“Where’s the dispatch office?”
“They set up a temporary one on this side. In that yellow caboose.”
Bell jumped down from the locomotive and ran to the caboose, Dashwood right behind him. The dispatcher was reading a week-old newspaper. The telegrapher was dozing at his silent key.
“Where is Senator Kincaid?”
“Most every one’s down at the town,” said the dispatcher.
The telegrapher opened his eyes. “Last I saw, he was heading for the Old Man’s special. But I wouldn’t go there, if I was you. Hennessy’s hoppin’ mad. Somebody sent him four trains of coal instead of the traprock they need to riprap the piers.”
“Round up a doctor and a wreck train. There’re men hurt at a landslide fifteen miles down the line. Come on, Dash!”
They ran across the bridge, past the parked coal train. Bell saw ripples in the rain puddles. The weakened structure was trembling despite the weight of the coal train. A glance over the side showed that the Cascade River had risen many feet in the nine days since he left for New York. He could see hundreds of workmen ganged on the banks, guiding barges with long ropes, dumping rock in the water, trying to divert the flood, while hundreds more swarmed over new coffer dams and caissons being sunk around the piers.
“Have you participated in many arrests?” Bell asked Dashwood as they neared the special on its raised siding. Train and yard crews were changing shifts. A row of white yardmen’s lanterns and signal flags were lined up beside Hennessy’s locomotive, the lanterns glowing in the murky light.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Bronson let me come along when they captured ‘Samson’ Scudder.”
Bell hid a smile. The ironically named Samson Scudder, a prolific second-story man who weighed ninety pounds dripping wet, was known as the sweetest-natured crook in San Francisco.
“This one’s poison,” he warned soberly. “Stick close and do exactly what I say.”
“Should I draw my firearm?”
“Not on the train. There’ll be people around. Stand by with your handcuffs.”
Bell strode alongside Hennessy’s special and up the steps to Nancy No. 1. The detective he had assigned to guard the car since Philip Dow’s attack was covering the vestibule with a sawed-off.
“Senator Kincaid aboard?”
Osgood Hennessy stuck his head out the door. “You just missed him, Bell. What’s going on?”
“Which way did he go?”
“I don’t know. But he parked that Thomas Flyer up the line.”
“He’s the Wrecker.”
“The devil, you say.”
Bell turned to the Van Dorn detective. “If he comes back, arrest him. If he gives you any trouble, shoot first or he’ll kill you.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Send word to Archie Abbott. Railway cops to guard the bridge and the town in case Kincaid doubles back. Van Dorns, follow me. Dash! Grab a flag and a couple of lanterns.”
Dashwood picked up a signal flag, which was rolled tightly around its wooden staff, and two yardman’s lanterns and ran after Bell.
“Give me one!” Bell said, explaining, “If we look like we’re railroad men, it will buy us a few seconds to get closer.”
From the vantage of the raised siding, Bell scanned the ranks of still trains and the narrow walkways between the sidings. He had less than six hours of daylight to catch up with Kincaid. He looked toward the bridge. Then he looked toward the end of the line where new construction had ceased when they learned the bridge had been sabotaged. The road was brushed out, cleared of trees and shrubs, well past the point it crossed the mud road to East Oregon Lumber.
He could not see Kincaid’s Thomas Flyer from where he stood. Had Kincaid already reached his car and driven away? Then, on the edge of the deserted yards, he saw a man emerge from between two strings of empty freight cars. He was walking briskly toward a pair of locomotives that were parked side by side where the tracks ended.
“There he is!”
52
THE WRECKER WAS HURRYING TOWARD THE LOCOMOTIVES TO signal Philip Dow to blow the dam when he heard their boots pounding behind him.
He looked back. Two brakemen were running fast, signaling with white train-yard lanterns. A skinny youth and a tall, rangy man, wide of shoulder and narrow in the waist. But where was the locomotive they were guiding with their lights? The pair he was hurrying toward were sidetracked, with only enough steam up to keep them warm.
The tall one wore a broad-brimmed hat instead of a railroader’s cap. Isaac Bell Running after him was a boy who looked like he should still be in high school.
