by David Boop
“I can’t tell you how ashamed I am, which is why I have come to you, to repair as best I can what I did. I put my hand on Jenny’s back and pushed her toward him, said, ‘Take her.’
“Jenny stumbled forward, looked back at me. I can still see her face, the expression of betrayal. Not long before, I had held her in my arms and we had made love, and now I was passing her on to an eternity of torment. She didn’t say anything. Not a word, didn’t make a sound. Don’t think she could. The hopping men came and grabbed her arms, lifted her and carried her onto that horrible train. And then I heard her scream. It was a scream that made the short hairs on my neck stand up, made the goose bumps on my arms ripple and my stomach rumble with fear.
“That tall man, he got on the train too, and the steps went up with a snap. He leaned out from the door, and he cackled at me, and the sound of it was like having your flesh cut open with a crosscut saw. The train coughed smoke, and when it did, an open space near the engine lit up with a white light. I could see inside that gap, and the Engineer was there with his oversized engineer hat and baggy coveralls. He was little more than bones stretched over wet, dark flesh, and he and the Fireman, I suppose the other man would be called that, were feeding screaming, struggling bodies bound up in guts and skin and long weaves of hair, straight into the blazing fire box. When they went in, you could hear them scream, and then their screams became as one and turned into the sound of the train’s whistle. The train coughed, and it began to back up, and then in no way I can explain, I was no longer looking at the engine, but at the caboose. Away that train went along those tracks, and as it went the tracks disappeared behind it. The woods swallowed the train, but for a moment I could hear it toot its whistle, and I could see smoke above the tree line. Then the whistle stopped screaming, and the smoke was gone. There was only the moonlight tipping the trees with hats of silver.
“Everything outside that bubble we had been in set itself free. You could feel it in the wind and in the way the trees weaved a bit in the breeze. Where before the world was silent, you could now hear night birds sing, frogs bleat, and crickets chirp.
“The train was gone, and Jenny was gone, and there I stood, the weight on my back heavier than even moments before. A coward in moonlight and shadow.
“I ran away quick, didn’t go back down there, next day or the day after. Didn’t want the train to come back. I had Consuela’s books of magic, some she had written herself in her own crabbed handwriting. Heavy of heart, and heavier of soul, I began to read them carefully. I started thinking maybe I could get Jenny off that train, get that burden off my back. But if the answer was in those books, I didn’t find it.
“I decided I had to search out someone who could help me, not knowing the very person who could was right here in this town, near where it all happened. I packed up my goods and Consuela’s books and all her money, which was considerable, loaded it all in a wagon drawn by two strong horses. I quested for years, looking for help, and now, here I am, looking at you, asking you to help me for a bag of silver. I’m getting old now, and if I die with this thing on my back, well, no telling where I’ll end up, but I know this much, it isn’t good. Jenny’s on that train, and it’s all my fault.”
* * *
When the story was finished, we all sat there quietly.
It was the old man that broke the ice.
“Will you assist me? Help me rescue Jenny?”
Zach pooched his lips the way he does when he’s thinking hard on something. He let the old man’s question hang in the air awhile. Finally, he spoke.
“Go back to wherever you’re staying, and let me marinate on this thing. Come see me tomorrow when the sun’s dying, and I’ll tell you what I will or will not do. But let me explain to you what you’re up against. It’s not just the Midnight Train, but the Dueling Man and his minions you got to deal with. And let me tell you, the Dueling Man is made up of more bad deeds than either of us have seen. He works for the Engineer. He could go bear hunting with harsh language and wipe his ass with an angry badger, and that doesn’t even begin to explain what he is and how he is. Go away for now.”
That old man got up slow, like he had to build himself bone by bone to stand up, and then he dragged out of there like there was a ball and chain on his foot.
I looked at Zach. “Well?”
“I don’t know. He’s blaming this Consuela for everything he’s ever done, and he mentioned murder as some of the things he done. I’m thinking he did it for himself, as well. That he earned his burden more than Consuela gave it to him. Her death was just the final act that put that weight on his soul.”
“But what about Jenny?” I said.
Zach didn’t answer.
* * *
That day, I did all the work that was to be done, except some fine touch-ups on a gun being made for a gambling man. It was going to have some etchings on the hilt, and Zach had to do that. He had the talent, and he had the steady hand.
Zach sat in the hallway in a padded chair in front of the long mirror and looked at himself and that baggage on his back. He had a stand by his chair, and had a lamp on it and some hoodoo books. I looked in on him a couple times, brought him a cup of coffee and a piece of ham and bread about noon. He took it from me without comment, continued to look at himself and his baggage in the mirror. The thing in the mirror looked at me, and when it did, it made me feel cold from the top of my head all the way down to the heels of my feet. I got out of there pretty quick, left Zach to his considerations.
It was late afternoon of the next day when the bell over the door clanked, and the old man came in and walked over to me. I got up and told Zach he had arrived. Zach sighed deep, rose and followed me into the main part of the shop.
“Your decision?” said the old man.
“I’ve studied on it. I have to build you a gun, a special gun to use against the Dueling Man. I’ll have to make some special ammunition for you too. Come back in a week’s time, and I’ll have it ready.”
