The Insane Train

by Sheldon Russell

  Sitting on the platform, Mixer in his arms, Hook watched the cop’s red lights spin in the blackness behind them as the insane train chugged off into the desert night.

  22

  After pushing the books from his bunk, Hook slipped off his prosthesis and his shoes. He lay down, and Mixer curled into a ball at the foot of the bed. The clack of the wheels beat its rhythm as the train crawled through the night. Weariness swept over Hook, and he slept.

  The moon cast through the window of the cupola and awakened him sometime in the night. The caboose waddled and pitched, a movement as familiar as his own heartbeat, and then turned hollow as they passed onto elevated track. Ancient, dry lake beds pocked the desert like moonscape.

  He sat up, lit a cigarette, and drew the blanket over his shoulders. He wondered about Andrea, how she was managing with a car full of disturbed women, but then Andrea managed well no matter the situation. She had about her a strength and calmness unusual in one so young. But in his experience, character trumped age every time. And she had Seth, who made a good hand in spite of his bitching.

  The train bumped and ebbed and bumped again as it leaned into a curve. Even in its enormity, a train moved with grace, except in the slightest turn, which caused it to moan and groan like an old woman.

  Tossing off his blanket, Hook climbed the ladder into the cupola. The moon hung like a lantern in the sky, and the passenger cars, with darkened windows, drove through the night. The headlight beam of Frenchy’s engine shot into the desert, and smoke drifted over the moon like black lace.

  When he spotted the ruby smudge of light under the car, his pulse ticked up.

  “Hotbox, Mixer,” he said, climbing down. “Showing color, too. I hope to hell Frenchy’s awake.”

  Hook slipped on his prosthesis and lit the signal lantern. He stepped out onto the platform, the wind, smelling of smoke and steam, cold against him. He waited until the engine banked full into the turn before swinging the lantern in a slow-stop signal. After a full minute, he repeated the signal. Frenchy’s whistle rose in the night, and the brakes screeched as he brought her down.

  “Stay here,” Hook said to Mixer. “We’re on a trestle. You fall through a hole and that would be that.”

  Holding his lantern out, Hook edged his way down the track, taking care to negotiate the ties. He couldn’t be certain as to the depth of the grade below, and he damn sure didn’t want to find out. He could see Frenchy’s light coming toward him.

  “What’s going on?” Frenchy asked, his cigar a red spot in the darkness.

  “I spotted a blazer back there on the curve,” Hook said.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Frenchy said. “See if we can smell her out.” Just then Andrea and Seth stepped from the car, and then Roy from the security car.

  “Be careful,” Hook said. “We’re sitting on a trestle.”

  Baldwin dropped a window on the supply car and stuck his head out.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Think we have a hotbox. Just need to check it out,” Hook said.

  “Let’s get a move on,” Frenchy said. “We need to get this trestle cleared.”

  As they worked their way along, Frenchy examined the journals one by one. When they came to the back wheel carriage of the boys’ car, Hook stooped over.

  “I smell her,” he said.

  Frenchy lay his hand against the journal and jerked it away.

  “Goddang it,” he said. “Scorching hot.” Taking out his pliers he lifted the packing lid. “Hell, there ain’t no packing left. She’s dry as the Mojave. It’s a wonder we didn’t burn her to the ground.”

  “Can we move?” Hook asked.

  “Depends if there’s any brass left in her. Don’t want that axle dropping down.” Frenchy relit his cigar, pinching out his match. “We’ll oil her up. See if we can’t limp on in. Sons of bitches should have packed those journals in the yards,” he said.

  “Eddie had his way, we’d be riding in cattle cars,” Hook said.

  Hook waited with Andrea and Seth on the steps of the women’s car while Frenchy and the bakehead packed up the journal.

  Within the hour, Frenchy came back. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to give her a go. You keep an eye out, Hook. She flares up, I’ll head for a siding until we can get some help out here.”

  “Seth,” Hook said, “you and Andrea better go back in.”

  “I ain’t shut my eyes in three days,” Seth said.

  Hook rode in the cupola, watching for any sign of fire while Frenchy nursed her down the track at walking speed. By the time the sun rose over Needles, they were pulling into the El Garces depot.

  Hook helped Santos and Roy unload the boys for breakfast while the car was shuttled off for repairs. Baldwin made arrangements for food to be delivered to the security ward. Hook went to help Andrea and Seth take the women in to eat.

  Andrea and Seth met him at the door.

  “We have a problem,” Andrea said, her face pale.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “We just took head count,” Seth said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Elizabeth,” Andrea said.

  “Elizabeth?”

  Andrea shook her head, her eyes welling. “The young girl with the brain tumor. She’s gone, Hook.”

  “Gone? Are you sure?”

  “We’ve looked everywhere,” Seth said.

  “This is my fault,” Andrea said.

  “Now, take it easy,” Hook said. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “After we pulled out of Barstow. She had fallen asleep like everyone else.”

  “That’s the last time you checked on her?”

  “Everyone had gone to sleep,” she said. “It didn’t seem necessary.”

  “Seth, what about you?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” he said.

  “She has to be on the train then,” Hook said. “Have you gone through the cars?”

