Chance Encounters, page 20
“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.
