Railroad

by Graham Masterton

  ‘I hope you’re not giving us another example of your rank impertinence, Mr Edmonds,’ Laurence Melford said darkly.

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Melford,’ said Collis. ‘I would rather be your friend, a hundred times more, than I would wish to be your enemy.’

  ‘I have quite enough friends already, thank you,’ said Melford. ‘But if you wish at the very least to ensure my neutrality, I suggest you put any thoughts of a Pacific railroad well aside, and devote yourself to the hardware trade. I suggest, too that some kind of apology to Mr Frémont might well be in order.’

  Collis stared at Melford and then at Frémont. Andy held his champagne glass in both hands and looked extremely uncomfortable.

  ‘An apology?’ Collis asked in a soft voice. ‘An apology for what?’

  ‘Your impertinence, whether it was intentional or not,’ said Laurence Melford.

  Collis looked at Laurence Melford steadily. ‘If there’s any impertinence here, and I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I sound too serious, it comes from those who support the inhumane demands of the Southern slave economy, and all those who dance to its tune. They are the ones who ought to say that they’re sorry, because they’ve put their own profits and political power before the pressing needs of the whole nation.’

  John Frémont raised a hand. ‘I think we’re becoming too heated here, Mr Edmonds. Please, this is a party, not the floor of the Senate. I understand your sincerity, but you must also understand that Mr Melford and I are both just as sincere in what we believe. In any event, a Pacific railroad is still a dream, not a reality, and there are years and years of preparatory work to be done before it can be.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Collis. ‘Given the backing, and the right surveyors, this railroad could be mapped out within five years, and laid within ten.’

  ‘Not by you, sir,’ growled Laurence Melford. ‘And not along the Forty-first Parallel.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Collins replied, ‘but there speaks a man who owns a half interest in a cotton plantation in Virginia.’

  ‘You’re a damned devil, sir,’ said Laurence Melford.

  ‘Yes,’ Collis told him, ‘I am. And I think it’s just as well. It’s going to take a damned devil to build this railroad, if you ask me. It’s going to take a damned devil to clear his way through all the bribery and the time-wasting and the political favouritism that’s been holding this railroad back for so long. People are dying of yellow fever in Panama. Men, women, and children are dying of exhaustion on the emigrant trail. But what the hell does that matter, just so long as we don’t lay the track to the North, or to the South, or in between, or wherever it doesn’t happen to suit our unctuous members of Congress, and everybody else who’s tugging at their coat tails?’

  ‘I suppose your own interests are completely free of taint?’ asked Laurence Melford sarcastically. ‘You’ll donate your services to the building of this railroad out of the goodness of your very romantic heart?’

  Collis finished his champagne. It was too sweet, but cold and refreshingly effervescent. ‘I’m going to build this railroad for lots of different reasons,’ he told Melford. ‘For money, of course. For power. For self-satisfaction, and pride. For a woman I once knew.’

  ‘But, Mr Edmonds, what in the world makes you think that you can do it?’ asked John Frémont. ‘It would be the greatest project ever attempted in the whole history of civil engineering. It would shake this nation by the very roots. It would demand surveying skills far beyond the average, as well as new methods of tunnelling, and cutting, and bridge-building. It would tax the mind of a genius, to be quite frank. And you’re not even an engineer!’

  Collis rotated his empty champagne glass in his hand. ‘I can do it, Mr Frémont, because nobody else can do it, and because nobody else will. They can dream of railroads. They can sing of railroads, and draw up optimistic maps. They can send parties of surveyors up into the passes of the Rocky Mountains, to get themselves buried in snow. But they can’t build it. They’re too frightened of splitting the nation. They’re too frightened of losing money, and political power. But I don’t give a damn about any of that. And if I don’t do this with my life, then I’ll go to my deathbed with nothing else to my credit but drink, and whores, and games of cards, and some loves that I might have had but let slip by.’

  Laurence Melford, his eyes lowered, took the band off a large cigar and carefully tapped it to make sure it was sound.

  ‘So the South is to be economically marooned because one New York elegantine is trying to make more of himself than a leg-jerking hound. Is that it?’

  Collis shook his head. ‘No, Mr Melford. That’s not it. Although I’m not sure that I’d care if it were.’

  ‘I don’t think that kind of remark is really very constructive,’ said John Frémont. ‘You’re well aware that I’m a Republican, but really …’

  ‘But really what?’ asked Collis. ‘But really, we shouldn’t mind turning a blind eye to slavery?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Frémont sharply. ‘I meant that if some kind of political compromise could be worked out between the North and the South, the railroad could then be laid along a sensible mean. To my mind, the Thirty-eighth Parallel was such a mean.’

  ‘Perhaps it might have been,’ said Collis. ‘But to my mind, the South will be marooned because she will never compromise. And more sadly than that, she will be marooned because of where she is. She can’t make any compromises about her geographical location, no matter how much Secretary Davis and Senator Benton try to persuade us that the best routes run west out of St Louis, or Fort Smith, or Preston, Texas.’

  Both John Frémont and Laurence Melford were silent. Laurence Melford clipped his cigar with a gold cutter, decorated wtih diamonds, but he was listening, and it was plain that he didn’t like what he heard.

  Collis continued. ‘The man who can take the real credit for planning this railroad, my engineer, says there’s only one obvious route. He knows Nebraska Territory, and the Rockies, and the Great Basin, and most of all he knows the Sierra Nevada, and in his opinion, the very first pioneers found the easiest trail, because they damned well had to. It lies, roughly, along the Forty-first Parallel, and Mr Frémont knows that as well as I do. What I’m saying is that no matter how much the South gripes at the North, the bitter facts are that God so created the geography of this nation that the natural highway from coast to coast, when we finally open it up, will leave the South and her slave economy beached, high and dry, and left to the fate that most of us Northerners think she deserves.’

