by Gene Logsdon
But he had no appreciation of the danger he was in. At forty miles an hour, the tractor was an accident looking for a place to happen. If he had to turn quickly, it could easily flip over. A sharp bump could jolt the front wheels sidewise, wrench the steering wheel out of his grasp, and send the tractor careening out of control into the ditch or into an oncoming car. To make matters worse, the lights were dim, barely capable of warning other drivers of the tractor’s presence on the road, let alone provide much visibility of the road surface.
Had Gabe stayed on the highway, he would have been safer, but fearing possible collision with cars, he moved over to the road shoulder whenever one approached. Even then, if he had slowed down during this maneuver, he might have been okay. But slowing down would not get him to the station on time. As he neared the bridge that led across the river and into Shakopee, where the ditch was deepest because the roadbed was built high over the marshland through which it traversed at that point, he moved onto the shoulder just a tiny six inches too far. In the dark, he could not discern the little dip in the roadside bank, perhaps carved by runoff water from the last flood, but more likely the track of a car tire made during spring thaw. Not enough of an indentation to be of any danger normally, the track was deep enough to catch the front tires of the Zephyr and pull it sharply toward the ditch. When Gabe over-reacted and tried to yank the front tires back toward the road, the speed of the tractor jammed the front wheels instantly perpendicular to the forward motion. The steering wheel spun out of Gabe’s grasp. Before he could stamp on clutch and brakes, the tractor lurched down the steep ditch, the front wheels sliding sideways until they slammed into the soft mud at the bottom of the ditch. The tractor upended and when it landed upside down, Gabe, frozen in fear on the tractor seat, disappeared beneath it. He did not even have time to scream.
But someone did scream. Marge Puckett, approaching the tractor in her car, saw it catapult into the ditch. She knew it was the Zephyr even in the darkness and although the figure in the seat could hardly have been Blaze, she screamed first because Blaze was the only person she had ever seen driving the stupid thing. Maybe by some strange coincidence it was Blaze, playing out his madness by taking one last ride on his beloved tractor before the long journey to Rome. Two cars ahead of her pulled off the road, and she followed. Along with the other drivers she ran to the tractor which now tilted crazily upside down, the one free back wheel spinning eerily in the air. The motor was still running. She turned it off. She was still screaming. She could see a hat. Definitely the one Gabe always wore. The body must be pinned down in the muck of the marsh under the tractor. If Gabe had not been crushed to death, he would surely be drowning. She wedged herself down under the machine and began clawing in the mud and cattails, still screaming. One of the other witnesses to the accident had a flashlight and crawled down beside her, trying to help. What they uncovered first was hair, the back of a head, black hair. Even in her desperation, Marge felt a little twinge of guilty relief. It was not blond Blaze. The other rescuers had hold of arms now and were slowly inching the bloody body out of the ooze. By now a traffic policeman was in the mud with them, feeling for a pulse. None. Someone fished a billfold out of the trouser pocket. Someone read. “Oblate Gabriel Roodman.” Marge was still screaming. The others helped her back up to the road. An ambulance had arrived. Nothing more for her to do when with every second, Blaze was getting farther away.
She answered the questions the traffic officer asked as quickly as possible, jumped into her car, and sped away.
Meanwhile, Jesse had reined up in the blackness beyond the accident and crept forward on foot, leading old Blaze. He dared not get close to the spotlight of the police cruiser playing down on the scene. He was Frank James now, train robber, black hat on his head, bandanna around his neck. The sheriff would hardly let such a strange figure pass unchallenged. Besides, in the stark, mathematical logic of his strange mind, Jesse felt no particular horror at the scene before him. He had always known that something terrible like this was going to happen to that tractor, especially if someone as crazy as Gabe drove it. His absolute conviction that every powered vehicle was a death trap, a coffin on wheels, sure to crash sooner or later, now kept him curiously aloof from the horror of the accident. Tragedy was as certain to follow in the tracks of motored vehicles as rain falling during a thunderstorm.
