Chapter 19
They arrived at the railhead smack in the middle of March. The train stopped and moved to a siding amidst a tent city. There were easily fifteen hundred people or more, and a large group of “support” persons who followed along.
Jesse pointed out the more important sights. “Tent Saloon, don’t buy their gin. The Oriental Cat, a whorehouse, don’t visit if you don’t want to get venereal disease. The Chinese laundry when you get tired of wearing your old smelly clothes day after day. And baths and barbers, dry goods and a clothier. You can buy anything at a horrendously inflated price.”
The camp was bustling, people coming and going, looking like they knew what they were about. A tanker cart dispensed water; beer barrels were downloaded; and the smell of food was coming strong from a kitchen tent set aside from the rest.
“The place burns down regularly so we keep having to erect a new one, every week it seems. You can always get a serving of any kind of potatoes done hundreds of different ways. You either learn to like it or hate it, but day in and day out that’s what you’ll be served.”
A little later, after Chance had cleaned up a bit, Jesse beckoned to him. “Come, I’ll introduce you to the section boss and see what he can assign you.”
They walked to the front edge of the camp and mounted a train carriage parked on a siding. Inside a large man looked up and boomed, “Jesse where’ve you been? I needed you here last week. The telegraph is down again, probably cut by those blasted Indians, otherwise you’d have gotten a dozen messages telling you to get your tail back here.” He looked at Chance. “And who’s this?”
“Major Chance Fraser. A genuine engineer.”
“Major? Union or Confederate? Forget that I asked, it really doesn’t matter. I need more men, trained so much the better. What kind of engineer?”
“Steam engines mostly, but I have some structural experience,” Chance replied.
“Can you design and build bridges?”
“Know a few things about them but it’s not my specialty.”
“Too bad because I could use a half dozen of them.”
“He can learn. But right now we can use him to keep the steam shovels working and we never have enough men to service the locomotives.”
“OK, you talked me into it. Take him up to the end of the line and show him what we’re all about.” He returned to his maps, making notes of their progress.
Outside, Jesse volunteered, “He’s alright for a boss. The directors of UPR are always after him to lay more track and grab a larger share of the government grants.” They picked up something to eat and drink, served by the kitchen. “This end of the line was mandated back in ‘62 by Congress but we didn’t spike the first rail until July ’65 back in Omaha, and didn’t complete the mandatory first 100 miles of track until July of ‘66. But after a slow start, we’ve been making good progress since.”
“Why did it take so long?”
“Indian troubles. In January of ‘65, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho and the Sioux destroyed our marshalling yard in Julesburg in retaliation for the Sand Creek massacre of Indians a few months earlier. They destroyed the telegraph in Platte Valley. They just don’t like the iron horse in their territory. But with the war over, we have a lot of veterans from both sides working with us and can withstand an attack.”
They clambered aboard a flatcar that was going down the line. In four miles they reached the end and, puffing and hissing, the train ground to a halt. Ahead were gangs of men moving materials forward to feed the advance. A large group was up front, smoothing out the ground, adding fill or taking from it, laying down a ballast of gravel to hold the timber railroad ties in place laid crosswise. Next a team of men using pincers carried a length of rail to the end of the last and laid it down. Then, men with heavy hammers drove dogspikes into the wood to securely pin the foot of the rail to the ties. The ends were then connected by flat tie plates bolted on to form a rigid continuous line. Hardly was a section finished when the train drove over the freshly laid track to bring more material.
The scene looked chaotic at first, but Chance soon perceived the rhythm of it. He wondered how many miles it took to work it out so efficiently. The whistle blew and the locomotive lurched forward to claim another section.
“Where’re we going?” Chance asked.
“Up there.” Jesse pointed at a line of small red flags stuck in the ground by the surveyors. “We can do 5 to 8 miles a day, depending on the grade and how much leveling is required. But believe me we’re better off than The Central Pacific Railroad coming from the west, stuck with digging tunnels through mountains.”
Chance looked over the hundreds of toiling men before him and said, “This must cost someone a fortune.”
“The US government, $48,000 per mile.” Chance whistled in astonishment, a lot of money for a single mile.
They took the next train back to tent city. Jumping from the train, Jesse led the way, making a sweeping gesture with his hands. “Welcome to Hell on Wheels, a collection of do-nothings, criminals and con men, gamblers and prostitutes preying on the workers. And when we gain some distance, we pick them all up and move them along.”
