Mary was walking along the railroad tracks and thinking about trains. She liked to think about trains. She had come west from New York City on an orphan train a few years after the war and a year before the trains came to life. She didn’t remember much from the city except for hunger, a crowded room, and quarreling children. She and some of the other children had been pulled from an orphanage, bundled onto a train, and sent west for a new life away from the dirty, crowded city. On the train west, she was given food and a seat all of her own. Many of the children were scared and some cried, but for the first time in her life Mary was happy.
She had been adopted by the Miller family and immediately put to work. From morning until night, there were chores to do. There was cooking, cleaning, laundry, and mending. Outside, there was a garden to plant, weed, and harvest. There were eggs to collect and chickens to be slaughtered. She cared for the younger children, was bullied by the older, and she waited on the guests that came to the Miller home.
One of her early memories was hearing Mr. Miller and his friends talk about the trains. They argued about why the trains had come to life and what should be done about it. They talked about a silver hammer driving a golden spike to complete the railroad that ran across the country, and Mary treasured that image in her mind. She pictured trains waking up from a long slumber, stretching out, and running as fast as they could along the tracks.
Mr. Miller and the other men had a less happy vision of the trains. They talked about trains not stopping when and where they should. They talked of helping the railroad men bring the trains back under control by starving them of the coal and water that they needed, and by blocking the tracks on which they ran. But the trains were not ready to be controlled again. They refused to run at all, or they ran dangerously fast. And then there were some people, Mr. Miller called them traitors, who helped the trains.
Finally, an uneasy truce emerged. The trains began to run more on schedule than not. The railroad men helped to keep them operating with coal, water, and occasional repairs to the rails. There was no communicating with the trains, but this was the arrangement that seemed to work. People didn’t ride in the same numbers as before and freight cars were less numerous, but the trains were still the fastest way to get from one place to another — as long as they stopped. They stopped often enough in the little town of Greenville that the Millers and their friends stopped talking about trains, but Mary never stopped thinking about them.
Now, ten years after she had arrived on the train, Mary was growing from a girl into a young woman. She felt awkward, and she was unsure how to move or stand in this new body. Her unruly dark hair that had been an inconvenience when she was younger now seemed like a curse. Mrs. Miller let her know regularly that she wasn’t very pretty and was a poor prospect for a wife.
Sometimes Mary wondered what might be out there for her in the wider world. She thought about leaving the Millers and maybe the town of Greenville entirely. She tried once and got as far as the railroad station, but she had no money and the railroad men wouldn’t let her board the train. After that, she saved what little she could, hiding it under a floorboard in her attic room, but she earned so little that it seemed impossible she would ever have enough money to leave.
Mrs. Miller noticed Mary watching the trains and dreaming. The older woman never failed to remind Mary of how much she owed them. “Dead in the streets or worse,” Mrs. Miller said. “That would have been your life had we not adopted you.”
The adoption and the reminder that she would never be fully part of the family was a constant in her life. There were others who came to Greenville on the orphan train, but they had very different experiences. They were members of a family, part of the community. They had gone to school and played along the river. They were confirmed into the church. They found employment or they worked alongside their new family. The older ones were married by now. Mary was never part of that group. She had chores.
On that particular spring day, she was sucking on a peppermint and returning to the Miller home with sugar, flour, and coffee. Mrs. Miller didn’t always trust her to go to the grocer, but Mary had been particularly good the past week. The railroad track wasn’t the shortest route back home, but it was her favorite. In the distance, she could see the smoke of a locomotive. She heard the pop of the rails as it got closer, and she wondered if it would stop in Greenville. You could never be sure.
Mary stepped from one crosstie to the next with her basket of groceries in her hand. When she returned to the house, Mrs. Miller would scold her for taking too long and put her to work cleaning. Mr. Miller would stand in the doorway, watching her work.
And Mary realized she didn’t want to go back.
The train could hit her, and she would be out of the Miller home and the town of Greenville for good. She could dodge at the last minute, dumping the groceries that Mrs. Miller had paid for, and let the train roll by, but then Mrs. Miller would be even angrier. The train might see her and stop, but what did trains care about one girl on the railroad track?
Her feet kept moving forward toward the oncoming train.
