Clive Cussler - The Wrecker

“As I recall,” Bell said, “Broncho Billy played several different parts.”

“I heard that he’s traveling the West on his own train now, making pictures.”

“Yes,” said Bell. “Broncho Billy has started up his own picture studio.”

“Don’t suppose that leaves him much time to wreck railroads,” Van Dorn said drily. “Which leaves us nowhere.”

“Not quite nowhere,” said Bell.

Van Dorn looked incredulous. “Our lumberjack recalls a famous actor whose image in a moving picture stuck in what’s left of his head.”

“Look at this. I tested him to see how accurate he is.” He showed Van Dorn the sketch of himself.

“Son of a gun. That’s pretty good. He drew this?”

“While I was sitting there. He can really draw faces as they are.”

“Not entirely. He’s got your ears all wrong. And he gave you a cleft in your chin just like Broncho Billy’s. Yours is a scar, not a cleft.”

“He’s not perfect, but he’s pretty close. Besides, Marion says it looks like a cleft.”

“Marion is prejudiced, you lucky devil. The point is, our lumberjack could have seen any one of Broncho Billy’s pictures. Or he might have seen him on the stage somewhere.”

“But, either way, we know what the Wrecker looks like.”

“Are you suggesting that he actually looks like Broncho Billy’s twin?”

“More like a cousin.” Detail by detail, Bell pointed out the features of the lumberjack’s sketch. “Not his twin. But if the Wrecker’s face jogged the lumberjack’s memory of Broncho Billy, then we are looking for a man who has a similar broad high brow, a cleft chin, a penetrating gaze, an intelligent face with strong features, and big ears. Not Broncho Billy’s twin, exactly. But I would say that the Wrecker looks more in general like a matinee idol.”

Van Dorn puffed angrily on his cigar. “Am I to instruct my detectives not to arrest ugly mugs?”

Isaac Bell pushed back, demanding his boss see the possibilities. The more he thought about it, the more he felt they were on to something. “How old do you suppose this fellow is?”

Van Dorn scowled at the drawing. “Anywhere from his late twenties to early forties.”

“We are looking for a handsome man somewhere in his late twenties, thirties, or early forties. We’ll print copies of this. Take it around, show it to the hobos. Show it to stationmasters and ticket clerks wherever he might have fled on a train. Anyone who might have seen him.”

“So far that’s no one. No one alive anyway. Except for your Michelangelo lumberjack.”

Bell said, “I’m still betting on the machinist or the blacksmith who drilled that hole in the Glendale hook.”

“Sanders’s boys might hit it lucky,” Van Dorn agreed. “It’s been in the newspapers enough, and, God knows, I’ve made it clear to him that his soft berth in Los Angeles is at risk of a transfer to Missoula, Montana. Failing that, maybe someone will see the Wrecker next time and survive the experience. And we do know there will be a next time.”

“There will be a next time,” Bell agreed grimly. “Unless we stop him first.”

THE HOBO JUNGLE OUTSIDE OGDEN FILLED A THINLY WOODED spot between the railroad tracks and a stream that provided clean water for drinking and washing. It was one of the largest jungles in the country-nine rail lines converging in one place offered a steady flow of freight trains steaming night and day in every direction-and growing larger every day. As the Panic put factories out of business, more and more men rode the rails to find work. Their hats marked them as newcomers. City men’s derbies outnumbered miners’ caps and range riders’ J.B.s these days. There was even a sprinkling of trilbies and homburgs worn by former men of means who had never dreamed they would be down-and-out.

A thousand hobos were hurrying to finish cleanup before dark. They scrubbed laundry and cookpots in cans of boiling water, hung laundered clothes on ropes and tree limbs and set pots upside down on rocks to dry. When night fell, they kicked dirt on their fires and sat back to eat meager meals in the dark.

Campfires would have been welcomed. Northern Utah was cold in November, and snow flurries had blown repeatedly over the camp. Five thousand feet above sea level, it was exposed to westerly gales off nearby Great Salt Lake and easterly gusts tumbling down from the Wasatch Mountains. But the railroad bulls from the Ogden yards had raided the jungle with pistols and billy clubs three nights in a row to convince the burgeoning population to move on. No one wanted them back for the fourth, so it was no night for campfires. They ate in silence, worrying about the bulls and fearing winter.

A hobo jungle, like any town or city, had neighborhoods whose boundaries were clear in the residents’ minds. Some areas were friendly, some safer than others. Downstream, farthest from the tracks, where the creek veered to join the Weber River, was a section best visited armed. There, the rules of live and let live gave way to take or be taken.

The Wrecker headed there fearlessly. He was at home in outlaw land. Yet even he loosened the knife in his boot and moved his pistol from a deep pocket of his canvas coat to his waistband, where he could draw it quickly. Despite the absence of campfires, it was not entirely dark. The trains huffing constantly by pierced the night with their headlights, and the thin snow cover reflected the golden glow from the windows of passenger cars. A string of bright Pullmans started past, slowing for the nearby town, and by its light the Wrecker saw a hunched shadow shivering beside a tree, both hands in pockets.

“Sharpton,” he called in a harsh voice, and Sharpton answered, “Right here, mister.”

“Put your hands where I can see them,” commanded the Wrecker.

Sharpton obeyed, partly because the Wrecker was paying money for service and partly out of fear. A bank and train robber who had served time in the penitentiary, Pete Sharpton knew a dangerous hombre when he met one. He had never seen his face. They had only met once before, when the Wrecker had tracked Sharpton down and braced him in the alley behind the livery stable where he rented a room. But he had been on the wrong side of the law his entire life and knew they did not come more deadly than this one.

“Did you find your man?” the Wrecker asked.

“He’ll do the job for a thousand dollars,” Sharpton answered.

“Give him five hundred down. Make him come back for the second half after he has done the job.”

“What’s to keep him from running off with the first five hundred? Found money, no risk.”

“What will prevent him will be his clear understanding that you will hunt him down and kill him. Can you make that clear to him?”

Sharpton chuckled in the dark. “Oh yes. Besides, he’s not that tough anymore. He’ll do as he’s told.”

“Take this,” said the Wrecker.

Sharpton felt the package with his fingers. “This isn’t money.”

“You’ll have the money in a minute. This is the fuse I want him to use.”

“You mind me asking why?”

“Not at all,” the Wrecker said easily. “This looks exactly like a fast fuse. It would fool even an experienced safecracker. Do I assume correctly that yours is experienced?”

“Blowing safes and express cars his whole life.”

“As I asked for. Despite its appearance, this is actually a slow fuse. When he lights it, it will take longer to detonate the dynamite than he’s calculated.”

“If it takes too long, it will blow up the train instead of just blocking the tracks.”

“Does that pose difficulties for you, Sharpton?”

“I’m just saying what’ll happen,” Sharpton said hastily. “If you want to blow up the train instead of just rob it, well I guess that’s none of my business. You’re paying the bill.”