CHAPTER 9
The Pullman's passengers were jolted from their sleep by the shrieking of wheels on rails and the sudden deceleration of the train. T'Pol, wincing at the agonizing sound of tortured metal, could feel herself sliding toward the end of her berth. She flung out a hand to grasp the bed frame, halting her slide.
The occupant of the berth below hers was not so fortunate. Over the cacophony, she distinctly heard the thud of a body against an unyielding surface.
"Ow!" Trip shouted over the noise. "What the hell is going on?"
T'Pol did not know. She had not felt or heard anything indicative of a collision, and if they had hit something, it hadn't stopped the train. The only thing of which she was certain was that, since the Pullman was the last conveyance of the train, it was not being pushed from behind by the momentum of another car.
She peered out from her upper berth to see the curtain of the lower berth on the other side of the aisle yanked aside.
"Sounds like the wheels are locked," Jon shouted over the din, struggling to swing his legs out of bed. "If we were on Enterprise, I'd say that the warp engine had been thrown into emergency shutdown."
The noise died away as the car came to a shuddering halt.
"Is everyone all right?" Jon asked.
"I appear to be unharmed," T'Pol said.
"Just a little bruised," came Trip's voice, muffled, from the berth below her.
Travis poked his head from the other upper berth. "I'm okay. What happened?"
Jon was pulling on his boots. "I intend to find out. T'Pol, you and Travis stay here. Trip, get dressed and let's see what we can find out."
The two men needed only a few moments to get ready, as their custom on the train was to wear some of their clothes to bed. Each of them stuck a gun in his belt before heading for the door.
After they left, T'Pol was struck by the relative quiet. She could hear none of the sounds she had come to associate with train travel, other than the subdued rumbling of the engine and the hissing of steam. But there was something else at the edge of her range of hearing that urged her to action. She climbed out of bed, located her boots, and, sitting on the edge of the berth below hers, began to put them on.
Travis jumped out of his bed to land lightly on his feet. As he padded in his socks to the cabinet where he had put his boots before retiring, he said, "You might want to keep your little gun handy. This might be a train robbery."
"If that was the case, I believe this car would have already been boarded by the bandits. Only wealthy passengers traveled in this style, and we would be an obvious target." T'Pol tilted her head, listening. "It is not a weapon that we will need."
"Why do you say that?" Travis asked. He sat on Jon's bunk to pull on his boots.
T'Pol reached for the hat she had put on a nearby shelf before she had gone to bed. As she secured it in place, covering her ears with its tie ribbons, she said, "There are sounds of distress from the other cars."
She went to the washroom where she gathered every towel she could find. The ceramic pitcher of water had broken and spilled its contents. No matter, she thought. There should be water available elsewhere on the train. She dropped the towels on her bed before going to the main area of the car, where she stripped the white linen covering from the table at which they ate their meals.
Travis looked at her curiously. "What are you doing?"
"We should assist those who need it," she said as she quickly folded the tablecloth.
"But the captain told us to stay here," Travis said.
"There are people who have been injured. I cannot stay here when I may be able to help them. You may remain if you wish..." She glanced at him, taking in his attire. "...but if you come with me, put on your shirt, and do not forget your coat. The temperature has dropped."
The first thing Jon noticed when he stepped out of the car was that he could see his breath. He pulled the collar of his frock coat closer as he walked down the stairs of the car's platform to the ground. A few lights could be seen in the cars closer to the front of the train, but the dining car directly in front of them was dark.
He reached for his watch. Under a cloudless sky, there was ample moonlight to make out the time. "It should be daylight in a couple of hours," he said to Trip. He put the watch back in his pocket. "Come on."
They set out at a quick pace along the train. Just past the dining car was a passenger car where a single light was shining inside. They stopped when they heard a loud moan.
"Somebody wasn't as lucky as we were," Trip said. "Shouldn't we see if they need help?"
Jon's first impulse was to find the person who was moaning, but he could see a flickering light moving near the train's engine. New cries coming from the passenger car shook his resolve to go on, but before he could make a decision, the sound of footsteps came from behind him.
"Captain," T'Pol said in a low voice as she came up to him. "I believe there are people who are injured."
Jon stared at her through narrowed eyes. He had ordered her and Travis to stay in the Pullman car, but she was right. He also realized that, once again, he had reacted as if the Pullman was his ship. He had the money from Flagler in his vest pocket, and if they all had their communicators with them, there was nothing of value in their car that needed to be guarded. Besides, he chided himself, it wasn't like someone could take off with the entire car and leave them stranded.
T'Pol was carrying towels and other linens. When Travis walked up carrying what appeared to be wooden slats, probably taken from the beds, Jon nodded in approval. There wasn't much at hand that could be used as medical supplies, but what they had gathered could be used to bandage wounds and set broken limbs. Wondering if T'Pol had stripped the sheets from their beds, he gestured toward the closest passenger car. "Start in there."
She moved toward the car's platform. As Travis followed in her wake, Jon stopped him. "Stay with T'Pol."
"Yes, sir," Travis answered before hurrying after her.
Jon and Trip set out toward the flickering light. They passed two more passenger cars, from which they could hear excited, frightened voices, but they continued on their way. They walked by the mail car and were even with the tender holding water and fuel for the steam engine before the source of the light alongside the tracks became apparent. A man in coveralls, coat, and a billed cap was holding a large lantern that swayed as he walked. Jon pegged him as the train's engineer.
