“Which is?”

“San Diego.”

Bronson thought quietly for several moments. Finally, he said, “That’s a long shot.”

“Maybe. But that’s all we have going,” said Bell. “He’s demonstrated that he doesn’t always rob mining towns. Why not a city with a bank bulging with profits from goods imported by rich merchants and the owners of large ranches around Southern California?”

“A long shot or not, we can’t overlook it. If only I could alert Harrington to send his agents to the San Diego railroad terminal and be on the lookout for a private train. But the telephone and telegraph lines from San Jose to Los Angeles are still down due to flooding.”

Bell shook his head. “Cromwell’s too smart to run his train directly into the city. He’ll park it on some remote siding and use another mode of transportation to get to the city, probably the motorcycle he used on other robberies.”

“If only Harrington’s had a description,” said Bronson.

“They couldn’t identify him anyway; he’ll probably be wearing a disguise.”

Bronson’s optimism suddenly vanished out the window. “Then where does that leave us?”

Bell smiled. “I’ll have to go to San Diego and confront him myself.”

“Not possible,” Bronson said. “By the time we can hire a special express train, have it on the tracks, and leave town, he will have conducted his dirty business and be halfway back to San Francisco.”

“Very true,” acknowledged Bell. “But, with a little luck, I can make it to Los Angeles before his train arrives and be waiting for him.”

“So how are you going to beat him to Los Angeles, fly on a big bird?” Bronson said sarcastically.

“I don’t need a big bird.” Bell gave Bronson a canny look. “I have something just as fast.” Then he smiled bleakly. “But, first, I have to break a date.”

32

THE BIG RED LOCOMOBILE SWEPT THROUGH SAN Francisco like a bull running through the streets of Pamplona, Spain, during the Fiesta of San Fermin. Bell sat back in the red leather seat, his two hands tightly gripping the bottom of the big spoked steering wheel, turning the car with his palms facing up, using his biceps to twist the stiff mechanism around curves and street corners.

The time was fifteen minutes before ten o’clock.

Next to him, in the shotgun seat, sat Bronson, whose job was to keep the fuel pressure pumped up. Every few minutes, he pulled out the pump handle that was mounted on the upper wooden panel just above the slanting floorboard and shoved it forward, sending gas to the carburetor. Besides keeping the big hungry engine fed, he took on the job of navigator, since Bell had no knowledge of the California countryside. As Bell drove, Bronson braced his feet on the floorboard and pressed his back into the leather seat to keep from being thrown to the pavement, feeling as if he was being shot through the muzzle of a cannon.

Not wanting to take either hand from the steering wheel, Bell also gave Bronson the job of sounding the big horn bulb. The agent seemed to enjoy squeezing out squawking honks at the people and traffic, especially at intersections. It was not long before his hand ached.

Bronson was wearing a long leather coat, his feet and lower legs encased in boots. His head was covered by a leather helmet with huge goggles that made him look like an owl on a quest for a rodent. The goggles were a necessity since the Locomobile did not have a windshield.

The car hadn’t traveled a hundred yards when Bronson had dire misgivings about what he had gotten himself into by insisting that he accompany Bell on this mad dash to San Diego in an open car over roads that weren’t much better than cow paths.

“How are the brakes on this mechanical marvel of engineering?” Bronson asked caustically.

“Not great,” Bell answered. “The only brakes are on the shaft driving the chains to the rear wheels.”

“Do you have to go so fast through town?” Bronson protested.

“Cromwell’s private train has over an hour’s head start,” yelled Bell through the exhaust. “We need every minute we can gain.”

Pedestrians, who heard the throaty exhaust roar coming up the street followed by a strange blaring sound from the bulb horn, were stunned when they saw the red Locomobile bearing down on them. Staring incredulously, they quickly stepped out of the street until the machine sped past. The twin exhaust pipes, barely protruding from the left side of the hood, throbbed like cannon.

Two workmen, who were carrying a large windowpane alongside the street, froze in total shock as the car thundered past, the explosive roar of the Locomobile’s exhaust shattering the glass in their hands. Neither Bell nor Bronson ever looked back, their complete focus being on the traffic that ran thick or thin in front of them, forcing Bell to swing the wheel violently back and forth as though he was driving through an obstacle course. His great satisfaction came in pointing the car in the direction he wanted to go and having it respond as if anticipating his thoughts.

Bell jockeyed his foot from the accelerator to the brake and back again, as he tore down the streets, hammering turns at the intersections onto the main street leading from the city, wishing he was a sorcerer who could magically make the traffic disappear. Bell narrowly missed a laundry truck, throwing the Locomobile into a four-wheel drift to avoid it. He spun the thick wooden rim of the steering wheel fiercely as he dove between vehicles littering the streets. Drivers of other motorized vehicles stared in awe at the speed of the car as it flashed up from behind and quickly disappeared up ahead. Horses harnessed to buggies and wagons reared at the noise of what their drivers thought was the devil’s chorus.

As they neared the outer edge of the city’s southern limits, the traffic began to thin. Bell slowed the Locomobile around a sweeping turn onto the main road south that paralleled the railroad tracks. He breathed a sigh of relief at seeing automobiles and wagons becoming sparse. He was also thankful that he now had ample room to swerve around any vehicle that blocked his path. The huge automobile was incredibly responsive. Bell pressed the accelerator within an inch of the floor, as the car began to rocket along a road that ran straight with few curves. The faster the Locomobile traveled, the more solid her feel of stability, as the drive chains on her axles whirred at a high, metallic pitch.

Soon the road became straight and rural. Picturesque farming communities came up on the horizon and quickly slipped behind the automobile’s dust trail. San Carlos, Menlo Park, and then San Jose, towns that were linked together by the El Camino Real, the old road used in the late 1700s by the Franciscan friars who built twenty-one missions, each a day’s journey apart.