Jesse led them to a tent where he introduced Chance to Terry McCormick, the foreman in charge of the locomotives. Then he left the two alone to work out a job for Chance.
McCormick made a sour face. “I smell another Confederate. I’ll tell you up front, after coming over from Ireland, two of my brothers joined the Union Army to gain citizenship. One was killed at Fredericksburg, the other at Chancellorsville. I have no great cause to like any Johnny Reb. Understood?”
“I hear you, but the war’s over.”
“Not for me it isn’t.”
Still they worked out a rotation for Chance to inspect each train and decide when repairs had to be done.
“I have 12 trains to move on a very tight schedule. I can’t have any out of action for long. You make sure they move.”
Before he knew it Chance was deeply immersed in the work. The technical aspects challenged him and in a remarkably short time, the driving aim of the whole enterprise swept him up. He started measuring time and progress in term of miles laid that day. After a good day they were often rewarded by extra rations or a slug of free drink.
For a while Chance serviced the locomotives, often getting dirty, oiling and greasing the parts: the axle boxes, the bushings around the connecting rods that, pushed by the pistons, slid back and forth, translating the power to the driving wheels to move the whole machine forward. There were control rods to keep aligned, valves and steam feeder pipes to be cleaned of calcification, and not the least, replacing worn brake pads.
As always, Chance found it invigorating to stand next to one of these beasts, breathing, huffing and puffing, hissing, glorying in the power of steam. It was his job to make sure the locomotive worked at maximum efficiency. And he did what was needed, not above cleaning out the firebox or scraping encrustations of dirt from around moving joints.
Most engines were named after women, Winona, Felicia, Ophelia... except for two; the largest of the herd was called Ulysses after the famous Union general, and the next, the Confederates renamed Robert for Robert E. Lee. These two had the muscle to pull a full train up the steep incline of Garmin Gulch without blowing all their sand onto the rails for extra traction. Other locomotives had to double up to pull the same load.
Sunday was the Day of the Lord when no work was done, but few attended church services; Sunday was passed spending wages on amusements provided day or night in Hell on Wheels. The cash flow was out of one’s pocket into someone else’s. Still it was an exciting diversion that hardworking men needed. Often though there was no money left to send home, nothing left to save. It seemed that most were hell bent on spending their money, then sweating the rest of the week to earn it.
On Monday it was always hard to get the crews started because so many were hung over or sick. All the same, the system worked and creaked along well enough for the railroad to add distance to itself. Not that it was ever enough for the directors in the far-off East, but for shareholders the miles turned into unending streams of money. Still, the head office was jamming the telegraph line with orders to hurry it up and get it done.
There were plenty of tensions in the camp already, most notably between the Northern and Southern veterans. No evening went by without some altercation, nothing major, mostly just a shouting match or a rare fist fight. Both sides were cautioned not to slow down the work or they risked expulsion. Then there were the Irish to contend with, and within the Irish themselves, Catholics against Protestants. Added to this mix were the many blacks, former slaves, who sought their freedom in the open lands of the West. There were just a few Chinese, not as many as on the western end where they made up most of the work force. Other disputes were, of course, about money; who owed what to whom. There were a few enforcers charged with settling such disagreements.
There was also an occasional Indian to worry about: who knew when and why they would go on the war path? Patrols of soldiers throwing their weight around, ineptly interpreting the government’s directives or trying to make sense of them, often stirred up trouble rather than settling it. Wagons of settlers trying to get to California, the golden land of promise though the gold rush was over, pushed through the valleys, heedless of the weather, flash floods, or danger from Indians.
Regularly every week, buffalo hunters arrived to deliver their contract of meat to feed the work force. They came with their wagons full, and after downloading fresh meat, would send a mountain of buffalo hides back to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Chance had to admit that roasted, baked or even boiled, the meat had a unique rich flavor he soon learned to enjoy.
Then there were a few oddballs like Calico Jack, a trapper and professional scout, and Preacher Goodfellow who was of an evangelical persuasion. Calico Jack had lived a long time among the Cheyenne and was by now more Indian than white. He dressed like one and had an Indian wife though he also had a white woman with children back in Omaha.