The old man tipped his hat and went away. Zach looked at me. “This is going to require a lot of black coffee.”
* * *
The days passed by so slow you would have thought they was crippled.
I did the work Zach asked me to do, as well as kept making coffee, because once he got started on that gun he didn’t sleep much, and with all that coffee, how could he?
Among the jobs I did for him was pack some powder and a specific shot inside the casings for the pistol’s ammunition. Those were big ol’ bullets when they were finished. Fifty calibers, and for a pistol! But here’s the odd thing, they was as light as if they was made of air and a prayer.
Zach had some metal to use for making pistols and such, but this metal he had he got out of an old trunk in the back, and the long barrel of the pistol was made of a steel so blue it made a clear spring day look dull. You could see your reflection in it. Zach looked into it with me, and I could see the baggage on his back, that horrible face. That told me there was silver in the bluing. That barrel was light in a similar way as the ammunition. The hilt was made of Hawthorne wood, painted black with a paint made of ashes and drops of frog blood and glue. When the gun was finished, it looked right smart the way it gleamed in the sunlight coming through the window.
Zach let me handle it. It was the best-balanced pistol I had ever held, single action, ’cause Zach said it was a more steady shot when cocked and aimed.
I gave Zach the holster I had been working on, made of gold-dyed leather, the dye some concoction of Zach’s. He heated an iron in the fire from the wood stove and burned designs into the leather. Those designs were swirls and little figures that Zach said were spells and such. I took his word for it.
He loaded the gun, shoved it in the holster, had me put it away. When I carried it to place inside the trunk where he kept his most important stuff, that gun seemed alive in my hand. I thought I could hear it whisper.
Zach had finished his work two days early, and when he was d
one, he went to bed and stayed there through dark and light without waking for two whole days.
* * *
Come the morning of the day the old man was to come, Zach got up and had me heat some water and fill a number-ten tub. He stripped down and got in it and soaked in a lot of soapy suds.
When he finished bathing, he got dressed. Put on black pants and a black shirt and a black hat with linked silver Conchos for a hat band. He wore a bolo tie with black strings and silver tips, and the clutch of the tie was silver and in the shape of a scorpion. He pulled on black boots fresh polished with silver-tip toes. He had me fetch the holster and pistol. I brought it to him, and he sat behind the counter on a stool and read a dime novel while waiting for the old man to come. He had me pull down the shades and lock the door and turn the sign to say CLOSED.
We sat there all day, Zach reading dime novels, and sometimes reading from the big hoodoo books he had, or from clutches of loose notes.
It was nearly dark when there was a tap on the door. I looked at Zach, and he nodded. I opened the door to the sound of the overhead bell clanging. It was the old man, dressed as he always was, like Zach, in black, except for that tall white feather. He was bent over more than before and walked like his feet was tied together. He was old the day he first came into the shop, but today, he was much older.
“I have the gun,” Zach said.
Zach lifted the holstered pistol up and put it on the counter. The pistol had the smell of gun oil about it, but there was something else, a tinge of something long dead; just a whiff, but it was there.
The old man spoke, sweat popping out all over his face. “I want to get Jenny off that train, but I’ve gotten old, and I’m not that good a gun hand anymore. I appreciate the gun, and I’m sure it’s worth all the dust I paid you… But can I ask you to handle it? To be my surrogate?”
Zach smiled, made a kind of gurgle that might have been a laugh, and said, “I expected just this. I can tell a man that wants to do something he’s afraid to do and wants someone else to do it for him the moment I talk to them.”
“If I were younger—”
“When you were younger you let the Dueling Man take Jenny. You killed a woman who, though she may have had it coming, you were in the deep hoodoo with before. The power, the money, the black magic. I know what kind of draw Consuela had. I was in her arms once. Does that surprise you? Her price was too high for me. But not you. Then you wanted out, and you wanted something clean and innocent to make you feel clean, so you took up with Jenny and let the doo-doo from the hoodoo rub off on her.”
“I was young then.”
“We all been young,” Zach said. “But, that’s not enough of an excuse. Not for what you said you done. You got guilt on you, and shame, and that’s at least a good thing. It’s the only reason I’m helping you. You feel remorse for what you’ve done and have thought about it for years. As for Jenny, I don’t know her, but she’s an innocent soul, and I want to get her off that train. So, let’s cut the bull and get down to brass tacks and good ammunition.”
Zach looked at me. “I going to have to depend on you for something, son. And it’s a big thing.”
“Just tell me what you want,” I said, and I sounded a lot braver than what I felt, having heard about the Dueling Man and the Midnight Train.
“When, and if, I dispatch the Dueling Man, there will be the two demons. The frog-like things he’s been talking about. I’ll try to deal with them. Meantime, you gather up all the courage you have, because it will take it, and you get on that train and you yell, ‘Miss Jenny, I’m a hoodoo man, and I’ve come for you.’”
“But I’m not a hoodoo man,” I said.
