by S. A. Sidor
I was experiencing an attack of guilt (my friend, Hakim, my workers – all dead).
I gazed into the shadows at the other end of the car but saw only a void.
Before too long I looked away.
The daytime heat had bled the varnish smell out from the carved wood of the decorated car and its furnishings. The air felt close and my chest grew tight.
Here I was in the lap of luxury.
Yet I felt like a man trapped in a box for days.
And I was, of course, if you considered the boxcar surrounding me a box, which I did. It only took one trip in another box – a child’s-coffin-sized steamer trunk I dragged around my grandmother’s attic, screaming my head off at the age of four, unable to escape, my cries muffled, knees bloodied – to bring about a lifelong hatred of enclosure.
Since then I had been enclosed in other, less obvious ways.
The comforts I, for the moment, enjoyed came at the behest of Montague Pythagoras Waterston of Los Angeles, a gold magnate turned sickly, bedridden, amateur occultist. My expedition was his doing. He was the mover, I was the one moved. I disliked being played like a game piece. No one forced me to sign onto this journey. True enough. It was my choice. But at what cost? I was a rich man’s surrogate, and had been for going on three years (how time flies!), on two continents, and across the wide blue expanse of an ocean. I had never met my benefactor, though I expected to in less than three days. Thoughts of meeting him gave me much excitement, and more than an equal portion of anxiety.
Who was he?
Who was I since I had become his instrument?
The train jolted me out of my revelry. I glanced at my pocket watch: one minute past midnight. We were taking a curve at good speed. The floor tilted and righted itself with a wiggle. On my feet, bracing my arms against the window frame for balance, I pressed my nose to the glass and saw – much closer than I would have liked – high sandstone cliffs, taller than the train. Moonbeams chiseled down the mountain chute.
Another bump, another sideways shove.
The wheels shrieked to make my molars ache. Outside, a shower of brassy sparks lit the rock walls, revealing a blood-red stain running parallel to the tracks. Natural geologic phenomenon, I guessed. But it did not feel natural. I snapped my head toward the darkness at the other end of the railcar.
I saw instead the opened tomb. The dead we left behind, and the dead we stole. I was restless, feeling vaguely criminal, although I had done nothing wrong; or nothing purposefully, intentionally wrong. However, I could not shake off the impression that I was somehow being used in ways I, myself, would not choose if only I knew a little more than I did.
Kittle and Staves were sleeping better in their seats in the public car. At least I hoped so, for their sakes. I wondered if I would stay awake for the whole trip west. I found my way to the bunk and lowered the lamplight.
From the soft bed of a rich man I watched the abyss.
April 4th, 1888
The Rio Grande Rift
I heard a knocking on the door connected to the train. I looked at my pocket watch. One minute past midnight. The exact time I had read from those hands hours ago, or so it seemed to me. I wound the stem and pressed the dial to my ear, the watch chain tickling my jaw. The damned thing had stopped. Outside, the night was pitchy. I bent my head and discovered the moon stuck up like a horn between the Juarez Mountains.
More knocking. I put the watch away.
“Enter,” I said.
I observed the door open and close. But I saw no one come through. The crated mummies who shared the car with me – in fact, they dominated it – also blocked most of the doorway from my sight. Soon a rattling of plates and silverware traveled around the left end of the cargo, and along with it came a Chinese boy, no older than ten, dressed in a blue denim jacket that fell past his knees, and silky black pajamas. He was carrying a tray and upon it a carafe of freshly boiled coffee, a single porcelain cup and saucer, a teaspoon, and a bowl of sugar cubes. He wore a skullcap. His braided pigtails rested on his shoulders. The coffee smelled wonderful. I saw his eyes dart to the crates. His hands were trembling. He stopped at my table and waited with his chin tucked down at his chest.
“What do we have here?”
“Mr Thomas saw your light on and thought you might want some coffee.”