He often could be heard declaring, “The Indians have it right. There are no taxes, no bylaws or priests and preachers to pester you. You hunt, take care of your animals and enjoy what the seasons give you. It’s not an easy life, but you don’t have to work your fingers to the bone either.” He could sit around the campfire and could talk for days if one had the stamina to listen him out. It was claimed that when there was no one else there, he’d talk to himself. He kept tabs on the surrounding Indian tribes, advising the railroad what they were up to, whether they were content with the last bribe or angry over some slight.
Of the two, Preacher Goodfellow was the more irritating. He walked around camp with the Bible in his hand, giving sermons that often sounded like curses. Was there anything more unsettling, when you came out of a music hall tent, inebriated, stomach quaking, than running into this Bible thumping idiot calling down condemnation upon a poor sinner’s throbbing head? Goodfellow wasn’t very popular, but the authorities tolerated him, perhaps to curb some of the excesses people allowed themselves. He was seen as a sort of brakeman to slow the sin-train rushing headlong into perdition.
Chance soon got to know all of the engineers and the firemen loading coal or firewood into the locomotives. He knew whom he could trust and whom to keep an eye on. He also got along with McCoy, who scheduled the trains and assigned them their jobs for any given day. He got to know the foremen of the various crews, the specialists, the surveyors, the telegraph men, loading clerks, and, of course, the paymaster. Every Thursday he got paid, which he deposited into the Bank on Wheels that was also a part of the tent city.
Since Jesse was busy up front, keeping the track crews producing, Chance rarely saw him except on Sundays for a short time only, as Jesse liked to visit the music hall to see the girls sing and dance. Chance stayed away from money-sucking entertainment, spending his free time reading technical books or, when he could get it, Harper’s Weekly. Not that he was overly interested in what was happening back East; it was more to fill his head with facts exterior to his everyday activities. And maybe there was a faint hope that he would catch sight of Emily in print, maybe in the social column.
For the most part, veterans from both sides had made a sort of truce with each other, but still argued the war. “If general so-and-so would only have done this or that... the outcome would have been very different...” was a jump off point to many heated exchanges. History was being rewritten, rationalized.
“The fact is, it was all a useless slaughter. We killed as many Yankees as you killed of us. To what end? Sure the Union won, but are you any better off than we are? Lot of lives and money was wasted, and for what?”
“Well ask Bo here, maybe he could tell you.” A Union guy who lost three fingers and an ear in Shiloh pointed to a big black locomotive driver sitting beside them.
“All I know is I was born in Georgia but can’t go back there. There is too much hate and hostility. Yes I’m free, but still can’t go home...” Everyone was quiet for a time. They were all away from home and family, trying to find opportunity in the West, encountering mostly sweat and hardship. Chance kept his mouth shut: there was little use in arguing a man’s politics or religion.
In time Chance got into the habit of spending his free time with Calico Jack, listening to the man’s endless stories. They sat around a campfire in Indian fashion and whittled on something, just talking.
“By Dog Leg Creek, about two days west of here, there’s a trading post run by this mad Englishman, Bear Bolin, and he isn’t happy with us coming, breaking into his monopoly with the surrounding Indian tribes. The sly devil had some braves pick up the surveyor flags and reposition them. We lost a day when we slammed into a swamp. But we’re wise to him now…” Calico Jack sucked on his pipe, listening to the storyteller in his head, spinning out tale after tale. “Then Bolin got some young bucks to cut the telegraph line behind us, and for a piece of wire as evidence he would dole out a bottle of firewater. That worked for a while, until I started giving the Injuns pieces of wire myself for them to cash in back home. They got so drunk and out of hand that they nearly burned the Englishman out before he learned not to be so free with the firewater…” Calico Jack chuckled happily, stirring up the fire. “Recently Captain Maynard of the Union Frontier Contingent from Fort Peters rode out to Dog Leg Creek and warned Bolin not to interfere with the railroad or else he would be run out of the territory. He’s been quiet since, but you can’t trust the slippery eel bastard, he’s sure to stir up trouble with the natives. But I keep my eyes on him…”
On one occasion Chance rode out with Calico Jack on one of his look-and-see excursions to check on a hunting party of Paiutes camped a couple of hours ahead of the railhead. Coming upon 15 tents by a brook, they waited at the edge of the meadow until they were invited in. The Paiutes were nervous as this was close to Cheyenne territory with whom they were on hostile footing. This was the first time that Chance had a close look at “wild” Indians and he examined them curiously.
