The heavy wet snow that had started falling early that morning had created beautiful mounded sculptures out of the trees, and left a field of diamonds over the hillside that dazzled the eye as the morning sun rose. The long lines of brilliant sunlight slashing across the mountainside had greeted James West, who left the rail car for a brief trip into the nearby mining town. The crisp air, the clear blue skies and the warmth of the sun reflecting off the unbroken sheet of white; never before had a winter's day in the mountains been so genial.
West knew it wouldn't last and was prepared for anything, but his trip was going to be short. The siding that The Wanderer sat on wasn't more than three miles away from the town and he was only planning to be there for the few hours it would take to locate his partner and the prisoners, collect them, and return to the warmth of the varnish car.
The light fluffy snow that had put two feet down on the mountainside that morning was just a flurry compared to the gale headed their way. Unless they wanted to be stuck in the mining town for another week they had to leave right away.
Neither secret service man was anxious to spend any more time in Holloway when the warmth of San Francisco, Texas or even New Orléans, could soon be awaiting them.
Arte was apparently very anxious, Jim realized, when he spotted his partner, and their four prisoners, making their way toward him, having already left the town. While Arte could have been on horseback he had apparently chosen to walk, guiding his prisoners, who were also walking, ahead of him through the snow.
"I thought you were going to hire some horses!" Jim called to the man wearing a sheepskin coat and gloves, a long black scarf, brown trousers and knee-length boots. Arte had his rifle casually cradled in one arm, his other hand behind him, leading his mount.
"Fancy meeting you here, James!" He responded shouting across the distance that separated them.
Each of the four prisoners were so varied in height, weight and nationality, that they alone, even in normal clothes, looked like a circus, even outfitted for the cold weather.
At the approach of the other secret service agent the four criminals slowed their pace, thinking that this would provide them a chance to rest, but Arte's voice piped up behind them. "Keep it moving men, I don't see a train, do you?"
Groaning, each man trudged forward, widening the gap in their ragged line, revealing the chain that linked each of them together. The chain was attached to manacles that each man wore around his wrists.
Jim stepped down from the saddle and joined his partner, training his own rifle on the men, as they walked.
"It's a fine morning, Arte, but why walk?"
"I didn't want to provide any more means of escape for these men, than I had to. And the walk will wear them down, hopefully, take some of the fight out of them."
West took a closer look at his partner, noticing the discoloration under his left eye and the stiff way he was walking. The depth of the snow, and the cold, had made his stride seem unnatural, but closer now to the older man, Jim could tell it had more to do with his injuries.
"They cause you trouble last night?" He asked.
Arte shrugged, then slowed a step and handed the reins of his mare to Jim, switching the rifle from his left arm to his now free right. His left he kept crooked and pressed against his chest. "Nothing too serious. You know how I abhor violence."
"So then it was a non-violent protest that gave you that bruise?"
Arte smirked. He'd been undercover in the mountain town for a little over three months, and had known going into the job that maintaining a pasted on mustache and beard for that long would be beastly. Instead he had stopped shaving, and in a little under a week the stubble had done its job, making him look like he belonged in the town.
"Last night I was hoping to get rid of this beard. Holloway still has no jail, so we had them locked up in the liquor cabinet of the store. The sheriff said he could handle watching them for an hour while I shaved." Arte shook his head.
Jim chuckled a little. "How'd the sheriff make out?"
"Knocked over the head with a fire poker. Ten stitches from that doctor/dentist/barber quack in town." Arte gestured his free hand toward the bruise on his face. "I've got this and sore ribs. That one..." Arte jabbed his finger at the tallest, broadest and meanest looking of the four. "I had to hit twice. Of course, given that I had a pair of barbering shears in my hands at the time of the incident, I suppose I should be grateful no one tried to slit my throat."
It also seemed that Arte had given up on his hope for shaving, as the man still bore the full beard and mustache, if nicely trimmed.
