Thirty-Seven

“There you are!” When in doubt, state the obvious. It confuses people. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Didn’t you hear?”

His eyes narrowed, but some of the flush left his cheeks. “Hear what?”

“You didn’t hear a thing?” I was fishing for a hint of what direction to steer this lie. Help a lady out already. Snaking one hand behind me, I surreptitiously pulled the blanket back over the pile of booty.

Doghn scowled but seemed reluctant to step into his own space. I filed that away. “You mean about the train not moving until tomorrow?” he said.

Dang. That was a bad news sundae topped with hot crap sauce. It also would not account for me being in his room. “No. Why can’t we move until then?”

“Storm has started up again. It won’t pass until tonight, and it’ll take the snowcutter another day to reach us.”

“Oh. Well, that makes my news even more urgent. I heard that the conductor wants to see us in his office. That’s why I came looking for you.” This was a risky lie, as it was very possible Doghn had just been meeting with the conductor. It was the only excuse that made sense for me to be in his room, however.

Doghn twirled the end of his moustache and raised an eyebrow. “So you came into my bedroom to tell me?”

I didn’t like the glint in his eye. “You didn’t answer when I knocked. I was worried.”

“Well. We should certainly go visit the conductor if he wishes to see us. After you?”

Doghn stepped to the side, a conniving tilt in his features. He knew I’d seen what was under the blanket. We now had an unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t talk about it, and that I owed him one for invading his privacy. I hated owing people. I’d need to even the score.

I slapped the light switch, stepped into the hall, slid the door closed behind me, and started walking toward the front of the train, hyperconscious that Doghn was staring at my back this very moment, angry, and that if I couldn’t figure out a way to reach the conductor alone before Doghn and I did together, I’d have some more ’splainin’ to do.

I tried scooting through the cars, but Doghn stuck to me like white on rice through Cars 14 and 13. I was slapping the exit panel on the Car 13 door when I smelled it: the sweet, sweet aroma of marijuana burning. Car 12 was still quiet, but my own Car 11 was smoking like Cheech and Chong.

My stomach dropped. Mrs. Berns must have located the stash under my mattress.

Indeed, when I slid open the door to our room, I found her and Jed sitting on the recliners and staring out the window as if the newly energized snowstorm was the best TV show they’d ever watched.

“Ahem.”

They both turned at my cough. Jed’s face lit up. Mrs. Berns scowled when she caught sight of Doghn over my shoulder.

I waved away some smoke and pointed at the recliners. “I see you two made my bed.”

Jed nodded happily. “Just Mrs. Berns made it, but she found something I’d been missing. Thanks, Mira!”

“We’ll talk about it later. In the meanwhile,” I said, making my eyes big to indicate that they needed to follow my lead, “Doghn and I are going to find the conductor because he told you he’s looking for us, right?”

“Dude, I just got up. You have something in your eye?”

I desperately turned my attention to Mrs. Berns. “Jed seems to have smoked too much and doesn’t remember telling me the conductor needed us, which is why I was back in Doghn’s car looking for him.”

“That sounds like Jed.” She pointed two fingers toward my face. “You sure you don’t have something in your eye? You keep making them big and then small.”

I sighed loudly. “There’s cookies in Car Fourteen. Catch you two later.”

Doghn and I barely hopped out of the way as the pair bumbled past us and raced toward the rear of the train. I made a quick scan of the room to make sure there was nothing illegal left in sight and closed the door behind me.

“Pot smokers,” I said to Doghn. “Can’t remember much.”

He still appeared suspicious, but I cared less. I had my cover. If the conductor seemed confused when I told him we’d heard he needed us, I could blame it on the weed my friends had ingested.

“You guys find anything else out during the interviews last night?” I knew they hadn’t. Jed would certainly have woken me otherwise.

“Nothing.” Doghn stopped to arrange his bow tie before we stepped into the coach cars.

