by Neil Enock
The man rose to his feet. “Just an accident. Some of the rails on this line need to be repaired. With a little luck, we’ll get it fixed soon.”
“You’re with the railroad?”
“Henry Moore, railroad agent, at your service. But let me change out of these wet clothes before we continue our conversation.”
Mary found the conductor in the front car leaning out the door. It frightened Mary who imagined the old man falling out, but he assured her he was always safe on the train. “Just wondering if she’ll stop,” he said after pulling himself back in. “Got a passenger who wants off at the next town. He’s a nag. Wouldn’t mind getting rid of him but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over him missing his station either.”
“I was wondering about a different man,” Mary said. “The tall one who always looks unhappy. He’s with the railroad.”
The conductor nodded. “He’s been riding for a while. Don’t know what he’s up to. Toby said he came up to the locomotive at one stop and started nosing around.”
“I don’t think he likes me very much,” Mary said. “When the train shook back there, he fell down and got soaked with water from my mop bucket.”
The conductor shook his head. “I didn’t feel her shake. She’s riding nice and steady.”
—— «» ——
Mary was cleaning one of the sleeping compartments. An angry businessman had been the last occupant, and he had to stay on the train two stations past his destination because the train decided not to stop. The man expressed his displeasure by deliberately missing the spittoon and littering the floor with empty Century tobacco packets.
From the corridor outside, Mary heard Henry Moore. “I was a bit worried when we missed two stops,” he said.
“The train will do what she will do,” the conductor replied.
“Oh, I think you have a little more influence over the train than you realize. A train likes its conductor, or the conductor doesn’t last long.”
Mary wondered if she should be hearing this conversation, but she felt trapped. If she left the sleeping compartment now, she would call attention to herself. If she stayed, she might hear more than she was supposed to. There had been a few times when Mrs. Miller thought Mary had been eavesdropping and she ended up with a whipping. On the other hand, there were a few times when she’d overheard something useful. She stayed in the small compartment and kept quiet.
“We’ll have a number of passengers waiting to get on at the next stop,” Moore said. “The town has always been good for us and it’s very important we stick to the schedule. If they don’t ride, we don’t get paid.”
“I can’t tell you what the train will do,” the conductor said.
“No, but you can tell the train what you want it to do.”
“Nobody’s figured out how to talk to the trains.”
“It knows what you want. If you want it to stop — I mean, really want it to — it will stop as scheduled.”
“I let the train take care of the stopping and starting. I stick to my job.”
Mary heard something heavy thud against the wall of the sleeping compartment and she jumped. The conductor cried out in pain, and Moore hissed something too low for Mary to make out. She reached for the door to help the conductor when Moore’s voice returned to normal. “It’s up to you. If you don’t want that to happen to her, you’ll make sure we stop.”
Mary paused, listening to Moore’s heavy boots as he left the car. Were they talking about her, she wondered? She opened the door and saw the conductor slumped against the wall. “Are you hurt?” she asked.
He shook his head and Mary saw that his eyes were wet before he turned away.
—— «» ——
The train did decide to stop at the next town. Passengers got off; passengers got on. The railroad man stayed on board.
The next day, the train left the main line and headed into a switchyard. “Why are we stopping here?” one of the passengers asked.
Mary shrugged. “The train will do what it will do. I expect we won’t be here long.”
They came to a stop. Passengers and crew stared out the windows. There were lines and lines of branching tracks. Water towers stood ready to fill the boilers. Mountains of coal waited to be shoveled into the hoppers that fed the engines. Freight cars, passenger cars, locomotives, and cabooses were all scattered about the yard. Men were making repairs to a few of the cars and a locomotive was being prepared to leave. Some older men sat on benches sharing a bottle and watching the trains.
Their own locomotive stopped under a water tower. Toby had warned Mary and the conductor that they would need to fill the boiler soon, but the train knew where to go.
“This is where I get off,” the conductor said after the locomotive was made ready.
“I wouldn’t mind a chance to walk around myself,” Mary said.
“I don’t mean that. I’m done riding the train.”
“Here? But why? Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I’m old and tired,” he said. “More than that, I’m weak. It’s time for me to move on.”
“No!” Mary said. “I’ll come with you. You stopped for me. I can help you.”
“It wasn’t me that stopped,” the conductor said. “From here, I go alone. Your place is with the train.” He passed her his conductor’s cap and pocket watch.
“I’m just a girl! I can clean the cars, but I don’t know how to be a conductor.”
“Be good to the train and the train will be good to you.”
Mary moved to step out of the car to join him, but the train started to roll out and she was jostled backward. The conductor waved goodbye as the train picked up speed and left the yard. She shoved the watch into a pocket but couldn’t quite bring herself to put the cap on her head.
—— «» ——
The train stopped next on a siding in a lonely prairie. A small herd of cattle turned to study them. When they saw no threat, they resumed grazing. Mary checked the pocket watch and realized that Toby must be ready for some fresh water. She hurried to fill a jug and grabbed an apple. The railroad agent was already in the locomotive when Mary arrived.
“The train likes both of you,” Henry Moore said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have stopped to pick you up or stop for Toby here to get a drink and some food.”
