Free On the Wrong Track by Steve Hockensmith

and moved it this way and that, its light playing over stacks of boxes, trunks, and bags—and a bottle sitting upright on the floor, uncorked and half-filled with amber liquid.
    “Pezullo a drinkin’ man?” my brother asked.
    “I … I don’t know,” the news butch stammered, his voice quiet and quivery.
    Gustav was staring at the bottle, Lockhart was using his .44 to menace shadows inside the car, and the passengers present simply stood around gawping like they were watching a sideshow geek tear into a chicken. Which left it to me to walk over and place a comforting hand on Kip’s slender shoulder. He looked into my eyes, his own glistening in the dim light of the lantern, and nodded silent thanks.
    “Hey!” a muffled voice cried out from somewhere nearby. “What’s going on out there?”

    “Now who in the hell is that?” Old Red asked, swinging his lantern around.
    Lockhart pointed at the next car up. “It’s comin’ from the express car. Must be the Wells Fargo man.”
    “I think his name’s Morrison,” Kip said with a hint of a sniffle.
    “Is there a door between the baggage car and the express car?” Gustav asked him.
    “No, they ain’t—,” the kid began.
    “Talk to me!” Morrison called to us again. “Who’s out there?”
    The panic in the fellow’s voice was plain to hear—and easy to understand, given how many express messengers have been blown straight through the pearly gates by bandito dynamite the past few years. Unfortunately, a card in the crowd decided it was time to lighten the mood, and he called out a reply before a straight-thinking man could.
    “It’s me—Jesse James, back from the dead! And I’m here with my pals the Give-’em-Hell Boys!”
    “Who said that?” Lockhart bellowed, turning on our audience and waving his gun. “So help me, I’ll blow the fool’s goddamn head off!”
    Not wishing to see mortal harm done to even so irritating an acquaintance as Chester Q. Horner—for it had been the drummer’s voice that had answered Morrison—I started to move between Lockhart and the crowd. But I’d barely taken two steps when there was a blast behind me, and my hat whipped off my head and sailed into the darkness. Within seconds, every man there had a face full of sand as we all went diving for cover.
    “Don’t come any closer!” Morrison hollered. “I’m armed!”
    “We know!” I shouted back. I was sprawled on my belly, and I peeked up to see where the gunfire had come from.
    There were two barred openings, too small to be called windows, beside the express car’s side door. Pointing out of one was the barrel of a rifle.
    “Don’t shoot, Morrison!” Lockhart shouted. “We ain’t outlaws! That was just some asshole’s idea of a joke!”
    “Why should I believe you?”

    “It’s me, Mr. Morrison! Kip Hickey!” the kid called out. “Trust me! We ain’t bein’ robbed!”
    “They might have a gun to your head! They might be making you say that!”
    “But they’re not!” Kip yelled back.
    “But they might be!”
    “But they’re not !”
    “But they might be !”
    As the debate raged on, I peeked around to see what had become of my brother. He’d found the safest spot of all: underneath the train, directly below the baggage car door. He still had the lantern with him, and its light created eerie, oily shadows amongst the bars and boards beneath the Pacific Express.
    A long, lumpy silhouette stood out from all the rest. It was stretched out on some of the rods under the car, behind Old Red. I blinked my eyes, hoping they’d come to their senses, but they insisted on seeing what they saw: the outline of a man.
    “Holy shit, Gustav … I think there’s another body stuck up under there.”
    But I was wrong. It wasn’t a corpse. It was a living, breathing man, and he dropped down onto the tracks before my brother could turn around.

Nine
    EL NUMERO UNO
    Or, A Crowned Sovereign Lands in a Royal Mess
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    There