Last Train from Perdition

by Robert McCammon

  “Why are we stopping?” Lawson asked Gantt.

  “Hell if I know!” was the growled reply. “Either Tabbers or Rooster up there must be sittin’ on that brake!”

  Another few seconds, and the train came to a dead standstill after a last little backward jolt and burst of steam.

  “What’s this about?” Deuce Mathias was on his feet. He’d regained some of his composure and spirit, but still dared not look at the pallid and very fearsome man with the two Colts in his holster.

  “Heh!” Rebinaux shouted. “Betcha we’re gettin’ robbed! There’s some mighty evil men hereabouts!” He slammed his good hand against the seat in front of him. “Deuce, we can still get out of this!”

  “Shut up, Johnny!” Presco hollered in his rusty-sawblade voice. “Just shut your hole!”

  “Everyone, quiet!” Lawson commanded. He saw Easterly’s crucifix on the floor. Though the sight of it made his eyes water and burn he was not so far gone that he was compelled to flee from it in shame and anguish, but it had been a very long time since he’d touched one of those. He started to reach down for it and hesitated.

  Would it burn his fingers? Could he stand to touch it, even now in this early stage of the transition? He feared it, because it meant he might be discovered as something both more and less than human.

  “Would you pick that up for me, please?” Easterly asked, standing a few feet away.

  The vampire’s hand was still outstretched, but the truth was…he was afraid, and now he understood how the older ones would shield their eyes and their flesh from the power of this object. Why it was so—why his eyes burned at the sight and why his skin and senses shrank from it—he did not know, just as he didn’t fully understand why the silver bullets blessed with holy water could destroy the vampires so decisively. These were mysteries of the constant battle between light and darkness that he had recognized were far beyond him.

  “Here,” Ann said, as she picked up the crucifix and offered it to Easterly.

  The reverend took it, pressed it between both hands against his chest again, and directed his sharp-edged gaze to Lawson when he said, “Thank you kindly.”

  “Stopped out here in the middle of nowhere!” Gantt fumed. He had spent a few seconds igniting a lantern from the tinderbox he carried. “Lemme go see what Tabber’s up to!” He pushed past Ann and Lawson and gave Rebinaux a disdainful glare just before he left the car. Opening the door brought in a swirl of snow and made Ann shiver and pull her coat’s collar up around her neck.

  Lawson suddenly felt it.

  Not the frigid cold, nor the sting of ice in the wind. Those didn’t bother him. What he felt in the air was a venomous presence, a sensation of massed power coiling itself for a strike. It seemed to curl itself around his throat, lay claws upon his shoulders and whisper a foul enticement in his ear. He felt himself shiver as Ann had, for he knew what must be true: out there, very near, were creatures of the Dark Society.

  “Watch them,” he told her. “I’m going up front.”

  “What is it?” she asked, sensing his tension.

  “Maybe nothing,” he replied, but they both knew better.

  He left the passenger car and stepped down to the ground. His boots sank in the crust of snow and ice. The wind had picked up and was blowing hard. He tied the leather chinstrap of his Stetson into place. Snow whirled around him and ice crystals stung his cheeks. It was a night fit for neither man nor beast, but Lawson figured it suited them just right.

  He saw Gantt’s shape and the glow of the lantern ahead as the man approached the locomotive’s cab, and he started walking toward it. The engine was still throbbing steam. Lawson was aware of mountains on both sides of the track: huge chunks of snow-covered rock that pulsed faintly blue in the vampire’s night-vision. Boulders seemed to hang several hundred feet overhead, for the train had stopped in a narrow pass. Lawson guessed they were maybe seven or eight miles south of Perdition, and there was not a light of habitation to be seen.

  As Lawson approached, Gantt was aiming his lantern upward at Tabbers and the black fireman the conductor had called Rooster.

  “Go on!” Tabbers was saying. “Take a look for yourself!”

  “Damn it!” Gantt had almost jumped out of his boots as he realized Lawson was standing beside him. His white hair was blown wildly about his shoulders by the wind, and he was holding onto his dark blue cap with his free hand. “Friend, I don’t like to be sneaked up on!”

