The Nine Pound Hammer (2 page)

Mister Grevol chuckled. “Isn’t that impressive!” He brushed at his sleeves with his black leather gloves. “And refreshing.”

“Refreshing?” Puzzlement flickered on Ray’s brow.

“Your honesty,” Mister Grevol said. “At last.”

Ray felt like a deflated balloon. Somehow Mister Grevol had seen through his lies. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to … I know I shouldn’t have left the passenger car. … ”

Mister Grevol cocked his head, narrowing his black eyes.

Ray looked down, running his thumb across the knot in the twine that was wrapped over and over the lodestone’s surface. “I just needed a place to think, and I thought I could come out here and—”

“And then I so rudely interrupted you.” Before Ray could argue, Mister Grevol shook his head in polite disagreement. “No, I did. What’s worrying you, if I may ask?”

“It’s my sister,” Ray said. “We’ve had such a hard life, you see? And now we’re supposed to get adopted … by someone. A nice farm family, I’m sure. But families almost adopted us lots of times in the city, and they always changed their minds. Because of me … I’m just too old, I guess. I’m not so sure if she’s to get a good family that I should stay with her.” Ray gave a deep sigh, feeling the tightness in his throat.

Mister Grevol nodded sympathetically. “You’re a considerate and wise young man. And you’re right to be concerned for your sister. But I’m wondering about you. I’m wondering what
you
will do.”

“What do you mean?” Ray asked.

Mister Grevol brought his hand to his cravat. “Look at me. I’ve built a career in locomotives and engineering. And how? By disdaining the easy, comfortable life. I’ve avoided attachments, do you see?”

Ray began to mumble, but Mister Grevol pointed a finger at him and continued. “Attachments are vicious betrayers. They lead to all sorts of unsettling feelings: jealousy, loneliness, dependence, the need for acceptance. The sooner you unchain yourself from others, the sooner you’ll find your true strength. And the sooner you do that, the sooner you’ll find your true destiny.”

He looked down at Ray, drawing his eyes across him and then the lodestone, before a smile returned to his wide mouth. “You most clearly have street smarts, as they like to say. You have gumption. Let me ask you: Is this train really going to bring you to your destiny? Are you going to leave your fate to”—Mister Grevol waved his hand toward the car with the orphans—“that Corey woman?” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “No. Find your own way in this world.”

The door from the next car opened, and a man wearing a dark, plain-cut suit and a round bowler hat leaned out. He grinned sourly at Ray, flashing a gold tooth, before
turning to Mister Grevol. “Excuse me, sir. Mister Horne wanted to see you.”

“Thank you, Mister McDevitt.” Grevol looked back at Ray. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you …” He paused, gesturing with his walking stick.

“Oh! Uh, Ray. Ray Fleming,” he said.

“Yes, Ray Fleming.” Mister Grevol tipped his head at Ray before following the man with the gold tooth.

Ray watched them depart through the coupe door, wondered if the gentleman had realized that Ray had once again lied when he gave his last name.

The lie about his last name had come too quickly for Ray to stop. He had been Ray Fleming for so long now, it had become habit.

After his father left—the same year Sally was born—his mother had insisted they no longer use their last name, Cobb, and began moving them from city to city. She would never explain why. Ray kept expecting his father to return, but the years passed and he never did.

While the lodestone hadn’t helped his father return, it had helped Ray and Sally. Even before their mother had died of scarlet fever, the lodestone had begun giving Ray dreams—sometimes of a cascading waterfall or a campfire crackling—but the dreams were more vivid than ordinary dreams. Others were fantastical. A man leaping from a high bluff, only to become a great hawk, then flash and
disappear. A moonlit beach where silver-skinned women rose from the surf.

The dreams were interesting, but they weren’t what helped Ray and Sally. After their mother died and the two were forced to live in the squalor of lower Manhattan, Ray did what he had to to take care of Sally. Sometimes he stole food or people’s purses, whichever was easier.

But more often the lodestone would help. Ray would feel a sudden shudder from his pocket. He would take out the lodestone and follow the jerking movements until it led him to a dropped coin or a forgotten bag of apples in the back of a livery or a bunch of old boxes in an alley they could use for shelter.

Then a month ago, just after Sally had met Miss Corey and convinced Ray to move into the orphanage, the lodestone began pulling urgently to the south. Ray had snuck out from St. Anthony’s Home to see what it was pulling toward. It always led him to the southern end of Manhattan Island. Wherever it was leading Ray was much farther south.

The nightmare had begun at the same time. The terrible vision of the hound pursuing him—although Ray somehow knew it wasn’t him—through the swamp.

Ray had always wondered if his father had known what the lodestone could do. Had he meant it to help Ray? Were the dreams showing him something his father had wanted Ray to know?

Ray looked back through the window into the passenger car. Sally was peering up and down the aisle, looking for him. He put the lodestone back in his pocket and reached for the door.

Sally was stringing a cat’s cradle when Ray returned to the seat beside her.

“Miss Corey said we’re not supposed to leave the car,” she said, spreading her small fingers wide as Ray moved the string through the tangled design.

“Just stepped out for some air.”

She frowned at him. “Something’s bothering you.”

Ray continued threading the cat’s cradle with her. “No, there’s not.”

She slipped her hands from the web of string and pressed her finger against his furrowed brow.

Ray laughed. “What would I be fretting about?” He pushed her finger away. “You’re going to get a wonderful family, just like you’ve always wanted.”

“We’re
going to get a wonderful family,” Sally corrected. She untangled the grimy muslin dress from her knees before nestling herself into Ray’s arms. “Our family will take care of us and we’ll be together, just like you promised. So stop fretting and read me some of my book.”

Ray picked up the small, blue-linen-bound book from the seat and opened it.