Mary heard the shrieking of the brakes. The train was slowing but there wouldn’t be time for it to stop before reaching her. How fast would it be going? How much would it hurt if she didn’t jump? She continued to walk forward determined to see how close she could get.
The train stopped. She was seconds away from jumping out of the way or being hit, but the train came to a stop in a cloud of hissing steam.
A door opened on the locomotive and a stooped, gray-haired man stepped down. He wore a dirty uniform, and a conductor’s cap was perched on his head. He reminded Mary of the crew on the orphan train that brought her west. He motioned for her to come forward, but she hesitated.
“Why did you stop?”
“Didn’t,” the conductor said. “The train stopped. Get on board.” He closed the door to the locomotive and waited.
Mary turned toward town. The Miller home wasn’t very far away, and she thought she could see Mrs. Miller on the front porch watching for her to return with the groceries. She imagined the woman muttering complaints about her adopted child. There would have to be a punishment for being late. No sweets, no trip to the grocer, no time off on Sunday. Extra chores.
Finally, Mary stepped off the tracks and looked down the length of the train. There was the locomotive followed by the coal tender and then a string of passenger cars. A few heads popped out of the windows to see why the train had stopped. A man and woman jumped out of one of the cars and ran toward town. The man was burdened by two suitcases but paused long enough to holler, “Don’t get on. She might never stop.”
The conductor checked his pocket watch and looked at Mary. A man leaning out of the window shouted at her. “Come on, lady. This train ain’t moving until you get on.”
“Why me?” she asked the conductor.
He shrugged. “Who can say. The trains will do what the trains will do. We only ride along.”
Mary turned back to the Miller house. The figure on the front porch was looking her way now. She was sure of it. She could picture Mrs. Miller, hands on her hips, glaring at the train and her missing groceries.
Mary set down the basket and stepped forward. She was no thief, and Mrs. Miller could still collect her things. Maybe she’d even find the coins under the floorboard in Mary’s room. “Where are we going?”
Again the conductor shrugged. “Wherever the train takes us.”
—— «» ——
They entered the first passenger car. The conductor had to help Mary up. “Had a step stool,” he said. “But it got left behind when the train started moving a little quicker than I expected.”
There was a jolt as the train began to move and Mary grabbed hold of a seat back to steady herself. As the train picked up speed, it settled into a gentle, soothing sway.
The old man took her through the train. “There’s a boy up front who shovels coal,” he said. “No need for an engineer or a brakeman anymore. The train decides where to go and when to get there.”
The passengers were a mix of people. Many knew where they wanted to go, although some of them had missed their destinations when the train rolled through Lafayette and Bradford without stopping. Others were riding because they had nowhere to go.
“Why am I here?” Mary said.
“Where do you want to be?” the conductor asked.
Mary wasn’t sure she knew the answer and said nothing.
He took her to the very last car. “The caboose is where the crew sleeps. That’ll be your spot.”
“I’m not part of the crew.”
“Are you a passenger? Did you pay your fare?”
“No. I don’t know what I am. I was just walking home.”
“Really?”
Mary stopped to think about that. Was it her home? Or was it the Miller home? Her name became Mary Miller when she was adopted, but in her dreams she was still Mary Black. “It was where I lived. I had groceries.”
“And now you have no groceries and are on a train. Maybe you were walking home.”
—— «» ——
The conductor said she was part of the crew, but he didn’t assign her any work. When Mary asked, all he said was, “You’ll learn what to do. Pay attention to the train.”
While she waited to learn, Mary found things to do to keep herself occupied. The passenger cars weren’t very clean, so she began by collecting trash and sweeping. That was something she knew how to do well enough and somehow, without Mrs. Miller bossing and Mr. Miller watching, what was once a chore now became a pleasure. She took pride in how much nicer the passenger cars looked under her care.
At the next stop, Mary welcomed new passengers and said goodbye to those who disembarked. When the train was moving again, Mary took time to listen as the passengers told her their stories. Some were headed to a new home, some were going to or coming from visiting family, some were traveling for business reasons, and some never gave a reason for being on the train but they still had a story to tell.
When the train stopped, the conductor would send Mary to a store to replenish their supplies. Mary worried that the train would leave without her, but it never did. There was always time for her to bring food back to the train and take some of it to the locomotive.
The boy who worked there was black with coal dust and sweat. From behind that dark mask were two bright eyes and a shy smile. “Toby,” he said by way of introduction.
