by Gordon Ryan
“You demand?” Sutherland challenged.
“Or I’ll take it to the regional director in Kansas City.”
Sutherland’s shoulders slumped, and he turned around to look at Tom. After a moment, he said, “He’s right, lad. I’m sorry, but my hands are tied. When we get to Kansas City, draw your pay, and I’ll see what I can do to help you find a job before we have to leave.” Sutherland turned, looking angrily at Tooney. “It’s a long trip east, Max. Who ya gonna’ bully on the way back?” he said, pushing past Tooney.
“Well, Callahan, it seems you Irish riffraff never learn, do you?” Tooney sneered.
“Aye, it would seem so, Mr. Tooney,” Tom said, smiling finally and looking around at the crew members who had watched the scene play out. “But then, . . .” he said, surprising Tooney with a short, hard jab to his mouth, once again sending Tooney to the floor of the crew car, “we wouldn’t be expecting any deeper understanding from a bloody Brit, now would we?” He stood over the downed Englishman, rubbing his knuckles and continuing to smile, enjoying the laughter that erupted in the car. Down at the end of the car, Mr. Sutherland smiled and turned away.
Food, a couple of cups of hot coffee, and the passage of three hours eventually calmed Tom down, and as he lay in his bunk, Kansas City looming over the horizon, he collected his thoughts. All in all, Tooney’s actions had saved Tom the problem of explaining to Mr. Sutherland that he intended to leave the crew in Kansas City, the farthest point west on this trip. The repair crew intended to travel back by a slightly more southern route, continuing their repairs into the early spring and reaching Bayonne by the first of March. Being fired didn’t set well with Tom, but it had at least eased his concern about being responsible for leaving the crew short-handed for the return trip.
Kansas City, Missouri, a rail head for many years for cattle drives coming up from Texas and other ranching areas south, presented itself to Tom as a genuine piece of the American West. Boasting trolleys and some other modern conveniences, such as he’d seen in New York, it still had an air about it of untamed wildness, perhaps the result of its location in the middle of a prairie, broken only by the mighty Missouri River, which flowed sluggishly past on its way east toward the Mississippi.
After Tom drew his pay, Sutherland introduced him to the resident Well’s Fargo agent and commended him as a hard worker. The man told Tom to come back in the morning and he’d see what might be found in their freight operation. Tom thanked Sutherland, who left to go back to the train crew, while Tom sought a place to obtain a bath and some new clothes, including a heavy winter coat, suitable, the salesman told him, for surviving the harsh winters found on the plains.
By evening, Tom felt better and had not given any additional thought to the altercation with Tooney, until he saw him later that night in the saloon. Ignoring Tooney, Tom remained at the bar, content to drink by himself. After a while, Tooney left the saloon in the company of three other men with whom he’d been drinking at a table near the piano. Tom finished his drink, left two bits for the barmaid, who had given him advice on where to find a cheap hotel for the evening, and left the saloon.
As he worked his way along the street, Tom saw two men emerge from an alleyway between two buildings, and fall in silently behind him. As he came to the next alley, a third man stepped out into his path, and Tom immediately recognized the game, so often used in his own youth, as he and his mates set out to trap some poor unsuspecting soul.
With an evening’s drinks in him, Tom knew his head was not as clear as the situation demanded, but he also knew he would need to act quickly if he was going to survive the attack. The men closed in on him, forcing him toward the alley the single man had occupied moments earlier.
“Evening, Paddy,” one said. “The limey tells us ya got a few bucks back pay on ya. Now ya wouldn’t want to go around not sharing, would ya?” he sneered.
One of the men shoved Tom’s shoulder, intent on intimidating him into giving up his money. But Tom, always wont to take the initiative, smiled at the three and reached for his wallet. The man in the center grinned, a look of easy victory crossing his face. When the man glanced momentarily down at Tom’s wallet, Tom swung at him, but either the drinks had slowed him down or the fellow had quicker reflexes than Tom figured. Whatever the case, the punch missed, causing Tom to lose his balance and his assailants were immediately upon him. They knocked him to the ground, and all three began to kick him. Tom grunted with pain as the blows from their boots connected with his ribs and kidneys.
