On the Wrong Track

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Here’s the thing. Chan helped put together the Chinese exhibit at the Exposition. It’s got Chink art, music, dancers, food. And Chink treasure. Or it did, anyway. I don’t know what it all is, exactly—rubies and jewelry and crowns and such, I guess. I’ve never even seen it. It was all boxed up back in Chicago.”

  “I get it,” I said. “In the coffin.”

  “Bull’s-eye. Chan got most of the stuff on loan from a big-time collector back West. Put down a hunk of his own cash as collateral. Then last week, that collector feller’s bank went under in a run, and the SOB called in every debt he could—includin’ them trinkets. If Chan don’t deliver, he won’t get a penny of his money back.”

  “Which is why Chan ain’t takin’ any chances gettin’ everything back to San Francisco.”

  “There’s that. Plus, he told me he’s got him a ‘sacred duty to his ancestors’ to look after the stuff.” Lockhart shook his head. “Crazy yellow bastard.”

  “Does Colonel Crowe know all this?” I asked, trying to sound pouty, as if hurt that my new boss wouldn’t share such secrets with me.

  “He knows. I went through him to get the tickets—didn’t want any trouble about a Chinaman on an S.P. special. It was Crowe who picked out that fake name for me: Custos. Now what the hell kinda name is that?” Lockhart’s expression soured. “The fake mustache was my idea. I suppose I was tryin’ to be more of a ‘modern’ dee-tective, like that English nelly your brother’s keen on.”

  I forced out a laugh, thankful Gustav was too far away to hear me let the poke at Holmes pass.

  “Them dime-novel dicks wouldn’t stop with just a mustache, Mr. Lockhart. They’d have done themselves up with a peg leg, an eye patch—”

  I was about to say “and a stuffed parrot,” but a sudden inspiration struck me, and I veered off on a new trail.

  “—and a curly blond wig.”

  I watched Lockhart for a flush or a blink or a twitch—any sign he knew what I was talking about. But all he did was snort again.

  “You’re probably right. Crowe told me not to bother with the mustache. Said it wasn’t in keepin’ with my ‘moodus opera randy.’ I’ll be damned if I know what that meant … but I guess I shoulda listened.”

  “So Crowe’s an old pal of yours?”

  Lockhart waggled a lanky hand like scales tipping this way and that. “Sorta. I’ve known him and Jeff Powless a lotta years, anyway. Used to be, all them railroad big shots was just linin’ up to work with ol’ Burl Lockhart … .”

  The Pinkerton looked thoughtful for a moment, his eyes shifting to something else, something beyond me. Then with a snap you could almost hear, his gaze shot back to me.

  “You sure came packin’ a big ol’ heap of questions.”

  I applied a shit-eating grin and shrugged shyly. “I just can’t help myself. It’s kinda embarrassing, but … well … my brother’s got Sherlock Holmes, and I’ve got …” I cut loose with a jittery laugh. “I’ve always had you.”

  Lockhart beamed with such prideful delight I actually felt guilty. “Aw.w.w, a little hero worship ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of, Big Red. When I was a nipper, all us boys wanted to be Kit Carson. I reckon we all need someone bigger than us to look up to. The only mistake’s tryin’ to be that person. Cuz it ain’t a person you’re tryin’ to be. It’s a dream.”

  His smile went wistful, and his rheumy eyes lost their focus again.

  “Just look at me. Here I am still tryin’ to be Burl Lockhart … and I just ain’t up to it anymore. Hell, maybe I never was.”

  “Well, now,” I said, intending to offer up something soothing. But the flapdoodle just wouldn’t flow for once. Lockhart may have been an old fool, but what was I to keep fooling him further?

  Uncomfortable silence settled over us like a wet quilt. After a moment, Lockhart threw it off with a raspy chuckle.

  “Would you listen to me? Talkin’ that way to a freshly minted Southern Pacific railroad dee-tective. You still got yourself a lotta ex-citin’ days ahead.”

  “Thanks to you. That was mighty good of you, steerin’ us to Colonel Crowe the way you done.”

