Railroad

by Graham Masterton

  Leland plunged his hand into the open top of a keg of casing nails, sifting through them as if they were small silvery fish. ‘I see you have that curious Eastern sense of your own importance,’ he said, sifting and sifting again. ‘Maybe you should understand that out here, a man is judged by what he does and what he’s achieved, rather than where he came from or who his parents were.’

  ‘You know just as well as I do that all that kind of talk is romantic claptrap,’ said Collis genially. ‘The West is ten times more sensitive about its social elevations than the East could ever be. Don’t tell me you think Mr Bilton at the Sutter House is equal in social standing to you and your lovely lady – no matter how many fine meals he’s cooked, and no matter how often he’s proved himself worthy and honest.’

  ‘Sophistry,’ growled Leland, letting the last of the nails drop into the keg. ‘And don’t you light that damned smoke. There’s enough black powder and fuse in this place to send us all to purgatory together without a moment’s pause for prayer.’

  Collis lit the end of his cheroot, drew at it deeply, and tossed the dead match on to the floor. ‘At least if we go to purgatory together, we’ll be doing something together. Right now, I feel as if you’re making quite sure that I’ll never rise above the station of errand boy and counter-upper-in-chief.’

  Leland’s cheeks twitched. ‘You’re ambitious,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s why.’

  ‘Of course I’m ambitious. But that should serve you well, instead of badly. Instead of crushing my ambition, why don’t you use it to further your interests? I would, if I were you. If I were you, I’d take every ounce of my energy and every scrap of my zeal and turn them towards the making of money for Tucker & McCormick, and in particular for the making of money for McCormick.’

  Leland was silent. Collis walked around the counter, smiling. On the dark wall behind him, beside the tiers of wooden drawers, was a calendar for 1857 with a fine steel engraving of the San Francisco fire of 3 May 1851, showing refugees running up Telegraph Hill like tiny beetles. ‘Jane thinks –’ Leland began.

  ‘That’s exactly it,’ said Collis. ‘Jane thinks. Between them, Jane and Mary run this business as if they were puppeteers, and you two were their dancing-dollies.’

  ‘That’s absurd,’ said Leland.

  ‘Is it?’ asked Collis. ‘Ask Charles, then, what he really thinks about my taking a greater part in managing the store. Not what Mary thinks, or what he thinks you think, but his real feelings.’

  Leland fixed his staring eye on Charles. ‘Charles?’ he demanded.

  Charles cleared his throat and looked unhappy. ‘I suppose what Collis says is true, Leland. Well, partly true, at least. It wasn’t wrong of us to start him off right down at the bottom, and make him prove that he could tell one end of a nail from the other. But he’s just as hardheaded as I am, and he’s just as much of a society man as you; and if we don’t let him make his way – well, I think we’ll be holding back a good horse just because we don’t like the sight of its ass as it goes past us.’

  Leland pursed his lips. He said, in his most political tones, ‘What worries Jane, Mr Edmonds, is that you will introduce gimcrackery into a business that has built its reputation on solidity. She isn’t certain that you’re stable enough, or that you have that particular doggedness which hardware selling asks of its managers.’

  ‘In other words, I’m not dull enough.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I might outshine her spouse, and if I did that, she might lose some of her control of the business, and what goes on there.’

  ‘That is not what she meant,’ said Leland stiffly.

  ‘Well, maybe not,’ said Collis. ‘But I’m afraid the position remains the same. Either I have some promise of partnership, or I quit. That’s all I can say.’

  Leland looked at Charles, but Charles could only shrug. ‘Very well,’ said Leland at length. ‘Give us some time to discuss it. You can do that, surely?’

  Collis nodded. He found, quite oddly, that he was beginning to like Leland. Of course Leland was boring and inflated, but any man who could live with a woman like Jane and still use words of three syllables had to have some virtues. Collis was certain that with a wife like that, his own mind would have turned to tapioca years ago.

  Thinking of wives, he suddenly remembered the wife of Walter West, and both Charles and Leland looked across at him curiously as his face changed from amusement to unhappiness, quick and silent as a blind drawn down in a window across the street.