They were quiet for a minute, both men studying the prisoners laboring to break trail through the snow ahead of them. They were able to follow the path Jim's horse had taken, but the snow was deep and growing heavier by the minute as the sun warmed it.
"How did the refitting go?" Arte asked.
"I think you'll like the end result, Arte." Jim said, pleased with himself.
For a long time he and Gordon had been discussing the need for well made, as-escape-proof-as-possible, holding cells in the baggage car. While they had no interest in weighing down the train anymore than they had to; its light load part of what made it so effective a conveyance. They had more times than not found the lack of a holding cell incredibly inconvenient.
Locking prisoners in closets, or their own berths, wasn't as effective as it could be.
"It took you long enough, I had better like it." Arte groused. They had solved the case and made their arrests four days before, but Jim insisted on taking the train to a bigger town on the other side of the mountain to refit the baggage car and install the cells, all according to a plan that he hadn't shown Arte. Jim claimed that he had approved the plan through Orrin, their engineer and erstwhile train master, so Arte agreed to stay in the town looking after the prisoners and closing up shop until Jim returned.
Jim's cable that morning couldn't have come soon enough.
"How is ol' Saguache, Colorado doing anyway?" Arte asked. He and his partner had spent some time in the town a while back investigating a serial killing.
"Sheriff Bowdeen sends his regards and is looking forward to housing our friends there overnight in his jail."
"Marvelous."
"We've been offered adjoining rooms in the Mears' Town hotel." Jim continued and Arte chuckled remembering the handful of box like buildings that made up what they called Mears' Town. "And old man Mears himself is rumored to make an appearance." Jim concluded, both men reacting with exaggerated aplomb to the revelation.
"How far is this supposed train anyway?" One of the prisoner's interrupted. No more than four feet tall, the speaker was sagging against another of the prisoners, clearly worn out.
"It could be in Timbuktu and it still wouldn't matter. Keep walking." Arte responded, waiting until the big man, who was in the lead, started the caravan on its way again.
"How far away is the train, Jim?"
"Three miles..."
Arte groaned. "You're right, I shouldn't have walked."
By the time they reached the chuffing train on the siding and lowered the ramp of the equine car the sun had risen well into the sky, the hour close to ten in the morning. Both men guided the prisoners up the ramp and into the much warmer car, securing each in his own cell.
The cells had been placed one in each corner of the car. This had required moving the horses' stalls to the center of the room, where they had been stabilized with added timbers. As each cell occupied a corner, the 90 degree space had been filled with a triangular piece of wood fastened to the walls of the car, three feet off the floor, and covered in a triangular cushion that provided the only seating for the prisoners.
"Where did you put the stove?" Arte asked, pointing at the place in the center of the car where the pot belly had once been.
"They won't need it." Jim said, smirking at his partner before he pointed to four vents on the floor of the car directly under the prisoner's cells. "We fitted extra pipes under the floor boards that feed the steam through filters, soaking up the moisture and expel hot air."
A surprised smile crept over Arte's face, his eyes twinkling as he bent carefully to look at the vents. He could still see a little saw dust around each of them, but they had otherwise been expertly fitted. Now, not only could they heat the baggage car less expensively, but with greater effectiveness too, if the way the car felt was any indication.
"I...am impressed, Jim." Arte said finally, to which his partner proudly grinned.
"Did you do the same to the varnish car?"
"Not yet...there wasn't time. With more rooms and a bigger space I'll have to design a different piping diagram. But Orrin and I already have an idea for that."
Together the two men closed the doors to the baggage car, securing them before they looked after the horses. Their prisoners were slowly acclimating to their cells and apparently too tired to talk.
"Where is Orrin?" Arte asked after a moment.
"He and John have been clearing the snow off the tracks, I'd imagine he's up ahead."
