by Stephen Bly
Francine grinned. “A true diplomat.”
“Not very wise,” he added, “but smart.”
Catherine felt her neck tighten in her collar. “A prejudiced diplomat. And he didn’t answer your question.”
“I reckon every girl should have the opportunity to learn as much as she needs in order to accomplish God’s calling for her, what he created her for. Same as men. In either case, wisdom is more important than knowledge.”
“And how does a woman gain wisdom?” Catherine probed.
“By asking a man.”
“I should clobber you, but that is one of the few grins I have seen on you. You have a very disarming smile.”
“And you have a strong right arm,” he said. “You already clobbered me. Women get wisdom in the same way men do. By living a decent life in front of others and learning from their mistakes.”
She focused on the back of the seat ahead of them. “That sounds very prudent.”
“That’s because I’ve made lots of mistakes.”
“Lately?”
“I busted down a train compartment door without knowing what’s on the other side.”
“Totally foolish.”
“But I won’t repeat that mistake.”
Once the children had been washed and dressed, they switched back to their original seats. Hillyard, Catherine and Mr. Walker moved up with Francine and the two little ones behind them.
He slouched down by the open window as the train rumbled west. Dirt and bugs blew in, but he seemed oblivious. The Mormon girls took turns walking Gibraltar up and down the aisle. They appeared to take careful note of the dozing Race Hillyard and curtsied to Catherine.
He’s way too old for you, girls. But he does offer a whirlwind of adventure. In comparison, life with Phillip promises to be such a . . . a peaceful dream.
Nancy fussed with her two dolls and Preston consumed a steady stream of small round crackers as Francine rocked back and forth humming a tune at an unrecognizable, but annoying level.
Buildingless sidings labeled names like Tipton, Red Desert, Latham, Creston, Rawhide and Walcutt sprinted by. They stopped for tasteless potato soup at a place called Mrs. Mustard’s Table Rock Emporium, but reboarded the train in less than twenty minutes.
Catherine sat with her gloved hands folded in her lap.
Hillyard, hat pulled down over his eyes, leaned against the now half-open window. He rolled his coat up for a pillow. Francine rocked Preston, then pressed forward with a groan.
“That soup was rather, eh, rank, didn’t you think?”
Catherine nodded. “Three spoonfuls were all I could handle.”
“Preston liked it.” Francine wiped perspiration from the boy’s forehead. “But he’s paying for it now.”
Catherine surveyed the coach. “Where’s Nancy?”
“She’s visiting with the Mormon girls. She can be quite sociable when she wants.” Preston let out a low cry. “I think I’d better get him somewhere safe to heave. He’ll feel better with an empty tummy. Wouldn’t want him to lose that awful soup all over Mr. Hilly.”
Hillyard didn’t stir.
“I think he’s still recuperating from the blow you gave him.”
Catherine lowered he chin and her voice. “It was quite by accident.”
“You know that and Race knows that. But the barrel of your revolver and his head don’t discern such.” Francine toted the whimpering Preston to the back of the car.
Catherine surveyed the two bench seats formerly occupied by the cowboys. An elderly Chinese couple, traditionally dressed, sat at the windows. Each had a wooden cage on the seat next to them. One held a colorful bird that looked like a very small peacock. The dark blue, green and turquoise feathers caught and held her gaze for a moment. The other cage held, what looked like to Catherine, a giant rat. It lay on its side and didn’t move. She wasn’t sure it was dead or alive.
They got on at a place called Salt Walls. There were no buildings, just a wood and water stop. They had no carriage. How did they get there? Wherever they came from, I’m sure it’s better to be going west.
For what seemed like a very long time she stared out the window at the sparse brown grass in the Divide Basin. No houses. No fences. No cattle. No roads. A string of ten foot tall telegraph poles that ran like a little brother, alongside the tracks.
She focused on the saddle. “You know, Mr. Walker, when I close my eyes for any length of time . . . then open them again . . . it is as if we haven’t covered any ground at all. This scenery is identical to that one an hour ago, or yesterday. Have you noticed that?”
