Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

Once Aboard the Eagle by Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch is not only one of the world’s most prolific writers, he’s a voracious reader, and his advice to new writers often includes his belief that from wide reading ideas will flow. He is also a careful researcher; the information he employs in this story about train travel in the Western states in 1885 comes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s travel book Across the Plains, which was serialized in 1883, published in 1892.

The business that brought Ben Snow to Sacramento early in 1885 had been satisfactorily concluded, and he boarded the train on Sunday morning for the return trip to Carson City, where he’d stabled his horse Oats. The train was called the Eagle, but with its broad smokestack and cowcatcher up front it hardly looked like any sort of bird. The trip was a short one of just a few hours, so he fully expected to be eating dinner in the Nevada capital that afternoon. But as the train passed through the cornfields just outside of Sacramento a young woman’s voice was to change those plans.

“Is this seat occupied?” she asked. It was not, of course, and Ben smiled at her as he removed his saddlebags and placed them on the floor by his feet. She wore a long blue velvet skirt with matching hat and white blouse, in a style he’d seen on the Sacramento streets. There was an empty seat across the aisle but the man with the black handlebar moustache and dark suit seated by the window was enough to make any single woman think twice.

“Are you going to Carson City?” Ben asked, eager for conversation.

She studied him for a few seconds before replying. “No, I’m traveling all the way to Ogden, Utah.” He guessed her to be about his age, in her mid twenties.

“I was wondering. Carson City is still a pretty rough place for a young lady, even though it’s the state capital.”

She eyed him with something like amusement. “Were you offering to escort me to my hotel?”

“I might have been.”

“You’re a cowboy, aren’t you? I’ll wager you have a brace of pistols in your saddlebags.”

He smiled back at her. “You’d lose that wager. I have only one. But tell me what’s taking you all the way to Ogden. That’s a two-day journey.”

“Why should I tell you? I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Ben Snow. Ever hear of me?”

“No. Ever hear of Samantha Gaines?”

“I’ve heard the name mentioned often.” His reply startled her, wiping the sly smile from her face. Her change of expression made him laugh. “No, no, I’m only joking. That’s you, I suppose.”

“It is.” She’d turned stern, but he knew that wouldn’t last for long. “And if it’s any of your business, I’m traveling to Ogden to protest the killing of buffalo by trainloads of Eastern sportsmen.”

Ben nodded, aware of the problem. Railroad and business executives, often with their wives, organized hunting parties with officers from frontier army posts. With an escort of soldiers to protect them from Indians, they traveled west by special trains to the areas where herds of buffalo still grazed near the tracks. The carcasses of their prey, shot from the trains, were often hung from the caboose on the return trip.

Before he could reply, the conductor came through collecting their tickets and money. He was a bony man wearing a brass-buttoned jacket and a flat peaked cap with a nameplate that read Central Pacific. “First trip on the Eagle?” he asked.

“For me it is,” Samantha admitted.

“This is one of the best trains on the Central Pacific line,” he told them. “See these high ceilings and fresh varnish? You won’t find that on those old Union Pacific cars east of Ogden. These new cars are airier, and you don’t need bed boards for sleeping. Our seats draw out and join in the center. We have this upper tier of berths that are closed by day but open at night.”

“That’s good to know,” Ben agreed.

“Here’s a little map of our route, with the stops indicated. We stop for breakfast in the morning, dinner between eleven and two, and supper sometime between five and nine. At all other times you can purchase fruit, lollipops, and cigars from Jimmy the newsboy. You’ll see him coming through the train. He also sells books and newspapers. My name is Bill Wallman, if you need anything else.”

“How many cars are on this train?” Ben asked.

“It varies. Today we have seven. There’s the engine and coal car, followed by the baggage car and the Chinese car. On the westbound trips with emigrants we sometimes need two or three baggage cars. Then there’s this car for men and women traveling without families, followed by the family car and the caboose.”

“Why are the Chinese kept separate?” Samantha asked Ben after the conductor had moved on. “Wasn’t it Chinese labor that laid most of these tracks?”

“They work cheaper than American labor. Somehow that makes them a threat.”

It wasn’t long afterwards that Jimmy arrived to introduce himself and show his wares. He was a bright smiling lad of sixteen or seventeen, carrying his products on a wooden tray supported by a strap around his neck. “I also have soap, towels, and washing-dishes for the mornings,” he explained.

“I’ll be leaving the train this afternoon at Carson City,” Ben explained. “My horse is stabled there.”

