Dead Man's Tunnel

by Sheldon Russell

  “A man don’t stand in the middle of the tunnel in the middle of the night with a hotshot charging downgrade on purpose.”

  “Jesus,” Hook said.

  “The engineer called it in. Took him half a mile to get shut down,” Eddie said. “He near fainted when he saw the guard’s boot stuck on the catwalk.”

  “Alright, Eddie. I’ll take the popcar out.”

  The popcar, sometimes called the popper, was a small gasoline-powered trolley used mostly for track inspections. It could be an uncomfortable ride in the desert but was Hook’s only transportation at the moment.

  “I released the engineer on to the next stop. He’ll catch a hotshot back. You can talk to him then.”

  “Damn it, Eddie, I should take a look at things before the engine’s released.”

  “There’s still another army guard assigned to duty out there. He might have some idea what’s going on.”

  “I’ll check it out, Eddie.”

  “This thing has to be wrapped up fast, Runyon. That line can’t be tied up. It ain’t the first tunnel accident out there, you know. They killed off half of Arizona building that damn thing.”

  “What’s the rush, Eddie? The war’s over, hadn’t you heard? Japan has been bombed into oblivion.”

  “I want this thing resolved, see. On top of everything else, that line is being upgraded, and there’s equipment and people. We can’t shut the railroad down while you play detective.”

  “I am a detective, Eddie.”

  “And there’s that other little problem, too,” Eddie said.

  Hook’s pulse ticked up. Eddie had been looking to nail him for years.

  “They give me a promotion over your head, Eddie?”

  “In your dreams, Runyon. You might just recall dumping a boxcar back in Amarillo.”

  Hook lit another cigarette and watched Mixer dig through Scrap’s trash.

  “That switchman cut off his thumb, Eddie. What the hell was I supposed to do, let him bleed to death?”

  “And deprive the railroad of paying his medical pension for the next thirty years?” Eddie said. “I should hope not.”

  “I’m missing an arm, Eddie. No one pays me a pension.”

  “That’s not your biggest problem, Runyon. For example, there’s that little donation of Santa Fe property you made to the St. John’s Orphanage.”

  “They had a truck and volunteered to clean up the wreckage if they could have the goods. I had to get that line open, didn’t I?”

  “Oh, St. John’s was real glad to get the army cots,” he said. “And the other things, too.”

  Mixer found Scrap’s old lunch sack in the trash and proceeded to tear it open.

  “What other things?” Hook asked.

  “That box of army condoms the kids opened back at the orphanage. They thought they were goddang balloons. The priest said it looked like New Year’s Eve.

  “So the diocese calls Chicago, and Chicago calls me. Turns out everyone is unhappy.”

  “Jesus,” Hook said.

  “You’ve bagged your limit of Brownies for the year, Runyon. I don’t know if I can head this thing off. Maybe you ought to learn the salvage business just in case you have a career change.”

  “I’d like to visit, Eddie, but there’s a corpse waiting.”

  “Open and shut like they say,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah,” Hook said. “Like they say.”

  2

  BEFORE LEAVING SCRAP’S office, Hook called the operator at Ash Fork to check the board. The line was clear until two, which would give him ample time to get out to Johnson Canyon Tunnel. Maybe it wouldn’t take that long to wrap things up.

  Mixer, who had a gob of meringue stuck to his nose, waited for him at the door.

  “Alright, alright,” Hook said, ruffling his head. “But you’ll have to stay with the popcar.”

  Mixer fell in at his heels as they made their way through the yard. West’s Salvage sat on the outskirts of town right next to the main line. The only way a salvage business could exist without the muscle of the railroad was if it had access to river barges, and Ash Fork was a hell of a long ways from the nearest barge.

  A fence encircled the yard proper but with little effect. A side gate leading to the tracks was left open a good deal of the time. The office sat within a few yards of the main gate. In a way, it reminded Hook of the prisoner of war camps that had been built in America’s interior for retaining German soldiers.