“I do, I do.” I relieved him of his tray. He filled my cup, his eyes straying back to the other end of the car.
“No sugar, thank you. And what is your name, son?”
“Yong Wu, sir.”
I picked up the cup. “You are definitely the youngest steward I’ve ever met.”
My weak attempt at a pun on his name went unnoticed.
“Oh, I’m not a steward. I only help Mr Thomas.”
“You’re doing a fine job.” I sipped the coffee. “Don’t be nervous. Do your parents work on the train?”
“My parents are not alive,” he said in a quiet voice.
I felt terrible pity for the poor child, and I thought I knew now why he was so upset by the crates. Someone must have told him there were coffins inside.
“They can’t hurt you,” I said.
His eyes shot up at me in a panic I found perplexing.
“My parents would never hurt me.”
I frowned. “I’m quite certain they would not. But I wasn’t talking about your parents. I was talking about the bodies inside those crates.”
“Mr Thomas says they’re from Egypt. The Egyptians have a powerful mojo. Their witches can make the dead walk.”
So, the porter had spooked him with stories of living mummies. He had also likely filled his head with hoodoo, hexes, haints, and tricksters. I wanted to tell the boy there was nothing to be bothered about in those legends, but he seemed awfully agitated as it was, and I worried he would see clearly through my half-truth. I elected to change the subject.
“Your English is excellent for an immigrant.”
“I was born in San Francisco. My father was a schoolteacher before he went to work for the railroads. He taught me to read and write. Mr Thomas gives me books passengers sometimes leave on the train.”
“Your father was a railroad man?”
The boy nodded.
“He worked on the tracks. My mother cooked for the laborers. They were… attacked one night in the desert. I help out Mr Thomas now. He treats me very well.”
I had heard stories about Chinese workers getting killed by Anglos or Mexicans who resented the cheap labor competition, and, of course, the railroad companies did not care if a few Chinamen died, as long as the tracks got laid. It was an ugly business. Here I was rehashing the tragedy of this little boy’s orphaning, and he was just bringing me coffee to help me through the night. He looked tired, like he never slept, in fact.
“You go back to bed now, Yong Wu. Don’t let Mr Thomas shock you with his tales. The Egyptians had a special talent for preserving the dead. Naturally, you can understand how rumors of bringing the dead back to life might get started.” I waited to see if he believed me, or if he could detect my own doubts lurking behind my words.
“The dead back to life… yes… that would be bad.”
The train shifted and the crates creaked.
The boy stepped closer to me, but his attention stayed on those boxes. The shipping containers were hulking in the smoky light. Dozens of nails hammered into the pine stared out unblinking. Each crate had been bound with chains and secured with a padlock as wide as my hand. I patted Yong Wu on the back and felt him shiver.
“Go on. It’s all right. Tell Mr Thomas I appreciate your service. The sun will be up before we know it. Leave the coffee. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much myself.”
Yong Wu left the way he came, his head swiveling to keep watch over the crates as he passed them. He shut me in again with my desert memories and the dark cargo I had brought up out of the sands. I realized he and I were no different, really. I had been watching those crates with eagle eyes ever since I sailed away
from the shores of Alexandria.
Watching and waiting…
Here finally, despite my prediction, I slept.
13
Train Robbers
Approx. 3 miles east of Yuma, Arizona Territory
April 5th, 1888
Morning. Dawn broke a hot runny egg across the horizon behind us. Red membrane webbed the cloudless bulge of light. In a few minutes it would be impossible to look straight at it without going blind.
To the south: a dust devil rose.
I sponged my dripping brow and opened the carriage windows as far as they would allow. Smoky wind at the back of the train burned my eyes. Swallowing the last cool dregs of the coffee Yong Wu had brought me during the night, my throat was crackling, and my face puckered like paper about to ignite as I poked my head outside.
How many days on a train before a man will consider suicide?
I was there, friend.