What he saw was a peaceful scene: horses grazed beyond the semicircle of hide tents. A man was skinning an antelope hanging from a rack. Women were cooking on open fires, fresh fish from the brook. Children and youth gazed open mouthed at the visitors, not having seen many white men before. The tent flaps were up, airing out the interiors. A pole overlooked the entrance, festooned with feathers, animal skins and what looked like human hair. Scalps! Chance caught Calico’s eyes, and motioned toward the hanging trophies. Among the display was an unmistakable Irish red.
“Have no concern. That was about 17 years ago when some fools in a wagon train thought to cross Paiute territory without paying a passage fee.” Chance looked with interest sharpened by a hint of apprehension. These were proud people, warriors, not the derelicts and beaten-down Injuns one saw sliding by in the shadow of white settlements throughout the west.
Calico Jack greeted the Chief, Iron Feathers, and they were invited to share the fire. The Chief had on a ceremonial robe of colorful weave and feathers; his gestures were sparse but welcoming. They settled down and Calico launched into a flow of Paiute tongue, apparently as verbose in that language as in English. Mostly the Chief just nodded his replies but his face was frozen into a bronze mask that Chance soon recognized as characteristic of the tribe. Calico handed over about two pounds of raw tobacco as an offering. This produced more chatter, and a ceremonial pipe appeared and was filled, lit and passed around. Chance nearly choked on the strong bite of the smoke. The Chief and Calico talked, that is, mostly Calico did. A young woman came and passed around smoked fish and wooden bowls of dried berries. For a while Chance tried to keep up with the conversation, guessing at what was being said. His eyes wandered around the campsite and caught sight of a young girl with long ash blond hair and fair skin. Calico noticed the look and said, “She’s white, taken in a raid sometime back. Now she’s all Indian and I doubt she even understands English anymore.”
“Shouldn’t we rescue her?”
“Are you insane? Take on the whole camp? She wouldn’t thank you, this is her home.”
“Maybe we could ransom her…” He had some coins, but these people didn’t use or value money, maybe only as a decoration to string into a chain to wear. He had his Sharp, a highly accurate single shot breechloader, the only thing on him that had some value—but that he couldn’t trade away. Calico talked with the Chief again who answered decisively.
“The girl is Skin Otter, daughter of Wounded Pride, soon to be married to a young brave here. As I told you she is full Injun now, and part of their family. They won’t let her go.” It didn’t sit well with Chance, but there was little he could do about it. He watched the girl, unsure if he should pity her but she looked happy enough.
They spent about two hours in the wash of smoke, which kept the insects away.
On the ride back, Calico explained, “Most tribes don’t kill women. They often use them as servants, sometimes trade them back or away. There’s no honor in killing women or taking their scalps. But they often adopt the very young and raise them as their own. She’s quite at home among them. Be lost among white folks.”
Chance was quiet the rest of the way. What was he feeling so bad about? The girl had a home, it was he who didn’t.
Chance shared a tent with Rusty, a big redheaded Scotsman who was in charge of supplies and ordering. He was rarely in, spending all his free time in Hell on Wheels until his money ran out. Then he would lounge on his cot shuffling his collection of French nudie cards. He tried to get Chance interested in them.
“Look at this floozy. I got this card in St. Louis on Canary Lane. Every second house there was a cathouse or a bar, often both.” He flashed a pale looking woman in her underclothes. When he got tired of his well-thumbed collection, he leafed through one of his many mail-order catalogues from Chicago. One could find everything in them from cosmetics to farm machinery. The sections on women’s fashions were the most dog-eared, displaying female intimate apparel, hats, and even wedding dresses. The finely drawn etchings showed women of class and bearing, a far cry from the overworked women for whom all the merchandise was intended. In the process of moving them from underfoot, Chance flipped through them, and came upon a depiction resembling Emily. After a time, he made it into a routine to cut out other similar pictures.
“Hey, you can’t hack up my pages like that,” Rusty complained resentfully, sure that Chance had cut out the juiciest selections, on the grounds of some religious objection and censorship.