  ‘You may come in,’ said Jane McCormick.

  He opened the door wider, and there she was on her davenport, her face as plain and bulbous as a garlic plant, and the same papery colour. Today, in the hazy light of an October morning, she wore a most unsuitable dress of yellow satin, with too many bows around it, fastened at the neck with a cameo brooch. The dachshund had eaten too much, and was sleeping in the corner of the room, exuding from time to time the most offensive smells. Still, Jane McCormick was well clouded in lavender.

  ‘It was good of you to come up,’ she said. ‘Won’t you please take a seat?’

  Collis sat down in the large smoking chair, but found that the sun was in his eyes, and so he moved to a smaller chair right next to the end of the davenport. This seat had the added advantage of making it necessary for Jane McCormick to turn her head around awkwardly whenever she wanted to look at him. He gave her a little smile, although for the life of him he couldn’t think why he had. It was about as enjoyable as smiling at a walrus.

  ‘Will you have coffee?’ she asked.

  Collis nodded. ‘One of your orange cookies wouldn’t go down too badly, either, if you don’t mind my suggesting it.’

  ‘Of course not. I’m flattered. Now, where’s that tiresome girl?’

  Collis unbuttoned his morning coat and relaxed a little. He stayed quiet until the maid had come and gone, and then he said to Jane, quite bluntly, ‘What a becoming dress. I haven’t seen a dress so fine since I left New York.’

  Jane blinked at him. ‘Oh,’ she said. Her hand came up and touched the cameo at her neck. ‘Oh, well, that’s very civil of you to say so.’

  ‘Not civil, Mrs McCormick. Truthful. There is a difference.’

  Her cheeks coloured for a moment like the cheeks of a china doll, two round pink spots. But they faded again as she sat herself up more straight, and prepared the angle of her head for what she was going to say, slightly leaning to the left, one shoulder higher than the other.

  ‘We had dinner here last night,’ she said. ‘Myself and Leland, Charles and Mary. Over the entrée, we discussed at some length what we were going to do about you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Collis. He kept up a fixed, vacant expression in order to disconcert her as much as he possibly could. She smoothed her dress with square, unbecoming hands.

  ‘I suppose it fell to me to tell you what we decided because of Leland’s having to go to Auburn today,’ said Jane. ‘But, after a fashion, it also fell to me because I am the largest shareholder in the business, after Leland, and when Leland one day passes on to meet his Creator, I shall be in principal charge. So you can see that what happens to the business is of burning interest to me. It is my guarantee of a comfortable future. I want to see it managed sensibly and securely, and not gambled away on a whim.’

  ‘Do you really think me whimsical?’ asked Collis.

  She looked up, blushing. ‘Well – no. I mean no. I didn’t mean it that way.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Collis. ‘After all, I think you have a look of whimsy about you. And it’s most attractive.’

  She touched her brooch, her face, her flat brown hair. ‘Whimsy? Me? Mr Edmonds, I do wish you’d stop this flattery. I have always been the most pragmatic of women.’

  ‘Underneath the sensible exterior, there must be a young and whimsical heart. Don’t tell me there isn’t.’

  ‘I – really, Mr Edmonds. You mustn’t speak like this.’

 
‘Is it wrong to express one’s innermost feelings?’

  She took a breath that was almost a gasp. ‘Mr Edmonds, you know me for a married lady. Whatever your innermost feelings, you mustn’t think that once we’re alone you can throw proper social conduct out of the window.’

  Collis would have liked to have thrown the dachshund out of the window. Its name was Urquhart, after the Scottish clan of which Jane fondly supposed she was a descendant. But he kept calm, and half turned his face away from Jane, drooping his eyelashes in the sultry, wounded expression that Delphine had once called ‘the petulant seraph’.

  ‘It’s not that your compliments are falling on stony ground, Mr Edmonds,’ Jane said hurriedly. ‘They are obviously sincere, and I’m sure that you mean well. It’s just that I’m not at liberty to receive attentions of anything other than a courteous nature.’

  Collis raised his head. He was acting so well that he thought he might even manage a few tears. Jane McCormick looked at him for a moment, her face sympathetic and sad, but excited, too, and she raised a hand towards him in that vague gesture that people use when they wave to a boat out to sea, not sure if the sailors have seen them or not.