“Sorry to see you go,” the boy replied. “It’s great country across northern Nevada. We pass through lots of old mining camps.”

Samantha had noticed the conductor paying special attention to a well-dressed man a few seats ahead of them. “Who’s the white-haired gentleman?” she asked Jimmy. “He looks important.”

“He is! That’s Hiram Killcanon, the California state senator. He rides the Eagle to Ogden every few months. Meets up with a trainload of Easterners for some buffalo hunting. He’s so good at it his friends call him King Buffalo.”

“Do they, now!” Samantha exclaimed. “I just might need to have a talk with him.”

After Jimmy had gone on his way Ben tried to calm her down. “I don’t think you want to confront him on the train like this.”

“Oh, don’t I? That’s the reason for my journey to Ogden, to protest against this buffalo slaughter!”

She left her place and moved down the aisle to the seat where the white-haired senator was chatting with a woman Ben couldn’t see. Samantha spoke to him and he glanced up. She said something else Ben couldn’t hear and suddenly Killcanon was on his feet. “See here, young lady—” The woman reached out a restraining hand, but not fast enough. He slapped Samantha across the cheek.

There were gasps from the other passengers who’d witnessed the altercation, and Ben ran down the aisle to her side. “That was uncalled for, sir,” he told the politician.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear her foul language,” Hiram Killcanon replied.

Ben was about to strike the man, but Samantha said, “He didn’t hurt me. It was nothing compared to shooting a harmless buffalo.”

Ben turned with some reluctance and led her back to their seat. He’d had only a glimpse of the senator’s companion, a middle-aged woman with black hair and thick eyebrows, wearing a soft felt hat. “Was that his wife with him?”

“With King Buffalo, you mean? I don’t know. Probably his mistress.”

“Calm down. At least you let him know how you felt.” He noticed that the moustached fellow across the aisle had been watching it all with interest.

Before long, a young man who’d been seated across from Killcanon and the woman made his way back to Samantha’s seat. “The senator has asked me to apologize for the earlier incident. He’s deeply sorry he struck you.”

“Who are you?” Ben asked.

“Ralph Munsey. I’m Senator Killcanon’s personal aide.” He looked the part, clean-shaven with a dark suit and string tie. “He would like to buy you dinner when we stop in Carson City.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she replied somewhat coolly. “But I accept his apology.”

“I wish—”

“Please,” she said, holding up her hand. “It is a dead issue with me.”

Munsey retreated, and Ben said, “You handled that well.”

“I certainly wasn’t going to have dinner with him! It would probably be buffalo meat!”

The senator’s female companion came back past their seats but ignored them, edging by Jimmy with his tray of sundries. “I have some nice apples,” the newsboy pointed out.

Ben took some coins from his pocket. “Give us two.”

“Want me to slice them for you?”

Samantha shook her head. “They’re more fun if you munch right into them.”

The apple tasted good to Ben, too. “Do you just ride the train all week?” he asked the youth.

“My run is from San Francisco to Ogden and back again. When the passengers switch to the Union Pacific line I turn around. They supply their own newsboys. The round trip takes four days and I usually get a day off between trips.”

“You’re from San Francisco?” Samantha asked.

“Yeah. I live there with my mom.”

“How’d you land a job like this?”

Jimmy’s smile turned momentarily somber. “My dad worked for the state. He was killed in an accident and they wouldn’t give us any compensation for it. I had to quit school to help support my mom. I was lucky to land this job. You get to see all sorts of people on trains.”

Ben had to agree with that. Up ahead, he could see the conductor arguing with a short Chinese man attempting to enter their car. Finally Bill pushed the man bodily through the door to the Chinese coach. “What was all that about?” he asked Jimmy.

“The Chinese car is crowded. That’s Wu Khan. He’s traveled with us before and he asked me if he could sit in here where there are empty seats. I told him he’d have to ask the conductor.”

“I guess he got his answer,” Samantha commented.

Jimmy moved on and as they munched their apples Ben remarked, “Maybe you should try to help the Chinese instead of the buffalo.”

“It’s hardly the same thing. The buffalo are being shot dead.”

When the conductor announced they were about a half-hour outside of Carson City, Samantha excused herself to use the toilet at the front end of the car. Ben noticed that Killcanon’s female companion was headed in the same direction, as was the man with the moustache across the aisle. All the passengers seemed to be on the move and Jimmy was having difficulty squeezing past them with his tray.