She paused as if listening to the silent saddle.
“You’re right. You can’t see much from your position. But you have noticed how slow time becomes when you ride a train? I wonder if time slows the faster one travels. What if a train could go 100 miles per hour, would time stop? I suppose that’s quite preposterous, but it’s the kind of thing one thinks of on a long trip. I’d certainly like to get this trip over.”
She fixed her gaze out the window at a herd of pronghorn antelope that numbered over one hundred, then turned back to the saddle.
“It’s a big, empty land, Mr. Walker. I can’t tell if the emptiness attracts me or frightens me. It would all depend on who was with you, I suppose. I’m sure you and Mr. Hillyard would have no trouble out there. I’m glad my Phillip owns a store in the thriving town of Paradise Springs. I won’t have to face an empty land.”
The Mormon girls giggled and Catherine noticed that Nancy dancing in the aisle for them. “Mr. Walker, I remember being a giggly girl. Catelynn and I liked to tease each other. I don’t know when or why we lost that. How sad. I don’t suppose you have a brother or a sister.”
I’m talking to a saddle. Get some rest, Catherine. You will have little or no sleep after Ogden. I can’t believe I agreed to help Matthew Zane. Yet what were my choices? Go to sleep. Don’t wake up until Sacramento.
Catherine roused when Race tripped over her to get to the aisle. “What is it?”
“I’m going to see.” He sat his hat lightly on the back of his head. “We stopped in the middle of the tracks.”
She gawked at giant granite boulders. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere, as far as I can tell.” He waved at the windows. “It looks we’re on a big bend and there’s a trestle up ahead.”
As passengers lined up to peer out the windows, Catherine followed Hillyard outside. He helped her down off the last step. Then they trudged through the weeds and dry dirt to the trestle where a half-dozen men leaned over the canyon rim. Above them hovered white, streaky clouds which looked swept onto the pale blue sky with a heavenly paintbrush.
“What’s down there?” Catherine asked.
A short man with bowler, suit coat and no shirt, spat a wad of tobacco into the dust, then kicked dirt on it with his boot. “A train car. One of those fancy Pullman cars.”
“A fancy one?” Hillyard stepped closer to the cliff edge. “You mean like the Judge’s?”
The shirtless man scratched his chest and shrugged. “Yep, I reckon that’s it.”
“Oh, no.” Catherine’s hands gripped her temples . “Not the Judge and Amanda Sue! No . . . no . . . everything is going wrong. First, my life has a train wreck, and now the judge? I just can’t do this.”
Hillyard hugged her shoulder tight. “We don’t know for sure. That may not be their car. Nothing is confirmed.”
She slipped her arm around his waist, but pulled her head back. “It’s his car and you know it.”
“It does look like it,” he admitted. “But it’s tough to identify all smashed up like that.”
“Why did they hook up to the Express? Why were they behind the caboose? Why did the train go off and leave it down there? This can’t be. Things like this shouldn’t happen.”
The conductor in his blue wool suit and cap hiked over with an overall clad engineer. “We need to check out the wreckage before we can resume.” He nodded at
the man in overalls. “Monty will climb a pole and telegraph the company about it.” He glanced around at the crowd, but settled his eyes on Race Hillyard. “I need a couple of men to go down and check out the damage and look for, eh, survivors.”
Hillyard surveyed the canyon. “You got any ropes?”
“We got a hundred foot coil in the caboose,” the conductor said.
Race yanked his hat off and handed it to Catherine. “Let Mr. Walker guard my hat. I’m going down.”
“It looks dangerous,” Catherine cautioned.
“I was rather fond of the judge and Amanda Sue, also.”
“I’ll go with you,” the man without the shirt offered. When no one else stepped forward, he tossed his coat to the dirt. As he hiked over to the cliff, Catherine spotted several deep lateral scars on the man’s back. She nodded to Hillyard.