Work-wise, Chance’s special project became the steam shovel and the rock crusher. Neither worked as designed and were prone to breakdowns, so he had to constantly tinker with tensions and settings before either would perform adequately. These were much used, abused machines working day and night, trying to keep up with the forward progress. Luckily the countryside they were passing through was fairly flat, requiring relatively little earth alteration. There was an odd hill to cut through, but more often it was a stream bed or washout to bridge. Wood and timber was brought in from the forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin, sand and gravel from quarries more to the south, rail and ironware from Chicago and beyond. Thus progress was determined largely by the efficiency of the transportation system.
Crossing a wide, dried-out river bed required a quarter mile of trestle bridge, put together from prefabricated elements made somewhere back East. Chance got to appreciate why the government was spending $48,000 per mile on this project. One way or another, the whole country was involved in this construction which the newspapers called the largest ever in the history of man, eclipsing even the achievements of the Erie Canal.
Of course not all of that money made it to the construction. There were constant rumors of huge sums that ended up in the directors’ pockets and how shares were manipulated to bilk the public of even larger sums. There were whispers of bribes, kickbacks and even blackmail to coerce lawmakers to pass favorable legislation. These questionable financial practices repeatedly pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy, needing to be saved by fresh infusions of public funds. The company was always looking for new investors.
Following the progress of the railhead, company realtors sold lands and lots adjoining the railroad right of way, from the land grants ceded to them by Washington. This led to a land rush and uncontrolled speculation. The company did everything to milk the cow dry. Often naive buyers from the East arrived to find that what they had bought wasn’t quite as advertised.
In the wake of construction, towns sprang up, often in the footprints of where Hell on Wheels had been. Some flourished for a while, but most just withered away as the railhead moved further off taking business with it. Still, places were left with names like Hellhole, Hellbent, Devilsgulch, Temptation and Dissolution Junction. If in time the place acquired some respectability, the inhabitants changed the name to something more proper, like Hallelujah Corners.
Chance was stimulated by the energy that drove the project. The backend of the company might be tainted by corruption, but the front end where the work was done had a strange sense of momentum driven by missionary zeal. Forward, forward was the written and unwritten battle cry. And forward it went, at any cost. The reckless pace gave little thought to workers’ safety so people died regularly and were buried along the way. For a while people remembered, and called a grave site The Shawnessy Mile or O’Brian’s Rest. One could see these crosses by the track in passing from the train window.
If progress being made on the ground, on the map it appeared discouragingly slow. The two snakes, one from the East and one from the West, hardly seemed to move at all.
In the morning, Chance walked from his tent and looked out at the unending countryside ahead. The end of day hardly changed that perspective. It seemed impossible that they would ever reach the end and complete the task. Yet the vision drove them on. In the East, where they did not see the distances nor the up and down contours of the land, the undertaking seemed more feasible, just a line across the map. And then after so much money had already been spent, there were no other options but to continue, regardless of costs or crookedness and back-room dealings.
The day to day reality was that Chance got his hands dirty inspecting the locomotives, managing spare parts, reordering, fixing things. Every day he ended up greasy and smeared with oil, and even his food tasted of it. He liked pouring new brass bushings for joints around shafts to ease the friction of moving parts. He liked dismantling the firebox of a locomotive getting into the pipes, clearing them of rust. In fact the dirtier a job was, the keener he was to fix it and make it work effectively. The work satisfied him, and the pace didn’t let him have the time to worry about the future or puzzle where Emily could be. Still, from an occasional thought, she grew into a presence that was always in the background, whether he was working or at rest. And in his mind there was a silent dialogue between them, sometimes so intense, that looking up he fully expected her to be there in front of him.
For two solid weeks it rained. Work went on until flash floods threatened the railhead, forcing a halt to all forward progress. Chance had time to catch up on his outstanding work, then suddenly nothing was left to be done. He spent time in his tent, keeping away from the wet sides, trying to ignore Rusty who was celebrating a new batch of cards with a stereoscopic viewer to give three dimensional depth to an image. He was pushing for Chance to look.
“See, almost like the real thing. As if you could reach out there and touch warm, live flesh...” He was close to drooling.
Finally Chance had to leave, but the sight had stirred him up, and he spent about an hour in the shelter of an overhang carving Emily’s name into the rock. It puzzled him that he did that, had no good reason too, but there it was, incised into stone. (Months later, on a journey for supplies to the base depot, he passed the spot, and to his surprise found a hamlet there with the name Emily’s Junction that had to have come from his inscription. He felt odd, as if he had given life to the place.)