Ben stood up to stretch and Senator Killcanon came back to say a few words. “I trust Ralph delivered my apologies.”

“Certainly,” Ben told him. “Everything’s fine.”

He nodded and turned back toward his seat. Ralph Munsey was standing, too, perhaps calculating the wait for the toilet, and Killcanon had to squeeze past him. Some Indian braves had ridden up, waving peacefully to the passengers as they kept pace with the train, and Ben’s attention was diverted to them. He didn’t see what happened next.

It was a woman who screamed first, and for an instant he thought it was Samantha. Then he saw that it was Killcanon’s dark-haired companion, returning from the toilet. The senator had crumpled to the floor as the conductor and Jimmy tried to reach him. Munsey stood frozen by his seat, trying to determine what had happened. “He’s bleeding!” the woman shouted at him. “Do something!”

Hiram Killcanon died within minutes, without making an intelligible sound. His face seemed to register nothing more than surprise, and by the time they ripped away his bloody vest and shirt to reveal the fatal knife wound it was too late. “Who did this?” Wallman, the conductor, demanded. “One of you must have seen something!”

Ben found himself standing next to the dead man’s companion, who was still sobbing quietly. Though she wore no wedding ring, he asked, “Are you Mrs. Killcanon?”

“No. No, just a good friend. Maude Gregory. We like to shoot buffalo together.” Munsey came to her side then, trying to comfort her. Once again Ben was aware of the dark-haired man with the handlebar moustache, watching them intently.

“Did you see anything, ma’am?” the conductor asked her.

“No.” She tried to wipe away the tears. “I don’t know! The Indians distracted me. What happened to him? Was it that Chinaman who tried to come back here?”

“Did you see him at the door?”

“I don’t know. I might have.”

Wallman raised his voice, speaking to everyone in the car. “The Carson City police will want to question everyone here. Try to remember if you saw or heard anything unusual. We’ll try not to fall too far behind schedule.”

Twenty minutes later the sheriff of Carson City boarded the train with several deputies. Hiram Killcanon’s body was removed after a brief examination and the deputies began a search of the car and its occupants for the murder weapon. They turned up nothing but a penknife in Ralph Munsey’s pocket and hatpins in the ladies’ bonnets, all incapable of inflicting the fatal wound. It was Maude Gregory who mentioned again that she might have seen the Chinaman at the door between the cars. “Wu Khan,” the conductor said. “Wu Khan is his name. I’ve had trouble with him before.”

The sheriff quickly located the Chinese man in the forward car, and found a six-inch knife in his possession. The blade showed no trace of blood, but when the deputies failed to uncover any other knife, Wu Khan was taken into custody. They’d been in Carson City over two hours when Wallman announced that the train would continue on to Ogden. All passengers remaining in Carson City were now free to leave. Ben glanced around for the mystery man with the moustache and finally saw him coming out of the station telegraph office, returning to the train.

“You’ll be going,” Samantha Gaines said to Ben.

“It’s my stop. I have to get my horse.” He hesitated. “Look, I think we both know Wu Khan didn’t kill that man. When Maude Gregory and that fellow Munsey tell their story to the sheriff, about Killcanon slapping you, they may come after you.”

“I didn’t—” she started to protest.

“I know, but I’ve got a few days free. I can ride up to Ogden with you and then take the train back.” In truth, he had more than a few days free. The summer stretched before him without any certainty of a job. It would mean riding across the range from one ranch to another, looking for work.

“I’m sure they wouldn’t accuse me of anything like that.” But her certainty seemed to fade away as she spoke. Maude Gregory had boarded the train and taken the seat she’d occupied earlier. Ralph Munsey came on right behind her. “What are they doing here? Are they going on to Ogden without him?”

“It’s beginning to look that way.” Ben left his seat. “I’ll find out.”

Munsey was still settled across the aisle from the woman, as if reluctant to occupy the dead man’s seat. Ben had no such qualms. “It’s a terrible thing that happened to Senator Killcanon,” he said quietly.

She looked up, startled at his sudden appearance in the seat next to her. “What do you want?”

“Only to express my sympathies.”

At the front of the car the conductor called out, “All aboard the Central Pacific Eagle! Next stop Dutch Flat! All aboard!”

Munsey leaned across the aisle to tell the woman, “I believe that was supposed to be our dinner stop.”

“I couldn’t eat a thing, Ralph. Stop thinking of your stomach all the time. Hiram is dead, after all.”

“Sorry,” he said, and fell silent.

