“Could be,” said Robins, scratching his five o’clock shadow. “But might not be, neither.”
“Maude woke up,” said Elizabeth. “About an hour ago. She told me the whole story.”
Robins shot upright. “Well, hell’s bells! What’d she say? What happened to her?”
“She went through the vortex. Just as we thought. Showed up in a monsoon. Middle of nowhere. She found a cabin, and a woman let her in. Seemed nice at first. But then she realized—that woman was one of the bandits.”
“A woman?”
“That’s right. Called herself Holly.”
Robins froze. He sucked in his cheeks, fish-like. He sat there for a long and silent minute. Then he nodded.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured. “Holly Haynes.”
“Is that someone I should know?”
“Holly Haynes,” Robins said again. He wheeled the chair sideways and opened one of the desk’s drawers. Instead of hanging files, papers were piled horizontally and without order. Robins licked his finger and started to thumb his way through the stack. At last he yanked out a yellowed sheet and flattened it out on the desk. It was a wanted poster; and there, in the middle of the page, was the drawing of a woman.
“Haven’t heard that name in a long while. Not since the Payson heist. So it must’ve been…” Robins quietly tallied on his fingers. “Nigh on six years, now. Been so long, I reckoned they’d beat it to Mexico.”
“Do you know her?”
“Only by reputation,” said Robins. “She was a legend in these here parts. Gunned down two coppers and a marshal, and that was just the ones we knew about.”
“Alone?”
“Well, no. See, she was the ringleader. But the Haynes Gang was a family outfit. It was her, and also her four br…”
Robin leaned back, overwhelmed by the arithmetic. His eyes turned to acid, and he banged a fist against the wanted poster. “Son of a bitch! How the hell didn’t I see it? Five riders! Robbing a bank! In broad daylight! I—I should’ve known! I should’ve remembered!”
“Nonsense,” retorted Elizabeth. “There’s no way you could have known that. There’s no shortage of bank robbers in this part of the world. Five figures in masks? For all you knew, Holly Haynes was Billy the Kid.”
“But maybe I could’ve told somebody,” moaned Robins. “They could’ve been on the lookout—”
“Now don’t start with that,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Here’s the crux of the matter: Haynes said something to Maude about Pickleburg. A town, I presume. Ever heard of it? Any idea what she might be up to?”
“Pickleburg.” Robins stroked his mustache, then stood up. He started to pace the concrete floor. “Now, that’s interesting.”
“I hoped you’d say that,” said Elizabeth. “Why?”
“Well, Pickleburg is sort of our neighbor. A sister-city, you might call it. Not far, as the crow flies. But over the mountains. It’s another boom town. Except unlike here, it’s still booming.”
“Is there really that great a demand for pickles?”
Robins harrumphed. “That’s just the name. Takes after some tycoon, I’m sure. But what they mine is gold. Lots of mines, all up and down that area. It’s a rich vein, I hear.”
“Gold,” Elizabeth mused. “Now that sounds like a worthy heist.”
“And these ain’t some panners in the creek, neither,” Robins went on. “The Murphy Drake company works out of there. Owns practically the whole town. Company houses, company stores, company post office. Only thing they don’t own is the whorehouse, although I wager they got a hand in that too.”
“Maude heard something about a train. Are they on a railroad line?”
“Sure are.” Robins stopped pacing. “What do you bet they’re gonna rob one of them shipments?”
“I’d take that bet in a heartbeat.”
“But…” Robins shook his head. “It still don’t add up. Even if there was a vortex, somewhere in the hills around Pickleburg, the gold’s all locked up. And not just because of robbers. They don’t want the workers dipping their hands into the loot. That town’s full of company men, armed to the teeth.”
“What about the train?”
“They’re even worse. Armored cars. Steel-plated. Mounted guns. You’d have an easier time breaking into a submarine.”
Elizabeth grimaced. “That does derail our theory.”
“Plus they hire Paddington detectives. Hired guns, really. Mean sons of bitches. And they get the job done, too. Them trains run like clockwork.”
