There were three bullets. One was silver, one was lead, and one was iron. Raymond Stenson picked them up and one by one slotted them into the old colt revolver. He spun the chambers, listened to them clicking. Slowing. Stopped. He checked the clock over the mantle. 11:50. No more time.
He stood, slowly. Stowed the colt in his jacket pocket where it made a dead weight. He paused by the mantle and adjusted the folded note there, then went down the steps.
On the ground floor lay the shop. Antique clocks and bric-a-brac lying in unsteady shadows. Strange forms of gutted machinery and forgotten workings. He passed them by, out into the night, took out the key, thought better of it, and left the door unlocked.
There was only one street. It ran from the station down between the houses and shops before fading away into the plains. Every window was dark and closed. Every door locked. Every curtain drawn. No one would risk being about on the night of August 12. There was Finnigan’s parlor where he sold ice cream and the few groceries the town sustained itself on. There Milton’s bookshop, the covers of the latest thrillers posing behind the glass. All waiting for the train to stop, the passengers to disperse while it refueled, and investigate a town that had grown merely because here was where the line paused for water, wood and coal. Buy, depart, never thinking of it again. The water tower made a fat shape on spindly legs in the moonlight. A town without a name and merely a single road that went nowhere. Customers, produce, everything borne in on the rails.
Raymond touched the colt in his pocket, reminding himself it was there. Remembering another late August night. Remembering Abigail. A flutter of yellow sundress and a smile. Hair the color of autumn leaves and skin kissed golden by the sun. His heart beat heavily. He clutched his shirt.
He came up to the platform. No one was about. No trains ran at midnight. But everyone knew better. Knew one train did come in once a year, steady as clockwork. Coming since the rails were first laid.
He found a seat and waited. Checked his watch. 11:55. He shouldn’t have started so early. Gave him too much time. But maybe remembering was good. It would inspire him. He didn’t know if he could shoot when he saw that face. Not the six times, playing roulette for whichever bullet might end it. If any did. He found he wasn’t afraid of dying, or whatever might happen. He focused on the memory and hoped the anger would come.
They’d all grown up by the rails. The hum of the passing trains like old friends. Watch them. Listen. Know their individual cries of steam and thrums of pistons.
Abigail had known them. Could name them from a mile off. They would sit on the cords of wood and watch the smoke billow in the distance. Sometimes, race along them when they first arrived. Whooping and shouting. Wondering the who, the where, the why. She knew the schedules perfectly. Had it etched on her mind. Her father was the station agent and always carried the lantern that glowed like a single red eye.
“Here comes the 11:10 to Chicago. The 4:15 to Brenswick,” she would say, her voice soft and her lips painting a smile. She knew them all. And a few times he would wake in the dead of an August night to the soft whistle and the thrum of the rails. Hear her stir across the bed. Sense her lips move through the dark. A whisper. “12:00 to where? To where?”
That was how he knew. When he heard the longing. The allure of mystery for the train that never showed up on any schedule the station received. He’d fear for her then. He’d been right to.
Wait. What was that? He stood up. Looked down the tracks. There! The eye. A stabbing glow of white. Wait. Listen. There! The whistle. It screeched a banshee wail through the dark. The gritted iron teeth of a cowcatcher flashed. His hands were sweaty. Listen! The thrum of engines. The beat of pistons.
It came. A dark bulk. It flashed by, whistle screaming again. Here! Here! The rush of air tore his hat off and sent it flying away. Pulled at his clothes with ghostly fingers. It slowed, all black. He scanned the windows of the cars but saw no one. But he would be there. He was always there.
It rolled to a stop, brakes dragging against ties with a screech. Lighting sparked all down the way. The clock on the station front rang out. Twelve booming strokes.
Midnight.
The engine breathed white steam. Billowed it across the lonely platform and the dark. Raymond turned, watching.
A shape moved in it. Walked out of the whisking fog. The darkness resolved to a man in a stiff-brimmed and flat-topped hat. A travel case swung at his side, its silver lettering spelling R.M.C. The man stopped. The hiss of steam sang through the night.
Raymond touched his pocket. Felt the colt. Felt that grim weight.
The man moved. He put down his case and from a pocket brought out a wooden square. He unfolded it. Again. Again. The square grew wide, stretched the man’s arms. He held it out and legs extended with a clack, and he set the table down. He thumped its top and a small sign fell down its front. He spread his hands, took a deep breath, and spoke.