The train crew had been working since daybreak in the snow, whilst keeping the train at a rolling boil. They would need 100 feet of cleared track to get the engine, hopper and two cars at a high enough rate of speed so that the remaining snow on the track could be pushed out of the way by the plow affixed to the front of the engine. This involved shoveling the snow out of the way then scattering salt over the rails.
In shallow snow, once the train was moving fast enough, the plow was sufficient. Orrin hoped to be out of the mountains and well on their way through the deserts outside of Denver before the 'horrid white stuff' as he called it, got any deeper.
They rolled off the siding and onto the main track just before 12 o'clock.
Once the cells had been rechecked and the prisoners given biscuits, hot coffee and jerked beef for their noon meal, Jim and Arte retired to the varnish car. Both men changed out of the clothing that had become damp, warming themselves with a small measure of brandy and a pot of soup.
Jim satisfied himself that his partner's injuries were as minor as he had made them out to be and before long West found himself alone in the lounge car, his partner retreating to his berth to take a much-needed nap. As they climbed the mountain at 34 miles per hour, the day remaining clear and starting to warm a little despite the altitude, Jim focused on paperwork, getting up twice every hour at un-even intervals to check on their prisoners.
The case they had just finished had been accomplished by working, as Arte liked to put it, together but apart. In the mining town of Holloway, Colorado, Arte had established himself as a peddler turned mercantile owner.
The building that the government had purchased through Arte's cover name was big enough to allow for some tables and chairs along with the merchandise Arte needed to get established. The business had soon lent itself more as a gambling parlor than a mercantile.
This was part of Arte's ultimate goal and he soon had more than a few confidantes out of the populace of Halloway that would report to him, the humble bartender and mercantile owner, the goings on in the mountains around the small municipality.
Reports of haunting noises in the hills and sightings of a massive furry beast, along with the disappearances of several wealthy mine owners and operators in the area, had brought the attention of the secret service and, thus, also the services of one Artemus Gordon and James West.
While Jim traveled around that part of the country conferring with, and checking on various other agents who were stationed in long-term covers, seeing if any of them had heard of someone looking to amass wealth and willing to do it the slow, and hard, way, Arte had worked his way into the heart of the matter and the town, where he kept an ear open.
They'd met only twice during the whole of the case. Once to establish that the first month may have been a total bust, and the second time, on the day that Arte spotted the 'mountain beast' himself. Jim had then spent two weeks on the periphery of the town, out in the cold, watching as winter took firm hold of the mountains, and hunting down every spotting, attack, or rumor to do with the creature.
They'd finally discovered the solution a week ago. A pair of circus performers, accustomed to spending hours, one on the shoulders of another, had crafted a giant, man-like, fur covered suit, made from bear and elk hides, that they wore, while clomping around the forests, terrorizing the locals.
The actual killings had been the work of another circus performer, a strong man, capable of felling a human being with a single fatal blow. The bodies of their victims were then marked up with knives, and the claws taken from a dead wolf, and were placed where they could be 'discovered'.
The farce had been working for months. The mines were avoided because of the danger and each death was ruled 'accidental'. Not one eye was batted when the old man with the cane and the monical entered the assayer's office after every death, and bought up the unclaimed mines.
The old man, it turned out, wasn't old at all, but a very young and talented, if twisted, thespian and former circus artist who had created this scheme. Planning to own all the mines in the area, and to hire the remaining miners to work them, he and his cohorts had every intention of creating a monopoly on the mountain, and someday claiming it all as theirs.
While the monopoly wasn't necessarily illegal, the murder was, and in a few short days Arte and Jim put a stop to it.
Now all four accomplices were sleeping in their cells, curled under the blankets provided, worn out, just as Arte had hoped they would be.
By two o'clock that afternoon the train had crested the highest point of the mountain railroad and begun its journey down hill. This would happen at even slower a pace as their ascent. The curves of the tracks were just as severe going down as they had been going up, but gravity and the weight of the train would endeavor to pull them down faster than the curves would allow, and extra friction was needed to prevent the engine from flying off the rails.