“I’m nobody special,” Mary said. “The train liked the conductor, but he had to leave. Maybe the train likes me today but won’t like me tomorrow.”
Toby took the apple and nodded. “You can’t tell with a train.”
“Trains aren’t like people,” Moore said. “I’ve studied them. They’re slow to make a decision but stick with it once it’s done. The train decided it was time for a new conductor and it chose you.”
“So what?” It was hot here by the boiler and crowded with the three of them in the cab. Mary didn’t know how the coal boy could stand it for hours at a time, but he did it and kept the train rolling.
“You have to see we can’t continue like this,” Moore said. “The trains need to be controlled. The railroad companies are hurting and if they fail, who will keep the trains running?”
“We will,” Toby said around a mouthful of apple, the fruit now black as coal.
“You two? Who’s going to lay new track, repair the engines, bring in the water and the coal to keep them all running? It’s fine for you to shovel coal and mop floors, but it takes a company to keep the trains running.”
“You still make your money when people ride the trains,” Mary said.
“Not like we should. Look at what the trains are doing to the schedules. Sometimes they come on time, other times they’re early or late. Sometimes they don’t stop at all. How can we have a railroad that operates like that?”
“Why are you asking me?” Mary said. “What can I do about it?”
“The train likes you. You can help us take back control of the train. This train and then others until we have all of them back under control. There are repairs that need to be done but how do we lay rails when we don’t know if a train might decide to come barreling down the track?”
“The rails look fine to me,” said Toby.
“And that’s why you won’t keep the trains running,” Moore said. “You don’t know what to look for.”
“I know you hurt the conductor,” Mary said. “I don’t think I want to help you.” Mary had tried to tell Mrs. Miller that once. It had not gone well for her. She didn’t have much hope this would be better, but she was going to try.
Moore took a step forward. So did the coal boy.
“She said she’s not helping you,” Toby said and dropped what was left of his apple.
The railroad agent pulled a double-barreled derringer from a pocket and waved it from Toby to Mary to Toby again. “Back,” he said. “This isn’t a negotiation. All I’m telling you to do is talk to the train about how important it is to stop. Everything else stays the same. You ride the train. Maybe you even get a salary from the railroad. The train’s happy. You’re happy. The railroad makes money.”
Mary kept an eye on the gun. “The train will just find another conductor. One who doesn’t ask it to do things it doesn’t want to do.”
“If it does, we’ll do the same thing with the next conductor. It just means you won’t be on the train. Look, we’ve learned a few things since the trains started running on their own. They like people. They need people. Without people, they’ve got no reason to live. So we need people who can tell the trains to do what we want them to do. You could be one of those people. You could really go places.”
Mary looked at the gun and looked at Toby. She thought she saw the boy shake his head ever so slightly. “I can’t do it,” she said. “The train has to do what it wants to do.”
Moore cocked the hammer of his pistol. “I can shovel coal as well as this boy. We’re going to do this. It’s your choice who’s shoveling coal for you.”
“Wait,” Mary said. “I’ll help you. Just put the gun away.”
Moore didn’t put it away, but he did ease up on the hammer. “Do it,” he said.
Mary reached a hand out to steady herself. She grasped the no-longer-needed throttle and felt a little tremor in her hand. This is it, she thought. We’re either all going to stand up to the railroad company or we’re all going to end up doing what they want.
Something told Mary to grip the controls more tightly. The fingers of her left hand tightened. The water jug hung heavy in her right. She looked at Toby and saw the coal boy shift to widen his stance. The engine roared and the train lurched forward. Taken by surprise, Moore struggled to stay on his feet.
Toby pulled back on his coal shovel and it clanged against the boiler. Moore brought the gun back up as he fought to regain his balance.
Coal dust arced from the shovel as Toby swung it up at Moore’s head. In the narrow space, there wasn’t room for the boy to bring the full force of his muscles into play. The shovel connected, Moore’s finger tightened, and the gun exploded. Mary’s ears rang from the noise.
The train was accelerating faster than Mary had ever felt it move before. She realized it must have decoupled from the passenger cars and wondered what the passengers were thinking. She had no time to dwell on that thought. Moore had fallen but so had Toby. The boy was clutching at his side with one hand, and the railroad man was again raising his gun. Mary stepped forward, swinging the jug down on Moore’s hand as hard as she could. She had lost the conductor and she was not going to lose Toby as well. The ceramic jug smashed into the railroad man’s fingers and he screamed in pain.
When the gun fell loose, she grabbed it. It was heavier than she expected and hot in her hand. She was shaking and wasn’t sure she actually knew how to fire the gun, but she pointed it at Moore all the same.
“Are you hurt?” she said over her shoulder to Toby.
“Winged me. I’ll be all right.” The coal boy stood up and took the pistol from Mary. Blood was seeping through the coal dust on his left side.
The train slowed and Moore looked up at the two of them. “You ever fire a gun before, boy? You don’t want to pull that trigger,” he said. “You’ll get hurt worse than me.”
“Maybe,” Toby said. “Might be worth it.”
Mary reached out and put her hand on Toby’s back to let him know she was there. “We’ll see what the train thinks about it,” she said.