He appeared to be about Mary’s age, but it was hard to tell under all that grime. He was short but with broad shoulders and strong arms. He moved like a well-oiled machine as he shoveled fuel into the boiler. The locomotive was hotter than baking bread in the summer. The engine rumbled and hissed and clanked. There was room enough for two if they didn’t mind being close, and Mary didn’t. She studied the many levers and dials while Toby gulped down water. “How’d you get this job?” she asked.
Toby bit off a hunk of bread before speaking. “The train stopped. The old fireman said he needed a helper and it looked better than sharecropping. He left the train and now it’s just me up here.”
Mary wanted to stay in the locomotive, but she knew the passengers would need looking after. When she returned to the cars, the train again began to move.
—— «» ——
There was a man on the train who kept looking at Mary. He was tall with heavy boots that made him look taller still. He dressed well and might even be considered handsome were it not for the sour expression on his face. His gaze reminded her of the way Mr. Miller had begun to look at her.
The almost handsome man approached her while she was mopping the floor of a gently rocking passenger car. “You must be pretty important,” he said.
“I’m nobody special,” Mary said. “I just clean the train.”
“The train stopped for you. Not at a train stop, not because you were waiting. It just stopped.”
The passenger car shook, and Mary was thrown off balance. She dropped her mop and fell into an empty seat. The man fell backward to the floor. The bucket of dirty water tipped over, washing across his slacks, and he cursed.
“I’m so sorry,” Mary said instinctively.
The man rose to his feet. “Just an accident. Some of the rails on this line need to be repaired. With a little luck, we’ll get it fixed soon.”
“You’re with the railroad?”
“Henry Moore, railroad agent, at your service. But let me change out of these wet clothes before we continue our conversation.”
Mary found the conductor in the front car leaning out the door. It frightened Mary who imagined the old man falling out, but he assured her he was always safe on the train. “Just wondering if she’ll stop,” he said after pulling himself back in. “Got a passenger who wants off at the next town. He’s a nag. Wouldn’t mind getting rid of him but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over him missing his station either.”
“I was wondering about a different man,” Mary said. “The tall one who always looks unhappy. He’s with the railroad.”
The conductor nodded. “He’s been riding for a while. Don’t know what he’s up to. Toby said he came up to the locomotive at one stop and started nosing around.”
“I don’t think he likes me very much,” Mary said. “When the train shook back there, he fell down and got soaked with water from my mop bucket.”
The conductor shook his head. “I didn’t feel her shake. She’s riding nice and steady.”
—— «» ——
Mary was cleaning one of the sleeping compartments. An angry businessman had been the last occupant, and he had to stay on the train two stations past his destination because the train decided not to stop. The man expressed his displeasure by deliberately missing the spittoon and littering the floor with empty Century tobacco packets.
From the corridor outside, Mary heard Henry Moore. “I was a bit worried when we missed two stops,” he said.
“The train will do what she will do,” the conductor replied.
“Oh, I think you have a little more influence over the train than you realize. A train likes its conductor, or the conductor doesn’t last long.”
Mary wondered if she should be hearing this conversation, but she felt trapped. If she left the sleeping compartment now, she would call attention to herself. If she stayed, she might hear more than she was supposed to. There had been a few times when Mrs. Miller thought Mary had been eavesdropping and she ended up with a whipping. On the other hand, there were a few times when she’d overheard something useful. She stayed in the small compartment and kept quiet.
“We’ll have a number of passengers waiting to get on at the next stop,” Moore said. “The town has always been good for us and it’s very important we stick to the schedule. If they don’t ride, we don’t get paid.”
“I can’t tell you what the train will do,” the conductor said.
“No, but you can tell the train what you want it to do.”
“Nobody’s figured out how to talk to the trains.”
“It knows what you want. If you want it to stop — I mean, really want it to — it will stop as scheduled.”
“I let the train take care of the stopping and starting. I stick to my job.”
Mary heard something heavy thud against the wall of the sleeping compartment and she jumped. The conductor cried out in pain, and Moore hissed something too low for Mary to make out. She reached for the door to help the conductor when Moore’s voice returned to normal. “It’s up to you. If you don’t want that to happen to her, you’ll make sure we stop.”