By two-thirty the skies had become overcast. By three o'clock snow had begun to fall in tiny crystalline flakes that appeared not to be accumulating, only flittering about, teasing at the windows.
When Jim rose from the writing desk at three-fifteen, headed for the baggage car to check on the prisoners, the squealing of the brakes were his only warning before the cars jolted and he was thrown against one of the walls.
Bracing himself in the narrow hallway between Arte's lab and the galley, Jim waited, grabbing hold of the door jamb until the brakes were finally released and the train returned to its normal rhythm.
In the baggage car the prisoners had been awakened by the jolt and two of them, the men who had portrayed the mountain beast by standing, one on the shoulders of the other, were clinging to the bars of their cells fearfully.
The minute they spotted Jim entering the car the shorter of the two cried, "You've got to let me out of here. I can't stay here any longer."
Jim remembered Arte referring to this one as Bo. The man was about four feet tall, thin and muscular. The body of a tumbler with a Mediterranean face and thick, curling black hair. "In two hours you're going to be in a cell that's been cut out of a mountainside, you might as well get used to this while you can." Jim said.
"You can't do that to Bo, mister." The other tumbler cried. Taller than his partner by half a foot, this one had a slightly lighter complexion and hair color but clearly came from the same part of the world as his compatriot. "He gets crazy if you keep him locked up. He'll tear his hair out, or worse.." This one was named Tom, Jim recalled.
"Maybe next time, assuming you get a next time, you'll consider that before you go about murdering hapless miners."
The biggest of the four prisoners, the former strong man who stood at just under six feet, the blanket over his shoulders not wide enough to wrap around his whole chest, grunted from where he stood, glaring unblinking at West. He had been the first man placed in a cell and from the moment he was locked up he had taken that stance. Not moving, not saying a word, only staring angrily, first primarily at Arte, and now at Jim. "Larry..." Jim greeted, as he had gotten into the habit of doing every time he came to check on the prisoners. So far Larry remained uncommunicative.
"They weren't hapless." The fourth prisoner spoke, still curled into the corner of his cell, wrapped in his blanket. "They were fools, but perfectly capable of defending themselves. It was nature's own divining hand that decided their fate. Not these men."
Despite his youth, the mastermind of the whole plot, Thaddeus Langford Peach, carried a weight of wisdom and drama on his shoulders like his own spiritual burden, giving the impression that he was much older than his years. It was this maturity that had allowed him to convince everyone in the town that he was a retired gentleman of eighty, instead of an actor and criminal, barely twenty years old. Arte himself had admitted he was astonished at how intelligent the young man proved to be, and had warned Jim more than once, before going to sleep, that Thaddeus was the most dangerous of the four, and that despite his weak and pale appearance, no chances were to be taken with him.
"And you were just there to pick up the pieces, eh, Tad?" Jim spoke from the bin mounted on the wall between Larry and Peach's cells, out of which he was scooping some oats and feed. This he measured into two feed bags that he placed over the noses of Blackjack and Arte's mare, Texas.
"It's Thaddeus...or MR. Peach." The young man sputtered, getting to his feet. "And what I did after those unfortunate men died was in every way legal. If unorthodox."
Jim shook his head, eyeing the tumbler named Bo who was so agitated now that he was pacing in his cell. As there wasn't enough room for a proper pace he was mostly turning in circles, mumbling to himself. His partner stood against the bars of his cell, his arms through the gaps trying to draw Bo's attention, but it seemed the smaller man was in his own world.
"Tad..." Jim said, intentionally riling the young man. "Somethin' you might consider. Bo over there isn't going to last long in jail. All he needs is one prosecutor giving him a break on a jail sentence in exchange for full cooperation, and you're going down for every one of those murders."
That thought seemed to give the arrogant young man pause and for a few minutes he focused entirely on the tumbler across the length of the car from him, growing silent.