  “Every last one,” Seth said. “She’s not on this train.”

  “Elizabeth suffered depression, and her tumor had worsened lately,” Andrea said.

  “You think she might have hurt herself?”

  “We never left the car,” Seth said. “How could she have?”

  Andrea glanced up at Hook. “Not until…”

  “Not until that trestle,” he said.

  “I’ll never forgive myself if something has happened to her,” Andrea said.

  Hook walked to the end of the car and then back. “Tell Baldwin. And then call the sheriff.”

  “What are you going to do?” Andrea asked.

  “I’m going back to that trestle.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Seth said.

  “No, Andrea needs you here,” he said.

  Hook found Pap Gonzales at the yard office preparing for the day’s work.

  “Well,” Pap said, pushing up his hat, exposing a tan line that cut his forehead into two exact hemi spheres. “If it ain’t the law come calling.”

  “Hello, Pap. I need a favor.”

  “I ain’t taking care of no goddang dog, Hook.”

  “That’s not it, Pap. I have a trainload of mental patients waiting at the depot.”

  “What else is new?”

  “We had to shut down to oil up a blazer last night. When we rolled in this morning, one of our patients had disappeared. I think she might still be out there.”

  “Goddang it, Hook, I got a crew waiting.”

  “Run me out there in the popcar. I have to make certain she wasn’t left behind.”

  “Goddang it,” he said, sticking his hat back on. “We’ll have to get a clearance card, ’less you want to risk riding back to Barstow on the front of a cowcatcher.”

  “Thanks, Pap. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t an emergency.”

  “It’s always an emergency unless it comes to my switches.”

  The day had turned hot by the time they’d fueled the motorcar and cleared the
line west. Pap cranked the engine and throttled up.

  “How far out, Hook?” he asked.

  “I can’t be certain.”

  “You ain’t figuring on hunting out the entire line, are you?”

  “I don’t think we crossed another trestle after the hotbox,” he said.

  “That last trestle ain’t so far out,” Pap said.

  “We crippled in pretty slow,” Hook said. “It’s a wonder she didn’t melt out the axle at that.”

  Pap took out a cigarette and covered the match with his hands against the wind.

  “Rumor is you’re in trouble over that truck deal in Flagstaff, Hook.”

  “You know it doesn’t take a lot to get Eddie worked up,” Hook said.

  “You can’t leave your truck on the tracks, Hook. You’d think a goddang bull would know better.”

  “I appreciate the advice, Pap. Next time I’ll get a valet before I chase down a bum.”

  Pap studied a lone hawk sitting atop a Joshua tree. “You figure that girl has come to some harm?” he asked.

  “She has a brain tumor, Pap. Things hadn’t been going her way for quite a while. Andrea said she was dropped off at the door, and no one has been back to see her since.”

  “I got a daughter,” he said. “I’ll be a grandpa come September.”

  “Yeah? I figured someone old as you had been a grandpa for twenty, thirty years by now.”

  “It’s a goddang long way back to Needles,” he said. “Especially walking.”

  “You ought take good care of me, Pap. I put you in my will.”

  “You did?”

  “Left you all my books and my dog.”

  “And here I thought I might get stuck with a wad of money or a gold watch.”

  Within the hour, Hook pointed to a network of timbers bridging an arroyo.

  “There’s a trestle, Pap.”

  Pap throttled down. The popper rattled like a thrashing machine as she coasted onto the trestle. Hook studied the terrain, a dry gulch maybe thirty- or forty-feet deep. Getting out, he walked the trestle to look for any signs of Elizabeth below.

  “There,” he said, pointing to a spot of color in the rocks. “Damn it. It’s her, Pap. We’ll have to back out and climb down over there.”

  Sweat ran into Hook’s eyes as he worked his way through the rocks. Pap followed behind him in silence. What Hook found at the bottom caused his stomach to tighten. Elizabeth’s remains were dashed across the rocks. Bloodied clothes and pieces of bone were scattered about as if they’d been tugged and pulled in a hundred directions. Even her leather purse had been dragged into the rocks.

  Pap took out his bandanna and wiped the sweat that gathered on his forehead.

  “Jesus, Hook,” he said. “Something’s been at her.”

  Hook knelt, studying the tracks that encircled the body. “Coyotes,” he said. “The sons of bitches even tried to eat her leather purse.”

  “You figure she jumped?” Pap asked.

  “There’s no way of knowing. Things weren’t going her way. Being lonely and sick is not a good combination.”

  Pap walked to where he could get a breeze and looked off into the desert.

  “What do we do?”

  “Take her in, I guess,” Hook said.

  “Shouldn’t there be an investigation or something?” Pap said.

  “We just did, Pap. Anyway, another night out here and there wouldn’t be anything left to investigate.”

  When they’d finished, Pap cranked the engine. He moved his feet away from the bundle that lay on the floor between them. After lighting a cigarette, he looked over at Hook.

  “You won’t ever hear me complain about yard dogs again, Hook,” he said. “Whatever they pay you, it ain’t enough far as I’m concerned.”