Kincaid had to make a instant decision. Why was Bell prowling the yards pretending to be a brakeman? Assume the best, that Bell still had not tumbled to his identity? Or walk toward them, wave hello, and pull his derringer and shoot them both and hope no one saw? The second he reached for his gun, he knew he had made a mistake wasting time to think about it.
Bell’s hand flickered in a blur of motion, and Charles Kincaid found himself staring down the barrel of a Browning pistol held in a rock-steady grip.
“Don’t point that pistol at me, Bell. What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“Charles Kincaid,” Bell answered in a clear, steady voice, “you are wanted by the law for murder and sabotage.”
“Wanted by the law? Are you serious?”
“Remove your derringer from your left pocket and drop it on the ground.”
“We’ll see about this,” huffed Kincaid. His every mannerism bespoke the aggrieved United States senator put upon by a fool.
“Remove your derringer from your left pocket and drop it on the ground before I blow a hole in your arm.”
Kincaid shrugged, as if humoring a madman. “All right.” Moving very slowly, he reached for his derringer.
“Careful,” said Bell. “Hold the weapon between your thumb and forefinger.”
The only eyes Charles Kincaid had ever seen so cold were in a mirror.
He lifted the derringer from his pocket between his thumb and forefinger and crouched as if to place it gently on the ground. “You realize, of course, that a private detective cannot arrest a member of the United States Senate.”
“I’ll leave the formalities to a U.S. marshal … or the county coroner, if your hand moves any closer to the knife in your boot.”
“What the devil-”
“Drop your derringer!” Bell commanded. “Do not go for your knife!”
Very slowly, Kincaid opened his hand. The gun fell from his fingers.
“Turn around.”
Moving as if in a trance, Kincaid slowly turned away from the grim detective.
“Clasp your hands behind your back.”
Slowly, Kincaid placed his hands behind his back. Every sinew was poised. If Bell was going to make a mistake, he would make it now. Behind him, Kincaid heard the words he was praying to hear.
“Your handcuffs, Dash.”
He heard the steel clink. He let the first cuff snap around his wrist. Only as he felt the cold metal of the second cuff brush his skin did he whirl into motion, turning to get behind the youth and clamp his arm around his throat.
A fist smashed into the bridge of his nose. Kincaid flew backward.
Knocked on his back, stunned by the punch, he looked up. Young Dashwood was still standing to one side, watching with an excited grin on his face and a shiny revolver in his hand. But it was Isaac Bell who was looming over him, triumphantly. Bell, who had knocked him down with a single punch.
“Did you really think I would let a new man within ten feet of the murderer who killed Wish Clarke, Wally Kisley, and Mack Fulton?”
“Who?”
“Three of the finest detectives I’ve had the privilege to work with. On your feet!”
Kincaid got up slowly. “Only three? Don’t you count Archie Abbott?”
The blood drained from Bell’s face, and, in that instant of total shock, the Wrecker struck.
53
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THE WRECKER MOVED WITH INHUMAN SPEED. INSTEAD OF attacking Isaac Bell, he rushed James Dashwood. He ducked under the boy’s pistol, got behind him, and slid his arm around his throat.
“Is it all right now if I reach for my boot?” the Wrecker asked mockingly.
He had already pulled his knife.
He pressed the razor-sharp blade to Dashwood’s throat and sliced a line in the skin. Blood trickled.
“Table’s turned, Bell. Drop your gun or I’ll cut his head off.”
Isaac Bell dropped his Browning on the ground.
“You too, sonny. Drop it!”
Only when Bell said, “Do what he says, Dash,” did the revolver clatter on the wet ballast.
“Unlock this handcuff.”
“Do what he says,” said Bell. Dashwood worked the key out of his pocket and fumbled it into the cuff on the wrist that was crushing his windpipe. The cuffs clattered on the ballast. There was silence, but for the huffing of a single switch engine somewhere, until Bell asked, “Where is Archie Abbott?”
“The derringer in your hat, Bell.”
Bell removed his two-shot pistol from his hat and dropped it beside his Browning.
“Where is Archie Abbott?”
“The knife in your boot.”
“I don’t have one.”
“The Rawlins coroner reports a prizefighter died with a throwing knife in his throat,” said the Wrecker. “I presume you purchased a replacement.”
