Silence the Dead

by David Crossman

  “Sadie.”

  He sounded out the name as he wrote it down. “Sadie Conllan.”

  Sadie raised smiling eyes at Thomas, who hazarded a quick grin in return.

  “Age?”

  Sadie wasn’t sure. “‘ow old would you say, cocky?”

  Feathers, not accustomed to being addressed in that fashion, leveled an unsmiling look of appraisal at her. “Not too old to know what’s good for ya, lassy,” he said. He wrote ’15’ in the space beside her name. “Right.” He extended the document in their direction. “Next to last car.”

  Thomas reached for the paper, but Feathers snapped it back. “Here! Ain’t you forgettin’ somethin’?”

  “Thank you?” Thomas hazarded.

  Feathers looked from one to the other of the men who book-ended him. They all laughed at once. He turned his attention again to Thomas. “You’ll be most welcome, I’m sure, once you pay your passage.”

  “Pay?”

  “Aye.”

  “Money?”

  Feathers’ amusement oozed into impatience. “We don’t trade potatoes or chickens in these parts, sonny. Hard cash on the barrel head.” He stabbed the table with his stubby forefinger.

  “But, I figured since I’m gonna be workin’ for the railroad, they’d ride us out there for nothin’.”

  When Feathers ground his teeth, as he did now, his cheek-muscles bulged and the derby hat, which was a size too small, bobbed up and down on his head. “You jokin’?”

  “No, sir.”

  Seeing this as another moment for public education, the man stood up, braced his arms on the table, and raised his voice to the crowd. “This young man figured as, since he’s on ‘is way to work for the railroad, he was goin’ to get free passage out west! Now, is there any of you so daft as that in this line, you’d best scarper off back to Irelan’ or Italy or whatever foreign pest hole you come from ‘cause this here is America.” He jabbed the unoffending table again, “an’ the only thing free is opportunity. You understand!”

  The looks on the faces of those in line suggested clearly that most of them had shared Thomas’s misconception.

  Feathers subsided onto his stool and resumed his business with the Conllans. “Now, can you pay, or can you not?”

  Thomas fingered the remainder of the ten dollars in his pocket. “How much?”

  “F’r two of ya? Fifty dollars.”

  “Fifty dollars!”

  Immediately presuming their inability to pay, Feathers craned his neck around them. “Next!”

  “No!” said Thomas. He emptied his pocket on the table.

  Feathers sifted through the coins. “That’s eight dollars and ninety-seven cents.” He looked up. “Leavin’ you forty-one dollars an’ three cents short.” He grinned. “You come up with the forty-one, an’ we’ll let the railroad whistle f’r the three cents. How’s that?”

  Hesitantly, Thomas undid the rope around the neck of his bag of belongings. Sadie watched the men who, in turn, were watching Thomas intently, their interest rising visibly at the unveiling of the treasured boots, and more so as he reached into one of them and withdrew one of the sovereigns. He handed it over.

  Feathers twiddled it between his fingers as if it were a strange object the likes of which he’d never seen.

  “What’s this, then?” he said, cocking his head sidewise and, with a sharp eye, gauging Thomas’s response. He wanted to know if Thomas knew the value of the coin.

  “A sovereign!” said Thomas, suddenly afraid a coin with a picture of George the III might be worthless in America. “It’s a lot of money.”

  Feathers inspected the coin skeptically. “Maybe in heathen England, where they worship the King,” he speculated. “But here?” He flashed it briefly at his bodyguards in turn, who regarded it with mock disdain. “What would you say, Frankie? Sting? Two dollars?”

  “Oh, give ‘im two and two-bits,” said Sting whose name, Sadie deduced, must have something to do with the prodigious whip coiled from a leather thong on his belt. She was taking in the proceedings with interest. She reached out and snatched the coin from Feathers’ fingers before he had time to close them. “I think we’ll jus’ take our business elsewhere. Come on Tommy.”

  She turned to leave – Thomas, too stunned to do anything else, following dumbly behind – when Feathers recalled them.