That night he puzzled the strange hold Emily had on him. He had rescued her once, a long time ago, and that had always felt as if he had saved himself and somehow he had been reborn into the being he was today. But what exactly was that? Neither here nor there, perpetually caught in-between destinations even farther apart.
The construction came to a rocky ridge that had to be crossed, as the way around it was too far and tortuous. There was nothing for it but to blast their way through. Holes were hammered into the rock face, filled with black powder and detonated, to blast them a yard forward. Again and again. Then attack the loosened rock with pick axes and shovels, trying to clear it away. Chance was in charge of the steam shovel, loading the debris onto the train to cart it away. And the rock crusher was working day and night, making useable gravel. They spent eight days on that obstruction, chipping away at it a painful yard at a time.
“Sweet Jesus,” Jesse wondered. “What’ll it be like when we slam into the mountains?”
“I hear the Central Pacific uses a new kind of explosive that is almost twice as effective,” Chance quoted from his reading. “Something called nitroglycerin.”
“Why aren’t we using it?”
“It’s very unstable and dangerous, likely to blow up in your face. There are reports of many killed by using it carelessly.”
“Them lot on the west can afford the losses. They have an unending supply of Chinese laborers coming through San Francisco,” Jesse commented.
Hardly had they gained some height when there was a gulch to bridge. Using the prefabricated elements a trestle was quickly built and on they went, the snake twisting around and over each obstacle. Rain or shine the work went on in mud or dust, continually adding miles. Then, in the evenings, if one still had energy to spare, there was always the roaring excitement of Hell on Wheels to tempt one.
Occasionally, a bigwig from the East put in a visit, to inspect the progress. He would arrive in a special Pullman car outfitted for his comfort, often with an entourage. Safe in his crowd, he would gawk at the dirt, at the sweat of the men and at the vulgarity of Hell on Wheels. He would drink whiskey and smoke cigars with the bosses and supervisors and give them a speech that had nothing to do with the everyday grind and challenges of moving the railroad forward. These visitors never stayed long, but took back with them tales of roughing it on the frontier.
Chance was comfortable with the rhythm of the work, and the hardship and rudimentary living didn’t bother him. He shaved each morning, kept himself as clean as he could, and looked ahead to the next day. His one source of irritation was his section boss, McCormick, who couldn’t let go of the past but harped on the loss of his brothers and denigrated Southern veterans every chance he got. It irked him to keep Chance so close, but he needed Chance’s expertise to keep his trains running. Chance tried to keep out of his way, but when they met, there was always a spark of hostility.
“Hey, Johnny Reb, we do an honest day’s work here. We don’t have slaves to pamper us,” McCormick would taunt, or the like. Always a dig, always an insult.
There was plenty of friction in the camp. But it wasn’t the veterans of the Union and Confederate armies that were the worst―no, they had their bellies full of fighting already; it was Irish against the rest. They didn’t like the English, the blacks, the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Indians and couldn’t even get along with each other. All of them were of contentious temperament.
Picking up his pay, Chance observed the one armed clerk enter his name into the records with his left hand. He noticed Chance looking at the stump and snapped out “Fredericksburg.” Chance nodded, thinking him likely a Northerner, for the Union had lost three times as many men as had the South. “Had to learn to write with my left hand.”
On the whole, the blacks kept to themselves. They had their own tents, own kitchen, own laundry and by and large entertained themselves. Singing could be often heard, music and the beat of drums. They practiced voodoo, it was claimed and both the priest and preacher warned their congregations to stay clear of their women.
Actually the Southerners got along better with the blacks, having a shared history that taught them to tolerate each other, but the Northerners often didn’t know what to start with Negroes. They did not recognize each other’s signals, way of talking and behaving, since the cultures were so alien. The fact was that a big black man swung the meanest hammer to drive down the dog spikes that pinched the rails firmly to the railroad ties. That alone earned some respect.
When Chance had some time, he wrote letters to the Sutcliffes and his sons in the care of the Neelys. He quickly described his work on the railroad and the challenges the construction faced. To Adam he wrote about his visit to the Paiute camp. In the store he had found some painted cards of Indians in native costumes which he stuffed into an envelope with a sepia brown photo of himself. He looked a little severe holding still so long for the camera. He posted it the next day. The postmaster assured him that in two days it would be in St. Louis and then by riverboat to Baton Rouge in perhaps 4 or 5 more days.