  “Oh, I was just playin’ the big man for a couple young punchers who reminded me of myself, once upon a time. And it was a chance to do a favor for Crowe. He’s so desperate for agents he can trust, he’d pin a badge on his own mother, if she’d let him. Hell, he might even take me on when the Pinks finally cut me loose.”

  He reached into a coat pocket, pulled out a flask, and unscrewed it with one well-practiced twist of the wrist.

  “Anyways, ol’ Burl Lockhart’s the past. Here’s to the future.”

  He saluted me with the flask, threw back his head, and took a long swallow.

  “Well, thank you for your time, sir,” I said, coming to my feet before Lockhart could ask me to join him. “I best be gettin’ along. My brother’s got us askin’ folks all kinda questions. For our official report, you know. We ain’t done so good as railroad police so far, but maybe we can paint a prettier picture on paper.”

  Lockhart toasted me again.

  “Smart boy,” he said, somehow seeming sincere and smirky and melancholy all at once. “I do believe you’re gonna go far.”

  Then the old man took on a golden glow—literally. The Pacific Express had finally emerged from the darkness of the long snowshed, and sunlight once again streamed into the car. I turned and headed for my brother’s table, anxious to tell him what I’d learned.

  I had plenty to tell—but no one to tell it to. Old Red was gone.

  Twenty-eight

  ARCHIE

  Or, We Learn Who Tried to Kill Us the Night Before—Sort Of

  “Your brother left a few minutes ago, Big Red.”

  I turned to find Lockhart grinning at me.

  “He stuck around a while to keep an eye on us—though he tried to look like he wasn’t. He didn’t leave till he knew I was watching him. He’s in the observation car now.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Lockhart. Gustav does tend to hover like a mother hen.”

  I kept my voice as chipper as I could, trying not to let on how much the old man’s wiles threw me. I’d been pretty proud of the job I’d done buttering him up, yet now I had to wonder if I had some oleo on me myself.

  After pausing just long enough to shovel down the skillet-fried feast the steward had left for me at our table, I set off after Old Red.

  The observation car was packed, with passengers standing in prattling clumps, lining the seats along the windows, and clustering around the plush, circular couch in the middle of the car. Gustav was squeezed into a corner, his body angled so as not to put him in line of sight of the snow-crowned peaks and rocky bluffs passing by outside. Instead, a more mundane scene absorbed all his attention: a woman and a man at a small table playing cards while another woman sat nearby pretending to read.

  I say “pretending” because it’s well known that reading a book is next to impossible if you never look at the pages. And Diana Caveo’s eyes rarely left the card players—Mrs. Kier and Chester Q. Horner. Miss Caveo was behind and to the left of Mrs. Kier, and Old Red was behind and to the right of her, so it was quite the cat’s cradle of spying going on when I spotted my brother.

  “What’s goin’ on?” I asked once I’d worked my way through the herd to reach his side.

  “Keep your voice down. Your head, too. I wanna see how this plays out.” Gustav spared just the briefest glance over and up at me. “You are one conspicuous SOB, did you know that?”

  “Hey, you’re an S o’ that B yourself—and she weren’t no B.”

  My brother winced. “You’re right. My apologies to you and Mutter both. I should’ve said you’re one conspicuous horse’s ass. Now would you for God’s sake do something about it?”

  Old Red had The Sons of Jesse James in his hands, so I snatched it away and threw myself into the nearest seat, the magazine held up over my face—upside down.

  “That better?” I whispered.

&n
bsp; “It’ll do.”

  Despite his griping, Gustav almost seemed to be enjoying himself. If we could needle each other, maybe that meant things were getting back to normal between us.

  “So,” he said, “what’d you and Lockhart talk about?”

  I filled him in while we watched Miss Caveo watch Mrs. Kier and Horner. The drummer was keeping score, and as the game went on, it seemed to take him longer and longer to do the tallies. The numbers were adding up.

  Gustav listened to my report silently, only nodding occasionally or leaning this way or that to peer around a roving passenger’s rump. Seeing Horner and Miss Caveo so close together reminded me of all I’d witnessed on night watch, and I passed that along, too: Horner’s peeping, the bald spot on his head, and the S.P. manual in Miss Caveo’s bed.