Tom knew that unless he gained some control of his situation, he stood in danger of not only losing his money but receiving a severe beating and perhaps being killed. He grabbed the foot of one of the men, pulling it toward him and jerking him off balance. As the man fell, Tom quickly got to his feet, and ducking under a punch from one of the other men, landed a heavy blow to the side of the head of the larger assailant. As the man staggered from the blow, Tom bolted forward, driving a shoulder into the man’s chest and knocking him backward into the wall of one of the buildings. He pinned the man against the wall, ripped two blows to his assailant’s midsection, and had the satisfaction of hearing the man wheeze in pain. One of the other men spun Tom around, and landed a stinging blow high on the Irishman’s head. Tom came back with an elbow to the front of the man’s neck, then kneed him in the groin.
Coming off the wall, the largest assailant moved toward Tom, who turned sideways, raised his leg, and drove his boot into the man’s chest. The man flew backward, landing hard and sprawling across a pile of lumber. He screamed with pain, momentarily arched his back then lay still, moaning in agony.
Tom’s blood was up, and he turned, fists raised, to face the two men who remained standing. But the fight had gone out of them, and they backed away. The man lying on the ground continued to moan, without trying to rise, and one of his partners bent over him and then gasped. The fallen man was impaled on a large metal spike.
Seeing his way free to run, Tom quickly snatched up his wallet from the ground and darted out of the alley into the street, as the two men behind him began shouting.
“Catch him! Get him! He’s murdered Ike! Murder! Murder!” They continued to shout as Tom turned into another alley, emerged on the far street and ran hard back to the railroad yard. There, he found an empty box car and scrambled painfully into it. Crawling to a dark corner, he sat there panting and trembling, nursing his battered ribs and gritting his teeth against the cold. He pulled his new winter coat up around his ears and listened for any sound of a search. Lying there in the dark, afraid and hurting, Tom reflected bitterly on what had happened to him. He thought of Father O’Leary, and remembered his story about the young Irish lad who’d been executed in New York for the same kind of offense.
Sometime after midnight, Tom was aroused from his fitful sleep by the sound of men shouting and calling to one another. Shifting his position, Tom braced himself to be discovered. Just at that moment, however, one of the policemen called to the other that coffee had arrived and they went off in another direction. A few minutes later, the railcar lurched, and the train began moving slowly. After a time, it moved onto a trestle crossing the great Missouri River and picked up speed.
Tom remained huddled in the corner of the boxcar, dozing fitfully, enduring the cold, and struggling to find some relief for the ache in his side. Finally, after a miserable night, it began to get light. He noted with satisfaction that the sun was coming up behind the train. West, Tom thought as he watched the sunlight break over the horizon. I’m still headed west.
By sun reckoning, it was well beyond noon when the train began to slow, and Tom saw a sign that said Salina, Kansas, roll past. His stomach confirmed the lateness in the day. It had been many hours since he had eaten.
About a half-mile past the town sign, the train slowed even more, then creaked and banged to a stop. Tom got stiffly to his feet and stood in the doorway of the boxcar. Shading his eyes from the sun’s glare off snow-covered prairie,
he looked out over a vast, treeless landscape that flattened out to immense proportions and stretched away into the distance beyond the rail yard and the town. Ahead, up the track, he could see the train had begun taking on water. It poured from a wooden tank through a metal boom into the locomotive tender car, and seeing the heavy stream reminded Tom of how thirsty he was.
He could hear men shouting in the distance, but seeing no one nearby, Tom climbed painfully from the boxcar and began walking gingerly up the tracks toward the water tank. He was startled and stumbled slightly when a switchman suddenly emerged from between two cars, but recovering quickly, Tom instinctively flashed the smile that he had learned to use to put people off their guard. Even though his coat was somewhat rumpled from a fitful night and a half day spent sitting and lying on the floor of the railcar, it was quickly evident to the switchman that Tom was no bum. His clothes still displayed their sheen and newness.