Once and only once, Chance entered the saloon tent named Devil’s Delight, found it full of men drinking, gambling and trying to pinch the serving ladies as they passed. A bar extended along one side backstopped by a long crystal mirror, reflecting the large, beefy bartender pouring out drinks. To the side a piano played energetically, and a woman with too much makeup was crooning an Irish favorite. Scantily dressed waitresses were among the tables serving drinks.
“What will it be Sugar?” Chance turned to find a (patently false) red head looking down at him. “We have beer, whiskey and some bourbon, what’s your pleasure?” She, like the rest, had on ladies’ undergarments and Chance found it hard to keep his eyes off her.
“How about some red wine?” Chance asked, remembering the fine vintage served at the Captain’s table on the Orion.
“We don’t get much call for wine and don’t carry it. There are some Italian mapmakers across the camp, who drink something they call wine, but it tastes more like turpentine.” Chance settled on beer. When it arrived it was refreshingly cool. He sipped his drink slowly, observing the place. Smoke obscured the air, as people puffed on pipes, cigars and on newfangled cigarettes. From the comings and goings it was obvious that there were separate sections in the back where private pleasures were served. Adjacent was a bench and five men were sitting on it waiting their turn.
A card game broke up at the nearby table, and among those who rose was McCormick, drunk and ugly already, but he was delighted to discover Chance there.
“Why now Johnnie, here to get some poontang?” he roared out loud to embarrass Chance. “Don’t pick Nelli, she’ll squeal like a piglet when being porked. You can hear her all over the camp. Pick the Mexican bitch, she’ll give you a right proper ride.” And he brayed like a jackass. His companions dragged him outside.
Chance finished his drink and quietly left. Outside he heard squeals sounding from the back of the tent, and he now understood the reason for it.
Hung over next morning McCormick became even more vitriolic on seeing Chance. “Jefferson Davis was a crook, should’ve been charged with war crimes. The Southerners were fools to follow him. But what would you expect from a bunch of illiterate louts, with all their inbreeding and clutches of bastards. Nothing to do all day but drink bourbon and diddle their slaves...”
Then he started in on the soldiers of the South, calling them cowards and a bunch of undisciplined bushwhackers. “Most had no proper uniforms, nothing but white trash who raped and pillaged every chance they got...” When he ran out of new accusations, he simply repeated himself. The drunker he was, the uglier he got.
At first, Chance was able to shrug it off, but in time the irritation grew and he found it hard not to retaliate in kind.
“One of these days, I’m going to punch that loudmouth ass,” Chance confided to Jesse.
“That’s what he’s waiting for, so he can fire you and be justified in front of his boss.”
“Sometimes I don’t care. I don’t have to work here, you know.”
“I know. But don’t get in bad with the Irish mob, they outnumber us three to one.”
Then every contact turned into some form of harassment. For some reason Chance really irritated the man, and he couldn’t get past it. Perhaps, in some twisted fashion, he identified Chance as the very enemy who killed his brothers. The attacks switched from the South to focus on Chance personally.
When bad weather finally interrupted the work with freezing cold that turned the ground to stone, the work gangs returned to their marshalling yard in Julesburg, to spend the winter in the tent city there. It was a definite step up in comfort, as the shelters were semi-permanent and there were solid buildings for group activities. The kitchen served better prepared food, and as Hell on Wheels also returned, there was plenty of entertainment. Poor buggers, who had saved their money, now frittered it away on not so cheap amusements.
Chance spent his time building a model locomotive, 1 to 25 scale, thinking it would make a great gift for his sons when he finally got back to them. It was time to replace the army of soldiers they played with something more constructive. He worked long hours in the depot’s machine shop, making small metal pieces for a replica of Robert E. Lee, down to the finest detail. There was not much else to do: the locomotives had been sent back to Chicago for the annual servicing and refit. So Chance kept busy and finally had the model ready just in time before the shop too was shut down by the bitter cold.
Chance had built a ten foot track right inside the tent, and when he fired up the boiler, the machine worked perfectly... until it ran out of track. The rest of the time he read, or designed machines for various tasks, like conveyor belts to raise grain into silos, a cogwheel tram to go up steep hillsides, multi blade saws to slice lumber, and his perennial favorite, a perpetual motion machine.
