Reed stood and extended his hand across the desk. “So, we’re agreed?”
“Agreed.” Young stood and grasped Reed’s hand. “Our men need the work. The locusts have destroyed our crops the last three years running. We still have to feed our families.”
Will was glad he didn’t have to exert the effort necessary to feed such a large family. He remembered how hard he and his mother had struggled just to take care of the two of them.
The next day, Will and his uncle said goodbye to Reed and Blickensderfer outside the Wells Fargo stage station. Since Seymour wasn’t an early riser, they’d managed to avoid him.
“Homer,” Will’s uncle said, “stay with Otto and Joe until we return. The three of you can help Sam with his survey work north of the lake. I’ll send a telegram to Sam when we’re on our way back, and you can come back in to Salt Lake City and rejoin us here.”
“Yes, sir,” Homer said. “What ’bout Otto and Joe?”
“I’ll leave them with Sam until I learn what General Dodge has in mind for the team.”
“All aboard, folks.” The Wells Fargo agent announcement came from the boardwalk that ran in front of the station.
Half-a-dozen passengers crowded aboard the coach, jockeying for the best seats for the six-hundred-mile journey to Carson City, Nevada. Will and his uncle didn’t manage to get the seat under the driver, but they did avoid the center one. The rear seat would force them to eat more dust, but at least they’d have a solid backrest for the fifteen-day trip.
The driver snapped the ribbons, cracked the whip, and the coach rolled away from Salt Lake City’s home station. Will leaned out the window for a final look at the pleasant community. He did an immediate double-take. That looked like Paddy O’Hannigan walking into the Wells Fargo office.
CHAPTER 20
“Call me Stro, Mr. Corcoran. My friends call me Stro.” James Strobridge’s voice boomed like a field boss trying to get the attention of some faraway worker. He winked at Will and his uncle with his one good eye. He wore a black patch over his right eye, which he’d lost to a delayed blast of powder when the Central Pacific constructed the Bloomer Cut, four years ago.
Will thought the six-foot-two Strobridge would make a great pirate.
“All right, Stro. Then you’ll have to call me Sean.”
Strobridge guffawed. “Right, Sean! We Irish have to stick together, don’t we?”
“That we do,” Will’s uncle said.
“Let’s sit a spell and let that supper digest.” Strobridge motioned to two rocking chairs on the converted boxcar’s recessed verandah. “It’s a cool evening, but at least it isn’t snowing. We’ve been shoveling snow for three months to clear the grade for laying the connecting tracks between Summit Tunnel up above and Truckee down here. Just finished that job last night.”
“If the tracks weren’t laid all the way through, how’d you get the rolling stock and the rails here?” Will’s uncle asked.
“Dragged everything down the wagon road on ox-drawn sleds—hundreds of trips. Had to break the locomotives into manageable pieces, then reassemble them here.”
Will sat on the floor of the narrow porch, between the two men in their rocking chairs, and dangled his feet off the edge. It reminded him of last year, when he’d ridden across Nebraska in General Dodge’s boxcar stable with the door open. Except then, it’d been warm. Mr. Strobridge was right—this evening was cool. Will pulled his buckskin jacket closer around him.
“Tell me, Sean, are you a drinking Irishman?” Strobridge asked.
“I enjoy a good Irish whiskey from time to time.”
“Not me. Teetotaler. Don’t touch the evil stuff.”
Will’s uncle didn’t have to make a response because Hanna Strobridge stepped out onto the verandah with a steaming pot she held with a towel. “More coffee, gents?”
“Yes, please,” his uncle said.
She filled his cup and then her husband’s. “Would you like some, Will?”
“No thanks, ma’am. I had enough with supper. And thank you again, ma’am, for that good meal.”
“You’re most welcome.” Mrs. Strobridge stepped back into the portable home she shared with her husband and two children. She’d converted the railcar into comfortable family accommodations, even hanging curtains over windows cut into the boxcar’s walls. A canary chirped away in a cage hung at one corner of the verandah.
