Tracks

by K. M. Tolan

  Vincent excused himself and joined her, his voice dropping beneath the car’s rumbling. “You’re not walking away. I know you better.”

  She leaned against him, her voice covered by the car’s click and rattle along the tracks. “We’ll arrange our own meeting with Cannoli.”

  Better the devil I know. “Then stay close.”

  She didn’t. Samantha bolted from the boxcar the moment they slowed along a darkened sidetrack late that evening, erupting from a feigned sleep in an explosion of claws and black fury. Caught unawares, the knights were unable to stop the onrushing horror of her yegg self. There were shouts both inside the car and in the night beyond, punctuated by what sounded like gunfire.

  “Don’t shoot!” Vincent screamed, reeling from Samantha’s transformation. He leapt from the car, knocking down rifles and pistols in the hands of men outside. Burly arms threw him to the ground, the weapons now aimed inside the boxcar.

  “Didn’t even get close,” someone grumbled, punctuating his disappointment with a toe shoved into Vincent’s ribs.

  Vincent ignored the kick, his reassurance as to her safety salted with deep disappointment. So, I didn’t drag the yegg out of her after all. His eyes clouded with the pain of realizing she’d been right all along. The thing was still inside her and she’d called it. Willingly. What’s it going to take, Sammy? He knew the answer and the hard choice ahead of him. Samantha’s salvation or his own when he brought his sister home.

  Meanwhile, Willy and the knights were a portrait of raised hands and confused looks. A portly hobo in a gray pinstripe suit and thin black tie pushed through the armed hobos, railroad lamps reflecting off pearl buttons and a balding head. He spoke with a watered-down Italian accent, his squinting eyes aimed at King Willy. “What in the hell was that?”

  Willy winced. “Hi, Joe. Sorry, but my niece was with us. Seems she wanted to leave.”

  “She damn near got you boys ventilated,” he retorted. “Probably wants to join up with the winning side. Now I got a rider here saying you boys are gonna lend me some help, right?” He glanced over his shoulder, the consternation on his face rippling through those around him as others rushed up to the boxcar.

  “Might want to put those pieces away,” Willy advised. “Rest of my boys might not understand. Best to let Brass up while you’re at it. He just didn’t want to see her hurt.”

  Cannoli cocked his head. “Put ’em down, gents. That was just Samantha stretching her legs.”

  “Noth’n personal,” one of Cannoli’s men mentioned, hauling Vincent to his feet. By now Cannoli’s reception committee were themselves surrounded by a ring of lamps and staves.

  Willy motioned Vincent forward. “King Cannoli, this here’s our newest gandy dancer who laid the tracks here.”

  “Name’s Brass,” Vincent said, shaking Cannoli’s hand.

  “So you’re Cracker Jack’s kid, eh?”

  Vincent didn’t appreciate the hint of accusation in Cannoli’s voice. “Yeah,” was all he could manage and still keep polite.

  “I’m told your old man tried to make good in the end. Tough break.”

  The hollow condolence added an abrasive quality to Vincent’s voice. “Was there a problem with my father?”

  King Cannoli shrugged. “He was an Erie man. Opened the line to Detroit, let the Taylorists in, and ran off with most of Hobohemia chasing after him. Your pappy every tell you that?”

  “The baron mentioned something along those lines before I pushed my fist into his face,” Vincent returned with chilled humor. “It tended to dampen our relationship.”

  Cannoli grinned. “Kid’s got moxie. I like that. So you’re gonna fix things up, right?”

  “Something along those lines,” Vincent agreed, hoping the edge in his voice dissuaded any further disparaging remarks about his father.

  “The two of us need to get into Erie,” Willy interjected.

  Cannoli released a derisive snort, and pointed up the tracks to an orange glow on the horizon. “Yeah, well first things, first. Your brother’s burning down the Run. They’ll be coming here to Big Creek looking to finish the job if we don’t push ’em back. The baron didn’t just send in yegg. The bastard brought his bulls along with rifles. It’s the Great Strike all over again. So much for understandings.”