“Hey,” I said, a thought occurring to me. “Where were you just now when I came looking for you?”

Doghn pushed past me, adjusting the pens in his suit pocket, presumably so he was ready to sign autographs if called on. “Searching the train for clues.”

I jogged to keep up with him. Alas, most of the car was too busy passing the time to pay either of us much attention. “What’d you find?”

“Nothing.”

I persisted. “Don’t suppose you know where Terry is?”

“Don’t suppose I do.”

A hand lunged out from one of the chairs, stopping Doghn. He turned, his expression happy, and then it fell.

I followed the muscled arm to the face that belonged to it. The guy was four hundred pounds if he was an ounce, and as hairy as a hermit. His t-shirt said You Can’t Fix Stupid.

“You know who’s in charge?” the man asked. His voice was gruff.

Doghn peeled the guy’s fingers off his arm. “The conductor. We’re on our way to see him.”

“When you do, let him know we’d like some news back here, ’kay? We’re not prisoners. We deserve to know what’s going on.”

“Certainly.” Doghn started to walk away.

“Wait!” I said. I glanced around the train. On closer inspection, what I had thought was fatigue was something else entirely. Pinched eyes, drawn mouths, some faces fearful, some angry. These were unhappy people. “Doghn, didn’t you say the train is moving tomorrow?”

That got most everyone’s attention. Whispers ran like wind through the train. Doghn became fidgety. “Yes, after the storm passes.”

I turned one hand palm up. “And …”

“And the storm is supposed to pass later tonight.”

The hairy hermit pointed out the window. “It looks here to stay to me.”

It sure enough did. Now that the sun was up, the snow was swirling as thick as a milkshake out there.

“I talked to my wife just now,” a man toward the front of the car said, his voice raised, “and she said the storm is supposed to pass by tonight, too.”

“Then they gotta cut us out,” the hairy hermit hollered back.

“I know that, dumbass,” the man in front said, his face screwing in anger. “I was just saying when the storm was going to pass.”

The big guy started to stand. I put a hand on his shoulder. I’d spent enough time in bars to know this was not going to end well without major distraction. “So we know the storm stops this afternoon,” I said, pitching my voice so everyone on the car could hear it, “and that the snowcutters are on their way. We should be moving by tomorrow morning at the latest. In the meanwhile, you all have scheduled times to eat, right?”

At first, no one wanted to agree with me. Then, with grumbles, people began to hold up their reservation cards. “Perfect,” I said. “Eat a lot because there’s plenty. And we’ll ask the conductor to make hourly announcements. Okay?”

I got a few nods, but more importantly, people’s faces didn’t seem so tight. “I’ll let you know what I find,” I said to the big man directly. “Promise.”

He shrugged. “Not a lot I can do if you don’t.” He settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. Doghn began to beat cheeks toward the front of the car and didn’t say another word until we were in the foyer separating the cars.

“That’s why I didn’t want to say anything about the storm,” he told me, his voice pissy.

“They needed hope. They deserve it.”

“And what if the storm doesn’t stop as scheduled? What if the snowcutter can’t get through until Monday?”

I leaned past him and pushed the panel that would open the door. “Then they deserve to know that, too.”

“You’re going to have a mutiny.”

I didn’t have an answer for him. The more coach seats I walked past, though, the more I wondered if he was right. There was a distinct odor of unrest and alarm in the air. It wasn’t until we reached Car 5 that the dark mood shifted. It probably had something to do with the bartender serving bloody marys.

Except, he wasn’t in uniform.

He was Jack, the oyster to Mrs. Berns’s slot machine who had tried to pick her up back in Detroit Lakes. He’d gotten into the liquor stores in the viewing car, and he was opening up for business bright and early.

Curse words.

Doghn was right. We didn’t only have a killer to contend with; we also had a few hundred stir crazy passengers. Forget Valentine Train. This was turning into Murder on the Orient Express meets Lord of the Flies.