by Jeff Provine
“They said you died fighting with the agents,” Doc said. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “After you killed Jones and crashed the train.”
Nate’s heart missed a beat. His chest hurt. “I didn’t kill anybody. Something else did.”
“Hold it!” Blake called.
The sheriff stepped forward with threatening thuds of his boots. He had the rifle raised to his shoulder and his eye down the sight. The end of the barrel was pointed straight at Doc’s round head.
Nate jumped with a hand out to stop him. As he moved, he saw Doc’s other hand come into view of the corner of his eye. While Nate had been watching him mop his brow, the clerk had quietly pulled a pistol from under the desk.
“Doc!” Nate shouted.
“Drop it,” Blake warned.
The pistol hit the floorboards with a clunk. Doc raised up both hands and took heavy breaths.
Nate looked at the sheriff, who stood stone-still with the rifle still trained on Doc. Blake didn’t trust him, but Nate would’ve trusted the old clerk with anything. They had known each other for all the years Nate had worked the trains. If Nate had come in alone, that would have been the end of him.
“Doc,” Nate said, his voice soft. “You were going to shoot me?”
The big man sat silently with both hands up.
“I don’t believe it. Why, Doc?”
Doc’s voice came out low and stilted. “You have the madness.”
“No, he doesn’t!” Ozzie called, now stepping forward herself. “I’ve seen men with Stoker’s Madness, and Nathan Kemp is right in the head.”
Nate smiled a little. “And she’s a medical professional.”
Doc’s lips moved, but he didn’t seem able to say anything.
Nate sighed away his smile. He leaned over Doc’s desk and set both hands as fists on top of the loose papers. “I’m sane, Doc, but I’ve seen a lot more in the past two days than most men do in a lifetime. Something’s not right in Gloriana.”
Doc shook his head. “I don’t know what you tell you.”
The words were clean, almost practiced. Any other man would have asked what was the matter, unless they had an idea already. Nate squinted. “What don’t you know, Doc?”
The big man shrank a little in his wooden chair. “I don’t know anything.”
“The morning of the train wreck, the fire wouldn’t light up properly. Why is that, Doc?”
He shrugged.
“I’ve been working the firebox for years, but I’ve never seen it act like that outside of a bad mix of Newton’s Catalyst.”
Doc’s eyes flashed wide.
“It’s the catalyst, isn’t it, Doc?” Nate demanded. He realized he was shouting. “I got that catalyst from you!”
“I know, I know,” Doc admitted. He hung his head.
“What do you know, Doc?”
The big man leaned forward, rested his hands on top of the desk, and took several gulps of air. “They told me to give it to you.”
Nate fell back from the desk.
“Who’s they?” Blake asked.
“The rail agents.”
“Which rail agent? Ticks?”
“Bill Ticks, John Davies, Kyle Larper, the whole lot of them,” Doc said. Tears streamed down his face. “I was just doing my job.”
“It’s your job to wreck trains and kill people?” Ozzie burst out.
“No!” Doc said. He buried his round face in his hands. “I didn’t know they would wreck! I was just doing as I was told!”
“There were three wrecks this month,” Blake said. “You didn’t know what was happening?”
Doc shook his head, still keeping his hands on his face. “I knew about them. I’d already been handing off special bags of catalyst for weeks by then, but nothing ever came of it, except a few people complaining of bad batches… I thought about refusing, but do you know what they would have done to me if I hadn’t given it out?”
Nate glared at him. “Put you on a train destined to blow up? Throw you out of an airship? Lock you up? Because all of that has happened to me!”
“I’m sorry.” Doc groaned as if the words pained him. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but I can’t lose this job. I’ve just about earned my retirement.”
Nate’s stomach tightened.
“If I didn’t do it, somebody else would have,” Doc mumbled.
“No,” Nate said, shaking his head. “That’s not good enough. You knew it was wrong, you knew it was killing us, and you were doing it anyway!”
Doc winced, and he didn’t say anything.
“Why me, Doc?” Nate asked. “Why me?”