  “My apologies. What’s happened?”

  “Track’s blocked,” said the red-bearded Viking, who was bundled up in a long brown leather coat and wore black cloth gloves. “About forty yards ahead. We nearly crashed our asses into it before we saw it. Rooster before me…the boy’s got better eyes.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Gantt made a face like he wanted to spit acid. “Let’s take a gander!” He started off walking alongside the steaming locomotive and Lawson followed just behind him. They reached the front end of the engine and saw, illuminated through the snowfall by the cone of the big whale-oil headlamp, that the track was indeed blocked by a pile of boulders and smaller rocks nearly the height of a man.

  “Lord lord lord,” said the conductor, as if chanting a dirge. “Look at that mess! Must’ve happened not too long ago…snow’s not piled up on the rocks yet.” He made a sucking noise through his teeth. “Well…we got pickaxes and shovels aboard. Have to put everybody to work who can. It’ll be a hell of a job. You want to go fetch ’em while I take a closer look, Mr. Lawson?”

  “Don’t do that,” said the vampire.

  “Pardon?”

  They were here, watching. Lawson felt them, hiding in the crevices and holes, flattened against the earth, crouched amid the twisted leafless trees. They were waiting, and how long they’d been waiting here he did not know. Their web of communications was yet not fully understood by him, but he knew they tracked him, waiting for a moment just like this.

  “Can this engine move in reverse?” he asked.

  “It can. Or…it could, if you didn’t care that the railcars were busted into splinters. Have to decouple the cars, and that ain’t gonna happen tonight.” Gantt lifted his lantern to examine Lawson’s face. The vampire quickly averted his eyes so the lamp would pick up no gleam of red. “What do you mean, don’t do that? We’ve got to get this line cleared!”

  “I mean…don’t go out there.”

  “And why the hell not?”

  Lawson turned his gaze upon the man, and cared not if the red glint scared the piss out of him. At that moment he wanted to.

  “You won’t come back,” said Lawson.

  “Huh? Are you—” And then something in Lawson’s face or voice must’ve gotten through, because Gantt lowered the lantern and stood staring toward the pile of boulders. The cruel wind blew snow into his face, like a taunt. “That girl,” Gantt said after a moment. “She’ll die if you don’t get her to Helena.” It was a statement, for there was no question about it.

  “Yes,” was the answer. Lawson was beginning to think that was a terrible word.

  “So then, why—”

  “Walk with me back to the cab. Go on, quickly.”

  Lawson waited for Gantt to go first.

  As they left the front of the engine some small object came flying from the darkness with tremendous speed and shattered the glass of the headlamp. Its force was enough to take it into the fuel well. Burning whale-oil spewed out and drooled down in tendrils of blue flame upon the cowcatcher.

  With that, the lamp flickered…flickered…and went dark.

  “My light!” Tabbers shouted as he leaned down from the cab. “Jumpin’ Jaysus! What happened to my light?”

  Lawson ignored him. There were worse things to contend with than a sightless eye. “Do you have guns?”

  “What?”

  “Guns. Firearms. Anything. Do you have them?”

  “We…got two rifles. Why?”

  “Loaded?”

  “No, but—”
/>   “Load them,” said the vampire. “Now.”

  Six.

  “You can’t be tellin’ me what to do, fella!” Tabbers fired back. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “I’m the man trying to keep you and everyone else here alive tonight. When you get your rifles loaded, come back to the passenger car. Keep your heads on swivels and move fast.” Lawson told Gantt, “Come with me,” and the conductor did not hesitate.

  Back in the passenger car and the welcome yellow light of the oil lamps, the first voice upraised belonged to Johnny Rebinaux. “Why we stopped, bossman? Bandits or Injuns?”

  “What’s going on, Lawson?” Mathias dared asked.

  Reverend Easterly had returned to his seat and silently watched as Lawson walked along the aisle to check on Blue. “She was making a whimpering sound a minute ago,” Ann told him. “Tried to get her hands on the wound, but I kept them down. She’s out again, it looks like.” Ann’s fierce black eyes asked the question first, then her voice, speaking quietly: “They’re here?”

  That word again. “Yes.”