He lowered his voice. “Yeah, I’d guess he took a whuppin’. Those are old scars, someone really pounded on him. Probably in the Navy. They seem to beat men more often than anywhere else.”
The man marched over to them. His round face looked staunch and stern. “Who did you say was in the car?”
“Judge Clarke, his daughter, and his cook,” the conductor replied.
“How about Chet Pinehurst, the ex-Pinkerton man?” Catherine asked.
“Oh, no,” the conductor replied. “It was his idea to switch trains, but he didn’t ride with them. He’s still on our train.”
“His idea?” Catherine spurttered. “Why isn’t he here helping these men? Was there a telegraph back at Table Rock where we had lunch?”
The conductor nodded. “Of course.”
Hillyard grabbed her shoulder. “Catherine, what are you thinking?”
She jerked away from him. “I want to have a talk with Pinehurst.”
Race cut her off. “Give me the gun.”
Her chin dropped. “What?”
“Catherine, give me my spare revolver.”
She reached in her purse and handed him the gun. “I promise I won’t shoot him.”
“Let’s make sure.”
“But I might have to hit him in the head.”
Race opened the cylinder. Five cartridges dropped to his hand. He handed it back to her.
She shoved the gun in her purse. “No ammunition? That was rude.”
“I see fire in your eyes. But we don’t know what we’ll find down in that car. I don’t want you doin’ something you, me and the Lord will regret.”
“It’s smashed to pieces. All you’re going to find is mangled bodies. Pinehurst had to have something to do with it.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe you should wait for me to get back before you go talk to them.”
“The Lord has stirred my fury and I intend to release it.”
“Catherine,” he called out. “Do the wise thing.”
She ground her teeth and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Women aren’t hemmed in by wisdom. I believe that’s what you intimidated.”
The conductor shoved a thick hemp rope into his hands.
He turned to the shirtless man. “You ready, partner?”
“Yep.” He took one end of the rope and tied it around his waist. “I’m Byron MacCay, but most just call me ‘Shirtless’.”
Hillyard tied the other end of the rope to his waist. “You never wear a shirt?”
“Not since the war.”
“Well, Shirtless, I’m . . .”
“I know who you are, Race Hillyard.”
“Have we met?”
The man rubbed his unshaven chin. “Only at a distance. During the war, I was aboard ship down off the south Texas coast.”
“Did we serve on the same . . . .”
“I was on the other side. But we all knew your name. There was a $500 reward for anyone who could shoot Hillyard out of the crow’s nest.”
“A reward? By name? How come I never heard about that? I was just doin’ my job. But to tell you the truth, I never liked it. You ready to go?”
“You want to lead?”
“Yep.”
“You trust me to keep you safe?” Shirtless queried.
“Yep.”
Shirtless coiled the excess rope around his shoulder. “Yeah, Hillyard, we were impressed how good a shot you were.” He worked his way around several boulders. “We all wanted to learn to shoot like you, but at the same time, we wanted you dead.”
Hillyard turned his back to the canyon, then lowered himself over a shed size boulder. “I still have nightmares about those days. War makes a man do a lot of things he regrets.”
The man held the rope taut until Hillyard reached the bottom. “Don’t worry. I don’t hold a grudge,” he called down. “I did for a long time. You see these stripes on my back? You’re the cause of them.”
Hillyard held up his hands to catch the man’s feet as he skimmed over the giant rock. “How?”
Shirtless rubbed his bare shoulder when he reached the ground. “I was on the Hampton, trying to blockade the entrance of the Rio Grande. It was a foggy December morning and I was up in the loft, trying to spot you reb ships. I couldn’t see anything. Then it was two bells on the morning watch. The captain insisted we sounded bells, even in thick fog. When the second bell sounded, the captain’s dog keeled over as a rifle report pierced through the fog.”
“I shot the captain’s dog? I remember that morning. Captain King didn’t think any Union ships were within ten miles. I knew better. I thought I heard the bells and just took a chance. When you fired back with a cannon, we turned and ran back out to sea.” Hillyard gripped a sage and lowered himself on down the canyon.
