by Bill Crider
The purpose of the roundhouse when it was operational had been to turn steam locomotive engines around and head them in the opposite direction, so the huge buildings were built around a giant turntable. Most of the turntable in the one Rhodes now faced had been removed years ago, as had all the windows in the place, along with the roof. The windows had been broken by vandals or the weather, but Rhodes didn’t have any idea what had happened to the roof. Maybe there had never been one.
Rhodes approached the ruined building for a closer look, and when he was about thirty yards away, something charged out of the building, skittering on the clinkers where the old tracks had been. Rhodes grabbed for the flashlight, but before he could get it out of his pocket, a small figure resembling a bowling ball with a tail shot past him and off into the darkness. Another armadillo, but this time Rhodes hadn’t scared it. Something inside the roundhouse had.
Guy Wilks hadn’t been at Rollin’ Sevens, and Rhodes thought he might very well be in the roundhouse. Just why, Rhodes wasn’t sure, since Happy Franklin claimed he hadn’t seen anyone in the alley behind Lloyd’s florist shop. If Wilks wasn’t trying to kill a witness, why would he be sneaking around the property? Rhodes would ask him when he caught him.
Rhodes sidled up to the side of the wall near the long vertical window opening. Just as he did, he heard a train whistle from the direction of town.
The southbound tracks crossed six of Clearview’s streets at the edge of town, so the train generally slowed down as it passed through. It started to pick up speed as it left, but it would still be going fairly slowly by the time it got to the Franklin place. Rhodes wasn’t worried that it would interfere with what he was doing or run over him. The siding that led to the roundhouse was long gone, and the tracks the train ran on were forty or fifty yards away.
Looking back in the direction of the whistle, Rhodes saw the headlight of the train in the distance. He decided that he’d better make some kind of move soon because when the train arrived, it would cover any noises from inside the roundhouse and give Wilks a chance to get away.
Rhodes wished he knew what kind of move to make, but he couldn’t think of one.
After a couple of seconds, he took the flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. The beam was strong, and Rhodes, keeping himself protected by the wall, moved the light so that it shone on the interior of the roundhouse. He waved the beam up and down, right to left.
A pistol shot echoed around the walls of the roundhouse. The bullet didn’t come close to Rhodes’s hand or the flashlight, but the shot got his attention. He jerked his hand back from the window.
As soon as he did, he heard someone moving around inside. Turning off the light, Rhodes moved quickly and stepped through the window opening. On the other side of the ruins, a dark shape disappeared through another opening.
The train had almost arrived from town. Rhodes heard it roaring down the track, and its shrill whistle pierced the night air.
Rhodes started across the roundhouse, remembering just in time that a roundhouse might have a work pit in the middle. He flicked on the flashlight. Sure enough, the old pit was there, filled almost to the top with rubble and trash, but still a danger. He skirted it and came to the window opening where the dark figure had disappeared. Before looking out, Rhodes turned off the light once more.
The train arrived and started to thunder past. Rhodes felt its rumble reverberate in his bones. The ground vibrated under his cold feet.
Rhodes saw someone running toward the train and went after him. He wasn’t worried that the man would get away. The train was a long one, and it would block the tracks for several minutes.
What Rhodes hadn’t counted on, what he wouldn’t have thought of in a million years, was that the man would try to board the train.
But that was what he did. He ran along the track beside a boxcar for a few strides and grabbed hold of the ladder at the end of the car. The train’s momentum pulled him off his feet, but he clung to the ladder and after a couple of seconds started to pull himself up it.
Rhodes didn’t think there was anything to do but go after him. He jammed the flashlight in his pocket and ran as fast as he could, which wasn’t fast at all, not on the muddy ground.
By the time Rhodes reached the train, he was already four boxcars behind his quarry, but he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the ladder of a passing car as the train boomed along.
