The Wrecker

The blacksmith hung his head. Tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his red cheeks.

Dashwood had no idea what to do next, but he did sense that it would be a mistake to speak. He turned his attention to the ocean in an effort to remain silent, hoping the man would resume his confession. The weeping blacksmith took Dashwood’s silence as condemnation.

“I didn’t mean no harm. I didn’t mean to hurt nobody. But who would they believe, me or him?”

“Why wouldn’t they believe you?”

“I’m just a blacksmith. He’s a big shot. Who would you believe?”

“What kind of big shot?”

“Who would you believe? A drunken smithy or a senator?”

“A senator?” Dashwood echoed in utter despair. All his work, all his chasing, all his ru

“He always hugged the dark,” Higgins whispered, brushing at his tears. “In the alley behind the stable. But the boys opened the door and the light fell on his face.”

Dashwood remembered the alley. He remembered the door. He could imagine the light. He wanted to believe the blacksmith. And yet he couldn’t.

“Where had you seen that senator before?”

“Newspaper.”

“A good likeness?”

“Like you standing there beside me,” Higgins answered, and Dashwood decided that the man believed every word as strongly as he blamed himself for the wreck of the Coast Line Limited. But belief did not necessarily make him sane. “The man I saw looked just like that big-shot senator. It couldn‘t’ve been him. But if it was-if it was him-I knew I was in a terrible fix. Big trouble. Trouble I deserved. By the work of this hand.”

Weeping harder, chest heaving, he held up a meaty paw wet with his tears.

“By the work of this hand, those people died. The engineer. The fireman. That union feller. That little boy …”

A gust of wind whipped Higgins’s monk’s robe, and he looked down at the crashing waves as if they offered peace. Dashwood dared not breathe, certain that one wrong word, a simple “Which senator?” would cause Jim Higgins to jump off the cliff.

OSGOOD HENNESSY WAS READING the riot act to his lawyers, having finished excoriating his bankers for bad news on Wall Street, when the meeting was interrupted by a short, amiable-looking fellow wearing a string tie, a vest, a creamy-white Stetson, and an old-fashioned single-action .44 on his hip.

“Excuse me, gents. Sorry to interrupt.”

The railroad attorneys looked up, their faces blossoming with hope. Any interruption that derailed their angry president was a gift from Heaven.

“How’d you get past my conductor?” He

“I informed your conductor-and the gentleman detective with the shotgun-that I am United States Marshal Chris Danis. I have a message from Mr. Isaac Bell for Mr. Erastus Charney. Is Mr. Charney here by any chance?”

“That’s me,” said the plump and jowly Charney. “What’s the message?”

“You’re under arrest.”

THE WINCHESTER RIFLE SLUG that had nearly blown the renegade telegrapher Ross Parker off his horse had shredded his right biceps and riddled the muscle with bone splinters. Doc said he was lucky it hadn’t shattered his humerus instead of just chipping it. Parker wasn’t feeling lucky. Two and a half weeks after the Van Dorn detective with the Texas drawl had shot him and killed two of his best men, it still hurt so bad that the act of lifting his arm to turn the key in his post office box made his head swim.

It hurt more to reach into the box to extract the Wrecker’s letter. It even hurt to slit the envelope with his gravity knife. Cursing the private dick who had shot him, Parker had to steady himself on a counter as he removed the luggage ticket he had been hoping to find.

The daily Weather Bureau postcard with the forecast stamped on it sat on the counter in a metal frame. The rural mail carrier had delivered one every day to the widow’s farm outside of town where he had been recuperating. The forecast today was the same as yesterday and same as the day before: more wind, more rain. Yet another reason to get out of Sacramento while the getting was good.

Parker took the luggage ticket around the corner to the railroad station and claimed the gripsack the Wrecker had left there. He found the usual wads of twenty-dollar bills inside, along with a map of northern California and Oregon showing where the wires should be cut and a terse note: “Start now.”

If the Wrecker thought Ross Parker was going to climb telegraph poles with his arm half blown off and two of his gang shot dead, the saboteur had another think coming. Parker’s plans for this bag of money did not include working for it. He practically galloped across the station to line up at the ticket window.

A big man shoved ahead of him. With his vest, knit cap, checked shirt, dungarees, walrus mustache, and hobnailed boots, he looked like a lumberjack. Smelled like one too, reeking of dried sweat and wet wool. All he was missing was a double-bladed ax slung over one shoulder. Ax or no ax, he was too big to argue with, Parker conceded, particularly with a bum arm. A bigger fellow, smelling the same, got on line behind him.

The lumberjack bought three tickets to Redding and paused nearby to count his change. Parker bought a ticket to Chicago. He checked the clock. Plenty of time for lunch and a snort. He left the station and went looking for a saloon. Suddenly, the lumberjacks who’d been on the ticket line fell in on either side of him.

“Chicago?”

“What?”

“Mr. Parker, you can’t take the train to Chicago.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Folks are counting on you right here.”

Ross Parker thought fast. These two must have been watching the luggage room. Which meant the Wrecker, whoever the hell he was, was several jumps ahead of him.

“I got hurt,” he said. “Shot. I can’t climb a pole.”

“We’ll climb for you.”

“Are you a lineman?”

“How tall’s a telegraph pole?”

“Sixteen feet.”

“Mister, we’re high riggers. We top spar trees two hundred feet off the ground and stay up there for lunch.”

“It’s more than climbing. Can you splice wire?”

“You’ll learn us how.”

“Well, I don’t know. It takes some doing.”

“Don’t matter. We’ll be doing more cutting than splicing anyhow.”

“You have to splice, too,” said Parker. “Snipping wires isn’t enough if you want to shut the system and keep it shut. You have to hide your cuts so the repair gang don’t see where the line is broken.”

“If you can’t learn us how to splice,” the lumberjack said conversationally, “we’ll kill you.”

Ross Parker resigned himself to his fate.

“When do you want to start?”

“Like it says on your map. Now.”

47

HOUR AFTER HOUR, ISAAC BELL’S VAN DORN EXPRESS POUNDED up the steep approach to the Do

Gaining speed with every sloping mile, it topped a hundred five miles per hour. Even with another coal and water stop, Bell reckoned that at this rate they’d make Sacramento in an hour.

He wired ahead when the special stopped at Soda Springs. To save time changing locomotives, he asked the Sacramento superintendent to have a fresh engine standing by to race him north to the Cascade Canyon Bridge.

Bell kept making the rounds of his auditors, lawyers, detectives, and researchers, speaking repeatedly with every man on the train. They were closing in on the puzzle of which European bankers were paying for the Wrecker’s rampage. But how much closer was he to the Wrecker himself?

Ever since his father’s accountant had confirmed Charles Kincaid’s role as the Wrecker’s agent and spy, Bell had been mentally replaying the draw hand when he’d bluffed Kincaid on the Overland Limited. He recalled that he had bluffed the steel magnate James Congdon out of the hand first. That Kincaid had folded too had been more of a surprise. It was a smart fold. It had been the act of a calculating player, a player brave enough to cut his losses but a more cautious player than he had been all night. More cu