When Cris got over to Buddy, the producer was fidgeting. "Who the hell is that?" Buddy said. "Looks like a character from a Spielberg movie."
"It's a break he was here. If anybody in this jungle knows anything, Steam Train Jack will find out for us."
They sat by the river and watched undernourished children playing in the water.
Stacy looked at the camp in wonder. "This is amazing. I never knew something like this existed. It's like pictures I saw of Hoovervilles in the thirties. Why are they here?"
"These people are rejects."
"You weren't a reject," she said, looking at him carefully.
"No," Cris said softly. "I was running from myself."
After twenty minutes, Steam Train moved back to them. He must have returned to his shanty, because now he had a walking stick, a long piece of polished oak with a knotted handle. He hobbled down to the river and motioned to Cris, who left Stacy and Buddy and joined him.
"On the two-mile grade/Three hours ago/They left on the NETT/On a Burlington, MO."
"The Northeastern Tennessee Track, Burlington MoPac Unit?" Cris said. "That's New Orleans."
Steam Train nodded. "Three 'bos I know were ridin' that hop/ When they saw Kincaid/They decided to drop." He raised an eyebrow in concern, and it arched there like a huge furry caterpillar.
"Thanks, Steam Train," Cris said. "I'll be careful."
The old man's face scrunched in thought for a moment, then he spun an old rhyme: "Mosta my pals caught the westbound freight, to the land beyond the sun/God had a time on His consist sheet for each and ever one/Heaven's great and fulla 'bos, for that ya can be sure/But it don't make sense ta push up front fer an' early departure."
Steam Train hugged Cris, stepped back, turned, and poking the ground with his gnarled stick, limped slowly away.
Part Four
THE REVOLUTION
Chapter 33
They had been sided at Shreveport, Louisiana, to let a "hotshot" intermodal train go by. The muggy air clung to them like foul cologne. Luther "Ill Gotten" Gains and the Texas Madman sat with Randall Rader and Dexter DeMille, watching Reverend Kincaid. The empty wood-slat boxcar was buried in the middle of the parked unit train, which contained a hundred grainers filled with Kansas wheat. They had been sided for almost an hour. "Milk is transported all across this nation on the rails," Fannon reasoned as he paced. "Moves in big refrigerated tankers ever day. So we're gonna send retribution to the Niggers and Jews in the milk they buy at the store."
"It's not gonna be that easy," Dexter answered, his voice strained and weak in the still air of the boxcar. "I'm trying to tell you that the Prion in this form is basically harmless-it hasn't been genetically tuned. This is simply a baseline protein. In order to turn what we have into a genetic binary weapon you'd need to change all the pH factors. The process is called acidosis. It's… it's very complicated and specific work."
Now Fannon kneeled beside Dexter and studied him like a crushed bug on the sidewalk. Dexter knew in that instant that he was nothing to Fannon Kincaid; that exactly like Admiral Zoll, Kincaid would kill him as soon as he got what he wanted. He needed to call on all of his survival instincts to buy time.
"Mr. DeMille, we are going to deliver this victory for Yahweh," Fannon said. "We are going to purge two cities of the counterfeit races. This will start the Revolution. People who know the truth, but have been afraid to act, will see this victory and take heart. Many will join the cause. You think this great victory can be delayed by some pissant piece of shit like you?" When Dexter didn't respond, Fannon screamed, "Answer me, you godless motherfucker!"
"No, sir. No…" Dexter flinched. He was now pressed hard against the side of the boxcar, straining to get away from Kincaid.
Luther Gains watched his discomfort with sadistic interest. Gains was rail-thin, snake-mean, and had a personality as twisted and coarse as hemp rope. After breaking out of a federal prison in Fayetteville, where he had been incarcerated for murder, Luther had started hiding out with the Choir.
The Texas Madman was an absolute contrast to Luther. Heavy-set and soft, the Texas Madman spoke in a high-pitched whisper, never raising his voice above a breathy squeak. He was out of shape and overweight, a grotesque collection of bulges and curves. He had earned his moniker by brutally killing six sleeping hobos in one blood-soaked year, and he gloried in these fatal assaults. His eyes lost reason and focus as he hacked his victims to death with the short-handled ax he kept in his backpack. After "converting" to the Choir, he had become Fannon's chief executioner.
" 'Complicated and specific work.' You must really think I'm one gullible, outta-touch motherfucker," Fannon hissed, showing tobacco-stained teeth.
"It… I…" Then Dexter fell silent.
Fannon turned to the Texas Madman. "Kill this godless motherfucker." Then Fannon got up, went to the ladder, and started to climb to the roof, where he would "car surf" to the grainer behind and join the others.
The Texas Madman picked up his backpack and retrieved the ax, then he moved over to Dexter. Fannon opened the hatch and started to climb out to the top of the boxcar.
"No… no… please," Dexter said, looking into the soft face and soulless eyes of the Texas Madman.
"Talk t'me, brother," Fannon said from the top step of the ladder.
"I need a lab. I need pH meters, and the right acids and bases. I need pure blood samples from the target groups, African-Americans and Jews, so I can do the DNA stranding."
"If I get what you need, how long will it take to make this shit right?"
"Coupla hours, maybe less."
Fannon slid down the metal ladder, his combat boots hitting the wood floor, cracking the silence like a leather bullwhip. He moved back to Dexter and looked down at him. "We can find a blood bank, steal whatever we need."
"Blood banks don't keep those kinds of records. Government regulations prevent separating blood along ethnic or racial lines."
"This fuckin' society. Whatta buncha bullshit. So, how do we do it?"
"There's only one lab that has everything I need, but it won't be easy."
"It wasn't easy for Moses to get the stone tablets down from Mount Sinai, or to part the Red Sea. God's work ain't supposed t'be easy. God's will is dangerous to pursue. Where the hell's this lab?"
"At the Devil's Workshop in Fort Detrick, Maryland."
Chapter 34
We need a priority train," Cris said to Buddy. He was seated on the bed in the suite Buddy had rented at the Fort Worth Four Seasons Hotel, and was looking at the train line-up. The shower was on in the bathroom, and they could hear Stacy's splashing through the closed door.
"You got anything cooking with her?" Buddy asked unexpectedly.
"Give it a rest. Her husband just died."
"Sometimes you can catch a good bounce after a personal tragedy." Cris looked up at him in dismay, but the look seemed to please Buddy. The old outlaw was back, the "do anything/fuck everybody" Buddy.
"Leave her alone. She needs time."
Buddy started to answer, but the sound of the water cutting off stopped the conversation.
The bathroom door opened and Stacy walked into the suite. Her hair was wet, and she had on a big terry-cloth bathrobe belted at the waist, a hotel towel around her neck.
"God, that feels better," she said. "Who's next?"
There was a long silence, and then Buddy got up and headed into the bathroom. "Boy, it smells like girl in here, sweet and sexy," he grinned, then closed the door.
Stacy moved into the room and looked down on the bed at a map of Texas and Louisiana, and the carbons that Cris had fished out of the trash at the SP switching yard.