by Gail Sattler
“He’s being serious, now?”
She nodded again. “Yes. With Robert gone, there isn’t anyone to oversee the track if Papa isn’t there, and it’s crucial that the inspections be made daily.”
The nurse helped Mr. Demchuck into a wheelchair, and Elliott and Louise walked beside him as they proceeded to the front desk, where Mr. Demchuck paid the bill. The nurse pushed the wheelchair until they were all the way to the car. When Mr. Demchuck was steady on his crutches, she reluctantly allowed him to dismiss her and wheeled the chair back toward the hospital.
Elliott opened the passenger door, then helped Louise’s father steady himself beside it before he ran around and climbed inside. Elliott crawled across the seat on his hands and knees, and as best he could from the awkward position, he helped Mr. Demchuck to lift himself inside. At first Mr. Demchuck appeared to be doing fine by himself. He pulled himself into the car backward, keeping one hand on the back of the seat. He braced his other hand on the dashboard, while maneuvering his leg. The heavy cast made the task awkward at best. He had almost pulled himself up enough to slide the rest of the way on the seat when he bumped his bare toes on the metal car door. Mr. Demchuck recoiled from the pain, causing him to lose his grip on the back of the seat. He frantically tried to right himself, but he began to slide down.
Louise dropped her purse on the ground and raised her arms, as if she could do something to prevent him from falling. The vision of Mr. Demchuck falling on Louise and both of them being hurt flashed through Elliott’s mind.
Without thinking, Elliott lunged forward and grabbed Mr. Demchuck under the arms, then half pulled and half dragged the poor man all the way onto the seat.
Mr. Demchuck swiped his arm across his forehead. “I still seem to be a little dizzy. Those painkillers must have affected me more than I thought. Thank you, Elliott. That was a close one. I had no idea it was going to be this difficult, but I have to go home today. Waiting won’t make it any better tomorrow.”
“No, Sir, I don’t imagine it will.”
Once her father had properly positioned himself, Louise climbed up into the seat and squeezed into the small remaining space. She tucked her legs in so she wasn’t touching her father’s cast, then pulled the door closed. “I’m ready. We can go home now.”
Elliott drove as carefully as he could. The roads in town were fairly smooth, although there were many winter potholes to maneuver around. The highway, being concrete, allowed him to reach a good speed of 30 mph to make the journey in as little time as possible. Very little was said as they traveled along, and the silence started to make Elliott uncomfortable.
He cleared his throat. “This is a fine car, Sir.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mr. Demchuck nod once and smile. Immediately, Elliott relaxed.
“Yes, it’s a 1932 Ford Cabriolet with one of those new eight-cylinder block engines. I suppose you have noticed how smoothly it runs.”
“Yes, Mr. Demchuck, it does. Shifts easily, too.”
“It has a 65-horsepower engine, and I only paid $610 for it, brand-new.”
Elliott checked the odometer. “It doesn’t have many miles on it for a six-year-old car.”
“No, generally the only place I drive is to Beauséjour, and that’s not very often. We take the train to Winnipeg twice a month to do our shopping. Other than that, there really isn’t anyplace to go. We don’t even have to drive to church; it’s right in Pineridge. However, it’s too small to have our own minister, so one minister travels around to many such community churches around the farming areas. Some services in the area are Saturday, but we’ve been blessed to actually have our service on Sunday at two in the afternoon. Do you have to travel far to your own church?”
Elliott forced himself to smile. The stock market had crashed when he was only sixteen. He’d been old enough to remember better times, but too young at the time to realize why they could no longer buy the things they had when he was younger. As he grew into adulthood, the economy continued to worsen and unemployment steadily increased. Instead of following his dreams, which included going to university and owning a car of his own, he had to work at his family’s barbershop. Because he couldn’t afford a car, he’d bought a motorcycle. Then, as times continued to worsen, he’d had to sell the motorcycle, among other things he’d valued, just to have enough money to pay for his food and other needs. Lately, the only time he drove, versus walking, was when he drove his brother’s car when they needed supplies for their shop.
He faced straight forward as he spoke, concentrating more on the road than he needed to. “At home, I attend services at a church within walking distance from home.”
“Louise plays the piano, so she plays the organ at church. She plays well.”
“Thank you, Papa. You know I enjoy it.”
They continued in silence until Elliott slowed to turn down the road that led to Pineridge.
“Elliott, while you’re here, I was wondering if you could do something else for me. I hate to ask this, but I’m stuck. I need someone to inspect the track.”
“Inspect the track, Sir?”
“Yes. It is my duty as section foreman to inspect my thirty-mile section of track every morning. It’s also critical that I check and test every switch, every day.”
“I’d be glad to, but I’m not sure what to do.”
“You’d look for loose or broken spikes and ties that have split or become deteriorated. Then you’ll have to mark those for the section gang to replace the next day. Any dead animals or debris must be cleared immediately, because any debris could cause an accident or derail the trains. Switches must be checked to be sure they are operating perfectly, including filling up the indicator lights with coal oil. When I do the inspection on my own on the weekend, it usually takes only a few hours.”
