Erle Gardner - The Danger Zone and Other Stories

But now she had found one person whom she could trust, a man who had no interest in the thing she was hiding, a man who might well be a possible protector.

He seemed mildly surprised at her sudden friendliness.

“I didn’t know this train stopped anywhere at that ungodly hour,” she ventured, smiling.

“A flag stop,” he explained. Across the aisle the fat man had not moved a muscle, yet she felt absolutely certain that those glittering eyes were concentrating on her and that he was listening as well as watching.

“You live in Wyoming?” she asked.

“I did as a boy. Now I’m going back. I lived and worked on my uncle’s cattle ranch. He died and left it to me. At first I thought I’d sell it. It would bring a small fortune. But now I’m tired of the big cities, I’m going back to live on the ranch.”

“Won’t it be frightfully lonely?”

“At times.”

She wanted to cling to him now, dreading the time when she would have to go back to her compartment.

She felt the trainmen must have a master key which could open even a bolted door — in the event of sickness, or if a passenger rang for help. There must be a master key which would manipulate even a bolted door. And if trainmen had such a key, the man who had searched her compartment would have one.

Frank Hardwick, before he died, had warned her. “Remember,” he had said, “they’re everywhere. They’re watching you when you don’t know you’re being watched. When you think you’re running away and into safety, you’ll simply be rushing into a carefully laid trap.”

She hoped there was no trace of the inner tension within her as she smiled at the man on her right. “Do tell me about the cattle business,” she said...

All night she had crouched in her compartment, watching the door, waiting for that first flicker of telltale motion which would show the doorknob was being turned. Then she would scream, pound on the walls of the compartment, make sufficient commotion to spread an alarm.

Nothing had happened. Probably that was the way “they” had planned it. They’d let her spend one sleepless night, then when fatigue had numbed her senses...

The train abruptly slowed. She glanced at her wristwatch, saw that it was 5:55, and knew the train was stopping for the man who had inherited the cattle ranch. Howard Kane was the name he had given her after she had encouraged him to tell her all about himself. Howard Kane, twenty-eight, unmarried, presumably wealthy, his mind scarred by battle experiences, seeking the healing quality of the big, silent places, the one man on the train whom she knew she could trust.

There was a quiet competency about him, one felt he could handle any situation — and now he was getting off the train.

Suddenly a thought gripped her — “They” would hardly be expecting her to take the initiative. “They” always kept the initiative — that was why they always seemed so damnably efficient, so utterly invincible.

They chose the time, the place and the manner — give them that advantage, and...

There wasn’t time to reason the thing out. She jerked open the door of the little closet, whipped out her plaid coat, turned the fur collar up around her neck, and, as the train eased to a creaking stop, opened the door of her compartment and thrust out a cautious head.

The corridor was deserted.

She could hear the vestibule door being opened at the far end of the Pullman.

She ran to the opposite end of the car, fumbled for a moment with the fastenings of the vestibule door on the side next to the double track, then got it open and raised the platform.

Cold morning air, tanged with high elevation, rushed in to meet her, dispelling the train atmosphere, stealing the warmth from her garments.

The train started to move. She scrambled down the stairs, jumped for the graveled roadbed by the side of the track.

The train gathered speed. Dark, silent cars whizzed past her with continuing acceleration until the noise of the wheels became a mere hum. The steel rails readjusted themselves to the cold morning air, giving cracking sounds of protest. Overhead, stars blazed in steady brilliance. To the east was the first trace of daylight.

She looked for a town. There was none.

She could make out the faint outlines of a loading corral and cattle chute. Somewhere behind her was a road. An automobile was standing on this road, the motor running. Headlights sent twin cones of illumination knifing the darkness, etching into brilliance the stunted sagebrush shivering nervously under the impact of a cold north wind.

Two men were talking. A door slammed. She started running frantically.

“Wait!” she called. “Wait for me!”

Back on the train the fat man, fully dressed and shaved, contemplated the open vestibule door, then padded back to the recently vacated compartment and walked in.

He didn’t even bother to search the baggage that had been left behind. Instead he sat down in the chair, held a telegraph blank against a magazine, and wrote out his message:

THE BUNGLING SEARCH TRICK DID THE JOB. SHE’S LEFT THE TRAIN. IT ONLY REMAINS TO CLOSE THE TRAP. I’LL GET OFF AT THE FIRST PLACE WHERE I CAN RENT A PLANE AND CONTACT THE SHERIFF.

Ten minutes later the fat man found the porter. “I find the elevation bothering me,” he said. “I’m going to have to leave the train. Get the conductor.”

“You won’t get no lower by gettin’ off,” the porter said.

“No, but I’ll get bracing fresh air and a doctor who’ll give me a heart stimulant. I’ve been this way before. Get the conductor.”

This time the porter saw the twenty-dollar bill in the fat man’s fingers.

Seated between the two men in the warm interior of the car, she sought to concoct a convincing story.

Howard Kane said, by way of introduction, “This is Buck Doxey. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name last night.”

“Nell Lindsay,” she said quickly.

Buck Doxey, granite-faced, kept one hand on the steering wheel while he doffed a five-gallon hat. “Pleased to meet yuh, ma’am.”

She sensed his cold hostility, his tight-lipped disapproval.

Howard Kane gently prodded for an explanation.

“It was a simple case of cause and effect,” she said, laughing nervously. “It was so stuffy in the car I didn’t sleep at all.

“So,” she went on quickly, “I decided that I’d get out for a breath of fresh air. When the train slowed and I looked at my wristwatch I knew it was your stop and... Well, I expected the train would be there for at least a few minutes. I couldn’t find a porter to get the vestibule open, so I did it myself, and jumped down to the ground. That was where I made my mistake.”

“Go on,” he said.

“At a station you step down to a platform that’s level with the tracks. But here I jumped onto a slanting shoulder of gravel, and sprawled flat. When I got up, the step of the car was so far above me... Well, you have to wear skirts to understand what I mean.”

Kane nodded gravely. Buck turned his head and gave Kane a quartering glance.

She said, “I guess I could have made it at that if I’d had sense enough to pull my skirt all the way up to the hips, but I couldn’t make it on that first try and there wasn’t time for a second one. The train started to move. Good heavens, they must have just thrown you off!”

“I’m traveling light,” Kane said.

“Well,” she told him, “that’s the story. Now just what do I do?”

“Why, you accept our hospitality, of course.”

“I couldn’t... couldn’t wait here for the next train?”

“Nothing stops here except to discharge passengers coming from a division point,” he said.

“But there’s a... station there. Isn’t there someone on duty?”