Rhodes thought his arms would be jerked from their sockets, but they weren’t, and for a second he flew along beside the train like a human pennant. Then he flopped down against the car. The toes of his shoes bounced along the ground. He wasn’t sure he had enough strength in his arms to pull himself up, and he wished he’d done some weight work over the years.
Too late now.
Rhodes risked a glance back over his shoulder. He saw Duke Pearson standing by the track a good way back. Duke was no dummy. He didn’t try to board the train.
He did, however, wave good-bye as Rhodes was hauled away.
29
SOMEHOW RHODES GOT HOLD OF THE NEXT COUPLE OF RUNGS on the ladder and inched his way upward. The train seemed to be going faster, and the wind tore at his clothes.
You can do this, he told himself. You’ve seen hundreds of guys do it in the movies.
It occurred to Rhodes that those guys had been stuntmen with years of training and experience, not to mention a certain amount of athletic ability that Rhodes lacked.
He shook that thought out of his head and climbed the ladder far enough so that he could slip around and get a foot on the coupling between the cars. The swaying of the train, the clickety-clack of the steel wheels, and the force of the wind all made Rhodes nervous. If he fell, he’d be cut in half. Escaping that, he’d be so beaten up that nobody would ever be able to identify the body.
He decided he’d better not fall. He pressed himself against the cold steel of the boxcar and gripped something around the corner. Holding to it with his right hand and to the ladder with his left, he moved his right foot to the coupling. When he was sure he wasn’t going to slip, he pulled himself quickly around and found himself clinging to another ladder with both his feet solidly on the coupling.
Now what?
Wilks, or whoever it was, had been four cars forward. Had he stayed there? Rhodes hadn’t seen any open cars, so Wilks couldn’t have gotten inside one. Rhodes hadn’t seen any gondola cars, either. So was Wilks standing on a coupling, waiting for Rhodes, or was he lying along the top of the car? Or had he jumped off?
Rhodes supposed he’d have to find out. The ladder he clung to went right up to the top of the car, so Rhodes took a breath and started to climb it.
When he poked his head over the top of the car, the wind whipped his hair, what there was of it. He remembered a scene from some movie with Charles Bronson, where Bronson had run along the top of a boxcar as nimbly as a squirrel crossing a street on a power line.
Of course Rhodes knew it hadn’t been Bronson at all. More likely a stuntman paid to take risks for the star. Rhodes wished he had someone like that working for him. Whoever it was, whether Bronson or a stuntman, he had a pretty good sense of balance, something else Rhodes lacked.
It took him a little while to pull himself atop the car. When he got there, the first thing he noticed was that the car wasn’t still. It was rocking a little. Not much, but enough to bother him.
Then he noticed that the top wasn’t perfectly flat. It slanted down a bit from the middle on both sides.
Rhodes thought he’d just lie there for a minute. Maybe it was all a dream and he’d wake up at home in his bed with Yancey licking his face.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them he was right there on top of the boxcar.
Okay, if that was the way it was going to be, he’d go along to the next car. But not standing up. He wasn’t a stuntman, and he wasn’t Charles Bronson. He writhed along on his stomach, stretching out his arms in the hope that he could catch himself if he started to slide off.
He hadn’t gone far before he learned that there were ridges about an inch high every few feet. He didn’t like having to slide over them, but he was glad to have something to grab. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Rhodes slithered along to the end of the car. Was he going to stand up and jump across the opening to the next one?
Not a chance. He climbed down the ladder from his car to the coupling, sucked in a deep breath, crossed the coupling, and climbed up the next ladder.
The top of this car was flat, with no ridges. Rhodes decided he’d be Charles Bronson. He stood up and started walking, his arms extended out to his sides for balance. The wind buffeted him, but he didn’t fall.
He didn’t jump to the next car, either. He climbed down and up again. The top of this car was also flat. Again Rhodes walked along it. He felt he was getting better at it. If Hollywood needed new stuntmen, he’d apply. But he wasn’t going to make that jump between the cars. Someone with more experience would have to do that.