  “Trevor, how did they find us?”

  “They tracked us, in their way. Maybe they had a human spy watching us. Could be it’s like some telegraph system that ordinary humans can’t fathom. And I can’t fathom it either…not yet.”

  “Is something wrong with the engine, Mr. Lawson?” Eric asked.

  “Nothin’ wrong with that,” said Gantt, who hung his lantern up on a nail for the moment. The stricken expression on Gantt’s face told Lawson the conductor still didn’t know what to make of the headlamp being broken out. “The rail’s blocked. There’s been a rockslide.”

  “Ha!” Rebinaux’s ugly grin widened. “Deuce, listen to me! We can get out of this, if we’ve a mind to! Keene, you up for it?”

  “For what?” Presco asked. He had his face pressed against a window’s glass trying to see past the coal tender and engine, but the snow and the night made it impossible. “Gettin’ shot dead right here or froze to death out in that weather? We ain’t got a baby’s chance in Hell!”

  “A baby wouldn’t be in Hell, ya jackass!” Rebinaux snarled. “A baby’s born without sin, so why’s a baby gonna be in Hell? Yeah, I always figured there was some yellow on that belly!”

  Presco’s fuse had finally been lit. He stood up and lumbered like an angry bear into the aisle. “Fine talk you’re doin’, Johnny!” he shouted in a voice that sounded like a room full of saws working rusted metal. “And you with one hand! You can’t do nothin’!”

  “I can kick you where you used to have balls!” Rebinaux hollered back, but he made no move to give action to that threat.

  “Settle down!” Lawson took a few paces forward to get between them if he needed to, but he quickly saw that Rebinaux’s courage was in trying to get others to risk their skins for him. “Take it easy, Presco. Nobody’s going anywhere right now.”

  “A baby in Hell!” Rebinaux wasn’t done needling his ex-partner. “That’s just plain dumb!” He snorted as if to get the smell of disgust out of his nostrils.

  “Lawson, what did you mean out there?” Gantt came forward along the aisle. “About not comin’ back? You think you know somethin’ we don’t?”

  What to tell them? the vampire asked himself. He was thirsty, his nerves on edge, the ichor sluggish in his body. In his bag there were two more bottles of cattle blood, but those were poor substitutes for the rich feast that flowed in a human’s veins. His last taste of that had been nearly two months ago, from the throat of a derelict in a tarpaper shack on the banks of the Mississippi. He had left the man alive, but barely. Still…without human blood for more than three months he became a true shade between vampire and man, a scrabbling wretch desperate to feed and gnawed by the knowledge that each feeding from humans took him closer to the edge of the abyss.

  They were waiting for him to speak. What to tell them?

  There was the sound of boots on the car’s front platform. The door opened and from the snow and wind came the black fireman called Rooster. He was likely twenty-four or so, of medium-height and slim build except for a broad back and a formidable set of shoulders. He had a high-cheekboned face with a small, neatly-trimmed goatee and deep-set, cautious eyes. He was wearing a gray woolen coat, a black cap and black gloves and he carried a Winchester rifle.

  “Mr. Tabberson didn’t come back,” Rooster said, as the snow blew around him from the open door. He realized he was letting winter destroy the warmth of the car, so he closed the door behind him. “Mr. Tabberson,” he repeated, as snow melted on his shoulders and the brim of his cap. “He went out to them rocks to see. I called him, but he didn’t give an answer.”

  “Why didn’t you go help him?” Gantt demanded. “Tabbers maybe fell down, hurt himself.”

  “I was gonna, but…this fella said to come here after we loaded the rifles. I said, ‘Come on, Mr. Tabberson’, but he was like… ‘Ain’t nobody bossin’ me on my own train’. So he told me to stay there in the cab, and he took a lamp. I said he shouldn’t oughta go, ’cause what had happened to that headlight? He said the tin box must’ve heated up too fast and the cold broke the glass, and then he went on. After awhile I called him. I used the speakin’ trumpet, so he could hear over that wind, but he didn’t come back. I was hopin’…a couple of you fellas, and me…we’ll go see if he’s all right.”

  “He’s not,” said Lawson.

  “Sir?”