  “Here, now. What’s your rush? You caught me on a magnamonious day, lass. I might be able to squeeze a few more dollars out . . . say seven?”

  This time it was Sadie who rolled the coin about in her fingers. “Twenty.”

  “Twenty!”

  Sadie, for whom the art of negotiation was as ancient as her profession, turned away again. “Thomas.” She held out her hand and he took it.

  “Now! Now!” said Feathers, huffing and billowing. “Now, y’er pressin’ me to the wall, missy! A man can only afford to be so kind, you know.” He closely regarded the coin which Sadie held up to him. “I’ll go fifteen.”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Sixteen fifty.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Now, missy, you don’t seem to be enterin’ into the spirit of the thing. You was s’posed to say seventeen-fifty.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “But . . . ”

  “Goin’ twice.”

  “Wait a second!” said Feathers, flustered. “What ‘appened to ‘goin’ once’?

  “We’re pass that. Goin’ three times . . . ”

  “Look at me, lads,” said Feathers, spreading his arms out across the table, which brought his nose into contact with its surface. “Beaten, I am. Beaten like a Barbary slave by this slip of a girl. I am too magnamonious, as mother Feathers always said. ‘Islip,’ she said, ‘you’re too magnamonious f’r your own good.’ ” He sat up and sighed. “Very well. Eighteen. But,” he said, holding up a finger, “y’er no closer to all the gold in Colorado f’r havin’ twenty seven-odd dollars than you was havin’ eight an’ change. You’re still short.” He hungrily eyed the bag at Thomas’s feet. “What else you got in there, sonny?”

  Thomas followed his gaze. “That’s all our money.”

  “Well, as to potatoes and chickens, I ain’t much to barter,” said Feathers, “but them’s a fine pair’ve boots you got there.”

  “You can’t ‘ave ‘em!”

  “Can’t I?” said the man dismissively. “Jus’ tryin’ to do you a favor’s, all.” He brushed Thomas aside with his hand. “Next!”

  “No. Wait.”

  “Well?”

  With abject regret, Thomas reached into the bag and removed the boots. He placed them on the table. No sooner had he given them a final caress than they disappeared into a pile of booty Feathers had collected from previous passengers. “Done!” he said.

  “Wait!” said Thomas, remembering the gun. “I left something in one of the boots.”

  “Then it’s mine.”

  “No it isn’t. The deal’s off. You give everything back now!”

  Feathers seemed to relent. “I feel more magnaminous comin’ on Frankie. Pass me them boots.” Frankie returned the boots to the table. Feather’s reached in and drew out the bundle of letters and the lock of hair. “What’s this, then? A liberry an’ a barber shop? There! Take ‘em an’ let me get on about my business.”

  Thomas handed the treasures to Sadie, who secreted them in her costume. “There’s . . . something in the other boot.”

  Feathers, who was returning the boots to Frankie for consignment, tossed the empty boot on the pile and reached into the second. His eyes lit up as his fingers fell on the gun. “My, my, my. What ‘ave we here?”

  He lowered the boot below the table and withdrew the gun, out of sight of those in line. “Very interestin’, this.” He looked at Thomas. “Fancy yerself Billy the Kid, do ya?”

  Thomas didn’t know what he was talking about. “That was my father’s. I need it back.”

 
“Oh, I wouldn’t say as you need it a’tall, young man like you,” said Feathers. “Dangerous things, these. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he counted out Thomas’s original eight dollars and ninety-seven cents from his cash box. “There you go. Now, we’ll call it even.”

  “But . . . ”

  “Take it or leave it, boy. Either on the train, or off to Perdition or Purgatory, accordin’ t’the fancy of y’er denomination. Make y’er mind up now. Next!”

  Those still in line, impatient at the transaction but not blind to its lessons, pressed forward, jostling Thomas. He scooped the money into his hand. Feathers was probably right, what need did he have of a gun with no bullets? His attachment to it was mere sentiment, and sentiment with salt and pepper was only salt and pepper. He stuffed the money into his pocket and snatched the precious document that had cost him so dearly from Feathers’ hand.