“Are you going on to Ogden?” Ben asked her.

Maude Gregory nodded. “The trip meant so much to him. He would have wanted us to go on. Besides, his wife will be making arrangements for his body. There’s nothing for me to do in Carson City.”

“Do you hunt, too?”

She nodded solemnly, as if he’d asked whether she was a churchgoer. “My buffalo gun is up front in the luggage car.”

“We couldn’t see what happened earlier. Who stabbed him?”

“They say it was that Chinaman. I don’t know. I was distracted by the Indians riding by.”

Ralph Munsey interrupted again from across the aisle. “Yeah, well, it might have been that woman who caused the trouble earlier. She was up this way when it happened.”

“I don’t think she was involved,” Ben said, rising to return to his seat.

“She a friend of yours?” Munsey asked.

“I never saw her before. She’s just a seatmate.”

It was after dark when they reached Dutch Flat, an old mining camp now almost deserted. A sheep train was passing in the opposite direction as they came to a stop and Ben could hear the bleating of the unhappy animals inside the cars. “There’s not much left in Dutch Flat,” Bill Wallman admitted, removing his conductor’s cap to scratch his head. “Places like this will be ghost towns in another few years. But the locals usually prepare some food to sell the passengers. We only stop for twenty minutes and I yell ‘All aboard’ just once. I don’t take roll call.”

Samantha Gaines went in search of food and Ben stayed on the train, munching another apple from Jimmy and chatting with the conductor. “Do you often have stabbings on this run?” he asked.

Wallman shook his head. “Hardly any. At these little mining towns we sometimes take on passengers wearing guns, but they usually behave themselves. Had a couple of Mexicans in a knife fight last year, but nobody got killed. This is the first politician we’ve lost.” He looked unhappy at the thought.

“Will they hold you responsible?”

“Sure, probably. Then I’ll be back working at the fish market in San Francisco. Someone like Killcanon gets killed and they have to place the blame, even if they caught that Chinaman with a bloody knife in his hand.”

“I don’t think there was blood on the knife they found.” Ben’s attention was diverted by the sight of the man with the large moustache returning to the train with a bag of food. He dropped his voice and asked the conductor, “Who is that man?”

“I have no idea. He’s booked through to Ogden.”

Ben was remembering the man leaving the telegraph office in Carson City. Had he sent a message saying his mission was accomplished, that Senator Killcanon was dead? Or merely that the train had been delayed?

When they were under way again and the hour was late, Ben helped Samantha get the beds into position. Though he readily offered to sleep in the upper bunk, she seemed to feel safer up above. Jimmy came by with a stool to help her up. Sleeping on a train, with the clatter of wheels on track, didn’t come easy to Ben, and he was surprised he drifted off as quickly as he did.

Bill Wallman’s husky voice awakened him, shortly after daybreak, with the announcement to all passengers that the breakfast stop would be made in thirty minutes at Alta, another of the tiny mining towns that dotted northern Nevada. Samantha poked her head out of the upper berth to say good morning and Ben offered to bring her breakfast if she didn’t want to go out for it. She readily agreed and he soon returned with milk and coffee cakes. At the other end of the car he could see Munsey bringing food for Maude Gregory’s breakfast.

“What do you think?” Samantha asked as they ate. “Maybe it was a love triangle. Maybe Munsey stabbed his employer so he could have that woman.”

“She’s a good ten years older than him,” Ben observed, “though that doesn’t rule out the possibility.”

They’d been awakened so early that the rest of the day passed by endlessly as the Eagle traveled through deserts of alkali and sand that made even the occasional stretches of sagebrush seem somehow scenic. They lunched early at Elko and the conductor announced they’d be in Toano that evening, then across the state border to Ogden by morning.

The evening stop took longer than expected, because the engine had overheated, delaying them for more than an hour. Most of the passengers left the train for a stroll, and some young men from the family car gathered at the rear caboose for an impromptu round of songs. “That’s nice,” Samantha told Ben as they strolled, listening to “The Sweet By and By.” “Almost makes you want to settle down here.”

“Not me,” he told her. “I need the sight of cattle and grazing land, not alkali plains.”

“Do you ever think about moving to the coast?”

“Not really. When I’m too old to herd cattle I’ll probably head east.”

“That’s a long time away.”

There was someone up ahead, silhouetted against the lantern light from the train. It took Ben a moment to recognize his mystery man with the moustache. “Could I speak to you in private?” the man asked.

