"Could be a rotary-plow engine, at that."
"Except for one dang thing," Melvis inserted.
"What's that?" Remo asked.
"It's the middle of summer. What would a plow engine be doin' out on the middle of corn country goin' the wrong way on a passenger line?"
"Causing a derailment," said Remo.
"You sayin' this is calculated sabotage?"
"Look at it. Wrong-way engine. Head-on collision. What else could it be?"
Melvis scratched his head. "Maybe the engineer was on dope."
"Which one?" asked K.C.
"Why, the plow engineer, of course. Otherwise, why would he take her out six months after the last snowfall and be goin' the wrong way on occupied track?"
"Sounds sensible to me, much as I shrink from the notion of an engineer on drugs," said K.C.
"They don't raise engineers like they used to," Melvis said sincerely.
"Or engines," said K.C., looking at the demolished Genesis.
Melvis rocked back on his boot heels. "Yes, siree, this could be the end of Amtrak."
"You keep saying that," said Remo. "Why?"
"Yes. Why?" asked Chiun.
"Don't you two know? The Amtrak contract with the freight lines runs out this year. Congress is fixin' to defund it. Amtrak can't pull her weight financially, except on the Northeast Corridor and a few other places. The freight boys are all bet up because they gotta give passenger traffic the priority, sidelinin' their consists when they got goods to haul, while Amtrak just blasts on by."
"So the freight lines would like to see Amtrak out of business?" said Remo.
"Sure as shootin' they would."
"Perhaps they are behind this outrage," said Chiun.
"That's a good theory. Except for one teensy little fact."
"What's that?" asked Remo.
"The freight boys are experiencin' more derailments than Amtrak. They're gettin' it worse by a ratio of three to one."
Chiun piped up, "Perhaps they seek to throw suspicion from themselves. It is often that way on 'Fetlock.'"
"Which?" asked K.C.
"Never mind," said Remo.
"Look," Melvis said hotly. "It can't be the freight lines. See those tangled-up rails? Somebody has to clean them up. And that same somebody has to pay for the cleanin' up. It sure ain't Amtrak. They don't hardly own a solitary stretch of high iron in the nation. The freight lines control it all. They're the ones eatin' the cleanup bill." Melvis suddenly looked around. "That reminds me. Shouldn't the Hulcher boys be here by now? What's keepin' them?"
Remo asked, "Who are they?"
"Hulcher. They're only the kings of rerailin' train sets. You saw them workin' back at Mystic."
"You were at Mystic?" K.C. said excitedly. "Jiminy, that was a wreck. Wish I'd seen it."
Remo squeezed her neck, and she subsided, too.
Of Melvis, he asked, "Hulcher the only people in that business?"
"No, just the biggest and best."
"Every time a train goes off the tracks, they make money, right?"
"Oh, don't you blaspheme," K.C. cried, her buckskin fringes shivering in anger. "Don't you speak against Hulcher."
"Hell, don't even think what you're thinkin'," said Melvis. "They're railroad men. They wouldn't cause wrecks. Besides, they don't have to. These rail lines are over a hundred years old. They're bound to throw a train or two just from age and orneriness. No, Hulcher ain't back of this. No way, no how."
"Well, someone is."
"I say it's dope. Dope is a scourge upon the land. Show me a derailed GE Dash-8 or a flipped-over Geep, and I'll bet my momma's Stetson there's cannabis in the air."
"Either that, or the evil antirail Congress is at work," said K.C. with a perfectly straight face.
"Let's at least find out where this plow engine came from before we go blowing up Congress, shall we?" suggested Remo.
Chapter 16
The rotary-plow engine was out of Hastings, the next stop for the California Zephyr.
It was normally kept in a shed by a siding. The shed was still there, but there was no engine inside. No yardman, either.
"Maybe the yardman took her out and went the wrong way, accidental-like," Melvis said.
"If it isn't snowing, is there a right way?" asked Remo.
"Now that you mention it, no."
"They're too slow to run on the same track as a fast train, even going the right way," K.C. interjected.
"What's fast about the California Zephyr?" Melvis grunted.
"The old California Zephyr was fast."
"This ain't the old California Zephyr, I hate to tell you."
K.C. grinned. "It suits me. I'm only heading to the big Rail Expo."
"The one in Denver?" Melvis said, face brightening.
"That's the one."
"Man, do I yearn to go to that shindig! They're gonna have every brand-new kind of spankin' engine there is from every nation on earth. And a few old ones too."
"And I aim to bag 'em all," said K.C., lifting her camera.
Melvis cleared his throat and asked, "Anybody ever tell you you got the prettiest Conrail blue eyes?"
K.C. blushed like a beet. "Aw, shucks."
"Can we get back to the investigation?" asked Remo.
Melvis grew serious. "Allow me to kindly remind you this is an NTSB investigation. That there's an NTSB chopper what brung us here. And if you don't like it, you can lump it and walk."
"If we leave," Chiun said haughtily, "we will take our stories of the famed Kyong-Ji line with us."
"Now, hold on a cotton-pickin' moment here! I wasn't meanin' you, old-timer. Just your skinny-ass friend here. He can hightail it back to whatever he's from. You and I, on the other hand, are gonna do some serious confabulatin' about Korean steam. I ain't hardly asked all the questions I got stored up in my poor brain."
Chiun's eyed thinned. "I will consider this offer if the investigation goes well."
"Well, let's get a move on." Melvis looked around. "I guess that dang plow engineer is the meat in a cornfield-meet sandwich for sure."
A changing breeze brought a metallic scent to Remo's and Chiun's sensitive nostrils. They began sniffing the wind carefully.
Melvis eyed them dubiously. "You boys turn pussycat all of a sudden?"
"I smell blood," said Chiun.
"Ditto," said Remo.
Melvis joined in tasting the breeze. "I ain't smellin' nothin' but diesel and ripenin' corn."
"Blood," said Chiun, walking north.
Remo followed him. The others fell in line.
THEY FOUND the man's head before they found the man. The head was in two parts. He had been split down the center of his face, the line of separation falling between his eyes, dividing the bridge of his nose perfectly. He must have had a gap between his two front teeth, because on either side of the two halves the teeth had survived the sudden cleaving intact and unchipped.
The blade had come down that perfectly.
The Master of Sinanju picked up the two head halves and clapped them together like a husked coconut. It was evident from the horrified expression on the dead man's face that the swordsman had been facing his victim.
"One stroke down, separating the two portions, and one across the neck," said Chiun grimly. "The Pear Splitter Stroke, followed by the Scarf Sweep."
K.C. said, "I ain't never seen such a thing."
Melvis piped up, "Honey, I seen a lot worse. Why, once down Oklahoma way I saw a man's head up in a tree like a pineapple just a-waitin' to be picked. The look on his face was about as hornswoggled as this poor soul's, come to think of it."
"The rest of him must be around here," Remo said, looking around.
They found the body a short distance away. He lay on his stomach in the high prairie grass, with his hands tucked under him, as if he'd fallen in the act of unzipping his fly.
"Musta spliced the poor feller as he was takin' his last leak," Melvis muttered. "A right unkind thing to do, you ask me."