His tentmate was hardly there. Either he was gambling or working in the kitchen to pay off his losses. Outside a frigid wind from the west buffeted the canvas sides of the tent. The stove was chock full of blazing wood until the top glowed red, trying to keep the interior warm. On some nights Chance had to wear all his clothes and covers, glad for the warmth of a buffalo robe he bought off an Indian. Yet, the cold did not bother Chance as much as the inactivity. Lying in bed, staring at the canvas roof lashed by the wind, he was reminded of Hellmira, just waiting out the slow passage of time.
He often thought of his life, the places he had been and wondered what lay ahead. He found it strange how Anabelle faded from his memory, though she bore him two sons―but not Emily. She remained sharp and clear, as if he had seen her yesterday. But which Emily? The young girl in a dark hall? The married woman on a cruise? Or the selfless nurse who had taken care of him and saved his life? It often was as if he had the company of all three at once. These recollections warmed him through the freezing heart of winter.
Milder weather finally arrived, tempting people outside; work would resume soon once the spring rains stopped. One sunny afternoon, Chance was crossing the lane on some duckboards and was about to step onto the sidewalk when suddenly McCormick lurched into his path, drunk as usual.
“Get out of my way you Southern scum!” the man roared, his breath stinking of alcohol. He took a step forward to push Chance off the boards.
“Not this time, Irish,” Chance hissed, holding his ground. McCormick took an awkward swing at him, but Chance easily avoided the uncoordinated punch. He struck back: a left to the gut, doubling the man over, followed with a solid right to the jaw that laid him flat, out cold. Chance stepped over the body and strode back to his tent. He packed up his stuff and stepped outside to be confronted by the Irish gang of eight men, some with cudgels and brass knuckles.
“So, it’s come to this,” Chance said calmly. Pulling a loaded Colt from under his coat, he pointed it and said with deadly seriousness, “I got six shots in this. I’ll let you decide which six of you’ll die.” He waited but no one made a move. “Then you better let me by.” They stepped out of his way.
Chance marched over to the paymaster and asked for what he was owed.
“But it’s not Thursday,” the clerk protested.
“I think I’d better leave today.” Chance pointed to the window outside, where a large bunch of the Irish was forming up. The clerk scurried to the strong box, counted out the money, and Chance signed for it.
Chance took out a cigar, put a match to it, puffed to make sure it was well lit, then took a stick of black powder from his pack.
“I don’t want any trouble here,” the clerk protested much alarmed, diving under his counter.
Chance stepped outside and eyed the crowd of about twenty with a bruised McCormick in front. They looked back at him, their focus riveted on the stick of explosive with a short fuse.
Chance puffed on the cigar, then flicked the ash off the end to reveal its glow. “Does anybody want anything from me?”
Silence followed. McCormick lurched forward, growling, “Sure as hell do...”
A big man stepped up to his drunken countryman and felled him with a solid punch. He looked at Chance and grunted, “You best not come back.”
Chance walked off to the sidings where a train was puffing smoke and steam, ready for a trip back east. Chance swung aboard, took a seat, and in twenty minutes the train was on its way. In the curve of the track Chance had a last glimpse of camp, and the rolling land further west yet to be conquered. He felt oddly light. He’d enjoyed the work, but aside from it there was little else to feed his spirit. Now he was free to start again―anything he wanted. He just didn’t yet know what. But the lethargy of the prison’s aftermath was gone; he was ready to undertake anything.
The train clattered along the track, Chance’s eyes lost in the backward rush of the countryside. Occasionally he saw a cross sticking up from the grass, and he remembered who was buried there. Let them build the transcontinental by themselves, he had his train Robert, the largest piece in his luggage. He was sure Andrew would love it. Then he thought of Gage, having less of a sense of him. What would he like? What had he grown into?
On a familiar stretch, the train pulled past Emily’s Junction, already abandoned and fading back into prairie grass. Chance was saddened by the sight; his life often felt the same, distant and unrealized.
From the next depot, Chance sent Jesse a telegram, saying good-bye. He was done with railroading; let them build the country without him. In his hotel he took a long bath, got a haircut and a shave in a place along Main Street, and for the first time in months, felt clean... and free.