He cut Dashwood again, and a second trickle of blood merged with the first.
Bell lifted out his throwing knife and placed it on the ground.
“Where is Archie Abbott?”
“Archie Abbott? Last I saw, he was mooning over Lillian Hennessy. That’s right, Bell. I tricked you. Took advantage of your terrible penchant for caring.”
Kincaid let go of Dashwood and slammed an elbow into the boy’s jaw, knocking him senseless. He gave his knife a peculiar flick of his wrist. A rapier-thin sword blade flew at Bell’s face.
BELL DODGED THE THRUST that had killed his friends.
Kincaid lunged like lightning and thrust again. Bell dove forward, hit the crushed stone, tucked his long legs and rolled. Kincaid’s sword whipped through space he had occupied a second earlier. Bell rolled again, reaching for the double-action revolver Eddie Edwards had given James Dashwood.
As Bell extended his hand, he saw steel gleam as Kincaid got to it first. The needle-sharp tip of his telescoping sword hovered over the gun. “Try to pick it up,” he dared Bell.
Bell slid sideways, grabbed the brakeman’s signal flag that James had dropped, and rolled to his feet. Then he advanced in a fluid motion, holding the flagstaff in the en garde position.
Kincaid laughed. “You’re brought a stick to a swordfight, Mr. Bell. Always one step behind. Will you never learn?”
Bell held the tightly rolled cloth end and thrust the wooden staff.
Kincaid parried.
Bell responded with a sharp beat, striking the thin metal just below the tip of Kincaid’s weapon. The blow exposed him to a lightning thrust, an opportunity Kincaid did not waste. His sword pierced Bell’s coat and tore a burning crease along his ribs. Falling back, Bell delivered another sharp beat with the flagstaff.
Kincaid thrust. Bell avoided it and beat hard for a third time.
Kincaid lunged. Bell whirled, sweeping him past him like a toreador. And as Kincaid spun around swiftly to attack again, Bell delivered another hard beat that bent the front half of his sword.
“Compromise, Kincaid. Every engineering decision involves a compromise. Remember? What you grasp in one fist you surrender with the other? The ability to conceal your telescoping sword weakened it.”
Kincaid threw the ruined sword at Bell and drew a revolver from his coat. The barrel tipped up as he cocked it. Bell lunged, executing another sharp beat. This one rapped the tender skin stretched tightly across the back of Kincaid’s hand. Kincaid cried out in pain and dropped the gun. Instantly, he attacked, swinging his fists.
Bell raised his own fists, and said derisively, “Could it be that the deadly swordsman and brilliant engineer neglected the manly art of defense? That’s the clumsiest fisticuffs I’ve seen since Rawlins. Were you too busy plotting murder to learn how to box?”
He hit the Wrecker twice, a hard one-two that bloodied his nose and rocked him back on his heels. Holding the clear advantage, Bell moved in to finish him off and cuff his hands. His roundhouse right landed square on target. The punch would have knocked most men flat. The Wrecker shrugged it off, and Bell realized to a degree he never had before that the Wrecker was extraordinarily different, less a man and more an evil monster that had climbed fully born out of a volcano.
He regarded Bell with a look of sheer hatred. “You will never stop me.”
Switching tactics with astonishing agility, he snatched up a signal lantern, swung it high. Bell stepped nimbly aside. The Wrecker brought it low, smashing its glass against a rail. Kerosene spilled, and the lantern ignited in a ball of liquid fire, which the Wrecker hurled on the still form of James Dashwood.
54
A WAVE OF FIRE BROKE OVER DASHWOOD. FLAME SPLASHED his trousers, his coat, and his hat. Smoke spewed the stench of burning hair.
The Wrecker laughed triumphantly.
“You choose, Bell. Save the boy or try to catch me.”
He ran toward the locomotives parked at the edge of the siding.
Isaac Bell had no choice. He tore off his coat and waded into the smoke.
The fire burned most fiercely on Dashwood’s chest, but the first priority was to save his eyes. Bell wrapped his coat around the boy’s head to smother the flames, then threw his body over the fire on the boy’s chest and legs. Dashwood woke up screaming. What Bell thought were cries of pain and fear muffled by his coat turned out to be frantic apologizing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bell, I’m sorry I let him get the drop on me.”
