by Andrew Lane
‘Or there’s a buffalo on the line,’ Sherlock responded. His mind started sorting through possibilities. Arriving at a station gave them a whole series of options, from just getting a bite to eat, through sending a telegraph message to Amyus Crowe, and all the way to making an attempt to rescue Matty. If they could get him off the train somehow then they could either wait in the town until Amyus Crowe got to them or they could just get a train back again – assuming they ran more than one a day, or one a week. It occurred to him that he had no idea of the frequency of the timetables in this country.
‘We need to get out on the platform,’ he said. ‘If we get a chance, we need to separate Matty from those men.’
The train slowed down even more. They were passing a huge field of tall plants with bulbous tops. The only fence Sherlock could see stretched from the train line to the horizon. The sound of the train’s steam whistle suddenly cut through the air: a mournful hoot like the call of some mythical creature. A smattering of barns and houses passed by, then more houses, and then a whole town materialized as the train gradually heaved itself to a halt alongside a boardwalk that was barely raised above the ground.
‘Let’s get off,’ Sherlock said as the voice of the distant ticket collector bellowed: ‘This is Perseverance, New Jersey. Ten-minute stop, ladies and gentlemen; ten-minute stop. This is Perseverance.’
Sherlock pulled Virginia out of her seat and towards the door. Someone outside opened it, and the two of them jumped to the boardwalk.
‘You get food,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the money. I’ll check that they haven’t got off here.’
The boardwalk was crowded with people in dusty clothes made of denim, cord or some kind of patterned cotton that looked a bit like a summer tartan. Sherlock pushed his way through them and moved into the shade of a wall. Some people were leaving the train for good, some were just leaving for a few moments and some were getting on. The ticket collector was striding along making sure that everyone knew where they were going.
Ives – the burly man with the close-cropped blond hair – exited the train with Matty. Berle, the doctor, was probably looking after the half-mad John Wilkes Booth. Matty was looking pale, but Ives seemed to be treating him reasonably well. He wasn’t pushing him around or hitting him, at least, but his hand was resting on Matty’s shoulder. He pushed the boy towards a row of small wooden buildings, little bigger than a garden shed, that sat off to one side of the track. Toilets, Sherlock assumed. Probably just holes in the ground, shielded for privacy.
Ives pushed Matty into one of the outhouses and closed the door. He stood there for a moment, then walked away, grimacing and holding his hand across his face. The smell was obviously driving him away.
Sherlock ran around to the back of the outhouses and counted along to the one he thought Matty had gone into. The wood at the back was almost rotted away at the bottom. Ives had been right. The smell was nauseating.
‘Matty!’ he hissed through the cracks in the wood.
‘Sherlock!’ Matty’s voice shouted. ‘I saw you and Virginia on the train!’
‘Did they see us?’
‘No. They would have said.’
‘Right.’ Sherlock tested the wood at the base of the outhouse. ‘Help me make a hole.’
Together, with Sherlock pulling and Matty pushing, they snapped enough bits of wood off to make a hole big enough for Matty to scramble through. Sherlock grabbed his hand and pulled. Within moments the two boys were standing together.
‘Are you all right?’ Sherlock asked breathlessly.
‘Better now’ Matty frowned. ‘I was scared on the ship, but they treated me pretty well, and they fed me. And I knew you’d come for me.’
‘Let’s get out of here.’
Together they snuck along the back of the outhouses. Sherlock peered around the side. Ives was still standing off to one side, waiting.
‘Where’s Virginia?’ Matt asked.
‘She’s getting food.’
‘What about Mr Crowe?’
‘He’s back in New York,’ Sherlock admitted.
‘How did that happen?’
Sherlock shook his head. ‘A whole set of circumstances, all coming together at the same time. It wasn’t part of the plan.’
Ives wandered away, holding his nose. While his back was turned, Sherlock grabbed hold of Matty’s arm. ‘Come on!’
