Dead Man's Tunnel (3 page)

The tunnel, short by most standards, had been cut through solid rock at great expense in lives and money. A siding had been built on the approach to the trestle. As a train crossed over the canyon, the mountain rose up into a rock face ahead, and within moments the engineer was faced with the dangerous midtunnel curve. Add in the steepest grade in North America, and trouble of one sort or another rode through that tunnel nearly every day.

A guardhouse had been built high up on the grade near the tunnel entrance so as to oversee the canyon and trestle. On occasion, Hook would spot a guard walking the line or sitting and smoking on the guardhouse porch. One time, he sided the popcar and climbed the hill to introduce himself, but the guard had fallen asleep in his chair. Hook decided not to awaken him. Any poor bastard assigned to Johnson Canyon for the duration deserved an undisturbed nap.

As Hook reached the top of the grade, he pinched off his cigarette and dropped it onto the floor. For a brief moment, the trestle would disappear from sight below a small rise, and nothing but blue sky and open space could be seen ahead. But once over, the popcar would plunge down like a roller coaster.

The popcar groaned as she climbed the rise. Only the sheer wall of the canyon and the singular black hole of the tunnel could be seen. In that brief moment, it was as if the popcar had flown into the yawning abyss of Johnson Canyon. He'd made the trip many times now, but the sensation never diminished.

The popcar clattered and clanged as Hook brought her into the siding just short of the trestle. The siding had been built to accommodate maintenance equipment and the occasional breakdown.

Hook shut off the engine, and his ears rang in the morning stillness. The sun cut hot through the thin sky as it only could in the high desert. Mixer bailed off and commenced a search of the rocks that had slid down the canyon wall.

“Don't you run away,” Hook said, checking his flashlight.

Mixer stopped and looked at him for a moment before scrambling off. Mixer loved finding something obscene and smelly to retrieve for Hook's approval. It didn't matter what, whether alive or dead, or how long it may have been ripening in the sun. He preferred skunks to nearly all other prey.

Hook walked to the mouth of the tunnel and looked into the darkness. He took a moment to gather up his courage. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he checked his watch.

At some point he'd talk to the other guard, but he wanted a look at the scene first. Clicking on his light, he stepped into the darkness. The air bled cool from out of the tunnel, and his footsteps crunched in the gravel.

Hook panned the area as he made his way down the tracks and into the heart of the mountain. Wooden beams, so large as to leave little room between track and wall, supported the enormous weight of the overburden.

Nearly to the curve, he spotted the first signs of carnage, body fluids and flesh atomized by the collision. Experience had taught him that the point of impact, that moment when the speeding train and the body collided, often left only the smallest evidence behind. The actual remains might well have been dragged down line for miles.

Hook made a mental note of the location before kneeling to study the tracks. The rail had been gouged and scratched, and something shiny caught his eye. He took out his knife and dug it from the gravel, a metal ring of some sort, squashed and distorted by the weight of the engine.

He held it under his light. It might have been a washer or any number of things, since track crews sometimes sought the tunnel out to escape the heat during lunchtime and left behind all manner of trash.

Hook dropped the metal into his pocket and worked his way farther into the tunnel. A few yards more, and he found an army boot tossed against the wall. The toe of the boot had been severed, and part of a blood-splattered sock remained inside it.

Just to the right of the boot, he spotted a military dog tag and could just make out a
JOSEPH ERIKSON
and a serial number on it. Sitting back on his haunches, he considered the horror of what those last few seconds must have been like.

He rose and dabbed at his face with his handkerchief. The body could not be far away. Just then he saw a lump lying next to the wall.

He swallowed hard and turned his light on the torso, which had been rolled and crushed between the locomotive and the railbed. Hook cleared his throat and lit a cigarette. He listened to the silence of the tunnel. The local sheriff would have to be contacted, as well as the undertaker. The army would most likely notify the family. At least he'd be spared that.

Hook took note of the location of the body again and then looked at his watch. He had time yet before the next train came through. If he was going to shut the line down, he'd have to do it soon. There should be a phone at the guardhouse. But shut it down for what? Not that much of the body remained, and keeping the line open would lower Eddie's blood pressure.

In the meantime, he'd talk to the guard. No two men worked together in a place as isolated as this tunnel without knowing a good deal about each other.

He turned to go when he heard footsteps coming down line. He clicked off his flashlight, stepped back against the tunnel wall, and unholstered his P.38. No one had business being in the tunnel, especially while an investigation was under way. Flipping off the safety, he leveled his sidearm in the darkness and waited.

 

3

A
LIGHT IN
the tunnel swept the area, stopped, and then moved forward once again. Hook pressed his back against the cool wall, and the smell of creosote hung in the dampness. He waited until the light rounded the turn before he spoke.

“I've a pistol aimed at your head,” he said from the darkness. “Put your flashlight on the tracks, and place both hands in front of the light so that I can see them.”

When Hook could see hands on the rail, he circled to the side.

“Now your weapon. Set it on the rail, but do it slowly.”

“I'm unarmed,” a woman's voice said.

Hook paused. “Now, put your hands behind your neck and turn toward me.”

When she turned, he shined his light into her face. Her hair, cut short, was the color of copper, and her eyes lit green under the beam of his light. She wore an army uniform, and her hat sat squarely on her head.

“My name is Lieutenant Allison Capron,” she said, “U.S. Army Department of Transportation. May I put my hands down?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same,” she said. “Had I not a gun pointing at me.”

Hook slid the weapon into its holster.

“You can drop your hands. I'll ask you again. What are you doing on railroad property?”

“I'm not sure it's your business,” she said.

Hook took out a cigarette and lit it. Smoke curled in the beam of his flashlight.

“My name is Hook Runyon, and I'm the railroad bull. It
is
my business.”

