Union Pacific

by Zane Grey

  As fortune would have it, Neale happened on the moment to be standing in a significant and thrilling position, for himself, and for all who saw him. And that happened to be in the middle of the stream opposite the trestle on the masonry of the middle pier, now two feet above the coffer dam. He was as wet and muddy as the laborers with him.

  Engineer, foreman, brakeman, and passengers cheered him. For Neale, the moment was unexpected and simply heart-swelling. Never in his life had he felt so proud. And yet, stinging amongst these sudden sweet emotions, was a nameless pang.

  Presently Neale espied General Lodge leaning out of a window of his car. He was waving. Neale pointed down at his feet, at the solid masonry, and then circling his mouth with his hands he yelled with all his might: “Bedrock!”

  His chief yelled back: “You’re a soldier!”

  That perhaps in the excitement and joy of the moment was the greatest praise the Army officer could render. Nothing could have pleased Neale more.

  The train passed over the trestle and on out of sight. Upon its return, about the middle of the afternoon, it stopped in camp. A messenger came with word for Neale to report at once to the directors. He hurried to his tent to secure his papers, and then, wet and muddy, he entered the private car of the directors.

  It contained only four men—General Lodge, and Warburton, Rogers, and Rudd. All except the tall white-haired Warburton were comfortable in shirt sleeves, smoking, with a table between them. The instant Neale entered their presence, he divined that he faced a big moment in his life.

  The chief’s manner, like King’s when there was something in the wind, seemed quiet, easy, potential. His searching glance held warmth, and a gleam that thrilled Neale. But he was ceremonious, not permitting himself his old familiarity before these dignitaries of the great railroad.

  “Gentlemen, you remember Mister Neale,” said Lodge.

  They were cordial—pleasant.

  Warburton vigorously shook Neale’s hand, and leaned back, after the manner of matured men, to look Neale over. “Young man, I’m glad to meet you again,” he declared in his big voice. “Remember him! Well, I do . . . though he’s thinner, older.”

  “Small wonder,” interposed the chief. “He’s been doing a man’s work.”

  “Neale, back there in Omaha you got sore . . . you quit us,” went on Warburton reprovingly. “That was bad business. I cottoned to you . . . and I might have . . . But no matter. You’re with us again.”

  “Mister Warburton, I’m ashamed of that,” replied Neale hastily. “But I was hot-headed . . . Am so still, I fear.”

  “So am I. So is Lodge. So is any man worth a damn,” replied the director.

  “Mister Neale, you look cool enough now,” observed Rogers, smiling. “Wish I was as wet and cool as you are. It’s hot in this desert.”

  Warburton took off his frock coat. “You gentlemen aren’t going to have any but the best of me . . . And, now Neale tell us things.”

  Neale looked at his papers, and then at his chief.

  “For instance,” said Lodge, “tell us about Blake and Coffee.”

  “Haven’t you seen them . . . heard from them?” inquired Neale.

  “No . . . Henney has not, either. And they were his men.”

  “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I lost my head in regard to them.”

  “Explain, please,” said Warburton. “We will judge your conduct.”

  It was a rather difficult moment for Neale, because his actions regarding the two engineers now appeared to have been a result of violent temper, instead of an exercise of authority. But then as he remembered Blake’s offer and Coffee’s threat, the heat thrilled along his nerves, and that stirred him to forceful expression.

  “I drove them both out of this camp.”

  “Why?” queried Warburton sharply.

  “Blake tried to bribe me and Coffee . . .”

  “One at a time,” interrupted Warburton, and he thrust a strong hand through his hair, ruffling it. He began to scent battle. “What did Blake try to bribe you to do?”

  “He didn’t say. But he meant me to cover their tracks.”

  “So! And what did Coffee do?”

  “He tried to pull a gun on me.”

  “Why? Be explicit, please.”

  “Well, he threatened me. And I laughed at him . . . called him names . . .”

  “What names?”