  “Unspoken understandings,” Willy clarified, regarding the weapons brandished by Cannoli’s followers with a jaundiced eye. “Nobody wants to go back to the kind of bloodshed they saw in seventy-seven, but the baronies won’t tolerate an armed uprising either. We need to end this fast before people start hearing about hobos with guns. You don’t want Cleveland’s police involved.”

  Cannoli’s face hardened. “You didn’t seem to mind involving the cops when you sic’d ’em on me for running rum.”

  “Well times have changed, haven’t they?” Willy returned with a puff on his cigar. “I’ve been in your shoes long enough, Joe. You won’t get trouble from me, which is more than I’ll promise from my brother. Let’s put those fires out in the Run, and then talk about this back door into Erie you claim to know about.” He turned toward Vincent. “You stay here with the train. Bullets don’t care how rare gandy dancers are.”

  Vincent leaned on his staff and painted on his best smile. “Will do, Your Honor.”

  Happy to let someone else do the fighting for once, Vincent started prowling the tracks around the train, watching boxcars become makeshift hospital wards for wounded hobos. A crackle of small arms fire punctuated the night. Apparently, there had been a pact of sorts between the hobos and baronies regarding firearms, explaining the knights’ reliance on blades disguised as staves. Indeed, most of the injured he saw were shot. So much for gentlemen’s agreements. Biding his time, he kept his eyes on the shadows beyond the rails—especially if they looked like they were moving. She wouldn’t be gone for long. Not without him.

  It was well past midnight when a sibilant whisper drew him off the roadbed. Vincent found Samantha crouched down in an ivy-laced embankment. To his relief, she was back in human form.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” he whispered, squatting beside her, lest a patrolling hobo spy them both.

  She surprised him with a hug. “Just follow. We’re heading up to Jackass Hill. King Cannoli’s waiting for us.”

  “Jackass Hill?” he repeated once they were a distance from the train.

  “Old hunting grounds. King Willy’s pushed my father’s police out of what’s left of the Run. The yegg are bunched up on the main line leading east to the Erie yards. That means we’ll have fewer problems sneaking in to the house to get the Erie ring.”

  “The what?”

  She paused next to a row of shabby brick buildings alongside the roadbed. “You can only lay track with a baron’s permission, remember? That means having both the bloodline and the family’s signet ring. There’s a safe. Willy, my father, and me are the only ones who know the combination. The ring’s inside.”

  “Your father’s not wearing it?”

  “Wearing a solid yellow sapphire around a bunch of yegg? You think he’s that stupid?”

  “I’ve seen worse today. Your stunt when we came in to the siding, for instance. Thought you hated being that thing. Was hoping you were finally rid of it.”

  She turned and continued walking.

  Dragging his misgivings behind him, Vincent kept his mouth from getting them into another argument he’d regret. He followed her into a deep gulch formed by high embankments, the night’s shadows shifting like orange phantoms in the light of fires rising along a nearby river. A rusting bridge spanned a few strands of track, thick vines and undergrowth crawling up moldering retaining walls. The smell of smoke and stagnant water painted an uneasy canvas for a clandestine meeting. Figures huddled beneath the bridge, lit by a solitary gas lantern. He recognized Cannoli’s portly silhouette among the hobos.

  Cannoli motioned them over after a pistol-toting knight recognized them and lowered his weapon. “Allow the lady and her
escort into our presence, Tony.”

  “I take it you two already have a history,” Vincent said, catching the intent looks passed between the hobo king and Samantha.

  “Life didn’t start when I met you,” Samantha retorted.

  Cannoli stabbed out a finger. “She’s next in line, kid. Seeing Willy take over again is a problem for me. I’m for a change in management, but only if it’s someone who knows how to play ball. Someone who owes us favors. Got that?”

  Vincent turned a sarcastic grin on his traveling partner. She’d denied nothing back at Red Sticks when he accused of planning to usurp her father. His guess was dead-on. “And here I thought you only wanted to kill me, not take over the family business.”

  “Very funny,” she replied with a snort. “My uncle had his chance to clean things up and he ran. I’m not going back to life as usual. I’m going back as baroness.”