“They picked you out, I didn’t,” Doc said. “I just had to hand it off to you. I’m just glad no one else was aboard.”
Nate blinked. “You knew this would happen.”
Doc groaned and hung his head again.
“You did know,” Nate repeated. He could remember the morning clearly. It was just like any other. He recited the weight numbers from Vic Starr, who ran the scales, and Doc had handed him the envelope of catalyst. Doc had even waved at him. All while he knew what was going to happen.
“Jones’s blood is on your hands!” Nate shouted.
He reached around his belt to where his revolver hung and pulled it up. Both hands grabbed it, and he used both thumbs to pull back the hammer. Doc shrieked and dove under the desk where his pistol lay.
“No, you don’t!” Blake called. He dashed around the desk with his rifle ready.
A small hand grabbed Nate by the upper arm. He turned. Ozzie was looking up at him with her pale eyes wide.
She didn’t even have to speak. Nate lowered his gun. His face seemed to burn.
“Stand up slowly,” he heard Blake say.
Doc stood up from behind the desk. His hands were raised, still empty. Nate put his revolver away.
“What are you going to do with me?” Doc asked.
“You have to make it right,” Nate told him. “You were a coward, and you got Jones killed. Those boys on the other trains, too.”
Doc shook his head. “What do you want me to do? I’m just one man!”
“One man at the center of a conspiracy,” Blake said. “We’ll get your testimony to the authorities.”
“The Rail Agency is the authority,” Doc told him, his eyes wide.
“There are people higher up,” Blake said. He hummed. “It all happened in Gloriana, making it a state affair despite the rails being Agency jurisdiction. We’ll go to the governor.”
“And if he doesn’t listen, the Circuit Court. Even the Rail Agency isn’t above the Constitution!” Ozzie added. “I’m sure they’d like to know who is wrecking interstate travel.”
“It’ll be your word against the Rail Agency!” Doc cried. “You’ll never get anywhere! And then do you know what they’ll do to us?”
“I’m quite familiar,” Nate said, his own voice dark.
“We just need proof,” Blake told them. “Get us some of that catalyst.”
Doc shrugged. “I don’t have any more.”
Blake pulled back the hammer on his rifle and pressed the barrel against Doc’s puffy chest.
“I don’t!” Doc cried.
Ozzie stepped forward and placed her hand on Blake’s rifle, pushing it out of the way. Nate began to reach for her to get out of the way, but he stopped.
“Please,” Ozzie said. “Good men have gotten killed. Don’t you want to put a stop to it?”
Doc’s face twitched. His eyes flicked over toward Blake, then to Nate. “I’m just one man.”
“And you’re the one who can stop it,” she told him in a soft voice.
He let out a long, deep sigh. “I’m going to get fired.”
Ozzie’s voice was suddenly sharp. “That’s not a bad thing if your job is killing people!”
Doc flinched. “Right, right. In the catalyst vault, there’s an envelope for the Fort Smith-bound nine-thirty.”
Ozzie turned around. Nate nodded at her. Blake stood still, his rifle at the ready.
Nate hurried to the door lined with iron bars. It wasn’t even locked. Inside, there were shelves with stacks of paper envelopes all marked for the trains they were meant to supply. Scales of different sizes rested on another shelf. A huge iron safe set in the floor held a massive sack of catalyst, according to legend. It was enough to make a man rich for the rest of his life, which would be a matter of minutes if he was caught stealing. Nate had never seen the safe open. He hoped he never would. He was done with it.
Nate found the appropriate envelope, and then he paused. He unfolded the flap and peeked inside. It looked like any other catalyst. There was no way of telling whether Doc would sell them out. He could easily give them clean catalyst and call them maniacs as soon as they let him go. All he could do was have faith.
Nate went back into the office and held up the envelope. “This the right one?”
“Yeah,” Doc replied. “They wanted me to hand it out tomorrow. The train’s going to be mostly empty coal cars to get filled up in Fort Smith.”