Strobridge’s combination work-home train sat in Truckee Canyon, far below the Summit Tunnel, the highest and longest of the twelve tunnels the Central Pacific had dug through the Sierra Nevada. To keep from falling behind in their race with the UP, the CP had worked on both sides of the mountain range the previous year. Now that the rails were joined, CP trains could roll straight through from Sacramento, California, to Reno, Nevada.
Will watched the shadows creep across Donner Lake as the sun descended behind the mountain peaks. Here, at the eastern end of the beautiful lake, the ill-fated Donner Party had been forced to spend the winter twenty-one years ago. It was rumored they’d committed cannibalism to stay alive. Will had heard that story told many times.
Crowded around the lake’s shore and flowing up the slopes on both sides of the broad valley, tall fir trees stretched their needle points upward. Will thought the Union Pacific would love to have access to such wonderful stands of timber.
With the loss of sunlight, the blue of the lake water turned to deepening shades of gray, as did the green boughs of the trees. Gradually, they all blended into black on the valley floor.
“So, Sean,” Strobridge said. “Dodge sent you to start negotiations for a meeting point.”
“Right. And since you’re the CP’s construction superintendent, I thought you’d be the man to talk to.”
Strobridge’s laugh boomed again. “Well, that’s not my decision to make. I’m more like your Jack Casement in the chain of command. I just build what they tell me. I suggest you talk to Monty.”
“Monty?”
“Samuel Montague. He’s our chief engineer . . . like your General Dodge. He, and to be fair about it, Louis Clement, his assistant, engineered the Summit Tunnel and designed the snow sheds you see all along the cliffs up there.” He pointed with his coffee cup to where the final rays of the sun still illuminated the heavy-timbered structures that hugged the side of the mountain where the CP had blasted out the path for their tracks. The shed’s roofs were buried in snow, but that kept the tracks within them clear. “We’ll be building more snow sheds. Expensive . . . but cheaper than shoveling that bloody stuff all the time.”
“Where’ll I find Montague?” Will’s uncle asked.
“I’ll take you to him tomorrow. If Monty ain’t got the authority to agree to a meeting place, you’ll have to talk to Cholly Clocka.”
“Cholly Clocka?”
The “pirate” threw his head back and bellowed a harsh laugh. “Yeah. That’s what the Celestials call him. Charley Crocker. He’s the one of the ‘Big Four’ that calls the shots for the CP.”
The Central Pacific’s “Big Four.” Will had read their names in the newspapers and heard General Dodge talk about them. They were the force behind building the western half of the transcontinental railroad. Leland Stanford, a former governor of California, served as president of the CP. Mark Hopkins oversaw the company’s finances in Sacramento, while Collis Huntington guided their political maneuvering in the nation’s capital. Charles Crocker stayed out on the line making sure work progressed as fast as possible. All four were Sacramento merchants who’d made their fortunes selling supplies to the forty-niners during the gold rush.
“Who’re the Celestials?” Will looked up at Strobridge.
“That’s what we call the Chinese. I didn’t want ’em in the first place. Thought they weren’t big enough to do the work. But the bloody Irish kept getting drunk all the time, and threatening to strike, so I finally let Crocker talk me into trying a few of them. Best dang workers we’ve ever had. Almost all our crews are Celesti
als now. Still use Irish for supervisors. But the Chinese don’t drink, don’t fight, don’t strike, and have clean habits . . . generally speaking. Sunday’s a down day for us and that’s when the little runts relax, do their gambling, and smoke their opium. Filthy habit, but they don’t overdo it. They’re never too hung over to come to work.”
Strobridge rocked back and forth sipping his coffee. “The Chinese are real powder monkeys too. They seem to have a natural love for fireworks. When we made the cut high up on Cape Horn we didn’t have any room to work . . . it being so narrow. The Celestials came up with the scheme to get the job done. They lowered each other down the cliff face in wicker baskets. Hanging in those baskets they pounded holes in the cliff with hand drills and packed the holes with powder. They cut the fuses to varying lengths so an entire round of charges would go off at the same time. The louder the blast, the more they thought it scared off the evil spirits.”
