Giving Up the Ghost (16 page)

Dawn was all broken when we pulled into the station at Dodge, and I was glad to be free of the express car. The stagecoach from Wichita was clattering down Front Street, pausing long enough to throw a bundle of newspapers on the railway platform. I glanced at the
Wichita City Eagle
and its multiple-deck headline in bold type:
ASTRAL DISPLAY SPARKS PANIC! TELEGRAPH FAILS, KANSAS BANKS CLOSE, RAILWAY TRAFFIC SUSPENDED
.

There was a cluster of people on the platform, both men and women and a few children, and some of them made a rush for the newspapers. Others enviously eyed the
Ginery Twitchell
and asked if rail service had resumed.

“No,” Delaney said. “This train is a special.”

The crowd muttered its disappointment.

“Check on the general manager,” I told Delaney. “Calder, you go with him in case that Grunvand is lurking. Doc, you see if Mackie is about.”

McCarty nodded.

“Ophelia,” someone called from the crowd. “Ophelia!”

It was Wyatt Earp.

“Somebody broke into your agency,” he said.

“Is Eddie all right?”

“The bird?”

“Yes, the raven,” I said impatiently, stepping into the street with Wyatt trailing behind me. I could see that the agency was still standing, but the front window—the one that had
CALDER
&
WYLDE
on it—was shattered. Somebody, probably Mitford, had nailed a row of boards across the frame to cover the hole. “Did they hurt Eddie?”

“I didn't see the bird.”

Was this what I had agreed to trade away when I drank the foul brew that Granny Doom had offered? How could I live with myself if something had happened to Eddie?

I rushed across the street and fumbled with the lock on the front door. It was jammed, and would not budge.

“Eddie!” I called. “Can you hear me?”

“Step aside,” Wyatt said, and tugged at my elbow. I yielded, and when he had a clear enough space, he lifted his boot and with one great kick broke the latch—and the hinges. The door fell inward with a terrible crash, and I stepped inside, still calling Eddie's name.

There was no answer.

The entire agency had been rifled, and there were papers and books scattered everywhere. The bookshelf had been toppled, and the bust of Lincoln lay shattered on the floor. The newel post at the bottom of the stairs was unoccupied. My desk was on its side, and the bottom drawer was open—and empty.

“I don't know who did it,” Wyatt said.

“I do,” I said. “They came in a dark train that made no sound.”

“The ghost train,” Wyatt said, and shivered. “That was about four o'clock, that's what the girls at the China Doll said. I was up at the Union Church, trying to convince the crowd that had gathered there that it wasn't the end of the world. It's not, is it?”

“Not yet,” I said, picking through the debris. “And not the world, exactly, but
our
world.”

Wyatt shook his head.

“I'm not afraid of much,” he said. “I can handle just about anything this town has to offer—Texas cowboys who've had too much to drink and let their guns do the talking, soldiers who'll start a fight just to relieve the boredom of army life, soiled doves who are as quick with a knife as they are with their affections. But this spook stuff—it scares me.”

“That's why you've acted so oddly around me?”

He shrugged.

“You're afraid of ghosts.”

“Terrified,” he said.

I picked up a chair from the floor, turned it upright, and sat down.

“You don't have to fear the dead,” I said. “It's the living you have to watch out for. No ghost ever tried to kidnap, stab, shoot, or otherwise kill me. But the list of living human animals who have tried it gets longer all the time.”

I sighed.

Then I heard a scratching and pecking sound up above the open doorway. I looked up, and the Ace of Spades moved to one side, and Eddie wiggled through the opening. He gave a hoarse cry, shook his feathers, and then flew down to land on the edge of the upturned desk.

“Eddie,” I said. “Oh, poor Eddie. Thank God you're all right.”

I reached out my hand. He rubbed his head against my palm, then swiveled his head to look at the mess the intruders had made of the agency.

“Don't worry, we'll find you another Lincoln,” I said.

“Yes, we will,” I said. “I promise.”

Then I asked Wyatt to see if Calder needed any help over at the general manager's car. He should be on the lookout for Grunvand, I said, because he was apparently in cahoots with the ones who murdered Hopkins and wrecked the agency.

“What were they looking for?”

“The spirit telegraph,” I said. “The key from the depot, which reminds me. Where's Mackie?”

“Oh, he's all right,” Wyatt said. “He got disgusted and locked up the depot and has taken up residence at the Long Branch, where he's been taking turns sleeping and drinking. Strong sent word that he was fired, but Mackie claimed he was too late—he already quit.”

“Mackie may be smarter than I've given him credit for.”

“You should get some sleep,” Wyatt said.

“No time,” I said.

“What's so pressing now?”