With him were two other men. One was dressed like the engineer, but his face and hands were smudged with dark dust. He had to be the fireman who shoveled coal into the train's engine. The third man, standing with his hands in the pockets of his black uniform, was the disagreeable conductor.
"What seems to be the problem?" Jon asked.
All three men turned to look at him. Although Jon would have bet the engineer was in charge, it was the conductor who spoke.
"Nothing to worry yourselves about," he said in an officious tone. "Just go back to your car. Everything's all right."
"We just stopped faster than Grant took Richmond," Trip said. "I don't think everything's all right."
The conductor avoided Trip's gaze. He looked off into the distance before taking a watch from his pocket and checking the time.
The man with the lantern cast an exasperated glance at the conductor before telling Jon and Trip, "The line's blocked. We stopped just short of it."
Jon stepped to the side to see around the men. The tip of the engine's cow catcher was almost touching a head-high pile of logs and tree limbs on the tracks. The obstruction couldn't have been caused naturally.
He looked at Trip. By the slightly unfocused look in his eyes, Jon could tell that his own engineer was calculating speeds and distances. He was probably coming to the same conclusion that Jon had already reached: There was no way, even with the headlight on the front of the engine illuminating the tracks, that the obstruction could have been seen in time to keep from plowing into it at the speed they had been going.
"How did you know the tracks were blocked?" Jon asked the engineer.
The man looked at the conductor. "A little bird told me."
The conductor put up a hand. "I told you. Everything will be all right. They'll show up, take what they want from the mail car, and go on their way. And then we can go on ours, once we clear the tracks." He swallowed nervously, his condescending veneer cracking. "They should have been here when we stopped."
"We're being robbed?" Jon took a step closer to the conductor. "And you knew about it?"
"Of course he did," the engineer said. "He's the one who told me to stop the train!"
For a moment, Jon thought the engineer was going to swing the lantern at the increasingly nervous conductor.
"Look," the conductor said, taking a step back, "if I hadn't told you, we would have run right into that mess. The engine and some of the cars might have come off the rails, like it did on the eastbound yesterday. Isn't this better?"
"How did you know?" Jon asked.
"He's in on it with the robbers," the engineer said in disgust. "The eastbound ran into the exact same type of blockage, but they couldn't stop in time. Three cars were derailed. The mail car and the passengers were robbed. And guess who the conductor on that train was?" He spit at the feet of the conductor.
The crunch of footsteps made Jon and Trip pull out their guns as they spun around, but the man who appeared out of the darkness wasn't a threat. He flung his arms in the air at the sight of two gun barrels pointed at him.
"Don't shoot!" he cried.
Despite the cold, the newcomer was clad only in dark trousers, shoes, and a white shirt that seemed too big for his slight frame. On his head was a visor that Jon associated with clerks of the era.
Jon lowered his gun. "You come out of the mail car?" he asked.
The man nodded nervously. He switched his gaze to Trip, who was still pointing his gun at him.
"Are you in on this, too?" Trip asked suspiciously.
Before the man could answer, his eyes widened in alarm at something behind them.
Jon spun around, bringing up his hand holding the gun. Beside him, Trip tried to do the same, but he was caught on the side of his face by a blow from a gun wielded like a club by the conductor. As Trip went down, Jon lashed out with his foot, catching the conductor's hand and knocking his gun away. The conductor staggered back a step, his eyes resentful.
"Trip," Jon asked, keeping his gun pointed at the conductor, "are you all right?"
Trip, a hand to the side of his face, struggled to his feet. "Yeah," he mumbled. He picked up his pistol, then retrieved the conductor's gun. He aimed both at the conductor. "Can I shoot him?" he asked Jon. "Please?"
"Maybe later." Jon glared at the conductor. "First, I want some answers."
The conductor glanced around the area. "They should have been here."
"You said that before," Jon said. "Who's they?"
The conductor clamped his mouth shut.
"Who are they?" Jon thundered, waving his pistol in a threatening manner. Even as he was trying to pry information out of the conductor, he had to admit that the weight of the Colt Peacemaker was much more satisfying that that of a phase pistol. And more intimidating. When Jon pulled the gun's hammer back, the click of the mechanism clearly audible in the night air, the conductor immediately started talking.
"All I know," the conductor said, "is one of them's named Grat. And Bob. That's Grat's brother."
The train engineer cursed. "That's the Dalton gang."
Motioning for Trip to keep an eye on the conductor, Jon asked the mail clerk, "What's in the mail car that robbers would want?"
"Payroll for the army posts in the Arizona and New Mexico territories," the clerk replied.
Jon's mind was racing. The robbers had apparently pulled off a similar heist just the day before, which had led to the long delay in St. Louis because that train had derailed. The robbers should have been waiting for this train to come along, since they had gone to the effort to block the tracks. Where were they?
Jon had no idea if they could put up a defense against armed bandits, or even if they should. More passengers could be hurt or killed in the ensuing fight. And then there was the whole problem of messing with the events of this time line. He had to try to keep his and his officers' involvement to a minimum.
But it wasn't in his nature to wait for trouble to come to him. The first order of business, he decided, was to secure the conductor so he couldn't cause any more problems. He asked the clerk, "Have you got some rope or something we can tie him up with?"
"Sure thing," the clerk said. "Be right back."
As the clerk hurried off, Trip asked, "Now what, Captain?"
Aware of the curious gazes of the train's engineer and fireman, Jon turned to address them. "Now, gentlemen, we clear the tracks."