  “Quite a lot, if I remember. The one he objected to was thief . . . I repeated that, and snatched some telegrams from his pocket. He tried to draw his gun on me . . . and then I drove them both out of camp . . . They got through safely, for they were seen in Benton.”

  “Sir, it appears to me you lost your head to good purpose,” said Warburton. “Now just what were the tracks they wanted you to cover?”

  “I drew the original plans for Number Ten. They had not followed them. To be exact, they did not drive piles to hold the cribbings for the piers. They did not go deep enough. They sank shafts . . . they built coffer dams . . . they put in piers over and over again. There was forty feet of quicksand under all their work, and of course it slipped and sank.”

  Warburton slowly got up. He was growing purple in the face. His hair seemed rising. He doubled a huge fist. “Over and over again!” he roared furiously. “Over and over again! Lodge, do you hear that?”

  “Yes. Sounds kind of familiar to me,” replied the chief, with one of his rare smiles. He was beyond rage now. He saw the end. He alone, perhaps, had realized the nature of that great work. And that smile had been sad as well as triumphant.

  Warburton stamped up and down the car aisle. Manifestly he wanted to smash something or to take out his anger upon his comrades. That was not the quick rage of a moment; it seemed the bursting into flame of a smoldering fire. He used language more felicitous for one of Benton’s halls than the private cars of the directors of the Union Pacific Railroad. Once he stooped over Lodge, pounded the table.

  “Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that quicksand hole!” he thundered. “Over and over again! That’s what galls me . . . Work done over and over . . . unnecessary . . . worse than useless . . . all for dirty gold! Not for the railroad, but for gold! God! What a band of robbers we’ve dealt with! Lodge, why in the hell didn’t you send Neale out here at the start?”

  A shadow lay dark in the chief’s lined face. Why had he not done a million other things? Why indeed! He did not answer the irate director.

  “Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that hole . . . for nothing!” shouted Warburton in a final explosion.

  The other two directors laughed.

  “Pooh!” exclaimed Rogers softly. “What is that? A drop in the bucket. Consult your notebook, Warburton.”

  And that speech cooled the fighting director. It contained volumes. It evidently struck home. Warburton growled—he mopped his red face—he fell into a seat. “Lodge . . . excuse me,” he said apologetically. “You know that . . . what our fine young friend here told me was like someone stepping on my gout . . . I’ve been maybe a little too zealous . . . too exacting. Then I’m old and testy . . . What does it matter? Alas, it’s black like that hideous Benton . . . But we’re coming out into the light. Lodge, didn’t you tell me this Number Ten bridge was the last obstacle?”

  “I did. The rails will go down now fast and straight till they meet out there in Utah . . . Soon!”

  Warburton became composed. The red died out of his face. He looked at Neale. “Young man, can you put permanent piers in that sinkhole?”

  “Yes. They are started on bedrock,” replied Neale.

  “Bedrock,” he repeated, and remained gazing at Neale fixedly. Then he turned to Lodge. “Do you remember that wild red-headed cowboy . . . Neale’s friend? When he said . . . ‘I reckon thet’s aboot all.’ . . . I’ll never forget him . . . Lodge, say we have Lee and his friend Senator Dunn come in . . . and get it over. An’ thet’ll be aboot all!”

  “Thank heaven,” replied the chief fervently. He called to
his porter, but as no one replied, General Lodge rose and went into the next car.

  Neale had experienced a disturbing sensation in his breast. Lee! Allison Lee! The mere name made him shake. He could not understand, but he felt there was more reason for its effect on him than his relation to Allison Lee as a contractor. Somewhere there was a man named Lee who was Allie’s father, and Neale knew he would meet him someday.

  Then when the chief walked back into the car with two frock-coated individuals, Neale did recognize on the pale face of one a resemblance to the girl he loved.

  There were no greetings. This situation had no formalities. Warburton faced them and he seemed neither cold nor hot. He might have been meeting anyone whose relation with him had passed.

  “Mister Lee, as a director of the road, I have to inform you that following the reports of our engineer, here, your present contracts are void and you will not get any more.”