  ‘You won’t think badly of me, will you, Mrs McCormick?’ asked Collis, in a hoarse voice.

  Jane was flustered. She bit at her knuckle, then turned and stared worriedly out of the window.

  ‘The truth is,’ she said, ‘that we thought we might delay the matter of your partnership awhile.’

  ‘Delay? For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Edmonds. I’m really most confused. It was only a suggestion of Leland’s, after all. He thought you might like to spend a little longer in Sacramento before you finally made up your mind that you wanted to join us permanently.’

  ‘I see. And did you agree with him?’

  ‘I – I thought I did.’

  Collis stood up and crossed the room. He lifted aside the lace curtains and looked out westwards, towards the Sierras. He wasn’t sure whether the white peaks he could see floating above a haze of golden mist were clouds or mountains. It didn’t really matter. They were spectral and alluring, and he felt himslf drawn towards them. Up there were the high passes through which the emigrants had struggled with wagons and mules. Up there was a railroad trace to the East, crowned with snow and gilded with fame and potential profits.

  Jane McCormick waited for Collis to say something, but when he didn’t, she spoke meekly. ‘Do you really want a partnership so very much? You don’t seem like the kind of man who could be happy in hardware.’

  Collis continued to stare at the Sierras. ‘I’ve suffered a great deal of sorrow, Mrs McCormick. If I can find happiness of any description, I don’t mind at all if it’s in hardware. Nails and fuses and endless belting all have their own special magic, don’t you think?’

  Jane frowned. Collis let the lace curtain fall back. Then he came across and knelt on the rug beside the davenport, lacing his fingers together as if he were about to pray, or propose.

  ‘I wanted a partnership because I thought it would give me a respectable way of staying close to you,’ he said. ‘But now you know the way I feel, now you know how much I admire and respect you, I quite understand that it’s out of the question. It wouldn’t be fair of me to stay here, expecting you to socialise with me, and dine with me, and work with me, all the time aware that –’

  ‘Collis – Mr Edmonds – you mustn’t. I’m sure we can find a way. I’m sure that for the sake of your happiness, and for the welfare of Tucker & McCormick, I can bear your closeness with fortitude.’

  Collis could not believe what he was hearing.

  ‘I’ll talk to Leland,’ she said quickly, fearful in case this enchanted moment should pass, and Collis should change his mind. ‘I’ll tell him that you ought to join the partnership straight away. Tomorrow, if the papers can be drawn up in time.’

  Collis stood up. The maid came in with the coffee, on a black lacquered papier-mâché tray, and set it on a small wine table next to the davenport. She glanced at Mrs McCormick, then at Collis, pulled a face, and walked out again. Out of the rose-patterned Limoges coffee pot, a fragrant wisp of steam rose into the sunshine. There were orange and coconut cookies on a small dish.

  ‘I’ll have to invest money into it, won’t I?’ asked Collis. ‘I don’t have much ready cash at the moment.’

  ‘You’ll have the profits from those blankets soon, won’t you? I can lend you a stake until the New Year. Perhaps Leland could even arrange to have shares transferred to you on loan.’

  Collis took a cookie from the dish and bit into it.

  ‘Well,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘Please say yes,’ she asked him.

  He gave her his hand. She clutched it tight with both of her hands and looked up at him imploringly. Collis took a breath. ‘Very well,’ he told her. ‘If you’re sure that you want me to stay.’

  Jane was so pleased that she clapped her hands like a schoolgirl. Then, sniffing with emotion, she poured out coffee, and they sat side by side on the davenport, sipping mocha and nibbling cookies, looking at each other from time to time with bright, exhilarated eyes, as if they had a wonderful new secret that nobody else could share.

  Later, Collis went into the storeroom at the back of the shop and closed the door. He took down a half-empty bottle of bourbon from behind the kegs of flooring brads and poured himself three or four fingers into an enamel mug. He stood there swallowing the bourbon in large mouthfuls, quick and tense, like a man with a train to catch. He was beginning to understand how close he was to the richest and strangest adventure of his life. It frightened him. He frightened himself.

