by Marc Graham
“You have no power,” I say, and the realization is punctuated by a whimper from the other. “You can’t take me. I have to choose to go with you.”
A soft, hollow cry echoes from the gaping maw of the beast.
“No,” I say, “I won’t. Go back to whatever hell you came from and leave me be.”
I turn my back on the demon and the cry turns into a wail, then a shriek that rends the sky, making the leaves and the wind chimes rattle.
Then the air stills again, and the tree resumes its gentle music. I step around the thick trunk to see the first visitor calmly leaning against it, one arm hanging lazily by his side while his fingers drum softly on the tree.
“Show me,” I say.
He grins and nods his head.
I close my eyes and concentrate, filtering out all but the tap-tap-tapping of his fingers against the tree.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Promontory Summit, Utah—May 1869
Dah-dit-dit. Dah-dah-dah. Dah-dit. Dit.
The telegraph wires buzzed in time with the operator’s key as he spelled out the message that marked the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
D-O-N-E
Cheers rose from the gathered crowd of statesmen, investors, laborers and curious onlookers. I couldn’t help being caught up in the excitement, and I raised my hat and joined in the cheers. The uproar lasted for several minutes before California’s governor, Leland Stanford, silenced the crowd to express his sentiments.
The snap of Old Glory drowned out his droning as I surveyed the crowd from my perch atop a telegraph pole. I looked beyond the inner ring of invited guests and dignitaries, their round bellies stuffed in black frock coats, heads topped with stovepipe hats. I searched past the surrounding corps of white laborers from the Union and Central Pacific lines, until I finally spied a small group of Chinese workers.
The men were decked out in broad-brimmed hats and brilliant blue, silk pajamas, but it wasn’t these I sought. In their midst, dressed far more humbly than her countrymen but outshining them all, stood the object of my quest.
Nankande.
I had no idea what her name meant—or if it meant anything at all—but it seemed as exotic as its owner. I’d met the woman only once and briefly, barely long enough to learn her name, but I found myself captivated by this vision from the East. The few words I’d heard her speak conveyed all the mystery and enchantment of a distant—yet hauntingly familiar—paradise. The words themselves were mundane, but the voice that breathed life into them resonated with a soft, transcendent tone that stirred to life a part of me I’d long thought dead.
“Brings a tear to your eye, don’t it?” Dave mused as I climbed down from the pole after the ceremonial benediction.
“It does indeed,” I said, and looked past him, over the crowd toward the now-hidden gang of Chinese workers.
“You, too?”
“Me, too, what?”
“Aw, come on, now, Cap’n, Every man at the dinner table was smitten by that sweet little thing,” he said, referring to the dinner hosted by the Central Pacific the previous evening. “But before you go chasing off to Shangri-La, Casement wants to see you.”
I gestured for Dave to lead the way and reluctantly followed him to the Union Pacific’s engine, No. 119. The UP’s lack of imagination was contrasted by the brightly painted Jupiter that adorned the Central Pacific’s engine and timber car. What the eastern line lacked in imagination, though, was more than made up for in the tenacity and sheer iron will of the men who drove the company.
Such a man was Dan Casement. As I approached him—his five-foot-nothing frame dwarfed by the great iron wheels of the engines—the man radiated a supreme confidence. He and his brother Jack had driven the crews that reshaped the face of the American prairie and conquered the Rocky Mountains, laying more than a thousand miles of track in four short years. To have been a part of that effort filled me with a pride I’d never before known.
“Colonel,” I said, greeting Casement with a casual salute.
A man might make the mistake of equating stature with ability, and gauging his respect by the same scale. Where the Casement brothers were concerned, no one would make that mistake twice.
“Jim,” he welcomed me, and extended his small hand with its iron grip. “You know Jim Strobridge.”
“Yes, sir.” I shook the other man’s hand. “We met at dinner last night. Thank you again for the hospitality, sir.”
“My pleasure.”
The Californian stood more than six feet tall, his eyes level with mine. Eye, rather. His right eye was covered with a patch, the result of a blasting accident while cutting through the Sierra Nevada range. His left shone brightly enough for the both of them, and bore a confidence that matched Casement’s.
“Dan here tells me you’re one of his best crew drivers,” Strobridge said.
“The colonel is overly generous, sir. I was just lucky enough to have a good crew working for me. No disrespect, sir, but they’re the ones who made this possible.” I gestured toward the final rail tie where ceremonial gold and silver spikes gleamed under the desert sun. “Men like you and me, we just tugged the reins a bit and tried to keep out of the way.”
“What’d I tell you,” Casement chimed in. “Lyingest son of a bitch on my crews. Why, Jim here can do every job on the line, right down to cooking up the best damned buffalo stew you’ll ever taste. Lets on it’s all his crew, but men like these don’t follow a man unless they know he’s the best among them.”
“Just the sort I’m looking for,” Strobridge said with a grin. “What do you say, Robbins?”
“I’m sorry? Say about what?”
“Stro’s putting together some crews for the lines out in California,” Casement explained. “I told him he’d be a fool if he didn’t try dragging you out west with him.”
“California?”