  Thomas had no experience of trains so, for him, the box car crowded with a sweating mass of humanity was no less than was to be expected. In fact, standing with his face pressed to a crack in the paneling, it was a thrill to watch the countryside slip by at so great a speed that the wind pushed the hair back off his face! He’d never imagined such speed and wondered how they were all able to breathe, or stand without being flung about and churned like butter. Sadie, however, while she’d never actually ridden one, had seen the great trains leaving Waterloo station and caught glimpses of first class compartments with private dining cars, silver cutlery, and linen table cloths. And as the present accommodation suffered from comparison, especially since it had been obtained at such great expense, complained with both lips.

  The train seemed to stop at every town and village along the way, sometimes having cars added or removed. Through all the additions and deletions, Thomas felt a growing restlessness inside. A new world was opening up to him. It was like Feathers had said, ‘opportunity is free’ and he, Thomas Conllan, was going to lay hold of it with both hands on behalf of all the Conlans who’d gone before to whom it had been forbidden. He was itching to get on with it, even if he had to jump out and run all the way to Colorado, wherever it was. He wasn’t alone. The same hopeful eagerness infected many of those in the car.

  It was past two in the morning when the train pulled into the rail yard at Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey. For a long time after the train stopped, they waited, whispering among themselves until, somewhere in the distance, a church clock struck three. Anticipation at last melted into anxiety as people began to wonder aloud whether they were supposed to let themselves out, and why no one had come to meet them. Someone suggested that it must have been arranged they would stay on this train for the journey west, rather than make a change, as they had been told in Boston.

  Sadie, however, had had enough. She pulled back the hand-worn iron handle and, with a mighty tug, wrenched the door open. It moved about a foot, then its mechanism fetched up somewhere. Thomas joined his strength to hers, then someone else, and someone else, until as many of them were standing shoulder to shoulder as the door could accommodate and finally, sending up a mournful metallic screed, it surrendered to their efforts.

  The car had been shunted off on a siding by itself. The terminus, judging from the dim reflection of the rails, was a quarter mile or more away. The night was completely quiet and a sulfur-stained curtain of mist wept about the rooftops.

  Thomas jumped to the ground and, after hoisting Sadie down beside him, proceeded to assist women and children. He was quickly joined by other men in the group and, in minutes, the car was empty. In all, sixty-four bewildered men and women stood in the deserted rail yard holding their children and clutching what little remained theirs after Feathers had done with them.

  One of the children squirmed in her father’s arms. “Is this the west, daddy?”

  “Where should we go?” said one of the women finally.

  “I suppose we’re meant to follow the tracks,” a man replied.

  “No, no. We should stay with the box car,” another argued. “T’ey’ll be another locomotive along any minute to hook us up an’ take us along.”

  Sadie separated herself from the rest by a few footsteps. “I’m not believin’ wot I’m ‘earin’! Are ye all daft as posts? Can’t ye see wot’s ‘appened? We’ve been swindled!”

  “No!” said the first woman, quickly becoming hysterical. Her name, Thomas had learned during the trip, was Megan O’Malley and she and her husband, Cian, had four children under the age of eight. “That can’t be! It’s cost us everyt’ing we own, ‘as this! We’ve nuthin’ left!”

  Her husband held her to him with all the strength his fading faith could muster. “O’ course, luv. T’ey’ll be anuther engine along presently. We’ll just sit and wait. Come on, everyone. Let’s someone start a fire and make ourselfs comf’table as we can ‘til ti comes, ey?”

  “There’s no one comin’, ye daft Micky buggers!” said Sadie, emphasizing. “Why should they? They’ve tak’n everythin’ worth anythin’ from ya.”

  Thomas was just as determined as the rest to ignore Sadie, but his inner voice wasn’t strong enough to drown out her reason. He knew she was telling the truth. “She’s right,” he said, and told them about the family at the head of the line in Boston.

  “Why didn’t you tell us then?” one of the men demanded.

  “Because I thought they was just bein’ used to keep everyone in line, like they said, is all.” As he listened to his own voice, he realized how hollow the words were. “It made sense at the time.”