Mary paused, listening to Moore’s heavy boots as he left the car. Were they talking about her, she wondered? She opened the door and saw the conductor slumped against the wall. “Are you hurt?” she asked.
He shook his head and Mary saw that his eyes were wet before he turned away.
—— «» ——
The train did decide to stop at the next town. Passengers got off; passengers got on. The railroad man stayed on board.
The next day, the train left the main line and headed into a switchyard. “Why are we stopping here?” one of the passengers asked.
Mary shrugged. “The train will do what it will do. I expect we won’t be here long.”
They came to a stop. Passengers and crew stared out the windows. There were lines and lines of branching tracks. Water towers stood ready to fill the boilers. Mountains of coal waited to be shoveled into the hoppers that fed the engines. Freight cars, passenger cars, locomotives, and cabooses were all scattered about the yard. Men were making repairs to a few of the cars and a locomotive was being prepared to leave. Some older men sat on benches sharing a bottle and watching the trains.
Their own locomotive stopped under a water tower. Toby had warned Mary and the conductor that they would need to fill the boiler soon, but the train knew where to go.
“This is where I get off,” the conductor said after the locomotive was made ready.
“I wouldn’t mind a chance to walk around myself,” Mary said.
“I don’t mean that. I’m done riding the train.”
“Here? But why? Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I’m old and tired,” he said. “More than that, I’m weak. It’s time for me to move on.”
“No!” Mary said. “I’ll come with you. You stopped for me. I can help you.”
“It wasn’t me that stopped,” the conductor said. “From here, I go alone. Your place is with the train.” He passed her his conductor’s cap and pocket watch.
“I’m just a girl! I can clean the cars, but I don’t know how to be a conductor.”
“Be good to the train and the train will be good to you.”
Mary moved to step out of the car to join him, but the train started to roll out and she was jostled backward. The conductor waved goodbye as the train picked up speed and left the yard. She shoved the watch into a pocket but couldn’t quite bring herself to put the cap on her head.
—— «» ——
The train stopped next on a siding in a lonely prairie. A small herd of cattle turned to study them. When they saw no threat, they resumed grazing. Mary checked the pocket watch and realized that Toby must be ready for some fresh water. She hurried to fill a jug and grabbed an apple. The railroad agent was already in the locomotive when Mary arrived.
“The train likes both of you,” Henry Moore said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have stopped to pick you up or stop for Toby here to get a drink and some food.”
“I’m nobody special,” Mary said. “The train liked the conductor, but he had to leave. Maybe the train likes me today but won’t like me tomorrow.”
Toby took the apple and nodded. “You can’t tell with a train.”
“Trains aren’t like people,” Moore said. “I’ve studied them. They’re slow to make a decision but stick with it once it’s done. The train decided it was time for a new conductor and it chose you.”
“So what?” It was hot here by the boiler and crowded with the three of them in the cab. Mary didn’t know how the coal boy could stand it for hours at a time, but he did it and kept the train rolling.
“You have to see we can’t continue like this,” Moore said. “The trains need to be controlled. The railroad companies are hurting and if they fail, who will keep the trains running?”
“We will,” Toby said around a mouthful of apple, the fruit now black as coal.
“You two? Who’s going to lay new track, repair the engines, bring in the water and the coal to keep them all running? It’s fine for you to shovel coal and mop floors, but it takes a company to keep the trains running.”
“You still make your money when people ride the trains,” Mary said.
“Not like we should. Look at what the trains are doing to the schedules. Sometimes they come on time, other times they’re early or late. Sometimes they don’t stop at all. How can we have a railroad that operates like that?”
“Why are you asking me?” Mary said. “What can I do about it?”
“The train likes you. You can help us take back control of the train. This train and then others until we have all of them back under control. There are repairs that need to be done but how do we lay rails when we don’t know if a train might decide to come barreling down the track?”
“The rails look fine to me,” said Toby.
“And that’s why you won’t keep the trains running,” Moore said. “You don’t know what to look for.”
“I know you hurt the conductor,” Mary said. “I don’t think I want to help you.” Mary had tried to tell Mrs. Miller that once. It had not gone well for her. She didn’t have much hope this would be better, but she was going to try.
Moore took a step forward. So did the coal boy.
“She said she’s not helping you,” Toby said and dropped what was left of his apple.