  With Cannoli pulling the strings, no doubt. “Is there anyone you haven’t planned on double-dealing?”

  “Hey, love birds,” the king cut in. “I don’t care about what’s between you two, understand? The deal’s simple. I tell you how to get into the Erie rail yards, and the little miss here lives up to her end of the bargain. Daddy and Uncle both get flushed back to Detroit.” He poked at Vincent. “And you, hotshot, break those rails and make sure those bastards don’t come back. That’ll clean the slate insofar as your father’s concerned.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your slate,” Vincent threw back. He had enough reasons of his own to make sure Samantha’s father wouldn’t be coming back. Ever.

  “Might ask your girlfriend here who your old man was running from, kid. The baron’s boys only caught up with him first. So either you play nice, or I write some more checks. You know what I’m saying, here?”

  Samantha squeezed Vincent’s arm, her voice low and glacial. “And I’ll personally chew off the arm holding that pen. Got that? He’ll do his job, and so will I.”

  Cannoli laughed. “Sounds like we have ourselves a proper business relationship, then.”

  Fifteen

  Vincent flipped aside his duster and reached into a jeans pocket to pull out the nubbin of white chalk King Cannoli handed him back under the bridge. He kicked at the sign pole sticking up from a rusty overgrown switch.

  Samantha hopped off the handcart they requisitioned earlier from a siding adjacent to the burned-out Run. “Kind of funny, a gandy dancer using hobo runes. You can’t call up a track?”

  “You can’t call up track?” he mimicked with annoyance. “Try tearing your soul out sometime and see how much fun it is. I’ll do it when I have to, and right now, I don’t have to. Cannoli said to find a switch with a splash of yellow paint on it, and this one fills the bill.” He glanced up and down the yard, rusting rails hosting a few derelict hopper cars amid a scattering of gravel piles. No bulls or yegg in sight, nor any of King Willy’s men. So far, so good. The sun was out, the smell of powdered rock and weeds mixing with warm ballast and old ties. The only trouble in sight was standing beside him.

  “You just won’t quit, will you?” she grumbled.

  “What? You mean the bit about you as baroness? At least your uncle—”

  “Has been lying too,” she interjected. “He played along with both me and your sister to keep you aimed at the barony. He’s not the one who got you to Red Socks. He’s not the one who’s going to risk everything so you can lay track from the barony.”

  “He’s the one who first warned me not to trust you.”

  “I was the second, and you know me better than you do Uncle William. Do you trust him?”

  Shaking his head, he leaned against the cart, resting both hands on its rough floorboard as he looked up at her. “Yes. When I lay that track, it’s going to have Erie’s next baron coming up it. You’re giving up the ring. You don’t need the bullshit that comes with it, Sammy.”

  She crouched down to bring her dark eyes even with his. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then no tracks.”

  “You’d do that? Put everything on the line including your sister, in order to keep me from taking what’s mine? As baroness, I can release Freedom, Timepiece, and finally, myself. Damn it, Vincent, my father plans to turn me into another one of him. Nobody wants that, least of all me.”

  “What do you guess Cannoli has in mind? You’ll owe him, and that guy will make sure you keep on owing him until you’re right back in the same box you’re trying to get out of.”

  “Actually, he plans on marrying me,” she added with a defeated look. “That was what he meant by my end of the bargain.”

  “He what?”

  “In exchange for the support of his knights, and free movement of Erie Railroad’s commerce through the Cleveland yards once I stopped trade with Detroit.” Shoulders slumped, she sat on the edge of the cart. “You know why I got along so well with your sister? She was free. Really free, and I loved and hated her for that. Just poof and go anywhere she wants. That’s what made her tossing away the rock even more galling. Of course, it meant nothing to her. Why should it? She’d never go back and I hardly blame her. At least for that.”

  “Look, I’m trying to do you a favor. Being baroness isn’t about having her kind of freedom, Sammy.”

  Her voice wandered off. “I know.”

  “Then trust me. I’ll get you that damn rock, break the rails back to Detroit, and lay track anywhere you damn well please. Just don’t step from one cage into another. You don’t deserve that.”

  “Why?”