“Yes, you are. You’ve worked for me, and I’m going to put a spell in your pocket. It’s not a strong one. There ain’t much in the way of strong when it comes to the Midnight Train, ’cause you might have to face the Engineer. He gets you, all bets are off. Your ass is good and got. The good thing though is the Engineer lets the others handle the bad business most of the time, but if he should decide to handle it himself, you get off that train quick as you can.
“That little spell I’ll put in your pocket, it’ll make it so if someone on the train tries to grab you, they’ll not be able to. But it’s not a long-lasting spell. Some of those on the train will be wailing and begging for you to take them with you. You won’t have the ability to take anyone off the train except the one you call out to. When you call out for Jenny, she’ll come to you. She may not look just right. In fact, she will look terrible. You take her hand, and that will give her the protection you got. But that sucks on the protective spell, and you’ll have even less time than before.
“Get her and you run for the door, any door that’ll get you off that train. Even if it’s moving, you jump, you jump as hard and far as you can, and have Jenny jump with you. She gets off the train, she’ll be the Jenny that was put on that train all those many years ago.
“Course, if I can’t beat the Dueling Man, then you run like your ass is on fire and don’t never even think for a moment about getting on that train. I’ll be done for, me and my baggage will get on that train, and we’ll ride and ride and ride. We succeed, then I’m free of my baggage.”
“What about me,” the old man said, “will I be free?”
“That remains to be seen,” Zach said. “I don’t like you. I got nothing for you except to help Miss Jenny. Where she is, that’s on you. And just to make myself understood, if you get out there and decide to run, like you did before, I’ll shoot you. That way, with the baggage you got, I can assure you of a long train ride.”
“Should I actually go with you?” the old man said. “Maybe, being old like I am, decrepit, I ought to stay here until you get back. I might make things worse.”
Zach laughed loud enough to tremble the rafters.
“Oh no you don’t. You’re going.”
* * *
We had some ham and bread, and Zach let the old man take a shot of whisky, but Zach didn’t have none. He had coffee instead, and when he finished with it, he said, “We’ll go down early and take the lay of the land. I suggest we go to the place where you and Jenny encountered the train. Might as well make this whole thing full circle.”
We played some cards as the night grew rich, and then we packed up some folding stools and a basket with more of that damn ham and bread in it. Zach went and wrapped his mirror in a black cloth and brought it out and put it with the other stuff.
“What you need that for?” the old man asked.
“I hope it’ll give me an edge.”
We didn’t bother with horses. It wasn’t that far away, and Zach said if we all got killed, or worse, taken on the train, we didn’t want to leave the horses out there all alone.
That kind of talk made me nervous.
Zach had the old man carry the basket of ham and bread. I had the folding stools under my arm, and Zach carried the cloth-covered mirror, which is a really light tote. He, of course, wore the big gun on his hip.
It wasn’t a long walk. You were in town one moment, and then you weren’t. Before you knew it, you was traveling along a moonlit trail in the woods, on down to the river. You could hear it gurgling before you could see it.
When we got to the river, Zach said to the old man, “Where were you when the train came?”
“Almost right here. Maybe a little closer to the river.”
It was a full moon night, and it was near bright as day, and the moon’s reflection in the water made it look as if it was floating on the river. The water and the trees looked to be frosted.
Zach got out his big turnip watch and popped the cover on it and looked at the time in the silver moonlight.
“We are two hours ahead of time. Good.”
I unfolded the stools as Zach set the mirror so that it stood upright, but with the cloth still over it. The old man placed the basket on the ground and sat down heavily on one of the stools.
I won’t lie to you. I was a
s nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and the old man, well, I think he was starting to wish maybe all those years he shouldn’t have been planning to come back here and set Jenny free. And maybe it wasn’t so much about Jenny, as it was getting rid of the baggage before he died. I figured that was what his look out was for. Get her off that train and lose that baggage.
Zach gave me a little bag and told me to put it in my pocket, that it was my protection. I took it and did just that, but I’ll tell you, the idea that there might be anything in that little bag that would spare me from what was on that train was hard to grasp.
“What about me?” the old man said.
“You don’t get a bag,” Zach said. “You got to depend on me.”
Zach ate some more of the ham and bread, but me, I was too nervous to eat, and so was the old man. We sat there watching the river, the woods, and the big ol’ moon, waiting for the tick of midnight, which came slow. The minutes weren’t in any hurry that night, and seemed each of them was an hour long.
Finally, Zach got out his watch again, looked at it, said, “Won’t be long now.”
Short time after he said that the air turned chill, and we heard a kind of chugging, a long way off, but the sound was growing closer. There was a long high lonesome whistle and a series of toots. It sounded like a train, and at the same time it didn’t.
Black smoke appeared above the moon-tipped trees, and a rolling white mist moved between the trees and blew over the river. When the mist faded there were tracks lying right on top of the river, and running on through a gauzy silver split in the woods. Then, here come that train. You could see the cow catcher in front, black and shiny as Cain’s sin, and the one big light of the train was like a burning red eye. The whistle blew long and hard, and the air went still as an oil painting, and there was a bright cold glow around us for some distance, and outside of that glow I could see bats frozen in flight. Time had stopped out there, but we were inside the spell of the train and what it carried.