Night Probe!

"Somebody up there plain doesn't like us," said Chase, pointing to the sky.

"You blaming God, you heathen?" Giordino joked goodnaturedly.

"No," answered Chase looking solemn. "The ghost."

Pitt turned. "Ghost?"

"An unmentionable subject around here," said Chase. "Nobody likes to admit they've seen it."

"Speak for yourself." Giordino cracked a smile. "I've only heard the thing."

"Its light was brighter than hell when it swung up the old grade to the bridge the other night. The beam lit up half the east shoreline. I don't see how you missed it."

"Wait a minute," Pitt broke in. "are you talking about the phantom train?"

Giordino stared at him. "You know?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Pitt asked in mock seriousness."

"Tis said the specter of the doomed train is still trying to cross the Deauville-Hudson bridge to the other side."

"You don't believe that?" Chase asked cautiously.

"I believe there is something up on the old track bed that goes chug in the night. In fact, it damn near ran over me."

"When?"

"A couple of months ago when I came here to survey the site."

Giordino shook his head. "At least we won't go to the loony bin alone."

"How often has the ghost called on you?"

Giordino looked at Chase for support. "Two, no, three times."

"You say some nights you heard sounds but saw no lights?"

"The first two intrusions came with steam whistles and the roar of a locomotive," explained Chase. "The third time we got the full treatment. The clamor was accompanied by a blinding light."

"I saw the light too," Pitt said slowly. "What were your weather conditions?"

Chase thought a moment. "As I recall, it was clear and blacker than pitch when the light showed."

"That's right," added Giordino. "The noise came alone only on nights the moon was bright."

"Then we've got a pattern," said Pitt. "There was no moon during my sighting."

"All this talk about ghosts isn't putting us any closer to finding the real train," said Giordino blandly. "I suggest we get back to reality and figure a way to get under the bridge wreckage in the next"-he hesitated and consulted his watch- "seventy-four hours."

"I have another suggestion," said Pitt.

"Which is?"

"To hell with it."

Giordino looked at him, ready to smile if Pitt was joking. But he was not.

"What are you going to tell the President?"

A strange, distant look came over Pitt's face. "The President?" he repeated vaguely. "I'm going to tell him we've been fishing in the air, wasting an enormous amount of time and money searching for an illusion."

"What are you getting at?"

"The Manhattan Limited," Pitt replied. "It doesn't lie on the bottom of the Hudson River. It never has."

The setting sun was suddenly snuffed out by the clouds. The sky went dark and menacing. Pitt and Giordino stood on the old track bed, listening to the deep rumbling of the storm as it drew closer. And then lightning crackled and the thunder echoed and the rain came.

The wind swept through the trees with a demonic whine. The humid air was oppressive and charged with electricity. Soon the light was gone and there was no color, only black pierced by brief streaks of white. Raindrops, hurled in horizontal sheets by wind gusts, struck their faces with the stinging power of sand.

Pitt tightened the collar of his raincoat, hunched his shoulders against the tempest and stared into the night.

"How can you be sure it will appear?" Giordino shouted over the gale.

"Conditions are the same as the night the train vanished," Pitt shouted back. "I'm banking on the ghost having a melodramatic sense of timing."

"I'll give it another hour," said a thoroughly miserable Chase. "And then I'm heading back to the boat and a healthy slug of Jack Daniel's."

Pitt motioned them to follow. "Come on, let's take a hike down the track bed."

Reluctantly Chase and Giordino fell in behind. The lightning became almost incessant and, seen from shore, the De Soto looked like a gray ghost herself. A great shaft of brilliance flashed for an instant across the river behind her and she became a black outline. The only sign of life was the white light on the mast that burned defiantly through the downpour.

After about half a mile, Pitt halted and tilted his head as if listening. "I think I hear something."

Giordino cupped his hands to his ears. He waited until the last thunderclap died over the rolling hills. Then he heard it too: the mournful wail of a train whistle.

"You called it," said Chase. "It's right on schedule."

No one spoke for several seconds as the sound grew closer, and then there came the clang of a bell and the puff of the exhaust. It was drowned out momentarily by another burst of thunder. Chase swore later that he could feel time grinding to a stop.

At that moment a light came around a curve and washed its beam on them, the rays eerily distorted by the rain. They stood there, each seeing the yellow reflections on the face of the others.

They stared ahead, disbelieving, yet certain it was not a trick of their imaginations. Giordino turned to say something to Pitt and was astounded to see him smiling, actually smiling at the expanding blaze.

"Don't move," Pitt said with incredible calm. "Turn around, close your eyes and cover them with your hands so you aren't blinded by the glare."

Instinct dictated they do just the opposite. The urge for selfpreservation, to run or at least throw themselves flat on the ground tore at their conscious senses. Their only bond with courage was Pitt's firm words.

"Steady…... steady. Be ready to open your eyes when I yell.

God, it was u

Giordino tensed for the impact that would smash his flesh and bones into a ghastly spray of crimson and white. He made up his mind he was going to die, and that was that. The deafening clangor was upon them, assaulting their ear drums. They felt as though they had been thrust into some strange vacuum where twentieth-century reasoning lost all relevance.

Then, as if by magic, the impossible thing passed over them. "Now!" Pitt shouted above the din.

They all dropped their hands and stared, eyes still adjusted to the dark.

The light was now aimed away and traveling down the abandoned track bed, the locomotive sound diminishing in its wake. They could clearly see a black rectangle centered in the glow about eight feet off the ground. They watched fascinated as it grew smaller in the distance and then turned up the grade to the bridge, where it blinked out and the accompanying clatter died into the storm. "What in hell was that?" Chase finally muttered.

"An antique locomotive headlamp and an amplifier," answered Pitt.

"Oh, yeah?" grunted Giordino skeptically. "Then how does it float in mid-air?"

"On a wire strung from the old telegraph poles."

"Too bad there has to be a logical explanation," said Chase, sadly shaking his head. "I hate to see good supernatural legends debunked."

Pitt gestured toward the sky. "Keep looking. Your legend should be returning anytime now."

They grouped around the nearest telegraph pole and stared upward into the darkness. A minute later a black shape emerged and slipped noiselessly through the air above them. Then it melted back into the shadows and was gone. "Fooled hell out of me," Giordino admitted.