With that, their conversation ground to a halt. They stood in the office, thinking. When neither of them spoke, Elizabeth flushed. Each waited for the other, but there was nothing to add. It was another dead end.
Robins shifted from side to side. He whistled, then took a tentative step toward the front door.
“Excuse me a minute, Miss Crowne,” he said. “I think nature’s a-calling.”
Elizabeth held out a hand, as if ushering him outside. “By all means.”
Robins carried his overstuffed bladder to the door, then slipped into the powerful sunlight.
Elizabeth was alone. Even with the windows open, her body baked in the small office. The air smelled and tasted like a sauna; she forced herself to inhale. She drew the canteen from her bag and drank. The water was as warm as freshly brewed coffee, but it slaked her thirst.
She closed her eyes. Everything faded from her mind. The desk and chairs vanished. The noise faded, followed by the heat.
Then she felt it—all those shreds of information, those thousands of molecular clues, clumping together in her brain. She felt the rush of blood, the ecstasy of gathered thoughts. One memory triggered another. They slammed together like a roomful of magnets. Faster and faster, the theories clicked together, until she saw it—the full story, the big picture, the likeliest truth.
The door opened, and Robins stepped inside. Elizabeth’s eyes flew open, and she aimed a finger at the ceiling.
“Clockwork,” she exclaimed.
“Say again?”
“Bear with me,” said Elizabeth. “Suppose you’re building a railroad. You want to lay your tracks on the flattest land possible, right?”
“Well, sure.”
“And wherever there’s a cliff or a rise, you dynamite your way through?”
“That’s the usual way.”
“What if,” said Elizabeth, “someone built that railroad line right through a vortex.”
Robins stared at her, stupefied. But then he started to nod.
“If they timed it out…” he said.
“They could enter the vortex,” Elizabeth continued, “and step right onto the train. They would just appear, inside one of the cars. Bypass all the guns and armor. They could hijack that train before anyone even knew what was happening.”
“But how could they? Trains run late. Once in a while, they run early. Either way, they ain’t exact. Give or take even a minute, them bandits could find themselves sitting on the railroad ties, a locomotive barreling down on ’em.”
“Still,” said Elizabeth, “if they have a system, if they’ve worked it out, like clockwork, then they may have devised the perfect crime. A train in the desert? Impregnable and full of gold? No one would even know it was missing, not for hours. They could do anything they wanted with that train. They could go anywhere, as long as they had coal enough to keep moving.”
“No time to waste,” said Robins, affixing his Stetson. “There’s a telephone in the town hall. I’ll ring up the sheriff in Pickleburg and see if there’s any shipments going out.”
“Good,” said Elizabeth. “I’ll get packing. Sounds like we’ve got a train to catch.”
Chapter 14
The pitcher raised his mitt to his chest. He looked away, at the distant mountains, and cradled the glove against his heart. Then, in one fluid motion, he reared back, raised one leg, and flung the ball toward home base.
The batter swung. The sound—crack—was
crisp and pure, ringing in eighty eardrums as the batter sprinted toward first base. Dust swirled around his feet as he ran. The ball arced high above the field, and just as the batter slammed a foot into a sack of flour, the ball smacked into an outfielder’s glove. A barrel-chested umpire bellowed, “Out!”
Men clapped on the sidelines. Sparrow clapped, too, chuckling quietly to himself as the next player strode home, swinging his bat in a cocky circle. Sparrow leaned against an old barrel and watched the players arrange themselves once more, smiling in the late afternoon sun.
“What’s the score?”
Sparrow was surprised to hear Elizabeth’s voice, but his body refused to flinch. He looked sideways at his new company. Elizabeth stood arrow-straight, a pair of binoculars pressed against her eyes.
“You must mean business,” said Sparrow. “Bringing those along.”
“Normally they’re for birding.” Elizabeth dropped the binoculars and let them dangle from their leather strap. “But they’re handy for a close-up. I like to watch them think.”
Sparrow sniffed. “You’re a rare bird yourself, Miss Crowne.”
“You ever play?”
