Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits (22 page)

Making one last, desperate attempt to prevent the Blue Streak from falling onto the tracks, Ty somersaulted past his partner in crime, losing his grip and flying into the vestibule. He screamed as he bounced off the doorframe and slid feetfirst out the right side door, stopping himself from falling out of the train only at the last possible second,
when he managed to reach up and grab hold of the handrail at the bottom step.

While his feet and legs dangled over the side, he begged for help, his cries becoming more and more desperatesounding.

Not surprisingly, Connie’s eyes remained on the prize. She ignored Ty’s pleading, pouncing instead in the direction of the Blue Streak. But Sam, Ellie, and I caught her in mid-pounce and wrestled her back to the floor before she could grab it. In the midst of that struggle, however, Connie landed a direct hit with her foot, sending Sam flying into the vestibule. Sam hit the floor with all four feet running, but it made no difference; his claws were useless on the hard, cold steel floor, like worn tires spinning in the snow. His eyes met mine, and in the middle of the confusion and squealing and screeching, I heard two words:
“Judge … father …”

And then, along with everyone else in that dining car, I watched in horror as Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak flew out the left side door of the Lake Erie Shoreliner and into the coal-black night.

“SAM!” cried Clarence and Ellie.

“Noooo!” screamed Connie, watching her dreams of riches disappear.

I remember opening my mouth and trying to scream Sam’s name, but it was my turn to be speechless.

After an eternity, the Shoreliner came to a stop. Clarence ran past me into the vestibule, stopping abruptly when he looked out the open door.

“Oh no,” he said quietly.

“He’ll be all right, won’t he?” I asked. After all, I reasoned, we weren’t going that fast when he was thrown from the train, and everyone knows that cats always land on their feet. However, Clarence’s face when he looked out the door did not exactly give me hope that I was right. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

A sad smile curled his lips, and he shook his head, ever so slightly. “We’re in the middle of the bridge over the Chautauqua Creek Gorge. I grew up just a few miles from here.… I know the spot like the back of my hand. It’s got to be two hundred feet—straight down. Nothing but creek. And rocks.”

“Wh-what?” asked Ellie, her eyes filling with tears. “It can’t be. It just can’t.”

I blinked back a tear or two of my own as I glanced down into the deep valley below us. “Sam,” I whispered into the blackness.

Clarence took out his handkerchief, wiped his brow, and then turned on his heels, where he saw the bloodied,
beaten, and helpless Ty hanging from the handrail, trying (and failing) to pull himself back into the train.

“Somebody … help … me,” groaned Ty. “Can’t … hold … much … longer …”

“Give me a hand up here,” said Clarence, who was quickly joined by two men who were picking themselves up from the dining car floor. Together, they yanked Ty into the safety of the car, where he crumpled under his own weight.

In the excitement of the moment, I had forgotten about my broken wrist—that is, until Ellie decided to pull me toward our mothers.

“Owwwww!” I yelled.

Ellie started to ask, “What’s the matt—” but she stopped when she saw my arm.

When I saw the funny look on her face, I gathered my courage and glanced down at my handcuffed wrist … and my knees turned wobbly and my head suddenly felt very light. My hand hung at a very unnatural angle and had already turned several shocking shades of purple and yellow.

“Henry!” cried my mother. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s got a broken wrist,” said Clarence. “We’ve got to get those handcuffs off before they cut off his circulation completely and he loses his hand.”

“Ty,” I whispered hoarsely. I was getting dizzier and dizzier by the second. “He must have the key.”

“You don’t look so good,” said Ellie, righting an overturned chair. “You’d better sit down for a while.”

Behind us, Gladys and Gwendolyn dragged “Mrs. Perfiddle” to her feet, and there was nothing gentle about it. My vision was a little fuzzy, but I was able to make out the gun in Gwendolyn’s hand, which she kept pointed at Connie.

“I’m not afraid to use this,” Gwendolyn warned Connie. “Our daddy taught us how to use guns back on the farm in Indiana. You try anything, you’ll find out how good a shot I am.”

Phyllis Finkleman cackled, pointing at the pillow sticking out from between the buttons of Connie’s coat. “Well, will you look at that! The boy was telling the truth—she’s no more
pregnant
than I am!”

“So it would seem,” said Judge Ambrose. “And now, Miss Henshaw, maybe it’s best if you give that pistol to me.”

Gwendolyn handed it to him, a bit reluctantly, I thought.

“Boys, get something to tie them up with,” said the judge. “I’ll turn them over to the local authorities in Erie.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Clarence, holding up the ring full of keys that he’d taken from Ty’s pocket. “I know where there’s a perfectly good set of handcuffs.”

“Shame about your, uh, cat,” Judge Ambrose said to Clarence after Ellie and I were finally separated and Connie and Ty were cuffed together. “Never cared much for cats myself, but he seemed like a good—”

Clarence stared at him, expressionless. “
Don’t
. Just get yourself and those two … miserable excuses for human beings off my train. And next time, do us all a favor and take the Twentieth Century Limited.” He turned and walked away, helping passengers to their feet and reassuring everyone that the danger was over. “We’ll be under way in a minute,” he added, checking his pocket watch. “Good thing we were a little ahead of schedule.”