Together, the two of them ran across the open ground to the simple clapboard building that housed the ticket office and waiting room. Sherlock led Matty around the side, out of sight of Ives if he turned around. Virginia was there waiting for them. She handed Sherlock two twists of paper with something hot inside, then grabbed Matty and gave him a huge hug.
‘I’m so glad to see you again!’ she said.
Matty squeezed her back. ‘Me too,’ he said, heartfelt.
Sherlock peered around the edge of the building. The crowd was thinning out now – people who were getting on the train there had already boarded, and people who were getting off there had already dispersed. Only a few passengers who had got off to stretch their legs and grab some food were left. The guard was standing beside the train, looking up and down its length and checking his pocket watch. Up at the front, by the engine, the driver was refilling the water from a tank by the side of the track, raised up on stilts.
‘All we have to do,’ Sherlock said, ‘is wait here until the train goes, then we get the next train back to New York.’
‘It’s not going to be as easy as that,’ Virginia warned.
‘Why not?’
She pointed back towards the outhouses. ‘Look!’
Berle and Ives were standing together. Ives was obviously explaining something, and Berles was looking furious.
‘They’ve realized Matty has gone,’ Sherlock said. ‘They’ll start searching.’
He was right. Berle and Ives split up, heading off in different directions. Berle went back down the length of the train, looking underneath to see if anyone was standing on the other side, while Ives stalked towards them. No, in fact he was stalking towards the station. He went inside, checking the waiting room
‘Quick!’ Sherlock said. ‘This way!’
He led the other two back towards the train.
‘We can’t get back on there!’ Virginia protested.
‘We have to,’ he said. ‘Ives and Berle will check all around the station and the outhouses. If we can get on the train and then off the other side we can make a run for it, then come back when the train has gone.
He scrambled up the steps leading on to the train. Virginia and Matty followed. He could sense their reluctance.
Sherlock quickly moved across to the other side of the carriage and tried the handle of the door.
It was locked.
He twisted harder. No result.
Virginia was at the other door. ‘They’re coming back!’ she called.
Sherlock glanced down the carriage. ‘We can get to the next door,’ he said urgently. ‘Come on.’
Fortunately they had boarded a different carriage from the one they had left. As they pushed through the central aisle, past people who were standing up, checking their luggage or just wandering up and down, they didn’t see any of the men they were trying to avoid.
At the far end, Sherlock checked the door leading off the train and away from the station. This one was unlocked, but as the door swung open and he prepared to jump off, he caught sight of the burly, blond Ives standing on that side of the train. He was looking away from Sherlock, out into the countryside. Sherlock pulled the door closed quickly.
Virginia was checking the station side. ‘The bald man is still there,’ she called. ‘He’s checking both sides of the train.’
Outside, the guard blew his whistle. ‘All aboard!’ he called.
Sherlock’s brain was whirling. There was no way off.
‘We’ll just have to try again at the next station,’ he said decisively. ‘At least we’ve got Matty off them.’
The guard’s whistle blew again, and seconds later the train jerked and began to move, slowly at first but accelerating gradually. Virginia glanced out of the window. ‘The bald man has got back on,’ she said.
Sherlock checked out of his side. ‘So has Ives.’
‘So everyone’s back on,’ Matty pointed out. ‘Great. And I didn’t even get a chance to go to the toilet like I needed to.’
At least we’ve got food,’ Virginia pointed out.
‘Let’s find some seats,’ Sherlock said. ‘Preferably as far away as possible from those men. The other end of the train, if we can.’ He turned to head away, towards the rear of the train, but something in the silence behind him made him turn back.
Berle and another man whom Sherlock didn’t recognize were standing behind Virginia and Matty holding knives to their throats. They must have come along from the other carriage, from the direction of the front of the train, without them noticing.
Sherlock glanced back over his shoulder.
Ives was striding down the aisle of the carriage Sherlock had been planning to head into. He wasn’t looking happy.
