by Tim Marquitz
Another boom shook the train. The vibration rattled Nina's skull. She put her pinky in her ear and itched as the acrid stink of black powder infiltrated the cabin.
“Take that, you sumbitch,” George hollered from the turret.
Mason called up to his brother. “What the Sam Hill you doin' up there, Georgie?”
Nina could make out the passing coal clouds around the turret cage and George's sweaty face. His eyes were crazed, fixed on something behind them. His fear was contagious, and Nina was catching it. She glanced at the cabin door, which led to the porch where she'd recently kissed Manning for the first time.
“I'm takin' out the fuckin’ tracks!”
“Why the hell you doing that?” Mason asked his brother.
“So it cain't follow!”
Folks looked at one another, then Pa shouted up, “So what can't follow?”
“Christ Almighty, ya’ll blind?” George glanced down, and then pointed somewhere behind the train. “That!”
Everyone in the car but Pa bolted for the rear door. They gathered on the porch. Nina's view was blocked at first but the curses and stiffening backs made her squeeze between Red Thunder and Strobridge to see what the fuss was about. She instantly wished she hadn't.
They were on the decline well beyond Summit, and a growling iron beast careened down the mountain behind them, devouring track by the yard, plowing wakes of billowing smoke into the crow-infested sky. The engine was an immense, charcoal-colored cylinder; it seemed twice the size of Strobridge's Magpie. Its cyclopean lamp bathed the tracks in a crimson glow, sniffing the path like a hellhound hot to scent.
“Christ Almighty indeed,” said Strobridge low, but right next to Nina.
“Not Christ, Mister Strobridge,” said Father Mathias from behind them. “Liao.”
“George has the right idea, but he ain't got the angle,” Manning said, then turned to Red Thunder. “We got anything that will bust these tracks up?”
Red Thunder stared at the hellish engine and shrugged. “Maybe.”
An image of the cackling Lester Woodruff tossing his explosives flashed in Nina’s mind, then another image of the beaten man’s battered face and that revolver in his hand. Her revolver. ‘Lee me uh-wone,’ he’d said through broken teeth. The man’s last words. She swallowed and forced the thought away.
Pa pushed in behind her, steadying himself on her shoulder as he gazed at the furious machine bearing down the mountain. “You don't see that every day.”
A squall came from the sky as a mass of feathered beak-and-claw shadows dove on them, a thousand or more of the black devil crows.
Before anyone could retreat inside, Father Mathias produced a rosary of brown and marbled beads from his pocket, its chain encircled his fist, and he dangled the image of his Christ god on a silver cross; she remembered Pa calling it a Crucifix. Wound about his hand, too, was the golden key Nina recognized as the Taiping Jing, the very object Liao Xu was after.
“Hold fast! All things of nature are of God and by God,” the priest implored everyone, then leaned forward against the rail and glared at the undulating flock. “You are compelled by demonic forces,” Father Mathias yelled. “Hear me! You are not at fault. Turn away! Turn away from the path of the damned—”
Just as the swarm reached them—Nina felt the noise of their descent like a buzzing in her ears—the priest raised the key and Crucifix high, shouting at the top of his lungs, looking the part of some avenging saint with the tails of his black robes flapping. “God, hear my prayer, hearken to the words of my mouth, for I am your most unworthy minister who trusts in you. Lord, you are my strength. You are my tower and my shield! In the name of the Holy Mother, Virgin of virgins, and all holy angels and archangels and orders of blessed spirits, deliver us, O Lord, from all evil. Deliver us from the snares of the devil, from anger, from hatred, from all ill will! Depart, you devils! Begone, you hostile powers!”
The birds broke from their deadly formation, cawing as they flew away, now seemingly unburdened by Liao Xu's magic. The demon train’s howls echoed off the sides of the mountains as the birds vanished into night sky.
Pa patted Mathias on the back. “Good work, Father.”
Mathias smiled and pointed up. “Glory be,” he said.
“Okay, Father, okay,” Pa laughed. “Due credit to the Almighty.”
“Amen, brother.” Mathias tucked the rosary inside his robe.