“It’s the new Promised Land,” Strobridge boasted. “California is to the East what America was to Europe a hundred years ago. A half million people have come west just in the past twenty years. With the railroad complete, I expect that number’ll double before long. All those people are going to need new roads to link them together, to carry their gold and iron and grain and produce. And I aim to build them.”
He grinned lustily and clamped a cigar between his teeth as he set the glorious image within the gilded frame of his ego.
“Makes a right pretty picture,” Casement observed.
“That it does,” I agreed. “It’d be fair to say you have my attention, Mister Strobridge.”
“My friends call me Stro, and I’m glad to hear it.” He scratched at the space between his beard and eye patch. “Now, there is one catch. I’ve three thousand Chinese workers. Every single man on my line earns his pay, but I’ll be damned if I ever saw a harder-working bunch than those little yellow bastards. It’d be a shame to lose all that experience, and I mean to hold on to it.”
“The catch, sir?” I prompted him.
“I want you to head up a Chinese crew. If you have a problem with that, I might still be able to find a place for you, but . . .” He shrugged.
“I’ve heard stories of the work they did in the Sierras,” I said after only a moment’s pause. “If even half of them are true, it’d be a privilege to work alongside men like that.” And a woman like Nankande, I didn’t add.
“Grand,” Stro said, his face splitting into a broad grin. “Come by my car this evening. There’s a bottle of eighteen-year-old Scotch I’ve been meaning to open.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and shook the men’s hands once more.
“Well, how about that?” Dave observed after the two foremen excused themselves to rub elbows with the upper brass.
“Yep—how about that? Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I think I’ll try to get acquainted with some of my new crew.”
I turned toward the group of Chinese workers and floated in that direction.
“You do that,” Dave said
with a slap on my back. “And good luck.”
“What the hell am I doing?” I muttered to myself as I stumbled along sand-blown tracks under a burning sun.
The Chinese crew had disappeared by the time I reached the spot where I’d last seen them. Figuring they’d returned to their camp a few miles west of Promontory Summit—fittingly named Victory—I set out after them. I went on foot, thinking I’d catch up with them in the same time it would have taken to find and saddle Rigel. After only a couple of miles, though, with the heat of the Utah sun and the deepening ache in my leg, my doubts gathered steam and I turned back toward the UP camp.
“Don’t look back.”
I spun around to find the source of the words. There was only the hush of the wind and the skittering of sand along the gleaming steel rails. I cocked my head and listened again, unsure whether the words had come from without or within.
When you find your dream, don’t look back. You just follow right after her . . .
“And damn the rest,” I finished the words, the last ones Matt had spoken to me at Elkhorn Tavern.
At the time, I’d assumed they referred to Gina, and I could make no sense of them. But here, now, with so much behind me that might hold me back from a new dream, they rang out with a new clarity. With renewed energy and hope, I set the brim of my hat against the afternoon sun and pressed on along the westward line.
A half hour later, the track led me between a pair of dunes where a commotion caught my attention. Angry shouts rose from one of the dunes, and I scrambled up the sandy bluff to see what was the matter.
My heart lurched into my throat as I crested the hill and caught sight of Nankande. I was more surprised to see Charlie Garrett. One thick hand wrapped around the young woman’s wrist, while the other fended off the feeble attacks of an elderly Chinese man.
Most surprising of all was the old man’s stance. Between each charge at Garrett—who was easily twice his size—the little man shouted a phrase while gesturing with his arms and hands. I couldn’t understand the words, but there was no mistaking the sign he gave.
“What’s this, Garrett?” I asked as I stepped over the rise and eased my way down the slope.
One hand still stretched toward the old man, Garrett spun toward me, dragging Nankande around with him.
“Nothing to concern you, Jimmy Boy,” he said after a moment’s pause. “You just run on along.”
“It may not concern me directly,” I said, “but I’d say it affects these two. They don’t seem any too happy about the whole thing.”
“I said move on, Robbins.” Garrett glared at me, and the young woman’s eyes widened in pain as he tightened his grip on her wrist.
“Let her go,” I ordered.
Nankande gasped as Garrett squeezed tighter still. The old man charged again, his rush easily deflected by the larger man.
“We’ve been here before, Garrett,” I said. “As I recall, it didn’t end so well for you then. You sure you want another go-around?”
Anger flashed through the steely, blue eyes, followed by just a hint of reason. With a disgusted growl, he flung the woman to the ground. The old man quickly rushed to her side and Garrett stalked toward me.
“She ain’t worth it anyway. But this ain’t over, Jimmy Boy,” he rumbled. “Not by a long shot.”
I braced for an attack, but the thug just brushed roughly against my shoulder before retreating over the bluff. I watched him pass out of sight before turning my attention to the pair behind me. The old man knelt beside Nankande and gingerly examined her wrist. He spoke to her rapidly, but lightly, with what I gathered were words of comfort.
“Are you two all right, Miss Nankande?” I said.
They both looked up as I pronounced the name—one in curiosity, the other in alarm.
“Yes, thank you,” replied the curious one. Her eyes narrowed at me as she tried to place me.
