Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“Don’t know,” I said. “Been sort of expectant about it.”

“Sort of?”

“More than sort of.”

We walked on for a bit.

“I saw it right off,” Virgil said.

“What?”

“Feelings,” Virgil said. “The feelings that sprung up between the two of you. You and Emma. Short time as it was, I saw it.”

We walked a bit more.

“Like you surmised,” I said. “After we disconnected from the first coach, there was not a damn thing we could do about the fact Emma and Abigail were headed north and we were headed south but I’ve not for an extended moment stopped thinking about them, Virgil.”

“Nope,” Virgil said. “Me neither.”

“I hope to hell they are alive.”

Virgil rested his hand on my shoulder.

“Me too, Everett,” Virgil said. “Me too.”

Up ahead, the governor looked back to Berkeley.

“Just where is the boy headed, Mr. Berkeley?” the governor said. “Where is this Sam?”

“At the depot, sir,” Berkeley said. “Sam is the Half Moon Junction stationmaster.”

We walked by the tent encampments as we neared the depot. I did not need the aroma of coffee and bacon cooking to remind me I was getting hungry again. Just before we passed the encampment I heard the sound of a locomotive building up steam followed by two blasts of the engine’s whistle. When we cleared the last tent I saw the engine coming down the track. It was a Yard Goat, a heavy duty 0-6-0 locomotive, used for moving cars around switchyards. It was engineered by a burly man with his hairy arm hanging out the window.

“That Sam?” Hobbs said.

Berkeley shook his head.

“No, that’s Uncle Ted, Sam’s uncle in the Yard Goat,” Berkeley said. “Looks like he’s getting the track cleared.”

The Goat was connected to the coaches that had been left on the track and was in the process of pulling them into the switchyard.

Berkeley pointed to a little man walking next to the Yard Goat.

“That’s Sam there,” Berkeley said.

Sam switched the rails, and the Yard Goat whistle blasted two shorts and moved the cars slowly off the main track onto a side rail that dead-ended in the switchyard.

Sam said something to Uncle Ted and gestured up the track to the north. Uncle Ted nodded, saying something back, and throttled the Goat into the yard. Sam walked down the track toward the depot with his hands in the front pockets of his overalls.

As we neared the depot, the Yard Goat stomped past us, moving the coaches onto the dead-end section of track behind the water tower. Just below the Yard Goat’s window was a skillfully drawn chiaroscuro of a muscled horse running at a full gallop. Under the painting was the single word: Ironhorse .

When the coaches passed, Sam saw us walking toward the depot, and only then was it apparent Sam was in fact a woman dressed like a man. She wore a man’s shirt under her bib overalls and had a bowler hat snugged down low on her head.

We arrived at the porch of the depot at the same time as Sam. Sam’s skin was dark from the sun, and her eyes were sapphire blue.

“Burton,” Sam said.

“Sam,” Berkeley said. “This is the governor, Mr. Hobbs, Marshal Cole, Deputy Hitch. Charlie here said you had some information?”

“Charlie, go on and help Uncle Ted with them cars.”

“Okay, Sam,” Charlie said.

Charlie scampered off the depot steps and ran toward the Ironhorse.

“What is it, Sam?” Berkeley said.

“Yes, please,” the governor said. “The boy said you have information about my daughters?”

Sam removed her bowler, revealing her close-cropped blond hair, and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, looking at the governor.

“Yes, sir, Governor, sir,” she said. “Let me show you.”

Sam opened the door of the depot and ushered us in with a slight swing of her hat.

“After you,” she said.

We entered, and Sam hurried past us, and we followed her across the long, narrow corridor of the depot.

“Last night we received a wire alertin’ us the Fort Smith Express out of Paris was off schedule,” Sam said. “When Jenny, our telegraph operator, opened up this mornin’, she got a number of messages right quick about what happened on the track last night.”

We entered a small glassed-in corner office overlooking the track, where a young woman sat at a telegraph desk.

“This here is Jenny,” Sam said. “Anythin’ else come in, dear?”

“No, nothing,” Jenny said as she swiveled around in her chair from the desk.

Jenny was smaller than Sam. She, too, wore men’s clothes: breeches, a bowler, and a pin-striped shirt under a corduroy vest. Jenny opened the top drawer, took out a telegram, and handed it to Sam.

“This wire we received,” Sam said. “Addressed to you, sir.”

Sam handed the telegram to the governor.

“I sent Charlie to fetch you right away,” Sam said, “first thing when Jenny received it.”

The governor read the telegram. His eyes narrowed. He read the note again and looked to Jenny.

“You’re certain this is correct,” the governor said.

“Yes, sir, it’s correct, sir,” Jenny said. “It’s the message that was sent.”

Jenny spoke quickly with crisp, precise diction.

The governor looked at Sam.

“Jenny knows telegraphin’ beyond her years,” Sam said. “Her daddy was a telegrapher, taught her enough and then some. She’s good with code ’n everythin’ comes through here, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, heck, Greek—”

“Marshal?” the governor said.

He handed the telegram to Virgil.

“Sometimes wires get changed when repeaters are not in line,” Jenny said, “or if notes have to be retransmitted over long distances by other operators, or if someone is a novice on the key, but that wire is from just up the rail at the top of the Kiamichi. I know that operator.”

Virgil looked up at me and back to the telegram. He reread the message and handed it to me.

“Up the rail, top of the Kiamichi?” Virgil said. “Where are you talking about, Jenny?”

“As far as I can tell, the transmission came from Tall Water Falls.”

I read the note and looked at the governor. He sat slowly into an armchair next to the desk. He was doing his best to maintain his composure. He gazed out the window toward the iron rails tapering off in the distance and shook his head slowly from side to side.

“For God’s sake,” Hobbs said. “What in God’s name has happened? What are we dealing with?”

The governor took the note from my hand and handed it to Hobbs. Hobbs read the telegram and looked at the governor with a shocked expression on his face.

“Ransom! Dear God! The gall!” Hobbs said. “What more? This is madness, absolute madness.”

The governor took the telegram from Hobbs. Then he leaned over in the chair, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, and stared at the telegram.

“What did you mean,” Virgil said, “as far as you could tell this telegram was from Tall Water Falls?”

“The telegram could come from anywhere in the loop,” Sam said.

Jenny nodded.

“Yes, but as I previously mentioned, I know that operator; there are two of them at the depot. That operator is from Tall Water Falls. I don’t know the operator personally, but I know that fist. That is Ernest C.’s fist.”

“Fist?” Hobbs said.

“The operator’s key pattern,” I said.

“Every operator has a fist,” Jenny said. “A signature way of keying. We all key a distinct style. Though that wire is cryptic, that is Ernest C. from Tall Water Falls, no doubt about it... But...”

“But what? Something wrong?” I said. “You curious about something?”