On the Wrong Track by Steve Hockensmith

like the barrel of a gun. “You killed Joe! You killed my friend !”
    “I’m sorry, kid,” Old Red said, giving his head a slow, sorrowful shake. “But the data don’t back that up.”
    “‘Data’?” Lockhart sneered.
    “Facts.” Gustav pointed at the baggage car. “This El Numero Uno feller was tucked away under there, right? So tell me how he could swing up to the side of the car, open the door from the outside, kill the baggageman, and swing back down again without gettin’ chopped to mincemeat himself? And if you can give me all that how, then I’ll just ask you for a single good why .”
    What Lockhart gave him instead was a tremendous raspberry. (It’s entirely possible the Pinkerton produced the sound via another method—it was so dark out there I couldn’t say for certain. Nevertheless, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt in this account.)
    “The how and the why of it are plain as day,” he said. “The King of
the Riffraff there didn’t start out ridin’ the rods. He sneaked inside with the baggage before we left the station. The baggageman found him and got knifed for his trouble, and the tramp pushed him out the side door. When the train stopped, El Assholio Grande knew someone had spotted the body, and he needed a new place to hide. So he ducked up under the car.”
    There was a flurry of motion through our audience—two dozen satisfied nods. The crowd hadn’t gotten a gunfight, but it was seeing a duel, and just then Lockhart looked to be the winner.
    “Poppycock!” El Numero Uno blurted out. “I never stepped foot inside that—”
    Bedford clapped one of his big hands on the tramp’s arm and gave him a jerk that sent a puff of dust into the air.
    “Shut up, you,” the Negro snapped.
    “Hel-lo,” Old Red mumbled, his spine snapping up straight. Then, louder: “Hey, Bedford—do that again.”
    “Do what again?”
    “Give him a good shake.”
    Bedford looked bewildered, but he wasn’t going to pass up another chance to beat out the hobo like a dirty rug. He yanked the man left and right, and so much dust went billowing off him that Wiltrout and the engineer started coughing. Seeing as a fireman like Bedford needs the muscle to shovel a ton of coal a day into a white-hot furnace, El Numero Uno was lucky his arms and legs didn’t go flying off, too. Not that he looked particularly grateful.
    “Stop this at once, you black devil!” he protested, his words fading in and out as Bedford snapped him like a bullwhip.
    “Thank you, that’ll do,” my brother said.
    The fireman let El Numero Uno go.
    “Barbarians,” the tramp spat as he set about straightening his rags again.
    “Tell me, Bedford,” Old Red said, “did you bread El Numero Uno after you caught him?”
    “Bread?”

    “You know—roll him in flour for fryin’. Cuz if you didn’t, I’d have to say that’s dust the man’s coated in head to foot. And if it is dust, well … where did it come from?”
    Bedford and his fellow railroaders responded with mere glares, leaving it to their prisoner to offer the answer.
    “From riding under the train!” El Numero Uno shouted out like a “Hallelujah!” He laughed and ran his fingers roughly through his hair, sending out yet another cloud of dust. “Yes, indeed! Ride the rods through the Great Salt Desert and you’ll look like you’ve been bathing in talcum. You’ll end up looking like me !”
    “Please,” Lockhart snorted. “So he’s dirty. So what? The man’s a goddamn bum.”
    “It had to be him,” Kip blurted out, practically sobbing. “There’s no other—”
    “Enough!” Wiltrout roared. He hoisted his lantern high over his conductor’s cap, and suddenly he seemed a foot taller. “The Southern Pacific has a schedule to maintain, and we’re late enough as it is. Everyone—back aboard!”
    “Hold on,” Gustav said. “I need to do some more clue-huntin’ before—”
    “Now!” Wiltrout bellowed. When he spoke again, he wasn’t