The Gangster (Isaac Bell #9)(3)

“Use your hands.”

Speed was all. If Isaac Bell was reading the night timetable correctly, all trains had stopped running for the night after ten thirty. But the timetable warned of maintenance trains and gravel trains that might be on the tracks. The shorter time he was on the single track line, the better. Sixty miles per hour would get him to Farmington in forty minutes. He checked his watch. He had lost five full minutes stopping the train for Doug. The speed indicator read forty.

“More coal!”

The boys passed coal. Ron scooped it onto the fire. It seemed to take forever, but slowly, gradually, the steam pressure increased and the speed indicator crept up and up and up until finally she was rumbling along at sixty miles per hour. Once the train was up to sixty, and running light with no cars to haul, Bell was able to pull the Johnson bar back to an easy cruising position and let his weary, blistered, black and greasy firemen take a break.

“What’s that ahead?”

Andy had stuck his head out the side window to watch the tracks. Bell leaned out with him and saw a single dim light. He checked his watch and his map. “Mount Carmel Station.” Eight and a half miles from New Haven. Thirty-two to go. Best of all, the station house was dark. The dispatcher, who would have telegraphed that an engine was running “wild,” was asleep in his bed.

Andy begged permission to blow the whistle. Bell vetoed it. Screaming like banshees was not in the interest of crossing Connecticut as stealthily as a ghost.

His luck held as 106 highballed past small-town stations at Cheshire, Plantsville, and Southington—all three lights-out and fast asleep. But the next station was Plainville. Boldface print in the timetable indicated it was a big depot, and, indeed, as 106 rounded a curve into the town, Bell saw the station house and platform ablaze in light.

Trainmen were on the platform, and he feared there would be workmen on the tracks. He reached for the air brakes. Then he saw that the signal post showed a clear white light—the proceed signal, according to the Locomotive Catechism.

“Pull the whistle, Andy.”

Andy yanked the cord looped from the roof of the cab. Steam coursed through the whistle with a deafening shriek. Men on the platform jumped back and watched, slack-jawed, as 106 tore into and out of Plainville at sixty miles an hour.

Bell raised his voice so all could hear above the roar.

“The jig is up.”

The boys groaned. “What are we going to do, Isaac?”

“We’ll turn off into the Farmington yards and head for Miss Porter’s cross-country.”

Bell showed them the way on his map. Then he handed out train tickets, one-ways from Plainville to New Haven. “Head back to school in the morning.”

“Lights ahead!” called Andy, who was watching from the window. Bell eased back on the throttle, the speeding locomotive lost way, and he braked it to a smooth stop.

“Doug, there’s your switch. On the jump, they know we’re coming. Andy, douse our lights.”

Andy extinguished the headlamp, and Doug ran to the switch and shunted them into the yard, which stretched toward the lights of Farmington. Quiet descended, the silence eerie after the thunder of the pistons.

“Wait,” Bell whispered. He had heard the rustle of boots on gravel. Now he sensed motion in the starlight.

“Someone’s coming!” Ron and Larry chorused.

“Wait,” Bell repeated, listening hard. “He’s going the other way.” He glimpsed a figure running away from the locomotive. “Only some poor hobo.”

“Cops!” A lantern was bobbing toward them.

Bell saw a single cop stumbling through a pool of lamplight. A nightshirt was half tucked into his trousers, and he was struggling to tug his suspenders over his shoulders while he ran. “Stop! Halt!”

A figure ran through the same pool of light where Bell had seen the rail cop.

The bobbing lantern veered in pursuit.

“He’s chasing the hobo.”

“Run, guys, now’s our chance.”

The boys bolted for the dark. Bell looked back. The hobo had an odd running gait. His right foot flew out with each step at a sideways angle, reminding Bell of how a trotting horse with a flawed gait would “wing.”

A second watchman ran from the station house, blowing a whistle, and charged after Bell’s classmates. With a sinking heart, Bell knew that it was his fault they were here. He ran after them as fast as he could, got between them and the watchman, and when the watchman saw him, bolted in the opposite direction. The trick worked. The cop galloped after him, and the rest of the boys disappeared toward the town.

Bell headed toward a cluster of freight houses and coal pockets, timing his pace to gradually pull ahead, veered through the buildings, and used them for cover to sprint into a clump of trees. There, he hid and waited. This early in spring, branches hadn’t yet leafed out and the stars penetrated so brightly they gleamed on his hands. He dropped the satchel at his feet, pulled his collar around his face, and hid his hands in his pockets.

He heard footsteps. Then labored breathing. The hobo limped into the trees. He saw Bell, plunged a hand into his coat, and whipped out a knife in a blur of starlight on steel. Run? thought Bell. Not and turn his back on the knife. He grabbed the heavy satchel to block the knife and formed a fist.

Ten feet apart, the two eyed each other silently. The hobo’s face was dark, barely visible under the brim of his cap. His eyes glittered like a hunted animal’s. His arms and legs and entire body were coiled to spring. Isaac Bell grew aware of his own body; every muscle was cocked.