Strobridge gripped the rail, head cocked sideways. “What in the blazes is this? We're speeding up.”
“Good,” said Nina.
“Not necessarily.”
Pa glanced about, his eyes like darting squirrels in the sunken pits of their sockets. “Buck's manning the engine. He know what he's doing?”
“That thing behind us might have spooked him and he turned up the heat.” Strobridge pushed his hair back against his head in a smoothing motion. “The next several miles is mostly a straight run, but we'll be hitting some winding track directly, and that ain't no place to run this engine full out. Besides, keep this up and the fool will blow the goddamn boiler while he's at it. I shoulda stayed up there.”
Manning leaned against the rail, glaring at the monstrosity gaining ground on them. Nina could almost see the man’s wheels turning, trying to find an answer. He turned. “Me, Mason, and Strobridge will head up front. The rest of you,” he nodded up the tracks, “what can we do about that?”
“Keep shootin',” Mason said.
“Well, George can shoot to his heart's delight,” Manning said, “and maybe he'll get lucky, but I say we check what we got by way of explosives. Maybe we can get that monster derailed. You with me, Red?”
The Indian nodded and they went inside the car, Manning giving Nina’s arm a squeeze as he passed by.
“I’ll help,” her pa said, hobbling inside after them.
Nina watched, feeling useless, then gazed back at the red-hot cinder following them down the tracks. “How long you think we got?”
Father Mathias clutched her shoulder, the same spot Manning had just touched. “Nina, I need you to do something for me.”
“Yeah? And what'd that be?” After that display, turning away the devil crows, Nina had just put a great deal more faith in this man of God.
“I need you to procure a bit of coal,” he said.
CHAPTER TWO
“KEEP SHOOTIN', GEORGE,” MASON CALLED UP to his brother from beneath the turret.
“Yes, sir.” George's voice was determined, if a touch panicky, no doubt falling back on his soldierly training. He shouted something incomprehensible, and Nina saw Mason slap his hands over his ears. The rest followed suit just as the cannon went off. The air swam with discharge, and Nina stifled a sneeze, her eyes watering.
Manning took her arm. “Did he say why?”
She’d told James that she was coming with them, that Father Mathias needed some of those black bricks from the hopper. “You noticed well as me he don’t elaborate much with the details unless he’s spouting off about the Lord and what-not.”
Manning looked at the priest as he entered the car. “Yeah.”
“More fuckin’ birds!” George hollered down, his voice a couple octaves higher than usual.
“I thought you got rid of ‘em all.” Strobridge growled, looking crossways at Father Mathias.
“I freed as many as the Almighty deemed worthy. Perhaps Liao turned some back toward us.”
Maybe the Black Robe’s God had second thoughts about delivering them from the devil’s snare after all.
“That’s just capital,” Strobridge glowered. “Well, come on, gents. No sense in wasting any more time.”
Manning squeezed Nina’s arm. “You sure you want to do this?”
She gave him a look, pulled her arm away. “I’ll be fine.”
Passing by, Mason grinned. “We’ll go up first, then you come up. Maybe we can draw them birds to us and give you a better chance of keepin' your pretty Injun eyes from gettin' plucked out.”
“Y’all just watch out for yourselves,” she tossed back at him. What did these men think she and Pa had been doing all these years on their own? Picking daisies?
“Let’s go,” said Strobridge. Irritation—or fear, more like—lent an even more severe edge to his voice. Hers as well, she figured.
“Careful, Nina girl,” Pa said, hobbling over to give her a quick hug.
“Lord have mercy,” Strobridge grumbled and shuffled his boots. Mason stood by, expressionless.
“Keep your damn hat on.” Manning looked square at the railroad boss. “Quit trying to superintend everything.”
“Let’s just get this shit done and over,” Mason said and slid the door open. He shouldered by Strobridge and sprang across to the other car. The railroad boss jumped next, as smooth as if he’d done it a thousand times before—which he probably had—then Manning, and finally Nina, after giving Pa a peck on his hairy cheek and assuring him she’d be okay.
