The Insane Train Read Free Page A

were opportunists, half-starved coyotes who would steal the brakeman’s lunch right out of his caboose if the opportunity presented itself.
    â€œGo find him,” Hook said.
    Mixer spun off into the morning to work out the myriad smells that occupied his world. And when a yelp went up down line, Hook knew that Mixer had picked up the scent. Hook moved as fast as he dared in the dawn light. Ahead, the track curved off for its run into the desert. Mixer barked a series of hot yelps.
    As Hook made the bend, he could see a shunting boiler with a short load sitting on the siding. The engine purred like a gigantic cat, and heat waves rose out of her stack in the morning air. The cab was empty, the engineer probably having gone to the yard office to wait clearance.
    At that moment, both Hook and Mixer spotted the bo peeking from around the open door of the last boxcar. Mixer yelped and bawled and spun in a circle. Hook waited for the man’s face to disappear back into the darkness of the car. He leaped across the tracks and ran along the right of way out of view of the bo. With a little luck, he could come in from behind without being spotted.
    Gasping for breath, he crawled under the boxcar, and his stomach tightened. He could smell the heat of the engine drifting down line and the pungent odor of creosote. When it came to boxcar wheels and iron rails, bodies lost with some regularity.
    Sunrise lit the sky in a blaze. Just then the pitched whistle of a diesel engine rose up in the distance. The shunting boiler responded with two short blasts, and sweat broke on Hook’s forehead. The engineer must have been asleep in the cab while he waited on the east-bound to clear.
    Hook knew that he didn’t have long to make his move. As soon as the diesel cleared, the shunting boiler would pull out and drag him down line. They’d have to mail him back to Division in an envelope.
    He reached for his weapon to make his move. “Damn it!” he said. He’d forgotten his weapon, and his prosthesis, and his pants.
    Too late now. He reached up, grabbed the door handle, and swung his leg into the car just as the east-bound made the bend. The shunting boiler lay in on her whistle and released her brakes. Unable to pull himself up without his prosthesis, Hook hung from the doorway like a opossum in a tree.
    The freighter screamed by Hook just as the shunting boiler took up slack, lurching forward. Exhausted, Hook struggled to pull himself the rest of the way in. As they gathered up speed, the bo rushed from the darkness of the boxcar and leaped over Hook’s head.
    Hook managed to roll in, and he turned to look back. Mixer had the bo by the sleeve, and they were locked in tug of war between the two trains. Hook considered jumping, but by then the clack of the wheels had turned to a hum. He’d just have to wait until they reached the wigwag crossing, where the train would slow.
    He leaned back against the door of the boxcar to catch his breath. No man should start his day like this, but then it could have been worse. That bo had plenty of opportunity to do him in, but he hadn’t. Hook hoped Mixer granted the bo the same reprieve.
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    The morning sun shot through the beams of the railroad trestle overhead, and birds winged through the blue as Seth Durand examined the torn sleeve of his shirt.
    He had planned to be in Barstow by now, but when that unlocked caboose presented itself, he couldn’t resist. He’d barely escaped with his life from that madman and his wild dog. After that, he’d waited at the edge of Needles for the next west-bound, but it turned out to be a diesel that blasted through at breakneck speed, leaving him with a face full of dirt. He hated the diesel, the way she whined and moaned, the way her whistle shot through a man like a knife. She was hard to board and even harder to ride.
    So he’d camped in to wait for a hog, an old steamer with a load of freight pulling the grade,