  A white radiance of rage swiftly transformed Allison Lee. His eyes seemed to blaze purple out of his white face. And Neale knew him to be Allie’s father—saw the beauty and fire of her eyes in his.

  “Warburton! You’ll reconsider. I have great influence . . .”

  “To hell with your influence!” retorted Warburton, the lion in him rising. “The builders . . . the directors . . . the owners of the U.P.R. are right here in this car. Do you understand that? Do you demand I call a spade a spade?”

  “I have been appointed by Congress. I will . . .”

  “Congress or no Congress you will never rebuild a foot of this railroad!” thundered Warburton. He stood there glaring, final, assured. “For the sake of your . . . your government connections let us . . . say . . . let well enough alone.”

  “This upstart boy of an engineer!” burst out Lee in furious resentment. “Who is he? How dare he accuse . . . or report against me?”

  “Mister Lee, your name has never been mentioned by him,” replied the director.

  Lee struggled for self-control. “But, Warburton, it’s preposterous!” he protested. “This wild boy . . . the associate of desperadoes . . . his report, whatever it is . . . absurd! Absurd as opposed to my position! A cub surveyor . . . slick with tongue and figures . . . to be thrown in my face. It’s outrageous. I’ll have him . . .”

  Warburton held up a hand that impelled Lee to silence. In that gesture Neale read what stirred him to his soul. It was coming. He saw it again in General Lodge’s fleeting rare smile. He held his breath. The old pang throbbed in his breastbone.

  “Lee, pray let me enlighten you and Senator Dunn,” said Warburton sonorously, “and terminate this awkward interview . . . When the last spike is driven out here . . . presently . . . Mister Neale will be chief engineer of maintenance of way of the Union Pacific Railroad!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  So for Neale the wonderful dream had come to pass, and but for the memory that made all hours of life bitter, his cup of joy would have been full.

  He made his headquarters in Benton, and spent his days riding east or west over the line, taking up the responsibility he had long trained for, and for which he would soon be accountable—the upkeep, the maintaining of the perfect condition of the railroad.

  Toward the end of that month Neale was summoned to Omaha.

  The message had been signed, “Warburton.” Upon arriving at the terminus of the road, Neale found a marvelous change even in the short time since he had been there. Omaha had become a city. It developed that Warburton had been called back to New York, leaving word for Neale to wait for orders.

  Neale availed himself of this period to acquaint himself with the men who he would deal with in the future. Among them, and in the roar of the railroad shops and the bustle of the city, he lost, perhaps temporarily, that haunting sense of loss and pain and gloom. Despite himself the deference shown him was flattering, and his old ambitious habit of making friends reasserted itself. His place was assured now. There were rumors in the air of branch lines for the Union Pacific. He was consulted for advice, importuned for positions, invited here and there. So that the days in Omaha were both profitable and pleasurable.

  Then came a telegram from Warburton calling him to Washington, D.C.

  It took more than two days to get there, which time dragged slowly for Neale. It seemed to him that his importance grew as he traveled, a fact which was amusing to him. All this resembled a dream.

  When he reached the hotel designated in the telegram, it was to receive a warm greeting from Warburton.

  “It’s a long trip to make for nothing,” said the director. “And that’s what it amounts to now. I thought I’d need you to answer a few questions for me. But you’ll not be questioned officially . . . and so you’d better keep a closed mouth . . . We’ve raised the money. The completion of the U.P.R. is assured.”

  Neale could only conjecture what those questions might have been, for the director offered no explanation. And this circumstance recalled to mind his former impression of the complexity of the financial and political end of the construction. Warburton took him to dinner and later to a club, and introduced him to many men.

  For this alone Neale was glad that he had been summoned to the capital. He met Senators, Congressmen, and other government officials, and many politicians and prominent men, all of whom, he was surprised to note, were well informed regarding the Union Pacific. He talked with them, but answered questions guardedly. And he listened to discussions and talk covering every phase of the work, from the Crédit Mobilier to the Chinese coolies that were advancing from the West to meet the paddies of his own division.