“Any chance for a drink of water up ahead?” Tom nodded toward the water tank.
“Sure thing,” the switchman said, looking around to see where Tom had come from. Aware of his curiosity, Tom continued to smile and rapidly formulated an explanation.
“Where are we?” he asked, looking around.
“Salina, Kansas. How’d you get here?”
Tom laughed, holding his bruised ribs as he bent over with the pain. “Just out for an evening stroll last night, and three, shall we say gentlemen, sought to relieve me of my meager funds. The first thing I knew, I woke up in one of the railcars,” he said, jerking his thumb back toward the direction he’d come.
“Well, I’d better call the sheriff and see if we can’t get you some help.”
“Nah, no need, but I appreciate the offer. Just a drink will do. And maybe something to eat. Where’s this train headed anyway?”
“Straight across to Denver,” the man replied.
“Denver? Is that west of here?”
The switchman snorted. “Straight west,” he pointed.
“Aye,” Tom smiled broadly, “if I could possibly purchase something to eat,” he said, pulling a small wad of bills out of his coat pocket, “and something to drink, I’ll just hop back into my private railcar and be on my way, no trouble to anyone.”
“I don’t know,” the switchman said, shaking his head. “We’re supposed to keep people off the freight cars.”
“I understand,” Tom replied. “Would five dollars be enough for a small bite to eat?” he said, fingering the bills and looking up at the switchman.
The man looked at the bills in Tom’s hand. “I suppose, just this once,” he answered, looking furtively around the rail yard. “But you’d have to get back in the car quickly.”
“Done,” Tom said. “Why don’t you bring me something to eat? I’ll get a quick drink of water, and then I’ll cease being a bother to you, sir.”
Twenty miles further west, with several pieces of greasy chicken digesting in his stomach and the growling quieted for the time being, Tom attempted once again, as dusk overtook the train, to get a few hours of sleep. The switchman’s lunch had been cold and had resulted in a bad case of indigestion, but Tom was grateful to have obtained something to eat, and through his conspiracy with the switchman, to have also escaped any real hassle while passing through Salina. The cold, which had abated slightly from the intense temperatures of the previous evening, was made somewhat more bearable by the straw bundles the switchman had offered Tom, lingering just long enough during their delivery to indicate that the additional service was worth at least another fiver. The fact that the switchman had never asked how it happened that Tom got mugged, dumped on the train, and yet still had money in his pocket, had not escaped Tom’s notice. Still, he felt reasonably assured that the rail worker would take his newfound ten dollars, not say a word to anyone, including his wife, and be grateful for his good fortune.
As for Tom’s fortune, sleep came no easier the second night, and the first light of dawn, viewed once again through the open door of a drafty railcar hooked into the westward moving train, found him fitfully turning on his bed of straw. He was thoroughly miserable: he was cold, his ribs were sore, and he was hungry again.
The rolling landscape of the American Midwest had given way during the night to more broken ground. And now, as daylight continued to gather, Tom stood shivering in the open doorway of the boxcar, arms folded, holding his coat pulled tightly around him, and staring out at the passing scene. Tall clumps of sagebrush poked through the snowdrifts in the arroyos alongside the railroad right-of-way. As the sun finally rose behind Tom, the train finished pulling up a long grade and crested a rise, and the young Irishman was startled by his first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains.
Stretching from north to south, the mountains lay in a long, unbroken line clear across the western horizon. Though fronted by a gently rising landscape of foothills, the enormous mountains appeared to jut up suddenly out of the great plains. They were still a long way off, but the clear air gave the mountains the appearance that they were much closer than they were. Their rugged tops were bathed in sunlight, and looking at their majestic snowy heights, Tom was filled with the same sense of awe he had felt while standing alongside Katrina and first seeing the great swells of the Atlantic Ocean from the deck of the Antioch.
