Mortimer took the pen, glimpsed the total at the bottom of the page as he signed. He gulped. Mortimer had spent over two thousand dollars. His newfound wealth would evaporate in a week if he kept spending at this pace. He mentally vowed not to let that happen.
Pete Coffey appeared at Mortimer’s elbow. “You look green.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Mortimer said.
“I hope you find her,” Coffey said. “Seriously.”
“You didn’t have to come see me off.”
“I didn’t. I’m mayor, remember? I always make sure the train goes out on time. I also want to make sure my boys get aboard.” Coffey indicated a dozen men climbing aboard the flatcars. All held rifles and looked ready to use them.
“Red Stripes down the line, maybe. Can’t take chances.”
Mortimer touched the Uzi hanging from its shoulder strap. “I hear you.”
“They’re bringing the handcar out now,” Coffey said. “So you’ll be pulling out soon.”
“Handcar?”
“Sure,” Coffey said. “How do you think we pull the train? It’s not like we got a big fat diesel engine. No fuel.”
Mortimer shook his head. “Whoa. Wait. You mean guys are going to hand-pump that thing and pull three flatcars and all that cargo? It’ll take a hundred years to get to Chattanooga.”
“Getting started is the hard part. Once they get into a rhythm, you’d be surprised. Here come the pumpers now.”
Now Mortimer saw why they called it the Muscle Express. The eight men designated to operate the specially modified handcar were brutes, hulking, shirtless men with rippling muscles. The smallest was just over six feet tall, three hundred and fifty pounds.
“Four rest while four pump,” Coffey explained. “Doc!”
“I’m here.” A frumpy man with disheveled gray hair waddled forward, clutching a black doctor’s bag dangling from a gnarled hand. He fished an inoculation gun out of the bag and zapped each muscleman in the arm.
“Speed boost,” Coffey said.
The musclemen flexed, their faces turning red, grunting and posing, a light sheen of sweat on their muscles. It looked like a really angry Chippendales show.
“They’ll be ready to go now. Better climb on,” Coffey said. “Once those guys get going, they don’t let up.”
Buffalo Bill had already tossed the gear onto the nearest flatcar. He jumped up and held out a hand for Mortimer. “Let’s get a move on, partner.”
Mortimer took the cowboy’s hand and let himself be heaved onto the flatcar. He broke out in a sweat from the minor exertion, the wind sending a chill to the marrow of his bones. He sat on the flatcar, looked back at Coffey, who stood waving. The train was inching forward, almost imperceptibly slow at first. The pumpers heaved and grunted and leaned into the hand pump, their muscles bulging, faces turning red.
Belatedly, Mortimer returned the wave, the Spring City train station shrinking behind them. The grunts and groans from the hand pumpers finding a rhythm, the meaty machine, a new-world locomotive narcotic-fueled and lubricated with sweat.
THE MUSCLE EXPRESS
XIII
Mortimer noticed the cars straight off, half-buried in snow, the old metal husks like beer cans of the gods, crushed and tossed without heed along the roadside, the debris of some cosmic tailgate party. Others seemed obscenely new, bright fiberglass bodies sitting on the rotted remains of tires. The old junkers had been cleared out of Spring City, but now, as the Muscle Express glided the rails parallel to Highway 27 south, Mortimer remembered how it had been, the millions of automobiles plying America’s roadways. Where did you want to go today? The store for milk, Sunday church, take the kids to Disney World? It had all been so close, so possible.
An hour and a half’s drive to Chattanooga would now be a three-day walk. The world had grown smaller and smaller until it exploded into bigness again, distances stretching, horizons meaning something.
But Mortimer and Bill weren’t walking. The Muscle Express had picked up speed, the cold wind stinging his eyes.
“How fast, you think?” asked Mortimer.
Bill squinted, tried to judge. “Maybe thirty miles per hour. Not more than that. Pretty good though. Better than hoofing it.”
Mortimer leaned out, looked ahead to the handcar. Four brutes pumping, four others resting. No more unleaded for cars, no more diesel for locomotives. He wondered how many Armageddon dollars it would be worth if he salvaged a steam engine.
Somebody had bolted four movie theater seats at the back of the middle flatcar. Bill and Mortimer occupied two of them, Mortimer slouched low, trying to ignore his stomach. The cowboy thumbed shells into the lever-action rifle.