“I'm going upstairs to fetch some fresh clothes,” I said. “And I'm going to take Eddie up there with me, and he can stay in my bedroom, if he wants; I'll make sure he has plenty of food and water. Then I'm coming back down and am going to round up Calder. We're going to climb back aboard the
Ginery Twitchell
and see if we can't catch up with the ghost train. Care to join us?”

“That's the difference between me and Calder,” Wyatt said. “He can handle the spooky stuff.”

When I came back downstairs, McCarty was sitting in a chair in the middle of the mess, waiting.

“Strong is all right,” he said. “Still barking orders from his railway car on the siding, but there's nobody around to follow them. Mackie's drunk, and the telegraphers, Salisbury and Lawson, are down at the newspaper office, trying to help the editors Shinn make sense of the crisis. An extra is planned for this afternoon, and Walter Shinn would like an interview with you, but I told him you were terribly busy.”

“Right, Doc,” I said. “Thanks. What about Grunvand?”

“Strong said that when the dark train came through, it slowed enough to allow Grunvand to jump on board. It was obviously planned, he said.”

McCarty looked around at the wreck of the office. His eyes were red and puffy, and he was so tired he was shaking.

“Why'd they tear up the office so if they knew the spirit key was in your desk all along?”

“Because they could, I suppose.”

“Glad to hear the bird escaped harm,” he said.

“As am I.”

“So what's the strategy?”

“I have no plan other than chase after Moria and her confederates on the dark train,” I said. “I have no indication as to what they may be up to, but the tracks lead in only one direction, so it seems our only choice.”

McCarty nodded.

“Skeen is taking on water and fuel,” he said. “Should be ready to go in about ten minutes, he says.”

“Good,” I said.

“I should go pack some clothes as well,” he said. “And my Winchester.”

“Doc, I think you should stay here.”

“But why?”

“You're so tired that you can hardly hold your head upright,” I said. “That's one reason. For another, Calder tells me you're not a very good shot with either a rifle or pistol, and I don't want to have to worry about you getting hurt when we finally corner this crew.”

“I'm a better shot than you are,” McCarty protested.

“Granted,” I said. “But you're a healer, not a fighter.”

“Then take Earp.”

“He's afraid of ghosts.”

“So that's his weakness.”

“Among others,” I said. “Also, there's one more reason I want you to stay here, and it's even more important than the others. If something happens to Calder and me, and God forbid young Delaney, then you are the only witness to the truth. You'll have to tell the Shinn brothers what happened. Can you do that for me?”

“You'll be able to tell your own story,” he said. “But yes, I'll do that on your behalf, if necessary. But I want Calder to take my Winchester.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said, then took his hand and kissed it. “Get some rest. See you when we get back.”

Back aboard the express car, I slept.

We raced madly west, in pursuit of the dark train, not knowing if or when we would catch it. Rather than stay awake for every dreary mile west of Dodge—and there were 120 flat and sparsely populated miles to the Colorado state line—I stretched on the bench, pulled a blanket over me, and placed the satchel beneath my head. Before I drifted off, I could hear the pitch of the locomotive increase as Engineer Skeen coaxed every ounce of speed from the
Ginery Twitchell
. I slept surprisingly soundly, considering the events of the previous forty-eight hours—and the risk that, at any moment, we might collide with anything unlucky enough to be on the tracks ahead of us.

Delaney, who had managed a quick bath and a change of clothes (that appeared to be an exact copy of his other clothes) during our brief stop at Dodge, slept as well, on a pile of mail sacks on the floor. I don't think Calder napped for a moment, however, because every time I roused, he was still awake, watching the prairie roll past beyond his window.

We stopped at a way station on the state line, to take on more fuel and water, and I woke. We had, Skeen declared, broken a speed record from Dodge to the Colorado line—two hours and thirteen minutes. One of the Santa Fe employees at the station said the dark train had passed, a locomotive and two cars, only three hours before. We were gaining on them.

“Why didn't you try to stop it?” Delaney demanded of the station hand.

“How were we to know we were supposed to?” the employee, a belligerent young man in denim overalls and a red flannel shirt, shot back. “We have no orders from the dispatcher. The wires are still jacked. And I don't think it was even a real train, because I've never seen one like it. It was all dark, and hardly made a sound.”

“The general manager expects us to use our initiative,” Delaney said. “You have to consider what's best for the railway, and do your duty accordingly. Next time, I expect more from you.”

“You want that ghost train?” the hand asked. “Then go stop it yourself. And while you're at it, you can kiss my caboose good-bye, because I quit. You're crazy, you know that?”

The man in denim and flannel walked off.

“The railway will be docking your pay,” Delaney called. “And you should not expect a reference, either.”