Besides, saving Gabe, if he were not already dead, was out of his hands. Stopping Jack from his mad flight to some place called Rome was his problem. Miss Puckett down there in the muck was not going to make it to the train station in time. Jesse led his horse in the ditch on the opposite side of the road until he had cleared the accident area. With all eyes on the crash, no one noticed him. He pulled himself astride old Blaze again and galloped on. As on the night he had robbed the train, some inner resolve had come to his aid, allowing him to overcome the debilitating dread of tension that normally would have rendered him helpless and incapable of action. For Jack he could do anything. Jack was the best friend he ever had. Jack would make sure they didn’t put him away with lunatics. Once across the bridge and in Shakopee, he headed not to the train station but by back streets and then country roads toward the Western Range. He knew what he was going to do.
It was Blaze’s idea to take the old milk train from Shakopee to the Twin Cities. Prior Robert had wanted to drive on into the terminal in St. Paul, and so did The Very Reverend Lukey. But Blaze would not acquiesce, just as he had insisted on wearing his pink Elvis shirt under his dark blue jacket against the wishes of both the Prior and Lukey. By heaven, he had volunteered for Rome with its church ceilings full of fat naked angels, so the Order could just humor his choice of clothes a little. I am a different Blaze now. I’m a dangerous fellow, he said to himself, even though he knew he wasn’t. If the Church thought that Luther had given it a hard time, just wait. “Besides,” he said out loud, “I think this strange old train is a time machine that brought me into my Brigadoon. The only way I can get out is to ride the train back to the real world.”
Lukey rolled his eyes and said he would not sit in the same seat with him. Lukey wondered how he was ever going to put up with folly like this all the way to Rome. But he was in too good a mood to argue. Now they both shook hands with Prior Robert and boarded the rattling old coal burner. To Blaze’s chagrin, the coal oil lamps were gone, but otherwise the coach was as decrepit as ever. The train was an every other day occasion now, going out from the Twin Cities one night and coming back the next. As had been the case three years ago, there were no other travellers.
“Rome, here we come!” Lukey said jubilantly as the train rumbled out of the station. Then, smirking at Blaze, whom he had decided to sit beside after all, he added: “Think we’ll see Frank James this time?” Blaze pretended not to hear. If he had ever wanted to pray, it was now. He wanted to beseech God to make Frank James appear again and scare Lukey totally shitless.
A few minutes out of the station, the train reached its version of top speed in preparation for laboring up and over the hill at Murphy’s Landing. As it slowed going up the grade, Blaze remembered the train robber and once more wondered what really had happened that fateful night and if he’d ever know. Seated next to the window, he stared out into the darkness. Had it been a dream? Were the entire last three years a dream? Was he about to wake up and find himself back in the staid seminary college in Michigan preparing to shove off for Minnesota?
As he stared out the window, suddenly a vision. He almost cried out but instead looked quickly away, trying to clear his brain of what he thought he had just seen. He looked again. The vision was still there. Again he looked away. His mind was playing tricks on him. But he had to look again. This time the vision was gone. He had sworn that he had seen a horse, a very familiar horse, galloping alongside the train with what sure as hell looked like Jesse, a bandanna over his face, astride it. He tried to get hold of himself. He had imagined it. No way did he dare to tell Lukey. That would be Lukey’s final victory. He clos
ed his eyes. He would not look out the window again. But then he looked again. Nothing. Relief. But he began to tremble. He had suspected that he would lose his mind if he went to Rome. Now he suspected that he was losing it before he even got out of Minnesota. Or perhaps he had always been crazy, as Lukey insisted. The imagination is a powerful thing. He so much wanted Frank James to board the train and scare Lukey shitless that his mind had conjured up the vision. Shades of Lourdes and Fatima. Is that what had happened three years ago? God almighty, that goddamn Lukey might be right.
The train was crawling to the top of the grade now and would soon begin picking up speed, going downhill. A presence, more felt than seen, caused both oblates to turn to look behind them. An involuntary yelp broke from Lukey’s lips. He was staring directly into the business end of a Colt 45. The Frank James of three years ago pushed the pistol against Lukey’s forehead and once again the hapless seminarian fainted.
Blaze was smiling. What was happening came to him in the rush of a split second. The God he no longer believed in had granted his request and scared Lukey shitless. Blaze knew who was standing behind him, knew now the whole mystery of the train robber. He started to smile. Jesse had fooled them all. And the reason why he had staged the first robbery was exactly what he had said it was: to take revenge on a society that treated him as if he were insane. That would be enough to drive anyone to doing something as crazy as trying to rob a train.