Ben drew a breath and told Samantha, “Go back to the train. I’ll be right along.”

She agreed with some reluctance, and when Ben was alone with the man he said, “You’re Ben Snow, the man some say is Billy the Kid.”

“Billy’s dead.” Ben replied. “I’m just Ben.”

“But you’re fast with a gun, like Billy. Want to draw on me?”

“I’m unarmed. You can see that.”

The man grinned, and for an instant his teeth reflected the lantern light. Ben sprang forward as the man’s hand dipped inside his coat. It came out holding a tiny short-barreled derringer, but by that time Ben had a firm left-handed grip on his wrist. With his right fist he launched a short, sharp jab to the man’s jaw that sent him backwards in a dazed heap. Ben found his wallet and flipped it open to an identification card that read: Philip Atlas, Investigator, Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency.

“You’re a detective?” he asked the stunned man.

Atlas struggled to his feet, holding his jaw. “I’ve killed men for less than that.”

“Not when they’re holding your gun. What are you doing on the Eagle?”

“Working.”

“For whom?”

“That’s confidential. Pinkerton’s employs me. That’s all you need to know.”

“You telegraphed someone from Carson City, after Killcanon’s murder.”

“I may have.”

Suddenly it clicked in Ben’s brain. “Mrs. Killcanon! She hired a Pinkerton man to follow her husband on this buffalo-hunting expedition. You reported to her that he was with Maude Gregory.”

He wouldn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Instead, he offered a challenge. “If you’re Billy, give me back my gun and we’ll draw against each other.”

“The gun stays in my pocket until Ogden. I’ll unload it and return it to you then. Stop imagining I’m Billy the Kid if you want to stay alive. A six-gun could beat a derringer any day of the week.”

He turned and walked back to where Samantha was waiting.

Finally the train rolled out of Toano, bound for Ogden. Wallman explained that anyone continuing east would transfer there to the smaller, less comfortable cars of the Union Pacific, while his train and crew turned back toward San Francisco. Ben overheard Atlas, the Pinkerton man, ask if there was any further news from Carson City about the murder, but the conductor professed to know nothing.

Ben had told Samantha of Atlas’s identity, and now she wondered if Maude Gregory knew it, too. “Maybe you should tell her, Ben, let her know she’s being spied upon.”

“I suppose I might mention it.” He went up front to where Munsey was helping the woman arrange the seats and upper berth for the night.

“One more night of this,” Maude sighed. “Of course it’s not very comfortable on the buffalo train, either, but at least you’re among friends.”

Ben waited until Munsey had moved away and then told her, “I believe you’re being watched. The man at the back of the car with the black suit and large moustache is a Pinkerton detective.”

She spun her head around and quickly spotted him. Ben wished she’d been a bit subtler about it. “I’ve seen that man before, back in Sacramento. I didn’t realize it until this very instant.”

Ben nodded. “He may have been following you for some time, if Killcanon’s wife was suspicious.”

She was not in the mood for denial. “I did nothing more than love a man. Is that so wrong?”

“He was married at the time,” Ben reminded her gently.

“She never gave him the love I did. If that Chinaman stabbed him I would gladly put the rope around his neck myself.”

“I find it hard to believe that Killcanon was the victim of a motiveless killing. Perhaps someone desired you as much as you desired him.”

“If you’re thinking of Ralph Munsey, there’s nothing between us. I’d as soon believe your Pinkerton man killed him, on orders from Hiram’s wife.”

“If she hired a murder done, I think you would have been the more likely target.”

He left her and went back to find Samantha already in the upper berth. “Our final night,” she said with something like relief.

“That’s about how Maude Gregory feels, too. But you’ll be demonstrating, won’t you?”

“Right in Ogden. From there the private buffalo train travels east into southern Wyoming, where most of the large herds still roam close to the tracks.”

Ben smiled. “Try to get a good night’s sleep. If they arrest you, tomorrow night might be spent in a jail cell.”

“Thanks for that information!”

He slept well through the early part of the night, but was aware toward morning that the train had stopped. He raised the window shade to see if they’d arrived in Ogden, but saw only other tracks and a few small buildings. He got up and went to the toilet. On the way back, he found Jimmy preparing his tray for the morning trip through the train. “Are we there yet?” he asked the youth.

Jimmy shook his head. “We had to stop outside the city for some reason. I’m taking around some fruit for folks until we can get a regular breakfast at the station.”