Elliott had seen a clock on the wall at the hospital, and he estimated the time to now be about half past noon. He tried to calculate when they would arrive back at the house, then how much longer for him to receive adequate instruction for such a task. If the job took an experienced man a few hours, he didn’t know how long it would take him, when he wasn’t sure what he would be looking for. He suspected it would be much longer. Still, he couldn’t say no, not in light of the present circumstances. “I’ll do my best, Sir.”
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re trying to figure out if that will give you enough time to hop back on the next freight train, and it might not. I want you to forget about that. For your trouble, I want you to spend the night with us again. Come to church with us tomorrow, and then I’m going to buy you a ticket on the passenger train for your kindness in helping us. Anna tells me that you have a job waiting for you on the coast. You’ll get there faster with a paid ticket, even leaving a day later, than riding the boxcars.”
“I don’t know what to say, Sir.”
“Well, there is one thing you can do.”
“Yes, Sir. Anything.”
“This is Pineridge, not the city where you came from. You can stop calling me ‘Sir.’ And don’t call me Mr. Demchuck, either. My name is John.”
Elliott bit his lower lip. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Louise trying to hold back a giggle. Today, he was alert enough not to make the same mistake as he’d made with her mother. “Okay. . .” He nodded once, slightly. “John.”
Upon their arrival at the house, Elliott drove the car as close as he could to the door and did his best to help John climb out. Elliott knew that even long after he left their home, he would always struggle to think of the man by his first name, as he hadn’t been raised to address men old enough to be his father in such a manner.
Rather than have either of the women help John up the stairs, Elliott hurried to park the car in front of the garage, then jogged back to help John balance with the crutches up the three steps and get into the house. Once inside, he followed John to the couch and helped lower him as gently as he could until John was seated as comfortably as possible. Even sti
ll, John was short of breath for a few minutes.
“I’m not going to be able to do much, but I figure if we can do the inspection today and all is perfect, it should go smoothly tomorrow. We never miss a day of inspection unless it’s an emergency, but both Frank and Henry are gone for the weekend, and Robert is gone for good. Monday they’ll be back, so I can make arrangements for them to help until I’m out of the cast. For this weekend, I don’t have a choice but to ask you to help. Usually, when I’m with the section men, we use the jigger, but since I can’t put the speedster on the tracks, you’re going to have to.”
Elliott had no idea what a speedster was, but in the back of his mind, he could vaguely picture what a jigger looked like. He’d occasionally seen them, but he’d never been up close to one. He knew jiggers had wheels large enough to fit on the train track, and that in structure a jigger was basically a platform on wheels with some kind of double-handled pump in the middle, which was used to propel the unit. He didn’t know what a speedster was, but if it was anything similar to a jigger, he had to assume it also would be constructed of mostly metal, and therefore, it would probably be heavy.
“Put it on the track? Has it fallen off?”
“No, no.” John shook his head. “During the day, when we’re working, we have it on the siding, but we can’t store it on a siding when it’s not in use.”
“Siding?”
“That’s about a half-mile section of track which runs parallel to the main track. It’s operated by a switch, and one train uses it to park to allow another train to pass by. We also use the siding to park our jigger while we work. I do the same with the speedster when I’m alone.”
“Oh. Then where is this speedster now if it’s not on a siding?”
“It’s in the toolhouse around the back of the bunkhouse. The railroad doesn’t put in a length of track just to move the jigger, and especially not the speedster, so we pull it off the track at night and push it into the toolhouse.”
Elliott tried to picture the procedure and couldn’t. “Can this be done by one man?”
“There are ties laid out so it can be pushed on a solid surface, like a bridge, if you will. That way it won’t sink into the ground. From the shed to the track is about fifteen feet. At the end, we’ve got the ties parallel to the track, so we only have to lift it sideways and put it on the track from beside. I do it myself every weekend.”
For now, Elliott sat eye-to-eye with John, but since he was wearing John’s clothes, he knew exactly how much bigger John was than himself. John had to outsize him by three inches in height and a good thirty pounds in weight. Of more importance than the difference in physical size, by trade Elliott was a barber. He knew he was too thin, but more so, he didn’t do much in the way of physical labor. He didn’t want to embarrass himself by being unable to do the task.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll do my best, but I will need instructions.”
“I can go with you. I figure if I can get into the car, I can get onto the speedster, which is lower than the seat of the car. We’d have more room on the jigger because the speedster is only meant for one, but one man can’t move the jigger. And if we’re going to do it, we should do it now. We have to keep the schedule in mind, and we can’t afford mistakes. They could be deadly with a train coming on the same section of track.”
Elliott stood. This wasn’t something he was looking forward to doing, but putting it off wasn’t going to make the situation go away.
John lifted one arm to brace himself on the back of the couch, stiffened, but didn’t push himself up. “Louise, did you by any chance get the schedule today?”
“Yes, Papa, I did.” She turned and walked to the desk, picked up a piece of paper, and returned with it, handing it to John, who relaxed and skimmed it.
He rested the paper in his lap, then lifted his head to face Elliott. “Every morning at seven o’clock they give everyone down the line the daily schedule by phone.”