“I had the pleasure of meeting you at dinner last night.” I took off my hat and self-consciously smoothed my hair.
“Yes, of course. Mister Roberts, is it?”
“Robbins. Jim Robbins.”
“Mister Robbins,” she repeated in a soft, heart-rending tone. “Thank you for your help.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. I’m only sorry it was necessary.”
The old man followed the exchange with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. He interjected a Gatling fire of words to which Nankande listened attentively.
“My father says to thank you for your aid,” she interpreted, “and to ask that you leave now and let us be on our way.”
I recoiled at the rebuff, but kept my temper in check.
“I’d feel better if you’d let me see you back to your camp,” I said.
Nankande translated the offer, which was answered by another agitated stream of words.
“Thank you, Mister Robbins,” she said as the tirade continued, “but it will be better that we see to ourselves. We—”
She stopped as her father rattled on and concluded with an insistent gesture in my direction. When Nankande hesitated, he repeated the final phrase with an even more forceful gesture.
She lowered her eyes and the color rose beneath her fair skin.
“My father trusts few white men. He says that, while you act as a rescuer, you will try to take by good will what the other tried to take by force.”
The brunt of the charge hit me like a slap in the face, despite the charm of the messenger and her attempt to soften the blow. I bit my cheek against the anger that welled up in my breast as I glared at the man, then at his daughter.
“Tell him,” I spat through gritted teeth, “I didn’t do this for myself. You tell him I—” I pointed my finger straight at the man, fixed his eyes with mine. “Tell him I did it for the sake of a widow’s son.”
With that, I turned on my heels, limped up the rise with as much dignity as I could, and followed the tracks back to camp.
“My father wishes to speak with you.” The words were accompanied by a gentle tug on my sleeve.
I’d ridden out to Camp Victory with Stro to meet the crew I’d be accompanying back to California. After a brief introduction by Stro and a few words of my own—all translated by Nankande—the men of the crew filed past, alternately shaking my hand and bowing in greeting as they sized up their new gongtou. The ranking member of the crew was Nankande’s father, whom she introduced as Zhang Shu. He’d been first in line and coolly bowed without shaking my hand, then wordlessly moved on.
That he now wanted to talk caught me by surprise.
“More assaults on my character?” I instantly regretted the harsh tone.
“I apologize for my father.” Nankande lowered her eyes. “He means well, but distrusts strangers and is very protective of me.”
“I understand.” My resentment quickly melted in the warmth of her presence. “Of course, I’ll be happy to speak with him.”
Nankande led me through the crowd of workers. I tried to keep my eyes from wandering, but couldn’t ignore her figure as she glided across the ground. With conscious effort, I managed not to be staring directly at her as we neared her father.
The older man bowed again, and I awkwardly returned the greeting. To my surprise, he then extended his hand. As I accepted it, he slid his fingers into a familiar grip. Whatever enmity I still held toward him fell away.
“My father welcomes a—a companion in the art,” Nankande said hesitantly as she translated her father’s words. “He invites you to join him—” She interrupted herself to clarify his meaning, the exchange as brief as it was unfathomable. “He invites you to join in the work this evening.”
I grinned broadly at the invitation, and Zhang Shu returned the smile.
“Please tell him I’d be happy to accept,” I said.
Nankande translated the time and place before I was forced to excuse myself to rejoin Stro for the trip back to camp at Promontory and dinner in his personal railcar.
I spent the balance of the aftern
oon in anxious distraction as the seconds grudgingly gave way to one another. I had to apologize to Missus Strobridge several times as I picked at my meal, asked for questions to be repeated and otherwise made a poor guest of myself. It was with great relief, then, when the clock chimed seven and I was able to excuse myself for the evening.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t better company.”
“That’s quite all right,” she said. “I imagine you’ve a great deal to wrap your mind around, and Stro isn’t in the habit of giving folks much time to reflect on things.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m learning that,” I said. “Night, Stro.”
“Good night, Jim,” he said. “Have a good evening, and get some rest. We’ll start loading up the cars at first light.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied and shook his hand.
He patted me on the shoulder and gave me what might have been a wink—with the patch over his right eye, I could never be sure. I stepped down from the car, swung into the saddle on Rigel’s back and started toward Camp Victory. I set Rigel on an easy pace, enjoying the warmth of the evening sun while I whistled some nameless tune until I reached the edge of the Chinese camp. I was surprised to see Nankande waiting there alone.
“Good evening,” I greeted her with a tip of my hat, then swung down from the saddle.
“Good evening,” she said in turn, and the sun seemed to dim in comparison with her smile. “Father asked me to meet you and take you to him when you arrived.”
“He wasn’t worried for your virtue?” I regretted the familiar tone as soon as the words were spoken.
Nankande didn’t seem put off.
“I asked him the same thing,” she said. “He seems to think that my honor is safe with you.”
“I’ll do my best not to disappoint him.”
I gestured for her to lead the way and walked alongside, leading Rigel by his reins.
We walked in silence. For my part, it was as much due to a natural comfort as to the inability to think of anything to say. After too short a time, we arrived at a cleft in a rock outcropping where a solitary member of the Chinese crew stood watch.