But then Blaze noticed that the revolver staring him in the face was not Jesse’s old broken, rusted hulk, but a very well-oiled and sinister looking weapon. Jesse just might have gone over the edge of what constituted sanity in the insane world, and might for some crazed reason, actually be intending to shoot someone. He had better humor Jesse. It would keep Lukey scared shitless for awhile longer too.
Lukey revived in time to see the masked man turn his attention to Blaze.
“I am Frank James, come to avenge my brother’s memory as I told you before. Git your hands up. You’re comin’ with me, or I’ll blow yer head off.” The voice was faked, high and whiney, like a sawwhet owl. The pistol poked and beckoned Blaze out of the seat, forcing him to step over the seemingly paralysed Lukey as he edged into the aisle. The outlaw pushed him roughly toward the head of the coach, for now the train was starting to gain speed. Soon it would be going too fast to jump from safely.
“Git, Jack, git out the door.”
Blaze turned on the gunman, victory on his face. “You called me Jack, Jesse. You gave yourself away.”
A pause. The arm holding the pistol sagged to the outlaw’s side. “Hee hee hee. I sure fool ole’ Lukey, didn’t I. Jump.”
“I’m not jumpin’ out of this train and break a leg or something. You think I’m crazy?”
Jesse screamed in Blaze’s ear. “Miss Puckett wants to talk to you!”
Blaze jumped.
Jesse came right behind him and as the two rolled and tumbled down the railroad embankment, they started giggling like children tumbling down a haystack. They came to a stop in a heap and finding no bones broken, continued to laugh and pound each other.
Then they just lay there, looking at the stars. Life was too, too unreal. Blaze, the horse, finally found them. “We gotta ride to Western Range, Jack. Gotta take gun back to smartass Nash. He don’t know I borrowed it outta his drawer. If I use my old one, you not be fooled. Hee hee hee. I sure fool you good, Jack. Three year I fool you good. I not Frank James. Hee hee hee.”
So full was he of his exciting second reincarnation as Frank James, Jesse did not even remember to tell Blaze about Gabe until they went into the Western Range and then he did not have to tell. Customers were talking about the monk who had gone crazy, run away from the monastery on a tractor, and was killed when the tractor overturned. News like that moved lightning fast in rural Minnesota. Probably the same monk reportedly seen a year or so ago, running naked away from the barn. Creepy place, that monastery was. Fen was trying to sing, but could only weep.
Blaze sat down at the bar, feeling life draining out of him. Had it not been for the thought that Marge wanted to talk to him, he might at that moment have sunk into a depression from which he would not have recovered. Gabe dead? After so many years side by side, Blaze could not even imagine a world without Gabe. Most of his identity sprang from Gabe. He might as well be dead too, be born again, start over as someone else. In fact that is exactly what Gabe’s death meant. The end of his first life. He would have to start over. Who would he be in his next life?
Lukey got off the train at Savage. He was having difficulty breathing and could not think at all except to wonder if he were having a heart attack. He only knew that he had to get away from that devil-possessed time machine of a train. He had revived just in time to see Blaze jump out the coach door with the crazed outlaw right behind him. Now he had to find the idiot. But why? Blaze deserved getting kidnapped, robbed, killed, whatever. Lukey paused in his thinking. Blaze really had to be in danger. It was a hard thought to hang onto because the idiot never really seemed to be in danger. He was a case study in living beyond danger. But he, Lukey, had to help him if he could. Zombie-like, he stumbled into the darkness, headed back down the railroad tracks, leaving even his suitcases behind.
Meanwhile Marge had finally gotten back on the highway and was barrelling on toward the Twin Cities as fast as her car would go. She knew that the train had already left Shakopee and her only hope was to get to the terminal in St. Paul before Blaze’s train left for Chicago. She opened the window, sure she was going to vomit. She could not get the vision of the mangled Gabe out of her mind. Her dress was splattered with mud; one stocking torn. Her hands were encrusted with dried mud, and her fingernails black with swamp muck. But she was heedless of her appearance. She had to stop Blaze or she feared she would never see him again.