“My God,” Calder said, climbing back aboard the car. “In five years, this kid is going to end up running the Santa Fe. In ten, he'll probably be running the country.”

It was another hundred miles to La Junta, where the old Santa Fe trail crossed the Arkansas River. We had been climbing steadily since leaving Kansas, and were now at four thousand feet of altitude. La Junta—Spanish for “the junction”—was an old town, full of buildings made of adobe. At the station, Skeen again re-provisioned the locomotive and confirmed the dark train had passed. It was only ninety minutes ahead now.

Then we pressed on, another hundred miles to Las Animas on the Purgatoire River—the River of Lost Souls—and more fuel. We were less than an hour behind the dark train, and Skeen said we would catch up with them in the next half hour, because they would be slowed by the increasingly steep grade. The end-of-track, he said, was less than a hundred miles away, on the approach to Raton Pass on the mountainous border with New Mexico Territory.

Twenty minutes outside of Las Animas, while rounding a wide curve, we caught our first glimpse of the train, climbing a grade with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background.

“I reckon I'd better make my way up front,” Calder said.

“I'll go with you,” Delaney volunteered.

“No, son, you stay back here with Ophelia. How do I get to the cab?”

“There's grab irons on the back of the tender,” Delaney said. “Haul yourself up and over, and then you can jump down into the fireman's hole and from there step into the locomotive.”

Calder nodded.

“Don't kill anybody you don't have to,” I said.

“That still leaves me quite a lot of room to operate,” he said.

Then he went forward.

Delaney took the window on one side of the car and I pressed myself against the other, waiting for the next curve so we could see ahead. As we neared the dark train, I could see that it was indeed real, with no skeletons running alongside or phantom crew, but it was strange: there was no smoke coming from the engine, and it had few windows and was smooth, like a bullet.

“I'll bet they're surprised to see us,” Delaney said.

A moment later I heard rifle shots, but the track had turned and I was on the wrong side to see anything.

“It's Grunvand,” Delaney said. “He has a rifle and is firing back at our cab from the open door of his car. Now Calder is returning fire.”

We heard a rapid exchange of shots, then one of Grunvand's bullets pierced the side of the express car and splintered the post office desk.

“Perhaps we should get down,” I said.

“Good idea.”

We hunched down on the floor near the front of the car, pulled the mail bags around us, and listened to a few more shots. Then the shooting stopped. Several long minutes later, our train began to slow.

“Is it the end-of-track?” I asked.

“I shouldn't think so,” Delaney said. “We're still a few miles out.”

Delaney went to the window and dared a peek.

“Oh, no,” he said.

“What?”

I joined him at the window.

Far ahead, I could see that the last car of the dark train had separated from the rest. It was now rolling down the grade, toward us.

“This ought to be interesting,” Delaney said.

We could feel our train hesitate as Skeen considered his options. Then the floor beneath us jolted forward. Our engineer had apparently decided the best way to deal with the runaway car was to meet it full speed.

“Your idea of interesting is nothing less than terrifying,” I said.

“Brace yourself,” he warned.

I barely had time to grasp a handhold before there was a deafening sound and the floor of the express car buckled. The impact knocked both of us to the ground. Pieces of the dark car went flying past our windows, and we could hear and feel some pieces being ground up and spit out beneath the drive wheels of the
Ginery Twitchell
.

“Are you hurt?” Delaney asked.

“No,” I said. “And we survived.”

“But we are not unscathed,” Delaney said, helping me to my feet. “That sound you hear coming from the locomotive is the loss of steam. The boiler is intact—or we would have been blown to a thousand bits—but a steam line must have been damaged.”

Calder came through the door, rifle in hand.

“You're both standing,” he said. “That's good. Skeen wants you up front.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He wants to unhook the express car so we can make it over this next hump,” he said. “The end-of-track is only a couple of miles away, but Skeen doesn't think we can make it by pulling the car. Can you do that, Delaney?”

“Of course,” he said.

“What will happen to the car?” I asked.

“It will roll backward until it goes off the tracks on a curve,” Delaney said. “Then it will plummet down the side of the mountain.”

“Can't you set the brake?”

“No brake on Earth will hold it on this grade,” he said.

“But it's carrying United States mail,” I protested.

“If we don't let it go,” Calder said, “Skeen is afraid we won't make the hump. If we don't make the hump, the car will drag us back down, and it will be us going over the side of the mountain as well.”

“Well, people can write more letters,” I said. “Let's go.”

I followed Calder between the cars, with the road rushing beneath and the wind buffeting us.

“Don't look down,” he shouted.

“Yeah, I remember from before,” I said, then grabbed one of the irons and started hauling myself up onto the top of the tender.

“What, before?” he asked, confused.