A full knowledge of the true vastness of America was beyond his understanding at present, but Tom knew one thing from the maps he had studied while on the winter rail crew: the only thing that stood between him and Katrina Hansen—between him and this unknown land of Utah—had just risen suddenly out of the ground. And as the train rolled on, his mind slowly grasped the reality that while only one geographical obstacle remained, it appeared more and more formidable, the closer he got.
Tom was surprised to discover that even though Denver was farther west, it was larger than Kansas City. Of course, his knowledge of Kansas City, he smiled to himself, consisted of running through back alleys and retracing his steps to the rail yard.
Entering Denver, Tom found himself in different circumstances than when he had arrived in New York. He had some money, although not enough he felt, to simply purchase transportation for the remaining five hundred miles to Salt Lake City and arrive there with ample funds to allow him to obtain accommodations and to find Katrina without seeming to be a destitute immigrant. Denver would have to do for a short time. He would need some employment, and he could use the time to allow his injuries to heal before continuing his trip. Since it was only the second week in November, Tom felt he still had ample time to reach Salt Lake well ahead of the New Year. Had she waited as promised? That was the question that was beginning to nag at Tom, although he pushed it aside whenever it came to the fore. He’d come too far to turn back now.
After renting a room in a small boarding house, Tom inquired as to the whereabouts of a doctor and during his first visit, was not surprised to be told that he had two broken ribs. His breathing had become labored the second day of his confinement in the empty railcar, and he had considered the possibility that he might develop pneumonia if he didn’t find comfortable and warm accommodations soon. The boarding house answered that need.
When she discovered Tom’s injuries, Mrs. Hortense, the Mexican lady who ran the boarding house, immediately took control, and, much to his chagrin, plied him with soup and homemade bread. For the next few days, she saw to it that he remained in bed and had his meals served there. It was the most comforting three days Tom had enjoyed in many months, and lacking any immediate worry about finances, he allowed himself to relish the pampering.
By the end of the first week, he was up and around the house, and had taken to sitting on the upstairs outside balcony, much to Mrs. Hortense’s protest because of the cold. The mountains to the west continued to provide a panoramic view that enthralled Tom, and he sat watching them for hours, reading the Denver papers to get the flavor of the community and to learn more about this new land into which he had driven headlong.
Memories of Ireland were distan
t, but, occasionally, Tom found himself wondering how his family was doing and if the course he had taken would indeed lead to prosperity. Father O’Leary’s advice remained with Tom, as well as the name of the Sister who ran the hospital in Salt Lake City. O’Leary had made him promise that when he arrived in Utah, he would immediately find Holy Cross Hospital and present the letter of introduction the priest had given him. That letter, along with the copy of the Book of Mormon and a few extra clothes Tom had been carrying in a cheap bag, had been abandoned in the alley in Kansas City. Tom remembered the name: Sister Mary Theophane. But that was for later. For now, it was time to heal and gather himself for the last leg of his journey.
The time spent in Denver would have been a completely restful time, except for the scene that frequently played through his mind of the altercation in the alley in Kansas City, and the shouts of “murder!” that rang out as he fled. That a man had died bothered him terribly, and though he knew he had acted in self-defense, he couldn’t erase the memory of what had happened. Besides that, he worried constantly about being pursued by the authorities and overtaken. He vowed, therefore, to spend no longer than necessary—a few weeks at most—in Denver, before pushing on across the Rockies.
He was drawn once again to the rail yards, and by the end of his second week in Denver, Tom had gotten a job working in the livestock pens, loading sheep and cattle onto freight cars. At the request of his foreman, Tom made two runs with cattle up to Cheyenne, assuring that they were watered en route. Another run, down to Roswell, New Mexico, provided another view of America and a first glimpse at Indians living on a reservation. In his travels, Tom had seen some squalor by that time, but he was appalled at the conditions in which the Indians lived.