There was a beat of silence. Nate supposed it was good that they were picking trains that didn’t have passengers to injure or kill. Weatherford riding courier in Faber’s Bluff, the freight express passing through Shreveport, his own mail run. Did they at least have enough morals to minimize the losses, or was that part of hiding their sin?
“You go anywhere in this state to have it tested, and the Rail Agency will catch word before you can blink,” Doc said.
“Then we’ll get out of the state,” Ozzie told him. “Cross the river by boat. They’ll never be watching for the water since we had an airship.”
“We take this stuff to Mississippi College outside Jackson. They’ll have a chemist who can look at it without the Rail Agency catching word.”
“What about me?” Doc asked.
“You’re coming with us,” Blake replied.
He blubbered. “You’re taking me all the way to Jackson?”
“You have to make this right,” Nate told him. He tucked the envelope into the breast pocket of his gray coveralls.
A whistle blew, and the ground rumbled. Everyone looked up. A train was coming in.
“Passenger train coming in from the west,” Doc mumbled.
“Perfect,” Blake said. “Come on. We’ll sneak out of here in the crowd getting off the train.”
He shouldered his rifle and pulled out his stubby revolver. Without a word, he circled around Doc, who was not quite twice his size. Doc took clumsy steps forward with Blake tight behind him, the gun in his hand practically invisible between the two men.
Nate was impressed. This just might work.
Ozzie unlocked the door and led the way back out into the rail yard. Nate squinted until his eyes adjusted to the dark.
A locomotive rolled its final few inches to a stop in front of them. Steam hissed out of its sides as if it were a beast of burden, letting out an exhausted breath. The air reeked of sulfurous coal smoke and hot grease. He watched the engineer and the fireman climbing between the tender, coming down to talk with the yardmen about fresh water and news of the rails ahead.
Well-lit passenger cars lined up behind the tender. Shadows moved as people left their seats, dressed in their finest for the luxury of a train ride. A few cars back were darker, little more than dressed-up boxcars for the passengers’ things. Nate saw the legs of porters as they unloaded luggage. Gradually trunks and crates piled up to hide them.
It was a shorter walk around the locomotive, but their escape would be seen by everyone from the yard, and each of them knew Doc. The longer way was dark, and Nate imagined the porters had enough to worry about with the piles of bags to wonder about yet another cluster of people joining the crowd.
Nate nodded toward the rear of the train. “Let’s go around the back.”
The others followed him. They walked casually, except for Doc, who seemed to stumble every third step. Nate didn’t like seeing the heavy quartermaster like this, but he didn’t have much choice in liking anything.
At least it would soon be over.
“Oh no,” Blake said suddenly.
“What? What’s the matter?” Ozzie asked in a breathless voice.
Nate froze when he saw them: two hunchbacks climbing down from the caboose, directly in their path. One was impossibly thin, even wrapped up in the heavy leather coat of the hunchbacks. The other was rotund, practically spherical with short arms and large lump running up his spine. Nate could only imagine what horrors were hidden underneath. At least the smell of smoke covered up their foul odor.
They were escorting a prisoner, who stepped down after them. The man was tall and lanky, wearing a suit that was covered in dry mud and gray stains Nate couldn’t recognize. Shackles bound his hands, and the fat hunchback had to help him down. A blond man in a long, gray coat that bore the badge of a Rail Marshal followed them.
“It’s Husk,” Blake whispered. His words were so full of emotion Nate didn’t know whether he was surprised or horrified.
“Who’s Husk?” Ozzie whispered.
“Tom Husk,” Blake said. “He’s a reporter I know.”
Nate then recognized the man. His memory was shaky after the wreck, but he could picture him, tall as a scarecrow, standing over him and asking questions. Nate doubted he responded well.
“What do we do?” Ozzie asked.
“We can’t just let them take him,” Blake mumbled.
Doc cleared his throat.
“Quiet,” Blake told him. Nate heard metal click. Doc went rigid.
Nate narrowed his eyes to peer through the shadows.
“Let’s go get him,” Nate said.
He drew his revolver and marched forward.