The railroad agent pulled a double-barreled derringer from a pocket and waved it from Toby to Mary to Toby again. “Back,” he said. “This isn’t a negotiation. All I’m telling you to do is talk to the train about how important it is to stop. Everything else stays the same. You ride the train. Maybe you even get a salary from the railroad. The train’s happy. You’re happy. The railroad makes money.”
Mary kept an eye on the gun. “The train will just find another conductor. One who doesn’t ask it to do things it doesn’t want to do.”
“If it does, we’ll do the same thing with the next conductor. It just means you won’t be on the train. Look, we’ve learned a few things since the trains started running on their own. They like people. They need people. Without people, they’ve got no reason to live. So we need people who can tell the trains to do what we want them to do. You could be one of those people. You could really go places.”
Mary looked at the gun and looked at Toby. She thought she saw the boy shake his head ever so slightly. “I can’t do it,” she said. “The train has to do what it wants to do.”
Moore cocked the hammer of his pistol. “I can shovel coal as well as this boy. We’re going to do this. It’s your choice who’s shoveling coal for you.”
“Wait,” Mary said. “I’ll help you. Just put the gun away.”
Moore didn’t put it away, but he did ease up on the hammer. “Do it,” he said.
Mary reached a hand out to steady herself. She grasped the no-longer-needed throttle and felt a little tremor in her hand. This is it, she thought. We’re either all going to stand up to the railroad company or we’re all going to end up doing what they want.
Something told Mary to grip the controls more tightly. The fingers of her left hand tightened. The water jug hung heavy in her right. She looked at Toby and saw the coal boy shift to widen his stance. The engine roared and the train lurched forward. Taken by surprise, Moore struggled to stay on his feet.
Toby pulled back on his coal shovel and it clanged against the boiler. Moore brought the gun back up as he fought to regain his balance.
Coal dust arced from the shovel as Toby swung it up at Moore’s head. In the narrow space, there wasn’t room for the boy to bring the full force of his muscles into play. The shovel connected, Moore’s finger tightened, and the gun exploded. Mary’s ears rang from the noise.
The train was accelerating faster than Mary had ever felt it move before. She realized it must have decoupled from the passenger cars and wondered what the passengers were thinking. She had no time to dwell on that thought. Moore had fallen but so had Toby. The boy was clutching at his side with one hand, and the railroad man was again raising his gun. Mary stepped forward, swinging the jug down on Moore’s hand as hard as she could. She had lost the conductor and she was not going to lose Toby as well. The ceramic jug smashed into the railroad man’s fingers and he screamed in pain.
When the gun fell loose, she grabbed it. It was heavier than she expected and hot in her hand. She was shaking and wasn’t sure she actually knew how to fire the gun, but she pointed it at Moore all the same.
“Are you hurt?” she said over her shoulder to Toby.
“Winged me. I’ll be all right.” The coal boy stood up and took the pistol from Mary. Blood was seeping through the coal dust on his left side.
The train slowed and Moore looked up at the two of them. “You ever fire a gun before, boy? You don’t want to pull that trigger,” he said. “You’ll get hurt worse than me.”
“Maybe,” Toby said. “Might be worth it.”
Mary reached out and put her hand on Toby’s back to let him know she was there. “We’ll see what the train thinks about it,” she said.
The locomotive slowed to a stop and the cab door opened. Moore pulled himself up to his feet. Blood was trickling down his face from where the shovel hit, and one finger stuck out at an unnatural angle. “You’ll regret this,” he said.
“The train wants you to leave,” Mary said.
Moore backed out of the door, keeping an eye on Toby and the gun. The door closed and the locomotive began to ease back to recouple with the rest of the cars. Toby moaned and pulled off his shirt. Blood flowed down his side. “Think I cracked a rib,” he said.
Mary took the gun from Toby and set it down carefully. “I’ll get you cleaned up,” she said. “Then I’ll go check with the passengers. There’s a few on board that would be happy to help.”
Toby nodded. “And don’t forget your cap. Conductor.”
—— « o » ——
Maurice Forrester is a software developer living in central New York. Recent publications include stories in Middle Planet, Daily Science Fiction, The First Line, and Unrealpolitik (JayHenge Publishing). Long interest in both 19th century American history and in train songs helped to inform this piece.