The Hanging of Samuel Ash by Sheldon Russell Page A

could arrange a permanent pass?”
    â€œThere’s a mail car comes through this afternoon. I’ll see if they’ll take you on.” Hook stood. “And check on my dog when you get back. He pines something terrible when I’m away.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œAnd, Junior, let’s keep this between us for the time being. Eddie Preston doesn’t always understand the ins and outs of criminal investigation.”

 
    12
    Â 
    A FTER GETTING JUNIOR on his way, Hook located the old bus parked behind the police station. The front grill had been replaced with chicken wire, and a board had been bolted over the back window. He found the keys under the seat and cranked her over while pumping the foot feed a half-dozen times to bring up the fuel. Bridge bracings and bolts of every ilk had been stacked on the passenger seats, and the smell of grease permeated the air.
    The bus fired up, and a cloud of blue smoke sailed over the police station. Hook worked the gearshift into reverse. The bus jerked back as the clutch caught and slipped like an old washing machine.
    He brought her up to forty and checked his watch. There should be plenty of time to get her parked back in the right-of-way before Frenchy came through.
    Eddie deserved an ass chewing for ordering a tow on a company vehicle in the first place. But at the moment, given his own standing, Hook figured to let it pass.
    Dusk fell as he rattled along the country road toward the crossing where the bus had been parked. Dust boiled in from around the windows, and a trickle of sweat raced down Hook’s neck.
    He considered having a one on one with that B&B foreman about leaving his equipment on the right-of-way. Such carelessness encouraged others to do the same thing, and security, being overworked and shorthanded, had all it could manage now.
    As he approached the crossing, he slowed to check for trains before turning down the right-of-way. A couple hundred yards in, he backed the bus around and shut off the engine. The first stars of the evening clicked on, and a mourning dove cooed somewhere in the distance. Hook checked for Frenchy’s light in the rearview mirror.
    The death of that boy on the wigwag lay on his mind as heavy as a sad iron, not so much because of the business of dying, death in itself being unremarkable, but because he couldn’t shake the manner in which it had been dealt—the injustice of a man hauled up by the neck and left to strangle at the end of a rope. It struck him as reprehensible to discard a war hero in a pauper’s grave and without a soul in the world to give a damn.
    When he looked up again, Frenchy’s glimmer lit the horizon, and the wail of his whistle lifted into the night. Hook turned the ignition key and flipped on the stoplights. The clicker ticked and tocked, and the red glow of the lights pulsated in the mirror. The chug of the steamer deepened as she slowed, and Frenchy lay in with short blasts of his whistle to announce his stop.
    Hook tossed the keys under the seat and made his way to the track to wait. Frenchy brought her in as easy as a rocking chair and slid up beside him. The steamer huffed and sighed, and the smell of heat filled the night. Frenchy stuck an elbow out the cab window and leaned over it.
    â€œYou boarding or taking hostages?” he asked.
    â€œI haven’t thought it out,” Hook said, working his way up the ladder.
    The fireman ducked his chin at Hook before turning back to his gauges. Hook located a perch. Frenchy bumped her ahead, and they were soon making time.
    â€œRunning light, aren’t you, Frenchy?” Hook asked.
    â€œJust this here bullgine and a couple of hopper cars I’m deadheading back to Belen. Picking up an old louse box there and hauling her into Clovis.”
    â€œSometimes they don’t even bother to run a caboose anymore,” Hook said. “Don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
    Frenchy dug out