“Welcome! Anyone! Come one and all! The Royal Montague Company is proud to present the finest of wares! What you need is what we have! In my bag I carry wonders! Gathered from all the parts of this fine world and brought to you today! From the Orient to the inland Ivory Coast! From treasure ships tossed on Tierra del Fuego to the unknown wastes of the northern pole! From the heart of India and the shores of the Bering Sea! We bring with us things no one else can provide. Catch lightning in a jar! Have your fortune told! What you want we have to give! The love of your life will be yours! The kink in your back shall be cured! All of it here! Come! Come! Come and see!”
The town was quiet. The words rang down the empty streets. A voice that tapped on windows shut tight. Shook doorways and rattled locks. The town held its breath. Waited.
Raymond stepped forward.
The man behind the table turned his way. “You sir! And what might I interest you in today? I have something for every man and woman! For every need, a cure! Bad dreams chased away? This eye, the prize of a Chinese emperor and which it’s said can see through lies? Perhaps a coin which shall always bring you good luck?”
The wares danced in the man’s hands. Picked from the case, spun about. Revealed, returned in favor of the next.
“No,” Raymond said, unmoved, unfazed by the dancing menagerie of treasures. “I have a question.”
“Ah! You’d like a fortune then? Here we are, here are the cards.” A deck with a checkered back came to his hands. He shuffled, cards fluttering between his fingers like startled wings. “And what can I tell you my good man? Perhaps your destiny? The prospect of the heart? How you shall die in the years to come?”
Raymond drew the revolver. Held it at his side. The man’s eyes flicked down to it. He didn’t lose his smile or the rhythm of the cards. “Ah, a connoisseur I see. Well I should inform you that I give out my wares! No need to threaten I assure you, sir. Or perhaps you seek a bullet which cannot miss! A round that can kill anything it strikes?”
“What happened to Abigail?”
“Abigail?” The cards made a sound like leaves in autumn as he shuffled them. “Ah, a name I recall. From this very station, wasn’t she?”
“What did you do with her?”
“Why, I gave her what she asked for. Something from my briefcase which would answer her dream!”
Raymond leveled the gun. “What?”
“A ticket, nothing more,” the man said, grinning still. Grinning wide. Dancing the cards between his fingers. “A ticket to wherever she would like to go. To ride the rails until she was done. See the world my friend! Explore it all! Know it all! See it, then back aboard. Where to next! Who can say? Not even I will know where her whim will take her then. To the distant coasts of Bombay or the sands where the Caliphate held sway. The mystic East where sorcerers still fill forbidden courts. The heights of Europe’s greatest cities and kingdoms! To meet kings and queens and emperors. Who can say!”
Raymond looked at the train.
“Not here my friend. No longer here. Let’s see.” He laid out the cards before him. Three, their backs glistening and waxy. “Here we are! A fortune for me to tell. Now let’s see.” He flipped over the first. “Ah! The Lover I espy. What a surprise! And here we see the Warrior! Are you then?”
“No.”
“Pity. Pity. You carry his arms. Perhaps a scabbard which will keep you safe from any wound? No? And here! Why it’s the Wanderer! Look at that! And so, your lady friend does. From station to station. Train to train. Escaping to the farthest reaches of the world. A fine thing. Fine indeed. Traveling like myself, a wandering salesman of the fantastic.” He laughed. His eyes flashed and his smile grew strained. “In my case I hold the treasure of ages. And what would you like from it, sir? I have something for everyone.”
“I want her back,” Raymond said.
“Back? Back from wherever she goes? The adventures she takes? Back here where she escaped?”
“You took her!”
“Never take anyone, that I can say. I don’t run the train. I just ride it. Just do my bit to the small places of the world. Small places where no palaces grow or buildings scrape the sky. Bring some wonder to the little peoples’ lives. Little wonder. Little fine things. Treasures for those who will never see the things beyond the seas.”
“What do you want? I’ll pay it.”
The man clucked his tongue, swept up the cards with a brush of his hand. “Everyone assumes a price. A soul perhaps, but I’m not like Him. Yes, of course, there is a price. Cannot get something for nothing you know. But never what you expect! Can a man with luck forever in his pocket know the thrill of the game again? Can a woman who travels the world settle down? Can a man who delivers wonders stay in one place? Who can say! It’s how it is. But is the reward worth the price? That’s for them to know. I cannot give that. But everyone assumed the worst of me. But it’s my lot to seek them out. Delivering hope and fortune and adventure to those who take it.”