Egypt. New York. New Orleans. All were as distant to me now as planets, as dreams. For I knew I had been on this damned train forever. While the heat turned from humid to desert dry to hellish, I roasted with the already dead. Much more of this sweat-boxing and I swore I would pry a coffin and join the corpses if only for the shade.
The door at the other end of the carriage opened. I expected to see the porter or Yong Wu with my breakfast. But it was Kittle, looking haggard and unshaven. The car rocked and he brushed his hip against the crates, jumping back as if he had been clawed.
“Don’t worry,” I said, doing what I could to hide my smile. “I’m told the curse is less potent in the morning hours.” Kittle nodded. I perceived in him an apprehension more acute than superstition or travel weariness. “Is something the matter?”
“Suspicious events, Mr Hardy, I don’t know if they signal danger or not.”
“Speak then. At the very least they will take my mind off this demonic heat. What’s got you so worried, my good Detective?”
“Do you recall Mr Waterston’s secretary?”
“I remember your mentioning she came to the Pinkerton office and hired you.”
“Well, I’ve seen her.”
“I would hope so. Otherwise your prospect of being paid is awfully slim.”
“No, sir… I mean I’ve seen her here… this morning, on the train.”
“What? You’re certain it’s the same woman who visited your office?”
“There’s no doubt, and Mr Staves agrees. She’s not the sort of lady a man easily forgets. We first spotted her last night in the dining car. She saw us too – and quickly retreated down the aisle in the opposite direction, leaving her meal untouched, and without as much as a backward glance. We found her in a seat two cars forward, though the lights were dim and she pretended to be asleep. Sunrise confirms it. She is the same woman. Staves is watching her now. Why would she be on board and keep it a secret?”
“I don’t know. But we will solve the mystery by asking her. I’ll follow you immediately.” But I didn’t follow. I lingered, my eyes fixated on the rear window and what lay moving beyond. “Tell me, Kittle, is that dust whirlwind getting closer?”
Kittle shielded his eyes and pressed nearer to the vibrating glass.
The sand cloud billowed, gliding quickly along the flat ground. Its funnel shape collapsed into a tarnished golden fog that rolled and boiled like poison. Why did I fear its progress would soon overtake ours? It was only sand after all.
The grainy curtain parted.
Riders.
Spectral humanoid blurs, and every inch snuff-colored. Gaining fast on the backs of gaunt horses. I counted six. No… more than six. The number doubled – an even dozen.
Was the train slowing down?
Kittle stepped away from the window. “Banditos. We’re being robbed. They’ve come for the mummy’s treasure.”
“But there is no treasure,” I said, dumbfounded.
“Tell them that.” Kittle bolted past the crates. The train was slowing. Why was the train slowing? Already the riders were close enough I could see their weirdly slack, frozen faces. “I must get Staves and the rifle. Stay down, Mr Hardy, low on the floor.”
At that instant: the crack of a gunshot. The rear window shattered. A tiny glass spear brushed my cheek. Blood dripped off my jaw. I sank to my knees and crawled until I wedged my body between the crates, trying to become as small a target as possible.
Kittle was gone from the carriage. The door banged loose between the cars. The sound of clacking train wheels, the wind, and the robbers’ rising whoops entered freely.
I carried no weapon.
And I could no longer keep still in the cramped spot I chose for cover. As I backed out from the mummy boxes, my hand dragged over a crowbar leaning coldly where it must have fallen during the loading, behind the cargo against the back wall. I took it. Now I had something heavy to lay out thugs who invaded my compartment.
Next, my attention turned to the banging door–
I reached but failed to shut it.
Too short an arm, too far a stretch. I attempted hooking it with the bar.
A dark hand closed tightly onto the crooked iron and, by instinct more than strategy, I pulled hard and brought the bar toward me along with the off-balanced porter, Mr Thomas. Momentum carried him right into my chest and sprawling backward I went. I do not know which of us was more startled, though I am willing to bet it was me because I could not talk for several seconds but Thomas spoke on impact.