  Old Red didn’t bat an eye at news of Horner’s perverse prowlings. Yet when he heard about the lady’s curious preferences in reading matter, he didn’t just bat his eyes—he practically popped them out of his skull.

  “Is that the manual there?” he asked, nodding at the book Miss Caveo was (not) reading now.

  “Nope. Too thick. Cover’s a different color, too.”

  My brother’s face scrunched into a look of all-consuming concentration. Whatever smoldering suspicions he’d had about the lady seemed to have been fanned up into an outright flame.

  “Don’t go gettin’ foolish notions,” I told him. “Respectable gals like that don’t get mixed up in messes like this.”

  Gustav tore his gaze away from Miss Caveo to look me in the eye. “You know better than that.”

  “Well,” I said, and I said no more.

  It hadn’t been a woman who’d put a bullet through Old Red a few months before, but it may as well have been. That mess didn’t just have a “respectable gal” mixed up in it—she’d done most of the mixing herself.

  I’d been fooled then. What did I really know about Diana Caveo now? Strip away her sweet exterior, and maybe she’d make Lizzie Borden look like the Virgin Mary.

  Still, what a sweet exterior to strip …

  “Hel-lo,” Gustav mumbled.

  As if to prove my brother’s point about what you can expect from a supposedly respectable lady—which is just about anything—Miss Caveo put down her book, walked over to Horner, and whispered something in his ear, grinning lasciviously. The drummer winked up at her and dropped his cards on the table.

  There was some hurried chitchat with Mrs. Kier—obviously pardons for an interrupted game and promises to pick it up again soon—and then Horner and Miss Caveo were weaving their way through the crowd together. When they reached the far end of the compartment, they stepped outside, onto the observation platform. Even all the way at the front of the car, we could feel the gust of cool wind that blew in before they shut the door behind them.

  “Pretty nippy out there,” Old Red said.

  I grunted.

  “Funny that those two should feel the need for privacy all of a sudden.”

  I grunted.

  “Makes you wonder what they’ve got to talk about.”

  I grunted. Loudly.

  “Oh, Jesus, Otto—you ain’t jealous, are you?”

  “No, I ain’t jealous,” I said. “I just wanna rip that degenerate asshole’s big, bald head off.”

  Gustav ran a hand over his mustache and mouth, weighing options—and not seeming to like how they balanced out. “Think you can hold off on that for a few minutes?”

  I copied his gesture, rubbing my fingers against my clean-shaven chin. “Ohhh … I suppose. Why?”

  “Cuz I’d like to join ’em out there.”

  “Really? You think you’re up for that?”

  I jerked my head at the nearest window. The train was spiraling upward along a narrow, curved overhang, the ground dropping away so quick it almost looked like we were flying.

  “Well,” Gustav said weakly, “all I can do is promise you this: If I have to keck again, I’ll make sure none of it lands on you.”

  “Fair enough.” I stuffed The Sons of Jesse James into my coat pocket and stretched a palm out toward the back of the car. “Lead on, Brother.”

  As we shuffle-stepped sideways around the card table, we got a smile and a nod from Mrs. Kier, who’d already convinced a prim middle-aged couple to join her in some pinochle.

  “My friends back home play for a halfpenny a point,” she was saying as we squeezed by. “Otherwise, what’s the point of points, they say! But I don’t know … I’m not much for gaming, myself.”

  When we reached the door to the observation platform, Old Red took hold of the handle—and stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Otto, I might need you do something for me,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Push.”

  He opened the door.

  He didn’t need any help getting outside, though—he practically threw himself through the door. I was right on his heels, anxious to get a look at Miss Caveo and Horner before they could stop anything that needed stopping.

  All they’d started, apparently, was a conversation. They were side by side at the railing, talking earnestly as a ribbon of track wound down the mountain behind them.

  As I closed the door, Gustav pressed himself backward into it, staying as far from the railing as possible.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Horner and Miss Caveo turned toward us looking both cold (as in not overglad to see us) and cold (as in chilled). The mountain air was as crisp as a cracker, despite the time of year, and I stuffed my hands in my pockets to keep them warm—and from Horner’s throat.