“Can you stand up?”
Face black with soot, half his hair singed to a greasy mat, blood streaming down his throat, Dashwood jumped to his feet. “I’m O.K., sir, I’m sorry-”
“Find Archie Abbott. Tell him to round up the Van Dorns and follow me up the mountain.”
Bell scooped his knife, his derringer, and his Browning from the ballast. Kincaid’s derringer lay nearby, and he pocketed it, too.
“Kincaid owns East Oregon Lumber. If there’s a back way out, the killer knows it. Tell Archie on the jump!”
A sudden shriek of a locomotive whistle snapped Bell’s head around.
Kincaid had climbed into the cab of the nearest engine. He was holding the whistle cord and attempting to tie down the braided loop.
Bell raised his Browning, aimed carefully, and fired. The distance was great, even for such an accurate weapon. A bullet whanged off steel. The Wrecker coolly finished tying the cord and started to jump through the open door of the cab. Bell fired again through the open window, intending to pin him down until he got there. Kincaid jumped anyway and hit the ground running.
The whistle stopped abruptly. Kincaid looked back, his face a mask of dismay.
In the sudden silence, Bell realized his shot had missed Kincaid but by chance had severed the whistle cord. Kincaid started to turn back to the locomotives. Bell fired again. The whistle was important, a signal of some sort. So important that Kincaid was running back to the locomotives in the face of pistol fire. Bell triggered another shot.
Kincaid’s hat flew in the air, ripped from his head by Bell’s lead slug. He turned away and ran behind a tender. The square bulk of the coal-and-water carrier blocked Bell’s field of fire. He ran toward the tender as fast as he could. Rounding it, he saw the Wrecker, far ahead of him, jump from the end of the ballast roadbed. When Bell reached the end of the roadbed, he glimpsed the Wrecker running down the middle of the brushed-out line. He made an elusive target, weaving and jinking, flickering through the shadows of the trees that crowded the path, disappearing as the bed curved with
the slope of the mountain.
Bell jumped from the ballast to the cleared forest floor and charged after him.
Rounding the turn in the brushed-out roadbed, he saw in the distance, down a long straightaway, a flash of yellow-Kincaid’s Model 35 Thomas Flyer-and then a flicker of Kincaid running up to it.
Kincaid reached under the red leather driver’s seat, pulled out a long-barreled revolver, and coolly fired three shots in rapid succession. Bell dove for cover, the slugs whistling around him. Scrambling behind a tree, he snapped off another shot. Kincaid was in front of the car, trying to start his motor, bracing himself with his left hand on one of the headlights and turning the starter crank with his right.
Bell fired again. It came close. Kincaid ducked but kept cranking. That was six shots. He had one shot left before he had to replace the magazine.
The motor caught. Bell heard a ragged chugging as, one by one, the four gigantic cylinders boomed to life. Kincaid leaped behind the steering wheel. Bell was close enough now to see the fenders fluttering from the cold motor running rough. But the car was built high in the back and the canvas top was up, its small rear window covered over with three spare tires that hung from the top. All he could see of Kincaid was his hand when he reached out to grip the side-mounted gearshifter. Too hard a shot to waste his last bullet on.
The rattling, chugging noise dropped in pitch. The motor was engaging the drive chain. Bell put on a burst of speed, heedless of the rough ground. The Thomas started moving. Blue smoke trailed it. The rattling chug sound sharpened to a hollow, authoritative snap as it accelerated up the cleared right-of-way. Fast as a man. Now fast as a horse.
Bell ran after the yellow car. He had one shot left in the Browning’s magazine, no clear view of Kincaid, who was hidden by the canvas top and the tires on back, and no time to reload. Bell was running like the wind, but the Thomas Flyer was pulling away.
Ahead of the Thomas, the clearing suddenly widened where the Southern Pacific right-of-way crossed the East Oregon Lumber Company’s muddy trail. The Thomas swerved off the brushed-out bed onto the lumber trail and slowed as its wheels spun in soft mud and deep wagon ruts. Its engine was howling with effort, its tires flinging earth and water, its exhaust pipe spewing smoke.
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