***
As Laurence led Ian and his companions by the light of his lantern, he explained, his voice still on shaky legs, “We were told by the conductor to do checks on the passengers every thirty minutes, you know, to make sure that everyone was doing well.”
As Laurence opened the door and ushered the passengers into the next car, Ian caught a glance of the box of coal being used to fuel the car’s stove. He noticed how low the coal was getting. “We won’t be doing well for much longer,” Ian muttered.
They walked through the vestibule between the train cars. As they stepped onboard the next car, they found themselves walking between piles of luggage that loomed like mountains but swayed like trees. There was a hole somewhere in the wall, big enough for a whistle of wind to worm its way through. Something about the whole car seemed off to Ian. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness for a few moments before he realized that they were inside of a passenger car that had been hastily converted for hauling luggage. The carpet had been stripped off the floor, leaving behind the ugly planks that creaked like old bones at every step. The sleeping compartments were gutted, with only the frame remaining. Out of the corner of his eye, Ian saw four sets of feet poking out from behind a pile of luggage.
Ian pointed this out. “They’re the people who died from the derailment, I presume?”
Laurence sighed. “They are – I helped carry them here. But they’re not the reason why…well, again, it’s best that I show you.”
While most of the train car was hollowed out to hold as much luggage as possible, there was a tiny restroom still intact in the far corner. Laurence followed Ian’s gaze and said, “It’s in there, Mr. Hunter.”
As Ian approached the restroom, he called back, “Laurence, do me a favor and shine a lantern over here.”
The porter quietly did what he was asked as Ian reached the bathroom door. Ian looked down and saw a dark puddle trickling from beneath the door. Reaching down, he ran a finger through the puddle and held it up. He frowned when he saw his finger painted red. Ian shook the blood off and twisted the door handle – the handle was loose but the door was stiff, as if it was jammed. Wheezing, Ian managed to get the door open a foot, just enough for him to peer inside. In what little light could find its way to him, Ian could see something propped up against the door, like the shadow of a puppet.
“Did you find the body like this?” Ian casually asked as he pushed the door the rest of the way open.
Nellie was alarmed. “There’s a body in there?”
“All I saw was the blood, and that was all I wanted to see,” Laurence said.
“Mr. Coburn, help me pull this body out,” Ian called out from the restroom.
Martin paled. “I’d rather not, thank you.”
“You’ve already been accused of being a murderer today. You might as well get your hands bloody.”
Martin sighed and walked over to help Ian pull out the body. The two men grunted as they dragged the corpse. As they set it down on the floor, Selina started to scream, but Nellie quickly muffled her. As Nellie calmed down Selina, the group looked at the body. The corpse was as still as a sculpture and looked like one. The broad shoulders and bulky chest were obvious even through the man’s tailored suit and were the result of years of exercise, all wasted. The last painful seconds of his life lingered on in the snarl tattooed on his face. What had caused Selina to scream was a large knife that was planted in the man’s side. Ian noticed a number of other stab wounds in the victim’s abdomen.
Ian leaned down and inspected the knife stuck in the man. He said to himself, “It’s a good thing that he was stabbed rather than shot.”
“I fail to see how that’s any better,” Nellie said as she kneeled down next to him.
Ian pointed at the knife handle, crafted out of a mule deer antler. “A knife has a personality of its own – a bullet doesn’t. When our murderer stabbed the victim, he might as well have planted a flag. It tells us more about him than we could have known otherwise.”
“Explain,” Nellie commanded, intrigued.
“Just one moment,” Ian said as he wrestled with the blade. He had to work it back and forth a number of times before he was able to free the knife from the body’s ribcage. There was an awful suction sound, followed by blood slipping out of the open wound. Ian examined the knife curiously, turning it around and peering at every detail. He said, “This is a knife used for skinning animals.”
“How can you tell?”
Ian pointed at the rounded edge of the blade. “See that – that allows the person to peel away the skin from the animal without damaging it.” He then pointed at how the rounded edge curled back on itself a bit. “And that gut hook allows the person to pull the intestines out of the animal. Whoever our killer was, he was definitely involved with animal skins. He’s also left-handed.”
“How do you know these things?” Nellie asked.
It took all Ian had to hide his smile. “There are two clues: all of the stab wounds are on the victim’s left side, and there is blood on his lips. That indicates that our killer crept up on his victim, held his hand over the victim’s mouth, and stabbed him repeatedly using his dominant hand. During the scuffle, the victim bit his killer’s hand, explaining the blood on his mouth that didn’t come from his mouth.”
Ian heard another gasp from behind him, and he turned, expecting to see the Coburns losing their nerve again. But it wasn’t the Coburns. Instead, some more of the passengers and crew had appeared, having heard Selina’s scream from a minute before. Ian sighed. “This is all I need is for this to become a spectacle.”
As the crowd began to grow, Ian hastily took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped the bloody knife in it. Nellie asked him, “You’re going to take the evidence?”
“This is too important for those incompetent marshals to mess up…”
“Did somebody call for us?” Haley called out sarcastically.
Ian turned his head sharply. Two of the marshals, Haley and Bowman, were pushing their way through the crowd towards the crime scene. As he roughly pushed aside a passenger, Bowman ordered, “You stay right there, sir! We’ve been looking for you.”
Ian stood up and raised his hands, not in surrender but to ask the marshals to stop. “Now, I know what this looks like, gentlemen. I mean, here I am, having escaped from custody, I’m standing over a dead body, I’m covered in blood, and I’m holding the murder weapon. But this isn’t what it looks like…”
By this time, the marshals had reached Ian. As Haley reached for his holstered gun, he asked, “So what does it look like then?”
“It looks like…it looks like…” Ian said, struggling to find words. He suddenly lashed out, striking Haley in the face with his right fist. In the same, sweeping motion, he snapped his arm back and elbowed Bowman in the temple. As both of the marshals stumbled, Ian ran past them and into the startled crowd.
“I apologize for not finding something clever to say!” Ian shouted as he ran through the vestibule into the first-class sleeping car. He slammed the door shut behind him just before a shot rang out and a bullet gnawed on the wooden door. Ian didn’t stop to appreciate how lucky he was just then. Rather, he sprinted through the sleeping car and into the dining car, accidentally knocking over a porter with a pitcher of water along the way. As fast as he was running, though, his mind was even quicker. He had to suppress those millions of years of primitive instinct, to run and hide when the predator gives chase. The marshals would stop at nothing now to tear the train apart and find their prey.
No, he had to do more than disappear – he had to evolve entirely.