The freckle-faced woman offered Virgil a crooked smile.
“The preacher fellow who was sitting here holding this Bible,” Virgil said. “Was he somebody you knew?”
She shook her head.
“No, sir.”
“How long had he been sitting here?” Virgil asked.
“Not long,” she said.
She looked around at a few passengers sitting near her.
“He just plopped down here, short time before y’all two come through the front door shooting them robbers.”
“He came through the rear door here?” Virgil said.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “The robbers pointed their guns at him. I thought they was gonna shoot him, but he held up his Bible, talking about Jesus, and they didn’t.”
The other passengers sitting nearby nodded in agreement.
“Just preaching he was,” she said, “talking about going to hell. Spewing like it was just shy of noon on Sunday. The robbers told him to sit down and shut up.”
“And the preacher fellow just sat here?”
“He did... but I’m not real sure he was a preacher,” she said. “Well, if he was a preacher he was rather unpreacherly.”
“What was unpreacherly about him?” Virgil asked.
“When the shooting started, I grabbed on to him and I could feel he was carryin’ guns.”
“Guns?” Virgil said. “More than one?”
“Yes,” she said as she looked back and forth between Virgil and me. “Two I know of. One on his hip, one in his coat pocket.”
“When he left this seat,” Virgil said, “was he carrying anything?”
The woman looked up to the luggage rack overhead, then to a few of the passengers that were watching her.
“He had a fancy black suitcase,” she said. “He took it with him when he left through the front there.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Virgil tipped his hat and started to move, but the freckle-faced woman spoke up.
“It was hard for him with the luggage,” she said. “He had but one arm. His left arm was wood, and he had a hand that was carved and painted to look normal, but it was not.”
“Thank you,” Virgil said. Virgil looked a me. Then he looked to the rest of the passengers.
“We need to get these lamps off, folks,” Virgil said.
25
I followed Virgil to the rear of the coach, and the passengers did as they were instructed and started turning off the lamps. With the exception of Virgil being downright hornswoggled by Allie French, he was a man who did not get the wool pulled over his eyes, ever. The mere fact that we were now coasting and eventually would be rolling backward in disconnected coaches down the track in a rainstorm because of an oversight wasn’t setting well with Virgil.
“If there is a Yankee,” I said, “that must be him masquerading as a conductor, masquerading as a God-fearing preacher?”
“Hard to say,” Virgil said.
“He must have double-crossed the others,” I said.
“Might have.”
“Looks like he made off with the loot,” I said.
Virgil stopped at the rear door and looked back to the passengers turning out the last few lamps.
“That’s not all he’s made off with,” Virgil said without looking at me.
“I know,” I said.
The notion we left the governor’s daughters in harm’s way prompted Virgil’s eyes to narrow and grow cold. I’d seen that look on Virgil’s face many times before, but it was always right before he killed somebody.
“Emma’s got fight,” I said. “She’s got six rounds in a short-barrel Colt; she’s got a steely resolve and she’s got fight.”
“One thing for certain,” Virgil said. “They’re heading north, we’re heading south, and there ain’t nothing we can do about the inevitability of that fact. Least not at this very moment there ain’t.”
Virgil opened the door. We stepped into the falling rain and crossed to the next coach. I followed Virgil down the aisle. The undertaker had done what Virgil had asked him to do. The dead man had been laid to rest on a seat and was covered by a blanket. An old Apache woman wearing a stove-collared black dress was now sitting with the grieving widow.
“Everyone,” I said. “We need you to turn out the lamps. So take care of what you need to take care of, then do just that, turn ’em out.”
By the time we stepped out the rear door the rain had subsided some, but it was still coming down solid as if it had settled in for the night. The two coaches we were riding were now rolling very slowly backward down the slightest grade. Virgil was looking down the track, but there was really nothing to see other than darkness and rain.
“This is it,” I said.
“It is,” Virgil said.
“Now we just ride the brake,” I said. “Ease up on Bloody Bob, Vince, and the others.”
Virgil nodded.
“First sign of that rear section,” I said, “we stay back, watching ’em. Stop when they stop.”
“Sounds right.”
“Mix things up a bit,” I said.
“We will,” Virgil said.
For the moment we didn’t need to brake; we were traveling very slowly, but I released the foot latch on the handbrake wheel and gave the wheel a slight test turn to the right. The wheel turned, but there was no friction, no braking.
“No good,” I said.
“No good?” Virgil said.
I turned the wheel again, this time a few revolutions, thinking maybe the chain to the brakes might have just slacked off, but there was nothing, the wheel just turned.
“Don’t work?” Virgil asked.
“No,” I said. “It don’t.”
“You think with the George Westinghouse brakes,” Virgil said, “they’re no longer hooked up?”
“Don’t know. We’ll need to stop, though, figure out what is what,” I said. “I’ll open the air-line valve on the other end, get us stopped, have a look.”
26
Virgil stayed on point on the downhill platform, and I worked my way back through both coaches. Nobody was talking. The passengers were settled and the lamps had all been turned off. It was quiet except for the sound of the slow rolling wheels on the track.
I thought about the many brakemen who lost their jobs because of George Westinghouse; brakemen with the dangerous job of helping the engineer regulate a train’s speed by moving from coach to coach, tweaking the wheels of the handbrakes.
With the exception of the faint glow from a passenger’s cigar or cigarette, we were now traveling in complete darkness. When I opened the door and stepped out onto the uphill coach’s platform it was obvious we were rolling faster. Not a lot faster, but some. I got down on the floor plate of the platform and opened the angle cock valve and heard nothing — nothing happened, no braking, no slowing, nothing.
I got to my feet and released the foot latch on the handbrake and gave the wheel a turn.
“Son of a bitch,” I said out loud.
The wheel just turned, like the other end, it just turned.
“Son of a bitch.”
I got down to look under the coach. It was dark, and nothing was visible on the underside. I reached under to feel underneath the shaft of the handbrake. There was no chain connected to the brake. I got to my feet quick, stepped back through the door and down the aisle toward the other coach. My mind started to race. Had this been by design? Were we dealing with a train hand? A saboteur? Was there a getaway plan? A backup plan?