Shirtless followed. “Well, the captain’s dog got killed and I was in the lookout. So, it was my fault.”
Hillyard stopped and leaned over, his hands on his knees. “And he lashed you for that?”
“It was suppose to be only a dozen. But he did the beating himself. I passed out around fifty. I’ve been shirtless ever since.”
“Partner, I’m truly sorry I caused you that much pain.” They worked their way down to the mangled train car.
Shirtless stood by the busted back door. “The good news: we all hated the dog. No one but the captain mourned him. I only hated your guts for five, maybe ten years.” He worked his way over to Hillyard. “Can you see anything? Anyone? Any bodies?”
Hillyard climbed up on the crumpled black iron railing of the deluxe train car. “I’ll search inside the wreck. You look around outside. Look for any signs of blood, torn clothing . . .”
“Arms, legs, feet?”
“Anything.”
Shirtless wiped the sweat off his forehead. “It’s like the war, isn’t it?”
The car lay on its side and Hillyard trudged through broken glass, busted chairs, and scattered furnishings.
Lord, I really don’t want to find anyone down here. Don’t know if I have the moral strength to carry a broken little body all the way to the top.
He shuffled through a pile of books and waded toward the kitchen area. Fancy silverware scattered among airtight cans of peaches and a busted twenty-five pound bag of rice.
“Judge! Amanda Sue? Is anyone here?”
On his way back out, he inspected an empty clothes closet. A voice from outside drew him to the door.
“Shirtless, what did you find?”
“Nothing, Hillyard. No bodies, britches or blood. Did you find anything?”
“Everything inside is busted up, but no signs of humans when they hit bottom.”
“I reckon folks could have been tossed out up on them rocks at the west rim. How did one car cut loose?”
“Look at the grade up there. Its just keeps climbing as it circles south. If you send one car rolling back down I suppose it would gain so much speed it would jump the track just before the trestle.”
“And land about here. Wouldn’t you expect that express to stop and investigate the wreck?”
“Maybe they did and got back on their way.”
“Did it look like anyone had been searching the car before you?”
“Nope. Did you find any tracks around the car?”
“Nothin’.”
“My guess is that no one was in the car when it hit bottom. All the clothes and personal items were missing. But that doesn’t explain much. You go on and lead the way up.”
Shirtless grinned. “And I’m suppose to trust a Rebel sniper to catch me if I fall?”
“Don’t think of me as a Johnny Reb. I’m just the one who eliminated the Captain’s dog.”
“In that case, I don’t mind going up first.”
It took a half-hour to reach the train and another twenty minutes to explain what they found to the conductor.
The engineer blasted the horn and the passengers filed back into the train.
Shirtless pulled his coat on. “Hillyard, I’ll ride the river with you any day.”
“Same to you. But those stripes you wear just remind me of my failures.”
“I know. It’s my revenge.”
Hillyard waved a salute. “Fair enough.”
He brushed dust off his coat when he returned to the car.
Francine examined him up and down. “I hear you didn’t find any mangled bodies down there.”
He grabbed his hat off the saddlehorn and shoved it on his head. “I’m glad about that.”
“Do you reckon the Judge and the little girl got kidnapped?” Francine quizzed.
“I’ve been ponderin’ that idea. We know someone was after the girl. Maybe they highjacked the car, kidnapped all of them, then let it role into the canyon. But they were a careful lot. All the clothing was taken out of the car. Why would kidnappers do that? No way of knowin’ until we get to Ogden.”
The train began to chugg over the tall trestle. Hillyard surveyed the car. “Catherine hasn’t come back yet?”
“Oh, she’s been back. She said a compartment opened up in one of the Pullman cars, so she gathered up her stuff and left us.”
He stared at Francine. “What?”
“Yep, she’s gone. Too genteel for us back here, I reckon.”
Hillyard stalked up the aisle waving his hands. “How does a compartment open up in the middle of nowhere?”
“I was wonderin’ that too. Maybe she explained it in her note.”