  A mile-long siding ran parallel to the yard and was used for making up smelter runs. A series of shorter sidings switched off at various points for maneuvering empties and accommodating pusher engines.

  The yard itself covered as much as fifteen to twenty acres of desert scrubland. Piles of salvage in stages of disassembly covered nearly all of it. Hook’s caboose had been parked in such a fashion as to expose him to the comings and goings of both the yard and the main line. The noise never ceased, and the smell of torches, gasoline, and oil permeated everything, including his clothes.

  Hook stopped at the crane and signaled for Scrap to idle her down. Scrap leaned out of the cab and put his hand to his ear.

  “Got an emergency,” Hook hollered over the engine. “Be back before dark.”

  “What happened?”

  “Accident. Guard out at the tunnel.”

  Scrap knocked out his pipe. “Been figuring it would happen sooner or later,” he said.

  “Keep an eye on my caboose,” Hook said.

  “Oh, sure, sure,” he said, waving Hook off.

  Hook cranked up the popcar before rolling her out onto the main line. She snuffed and coughed like an old man. The popcar was worn-out and slow, and his ears would ring like church bells by the time he got back. He’d requested a company truck, but Eddie had not been able to locate one. Scrap kept an old army jeep in the yard, but he’d sold the transmission out of it last time Hook had checked.

  A one-lane road paralleled the tracks for about three miles out before curving off to skirt the roughest terrain. Even though it took a little longer by road, at least there weren’t trains to worry about. No matter how many times he checked the board, uncertainty lingered. He’d worked the railroad long enough to know that people made mistakes, and meeting an oncoming train on a popcar qualified as one hell of a mistake.

  Mixer jumped onto the seat. Hook throttled up and rolled off down the tracks. He dried the palm of his hand on his knee against the prospects of what awaited. The human body did not fare well against a train. The first time he’d investigated such an accident he hadn’t slept for days. When he finally did, the nightmares left him shaken and sad.

  Since then there had been many such investigations, but all were disturbing in their way. At least he’d learned how to keep his meal down through the process, though the nightmares still visited from time to time. Why anyone would take a chance against a train escaped him. The brutality of such a death touched everyone involved, but especially engineers. He knew hardly a single one who had not been traumatized by a fatality.

  The wind blew clean and crisp as the popcar climbed the grade. She slowed to walking speed up the ascent and clattered along like an old roller skate. Mixer, asleep at the first sound of the motor, lay sprawled out on the seat next to him.

  A few miles out, they passed a survey crew that had been contracted by the railroad. Hook had seen them at work for a couple of weeks now. While he hadn’t been informed, a line upgrade had obviously begun in earnest.

  Mixer came alive when he saw the men, and he leaned out over the popcar, barking and growling as they chugged by. One of the men shot Mixer the finger, which only increased his frenzy. When Hook scolded him, Mixer dropped back down on the seat to finish his nap.

  Hook lit a cigarette and propped his foot up. The guards had been placed at the tunnel at the onset of the war with Germany. Sabotage had been the main concern, since the closing of the tunnel would have shut down the entire northern corridor. But the scenario had always struck Ho
ok as unlikely, even at the height of the war. But now with the bombing of Japan, it surely made no sense. But then as far as he could tell, making sense had never been a prerequisite for decisions in the army.

  The tunnel, short by most standards, had been cut through solid rock at great expense in lives and money. A siding had been built on the approach to the trestle. As a train crossed over the canyon, the mountain rose up into a rock face ahead, and within moments the engineer was faced with the dangerous midtunnel curve. Add in the steepest grade in North America, and trouble of one sort or another rode through that tunnel nearly every day.

  A guardhouse had been built high up on the grade near the tunnel entrance so as to oversee the canyon and trestle. On occasion, Hook would spot a guard walking the line or sitting and smoking on the guardhouse porch. One time, he sided the popcar and climbed the hill to introduce himself, but the guard had fallen asleep in his chair. Hook decided not to awaken him. Any poor bastard assigned to Johnson Canyon for the duration deserved an undisturbed nap.

