"They found his head in a tree."
"Hey! How'd you know that? It wasn't in the official report."
Chiun spoke up. "We know many things that we should not. It will go better for you if you tell us all you know."
Melvis hesitated. "What do y'all want to know?"
"What really derailed that train?" asked Remo.
"Impossible to tell for sure. That's why I put down dope. When in doubt, the engineer was high as a kite or strung out. Covers a multitude of sins. Also NTSB expects a nice neat and tidy answer for the final report. Trouble is when a train hits the bumpers it leaves such a dang mess you can't hardly tell a push-pull consist from a cow-and-calf set after the dust is all done settlin'. "
The two looked blank.
"Tell us about the engineer," Remo asked just as a section of rail snapped behind them.
They looked back. The track gang was okay. Nobody hurt.
"Man's head was sheared off as sweet as honeysuckle," Melvis replied. "By that, I mean it might have been chopped by a guillotine. 'Cept for the conspicuous lack of a blade."
"Flying glass?"
Melvis nodded. "Plenty of it. But I don't think that's what got him."
"Then what did?"
"I couldn't tell back then. But now that you bring it up, a sword like what you boys pulled outta that big block coulda done it."
The two exchanged hard looks.
"How'd the head get up the tree?"
"That's the part that had me plumb bumfoozled back then. The head couldn't have been ejected by the derailment. But as you boys surely know, toss a basketball out a window and it'll describe a downward arc. This head was stuck way high up that tree. Can't see how traumatic ejection would account for it. Someone had to have hung it up there."
The two looked at each other again.
"But I put down dope because, like I said, it covers a passel of sins. Not to mention inexplicables."
Chiun eyed him coldly. "There is more. I can see it in your beady eyes."
"You're right sharp, you are. I left out one little item."
"What's that?"
"The poor engineer was decapitated-"
"Beheaded," said Chiun.
"-a few miles back of where his head was actually found. In other words, I think someone was in the cab with him, lopped his pumpkin right off, causin' that terrible wreck. She was goin' mighty fast on the turn where she wiped out."
"Someone got in the cabin, cut off his head but managed to jump clear after the derailment?" asked Remo. "That's what you think really happened?"
"And tossed the head into the tree for reasons known only to the Almighty and the lunatic what done it. Now maybe you can see why I wasn't about to write that whopper up. It ain't natural, not to mention sensible. The NTSB abhors such things."
"What's your read on this mess?" Remo asked, indicating the rerailed train, whose cars stood dented and muddy on a good section of rail.
"This? Now, this one is textbook. Piece of heavy equipment on the rail. Engineer couldn't have seen it in time to stop. Smashup with cars in the water. Happens all the time."
"That so?"
"You can't say different."
"Come with me," said Chiun, beckoning.
Reluctantly Melvis followed them past the track gang.
"I sure hope you boys aren't about to upset my little red wagon. I've been pullin' her a long old time and I hope to pull her a lot longer before I go for my gold watch and that last lonesome terminal."
The pair said nothing. They walked off the rail bed on the landward side of the line. In a section of forest they showed him a patch of dirt where footprints had disturbed the earth.
"These look familiar to you?" asked Remo.
"Sure. Looks like your friend here was walkin' about."
"What about these?" Remo said, pointing to another scatter of imprints.
Melvis rubbed his blunt jaw thoughtfully. "Hmm."
"Big Sandy, remember?"
"That's your friend's footprints. You can't fool me."
"They are the same size, true, but not the same," said Chiun. And placing one sandaled foot beside a print, he pressed down. When his foot came away, it was obvious they were not the same. Just similar.
"You sayin' the fella what jumped the track at Big Sandy was here, too?"
"Definitely," said Remo.
Melvis Cupper contorted his face in thought. He chewed his lower lip. He squinted one eye shut, then the other. "If that don't beat all," he muttered.
"He was at Oklahoma City too."
"That's conjecture. Pure, unabashed conjecture. I don't hold with conjecture. No, sir. Don't hold with it a-tall. "
"Tough," said Remo. "You're stuck with it."
"Yes," says Chiun. "Put that in your report and smoke it."
They walked away.
Melvis hurried after them. "Now, wait a goldang minute."
They kept walking.
Puffing, Melvis drew abreast. He walked in front of them, stepping backward and trying not to trip over ground roots.
"You fellas came along the other way, am I right?"
"Right," said Remo.
"So how y'all know those tracks were there?"
"That is for us to know and you to find out," said Chiun.
Melvis eyed them pointedly. "You were here before."
"Possibly," said Chiun.
"You were here before NTSB! How is that possible? There wasn't time for you to get on-site before me."
"You ask too many questions," said Remo.
"Yes. Of the wrong person. Better you learn to ask the correct questions at the proper times," Chiun warned.
Melvis was trying to think of a good comeback for that when his beeper went off. "Oh, hell. I hope this ain't another one."
It was. Melvis ran to his rental car and dialed a number on his cell phone.
"Da-yam."
"What is it?" asked Remo.
"You boys might want to check in with your supervisors, too. There's big doin's out Nebraska way."
"Derailment?"
"Worse. Looks like they got what they used to call in the old-timey days a cornfield meet."
Remo said, "A what?"
Chiun gasped. "No!"
Remo did a double take. "You know what that is?" he asked Chiun.
"Of course he does," spit Melvis. "Any man who rode steam locomotives before they turned antique knows what a cornfield meet is."
"Well, I don't."
"I rest my case," Melvis Cupper said. Turning his attention back to the cell phone, he barked, "I'm on my way. This one was only a crossing derailment anyway. Happens every dang day."
When he hung up, Remo and Chiun were looking at him like a pair of unhappy Sunday-school teachers.
"Nobody has yet proved different," Melvis retorted defensively.
Chapter 15
Over Nebraska, Remo began to suspect why a cornfield meet might be called that. Rows of waving corn marched in all directions like a green-clad army on parade drill.
The waiting NTSB helicopter had taken off from Lincoln, Nebraska, and picking up a double ribbon of tracks running due west through flatland country, followed them. After a while a parallel set of tracks appeared.
Over the rotor whine, Melvis Cupper was peppering the Master of Sinanju with questions. "Tell me more about that steam loco you used to ride when you were a young 'un. Narrow gauge or standard?"
"Narrow," said Chiun.
"No foolin'. Elephant ears?"
"Elephant ears are African."
"Bumpers instead of a cowcatcher, am I correct?"
Chiun made a yellow prune face. "Cowcatchers are a white innovation. Even the Japanese do not use them."
"You ride coach or first-class in them days?"
"My family was given its own coach by the oppressors in Pyongyang."
Melvis slapped his knee with his hat. "No foolin'! You had your own private coach? Goldang!"
"It still resides in Pyongyang, awaiting the call to serve," Chiun said blandly.
Melvis turned to Remo. "You hear that? He has his own railroad coach. Man, that is the way to fly."