panic button mounted on the wall constituted the single lifeline for the employees.
Females, save for Doctor Helms herself, were rarely permitted in the security ward. On a few occasions, Andrea had assisted Doctor Helms, but even now Andrea's scalp tightened at the thought of it.
Andrea rose to close the window and glanced over at the boys' ward across the way. She looked again, and her breath caught. Flames licked up the curtains, and smoke seeped from around the upstairs windows.
“Oh my God,” she said.
As she headed next door, she grabbed Esther, who had gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom. The tail of her house robe had caught in her panties, and her false teeth were still in her hand.
Esther squealed as Andrea pulled her out the door and onto the lawn. The flames already lapped under the eaves of the boys' ward. Embers drifted upward and settled back down onto the cedar shingles. A cry rose up from behind the flames upstairs, and Andrea's mouth went hot. There were boys trapped up there.
She dragged Esther to the fire bell, which was mounted on a post in the center of the compound, and rang it once before shoving the rope into Esther's hand.
“Ring it!” she shouted, pulling Esther's arm down. “Like this. Ring it, Esther! Ring it!”
Esther commenced ringing the bell with wide swings of her body, filling the night with alarm. Smoke boiled in a black cloud over the compound. Flames crackled into the night, and the wails of the trapped boys lifted like a dirge from out of the fire.
Andrea raced for the outside stairway leading up to the top floor of the boys' quarters, her heart thudding in her chest. From behind her, the fire bell pealed. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused long enough to look back. Where was that bastard Frankie? Where was anyone?
She took the steps two at a time, only to hesitate at the exit door at the top. Heat seeped from around its frame, and the building trembled with flames.
She looked down to see Doctor Baldwin and Doctor Helms racing across the compound toward her. Frankie Yager now stood at the bottom of the stairway, pointing, yelling something up to her. She looked over to see flames now licking at the roof of the women's ward as well.
Andrea, determined to get to the boys, took hold of the doorknob, and pain shot up her arm as her palm liquefied under its heat. Gritting her teeth, she shoved open the door with her shoulder. Flames roared out, sucking away her breath. Her lips swelled, and she smelled the stink of burned hair and flesh.
She could see the boys inside, their bodies dancing and writhing in the inferno, their hands lifted over their heads. She held her arms against the flames and tried to move in, but the heat drove her back. Again she tried, but the firestorm flared and crackled about her, igniting the wooden landing under her feet.
She beat the flames from her clothing and stumbled back down the stairs to where the others were waiting. Above them, windows shattered from the heat, and glass tinkled down. The flames howled with new breath.
Doctor Baldwin pulled Andrea back as the old wooden structure of the boys' quarters heaved and moved. And with a great sigh, it collapsed in upon itself.
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In the dawn light Andrea watched the firemen extinguish the last of the embers. The women's ward had been spared, though the roof was badly damaged. But the boys' ward now lay in ashes, and thirty lives had vanished forever.
The railroad security agent Hook Runyon slipped on his arm prosthesis before sitting down in his caboose to read the Needles paper. “Boys Die in Barstow Asylum Fire,” the headlines read. He pushed the paper aside and poured a cup of coffee. There was nothing like starting a new day with coffee and a dose of human tragedy.
But he'd no sooner sat down when he heard Pap Gonzales, the Santa Fe section foreman, pull in with the motorcar. Pap was the section foreman here in Needles, California. His real name was Papan, though everyone called him Pap, including his wife and kids. They'd scheduled an early start to beat the desert heat. According to Pap, someone had been switch tampering at one of the crossings.
Hook dumped his cup and went out to meet him. Pap looked at his watch as Hook fished out a cigarette. Hook offered him one, but Pap declined. Soon they were clattering down the track. It was early and far too noisy for conversation, so they rode in silence into the desert morning.
When they arrived at the crossing, Pap coasted to a stop and shut off the motor. Hook got out and walked up and down the track. He hiked his foot up on the motorcar and then lit up another cigarette.
“I can't see that it has been tampered with,” he said, looking up at Pap through the smoke.
“Someone's tried to lever it over,” Pap said.
“There's nothing left of the switch point, Pap. That's a section-gang problem, not security. I'm tired of running out every time a car jumps track. Why don't you fix these damn switches before someone gets killed?”
“We've had a war on, Hook, been fighting Germans, or maybe you don't remember. I haven't had men enough to keep the main line open much less patch up siding switches.”
“She's worn thin as a razor,” Hook said. “I'd suggest you boys replace it or shut it down.”
Pap pushed back his hat. “Albuquerque's been screaming about a washout for a week, but I'll just tell them I got orders from the Santa Fe yard dog to shut down the line so's he doesn't have to be bothered.”
“That ought do it,” Hook said, climbing onto the motorcar. “Everybody knows how much pull I have around here.”
Pap cranked the engine of the motorcar and waited as she popped into life. Hooked liked riding the open car, though on a hot day in the Mojave, which was damn near every day, the wind could take off a man's hide.
The wheels chattered and growled as the car gathered up speed. When the Needles depot came into view, Pap idled back.
“Want to go to your caboose, Hook?” he asked, over the clatter of the wheels.
“Yard office,” Hook said, pointing ahead. “Need to check in. Can you wait for me?”
Pap looked at his watch and shook his head. “Don't be long. Main line ain't the place to be sitting when the Chief comes through.”
The Santa Fe Chief was powered by a diesel electromotive engine. The electric giants had begun to impact the railroad. They were more efficient, more reliable, and could travel a hell of a lot more miles without maintenance. But even the advancement in equipment could not offset the reduction in manpower when thousands of men went off to war. The result was a railroad struggling to maintain its system.
Hook checked in at the yard office and found a note in his box saying Eddie Preston, his boss out of Division, wanted him to call.