‘Don’t be a fool, kid,’ Berle said. ‘Ives is angry enough already. Don’t make him worse. He kinda gets . . . out of control sometimes. Bad things happen then.’
Sherlock glanced back and forth between Ives and Berle. Between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
His heart felt leaden in his chest. No way out. Two choices, each of which led to captivity.
No, he told himself. What would Mycroft say? What would Amyus Crowe say? ‘When you’ve only got two choices, and you don’t like either of them, make a third choice.’
He opened the door of the carriage and stepped out into the open air.
The green, lush landscape of the New York countryside flashed past in a blur. He heard Virginia gasp behind him, and Ives curse. He kept his left hand gripping the doorframe and his left foot wedged against the point where the frame met the floor, and as the wind whistled past him it pushed him backwards, and he swung out and around, into the area between the carriages. He’d spotted a ladder there earlier, leading up to the roof of the carriage, and he grasped for it with his right hand. His fingers closed on a rung, and he stretched with his right leg, trying to get purchase on the ladder. After what seemed like minutes but was probably only a second or two, his foot hit a rung. Releasing his grip on the doorframe, he pulled himself up the ladder.
A hand closed on his left foot before he could pull it up. He kicked downward, feeling his heel hit someone’s face. The grip released abruptly, leaving an ache behind where the fingers had clamped down hard.
Within a moment he was on top of the train.
He had to crouch, and keep one hand gripping the guide rail that ran along the roof from front to back.
Ahead of him he saw the train curving away. Smoke from the funnel was streaming backwards. It made his eyes water, and made it hard to breathe.
He hesitated for a moment. Rather than be captured he had taken the only other option – escape – but his escape was limited. He was still on the train – literally on the train – and he didn’t have a plan. No matter where he went, Ives and the other men would find him. Find him and probably kill him. And he couldn’t just escape, just jump off the train into a convenient river or something. He had to rescue Virginia and Matty.
He felt despair looming over him like a black wave but he pushed it backwards with a massive effort of will. Time for that later. Now he had to think.
If he could scramble along the roofs of the carriages to the front of the train then maybe he could alert the driver. Maybe he could find a way to get a message to the authorities, or get the points switched around to take them back to New York, or something. Anything!
Still crouching, he scrambled along the roof of the carriage. The wind was against him, pushing him back like a giant hand in the centre of his chest, but he pushed back. He had to. His eyes were streaming with tears where the steam was stinging them, and his breath was catching in his chest, but he couldn’t stop. Matty and Virginia depended on him.
The train shuddered over some rails, and Sherlock nearly lost his grip. He swayed back and forth for a moment or two, trying to get as low as he could, before he thought he was safe.
Well, safer, he thought, glancing around at the landscape that flashed past in green and brown blurs.
A river was coming up. He could see it ahead of the train, which was curving around towards a bridge that looked like it was made out of matchsticks. He felt his heart pounding.
And then it threatened to explode completely as Ives’s head and shoulders appeared at the junction between the carriage Sherlock was climbing along and the one ahead of it. The man must have doubled back along the carriage and climbed up the next ladder.
He pulled himself up to the roof and stood upright. The steam from the engine, pushed backwards by the wind, billowed around him like a white cloak.
‘You’re not thinking straight, kid,’ he yelled. ‘Where are you goin’? You’re safer down there with the others.’
Sherlock shook his head. You only need one of us to threaten Amyus Crowe with,’ he yelled. And I don’t think you want to be saddled with three hostages.’
‘Amyus Crowe,’ Ives said. ‘Is that the big guy the one in the white suit? Never knew his name till now, but he’s persistent. An’ so are you.’
‘You have no idea,’ Sherlock yelled, but he was scared. He glanced over his shoulder. No sign of Berle or the other man, but the chances of him being able to get away in that direction were slim. They were probably waiting for him at the next couple of carriage junctions, one of them holding Virginia, the other holding Matty.