After more climbing, he was atop the fourth car. Someone was either waiting for him at the next coupling or gone. Rhodes figured that waiting was more likely. He hadn’t seen anyone running along on top of the other cars, and he didn’t think anyone would have jumped off.
He was getting used to the movement of the train and the rush of the wind now. He walked along almost confidently, feeling certain he wasn’t going to fall, or that if he did, he’d just hit the roof of the car and not the ground or the tracks.
The train made a hollow sound as it boomed across a trestle over a small creek that was dry most of the time. It would have a little water in it now because of the rain. Rhodes thought it would be a long way down to the water.
When he got almost to the gap between cars, he stopped and knelt down. Once again a movie memory popped into his head, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he’d seen too many movies in the course of his lifetime. He didn’t watch nearly as many now as he once had, but he seemed to remember a little of every one he’d ever seen.
In this case, Rhodes thought of The Manchurian Candidate and a scene in which Frank Sinatra fought a villainous Henry Silva between two cars on a swiftly moving train. More likely it was their stunt doubles who’d fought, but Rhodes’s memory of the scene was vague. Mainly he remembered Sinatra’s toupee. He knew Sinatra had won, but he couldn’t recall what had happened to Silva. What he wondered now was how they’d managed not to fall off the train.
Rhodes didn’t want to get into a fight with Wilks, because he knew less karate than Sinatra or his double, though neither had exhibited anything like the skill of a real practitioner of the art. Rhodes didn’t want to get shot, either, but he didn’t want to shoot Wilks. Well, not unless he had to.
He pulled his flashlight from his pocket. It was heavy aluminum, and Rhodes reached out to tap on the rim of the car. The noise of the train on the tracks and the rush of the wind made it hard to hear, so Rhodes tapped harder.
“Are you down there, Wilks?” he yelled.
He got no answer, so he edged closer to the gap and tried again.
“Wilks? This is Sheriff Rhodes. Throw away your gun, and we can talk.”
His voice carried better this time because, a few miles past Franklin’s place, the tracks turned to make a long curve and started up a little hill. The train had to slow down quite a bit for that stretch, and the noise from the wheels and wind diminished.
Rhodes still got no answer. He lay down on his stomach and risked a look over the end of the car.
Tom Fulton looked back at him.
“You got the wrong man, Sheriff,” he yelled.
It took a second for Rhodes to process the information. He hadn’t been sure Wilks was the one running from him, but he hadn’t thought it would be Fulton. It made a kind of sense, though.
“I have the right man,” Rhodes said finally. He turned on the flashlight. “I just had the wrong name. You still have that gun?”
Fulton moved his right hand from behind his back and showed Rhodes a pistol. Then he tossed it into the darkness.
“Not anymore,” he said.
“Good,” Rhodes said. “I’m coming down.”
He was halfway down the ladder when Fulton jumped off the train.
While the train had slowed to a crawl, Rhodes didn’t want to follow Fulton. He couldn’t help thinking of rocks, sharp sticks, broken bones, crushed skulls, and any number of other terrible things.
On the other hand, he couldn’t very well let Fulton get away. He didn’t think any more. He tossed away his flashlight, not wanting to hurt himself with it. Then he gathered himself and jumped.
Rhodes landed on his feet, but he wasn’t on them long, just long enough for the jolt to travel all the way from his shoes to his shoulders.
After that, his feet slid in the slick mud and he pitched forward, remembering somehow to tuck and roll. He somersaulted a couple of times and then found himself on his side, rolling over a few of the rocks and sticks he’d dreaded.
Eventually he came to a stop and lay still. He thought he could get up, but he didn’t want to rush things. He wiggled his fingers and toes, then moved his arms and legs. Everything worked, so he pushed himself up into a crouch. He was dizzy, but he stood up anyway.
It took a little while for his head to clear. When it did, he didn’t bother to look for the flashlight. He just started walking back along the tracks. He was covered in mud, and he had leaves stuck all over him.