Once the horses were fed and watered Jim handed out cups of water to each of the prisoners, letting them drink one man at a time. It would take them until dinner to reach Saguache, but he figured the prisoners could get a warm meal once they were inside the jail. There wasn't much logic to feeding them right before giving them a prime opportunity to escape.
As Jim passed by Bo and Tom, on his way back to the varnish car, Bo suddenly leapt toward West, clanging against the bars of his cell and jamming his arms through the gaps. Instinctively Jim jumped away from him, his hand going to his gun. A second later the brakes squealed and the train lurched. The horses whinnied loudly at the upset and every man in the car staggered on his feet, including Jim, who took a second step backward.
The step brought him too close to Tom's cell and Jim felt an arm clamp around his neck too soon to step away. Instantly there was crushing pressure against his Adam's apple. His shoulders and the back of his head were being ground into the bars, and the pressure was increasing every second. Jim's gun was already in his hand and he brought it up, pointed it at Bo's cell and fired, the shot going easily wide of the ducking prisoner. The sound filled the room, and hopefully, woke Arte in the other car, but did nothing to stop the man choking him to death.
The fingers of Jim's left hand were white with the pressure he was trying to put on the wrist of the man choking him. Tom seemed not to have a nerve there, or anywhere, and West's world was starting to blacken around the edges. He fired his gun a second time and felt something punch into the skin against his back, at first nothing more than a pinch, then blossoming into a burning, ripping sensation.
"Let him go, or Bo dies, Tom." Arte's voice thundered into the car on the heels of a blast of cold air. Gordon had barely managed to get a pair of pants on before crossing from the varnish car to the baggage car, but he was very well armed, a pistol in both hands, and he was mad as hell.
When Tom didn't immediately respond Arte cocked the gun in his right hand and shot into Bo's cell. Expertly aimed, the bullet nicked the man's arm, sending a spurt of blood through the air and setting the tumbler to wailing in surprise and pain.
"Next one kills him, Tom. Who do you care about more? Bo? Or doing what Peach tells you?" Arte demanded, trying not to look at his partner.
Jim was pale and stiff. Tom's grip on West had loosened enough for the man to breathe but there was something else wrong with him, and Arte had the feeling it had to do with the drops of blood collecting between his partner's feet.
"You alright, Bo?" Tom asked, wide eyes struggling to see over the top of the head of the man he still held captive.
"No I ain't alright, that crazy law man shot me! I'm bleedin' everywhere like a stuck pig!"
"I will let that man bleed to death.." Arte began, despite knowing that the wound wasn't bad enough to cause that to happen. "...slow and painful, unless you let go of my partner now."
From across the room Peach cleared his throat. He said nothing, barely even moved. There was only the slightest of noises from him and instantly Tom's concerned expression was focused solely on the man easily ten years younger than him. Peach gave a single shake of the head, denying Tom permission to save his friend, and Tom's attention returned to Artemus.
There was more blood collecting at Jim's feet, some of the shock was wearing off and the blue-eyed man's carefully controlled expression was breaking apart little by little. He was in pain and struggling not to show it. Arte took a deep breath and shot once more into Bo's cell, concentrating on his shaking gun hand, making absolutely certain that the bullet would hit close enough to the prisoner to scare him, but not actually kill him.
The final shot did the trick and Tom stepped away from West, and back against the wall of his cell. Arte lunged forward, slipping his arm under Jim's shoulder, delving down until he could support his partner's weight by grabbing hold of the waist of his pants. Without so much as a second glance he dragged Jim out into the cold between the baggage car and the varnish car, then back into the warmth of the car they called home and all the way to the berth that he had only just left.
Already he could feel Jim's blood smearing over his bare arm, his bare foot slipping on a drop or two as they passed between cars.
Jim was struggling to breathe, his left hand curved behind his back, trying to reach the thing that was moving, pinching every time he tried to step, and tearing the rest of the time.