“Excuse me, Mr Har– why, you’re bleeding! Are you shot?” His alarm made me question whether or not I had been shot. I checked myself all over.
“Not shot… just a scrape. Give me a hand, will you?”
The porter helped me to my feet. “The conductor’s trying to stop the train and the brakeman’s having a hell of a time. Not good. I hope we don’t jump the track.” He looked past me, worry evident on his brow. “Is the Chinese boy in here with you?”
I shook my head. “Why stop? Shouldn’t we go faster?”
“But there aren’t any tracks ahead. Blown up. Just a big ugly hole left in the ground.” He leaned and spied out the broken window. “If that’s not the necrófagos, they’ll sure pass for ’em. Change my train into a butcher shop is what they aim to do, and here they come.” He banged his fist in frustration above the window and several shards of glass flew away.
“Who are they? Mexicans?”
“Don’t know, and don’t want to find out. They show up and the blood flows. Except they can’t bleed, or whatever they got inside isn’t red. I’ve heard stories tell it both ways. They’re worse than Apaches. Not least of all because you can’t kill ’em.”
“Say that again?”
“They don’t die because death is what they love.” He seemed very determined to convince me of this principle. I was baffled and frankly more unsettled by his degree of dread.
I recalled Yong Wu’s telling me how the porter filled his head with spirit talk.
“So they’re ghosts? Is that what you reckon?”
The porter looked at me as if I were crazy. Then he pointed to the riders.
“They aren’t dead, mister. They eat the dead. Love them, too, like any natural man loves a woman who’s alive. There’s a big difference, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”
“Yes, of course. Not ghosts, then.”
“Ghost riders would be bad, no doubt. But I’d gladly trade that cursed lot for these here. Necrófagos are too nasty. They make a man’s skin crawl. Can’t you feel it?”
I did not want to dwell on unpleasant specification. Thomas was telling me the robbers were cannibals and corpse defilers of the lowest grade. Indeed, that sufficed.
The train rattled and stuttered and slowed to a walking pace.
One of the necrófagos passed close enough I could see a hatchet strapped to his thigh. His deadened face, which I initially took to be as void as the faces of all the riders, was in fact hidden beneath a mask tied behind his head. I stared out again and, yes, they all wore
masks. Each mask differed slightly from the others in hue or shape or decoration, but they were made alike, and fashioned from the same grisly material.
Skin.
Peeled, tanned, human skin. Thomas was more right than he knew.
They wore faces over their faces.
The same holes were there – though more like slits – to see, smell, hear and shout. That closest one, with the red-handled hatchet, saw me looking at him and he smiled through two pairs of lips. He slid the hand axe from his leg and rode on ahead.
“Where is Yong Wu?” I asked.
“I couldn’t find him anywhere. I was hoping he was here with you. Last I saw him he was in the dining car, preparing the breakfast trolley. Then he was up and gone.”
I did not like that news one bit. Meeting horrors directly is one thing, but contemplating a child being forced to do it is another. I had no idea how many women and children journeyed together with us that morning, but if what Thomas said about the necrófagos were true, then any number was too high to surrender without a fight.
“Are there armed guards on board this train?” I asked.
“Old Man Toleson in the mail car. He has a pistol. But he’s a drunkard and will do nothing unless they try to steal his bottle of rye.”
“I have two good men, Pinkerton guards – ah, here they are now.”
Kittle rushed into the car with his Colt drawn. Sharp-eyed Staves marched behind him, Winchester rifle in hand, looking grim and determined. My heart lifted seeing these two ready for action. I would have felt supremely confident had it not been for the woman sandwiched between them who appeared more flushed with indignant anger than worried for her safety. Golden-haired, pink of cheek, and fashionably attired for long-distance travel – she was resisting the detectives. Kittle had a petite handprint glowing on his face. Staves’ attitude mirrored that of a man ordered to seize a live bobcat.