He laughed, then paused. “We didn’t lose a single one of them on that job. That’s what really convinced me they knew how to work.”
Strobridge leaned forward and set his cup on the railing. “Only real problem we had with them weren’t their fault. Bunches of ’em started heading back to San Francisco a few weeks back. Refused to work in the Nevada desert. I tracked the source down to some rascals who were telling them there were giant snakes out there that’d swallow a man whole. Once we got that rumor squashed, they came back.”
Will grinned at the story. Rattlesnakes were bad enough—they didn’t have to be giant to scare him.
“Getting a little chilly out here now the sun’s gone.” Strobridge stood and lifted the bird cage from its hook. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll call it a day. Got to get this canary back inside. Hanna will have my hide if it freezes to death. You fellows can bunk down in my office car if you like. You’ll have to spread your blankets on the floor, but at least it’s warm. It’s the next car up.”
CHAPTER 21
Early the next morning, Strobridge took Will and his uncle from Truckee Junction, at the foot of Donner Lake, up the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada toward Donner Pass and the Summit Tunnel. They rode an empty construction train headed back for a load of rails.
The three of them stood in the open doorway of an empty boxcar as it climbed the steep, twisting route, higher and higher away from the lake. At Horseshoe Bend, three miles up a narrow defile created by Clear Creek, the train doubled back on itself crossing the tumbling waters on a rickety bridge to get to the other side of the canyon. On the sharper curves, Will could see the 4-4-0 locomotive pulling their train belch large balls of black smoke from its diamond smokestack with each stroke of its driving pistons.
Shortly after crossing the creek, the train dove into Tunnel Thirteen, the first of many before they would reach the summit. Inside the narrow confines of the tunnel the engine’s smoke engulfed them. Will covered his nose, but couldn’t suppress a cough.
“You’ll look like a coal miner by the time we get there.” Strobridge laughed.
They emerged from the tunnel and the train clattered around a sweeping curve on the outer edge of a sheer cliff. Far below, the crystal, blue waters of Donner Lake came into view.
“Wow!” Will exclaimed. “Spectacular!”
Strobridge laughed again. “We’re better than halfway to our destination at this point. We’ve gained eight hundred feet since we left Truckee Junction, eight miles back. We’ll gain another five hundred before we get to Summit Tunnel . . . six miles ahead. We’ll be over seven thousand feet at Donner Pass.”
Snow covered the steep slope all the way down to the lake, five-hundred feet below the tracks. White sprinkles clung to the branches of the fir trees. The beautiful view ended abruptly when the train ducked into a snow shed. It wasn’t as dark as a tunnel, but the smoke concentrated almost as thickly.
“Much fire danger?” Will’s uncle pointed to sparks emitted from the smokestack that clung to the heavy rafters overhead.
“It’s a problem,” Strobridge answered. “We spray the timbers with water to keep them damp. But sometimes a fire gets started that we can’t put out. We’ve had to rebuild some of the sheds.”
They chugged out of the snow shed and immediately plunged into a tunnel.
Will counted seven tunnels and twice that many snow sheds, strung tightly together, until they finally emerged onto an open stretch of track not covered with a shed. Far below Donner Lake looked no bigger than a pond.
“Tunnel Six is just ahead,” Strobridge said. “We call it Summit Tunnel. It’s twice as long as any other. Almost seventeen-hundred feet. Completing this tunnel is what held up connecting the rails for so long.”
The smoke wasn’t so thick in this tunnel, which Will thought strange since it was the longest. Partway through the tunnel the train passed beneath a shaft of sunlight.
“We dug this tunnel from both ends and the middle at the same time,” Strobridge said. “We dropped this central shaft down from the top of the mountain and had teams work in both directions outward until they met up with the teams coming in from each end. The shaft provides ventilation and helps keep the smoke level down.”
Since they’d departed Truckee, the slight grade of the tracks caused Will to lean toward the front of the train, now his balance suddenly shifted rearward. They’d passed the highest point of the Sierras. The train headed downward toward an expanding point of light approaching from ahead. They steamed through the western portal of the tunnel, straight into another snow shed, then slowed to a halt.