He dialed the number with his prosthesis and lit a cigarette. Eddie never called unless he had a problem, and the problem for the last month had been Hook himself.
While in hot pursuit of a bum outside Flagstaff one night, Hook had abandoned the company truck. He caught the bum, and everything would have been fine, except for one small detail. He'd failed to get the tail end of the truck off the crossing. A west-bound freighter tore off the bumper and dragged it a quarter mile down line. They said it looked like the Fourth of July.
Eddie had been pretty unreasonable about the whole situation and filed Hook's third Brownie for the year. He transferred Hook from Oklahoma to Needles, pointing out that the Mojave was just the place to keep a man prone to trouble on the straight and narrow. Hook had been awaiting the results of the Disciplinary Review Board ever since.
When Eddie came on the line, Hook doused his cigarette. “Eddie, this is Hook Runyon.”
“Where you been, Runyon? Why haven't you called?”
“Pap's been having problems with some switches,” he said, “and it's hard to phone from the middle of the Mojave.”
“I got a call from Topeka,” Eddie said. “There's a situation in Barstow.”
“What kind of situation?”
“I want you to catch the Chief in the morning. Contact a Doctor Theo Baldwin at the Baldwin Insane Asylum.”
“Insane asylum? Are you nuts, Eddie?”
“That ain't funny, Runyon.”
“What do they want?” Hook asked.
“There's been a fire, people killed. Their facility is damaged, so they are in need of moving a lot of people and all at once. Call me when you've got the details.”
It must have been the same fire he'd seen in the newspaper headline. Hook adjusted the harness for his prosthesis. The damn thing hung on him like a horse collar. He could hear Eddie breathing on the other end of the line.
“Has the disciplinary board met?” Hook asked.
“Not yet.”
“I was chasing the bastard in the middle of the night, Eddie. How could I know the damn truck hadn't cleared the track? Anyone could have made the mistake.”
“Except it was you, Runyon, the third mistake this year.”
“But I got a commendation for busting that Nazi case in the Alva POW camp, didn't I? That ought to count for something.”
“It does. Without it you wouldn't even be getting a hearing. Call me when you get Barstow lined out. Topeka's on my ass.”
Pap had gone to sleep on the motorcar, and Hook kicked the bottom of his foot.
“Take me up to the caboose, will you, Pap? I got to catch the Chief to Barstow tomorrow.”
Pap gave the crank a couple hard turns, and the motor struggled to life.
“Barstow?” he said over the top of the engine.
“Something going on at the insane asylum,” Hook said.
Pap didn't say anything until he brought the car to a stop at the caboose.
“You're going to the insane asylum in Barstow?” he asked.
Hook climbed off. “Just keep it to yourself, Pap. I take enough ribbing from you bastards as it is.”
“Oh, sure, sure,” Pap said. “I won't tell a soul.”
“Come pick me up in the morning, Pap. Maybe you could take care of Mixer while I'm gone. He loves going out with the crew.”
Mixer fell into the category of mutt, an English shepherd and something or the other. The two things Mixer loved most in the world were fighting and eating, in that order.
“Damn it, Hook, you know it's against the rules to take a dog out on the line.”
“That's kind of the point, isn't it, Pap? I enforce the rules, and I figure this to be a safety issue. One of your men might stir up a snake while he's sleeping under a bridge, or you might get waylaid by banditos. That dog could save your life.”
Pap grinned, choked the engine a couple times, cranked her over, and rolled off down the track.
Mixer met Hook at the door. He wound through his legs and then went to the cabinet to beg for food. Hook had found him beat up and half-starved in the yards and brought him back to the caboose wrapped in his coat. Hook had fed him cornbread and milk and dabbed iodine on his wounds. Within a week Mixer had cleaned him out of food and never once since showed the least inclination to leave.
Though at times a nuisance, Mixer had arrived at a lonely time in Hook's life, filling a pretty big hole. After Hook was sent to Needles, Reina had returned to Rhode Island. At first they had written letters, a commitment that had faded over time. As the months passed, the letters dwindled and the frenzy cooled, though neither had been willing to admit it.
Reina had been there for him in dangerous times in the past. They had loved and made love, and that could never be lost. But memories can fade from flames to embers and then grow cold beneath the ash. The last time they'd talked, they'd reached out to each other, never quite touching.
Hook shoved aside a pile of books in order to get the closet door open. Desperate for more room, Hook had talked his ole pal Runt Wallace into storing his book collection while he was gone.
But a man suffering from book madness had little chance of a cure. Only six months had passed, and already the caboose creaked under the weight of his new titles. With a little luck, he'd manage some book hunting in Barstow. While not the literary heart of the world, at least it would be new and different.
He dug out a change of clothes and hung them on the safety rail that ran down the center of the caboose ceiling. The old steamers had a weak power stroke on takeoff, so the engineers would back up and then throttle forward to bump her ahead. By the time the slack hit the caboose forty cars down line, a man could accelerate from zero to ten miles an hour in one second. On more than one occasion, the handrail had saved him from being propelled across the caboose like a cannonball.
A jug of Runt Wallace's forty-year-old shine still sat in the closet. One day, given the right occasion, he'd dip in. For now, he had enough trouble to keep him busy. Eddie didn't need much of a reason to send another Brownie his way, and finding a job for a one-arm yard dog would be tough indeed.
That night, after he'd polished his shoes, he hung his prosthesis over the chair and went to bed early to read a little of Bradbury's
Dark Carnival.
When the coyotes tuned up out on the desert, Mixer growled.
“Go to sleep,” Hook said, turning out the light. “You can't take on the whole world. Damn dog.”
Hook gathered up his pillow and listened to the coyotes. He didn't know what awaited him at Baldwin Insane Asylum. But he did know that when Eddie called on an assignment, it would be neither good nor easy.