Arte wasn't sure that he could lay his partner down without hurting him, so he guided Jim into a sitting position on his bunk, and supported his partner with an arm across his chest while he leaned him forward so that he could get a look at the wound. A wound out of which still protruded a vicious, black handled knife. Tilting at a 45 degree angle to his back, the entry point somewhere near the lowest rib on Jim's right side, the blade had gone in to the hilt. If the length of the handle was any indication the wound was at least three inches deep.
"How bad..?" Jim managed to ask, the question preceded and followed by gasps for air that seemed to take every muscle in West's body. Shock and pain deprived the body of oxygen, Arte knew, but he was more afraid that the blade had done damage to a lung. Jim's shortness of breath made him fear it all the more.
"Lay down for a minute. I've gotta get something to stop the bleeding." Arte started to guide Jim down on his left side, turning to run for the galley. As soon as he moved the train hit a curve, the brakes squealing, but this time the train didn't slow. If anything they seemed to pick up speed and Arte jumped back into his room, securing Jim to the berth as the varnish car began to tilt dangerously to one side.
"Hurts, Arte." Jim grunted, clinging to his partner's arm with a steely grip, even as Arte clung to the bunk, trying to keep himself from falling on West, and West from falling out of the bed. The curve they had hit was a long one, and they were moving too fast for it. The tracks had to have been covered in more than just snow because their speed was increasing still, the weight of the train pulling it down the mountain.
"I know it does. Hang on." Arte grunted through clenched teeth. "Once we get around this curve we'll get you fixed up."
A moment later they rocked in the other direction, the whole car settling back on the rails and wobbling back and forth. Something glass shattered in the lounge and Arte could hear pots and pans tumbling noisily to the floor in the galley.
Once they were stable, Arte launched to his feet, rounded the corner between his room and the galley, hopped over the scatter of still rolling pans and ripped a handful of towels out of a drawer. He grabbed for a bottle of cooking brandy with the other hand.
He was nearly back into the hall when they hit another curve. The varnish car tilted again and Arte swung a foot behind him to steady himself, felt the cold iron of the pots under the ball of his foot, then felt the floor fly out from underneath him. His main concern to protect the glass brandy bottle in his hand, he tucked it against his chest and went down on the side opposite, most of his weight coming down on the jumble of pots and already bruised ribs. His head bounced off the floor, jostling his brain. A second later pain blossomed behind his eyes and he gasped, struggling to pull in enough air to keep himself from passing out.
For a second time the varnish car finally settled and Arte painfully dragged himself to his feet, escaping the death trap of the kitchen, and stumbling with a wide stance down the short hall. He found his partner lying on his stomach on the floor of his small room.
"Jim?" He couldn't tell if West was awake or not, and stepped over the prone man's legs before he carefully set his hard-won supplies on the bed. "Jim-uh!"
The brakes engaged again, this time catching, and causing Jim and Arte to start flying in a new direction, only Jim didn't stop himself and as his partner started to slide across the floor Arte grabbed for Jim's waist band and held on to West with one hand, and the corner of his fixed bunk with the other.
The brakes continued to squeal, slipping on occasion, but gradually slowing the train's almost uncontrolled descent. Arte held on, knowing all he could do was wait for the wild ride to end. Even bumping the knife in his friend's back, while the train swayed and see-sawed, would be deadly for his partner.
Arte could only imagine what was happening in the baggage car, or worse still what had been happening in the engine, even before he was awakened by gun shots from his nap.
He'd been having the nicest dream too.
The train was grinding to a halt, the car still tilted downward indicating that they were on a fairly steep incline. But they were stopped.
Arte let go of the bunk first, then loosened his grip on Jim's pants. He took a deep breath then straightened, getting himself to his knees, and holding the breath until he saw Jim take one. The movement brought him more relief than he thought it would, not only proving that his partner was still alive, but that the blade probably hadn't pierced a lung.