“No, we should sneak out of here!” Ozzie said in a whispering shout. “Go around them! We have to get out the word about the bad catalyst!”
“A newspaperman might help do just that,” Blake said.
Nate slowed and nodded. “They have a prisoner; we have a prisoner. Maybe we can trade.”
Doc made a little gasp. “Thank you, thank you!”
“But his testimony,” Ozzie mumbled.
“He may have the story, but we have the proof.” Nate patted his chest. The catalyst was tucked safely in his pocket, and it was the evidence they needed. Once an investigation started, the police or even federal marshals, who outranked the Rail Agency, could make Doc talk.
Nate turned back. Doc and the sheriff were next to him. Ozzie seemed to walk with hesitated steps.
Nate pulled the hammer of his revolver and strode firmly up to the marshal. “Hold up!”
The marshal turned. One eye went wide with shock; the other was practically swollen shut surrounded by bruises. His face had several other bruises on it. He raised his hands cautiously.
Husk gasped. The iron shackles clanked around his thin wrists. “Sheriff?”
The hunchbacks grumbled and hissed. The sounds made Nate’s stomach curdle.
“You,” Nate said, pointing to the hunchback closest to him, the fat one. “Let him go.”
“Th-this is our prisoner,” the marshal stammered. The hunchbacks shuffled.
“And I’m theirs!” Doc said. “Trade us!”
“I think we should take both,” Nate said in a voice as firm as he could. He looked up with a fierce glare at Doc. With any luck, they just might do it.
The blond marshal shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Grunts like laughing pigs came from the fat hunchback.
“What are you waiting for?” Nate demanded. “Get those cuffs off him!”
A muffled shriek came from behind them. Nate winced.
He turned to find Marshal Ticks standing in his black coat, both revolvers raised. Biggs and Parvis, again dressed in their masks, coats, and wide-brimmed hats flanked him. Ozzie struggled in Biggs’s arms, one glove covering her whole face as he held her. Parvis raised his enormous hands
and squeezed them into fists, making his leather gloves squeal.
They were surrounded. Nate put both hands on his revolver and barked, “Let her go!”
“Funny meeting you here,” was all Ticks said. “There are Rail Agency airships looking all over for you, and I’m the one to catch you just as I step off the train with Marshal Davies.”
The blond marshal chuckled. Nate looked back over his shoulder and saw him draw a gun.
He scooted closer to Doc and Blake. Doc was panting heavy breaths. Blake kept his gun planted firmly in Doc’s back.
Ticks had a gun pointed at each of them. “What do you want with the quartermaster?”
“None of your concern,” Blake told him.
“They made me talk!” Doc shrieked.
Ticks made a dramatic sigh. “Bothersome, but no matter. We have you now.”
“Come any closer, and I’ll…,” Blake began.
“Nonsense,” Ticks cut in. “You’re going to give up, or Mr. Biggs will snap this young lady’s neck.”
Biggs made a sound like a happy groan and shifted. Ozzie made a muffled scream. Her arms flailed.
“You hurt her, and I’ll kill you!” Nate shrieked. He aimed his gun straight for Biggs’s bat-face behind the leathery mask, but his arms were shaking.
He bit his lip when he realized, even if he hit square on, it wouldn’t do any good. The sheriff had plugged the hellion, but it had barely slowed Biggs down.
“Let’s gun them all down and call it a night,” Ticks suggested.
Nate made a nervous swallow.
“You can’t have a shootout in the middle of the Lake Providence rail yard!” Husk called. His voice was weak. “Can you imagine the bad press?”
Ticks groaned and rolled his dark eyes. “I can see the headline now, ‘Hero Marshals Rescue Captive from Maniacs, Defend Public.’”
“Liar,” Nate whispered. Rage boiled up inside him, hot and sweet. He trained his gun on Ticks. Bullets might not hurt the hellions, but Ticks was a mortal man.
The marshal’s waxed mustache twitched.
“You want to try to gun us down?” Nate asked. “We may go out, but that’s no reason we can’t take you with us.”