The luxury car was occupied by at least a dozen of the raucous devil crows that hadn’t escaped, and Nina saw Strobridge kick one broke-winged bird away in an explosion of feathers.
One of them sprang at her from the oak table, cawing and flapping. She raised a protective hand in front of her face, remembering Mason’s jibe about her eyes, and roundhoused the monstrous bird. It hit the ground and was still, and right near her hat, too! It looked a little the worse for wear, but better than the dead bird. She grabbed it up, put it on her head, and shinned it to the far end of the car, with more of the crowing bastards going mad all around her. She ran out on the small deck, the damned black devils beating on her back, and Manning shut the door hard behind her with an echoing thud. The birds that made it out with her gave up the fight, flying off into the night, cawing and screeching.
“Hey.” Manning’s grin was lit by Strobridge’s lamp. “Got your hat back.” He gave a good-natured nod as if they hadn’t just run a gauntlet of claws and bird shit, and she found she appreciated the man even more, despite his protective urges chafing her a bit. Manning meant well, and she was thankful for it. Her and Pa owed him their lives, from the scrape back in Coburn—or Truckee or crispy-deadun-shitville or whatever the hell it was called now—as well as his assistance getting to the fort, not to mention for him standing firm with ‘em against Strobridge and the Daggetts.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The tender car ladder stared them in the face. Mason leaped first, grabbing the ladder and clambering up. Nina looked down and noticed the dark blur of tracks sliding by faster than before. The squawks of crows seemed to have fiercely died down, perhaps due to Father Mathias's holy magic, or the gaining speed of the train; Nina didn't know which, and didn’t much care.
“When I get across,” Manning said, leaning in, “take my hand and I’ll pull you over.” Before she could protest, he leapt across the divide, foregoing the tender car platform, caught the ladder, then put his arm out to her.
“Or you could just do this,” said Strobridge. He stepped across to the deck, switched his lamp to the other hand, mashed his hat down on his greasy head, and turned expertly up the rungs. The man had obviously been born to ride the rail. Nina looked at James and James looked at Strobridge. The boss chuckled at Manning, and they both hung the rails facing one another. James dropped his extended arm and started up, Strobridge just behind him. Nina opted for the boss man's maneuver.
A lazy, half-moon had wandered out from behind the clouds, bathing the tender car in halfway decent light. Mason and Manning were most of the way across already, covering up to avoid crow attacks. The birds hadn’t noticed her and Strobridge, and the man passed over to a large slab of steel with rungs in the top, motioning for Nina to join him.
“I had this put on to make crossing to the engine easier.”
Nina nodded, figuring the railroad boss knew what he was doing. The wind blew her hat back, and she pushed it down on her head.
“Grab that other rung there and lift. It's heavy as hell.”
Nina did, and together they lifted the steel door, its hinges squeaking, and slammed it over. With only a couple feet to maneuver around the edges now, and the ground whizzing by below, Nina felt a surge of panic. She was on her guard, this close to Strobridge, alone and vulnerable, him with every advantage. Her hand brushed her holster, felt the reassuring grip of her six-shooter.
Strobridge didn’t let on if he noticed her touching her iron. “There you go,” he said. “All the coal you need. Although, gotta admit, hard to tell what use it will be to that holier-than-thou Bible thumpin’ bastard.” He didn’t wait for her to say anything, just climbed down the short ladder and into the engine's cab. Nina wanted to know what was happening down there, but she couldn't dwell on it. Crow call filled the night.
The coal chamber was nearly chock-full, so she spread the rolled blanket she’d brought on the top of the car and hopped in. After stabilizing herself on the mound, she placed black nuggets on the blanket one-by-one. She watched warily as the black birds wheeled nearer, and while she couldn't see it, she could feel coal grit everywhere—in her nose, her lungs, probably in the crack of her ass, too.
She gathered as much as she thought she could carry, figuring better to have too much than not enough, then pulled the ends of the blanket together and lifted the bundle to her waist. After just a few feet of scuffling, she realized she'd not fully appreciated the totality of her burden. She grumbled a curse beneath her breath and set the coal down on top of the tender car.