Raymond cocked the revolver. Silver. Lead. Iron. One would do it. One would have to do it, no matter what the man before him was. “Bring her back.”
“And if she doesn’t want to?”
“She would. She must! Why wouldn’t she?”
“I couldn’t say. But she left. Perhaps this little fellow might interest you?”
Raymond ignored the little windup toy soldier placed on the table, its key turning as it clattered about in circles. He stepped forward. Pressed the barrel of the revolver against the man’s brow. “She wouldn’t leave me.”
“Did she leave you?”
“I…”
His voice faded as memories bled in. Her watching the trains come in and out. Sweeping down the iron highway to distant places. The names slotted in the timetable. How she listened. Poised. Her face uplifted, the whistle thrumming through her body as she stood at the kitchen sink. Looking out the window of the small shop where they lived. Watching the crowds disembark. Leaving a town where no tickets marked. A small place. Too small for a spirit like hers. The colt shook in his hand. The man watched him; eyes fixed down the barrel.
Raymond let the revolver fall. Hung it limply at his side.
The man picked up the table and the legs retreated. He folded the table into squares smaller and smaller, then stowed the smallest in his bag. Snapped it shut.
“It seems I have nothing in my case for you,” he said. “No. Nothing for a man who seeks the woman he loves. And who goes who knows where.”
“Nothing,” Raymond repeated hollowly.
“But it should be said that the The Royal Montague Company always has something for every man with a wish. A desire he would pursue. We stake our pride on it you see! And never have I left a customer unsatisfied. So, to the man who would see his bride again, who would seek her out across the world, I do have one last offer in which to make. One way he might wander round the world and seek her out.”
Raymond looked at him again. “Which is?”
The man in the flat-topped hat patted his case. “Nothing in my case…”
—— «» ——
The train pulled out as the clock rang out. Announcing the first hour of August 13. White steam swirled in its wake and faded away from the station, and the town seemed to exhale. Escaping another night.
A man walked down the street. He had dark hair and a mild smile. His hands were clasped behind his back, and as he walked, a trim neat jacket, the sort worn when the first winds of winter come down from the mountains, sank about his frame. Fitting him fine. Just fine. He went down the street going nowhere and rattled every door until he found the one unlocked. He passed inside, left a flat-topped hat hanging on a hook and observed the bric-a-brac of gutted antiques and lonely machinery.
“Always meant to learn a trade,” he mused, and flashed a smile. He saw a note on the mantelpiece and plucked it off. Turned it over, then tore it up. He breathed in, letting the air of the shop fill him. Fit him. Take him in. He smiled, and the eyes that opened to the shop were warm and familiar. The sort you see in any nameless town settled off the rails.
“A fine town,” he said, “to rest for a spell.”
—— «» ——
And autumn came, leisurely stripping trees of all their leaves. Winter blanketed the world. Spring melted the snow and things bloomed. Summer lay thick and torpid, and through it all the trains ran with clockwork precision through the little town just off the side of the world. The years rolled in and out as they ever did. All things the same.
And then the wind grew cold and August came again. And on a certain day every house locked its doors and windows tight, as they always did. And when the clocks struck midnight there came a banshee wail. A streak of darkness and rain of sparks as a train drew up to the station all alone.
And in a shop a man raised his head from the guts of a clock and took off his glasses. He listened. Waited. And from the depths of night a man’s voice rang out to rattle windows and doors.
“Welcome! Anyone! Come one and all! The Royal Montague Company is proud to present the finest of wares! What you need is what we have! In my bag I carry wonders! Gathered from all the parts of this fine world and brought to you today!”
And the man in the shop listened, and there came the light and joyful note of a woman’s voice. “We bring with us things no one else can provide. Catch lightning in a jar! Have your fortune told! What you want we have to give! The love of your life will be yours! The kink in your back shall be cured! All of it here!”
And the man in the shop smiled and turned back to his work. And when he finished, the clock tolled one, and he listened to the train hiss and blow, and whistle as it vanished back down the rails.
—— « o » ——
Jason Lane is an aspiring author from Whitehorse, Yukon. He was born, raised, and educated there with brief forays to the south where the weather is milder. He has a number of self published works and has been featured in numerous anthologies.