Carefully Arte ripped the already torn fabric of his partner's jacket, lifting the widened hole around the hilt of the knife. He tore Jim's shirt open too, then wiped at some of the blood covering his skin. He could see the shape of the blade outlined perfectly under the surface of the skin along Jim's rib cage.
The point of the blade had probably hit the rib and redirected the deadly metal away from Jim's vital organs and into the fleshy part of his side.
Painful, very painful, but not fatal. Not if Arte could stop the bleeding and keep the wound from getting infected.
Not wanting to waste time, or run the risk of Jim waking up at the worst possible moment, Arte grabbed for the towels and the brandy, dumped a measure over the wound on Jim's side, then carefully and smoothly worked the blade free of his back.
His partner moaned and squirmed a few times but otherwise remained still. A torrent of fresh blood followed the extraction and Arte clamped a brandied towel over the wound, holding it there and finally slumping against the side of the bunk. He felt exhausted, despite having just awakened. He couldn't have been up more than twenty minutes but it felt like an eternity.
The train was still too, finally, and he could hear the engine in front chuffing . The wind had been howling and the sudden lack of brakes squealing and wheels clacking on the rails brought to his attention the sound of ice pattering against the windows.
Another moan came from the floor and Arte lifted the towel briefly to check on the progress of the bleeding. The wound was vertical, about an inch long, and a centimeter wide. Under the skin it was already beginning to bruise in a thin line along West's rib.
Even as he worried about the blood seeping out of the hole, Arte would have to keep an eye on the bruise developing under the surface of the skin. If worse came to worse, they were at that moment surrounded by nature's own best medicine when it came to stopping a lot of bleeding.
He got his first glimpse of the snow when a second later Orrin, shivering and wet despite the heavy coat he'd pulled on over stained coveralls, poked a pale and terrified head into Arte's cabin. He'd clearly been rapidly checking each room for the two secret service men because he appeared, then disappeared, just as quickly before realizing that he had found who he was searching for.
"Are the prisoners still secure?" Arte asked, before Orrin could start inquiring.
The engineer pushed his cap back on his head, staring at the mess of blood that Arte had begun to realize was almost everywhere, mostly because of the rolling around he and Jim had been doing. "Yeah...yeah." The man finally answered, shaking himself out of his reverie, "That big'un got knocked on the head, and the little one is bleedin'. Horses are fine too." A look of guilt flooded the man's face along with a reddening flush. "I'm real sorry, Mr. Gordon. There wasn't time for any kind of warning and that first curve was just coated with ice and-"
"This isn't any of your fault, Orrin." Arte said, once more checking the wound, pleased to see the blood flow slowing to a trickle. "Are you and John alright?"
Orrin nodded. "Left John in the engine to keep the fire going. We're in some dire straights at the moment, Mr. Gordon."
"I imagined so.." Arte sighed, then looked to the bed. The sheets were splattered with blood but there wasn't any point in changing them until the wound on Jim's back was properly bandaged. He needed more than towels and brandy now, and looked to Orrin considering for a moment before he said, "Help me get him on the bed."
The two of them worked together, lifting the smaller but more muscular man onto the mattress. With Orrin's help, Arte removed the ruined jacket and shirt all-together, surprised that his partner was still unconscious, until he remembered that Jim had to have gotten from the bed to the floor somehow. A brief search of his partner's skull revealed a goose egg just above the hairline. Arte felt a little like an absentee babysitter, not paying enough attention to his charge to prevent him from falling out of bed the minute he left the room.
"Stay with him while I grab a few things, will you?" Arte asked, straightening with a wince before he padded back out of the room. The minute he had turned, the new bruises on his side made themselves known and he had to pause in the hall to acclimate to them. His vision was also for some reason foggy and Arte began to wonder if he hadn't hit his head harder than he first thought, when he realized that it wasn't fog but smoke.
Smoke coming from the lounge car.
