Last Train from Perdition by Robert McCammon

Author:Robert McCammon [McCammon, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2016-10-31T06:00:00+00:00

Six.

“You can’t be tellin’ me what to do, fella!” Tabbers fired back. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m the man trying to keep you and everyone else here alive tonight. When you get your rifles loaded, come back to the passenger car. Keep your heads on swivels and move fast.” Lawson told Gantt, “Come with me,” and the conductor did not hesitate.

Back in the passenger car and the welcome yellow light of the oil lamps, the first voice upraised belonged to Johnny Rebinaux. “Why we stopped, bossman? Bandits or Injuns?”

“What’s going on, Lawson?” Mathias dared asked.

Reverend Easterly had returned to his seat and silently watched as Lawson walked along the aisle to check on Blue. “She was making a whimpering sound a minute ago,” Ann told him. “Tried to get her hands on the wound, but I kept them down. She’s out again, it looks like.” Ann’s fierce black eyes asked the question first, then her voice, speaking quietly: “They’re here?”

That word again. “Yes.”

“Trevor, how did they find us?”

“They tracked us, in their way. Maybe they had a human spy watching us. Could be it’s like some telegraph system that ordinary humans can’t fathom. And I can’t fathom it either…not yet.”

“Is something wrong with the engine, Mr. Lawson?” Eric asked.

“Nothin’ wrong with that,” said Gantt, who hung his lantern up on a nail for the moment. The stricken expression on Gantt’s face told Lawson the conductor still didn’t know what to make of the headlamp being broken out. “The rail’s blocked. There’s been a rockslide.”

“Ha!” Rebinaux’s ugly grin widened. “Deuce, listen to me! We can get out of this, if we’ve a mind to! Keene, you up for it?”

“For what?” Presco asked. He had his face pressed against a window’s glass trying to see past the coal tender and engine, but the snow and the night made it impossible. “Gettin’ shot dead right here or froze to death out in that weather? We ain’t got a baby’s chance in Hell!”

“A baby wouldn’t be in Hell, ya jackass!” Rebinaux snarled. “A baby’s born without sin, so why’s a baby gonna be in Hell? Yeah, I always figured there was some yellow on that belly!”

Presco’s fuse had finally been lit. He stood up and lumbered like an angry bear into the aisle. “Fine talk you’re doin’, Johnny!” he shouted in a voice that sounded like a room full of saws working rusted metal. “And you with one hand! You can’t do nothin’!”

“I can kick you where you used to have balls!” Rebinaux hollered back, but he made no move to give action to that threat.

“Settle down!” Lawson took a few paces forward to get between them if he needed to, but he quickly saw that Rebinaux’s courage was in trying to get others to risk their skins for him. “Take it easy, Presco. Nobody’s going anywhere right now.”

“A baby in Hell!” Rebinaux wasn’t done needling his ex-partner. “That’s just plain dumb!” He snorted as if to get the smell of disgust out of his nostrils.

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