Michael Spradlin - Blood Riders

“Huh.”

Hollister had slept in his clothes, which only contributed to his disoriented feeling when he opened his eyes the next morning. Waking up in a new place was something he hadn’t experienced in four years. There was a broad selection of outfits hanging on his cabin wall, much as Chee had found in his quarters, but he left them there and wandered out to the main car and found Pinkerton and Chee seated at a wooden table that appeared to open up out of the floor. The two of them were eating breakfast and another man Hollister didn’t know was spooning eggs out of a skillet onto a plate.

“Ah! Good morning, Major,” Pinkerton said. “Did you sleep well?”

“All right, I guess,” Hollister muttered.

“Have a seat. Dr. Van Helsing will join us shortly. In the meantime, Monkey Pete here is a fantastic cook. You’ll be willing to kill for a cup of his coffee before too long.”

Hollister studied the man with the skillet. He was short and skinny, like he hadn’t had food in weeks or months. Jonas bet he wouldn’t top 130 pounds even if he were holding a ten-pound sack of flour. His shirt was rolled up and his forearms were thick and roped with muscle. A curious expression looked as if it had taken up permanent residence on his face, which was covered with a thick brown beard. Dark eyes peered through a pair of glasses perched on the end of a twisted nose, which looked as if it had been broken repeatedly. He noticeably limped around the table to shake Hollister’s hand, presenting one with twisted and broken fingers. Whoever this Monkey Pete was, he’d been through a couple different kinds of hell. His grip was strong though, and Hollister was amazed at the amount of strength on such a thin frame.

Hollister wondered about his broken-up fingers and hands. At West Point, cadets had been drilled in basic hand-to-hand combat, taught by a Master Sergeant Woodson, who had lost a leg in the Mexican War and could still whip every cadet on the campus. He had taught his students three things. First, anyone you meet in any situation is a potential enemy. Second, look at your opponent’s eyes. They will advise you of a man’s intentions if you learn to read them. And third, look at the hands. If somebody has cut up, scarred, twisted, or broken fingers you are probably in for a tussle. Hands get in that kind of shape from hard living, which usually includes throwing a punch or two. Hollister had never forgotten the lessons. He had studied Pinkerton’s eyes and hands, and the detective’s words and actions had since convinced Hollister that he was no one to be trifled with. Hollister wondered how this Monkey Pete had come to have his hands in such shape. He was sure there were some stories behind it.

“Pleased to meet you, Major,” he said.

“Monkey Pete?” Hollister asked.

“Yes, sir. Served in the artillery during the war. General Hunt gave me the name, after Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Said I was crawling back and forth over them Howitzers like a monkey. ‘Monkey Pete’ he said. It stuck.”

“And how’d you find yourself on this train, Monkey Pete,” Hollister took a swig of the coffee and had to admit it was pretty good.

“Well, fact is, I like to tinker. Got a job with the railroad after the war. Trains get robbed now and then and I’ve run into Mr. Pinkerton here a few times. First time we met he thought I was the one done the robbin’.” Monkey Pete paused and laughed. It was a low-pitched snorting sound and Hollister thought it sounded more like a rutting hog. Mr. Pinkerton just shrugged. “Anyway, I like messin’ with engines and mechanical things and whatnot, and Mr. Pinkerton here heard about my ideas during one of our conversations. He liked ’em. Asked me to put ’em on paper and finally one day, come to get me to work for him and get one a my designs built. Once this here engine and cars got built, I figured no one else knew how to run it as good as me, so I stayed on,” he said.

Hollister looked at Pinkerton. “What’s so special about this train?”

“Finish your breakfast first, then we’ll take the full tour. I think you’ll find it interesting,” Pinkerton said. He said no more and busied himself reading from a sheaf of papers he held in one hand, eating with his other.

Hollister looked at Chee but the young soldier bent to his meal, his expression revealing nothing. Hollister wondered if Chee was ever scared or happy; he doubted the kid’s expression even changed when he had been thrown into the box. Must remember never to play poker with the sergeant, Hollister thought.

They finished eating, with no sign of Van Helsing. Monkey Pete cleared the dishes and Hollister watched as he first wiped down and then folded and collapsed the table and chairs and slid them neatly into a compartment in the floor.

“Come with me, gentlemen. Monkey Pete, lead the way,” Pinkerton said. They followed the engineer outside. The train was stopped on a track siding.

“Last night we stopped in Lawrence to add the rest of the cars,” Monkey Pete said. Hollister was surprised he had slept through it. But he had gone to sleep in a real bed for the first time in four years and probably could have slept through the First Battle of Bull Run.

“We picked us up a coal car, a guest car, a car for the horses. The one there with no windows and doors is the armory, don’t want no one breaking in and taking all our nice weapons. The one behind the coal car, well, I call it my gadget car. Where I tinker on some o’ my designs,” he said.

As they walked along the side of the train, they finally reached the engine.

“I’ve never seen an engine that looks like this,” Hollister said studying it from top to bottom.

“I’m certain you’ll find the engine to be a great advantage,” Pinkerton said. “It’s a technical marvel really, and Monkey Pete has even developed a way to transfer ballast on the train so that you can run nearly as fast backwards as forwards. Sometimes there won’t be a turntable for locomotives available so it’s a very useful feature.”

Chee and Hollister had no idea what Pinkerton was talking about, but nodded as if they did.

“I know I’ve been away awhile, but this engine seems… I don’t know how to describe it…” Hollister mumbled, his eyes locked on the contraption.

“Monkey Pete has made quite a few other improvements to the standard steam engine. First, it’s armored. It might not stand up to a continuous assault from a cannon, but rifle or small-arms fire won’t hit vital systems and stop it. The engine has been modified-those baffles over the release valves are made of solid steel. They’re honeycombed inside so that the pressure is released, but the steam is recaptured and the water vapor is returned to the engine,” Pinkerton said with a note of awe in his voice. “You understand what that means, don’t you, Major?”

“Of course,” Hollister said, nodding. “No. sir. I have no idea what it means. Do you, Sergeant?” He looked at Chee, begging him for help.

“Um… I… think it… must make the train go faster, sir,” Chee stammered.

Monkey Pete sighed. “It ain’t got nothing to do with speed, Major, it captures the water vapor from the steam so’s we don’t have to fill the boiler up as often. Improves the range of the train by hundreds of miles!”

Jonas realized he’d never seen a man in love with a train before. The next hour was spent combing over the features of the remarkable machine. Pinkerton was adamant that they know every capability of the vehicle as he had spent a great deal of government money in outfitting it. And, he insisted, it might just save their lives.

Chee visibly perked up when Monkey Pete demonstrated some of the weapons the train had built in. “Major, if you’ll step back a few yards so you can see this.”