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“Which reminds me.” Old Man Mercury points to a CD on the kitchen counter. “I finished the last book you brought over. Do you have a new one for me? Preferably without too much of BDMS.”
I choke on my lemonade and Ashlyn slaps me on the back while asking Mercury, “Do you mean BDSM?”
Holy generic pet food! My choking intensifies until Ashlyn’s pounding on my back.
“Stop,” I tell her and twist away until she can’t reach me.
“What’s wrong with you?” Old Man Mercury asks. “Are you a prude? Don’t you think old people have sex?”
I grew up in Winter Falls. I’m intimately acquainted with old people having sex.
“Sorry. You surprised me is all.”
He leans back in his chair and grunts. “Uh-huh.”
“We have another clue, but we can’t figure it out,” Ashlyn says when the silence becomes awkward.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? What’s the clue?”
“It says – you’ll find the item where the steel stops and families reunite. Steel and families reuniting makes me think of a railroad, but Winter Falls doesn’t have a railroad.”
Mercury grins. “Maybe not, but Winter Creek had one.”
“Winter Creek was the settlement before Winter Falls was founded,” Ashlyn explains to me.
“Where was the railroad?” I ask.
He points to a towering pile of books on a table next to an armchair. “Grab me the top book, would you?”
When I fetch the book for him, I realize it’s an atlas. One of those old-fashioned book ones. I set it on the table and Mercury pages through it until he finds what he’s looking for.
He taps the page, which is a map of the state of Colorado. “The railroad ran through the state this way.” He traces a finger from the east of the state to Denver. The line he indicates passes near Winter Falls but not through it.
“I can’t quite remember when the railroad stopped. It was a long time ago.”
“Do you think the railroad was still in use in 1955 when the Black Hat Bandit robbed the Hastings National Bank?”
He scratches the stubble on his chin. “I imagine so.”
Ashlyn and I stand and lean over the table to study the map. “I wonder where the nearest stop was,” I murmur as I stare at it.
“It was here.” Mercury points to a location about ten miles out of town. “There was a small settlement there when we arrived in the state. We considered establishing our community nearby, but people were opposed to the railroad.”
“What’s wrong with a railroad?” Ashlyn asks.
“What’s wrong with a railroad?” Mercury booms as he shakes his head at her. “Don’t let your mom hear you ask that.”
“I won’t.”
“The idea of Winter Falls was to grow all our needs locally. A railroad isn’t local.”
“The railroad station must have been where Robert and Patricia were supposed to meet.”
Ashlyn sighs like the tale is some great love story. As if. Their story is not what romance legends are made of. Tragedy is more like it. Robert was a bank robber and Patricia knew it, which is probably why her family disapproved of the union. Unfortunately, Patricia died in a train wreck and the two were never reunited.
“Are there any remnants of the station left?” I ask, although I don’t believe there is. The place is ten miles from Winter Falls. Someone would have noticed an old railroad building by now. And since no one in this town can keep a secret, we’d know about it. But this is all news to me.
“You’ll have to go figure it out.” Mercury slams the atlas closed. “It’s time for my nap.”