  “I do hope we’re not interruptin’ anything,” I lied.

  “Not in the least,” Horner said amiably. “We were just appreciating the view.”

  A sudden rough gust of wind ruffled Miss Caveo’s skirts and set my hair waving practically on end. I eyed Horner’s fluffy lump of fake hair, hoping it might take off like a kite, but unfortunately it was so securely anchored to his skull it barely gave a flutter.

  “Anyway, I’ve done enough sightseeing for today,” Horner said. “Next time I want to take in the grandeur of the Sierras, I’ll just buy some stereopticon slides. You don’t get frostbite looking at those!”

  He moved toward the door.

  Old Red didn’t step aside.

  “I’d like us to have a little chat, Mr. Horner.”

  Horner came a step closer. He wasn’t a large man, but he was bigger than Gustav, and I didn’t like the way he was crowding my brother. So I did some crowding of my own, moving in so close my chest was practically polishing the shiny buttons on the drummer’s jacket.

  “My, I feel so lonely all of a sudden,” Miss Caveo joked, shooting for flip nonchalance—and missing. “Really, gentlemen, there’s plenty of room out here. No need to—”

  “I’m cold,” Horner said. His usual backslapping heartiness was gone, snuffed out as quick as a candle flame squeezed betwixt your fingers. “I’m going inside.”

  “After we talk,” Old Red grated out. He was staring at Horner with a fierce, squinty-eyed intensity that would’ve seemed almost demented had I not known the real reason for it: He had to focus all his attention on something, anything, to keep his eyes (and mind) off the train’s rattling, rumbling climb up the mountainside.

  It worked in more ways than one. Gustav managed not to faint, and Horner backed off.

  “Alright, Sherlock—ask away,” the drummer said, his voice full of phony cheer again. He rejoined Miss Caveo by the railing. “My goodness. You ride ten thousand miles on a railroad, and this is how they treat you. No wonder some people don’t like the Southern Pacific.”

  “We had us a little trouble with your snake,” Old Red said.

  Horner’s freshly reapplied smirk vanished. “What? Trouble? With Archie?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at my brother.

  My brother cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “‘Archie’?” we said together.

  “Th
at’s his name,” Horner shot back. “What happened?”

  “Somebody tried to kill us is what happened,” I said. “Locked us in the WC with ‘Archie’ last night.”

  “My God,” Miss Caveo gasped.

  Horner had a very different reaction: He barked out an incredulous laugh. “You’re joking.”

  “No, sir,” Old Red said. “It’s a miracle we didn’t get bit.”

  Horner laughed again, the sound of it even harsher and more mirthless. “Do you know what would’ve happened if Archie had bitten you?”

  My brother shrugged. “You tell us.”

  “Nothing,” Horner said. “Archie’s not poisonous.”

  “Not poisonous?” I said. “The Indian swamp adder?”

  “Oh.” Horner’s eyes went wide. “Shit.” He glanced over at Miss Caveo. “Begging your pardon.”

  “Never mind that,” the lady said, shooing away propriety with an irritated wave of the hand. “Just explain what’s going on.”

  Horner nodded, looking abashed. “Right, well, here’s the thing. Archie’s not an Indian swamp adder. As far as I know, there’s no such thing. That’s just what they were calling him in Chicago, at the Exposition. He was on sale in the East India Bazaar. I bought him as a gag—something to show off to the boys back home.”

  Gustav frowned skeptically. “How’d you know he wasn’t a swamp adder?”

  “Because I used to see snakes like him every day all summer long. In Ohio, where I grew up. He’s a black racer. They’re nasty when they’re cornered, but I know for a fact they’re not poisonous. If they were, I would’ve been dead three times over by the time I was twelve.”

  Old Red and I exchanged another look. My brother was looking pretty abashed himself just then, and I could understand why. It’s a tad humiliating to learn you were chased onto a toilet by a critter no more dangerous than an angry squirrel.

  “So how’d you get Archie back in his cage without getting bit?” Horner asked us. “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

  “I’m afraid we had to … put Archie off the train,” I said. “Through a window.”

  “You what?”