When he turned back, Ives was holding a gun.
‘You’ve got moxie, I’ll give you that,’ Ives said, raising the gun to take aim.
Part of Sherlock was wondering what ‘moxie’ was, while another part was noticing that the train was just shifting from land on to the bridge that he’d seen just a few moments before. The ground below suddenly plunged away into a chasm of rock with a glittering blue ribbon at the bottom. And a third part of his brain was trying to tell him something.
Ives fired. Sherlock flinched, but the wind and the vibration had knocked Ives’s aim off, as he knew that they would, and the bullet passed harmlessly off to one side.
Ives moved closer, trying to maintain his balance, and Sherlock tried to latch on to the thought that hovered just out of reach. Something he’d done recently. Something he’d bought.
The sling! Desperately he scrabbled through his pockets looking for the leather pouch with the two bits of leather thong attached that he’d bought at the ‘notions’ store. Right-hand trouser pocket – no. Left-hand trouser pocket – no. Ives was getting ready to fire again. Left-hand inside jacket pocket – no, but his fingers brushed against the collection of cold ball bearings he’d also bought. Ives was pointing his gun again, bracing it with his other hand. Left-hand outside jacket pocket – yes! Sherlock pulled out the sling and quickly slipped his right hand through the loop, then closed the other loop in his palm, leaving the leather pouch to hang loose.
Ives fired. The bullet whistled past Sherlock’s ear.
He delved into his pocket with his left hand, pulling out a ball bearing, and quickly slipped it into the pouch. Before Ives could react, he whirled the weighted sling around his head twice, then released the thong he was holding. The ball bearing flew towards Ives, making a gleaming line in the sky. It caught his left ear, tearing a chunk of flesh away. Ives cried out in surprise and shock as blood splattered on to his shoulder. His eyes went wide with disbelief.
Sherlock grabbed the loose thong again and slipped another ball bearing into the pouch.
The train was in the middle of the bridge now, and Sherlock thought he could detect a sideways motion, as the bridge rocked under the weight.
Ives lurched forward and shuffled towards Sherlock, hands outstretched to grab him
. He appeared to have forgotten the fact that he still had a gun.
Sherlock whipped the sling around his head again, twice, and let go of the loose thong. The ball bearing shot across the narrowing gap between them, hitting Ives in the centre of his forehead and staying there, in the dent it had created. Ives fell backwards, eyes so wide that Sherlock could see white all around his pupils. His back hit the train roof and he rolled sideways, then vanished over the edge. Sherlock heard a despairing cry as he fell, and then there was nothing but the whistling of the wind and the mournful call of the train’s whistle.
Sherlock fell to his knees, still gripping the guard rail. He let his breathing settle and his heart calm down before he stood again and moved backwards to the junction where he had climbed up.
One down; several more to go; but he had a weapon now.
The track clattered beneath the train’s wheels as it reached the other side of the ravine. The whistle sounded again. Sherlock glanced forward, towards the engine, and saw that the line ahead split into two. One led onward, straight, while the other curved away, along the edge of the ravine.
And the train was taking the curving branch, slowing down as it passed through a gap in a fence and headed towards a station that Sherlock could see up ahead.
Not a station, he realized.
A house. A large, white house. And beyond it, what looked like a series of fenced enclosures, walled areas and cages, like a private zoological exhibition.
He scrambled down the ladder as fast as he could and swung himself back into the carriage. The guard was moving down the central aisle, pushing past the uneasy passengers, calling, ‘Unscheduled stop. Please do not alight. This is an unscheduled stop.’
The train drew to a halt in a long chuff of escaping steam. It stopped alongside a long veranda that was attached to the back of the house.
A group of eight or nine men were standing on the veranda.
Any hope in Sherlock’s mind that they were police, or army, vanished when Berle and the other man stepped off the train, holding Virginia and Matty firmly by the arm, and joined them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN