He nodded. “I’m sure. The engineer was Leigh Hunt. He had a wife and two children, both grown now to middle age. The fireman was Robert Carr. He was going to be married after the run.”
“Who was the third man?”
“Name was Abner Weed. A tough customer. He forced Hunt and Carr to operate the engine with a gun in their backs.”
“They don’t look pretty,” Kaufman muttered, repelled by what he saw. “I’m surprised they didn’t turn into skeletons.”
“There would be nothing left of them if they died in salt water, but the cold, fresh water of Flathead Lake preserved them. What you see is the adipose tissue in which fat is stored. It breaks down over time when immersed, giving the body a waxy, soapy look called saponification.”
“We’ll have to call the sheriff and get a coroner out here.”
“Will that delay the operation?” asked the stranger.
Kaufman shook his head. “No, it shouldn’t slow things down any. As soon as the team of relief divers attach the lift cables, we’ll bring up the coal tender.”
“It’s important that I see what’s in the attached car.”
“You will.” Kaufman looked at the man, trying in vain to read his thoughts. “Better we tackle the tender first to simplify matters. If we concentrate on the car before it has been uncoupled from the tender, it might prove disastrous. It may not be as heavy as the locomotive, but unless we’re very careful it might break into pieces. It’s a far trickier operation. Besides, the front end of the baggage car is half buried under the tender.”
“It’s not a baggage car. It’s a boxcar, or freight car.”
“How could you know that?”
The observer ignored the question. “Raise the coal tender first. You’re in charge.”
Kaufman stared down at the ugly lumps that had once been humans. “How did they get here? How could a train come to be lost in the middle of the lake all these years?”
The tall man gazed out over the calm blue lake. “Forty-four years ago, there was a ferry that carried railcars loaded with lumber back and forth across the lake.”
“It sure is strange,” said Kaufman slowly. “Newspapers and the Southern Pacific officials reported that the train was stolen. As I recall, the date was April 21, 1906.”
The old man smiled. “A cover-up by the company. The train wasn’t stolen. A railroad dispatcher was bribed to charter the engine.”
“Must have been something valuable in the freight car to kill for,” said Kaufman. “Like a shipment of gold.”
The old man nodded. “Rumors circulated that the train was carrying gold. If the truth be known, it was not gold but hard cash.”
“Forty-four years,” Kaufman said slowly. “A long time for a train to go missing. Maybe the money is still inside the car.”
“Perhaps,” said the tall man, looking toward the horizon at a vision only he could see. “Just perhaps we’ll find the answers when we get inside.”
THE BUTCHER BANDIT
1
JANUARY 10, 1906 BISBEE, ARIZONA
ANYONE SEEING AN OLD DERELICT SOT SLOWLY SWAYING down Moon Avenue in Bisbee that afternoon would have mistaken him for what he was not, a man who had grown old before his time working the mines that ran through the mineral-rich mountains under the town. His shirt was grubby and he smelled unwashed. One suspender held up torn and ragged pants that were stuffed into scuffed and worn boots that should been thrown in the trash gully behind the town long ago.
Snarled and greasy hair straggled to his shoulders and merged with an uncut beard that hung halfway down his protruding stomach. He looked through eyes so dark brown they were nearly black. There was no expression in them; they seemed cold and almost evil. A pair of work gloves covered the hands that had never held a shovel or a pick.
Under one arm, he carried an old gunnysack that appeared empty. Almost whimsically, the dirty burlap had DOUGLAS FEED & GRAIN COMPANY, OMAHA, NEBRASKA stenciled on it.
The old man took a minute and parked on a bench at the corner of Moon Avenue and Tombstone Canyon Road. Behind him was a saloon, mostly empty because it was the middle of the day and its usual patrons were hard at work in the mines. The people walking and shopping in the little mining town paid him no more than a quick, disgusted glance. Whenever they passed, he pulled a whiskey bottle from a pant pocket and drank heavily before recapping it and putting it back. No one could have known it was not whiskey but tea.
It was warm for June; he guessed the temperature to be in the high nineties. He sat back and looked up and down the streets as a trolley car passed, pulled by an aging horse. Electric-motored trolleys had yet to come to Bisbee. Most of the vehicles on the streets were still horse-drawn wagons and buggies. The town had only a handful of automobiles and delivery trucks, and none were in evidence.
He knew enough about the town to know that it was founded in 1880 and named after Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the moneymen behind the Copper Queen Mine. A good-sized community, its population of twenty thousand made it the largest city between San Francisco and St. Louis. Despite the many miners’ families that lived in modest