Sparrow shrugged. “I was never allowed. But I liked to watch. There was a fort near my father’s home. Fort Verde. Every day, the men would come out of their barracks and play a few games. I’d sit there all afternoon, watching them play ball.”
“It was stickball in my neighborhood,” said Elizabeth, her voice equally wistful. “In this old lot, behind a mechanic’s shop. The boys would race there after school and pick their teams.”
“Nobody picked you, though.”
Elizabeth stuffed the binoculars back into their case and fastened it shut. “I like to think they were afraid of me.”
“I’d believe that.”
Elizabeth watched a few more runs. Men trotted around the bases. When one batter finally struck out, the teams broke apart, converging on the makeshift dugout. Some men jogged into the field. Others retreated to the benches.
“Well,” said Elizabeth, “how would you like to have some more of my kind of fun?”
Sparrow nearly smiled at this, but something held him back. He sighed, shifting his elbows on the barrel’s wood cover.
“What’s the game?” he said quietly.
“We think we’ve identified the bandits,” said Elizabeth. “Ever heard of the Haynes Gang?”
Sparrow’s eyes widened. “Holly Haynes, eh? So that’s what she’s been up to. Sounds about right.”
“We think we know her next heist, too—a gold shipment from Pickleburg.”
Sparrow nodded slowly. “The train.”
“You know it?”
“Not the gold trains, no. Those were always too well guarded. But I’ve taken that line a few times, back in my wandering days. Used to hop freight cars up to Tucson and back.”
Elizabeth grinned. “I can picture you camping on a mesa, Sparrow. But a hobo? Hard to fathom.”
“It’s true. I was scrappy, that’s for sure. Foolish, too. Riding the rails ain’t for sissies.” He paused at the memory. “But anyway, I know that line well enough.”
“Well,” said Elizabeth, “there’s a shipment going out in two days. Robins checked in with the Pickleburg sheriff. Old friend of his, apparently. Small train, armored. Probably gold, headed for Phoenix. It’s not on any official schedule. Not many know about it.”
“The company’s keeping it quiet, huh?” asked Sparrow. “Must be important.”
“That’s what we figured,” said Elizabeth. “The more tight-lipped the management, the more the bullion. You might call it a golden ratio.”
“So what’s your plan? You don’t seem like the type to alert the authorities—even if there were any you could trust.”
Carefully, Elizabeth unveiled her theory. She recounted Maude’s journey to the cabin. She listed the clues Holly had left. She explained the vortex, how it might straddle the tracks. She explained the heist, as she herself envisioned it. Then she detailed her own plan—where they would go, what they would do when they got there.
The ballgame continued to unfold before them, dust rising into the golden afternoon, the men’s shadows sprawling over battered brown grass. Through it all, Sparrow listened, his eyes steady. His solid face betrayed no opinion on the matter. When Elizabeth finished, she said, “What do you think? Care to join us?”
Sparrow winced. He straightened and turned to face Elizabeth. Yet he couldn’t quite look her in the eye.
“You’re a remarkable woman, Miss Crowne,” he said. “You and Miss Kapuscinski both. I admire you. And I wish I had your gusto.”
Elizabeth frowned. “But…”
“But I can’t. And there are three reasons I can’t go with you.”
“Three?” Elizabeth cocked an eyebrow. “Well that’s a specific number. Given this some thought, have you?”
“I have,” said Sparrow.
“Well, if only because I’m curious—let’s hear it.”
“For one,” Sparrow began, “I’m a healer. That has always been my calling. I aid the sick. I ease their pain. I help them move peacefully into the next world. The way of the gun was never my passion. Taking you to a mine is one thing, but this…” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m getting too old to play cowboy.”
“That’s fair,” agreed Elizabeth.
“Second, I’m skeptical about your theory. It makes some sense, I suppose, but I can’t tell if it’s true. All we know is that a woman named Holly, who lives in some cabin and happens to have four brothers, said something about trains and Pickleburg.”
“And three days,” added Elizabeth. “The timing is right.”