“Never mind,” I said, balancing myself on the water tank. “That was a dream.”

Then there was a lurch as Delany pulled the pin on the express car. I lost my balance, and Calder caught me with his free hand before I fell. His arm was amazingly strong, and his chest felt like a slab of wood. I kissed him before he could object.

“Dammit, Ophelia, quit fooling around.”

“Who says I'm fooling?” I asked. “We might not get another chance.”

Then he released me and I inched myself forward, around the piles of wood, and climbed down to the front of the tender, where I could see into the cab. There were bullet holes in the front panels, a corner had been knocked away, and near the front of the engine I could see steam bleeding from a ruptured pipe about the size of my wrist. Both Skeen and the fireman were engaged in what appeared to be serious and desperate mechanical work.

Calder jumped down next to me.

It was cold, and I buttoned my coat and turned up my collar.

“Where's Delaney?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Calder said.

“He made it off the express car, right?”

“I'm here,” Delaney said, scrambling down.

“You've ruined your clothes again,” I said.

“I had to go down between the cars,” he said. “I couldn't reach the pin from either side. I barely managed to make it back up on the tender.”

The
Ginery Twitchell
was slowing at an appreciable rate now, and making some disturbing grating and ringing sounds. By the time we made it over the next crest, we were only going as fast as a person could run.

“How far until the end-of-track?” I asked.

“You can see it,” Delaney said. “A quarter of a mile.”

The dark train had stopped ahead of us, near the end of the tracks, amid a cluttered work area. There were pyramids of railway ties and stacks of rails, tools and telegraph poles, and spools of wire, and a cluster of white tents beyond.

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

“Waiting for the tunnel on the New Mexico side,” Delaney said. “You can see the start of it, over on the cliff face. Until the tunnel is finished, nothing else can happen. And winter is nearly upon us, and work is slow at this altitude. It's late. They may have knocked off for the day and gone into town.”

“What town?” I asked.

“Trading post, really,” Delaney said. “This used to be the old trail over the mountains. There's a cluster of buildings, including a stage stop, just over that ridge.”

“How high are we?” Calder asked.

“Nearly eight thousand feet,” Delaney said.

“Bring us to within a couple of hundred yards,” Calder told Skeen. “Then shut it down.”

“That's about as far as we can go, anyway,” Skeen said.

“What do you think they're doing, Ophelia?” Calder asked.

“I reckon they're waiting to see what we do.”

We had been chasing the dark train all day, and now it was late in the afternoon. There was another hour or so before sunset, but the sky was already gloomy, with banks of rolling clouds lit up from behind by the pink and green flashes of the northern lights.

“Jack,” I said. “What do we do?”

He looked at the sky.

“Wait,” he said.

In ten minutes, it began to snow. The flakes came down big and wet and limited our vision to about twenty feet in any direction. Calder said that's what he had been waiting for, and he gave the Winchester to Delaney.

“Know how to work that?”

“Sure,” Delaney said.

“Good lad,” Calder said. “Mr. Skeen, what about you?”

Skeen smiled, then slumped heavily on the floor of the cab. Blood covered the front of his bib overalls, and he held one arm close to him, like a bird would with a crippled wing.

“I would love to oblige you, but it seems I'm otherwise indisposed,” he said. “And my union might have something to say about this kind of work not being part of my official job duties.”

“And getting shot is?” I asked, taking his hand in mine.

Calder knelt down and undid one strap of the overalls. Then he pulled the denim out and took a look.

“It's passed through your shoulder,” he said. “Looks like it busted your collarbone. I know it hurts like hell, but you'll live if you don't bleed to death.”

“Calder,” I scolded.

“We'll get it packed with rags,” Calder said. “So you don't bleed. At least not to death.”

The fireman volunteered to stay with Skeen. He seemed relieved to have an excuse to stay in the cab.

Calder nodded.

“All right,” he said. “We have to move now. Ophelia, if you think things are going bad, get yourself to that trading post and catch the first coach out of here.”

“If things go bad, I'll know it,” I said. “I'm going with you.”

“Don't be foolish.”

“Just shut up. You're not going to win this fight,” I said.

Calder cursed.

“All right, but stay behind us. Do you understand?”

We crept forward, yard by yard down the track, the snow sticking to our hair and stinging our eyes. There wasn't much on the ground yet, so at least we didn't have to wade through it. After what seemed like an eternity of feeling our way through the storm, Calder held out his hand, indicating that we should slow down.

“All right,” Calder said. “Delaney, I want you to go quiet as you can to the front of that car, then wait. I'm going to come in through the back of it. Once you hear me inside, then make your move. They'll be expecting me, but not you. If we're lucky, Grunvand is the only one who's armed.”