Every traffic light through St. Paul seemed to take an eternity to turn green. But finally, the station. She rushed frantically inside, ignoring the strange looks cast her way, shouting his name, checking at ticket counters, running to the boarding areas. Too late. She sat down and began to cry uncontrollably. The tears would not stop, even when she got back into her car and headed for home. Her world had collapsed. She might as well be as dead as poor Gabe.
Passing the Western Range on her way home, she decided to stop and have a beer or two. Or three. Fen would probably be singing by now and she could tell him the terrible news about Gabe. She rarely participated in beer parties at college because she was always intent on getting home on weekends to help with the farm work. But that was all in some other world now. Maybe she would get drunk. See what that was like.
She took a table in a dark corner. She was such a mess that she wanted no one to see her. After a beer she would clean up a little in the ladies’ room, she told herself. She noticed a woman staring raptly at Fen who sat on a tall stool, strumming his guitar and singing, ever so sadly. No doubt that was Mermaid. Next to her sat Melonhead, Danny and Banana, whom Marge had gotten to know at the university. They must have stopped on their way back from classes to the seminary. Next to them sat Jesse, dressed ludicrously like the fake-cowboy waiters. How had he gotten there? Next to him was an empty chair and a half glass of beer, as if someone had abruptly left the table to go to the bathroom.
“This one is for Gabe,” Fen said, and then launched into “Streets of Laredo.” So, Marge understood, they already knew. “Beat the drums slowly and play the pipes lowly, play the death march as they carry me along.” Marge downed a glass of Royal Bohemian without stopping. “Sixteen gamblers come carry my coffin, sixteen young maidens come sing me a song.” She downed a second glass, bowed her head and started crying again.
“Tears are always on the verge of falling, aren’t they?” she heard a familiar voice say. Her head jerked up and her eyes popped open. She was staring directly at a silver-buckled belt holding up a pair of black jeans, cut western style. Her eyes rose slowly to a pink shirt with white stitching and above that the handsomest face in al
l the world was smiling through tears at her.
“Blaze!” She screamed the name so loud that Fen stopped playing. All eyes turned toward her. Marge barely had time to jump out of her chair before Blaze wrapped his arms around her.
Fen started playing “Yellow Rose of Texas,” which he knew was one of Blaze’s favorites. But Blaze did not hear. Marge was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably as he hugged her, trying to calm and comfort her even as he himself wept. Even when Nash Patroux shouted “Beer on the house!” they continued to sway in each other’s arms. What finally brought them back to earth was Jesse, who had surveyed the crowd and satisfied himself that there were no Pinkertons present. “Hee hee hee,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear at the now quiet bar. “I sure fooled that Jack. He think I Frank James.”
“Sit down, Marge,” Blaze said gently. “Jesse told me what happened. Told me you had come after me.”
As if the clash of terrible tragedy and ecstatic happiness in the Western Range could possibly become more poignant, into the restaurant stumbled a man wearing a black suit with the letters OSJ stitched in blue on the lapel. His hair was uncharacteristicly disheveled and his face a ghostly white, appearing almost deathly in contrast with the black suit. He looked as if he had just seen the devil himself, an observation with which he would readily have agreed.
The Very Reverend Lukey, far from looking very reverend, had been walking around in the darkness for an hour, not quite able to make up his mind about what to do or even to gather his thoughts for any concerted action. He had walked all the way back up the hill at Murphy’s Landing but found nothing. Was the train robber real? Was Plato right? Did real existance occur in the mind, and everthing the eyes saw only a reflection of the reality in the mind? Or was he going crazy because he really was gay and was trying to deny his true self? He did not know the answers to any of these questions. He did not think that he could go back to the seminary. He could not at the moment understand why he had been attracted to that life in the first place. Those few moments on that devil train had suspended his ability to think. He had developed a strange form of amnesia. He could remember the what of everything, but not the why of anything. He had been walking aimlessly down the highway when he spotted the lighted sign at the Western Range. He had never been in the restaurant, but he remembered that Fen sang there. Fen, whom he had always considered sexually depraved, was the very one he now realized might be able to help him separate fact from fancy.