The locomotive slowed to a stop and the cab door opened. Moore pulled himself up to his feet. Blood was trickling down his face from where the shovel hit, and one finger stuck out at an unnatural angle. “You’ll regret this,” he said.
“The train wants you to leave,” Mary said.
Moore backed out of the door, keeping an eye on Toby and the gun. The door closed and the locomotive began to ease back to recouple with the rest of the cars. Toby moaned and pulled off his shirt. Blood flowed down his side. “Think I cracked a rib,” he said.
Mary took the gun from Toby and set it down carefully. “I’ll get you cleaned up,” she said. “Then I’ll go check with the passengers. There’s a few on board that would be happy to help.”
Toby nodded. “And don’t forget your cap. Conductor.”
—— « o » ——
Maurice Forrester
Maurice Forrester is a software developer living in central New York. Recent publications include stories in Middle Planet, Daily Science Fiction, The First Line, and Unrealpolitik (JayHenge Publishing). Long interest in both 19th century American history and in train songs helped to inform this piece.
Mr. Turner on the Great Western Railway
by Michael Johnstone
Nor shall your presence, howsoe’er it mar
The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar
To the Mind’s gaining that prophetic sense
Of future change…
— William Wordsworth, “Steamboats, Viaducts, and Railways” (1835)
Joseph Mallord William Turner stood upon the grassy hill looking west toward Maidenhead. His gaze followed the line of the nearby railway tracks in anticipation of the cloud of steam announcing the approaching locomotive. The early September afternoon was gloomy, intimating rain perhaps that evening. Behind him, the Thames flowed dourly south. As a breeze whispered by, he pulled his coat tighter about him and adjusted his scarf to cover his neck more securely, yet still he shivered a touch.
Then he spied the gray-white steam puffing heartily into the air and billowing back as the locomotive sped toward him. Taking his sketchbook and a pencil from his coat pocket, he found a blank page and began drawing. First, the shapes of the steam. Next, the dark railway tracks almost converging in the distance as the front of the oncoming train appeared. He scrawled a few words — slate gray, black, iron, shadow, yellowing fields. Swiftly, he moved to a new page and outlined the front of the locomotive, with a horizontal rectangle topped by a half oval, which was topped by a thrusting vertical cylinder fluted open at its crown.
“Dear God, it is monstrous,” grumbled a gentleman close by Turner.
“Don’t be so spiteful, Mr. Fleetwood. I declare it to be a marvel,” said the gentleman’s wife, seated next to him in their phaeton. A snort from their horse suggested he also disagreed with her. They had arrived some ten minutes gone.
“What do you say, sir?” Mr. Fleetwood queried.
Turner, having begun another page of sketches, kept peering to the west, grunting lowly while he concentrated upon the wheels of the locomotive. Three of them a side, the large driving wheel between the smaller leading and trailing wheels. They propelled the train forward, urged by the pistons churning the driving wheel.
“He appears not to have heard you,” the wife said.
“You may b
e right, Mrs. Fleetwood.”
At last, the train rumbled and whistled and clattered past them. Turner halted his sketching to enjoy the quaking of the ground and surge of wind that would have carried off his hat had he not clapped a hand upon it just in time. As the passenger cars hurtled by, all seemed to slow down for a mere breath, and Turner saw a man seated by a window nod and tip his hat to him. A gentleman, with a dark and well-trimmed mustache, wine red jacket, white gloves, indigo cravat, and black top hat. Yet most striking were the gentleman’s eyes, which glimmered despite the somber day, appearing also to contain tiny flickering blue and green lights. In the next breath, the train hurtled on again, crossing the bridge over the Thames and continuing east toward London.
“Mr. Fleetwood,” the woman said once the train passed beyond the bridge, “I suspect he may be the painter, Mr. Turner. There is talk he is currently lodging at the Bear Hotel in town.”
“Yes, yes. Good spot, Mrs. Fleetwood,” the gentleman mumbled. He cleared his throat and said, “If you are indeed Mr. Turner, sir, I am honored to make your acquaintance and to welcome you to Maidenhead. Have you come to paint one of these devils of Hell?”
Turner raised his hand holding the pencil, gesturing for silence. He looked east now and watched as the back of the train eventually disappeared beyond sight, dissipating puffs of steam wafting above the railway tracks the last vestige of its recent presence. How, he wondered, would he ever devise a means of rendering such speed on the canvas? A conundrum, to be certain.
Returning to his sketchbook, he hurriedly drew the strange man at the window. When he had finished, he closed his sketchbook, put it and his pencil back in his coat pocket, and turned to face Mr. and Mrs. Fleetwood.
“My sincere apologies, sir and madam,” he said cordially, proceeding a few steps toward them. “I was making some notations about the light of the afternoon and its effects upon the train. I am indeed Mr. Turner, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well. Do you come often to view the trains?”
“This is our second visit this month,” Mrs. Fleetwood said brightly. “We were already out in the phaeton, and I proposed to Mr. Fleetwood that we would be in time to see the afternoon schedule on its way to London. My husband, as I am sure you overheard, does not find the new locomotives to his liking.”