  How strange to realize that the great railroad had its nucleus, its impetus, and its completion on such a center as this! Here were the frock-coated, soft-voiced, cigar-smoking gentlemen among whom Warburton and his directors had swung the colossal enterprise. What a vast difference between these men and the builders! With the handsome white-haired Warburton, and his associates, as they smoked their rich cigars and drank their wine, Neale contrasted Casey and McDermott, and many another burly spiker or teamster out on the line. Each class was necessary to this task. These Easterners talked of money, of gold as a grade-foreman might have talked of gravel. They smoked and conversed at ease, laughing at sallies, gossiping over what was a tragedy west of North Platte, and about them was an air of luxury, of power, of importance, and a singular grace that Neale felt rather than saw.

  Strangest of all to him was the glimpse he got into the labyrinthine plot built around the stock, the finance, the gold that was constructing the road. He was an engineer, with a deductive habit of mind, but he would never be able to trace the intricacy of this monumental aggregation of deals. Yet he was absorbed with interest. Much of the scorn and disgust he had felt out on the line for the mercenaries connected with the work he forgot here among these frock-coated gentlemen.

  An hour later Neale accompanied Warburton to the station where the director was to board a train for his return to New York.

  “You’ll start back tomorrow,” said Warburton. “I’ll see you soon, I hope . . . out there in Utah where the last spike is to be driven. That will be the day . . . the hour! It will be celebrated all over the States.”

  Neale returned to his hotel, trying to make out the vital thing that had come to him on this hurried and apparently useless journey. His mind seemed in a whirl. Yet as he pondered, there gradually loomed to him a thought that in the Eastern or constructive end of the great plan there were the same spirit and evil and mystery as there were in the Western or building end. Here big men were interested, involved; out there bigger men sweated and burned and aged and died. The difference was that those toilers gave all for an ideal that to the directors and their partners meant only money—a profit that would precipitate a trip to Europe.

  Neale restrained what might have been contempt, and he thought that, if these financiers, or any men, could have seen the life of the diggers and spikers as he knew it, there would have been a nobler motive born. Before he d
ropped to sleep that night he concluded his trip to Washington and the recognition accorded him by Warburton’s circle had fixed a desire in his heart to heave some rails and drive some spikes for the railroad he loved so well. To him the work had been something for which he had striven with all his might and risked his life. He wanted to embody all of it that was possible—to feel that not only his brain had given to the creation, but that his muscle had ached from the toil.

  Upon the journey home all the way he seemed steeped in the luxurious and complicated impressions received in Washington. And all these impressions drifted to and fro through a picture of bright-lighted club rooms, richly furnished, where handsome frock-coated gentlemen lounged at their wine and cigars, conversing in softly modulated tones, oblivious to the destinies and lives of common men.

  When Neale at last reached Benton it was night. Benton and night! And he had forgotten. A mob of men surged down and up on the train. Neale had extreme difficulty in getting off at all. But the excitement, the hurry, the discordant and hoarse medley of many voices were unusual at that hour around the station, even for strenuous Benton. All these men were carrying baggage. Neale shouted questions into passing ears, until at length some fellow heard and yelled a reply.

  The last night of Benton!

  He understood then. The great and vile construction camp had reached the end of its career. It was being torn down—moved away—depopulated. There was an exodus. In another forty-eight hours all that had been Benton, with its accumulated life and gold and toil, would be incorporated in another and a greater and a last camp—Roaring City.

  The contrast to the beautiful Washington, the check to his half-dreaming memory of what he had experienced there, the sudden plunge into this dim-lighted, sordid, and roaring hell, all brought about in Neale a revulsion of feeling.

  And with the sinking of his spirit there returned the old haunting pangs—the memory of Allie Lee, the despairing doubts of life or death for her. Beyond the camp loomed the dim black hills, mystical, secretive, and unchangeable. If she were out there among them, dead or alive, to know it would be a blessed relief. It was this horror of Benton that he feared.