  He quickly rushed something into the heavy silence. “Because I saw the real you that night we went into that cave. Clawing your way out of what you believe you are. Freedom isn’t the only one I’m going to set free, Sammy. I told you I love you. I haven’t said that to anyone before, probably for the same reason you keep throwing it back at me.”

  She scrambled away from him, her reedy body shaking. Her laugh cracked under the weight of lips twisted by incredulity. “Do you realize how insanely stupid you are?”

  “Because nobody in their right mind would care about you?” he shot back, his vehemence surprising him. “I’m sick of hearing that crap from you. So stuff the self-pity up your ass and start thinking how we’re going to find my sister and Timepiece.”

  She got up and grabbed one of the cart’s handles. “How about next time I claw my initials in your guts and see if you get the message?”

  He pointed the chalk at her. “You’ve had plenty of chances for a next time. Look at yourself now. That thing inside you didn’t come out on its own. You had to call it, this time.”

  “And it came.”

  The cold truth frosting her reply made Vincent regret his barb. Could she really change? Be the person he knew struggled inside her. Or was he blinded by his feelings for her? A vagabond could afford to love him. Not a baroness. “We ain’t got time for this.”

  He walked up to the battered old signal sign as Cannoli instructed and etched a circle and arrow into the flaking paint. He finished just as the chalk turned to grit in his hands. The old switch groaned reluctantly as the rails scraped over to align with the sidetrack.

  Samantha whooshed out a breath, her tone deflating. “Even if we follow this spur Cannoli gave us, it can’t go very far. Father dismantled the factory north of the Winton Motor yards when word got out he was trying to make diesels. Locomotives stopped coming up the line and the unions started getting ugly. That’s why he went to Lima and sided with the Hamiltons.”

  Relieved to hear her more reasonable voice, he joined her on the cart and started pumping. “Anything that gets us closer to the barony undetected works for me. Now let’s get moving.”

  Once they were clear of the turnoff, he jumped from the cart and kicked the switch closed again. Vincent went back to helping with the pump, wishing for Teapot back at Lima. He and Samantha would probably be sporting blisters before this journey finished.

  They quickly lost sight of the main tracks, thanks to an inter
vening wall of brush and trees, his hopes sagging like the lines between bent telephone poles. It wasn’t too late to turn back and find another way into the Barony. He found himself repeating the thought more frequently as the sun climbed into a muggy sky. One thing was certain. This wasn’t a sidetrack. The rails swung south and curved north again, passing beneath a heavy set of short railroad bridges he suspected were the main line they’d been heading down toward the old Winton yards. Hell, he could’ve simply kept going straight and caught the other tracks here instead of taking a tour through half of Ohio in the process. Yeah. King Cannoli had really done them a favor.

  More troubling was the propensity of wild flowers and clumped grass for sneaking their way between the sun-weathered ties. The rails themselves had long ago lost the sheen of use, their surfaces as brown and scabbed as the steel along the sides. The last straw was a small poplar thrusting up from the roadbed; its bright green leaves enjoyed the sunlight denied its struggling kin in the dense woods encroaching on either side of the roadbed. Swearing, he applied the brakes.

  Samantha stepped off the cart and kicked at a half-rotted crossbar. “So much for Cannoli’s secret route. We either turn back or walk.”

  “Walk,” Vincent growled. He eyed her. “Ideas?”

  “Keep following the line?” she ventured. “Your job was getting me back home, remember?”

  He reached around for their bindles lying on the floorboards, trying to stay optimistic. “Any idea where your father would keep Timepiece, once we get there?”

  “Depends. If he wants to be civil, Timepiece could be anywhere. We’ve dozens of guest rooms. Otherwise, it’s the basement. Have you come up with a reason my father would still be keeping him? The baron has the two things you want most. He’ll expect you to show up sooner or later. He’s got ears inside of Kingsbury Row. He might not know what we’re planning, but you can bet he knows we’re on the way.”

  He tossed a stick with its tied bag of supplies to her, and grabbed his own hobo’s bindle. “Still haven’t got that promise from you to turn the ring over to Willy.”