  “I tell ye,” said O’Malley, “it’s not so. T’ere’s jus’ been a delay, is all. I’m after takin’ bets the engine’s broke down somewheres or some such t’ing. Well, what can they do but take the time to fix it so’s to come get us?”

  This happy hypothesis met with a swell of approval which, in turn, was about to meet with the broad cudgel of Sadie’s opinion, but Thomas – slapping his hand over her mouth – pulled her roughly aside and pressed his lips to her ears. “They can’t hear, Sadie. Come mornin’ it’ll hit ‘em. Leave ‘em one more night’s peace, at least.”

  “But . . . they’ve been cheated!”

  “Aye.” Thomas looked at the ragged, restless knot of his fellow-travelers. “They’ve been cheated.” He hefted his bag, so much lighter than it had been only twenty-four hours ago, and tossed it over his shoulder. “We all ‘ave. Now we’ve got to choose to choke on it or swallow. Well, I’m f’r swallowin’. What about you?”

  “I’m f’r spittin’ it out!” Sadie hissed, “an’ gettin’ a fistful’ve flesh off the hindside’ve them as done it!”

  “Come on.” Thomas nudged her with his elbow. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “West.”

  They began walking, animated rags silhouetted against the faint and distant smudge of light to the east that was New York City.

  “It’s a long way, is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Thomas. “We’ll get there.”

  “What’ll we eat?”

  “I hear there’s lot’s’ve grass out that way.”

  “Wot you think I am, a cow?” said Sadie, then thought better of it. “Don’t answer that.”

  A small pillow of laughter was quickly smothered by the fog.

  They’d been walking no more than three minutes when Sadie turned around. Their former traveling companions had got a fire going, and someone had taken out a fiddle – she wondered how it had ever gotten past Feathers – and was striking up a jig. Children danced around the fire which turned them into shadows and threw them in rumpled effigies at distant walls. “Lookit the poor sods, Thomas. What’ll ‘appen to ‘em?”

  Thomas hadn’t stopped. He didn’t turn around. His footsteps were bent west, away from New York City, and God bless the hindmost.

  Sadie ran to catch up.

  Chapter Twelve

  Los Pinos Creek, Colorado

  March 5, 1957

  By the time the fire was out, both
Regan and Maryellen were covered with soot, sweat, and a sprinkling of Regan’s blood. He had found and lit a candle. A dingy haze of stale smoke, through which a residue of feathery ash sifted, filled the car, but enough of it had oozed out the window to allow room for fresh air to seep in at floor level.

  Maryellen huddled under a pile of curtains in the corner between the downhill wall and floor, her face close to the broken window. The first flush of exertion condensed on her flesh and she was beginning to shiver. “I’m cold.”

  Regan pulled himself toward her. Blood had dried and caked in various places on his face. The unsteady shadows cast by the candlelight made him especially grotesque.

  “You look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon,” she said as he situated himself close beside her.

  “If you’re trying to flatter me, you have to try harder.”

  She offered no resistance when he put his arms around her, nor when he pulled her toward him. She was suddenly beginning to feel quite warm. So was he.

  She coughed. “I feel like I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes.”

  Regan said nothing. His nose was all but buried in her hair and, despite the smoke, he liked the smell of it.

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  “Oh, we’ll be all right ‘til they get here, as long as we stay warm.”

  “I’m quite warm, now.”

  “Mm.”

  “That was an avalanche?”

  “Or a very upset Yeti.”

  She laughed. “Is there any chance . . . could it happen again?”

  Regan startled. He hadn’t thought of that. If there were another avalanche, it could easily either bury the coach or push it farther down the hill. Perhaps all the way to the Chama River Gorge!

  “You know,” he said, with a casualness that belied his sudden concern, “now that you mention it, it might be best if we get out from under the mountain.”

  Maryellen sat up abruptly. “You mean, you think there might . . . it might happen again?”

  “No, not really,” said Regan. Was it his imagination or was the car creaking under them? He stood up and helped her to her feet. “But, better safe than sorry.”