Ben bought two apples, one for Samantha, and the boy went on his way. He knocked on the ceiling above his seat and she poked her head out. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Only seven o’clock. We’ve stopped outside the city. Have an apple.”

“Thanks. Why are we stopped?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try to find Wallman.”

The conductor was in the car ahead trying to calm the Chinese, few of whom spoke English. “They’re afraid they’re going to be arrested, like Wu Khan. I’m trying to tell them Wu Khan has been freed back in Carson City.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s true. The police telegraphed ahead to hold us outside the station until local officers arrive to make an arrest.”

Ben’s heart sank. “Who are they arresting?”

“I imagine it’s that Gaines woman. Everyone saw Killcanon slap her.”

He stared at the half-eaten apple in his hand. Sometimes it took a bushel of evidence to identify a killer. Other times, a single apple could do it. “Come back into our car,” Ben requested. “I have something to say.”

The others were up now. Ralph Munsey’s eyes were blurry with sleep and Maude Gregory was just coming out of the toilet. Samantha had climbed down from her upper berth. The Pinkerton man, Philip Atlas, was conversing with one of the other passengers. “Quiet down!” the conductor urged them, and even Jimmy stopped hawking his morning wares. “Mr. Snow here has something to say.”

“We’ve just been informed,” Ben began, “that the Chinese passenger Wu Khan, arrested in Carson City, has been released for lack of evidence. Our train has been stopped outside of Ogden until the local police arrive to make another arrest. There is no doubt they now suspect Miss Gaines here because the victim slapped her in front of us all.”

“I didn’t kill him!” Samantha insisted. “I might have wished him dead but I didn’t kill him.”

“I don’t think you did,” Ben agreed. “From the beginning, the main mystery to me has been the lack of a murder weapon. What happened to the knife that probably had about a five-inch blade? Certainly Mr. Munsey’s penknife couldn’t have been used, nor the women’s slender hatpins. Was there another knife in existence? If there was, the person who possessed it is almost certainly the killer. Otherwise why wouldn’t he or she have admitted to the weapon during the search?”

“What are you trying to say?” Atlas asked. “I saw no knife.”

“Neither did I,” Ben admitted, “yet I know one existed because the killer told me so.”

“Who?” Maude asked.

Ben reached over to pick another apple off Jimmy’s tray. “Jimmy, could you slice this for me, as you offered to do on the way to Carson City?”

Jimmy dropped his tray and turned to run, but Ben had already grabbed his collar. The overturned tray revealed a built-in slot for his paring knife, and that was all anyone needed to see. Ben hustled him off the train before the outrage in the car turned to violence.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Jimmy said, still firmly in Ben’s grip as they reached the ground next to the train. “I saw him there, just as I’d seen him on those other trips. I knew who he was, the state senator who’d blocked the payment for my father’s accident. I knew that I hated him for that, but I never thought of killing him, not until this time. The aisle was crowded and I was trying to squeeze through with my tray. His stomach was right there, with the tray pressing on it. I slanted the tray, raised it a few inches until it must have been in line with his heart. Then I felt the knife it its slot under the tray. I gripped it in my hand and pushed. Even with the blood, I guess I didn’t realize at first what I’d done. I could only think of my mother, and how he’d ruined her life by blocking that state compensation.”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

“I was too scared, I guess. They searched for the knife but they never looked under my tray. I kept it hidden after that.”

Ben stared at the boy and a feeling of helplessness overcame him. “How old are you, Jimmy?” he asked.

“Sixteen.”

“I’m only about ten years older than that myself. I’m in no position to judge you. But I know one thing. I can’t allow them to arrest an innocent young woman for your crime. I’ll have to turn you in to the police.”

He looked at Ben with pleading eyes. “Some say you’re a gunfighter. Is that true? Have you ever killed a man?”

“Yes,” Ben admitted.

“Maybe somebody gave you a break when you were my age. Maybe a marshal came to arrest you and let you run away instead.”

“Maybe,” Ben agreed. “But—”

“Let me go. Let me go now and I swear you’ll never be sorry. Tell the police what happened, but let me go.”

Someone, the conductor, was coming off the train. Ben had only an instant to decide. “Go!” he said, releasing his grip. “Run!”

Jimmy broke free and started across the tracks. That was when Ben saw her. “No!” he shouted, but it was too late.

Maude Gregory stood in the freight-car door and lifted the buffalo rifle to her shoulder and shot Jimmy dead as he ran toward the rest of his life.

Copyright ©; 2005 by Edward D. Hoch.