“I'm investigating the death of Sergeant Joseph Erikson,” she said. “When one of our soldiers dies, it's the military's responsibility to investigate.”

“A death on railroad property is of some concern to railroad security as well,” he said.

“You don't strike me as a railroad detective,” she said. “Perhaps you could show me identification?”

He took out his badge, showing it to her. “Don't let the missing arm fool you.”

“It's not the arm so much as the lack of professionalism,” she said.

“Professionalism is for those sitting behind desks,” he said. “Out here it doesn't count for much.”

“Do you intend to let me conduct my investigation or not?” she asked.

“Look, Lieutenant, there's a hotshot due through here any time now. My suggestion is that we leave the tunnel.”

“Hotshot?”

“That would be a freighter in a damn big hurry,” he said. “One that has no intentions of stopping for anyone, including army lieutenants.”

“Really,” she said.

“Next time you decide to trespass in a railroad tunnel you might want to check the train schedule first.”

“I'm not easily intimidated, Mr. Hook. If a train were coming, you wouldn't be in here, now would you?”

“It's Runyon,” he said, “Hook Runyon, and I don't kid around about train schedules.”

“And I don't intend to leave without completing my investigation. I'm searching for Sergeant Erikson's body,” she said.

Hook dropped his light beam onto the bundle lying against the wall.

“I think your search is over,” he said.

Lieutenant Capron walked over to the bundle and paused. Clutching her stomach, she then bent forward into the darkness.

“I wasn't prepared,” she said, taking out her handkerchief.

“It's not something you can prepare for.”

“How do you know it's him?” she asked, dabbing at her mouth.

Hook took the dog tag out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“It's a horrible way to die,” she said.

He checked his watch. “Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm. “Time is up.”

They'd no sooner stepped into the daylight when the hotshot blew her whistle at the other end of the tunnel. Within moments, she thundered by, her engine blasting heat as she charged full bore up the grade. Two old steamer pushers nipped at her heels. The ground trembled, and the smell of oil hung in the air as they roared away.

Lieutenant Capron pulled her arm from his grip and straightened her hat. She searched her handbag for a handkerchief, dropping it onto her throat. Hook could see the red flush on her face and the snap of her green eyes.

“I don't appreciate being manhandled,” she said.

“One body a day is sufficient for me, Lieutenant,” he said. “There's no room between a train and that tunnel wall. It's not a place you want to be when a hotshot comes through.”

“As the railroad security agent, you should have shut this tunnel down until the investigation was complete,” she said, hooking her purse over her shoulder.

“It
was
complete,” he said. “Until you showed up.”

“You put our lives at risk.”

“Shutting down this line sends a ripple from one coast to the other. I'm figuring that's why the army saw fit to place a guard out here in the first place. Course, if I'd known you were coming, I'd sure enough shut down the entire system for your convenience.

“Now, there's not another train scheduled until nine this evening, keeping in mind, of course, that trains don't always run on schedule. In the meantime, I'm going up there to talk to that other guard.”

Lieutenant Capron shifted her purse to her other arm.

“This is a military matter. No one talks to that soldier but me.”

“And no one touches the evidence in that tunnel but me,” he said. “That soldier died on railroad property. What's more, he was killed by one of our trains. And as long as it's under my jurisdiction, I don't intend to have the evidence contaminated. Furthermore, I'll not have some upstart lieutenant telling me how to proceed with my case.”

Lieutenant Capron's jaw tightened, and she pushed her purse back onto her shoulder.

“You mean female lieutenant, don't you?”

“I hadn't noticed,” he said.

“Look, this tunnel is critical to the war effort and has been under guard for the duration of the war. There are reasons for that for which you might not be aware. If I have to, I'll go over your head.”

Hook looked down the line. Riding that popcar after dark could freeze a man solid, and he'd left his coat back at Ash Fork.

“Never let it be said that I'm not a patriot. I'll cut you a deal, Lieutenant. You let me talk to that guard up there, and I'll give you access to the tunnel.”

She looked at her watch and then up at the guardhouse. “I'll have to be there,” she said. “He's not to be questioned without me present.”

“Fine,” he said. “That way everything will be professional, won't it?”

 

4

T
HE GUARDHOUSE WALLS
were native rock, as were the steps leading up to it. Though small and otherwise primitive, the guardhouse had a telephone line. Out front, an army staff car had been parked in such a fashion as to catch the shade of a single juniper.

The lieutenant led the way. A cobweb still clung to her hat. One of her heels had broken loose in the process of getting out of the tunnel, and she limped now as she climbed the steps.

He'd lied when he said he hadn't noticed that she was a woman, the curve of her hips beneath the uniform. He'd also noticed the way she held her head as if to dare the world to take a shot. But he didn't take to being pushed by anyone, including Lieutenant Capron.

She moved aside to let him get to the door and glanced at his prosthesis when he knocked. He'd seen that moment often since the loss of his arm, that point at which curiosity prevailed over propriety.

There had been a time he would have challenged such a moment, would have pulled his sleeve high and demonstrated the contraption for her satisfaction, but the years had changed things, not so much for others as for himself.

He'd learned that curiosity was as much about human nature as love and anger. It resided in him no less than in everyone else. So, more often than not, he let such moments pass now, and his life had become less difficult for it.

The door opened to reveal a man in his late twenties. A shock of straight black hair fell over an eye, and he pushed it back with his hand. He snapped to attention when he spotted Lieutenant Capron's bars.

“At ease, Corporal,” she said. “We're here about Sergeant Erikson.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. “I'm Corporal William Thibodeaux, the one who called about the sergeant. I've been expecting someone.”

“This is Hook Runyon, railroad detective,” she said. “We need to ask a few questions.”