  “Did he take a rifle?”

  “He did.”

  “Did you hear any shots?”

  “No sir…all that wind…but…” Rooster frowned. “What would he be shootin’ at out there?”

  “I don’t care what you say, Lawson.” Gantt lifted the lantern off its nail. “I’m goin’ out there to help him, if he needs it. And he must, ’cause Tabbers is a tough piece a’ leather.”

  “What’s this about the headlight?” Eric asked. “It broke?”

  “Happens sometimes. Ain’t nothin’.”

  “You know it didn’t shatter on its own,” said Lawson. “That wasn’t just to put out the light. It was a message.”

  “Do tell!”

  “They’re telling us they’re in control.”

  “They? Who? Indians? The Sioux have cleared out around here! They’ve—”

  “You’ll wish they were only Indians on the warpath.”

  “Who, then?”

  Again…what to tell them? How to make them understand? Lawson realized that whatever he told them, they were going to think him utterly insane. He looked to Ann for help, but she shook her head because at the moment she knew they’d never believe either of them.

  “I think,” Eli Easterly suddenly spoke up, “that Mr. Lawson has been dabbling in something…shall we say…unholy, and it has come back to bite him.”

  “What are you jabberin’ about?” There was now a twang of fear in the Southern drawl.

  “Look at him. Take a good long look. How different he appears from most men. And I noted with interest that he would not dare to touch my crucifix.” Easterly stood up into the aisle. “I have seen much in this life. I have known much darkness myself. Therefore I have learned to recognize it.” He aimed a finger at the vampire. “This so-called man among us, friends, can only be one thing: a warlock.”

  “A warwhat?” Presco asked.

  “A male witch,” Easterly clarified. “Travelling with a female witch, but she’s not completely sold to the Devil because she could touch the Cross. I had a strange feeling about this man the first time I laid eyes on him. He read my mind and he exudes evil. Can’t you feel it, in this car?”

  “Yes!” Mathias had nearly shouted it. “Hell, yes! I’ve been feeling it!”

  “Oh for God’s sake!” said Gantt. “There ain’t no such thing as witches!”

  “I say this creature before us is…well, just look at him! And if he’s afraid of something out there that’s blocked the track, then you know what that must be? Either one of two things:
a rival witch, as dark-souled as himself and his familiar, or…the vengeance and pure white justice of Heaven.”

  Lawson managed a small, mirthless laugh.

  “We’re making him nervous, do you see that?” The reverend’s finger of accusation was still aimed at Lawson. “He can’t bear the light. I noted also—being in the hotel with him and the woman—he never came out during the day. She was about, but not he. Oh, no…the light of truth cannot be borne by this creature.” Slowly, Easterly’s hand fell to his side. “Gentlemen, we are in the presence of an abomination before our Holy Father.”

  “I think he’s just an asshole, m’self!” Rebinaux said.

  “Reverend Easterly,” Lawson said in a quiet, restrained voice, “you have become…let me say…unsettled by the life you’ve led. May I call you Eli?” He let that hang for a few seconds. “I am sorry you’ve lost your only son, Eli. A bullet in the back and a grave in a wretched field. It’s been difficult for you, I know. Especially since you sent so many men to their own wretched graves by bullets in the back.” He watched as the blood—what paltry amount there was in the man’s body—drained from Easterly’s face and left him as pale as a vampire’s buttocks. “I believe,” Lawson continued in the same quiet tone, “that there’s a man of good worth still inside you, but he’s been hiding for a long time under a bottle and a Bible. Sometimes both at once. I am no warlock, sir, nor is Ann a witch. Though it is true, I have read your mind and I have the ability to read the mind of every man on this train. I would like for you to consider me in our present condition a…” He paused in thought of what his next words would be. Then he recalled something he’d said to Eric just a little while ago. Something he’d said he was not, and now he must recant.

  “Consider me your guardian angel,” he said, speaking now to all of them. “I’m the best chance you have of…as Mr. Mathias said to me earlier this evening…seeing another sunrise.” He looked toward where Blue lay, and his gut twisted…not now for the thirst for her blood, for that was a constant, but for the truth that she would certainly die if action was not taken.