Elliott turned his head slightly toward the desk and felt his cheeks heat up. It wasn’t realistic to expect any degree of privacy in the middle of the living room of such a small house, but it embarrassed him to know that Louise had been in the room with him, on the phone for quite some time only fifteen feet away. Even if she hadn’t meant to, she couldn’t have helped but watch him as he slept. He’d been so exhausted he wondered if he slept with his mouth open or, worse, if he snored. “I didn’t realize I was that tired. I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
Louise shook her head and smiled. “It doesn’t ring. The phone is only hooked up between the dispatch office in Kenora and the other section houses along the rail line. We have to be at the desk to listen at precisely seven o’clock every morning. It’s difficult to hear clearly at times, but we have to be accurate in case there is a change in the schedule. Papa has to be sure the section gang and the jigger are off the main line and that they don’t have a tie pulled out without a replacement at the time the trains are scheduled to pass by. He also needs to know if the trains are stopping, as time has to be allowed for the mail to be transferred and passengers to get off or board. After all, with only one store, the freight trains don’t stop here that often. Nor do we often have passengers stopping.”
Elliott couldn’t imagine a community so small that the trains wouldn’t necessarily stop, but it was so in Pineridge. The town, if he could call it a town, was no different in the daylight than it was in the dark. He’d counted exactly eight buildings here, and that included the train station.
John lowered his head to read the paper. “There’s going to be a passenger train going through in about ten minutes, then the next train won’t be by for three and a half hours, which is a good time to do the track inspection. We should go now and start getting ready to move the speedster.” Once more, John braced himself against the back of the couch, but this time, he actually rose. Elliott stood in front of him, prepared to help if required.
When John was standing and leaning properly on the crutches, he turned and called out to the kitchen. “We’ll be back in plenty of time for dinner, Anna. If you wouldn’t mind, can we take those sandwiches you made for lunch with us? I believe Elliott and I have a lot of work to do.”
Six
Not caring that her mother could see what she was doing, Louise stood at the kitchen window to watch Elliott and her father as they slowly made their way to the toolhouse. Her heart clenched to see how carefully Elliott helped her father position the crutches in order to make his way across the tracks. She could only imagine how difficult it would be to maneuver over the rails and not have the crutches slip while going over the ties, to say nothing of going over the loose rocks that surrounded the tracks. Watching how Elliott diligently did everything he could to help her papa nearly brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t want to think that by this time tomorrow, he would be gone. Her only consolation was that he had promised to write. For anyone else, she would have questioned the sincerity of such intentions after such a short time spent together, but for Elliott, she knew he would keep his word.
Her mother’s voice behind her made Louise jump. “I’ll miss him, too. He seems like a fine young man.”
Louise felt her cheeks burn with the realization that her mother knew what she was thinking. “Yes. I hope I will be able to sit beside him in church tomorrow.”
“I don’t see why not. Your father appears to like him.”
The long whistle sounded, announcing the approach of the passenger train, right on time. Her mother joined her at the window, and together they watched the Transcontinental, which never stopped in a place as small as Pineridge, go by, momentarily blocking their view of Elliott and her father.
After the train passed, they watched as the men continued to make their way past the bunkhouse and to the toolhouse.
“He says he’s a barber, Mama. I could tell he didn’t know what Papa was talking about.”
Her mother nodded. “I know. And he’s so thin. I don’t know how your papa e
xpects that Elliott will be able to move the speedster by himself.”
They watched at the window in silence as Elliott pushed the speedster down the row of ties, then struggled to lift it onto the tracks.
“I think he’s going to need some liniment tonight.”
Louise nodded. “Yes.”
She remembered back to the previous night when he had offered to do some work, any work, in order to pay them back for providing a meal for him. She doubted he had any idea of the kind of work they did here to maintain the track. In a way, she wondered if Elliott was sorry he’d asked, but the more she thought about it, she doubted that he had any regrets, no matter how sore she knew he would be in the morning.
“Look, Louise! He’s done it!”
She also caught him pressing his fists into the small of his back when her papa wasn’t looking.
Next, they watched as Elliott braced himself, allowing her papa to use him for stability to push himself up onto the speedster. Struggling with the crutches, her father half pushed and half lifted himself onto the small seat; and Elliott hopped onto the back of the speedster’s platform, barely managing to stay on, as the small unit was only made for one person. Her father pointed to a few things on the control. Elliott nodded, then pushed down hard on the handle to get the speedster moving.
Very slowly, the speedster began to inch forward, then pick up its pace. Louise and her mama watched as it disappeared down the length of track.
“I think we’ve done enough dillydallying, Louise. It’s time to start cooking dinner. Can you fetch some meat from the outdoor cellar? I think today we’ll have a nice roast beef and mashed potatoes.”
Louise slipped on her boots, then her sweater, and went outside to unlock the trapdoor beside the garage. She fastened the buttons to her neck, then descended the steps into the outdoor cellar. She saw that since more of the snow which she had packed down in the winter had melted with the warmer weather, she needed to lower the strings on the pails containing the meat, as a few were now more than a few inches from the snow-packed floor.