“We’re here.” Strobridge jumped down from the open boxcar door. Will and his uncle followed. Strobridge led them, still inside the snow shed, to an opening in the heavy timbered walls.
Will stepped out of the shed’s dimness into brilliant sunlight. He threw his hand up to shield his eyes from the glistening snow. The area adjacent to the shed and several nearby buildings had been cleared of snow, but several yards away the drifts towered over the heads of workmen who scurried about the site.
“Snow’s eighteen feet deep on the level here,” Strobridge said. “We keep half the workforce busy just shoveling the stuff.” He waved a hand toward the distant snowbank where dozens of men filled hand carts with snow.
Stumps covered the ground between Will and the shovelers. The Central Pacific had denuded the forest for a hundred yards away from the tracks for the timbers they needed for the massive snow sheds.
“Let’s go see if we can find Monty.” Strobridge led them toward a large wooden structure attached to the snow shed. “He’s probably over here in the maintenance facility.”
“Uncle Sean,” Will said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just look around out here for a while.”
“Sure thing.” His uncle stepped in behind Strobridge, following him along a depressed pathway that had been worn in the snow.
The shovelers wore neat blue coats and trousers. Umbrella-shaped, woven straw hats, covered their heads. Pigtails extended down their backs. Sunglasses shielded their eyes—a good precaution against the snow blindness that would render them ineffective, otherwise. Will wished he had a pair. The glare was overpowering.
Scattered among the shovelers, a few taller individuals wore the ragtag remnants of Army uniforms, both Union and Confederate. Will was used to seeing the same thing on the Union Pacific’s workforce. It didn’t take long to determine they were the Irish supervisors. They slapped whips against a boot or tapped clubs into the palm of a hand.
“Hurry up with that tea!” one of the supervisors shouted. “It’s break time.”
“ ’Scuse prease.” Will looked over his shoulder to see where that strangely accented comment had come from. A shorter figure, dressed in blue, shuffled up behind him, balancing a long pole across his shoulders, on each end of which hung wooden barrels. Will recognized them as the standard, black powder, storage kegs.
“I said hurry up with that tea!” The supervisor snapped his bullwhip and nipped the young man in the side.
“Ow!” The slender youth jumped sideways and dropped the pole. Brown tea flooded from the barrels, sinking into the snow.
“You good for nothing, yellow-bellied Celestial!” The Irishman stepped toward the Chinese boy and raised his whip. The shovelers stopped all along the snowbank and looked.
Will stepped between them. “It was my fault, sir. I was blocking his way.”
The Irishman towered over Will. “And just who are you?”
CHAPTER 22
Before Will could give the supervisor his name, a hand clasped his shoulder from behind. “He’s with me,” Strobridge said. “Get on about your business, MacNamara.”
“Yes, sir.” The Irishman slapped the whip against his boot and turned toward the snowbank. “Back to work! All you bloody Celestials, get back to work! No tea break.”
“Sorry, Mr. Strobridge, I didn’t mean to cause them to lose their tea break.”
“It’s all right, Will.” Strobridge looked unsmilingly at him, then winked with his one good eye. “They’ll get plenty of tea.”
Will’s uncle stood behind Strobridge. He shook his head, but said nothing.
“Come on, Sean,” Strobridge said. “Monty’s down along the tracks inspecting a collapse in the shed’s roof. The snow gets too heavy sometimes. We’ll find him down there a ways.”
“You coming, Will?” his uncle asked.
“No, sir. I’ll see if I can help remedy my mistake here.”
“Be careful.” His uncle stepped in behind Strobridge who strode off down the outside of the snow shed.
The tea boy regained his feet. He lifted his pole and buckets back onto his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Will said.
“You friend of One-eye Bossy Man?”
“One-eye Bossy Man?”
The Chinese youth nodded in the direction of Strobridge.
Of course, Strobridge only had one good eye. “Mr. Strobridge . . . yes,” Will said.
The youth bowed slightly. “ ’Scuse prease.” He turned and walked up the snow path.
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