  As Hook reached the top of the grade, he pinched off his cigarette and dropped it onto the floor. For a brief moment, the trestle would disappear from sight below a small rise, and nothing but blue sky and open space could be seen ahead. But once over, the popcar would plunge down like a roller coaster.

  The popcar groaned as she climbed the rise. Only the sheer wall of the canyon and the singular black hole of the tunnel could be seen. In that brief moment, it was as if the popcar had flown into the yawning abyss of Johnson Canyon. He’d made the trip many times now, but the sensation never diminished.

  The popcar clattered and clanged as Hook brought her into the siding just short of the trestle. The siding had been built to accommodate maintenance equipment and the occasional breakdown.

  Hook shut off the engine, and his ears rang in the morning stillness. The sun cut hot through the thin sky as it only could in the high desert. Mixer bailed off and commenced a search of the rocks that had slid down the canyon wall.

  “Don’t you run away,” Hook said, checking his flashlight.

  Mixer stopped and looked at him for a moment before scrambling off. Mixer loved finding something obscene and smelly to retrieve for Hook’s approval. It didn’t matter what, whether alive or dead, or how long it may have been ripening in the sun. He preferred skunks to nearly all other prey.

  Hook walked to the mouth of the tunnel and looked into the darkness. He took a moment to gather up his courage. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he checked his watch.

  At some point he’d talk to the other guard, but he wanted a look at the scene first. Clicking on his light, he stepped into the darkness. The air bled cool from out of the tunnel, and his footsteps crunched in the gravel.

  Hook panned the area as he made his way down the tracks and into the heart of the mountain. Wooden beams, so large as to leave little room between track and wall, supported the enormous weight of the overburden.

  Nearly to the curve, he spotted the first signs of carnage, body fluids and flesh atomized by the collision. Experience had taught him that the point of impact, that moment when the speeding train and the body collided, often left only the smallest evidence behind. The actual remains might well have been dragged down line for miles.

  Hook made a mental note of the location before kneeling to study the tracks. The rail had been gouged and scratched, and something shiny caught his eye. He took out his knife and dug it from the gravel, a metal ring of some sort, squashed and distorted by the weight of the engine.

  He held it under his light. It might have been a washer or any number of things, since track crews sometimes sought the tunnel out to escape the heat during lunchtime and left behind all manner of trash.

  Hook dropped the metal into his pocket and worked his way farther into the tunnel. A few yards more, and he found an army boot tossed against the wall. The toe of the boot had been severed, and part of a blood-splattered sock remained inside it.

  Just to the right of the boot, he spotted a military dog tag and could just make out a JOSEPH ERIKSON and a serial number on it. Sitting back on his haunches, he considered the horror of what those last few seconds must have been like.

  He rose and dabbed at his face with his handkerchief. The body could not be far away. Just then he saw a lump lying next to the wall.

  He swallowed hard and turned his light on the torso, which had been rolled and crushed between the locomotive and the railbed. Hook cleared his throat and lit a cigarette. He listened to the silence of the tunnel. The local sheriff would have to be contacted, as well as the undertaker. The army would most likely notify the family. At least he’d be spared that.

  Hook took note of the location of the body again and then looked at his watch. He had time yet before the next train came through. If he was going to shut the line down, he’d have to do it soon. There should be a phone at the guardhouse. But shut it down for what? Not that much of the body remained, and keeping the line open would lower Eddie’s blood pressure.

  In the meantime, he’d talk to the guard. No two men worked together in a place as isolated as this tunnel without knowing a good deal about each other.

  He turned to go when he heard footsteps coming down line. He clicked off his flashlight, stepped back against the tunnel wall, and unholstered his P.38. No one had business being in the tunnel, especially while an investigation was under way. Flipping off the safety, he leveled his sidearm in the darkness and waited.