Another movie came to mind. Swamp Thing. Rhodes wondered if he’d meet Adrienne Barbeau.
Not a chance.
The train boomed along beside him for a couple of seconds, and then it was gone. Rhodes could remember when there had been a caboose on the back of a train, but that had been long ago, and there was no caboose on this one.
The rumble faded after the last car passed. Rhodes hardly noticed. He was looking for Fulton, and he wondered what the odds were that Fulton had found the pistol he’d thrown from the train. Slim and none, most likely. No need to worry about it.
Rhodes walked slowly, not wanting to fall again. He was already going to be sore for a while. He didn’t want to aggravate the problem.
He estimated that he’d walked less than a quarter of a mile when he saw someone hobbling along ahead of him. It had to be Fulton. Who else would be out there at that time of night?
Rhodes still had his own pistol in the ankle holster, though it was probably a little wet. He figured he wouldn’t need it, not if Fulton felt as bad as he did, but there was no use in taking chances. He stopped, bent over, and pulled up his pants leg. The pistol was there, and not too wet in its holster. Rhodes pulled the Velcro straps and got the gun.
“Fulton,” he called when he’d straightened back up. “Stop where you are. You’re under arrest.”
Rhodes always felt a little odd saying that, mainly because nobody ever stopped.
Which was why he was so surprised when Fulton turned around to face him and said, “I’ll wait for you right here.”
Even in the dimness Rhodes could see that Fulton looked bad, muddy and ashen. Maybe it was just the moonlight.
Rhodes approached Fulton cautiously, but Fulton didn’t try anything. He listed to one side, and when Rhodes got closer, he said, “I think I broke my ankle.”
“Sorry about that,” Rhodes said, though he really wasn’t. “You’re going to have to walk to the road anyway.”
“I don’t think I can make it.”
Rhodes didn’t trust Fulton. He waited a good five yards away to see what Fulton would do, but the man didn’t move.
“It’s probably just sprained,” Rhodes said. “You should’ve stayed on the train.”
“Yeah, that would have been a good idea, now that you mention it. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Seems like you haven’t been thinking for a good while. I’m going to read you your rights now.”
Rhodes held the pistol in his right hand while he fumbled in his back pocket with his
left. The outside of the pocket was slick with mud.
Rhodes found his wallet and had to use both hands to get out the Miranda card. It was awkward with the pistol in one hand, but he managed.
He couldn’t really read the card without a flashlight, and he didn’t have his reading glasses on, either. In fact, they weren’t in his shirt pocket any longer. There was no need for Fulton to know all that, through. Rhodes had the Miranda stuff memorized right down to the last period.
When he was finished, Rhodes asked Fulton if he understood.
“Yeah,” Fulton said.
Rhodes put the card and billfold back in his pocket. He asked if Fulton had any questions.
Fulton didn’t say anything. Rhodes looked to his right. He couldn’t see the road, but it paralleled the tracks, so it couldn’t be too far away. He gestured with the pistol.
“Head that way,” he said.
Fulton limped in the direction Rhodes had indicated, groaning now and then to let Rhodes know he was suffering. Rhodes didn’t care about either the groaning or the suffering. He was trying to arrange the pieces of the puzzle and fit them together with Fulton in place of Wilks.
It took them about ten minutes to get to the barbed-wire fence that stood between them and the ditch that ran alongside the gravel road. Rhodes made Fulton climb through the fence without assistance. Then he told him to cross the ditch and stand in the road. When Fulton was safely out of the way, Rhodes climbed through the fence himself, managing to catch his shirt on only one barb. He got it free without tearing it and joined Fulton on the road.
“If we’re lucky,” Rhodes said, “someone will come along and pick us up.”
“What if we’re not lucky?” Fulton said. “I haven’t had a lot of luck lately.”
“Sure you have,” Rhodes told him. “It’s just all been bad.”
“You got that right. So what do we do if nobody comes?”
Rhodes looked down the long dark road toward town.
“We walk,” he said.