  As soon as the body was secured in the baggage room, Hook contacted the sheriff to see when he would be out. After that, he searched out the car crew who were just finishing up the repair.

  “When you switch ’em out, put the women’s car next to the crummy, will you, boys?”

  “Guess you figure the women need protection from the law, huh, Hook?” the foreman said, grinning.

  “They need protection from the likes of you scabs, if you got to know,” Hook said. “So maybe you could just do it and leave the reasons up to me.”

  He found Baldwin hunkered over his desk. Dark rings encircled his eyes, and the room smelled stale.

  “The body’s in the baggage room,” Hook said. “I’ll be turning it over to the sheriff later. By then that car should be ready.”

  Baldwin rubbed his face. “Andrea’s pretty upset,” he said.

  “It could have happened to anyone,” Hook said.

  “I checked Elizabeth’s records,” Baldwin said. “She has a mother but there’s no number. There hasn’t been a visitor since she entered the asylum. She didn’t have that much longer, you know. That tumor had already eaten half her brain stem away.”

  “Pretty sad business all around,” Hook said.

  “Look, Runyon, you just as well know. Someone has contacted the American Board of Psychiatry about that fire. The bastards are threatening to file a negligence charge against me. Now, with this, I don’t know. I just don’t know.

  “And, frankly, I’m running damn short of funds. If I get hit with a violation, they could pull my license. I could lose everything. On top of that I’ve been feeling pretty flat, all exhausted. It’s like the world’s turned against me. All I ever wanted was to help people.”

  Hook rose. “I’m meeting the sheriff at three to turn over the body. I see no reason why we can’t leave. If something comes up on the case, they can call ahead.”

  Baldwin nodded. “These patients have got to get settled in. This kind of upheaval is exactly what they don’t need.”

  Hook had talked to everyone once more by the time the sheriff arrived. No one had seen anything. Santos had broken up a fight between two boys just as they had pulled up with the hotbox. He showed Hook the bruise on his arm where one boy had pinched him.

  Neither Helms nor Frankie had heard anything out of the usual that night. They had sent Roy down to find out why the train had stopped. Other than that, the security ward had remained on lockdown throughout.

  When the sheriff arrived, Hook took him down to the baggage room and showed him the remains.

  “Jesus,” he said, adjusting his crotch. “What the hell happened to her?”

  “Besides the thirty-foot fall? Coyotes, I’d guess. I’ve heard the damn things will eat the tail right off a calf while it’s being born.”

  The sheriff pulled the tarp back over the body and lit a cigarette.

  “How do you have it figured, Runyon?”

  “The only logical explanation is suicide. She suffered from a brain tumor. Her nurse says that she had been especially depressed of late.

  “She probably got out on the opposite side of the car when we pulled up on that trestle. Sometime during that time, she jumped. Nobody knew until another head count here at the depot.”

  “If you’re certain about all this, I guess you’ll be releasing the body for burial?”

  Hook walked to the double doors of the baggage room and watched the inmates who were being loaded back onto the train.

  “Yes, if I were certain,” he said. “You think you might do me a favor, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I figure I might owe you one or two along the way. What is it you want?”

  “An autopsy, just to make certain,” Hook said. “And a criminal check on Frankie Yager.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “Oh, and one other thing. Would you make a call to the American Board of Psychiatry? See if you can find out who filed a complaint against Baldwin.”

  23

  The train pulled out of Needles at sunset. Hook waited until they were well under way before entering the women’s car. Seth looked up from his seat by the window.

  “Got you set up next to the louse box,�
�� Hook said. “That way I can keep an eye on you.”

  Seth rubbed his chin, which had sprouted a noticeable beard. “Something tells me I ain’t the one you want to keep an eye on, Hook.”

  Hook could see Andrea at the other end leaning over the seat talking to Bertha. When she looked up, she smiled at him.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Seth. How goes it?”

  “Well, I don’t have those dreams,” he said.

  “That’s good.”

  “Because I don’t sleep no more, Hook. It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks in here. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m damn sick of looking at that woman’s nakedness.”

  “Ruth?”

  He shook his head. “Me just sitting here minding my business, and there it is right in front of me. What’s a man to do?”

  “Did you ever consider not looking?” Hook asked.

  “When’s the last time you didn’t look at a naked woman, Hook?”

  “It’s a point,” Hook said.

  “Some things are not humanly possible. Not looking is one of them, that’s all I got to say.”

  “Where’s your willpower, Seth?”

  “Each time, I figure I’ll just stare out the window or tie my shoe. But then I just got to look, like if I don’t, I might die or lose my manliness.

  “To top it off, I ain’t had a smoke in days.”

  “Guess you could use a cigarette?”

  “I sure could.”

  “A man could smoke in my caboose if he was my friend and if I took a notion to let him.”

  “I guess I’d do about anything for a smoke, Hook, even be your friend.”

  “Andrea might use a little break herself, you know, later on when the women here are asleep.”

  “Andrea don’t smoke.”

  “Neither do you if I don’t let you use my caboose.”

  “Once they’re asleep, not much goes on anyway,” Seth said.

  “Go on back there and have yourself a smoke, my friend,” Hook said. “I’ll help Andrea watch things for a bit.”