The lumberjack dropped his throwing knife.

"Where is Don Albert?" Bell asked.

"Don't bother him, mister. He's hurt bad."

"If he's hurt bad, he should be in the hospital."

"Cain't be in the hospital."

"Why?"

"The cinder dicks'll blame him for the runaway."

"Why?"

"He was on it."

"On it?" Bell echoed. "Do you expect me to believe he survived a mile-a-minute crash?"

"Yes, sir. 'Cause he did."

"Donny's got a head like a cannonball," said the old woman.

Bell pried the story, step-by-step, out of the lumberjack and the old woman, who turned out to be Don Albert's mother. Albert had been sleeping off an innocent drunk on the gondola when he interrupted the man who set the gondola rolling. The man had bashed him in the head with a crowbar.

"Skull like pig iron," the lumberjack assured Bell, and Don's mother agreed. Tearfully, she explained that every time Don had opened his eyes in the hospital, a railroad dick would shout at him. "Donny was afraid to tell them about the man who bashed him."

"Why?" Bell asked.

"He reckoned they wouldn't believe him, so he pretended to be hurt worse than he was. I told Cousin John here. And he rounded up his friends to carry Donny off when the doctor was eating his supper."

Bell assured her that he would make sure the railroad police didn't bother her son. "I'm a Van Dorn investigator, ma'am. They're under my command. I'll tell them to leave you be." At last, he persuaded her to take him into the shack.

"Donny? There's a man to see you."

Bell sat on a crate beside the plank bed where the bandage-swathed Don Albert was sleeping on a straw mattress. He was a big man, bigger than his cousin, with a large moon of a face, a mustache like his cousin's, and enormous, work-splintered hands. His mother rubbed the back of his hand and he began to stir.

"Donny? There's a man to see you."

He regarded Bell through murky eyes, which cleared up as they came into focus. When he was fully awake, they were an intense stony blue, which spoke of fierce intelligence. Bell's interest quickened. Not only was the man not in a state of coma, he seemed the sort who might have made a sharp observer. And he was the only man Bell knew of who had been within just a few feet of the Wrecker and was still alive.

"How are you feeling?" Bell asked.

"Head hurts."

"I'm not surprised."

Don Albert laughed, then winced at the pain it caused him.

"I understand a fellow bashed you one."

Albert nodded slowly. "With a crowbar, I believe. Least, that's what it felt like. Iron, not wood. Sure didn't feel like an ax handle."

Bell nodded. Don Albert spoke as a man who had been slugged by at least one ax handle in his life, which would not be that unusual for a lumberjack. "Did you happen to see his face?"