“But do you know for sure? Do you have real proof? Your plan sounds pretty drastic to me, given how little you know.”
“Also fair,” said Elizabeth. “Let’s just say I have an instinct for this kind of thing. And if we’re wrong—no one gets hurt. Just a little broken track, is all.”
“Those Paddington men won’t see it that way.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “These bandits can pass through portals. They could show up anywhere, and they can escape in the blink of an eye. So no, it’s not much to go on. Maybe I’m dead wrong. But this train might be the only chance we have.”
“Then supposing you’re right,” Sparrow went on, “and the Haynes Gang has come out of hiding to steal a batch of gold—there’s still my third objection.”
“Which is?”
“I have no feud with Holly Haynes. As far as I can tell, she’s a good woman who turned bad by circumstance.”
Elizabeth looked at him, puzzled. “Oh?”
“I doubt the Deputy told you that part. He’s a good fellow. I respect him. But he only sees the river, not its source. And it’s an ugly story, that’s for sure.”
“Enlighten me. You have a talent for it.”
Sparrow cleared his throat. “Well, this was some years ago, now. The Haynes family claimed some land by Bolbrook, way north of here. Not far from my hometown, actually. Holly’s father was a farmer. Decent man, from all I’ve heard. Good family, kept to themselves. Holly would’ve grown up an ordinary tomboy, I think. But then the railroad men came.”
“Railroad men?”
“Wanted to run a line right through their property. Offered Old Man Haynes a paltry sum. Pennies on the dollar. He declined. Said it was his land, and he wouldn’t sell for any price. They went back and forth, but he wouldn’t budge. That made the railroad men angry, so they did what they always did in those days—they hired some thugs.”
“To harass them?”
“If only that were all,” said Sparrow grimly. “The men showed up at night. No warning at all. They broke down the door and dragged Old Man Haynes out of his bed. Then they beat him with clubs, right in front of his own children.”
“Dear lord,” exclaimed Elizabeth.
“They set fire to his house, too. Burned it all down. And then they hanged Haynes from a tree. Right then and there
. Rode off, leaving the kids crying in front of their burning house. Left the body to rot.”
“You’re—sure that’s what happened?”
“That’s the story, anyway. But everybody agrees, that’s why the Haynes family only attacks certain places. Trains, mills, even this here bank. You might call them monuments of industry. They don’t trifle with farmers or homesteaders. They want to hurt the tycoons. The only way to a robber baron’s heart is through his pocketbook. And a lot of folks say they’re just taking back what they’re owed.”
Elizabeth darkened. “They weren’t owed those bank tellers’ lives. And they weren’t owed Sheriff MacAuley’s eyesight.”
“Well, I don’t disagree,” said Sparrow. “But once you’ve seen your father lynched, a part of you is broken for good. The rage is always there, for as long as you live. No amount of revenge is ever enough.”
Elizabeth’s head fell sideways. She was too tired to hide her disappointment. “You’re a good man, Kele. And I hate to admit it, but you probably know what’s best. I was groomed to be a healer myself, back in the day. Sometimes I wonder what that life would have been like. I suppose the things most people run away from are the ones I most want to run toward—and vice versa. In any case, I wish we could have seen it to the end.”
“Oh,” said Sparrow, dusting his hands. “I doubt I’ve seen the last of Elizabeth Crowne.” He flashed a smile. “Before you go, though, I have a parting gift.”
“Do you, now?” returned Elizabeth. “If it’s peyote, I’m game.”
“Better than that,” said Sparrow. “Suppose you’re right, and there is a vortex. Suppose it’s on that train line out of Pickleburg. I have a hunch I know where you’ll find it.”
Part III
Chapter 15
S ylvester smashed through the heavy oak door and charged through veils of smoke. Women screamed and leapt from their pillows. For an instant, Wong looked up, his eyes rheumy and confused. He leaned back on his stubby arms; his slippered feet tried to find the floor. But before Wong could think to save himself, Sylvester grabbed his robe and lifted him into the air.
Ghost Bandits of Sonora (Elizabeth Crowne) Page 10