The Black Train

easy to read.”

“Great.”

“The girls’ ghosts are typically only heard inside, but they’re usually only seen outside. Where did you see them?”

Collier could only peer at the man. “You’re talking about ghosts as though you personally believe in them.”

“Oh, I do. Very much so. And though I may not have been totally honest with you during our lunch, I very much believe that Mrs. Butler’s inn—the Gast House—is full to bursting with ghosts. I believe that it is permeated with the horrors of its original owner. A moment ago you were confident I’d be ‘laughing’ you out of here, but as you can see, I’m not laughing.”

Collier rubbed his brow. “Well. At least I don’t feel so idiotic now.”

“No reason to. You see, Mr. Collier, it’s pure human nature. Even for those who don’t admit it, human beings love a good ghost story.” Sute smiled. “The only problem is that some of them are true.”

Collier sighed in a strange relief.

“And some people are more susceptible than others—you for instance. But I’m most curious now. I take it you saw them outside the building somewhere?”

“In the woods,” Collier admitted. “There’s a creek. And the dog was there. But I was really drunk, so—”

“You doubted your perceptions—a normal reaction, I’d say.”

“But I guess the question I have to ask most”—Collier could refrain no more—“is…was the room I’m staying in either of the daughters’ bedroom?”

Sute nodded. “It was both of theirs.”

I knew it. “But at least they didn’t die there,” he said, relieved.

“I guess I should tell you now what I deliberately neglected to mention previously. Both Mary and Cricket’s dead bodies were found in that same room on May 3, 1862.”

Collier fumed. “You told me no one died there!”

“No one did. Gast murdered them on the property, on April thirtieth, then had some of his men transfer the bodies, to their beds.” A low chuckle. “Don’t fret. The bed you’re sleeping on isn’t one of them. The original beds were burned.”

Collier felt accosted now by sickness and confusion. “Why would Gast kill them somewhere else and then move their bodies to their beds? Where exactly did he kill them?”

Sute pointed again to the manuscript. “It’s the absolute worst part of the story, Mr. Collier. But you can read it there. Flip to the account in italics. It’s the marshal’s. But if you’re certain you want to do so…then, please, let me advise that you have a drink. Something stronger than beer.”

Collier slouched. It’s not even noon…“Sure.”

“What’ll you have?”

“Scotch on the rocks.”

Sute lumbered up to the cabinet, while Collier’s eyes flicked down to the dusty manuscript. Several paragraphs down on page thirty-three, he found a transition heading: EXCERPTED FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF MATHIAS C. BRADEN, TOWN MARSHAL, MAY 3, 1862. But before he could begin, Sute brought him his drink. “Thanks,” Collier said after the first cool sip.

“Those papers there in your pocket,” Sute noted. “It looks like alkali rag.”

Collier had no idea what he meant.

“A lot of printing paper during the first part of the nineteenth century was part rag pulp mixed with wood fibers. An alkali-soda base was used in the process. It bears a distinctive appearance.”

“Oh, these, yeah.” Collier reached to his breast pocket and withdrew the checks he’d discovered in the desk. “I brought them to show you. I found a bunch of them at the inn. They look like paychecks—from Gast’s railroad company.”

Sute examined the ones Collier had brought. “Oh, yes. Mrs. Butler has one of these on display, doesn’t she?”

“Right.”

“And you say you found a lot of them?”

“Yeah—fifty, sixty, maybe. They were stashed in an old writing desk, probably overlooked all these decades.”

“I’m sure they were. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Butler to let me examine them all, for the various names.”

“Gast’s employees, you mean?”

“Exactly. To cross-reference them with the other sources in my archives.” He held one up. “See here, this man here? N.P. Poltrock. He was Gast’s chief of operations. And Beauregard Morris—the crew chief. These men probably killed themselves on May second or third. Gast himself was already dead by his own hand—on April thirtieth—but it may be that Morris and Poltrock forestalled their own suicides to finish up a few of Gast’s final requests, and to have a last hoorah in town. They both died in one of the parlors.”

Collier tried to fix a chronology. “Gast hanged himself on the last day of April—”

“After he murdered his wife, his maid, Taylor Cutton, and his children.”

The sickness continued to churn. “Do you know how the first two guys killed themselves? Morris, and the other guy?”

“It’s in the same account by the marshal.” Sute gestured the manuscript again. “Morris cut his own throat, and I believe Poltrock shot himself in the head.”

The awareness thumped in Collier’s blood like a slow heartbeat. He recalled his nightmare: he was a prostitute named Harriet. The guy who raped me…Wasn’t his name Morris? He remembered the dream all too vividly. Harriet never reclaimed the money he owed her. She’d seen his body in the parlor. With his throat cut.

I can’t tell Sute that, I just can’t!

“They look like paychecks…”

“The system was a little bit different back then—the workers were always paid in cash, often on the job site, but, yes, that’s essentially what these are. Once it’s endorsed it becomes a receipt for payment. I’m sure the company’s treasurer kept these to maintain an accurate accounting. That’s this man here—” Sute’s stout finger tapped the bottom of a check. “Windom Fecory.”

“The guy the local bank’s named after.”

“Yes.” An expression of amusement touched Sute’s face. “If the current bank president had known more about the real Windom Fecory, I suspect he’d have chosen another name.”

“Why?”

“You’ll recall the more abstract elements of our discussion—the supernatural element—”

Collier tried not to smirk. “Gast selling his soul to the devil, you mean.”

“Not necessarily the devil, but possibly an adjunct to the same entity. That would indeed be Fecory. He produced a seemingly limitless flux of cash without ever once depleting Gast’s personal account. That’s how the more far-fetched extremes of the story go, at least.”

“You just said you believe in ghosts. Do you believe that?”

“I can’t say,” Sute replied, still eyeing the checks. “But I must mention, if only in passing, that the name Fecory bears a suspicious resemblance to what you might think of as a demonic acolyte or serf, if you will. The archdemon who guards Lucifer’s netherworldly treasures is called Anarazel, and his acolyte is called Fecor.”

“Fecor, Fecory.” Collier got it. “But I don’t buy the demon stuff, it’s too hokey.”

“I agree, but say that it’s true. Windom Fecory was Gast’s paymaster; it was his job to remunerate cash in exchange for services. The demon Fecor can be likened to Anarazel’s paymaster, to remunerate Satan’s treasure…to those worldly men who serve him.”

Collier tossed his head. “Fine.”

“And I’ll add that there is no accounting for Fecory after April thirtieth, not only the day that all these checks have been dated but also the day that the railroad was officially completed, and Harwood Gast came home for the last time.” Sute maintained a clear interest on the checks. “Ah, and here’s one for Taylor Cutton, the