  3

  A LIGHT IN the tunnel swept the area, stopped, and then moved forward once again. Hook pressed his back against the cool wall, and the smell of creosote hung in the dampness. He waited until the light rounded the turn before he spoke.

  “I’ve a pistol aimed at your head,” he said from the darkness. “Put your flashlight on the tracks, and place both hands in front of the light so that I can see them.”

  When Hook could see hands on the rail, he circled to the side.

  “Now your weapon. Set it on the rail, but do it slowly.”

  “I’m unarmed,” a woman’s voice said.

  Hook paused. “Now, put your hands behind your neck and turn toward me.”

  When she turned, he shined his light into her face. Her hair, cut short, was the color of copper, and her eyes lit green under the beam of his light. She wore an army uniform, and her hat sat squarely on her head.

  “My name is Lieutenant Allison Capron,” she said, “U.S. Army Department of Transportation. May I put my hands down?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same,” she said. “Had I not a gun pointing at me.”

  Hook slid the weapon into its holster.

  “You can drop your hands. I’ll ask you again. What are you doing on railroad property?”

  “I’m not sure it’s your business,” she said.

  Hook took out a cigarette and lit it. Smoke curled in the beam of his flashlight.

  “My name is Hook Runyon, and I’m the railroad bull. It is my business.”

  “I’m investigating the death of Sergeant Joseph Erikson,” she said. “When one of our soldiers dies, it’s the military’s responsibility to investigate.”

  “A death on railroad property is of some concern to railroad security as well,” he said.

  “You don’t strike me as a railroad detective,” she said. “Perhaps you could show me identification?”

  He took out his badge, showing it to her. “Don’t let the missing arm fool you.”

  “It’s not the arm so much as the lack of professionalism,” she said.

  “Professionalism is for those sitting behind desks,” he said. “Out here it doesn’t count for much.”

  “Do you intend to let me conduct my investigation or not?” she asked.

  “Look, Lieutenant, there’s a hotshot due through here any time now. My suggestion is that we leave the tunnel.”

  “Hotshot?”

  “That would be a freighter in a damn big hurry,�
� he said. “One that has no intentions of stopping for anyone, including army lieutenants.”

  “Really,” she said.

  “Next time you decide to trespass in a railroad tunnel you might want to check the train schedule first.”

  “I’m not easily intimidated, Mr. Hook. If a train were coming, you wouldn’t be in here, now would you?”

  “It’s Runyon,” he said, “Hook Runyon, and I don’t kid around about train schedules.”

  “And I don’t intend to leave without completing my investigation. I’m searching for Sergeant Erikson’s body,” she said.

  Hook dropped his light beam onto the bundle lying against the wall.

  “I think your search is over,” he said.

  Lieutenant Capron walked over to the bundle and paused. Clutching her stomach, she then bent forward into the darkness.

  “I wasn’t prepared,” she said, taking out her handkerchief.

  “It’s not something you can prepare for.”

  “How do you know it’s him?” she asked, dabbing at her mouth.

  Hook took the dog tag out of his pocket and handed it to her.

  “It’s a horrible way to die,” she said.

  He checked his watch. “Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm. “Time is up.”

  They’d no sooner stepped into the daylight when the hotshot blew her whistle at the other end of the tunnel. Within moments, she thundered by, her engine blasting heat as she charged full bore up the grade. Two old steamer pushers nipped at her heels. The ground trembled, and the smell of oil hung in the air as they roared away.

  Lieutenant Capron pulled her arm from his grip and straightened her hat. She searched her handbag for a handkerchief, dropping it onto her throat. Hook could see the red flush on her face and the snap of her green eyes.

  “I don’t appreciate being manhandled,” she said.

  “One body a day is sufficient for me, Lieutenant,” he said. “There’s no room between a train and that tunnel wall. It’s not a place you want to be when a hotshot comes through.”