  That evening, when Leland returned from Auburn, his coat soiled and his hat white with dust, he stopped on the store veranda by the hissing lamp where the moths flickered and flapped, and he looked a long time in silence at the sight of Collis relaxing in a basketwork chair with a glass of whisky and seltzer and a copy of the Golden Era. Not far away, in the darkness, sat Wang-Pu, himself just back from a sales trip to Placerville, smoking a small Chinese ivory pipe.

  ‘What’s this?’ Leland said.

  Collis folded over his magazine and replied calmly, ‘Seven-fifteen. Store’s been closed for a quarter hour.’

  Leland removed his hat and struck it against the veranda post to knock the dust off. Collis took another swallow of whisky and continued to read. Wang-Pu said nothing.

  ‘Did you speak to Mrs McCormick?’ asked Leland.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Collis, without raising his eyes.

  ‘And? What happened?’

  ‘Nothing happened. We talked. She told me how you all felt.’

  Leland put down his travelling case. ‘So you know about the postponement in accepting you as a partner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re happy?’

  ‘I’m happy that your lady wife has agreed to forget the postponement, and have me instated as a partner right away.’

  There was a lengthy silence. The moths pattered and the lamp hissed. Leland lifted his head and stared upwards as if he could see clear through the veranda roof, right into Mrs McCormick’s living-room, through the springs and stuffing of the davenport and into the workings of her brain. Then, without another word, he went to the store door, unlocked it with one of the keys on his jangling ring, and disappeared inside.

  Wang-Pu sucked at his pipe. Both he and Collis sat quietly as doors banged upstairs, and voices were raised in argument. They heard Leland shouting, ‘Are you mad, woman? Are you quite mad?’ And they heard Jane shrilling, ‘Your trouble is, you can’t tell a talented man from a flea-bitten dog!’ But then the living-room window was abruptly slammed shut, and all they could hear after that was heavy footsteps on the upstairs floors, creaks and squeaks, and indistinct wrangling that went on for nearly an hour.

  ‘Surely the most terrible storm follows the greatest calm,’ said Wang-Pu, with a wry grin.

  Theodore Jones lived
in a small square house on the southern edge of the city, among the scrubby trees on R Street, not far from where the Sacramento Valley Railroad ran into the streets on its arrival from Folsom. Collis had borrowed Jane McCormick’s sulky to go visiting, much to Leland’s displeasure, and he drove along by the river feeling easy and relaxed. He was looking forward to a good dinner.

  It was the second day of November. The twilight sky was the soft colour of cornflowers, and the Sacramento River, as it eddied southwards, twisiting through the flats and mud bars of Solano County, was the same hue, but silvered. The paddle steamers moored along Front Street were strung with lights, and their tall chimneys and masts were silhouetted in black. Someone across on the west Sacramento shore was playing an accordion and singing ‘Clear the Way’. A cool southwest wind was blowing.

  As he trotted along beside the shade trees that lined the river, Collis heard the high whoop of a steam locomotive; and when he steered Mrs McCormick’s grey towards the depot, and the street where Theodore Jones was staying, he saw a huge maroon-painted 4-4-0 with a bell-shaped smokestack backing along the road, with six or seven freight cars and a decorative green caboose. The locomotive rang its bell as it chuffed majestically on to the tracks that curved into Aspinwall’s warehouse, and sparks tumbled out of its stack and into the evening sky like fireflies. Collis slowed his horse to a slow walk and watched with fascination as the shining train disappeared into the warehouse, its wheels grating and grinding on the steel rails and its cowcatcher wreathed in steam.

  It took him only two or three minutes more to reach the Jones house. There was a warm light in the front window, and as he drove the sulky into the side yard and tied up the horse to a tree, he saw the drapes lifted back and Theodore Jones look out. He walked across the boarded veranda to the front door and knocked. He waited for a moment, listening to the clanking of the locomotive in the distance, and the soft rustle of the trees. He could smell pumpkin pie.

  Theodore Jones opened the door and grasped his hand. ‘Come in, we’ve been looking forward to this. Come in. Let me take your hat.’