“Ray,” Sally asked, her head leaning against his
shoulder, “do you think our new family will mind if we read Papa’s book?”

“No,” Ray said, opening
The Incunabula of Wandering
to a chapter on rabbit warrens. “I’m sure they won’t.”

Their mother had never liked them reading the
Incunabula
, though Ray had not known why. His father had scribbled notes in the margins, covering any blank space. Ray had tried over the years to understand the book, to learn something more about his father from the notes. But he could barely decipher his father’s cursive script, and the bits he could read were too bizarre to gather their meaning. He wasn’t even sure what the book was about; it seemed to be composed of random and unrelated chapters. It was full of poems and articles on animals, wild herbs, topography, and more complicated subjects.

It wasn’t just the book that had caused their mother to act secretive. She had never wanted to discuss anything to do with their father. After eight years, after all they had gone through, Ray had to assume that his father was dead. Why else wouldn’t he have come back?

But what had happened to him?

In the night, the only sounds on the train were the rumbling of the metal wheels on the track and the soft breathing of the children. The lights had been dimmed, but Ray couldn’t sleep. He watched the moon race behind the trees as he tried to quiet his thoughts.

He squeezed the lodestone, feeling its heavy pull. Would Sally be better off without him?

Ray’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening behind him. Footsteps thumped down the aisle, and Ray quickly feigned sleep. A figure passed him, the crisp knocks of leather boots alternating with the clunk of a walking stick on the wooden floor. Ray peered up in time to see the black and reptilian-green suit disappear out the door. Through the window, the vestibule was dark but for an orange glow that illuminated Mister Grevol’s face as he lit a cigarillo.

Mister Grevol had left his car at the back of the train. Sally and Miss Corey and the orphans were all asleep. If Ray wanted to leave, he would never have a better opportunity.

Ray’s heart felt mashed; his throat constricted. He reached for Sally’s coat and bundled it. Sliding to the edge of the seat, he tucked the coat under Sally’s head and stood up. Her nose twitched, but she did not wake. He glanced out at the vestibule. Mister Grevol was drawing on his cigarillo, causing a red glow like a phantom eye to form at the tip.

Ray turned away from Sally and Mister Grevol and headed down the aisle. He opened the door onto the vestibule and went into the next car. Ray was momently stunned by the luxury of Mister Grevol’s parlor, with its silk-upholstered furnishings, thickly carpeted floor, and crystal decanters of wine secured on an ebony hutch. The
man with the gold tooth was sleeping in a chair, his head propped on one cupped hand.

Ray tiptoed through to the next door, crossed the vestibule, and went down the hallway of a sleeper car; the walls were paneled with detailed marquetry, and brass lamps cast warm yellow light down the expanse. When he reached the caboose, Ray peered through the beveled glass of the door and spied the brakemen up in the cupola, watching out the high windows above the train.

Ray entered quietly, backing against the caboose’s wall, out of the brakemen’s line of sight. The two were idly chatting above, smoking cigars and sipping coffee. Moving carefully, as close to the walls as possible, Ray made his way out the open door to the balcony at the end of the train. He stepped into the rushing night air, hoping that the wind would blow away the tears in his eyes—if he was going to jump from the train, he needed to be able to see clearly.

Ray tried to steady his shaking hands by clamping them to the railing. The caboose’s balcony was dimly illuminated by a single electric bulb. Beyond the rail was little more than the swirl of moving darkness. At what point had the train entered a forest? Towering trees curled over the tracks, blocking any moonlight that would have helped him see where he was going to leap.

Ray removed his wool cap, folded it, and stuck it into the pocket of his tattered coat. He had jumped off a moving train before, but those had only been streetcars and omnibuses. They were never going this fast.

Ray swung a leg over the railing to the side of the train. The wind intensified as he eased his other leg across and tightened his hand on a beam overhead. He tried to gauge what lay to the side of the tracks—bushes or boulders, grass or tree trunks? He wiped a hand across his eyes, but it was no use. There was no telling what was out there.

Ray touched his hand to the lodestone in his pocket. The lodestone would guide him—to what, he did not know. But Ray was certain his father had meant for it to help him.

He leaped into the dark.

Ray’s mind went blank. By the time he reached the ground, he had spun completely around. The heels of his brogans touched for a moment on the loose earth and then he tumbled, somersaulting over and over until he landed on his stomach with a gasp.

For a brief moment, he was conscious enough to look up and watch the sooty orange glow of the train as it disappeared into the night.

R
AY OPENED HIS EYES
. R
AISING HIS HEAD FROM THE HARD
earth, he saw a faint pinkish color beyond the treetops; it was nearly daybreak. He tried to lift himself but was so sore and bruised, it was easier just to roll over onto his back first. He gingerly poked a finger along his chest. There were plenty of spots that caused him to flinch, but nothing seemed broken. He touched his palm to his forehead but found no blood.

Ray slowly sat up. His first thought was to check his pocket for the lodestone. It was still there, securely tied to his belt with the length of twine, but a painful bruise had formed where the stone had hammered into his thigh. He felt lucky that this was the worst of his injuries.

He got to his feet, stiff, sore, and thirsty. As he spat dirt from his mouth, Ray looked around at the vast woods
surrounding him. Leaning his head back, he listened. All he heard were birdsongs and the wind swishing through the trees overhead.

Ray took out the lodestone. As he held the cold, dark stone in his hand, it began to move across his palm, inching toward his thumb. Closing his fingers to catch it, he turned until he faced that direction. He wondered if it was still pulling south. The sun was rising to his left, so he decided it had to be.

The lodestone tugged toward the shadowy wall of trees. Ray looked once down the train tracks in the direction Mister Grevol’s train had gone. He turned back to face the forest. Taking his cap from his pocket and squaring it on his head, Ray set off into the trees.