I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

39 Dapper Jack

The train was visible from a long way off. The beam of light from the nose of the engine lanced through the clear, cold air. Behind it the smearing golden glow from the cars gradually distinguished itself into a line, then individual windows.

Inside the pockets of his coat, Jack curled his fists against his hips and waited for feeling to return to his fingers. Tying the packets of sleeping smoke had taken more time that it should have as the men’s fingers lost dexterity in the cold air. But it was done, and just in time. To protect his night vision, he looked away from the train and up at the frigid sky. The moon had mercifully sunk into the west, and the scant scrub brush that grew here and there in patches had sunk from silver into black shadow above the gritty plain. Aside from the train’s lights, only faint starlight illuminated the contours of the plain. He found the outline of the Drover in the stars, and followed the line of his lariat to the Bullock constellation. The Bullock’s tail was drooping towards the horizon, preparing to follow the moon down into the west. It was time.

Jack turned toward Merritt, but the captain was already moving among his men, touching each one on the shoulder and sending him to his horse.

“What if I can’t get them to light?” one of the men asked nervously.

“You never have any trouble lighting a cigarette, Rance,” someone else replied, provoking brief laughter from the others.

They led the horses into the blacker shadow of the butte. Its three fingered peak blotted out the stars, but they weren’t watching the sky for the time any more.

For the moment, the night was nearly silent. The rumble of the approaching train lost itself in the vast deep of the sky and disappeared. There were a few jingles from the horses, but they settled in to wait. Jack wound the reins around one hand and stood at his horse’s head, ready to soothe the animal when the signal came.

There was a click and a tiny flare of light.

“What are you doing?” several voices hissed at once.

Rance flicked his lighter closed again. “I just wanted to check that it worked.”

“You checked it earlier,” whispered Danick.

“Quiet,” the captain said, before Jack could express the same sentiment less politely. He should have brought Howser; Howser was reliably taciturn.

The train was growing louder. The headlight swept up to the butte, split the darkness around it, deepened the shadow behind it where Jack and the others stood. Jack’s horse shook its head, twitching away some irritation on its skin.

Now. Now Arvin should be giving Baccarat a reason to hit the brakes. Andin should have brought him the message that this was the train, this was the night. Were Danick and Merritt mistaken in placing such trust on the shoulders of a green youth?

The lights of the train slipped past the butte and began to flood in from the other side. Jack could hear his heart beating fast beneath the roar of the engine, the clack of the wheels. He lifted his other hand to bite his gloved knuckles and prevent himself from yelling in frustration. To miss this chance!

But there it was. The welcome sound of dynamite, somewhere nearby. Before the echoes had rebounded from the stone face of the butte, Jack was in the saddle and the brakes were squealing on the train. Now he was glad to have borrowed a horse from Merritt’s little army: the animal had hardly flinched at the explosion, being already accustomed to such things. Together with the others, they leapt forward to leave the cover of the butte and surged towards the train.

Jack pulled a cloth up to cover his nose and mouth as he galloped after the train. Though he caught only glimpses of them in the scattered light from the train windows, he could see that Merritt’s men had done the same. The train was already slowing. Now they only had to send the sleeping smoke into the cars before the passengers inside began pouring out into the night in fear that the whole train would explode.