Nina glanced at her surroundings, looking for the damned birds, and noticed right away they must have come to one of the high trestle bridges that she and Pa had both admired on occasion as a work of art. “There just ain’t no tellin’ what man can do all together and with the proper motivation to shape somethin’ instead of destroy it,” Pa had marveled once as they stared up from down in a gulch at the orderly mess of clean-hewn timbre and steel spanning cliff-face to cliff-face.
Now she had a view from the topside, the land all around done gone away, dropped off into oblivion as far as her eyes could see. Shadowy hills loomed in the distance. Rough treetops swayed far, far below. A wisp of cloud passed by overhead.
They were riding the sky.
Nina's legs weakened. She collapsed to one knee, head spinning because of the dizzying height. The vibrating roof offered no relief; in fact, it threatened to shake her off. She raised her eyes to the fiery locomotive coming down the mountain behind them. Its menace remained. A terrifying, oppressive weight. What could Father Mathias do with an infernal sack of coal? She should leave it and get her ass back inside.
The cannon exploded again. Nina squeezed her eyes shut. “Shit.”
What if blowing up the tracks didn't work? She didn't know what Father Mathias wanted with the coal, but she told him she’d fetch it, so fetch it she would. “Help me, boha gande.”
The rumble came, the first indication the People were near...bum-bum-ta-ta, bum-bum-ta-ta...
Nina clutched the sound to her heart, willing it louder in her head, pulling the song of the Shoshone out of the dream space like water from a well. It was a soft pattern, accentuated by rising voices.
She looked up, determination flooding her body...bum-bum-ta-ta, bum-bum-ta-ta...
Nina clutched the bundle of coal with both hands and focused on the end of the tender car. Just another fifteen, maybe twenty feet. She could make it.
...bum-bum-ta-ta, bum-bum-ta-ta...BOOM!
The final, emphatic beat thrust Nina to her feet and shoved her forward. Her knees bumped against her awkward bundle as she stumbled to the edge of the tender car.
Suddenly a cluster of crazed crows slammed into her from behind, ripping and cawing, trying to tear off her head. She mashed her hat back down as they pecked and clawed away at her.
Nina made a bestial noise as she punched at a bird. Her makeshift sack slipped from her grip. She recovered, clutching the twisted end with two hands again, but too late. The weight caused her to
lean out over the emptiness with nothing to bring her back. She was going down.
Nina gritted her teeth, feeling them grind together. There was only one way to keep from falling head first into the abyss…
She leapt, taking burden and birds with her, hoping to reach the luxury car's deck but sure she'd end up cut to pieces beneath the train before tumbling into the breach below. Her stomach violently reversed direction as she landed on the coal bundle, air bursting from her lungs and chest exploding in pain. She wanted to draw a breath, but nothing worked. The only sensation was razor beaks and beating wings making hay on her head and neck.
Nina lunged, pinned one between the top of her skull and the luxury car’s door. Wings buffeted her. Blackness formed at the edge of her vision; yet, a red hot fire burned inside, fueling her body to work, driving away the darkness.
Nina butted the devil crow again, felt the dislocating crunch of the bird's insides. She took it by the neck and hurled the dying thing between the cars, cutting short its caws. Another drove its beak into the meat of her left arm and Nina yelped in pain.
The car door swung open and Nina heard Pa bellow. “Hyah!”
A thump, then another, and all the cawing and fluttering stopped.
“Nina,” Pa grabbed her arm and started to pull her up.
“Wait,” she managed to spit, just before her stomach heaved and she vomited peaches and dried beef across the deck.
Through shallow breaths and sting-watery eyes, Nina listened to the Magpie chug along, waiting for her body to re-balance. She closed her eyes, wishing she could wind back time as easily as a watch when she and Manning had been curled up together. But Liao Xu's relentless pursuit had begun once again, driving death like a plow through a field.
Jasmine's voice floated above the clank and chug of rails and engine. “Here. I’ll help.”
They lifted Nina to her feet and ushered her into the car. Inside, a few dead crows were here and there, the rest gone, the far door open.
Nina accepted a quick hug from Pa and Jasmine, then said “The coal…”