Julia, the Strasbourgs’ maid, used some clean towels from the kitchen to wrap my arm until I could see a doctor for a proper plaster cast.

“How does that feel?” she asked when she had finished. “Not too tight, is it?”

“No, it’s okay,” I said, closing my eyes and trying to ignore the dull, aching pain. In the background, Mrs. Strasbourg and my mother chatted with Clarence, who did his best to explain how two kids had gone from being complete strangers to being handcuffed together in the compartment of two of the FBI’s most-wanted criminals. Of course, he left out Sam’s part in the whole story. Maybe he didn’t think
they’d believe him, or maybe he just wasn’t ready to talk about Sam yet.

Ellie, sitting beside me on one of the benches in the dining car, leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I really did hear him.”

“I know,” I said, not opening my eyes.

“It’s funny; I remember him looking at me, and I remember that there was something … funny about his eyes, but I can’t remember what it was,” she said. “It’s like that memory was just
erased
. You don’t suppose that Sam …”

I sat up suddenly, my eyes wide open. “He said something else, right before he … There was so much noise that I couldn’t hear it all, but I caught two words:
judge
and
father
. Did you hear it?”

Ellie shook her head. “Maybe Clarence did, though.”

“Good idea. What was he trying to tell us about Judge Ambrose?”

At the front of the car, the judge chomped on a fresh cigar as he sniffed around the vestibule, where Sam and the Blue Streak had last been seen.

“What is he doing up there?” Ellie whispered.

“I think he’s still looking for your mom’s necklace,” I said.

“But it went out the door with … I mean, I didn’t imagine that, did I? It fell into the gorge.”

“I guess he’s just making sure.”

Ahead of us, the engineer sounded the whistle, and the train jerked into motion. I peered out the window into the emptiness around us and imagined for a moment that we were flying across the valley.

“Poor Sam,” I said.

“Poor Clarence,” said Ellie.

We sat quietly for a few seconds, our minds full of the past few hours’ adventures.

Ellie nudged me with her elbow. “I haven’t thanked you properly for rescuing me.”

“I didn’t really
rescue
you. They were just going to leave you tied up in that room until somebody found you.”

“But you didn’t give up,” she said. “You were like one of King Arthur’s knights. You’re a
hero
.”

“I’m not a
hero
,” I protested, blushing furiously. “It was Sam who—”

I looked up to find our mothers standing over us, smiling. “Hey, kids,” said Mrs. Strasbourg. “We have some exciting news. You need to get ready—we’re
all
getting off the train at Erie.”

“W-we are?” I asked. “Why? What about Father? His ship will be coming in. We have to be there.”

Mrs. Strasbourg smiled. “Don’t worry about that—we’ll see that your father joins us in Erie. You’re all going to be
our guests for a few days. First things first, though. We have to get you to a doctor and have that arm looked after properly. Then you’ll be spending the day at Conneaut Lake Park, where you will be riding the Blue Streak as many times as you like. How does that sound?”

“But … how will we get back to Ashtabula?” I asked.

Ellie’s mom laughed. “Your mother was right. You
are
a worrier! Young man, after all you’ve done for my family, believe me, I’ll give you a ride home—or anywhere else you want to go.”

“Yay!” cried Ellie. “We’re going to ride the Blue Streak a hundred times!”

A porter came through the car, announcing, “Next stop, Ripley, New York! Ripley next!”

“We have to hurry,” Mother said. “Erie is the next stop after Ripley. Doris, thank you so much—we’ll meet you on the platform.” The Strasbourgs headed for their suite at the back of the train, while we went forward to our section to get our bags.

“See you in a few minutes!” said Ellie.

I searched frantically for Clarence as the train slowed to a stop at the Erie station, and ran up and down the platform looking for him. After everything that had happened—especially Sam’s accident—I couldn’t get off the Shoreliner
without talking to him. Finally, I spotted him helping Madeline Parker and Alabama Woodward with their numerous bags.

“That’s strange,” I thought. “Why are they getting off in Erie? Shouldn’t they be continuing on to Chicago?”

“Clarence!” I shouted, tripping over my own feet and nearly falling as I ran to him. As I glanced up into his eyes, I thought he looked older than he had at the beginning of our journey.

“Easy there, Henry,” he said. “One broken limb at a time.”

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Ellie’s family invited us to their house, so we’re getting off here instead of Ashtabula, and I was afraid I would never see you again. I just wanted to say … I’m really sorry about Lantern Sam. He was the best cat … ever. And to say …” My voice drifted off; I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to say, but I knew enough about life to know that
something
needed to be said.

Clarence took my hand, squeezing and shaking it firmly and looking deep into my eyes. “It’s been my pleasure, Mr. Shipley. I’m proud of you, my boy—what you did back there … not a lot of adults could have done it. I want you to keep in touch. I want to hear more about that ship of your father’s. Can you do that for me?”