He charged down the hall just as Orrin poked his head into the hallway saying something about smelling something burning. Arte remembered hearing glass crashing. He rushed into the lounge of the varnish car in time to see a smoldering, velvet curtain burst into flame.
The glass enclosure of one of the wall sconces had flown off it's bracing, and lay in shattered pieces on the floor. The exposed flame had finally caught the fringe of the velvet bunting that lined the top of the windows of the car, and was now engulfed.
"Orrin, water!" Arte shouted down the hall, ignoring the shattered glass on the floor and grabbing one of the sabers mounted against the wall. Slicing through the bunting on one side of the flames Arte began ripping the burning fabric from its mounting and knocking it to the floor. He could feel some glass pieces under his bare feet, but was more concerned about the still full canister of karosene directly under the flaming bunting, the threat of the cloth on the cieling catching fire, and the thick, oily smoke rapidly filling the car.
By the time he cut the rest of the burning bunting down, the haze had become a thick, noxious fog and both he and Orrin were unable to breathe without their eyes watering and endless coughs racking them. Still Arte waited until the fire was out entirely before he opened a window.
The smoke cleared quickly, responding to the piercing wind that instantly chilled the near naked Arte to the bone. The cold served to exhaust him further and Arte wondered if taking a nap had actually done him any good, after all. The bottom's of his feet were now bleeding, and the minor burns on his fingers and hands were beginning to itch painfully.
Everything had been fine before he fell asleep.
With Orrin's help Arte stood, and limped into the galley where he and the engineer worked together to amass supplies, taking everything they would need down the hall. While Arte finally dressed, pulling on a shirt, then a thick sweater, the task taking twice as long with the burns on his hands, Orrin followed Arte's instructions, cleaning the wound on Jim's back and tightly binding it, wrapping the dressings and piling the padding until there was no longer blood seeping through the bandages.
Arte double checked his partner's breathing and pulse, then they covered him in blankets, treated the cuts on Arte's feet from the glass, and left the varnish car briefly to look after the prisoners.
While they worked to pull the train, and all its citizens, back together, Orrin explained what had been happening in the engine up to that point, and more thoroughly informed Arte of the precise level of 'screwed' that they had thus far reached.
"There's gotta be about eight feet of snow on the track ahead, spread out about a quarter mile. The head of the engine herself is buried about a foot into it. We're not gonna slide any further, and thankfully the smoke stack is free. But this avalanche has to mean the whole slope is unstable. We're stuck right where we don't want to be. We might be able to back her up the mountain but it's all incline behind us til we reach the top, and we might just burn up all our wood tryin'."
"What about digging through the slide?"
Orrin sighed softly, standing in the baggage car with his hands full of medical supplies as the secret service agent worked through the bars to treat the bruise and small cut that had developed on Larry's head. The more challenging task, treating the gunshot wound on the arm of the smaller man, had been their first hurdle, but the wound and the violent train ride had greatly subdued the wounded man and he had been compliant and for the most part silent.
"We could dig through it sure, and we may have to. But that's like digging a hole in the sand in the middle of high tide..."
Arte had already begun to nod, clinging to the bars of the cell to pull his aching body upright. "I understand, it was a foolish question." he mumbled, before he pressed his arm against his throbbing ribs and took a deep breath. "We'll be here a while. We'll need to feed these men, and you and John in short order."
Orrin waited, watching the clearly exhausted man who had been his boss for the past four years or longer. He felt the same exhaustion, and knew that Gordon and West had also just finished a tedious, time consuming case. They had a long night ahead of them, and each of them was going to be required to pull more than their weight if they were to survive it. Still the situation could have been much worse.
"You're probably needed back on the engine..." Arte said finally and Orrin reluctantly nodded. "Get on back there. I'll call you through the tube for supper...and Orrin." Arte stuck his hand out and shook the engineer's coal dust covered hand. "Thank you, to both of you..." Arte didn't need to explain why. Orrin merely nodded, then turned and headed back through the baggage car and out to the engine.