  Laurence Melford was silent. It was the same kind of silence that hangs in the air between a flash of lightning and the first heavy collision of thunder. When he spoke, his voice was a low, threatening grumble. ‘I’m glad you believe you have God on your side, Mr Edmonds. You may well need Him, if you continue to press ahead with this foolhardy business.’

  But John Frémont was more thoughtful. ‘Who’s this railroad expert of yours?’ he asked Collis. ‘It isn’t Jack Dellman, is it? Or Theodore Jones?’

  ‘It must be Jones,’ said Laurence Melford. ‘Dellman went to Europe to study engineering in London.’

  John Frémont gave Collis a sympathetic smile. ‘If your surveyor is Jones, Mr Edmonds, then I should take care, if I were you. He’s a little fanatical, to say the least. You don’t want to spend a great deal of money and invest a great deal of time, only to find that you’re stuck up some snowbound mountain where even a goat couldn’t go, let alone a ten-wheel locomotive.’

  ‘I’ll be careful,’ Collis said. ‘And, if you like, I’ll even do for you what I’ve already done for three or four San Francisco financiers. I’ll make you a bet that I can have my railroad surveyed and ready for laying track in five years.’

  Laurence Melford pursed his lips in disgust. But John Frémont said, ‘All right. You’re arrogant enough. I’ll bet you anything you like.’

  ‘It isn’t much to ask,’ said Collis. ‘It’s nothing mor
e than a celebration dinner, to be held here in this house, and hosted by you and your wife, on the night that my plans for a Pacific railroad are signed into law.’

  John Frémont let out a sudden burst of laughter. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘you have a natural talent for stirring people up. My God, you do. And you can’t even help yourself from doing it, can you?’

  ‘I only try to speak my mind,’ said Collis.

  John Frémont held out his hand. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m not yet sure that I like you, and it’s plain that Laurence here believes you have the darkest motives for everything you do. But I’ll take your bet, and if you succeed, I’ll lay on your dinner. There’s just something I want in return, if you should fail. You’ll be a witness to this, won’t you, Mr Hunt?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Andy.

  ‘If you fail to survey your railroad, Mr Edmonds,’ said John Frémont, ‘I want you to leave California and never return.’

  Collis looked up. He could scarcely believe what John Frémont had said. ‘That’s kind of drastic, wouldn’t you say?’ said Andy Hunt.

  Frémont gave a quick shake of his head. ‘Just remember that California is my state, gentlemen, and has been since 1849. It was I who raised the flag at Sonoma, and it was I who made this city what it is today. All you have to do is ask who named the Golden Gate. It was I. Ask who brought civilisation and order. It was I.’

  Collis was tempted to ask who had overstated his authority and refused to relinquish the governorship of San Francisco to General Kearny, thereby earning himself a short stretch in jail. But he decided he’d probably poked the bee’s nest enough for one evening, and he gave John Frémont a nod of acceptance instead.

  ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you shall have. Life in this state won’t be worth very much without a railroad in any case. Now, I’m sure this party isn’t all railroading and political arguments, is it? Where can we go to eat, and perhaps to dance?’

  ‘The buffet’s in the back room,’ said Frémont. ‘You must try the smoked oysters. They’re out of Mr Melford’s own beds in the Bay, and they’re quite delicious.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Collis. ‘And has Mr Melford brought his daughter, as well as his oysters?’

  ‘Sarah is here, yes,’ said Laurence Melford. ‘But you’d be doing me a considerable favour if you stayed away from her.’

  ‘You’re a stern man, Mr Melford,’ Collis replied.

  ‘Yes,’ said Laurence Melford. ‘And you’re even more of a devil than I first thought.’

  ‘Well,’ Collis told him, ‘you know what Shelley said. Sometimes the devil is a gentleman.’

  At the far end of the reception room, on a small dais, a string quartet struck up a quadrille, and a few of the prettier girls and some of the younger men began to dance. Collis paused for a while and watched them, his hands in his pockets, and he smiled at their stiffness and lack of grace. There were two things that obviously didn’t travel well from the East Coast: wine, and stylish dancing.

  ‘I’ve seen a troupe of Polish Army horses dance better than that,’ Collis remarked to Andy.

  Andy grimaced. ‘There’s a lack of good dancing teachers, that’s the trouble. The best one was Ralph Durkee, and he went off to the diggings.’

  ‘A dancing master, digging for gold?’

  Andy nodded. ‘There’s no distinctions out at the diggings. It’s every man for whatever he can get. You ought to get Charles to take you out to someplace like French Corral or Nigger’s Hill. You’ve come all this way, you might as well see the elephant. You think this dancing’s rough? You should see Saturday night out at Dutch Flat.’

  After a while, when they’d had enough of watching the clockwork prancing of San Francisco’s young socialites, Collis and Andy walked through to the buffet table, which was set up in John Frémont’s back room, under a large dark oil painting of Sonoma in a thunderstorm. The table was magnificently decorated with flowers and shining silver tureens, and the buffet itself was arranged like the foothills and peaks of the High Sierras. Dish was stacked upon dish, garnished with oranges and limes and slices of avocado. There were clams, fried on the half shell; broiled lobsters, scarlet and singed at the edges; jellied shrimps; roast turkeys with crackly skins; hams; herrings; glazed pigs’ heads with eyebrows of piped lard; headcheese; hot pork and beans; and a tumbling confusion of fruits, cheeses, nuts, and cookies.

  Collis and Andy ate, and drank more champagne, and by the time nine-thirty chimed, Collis was brimming over with well-being, and more than ready to introduce himself to Sarah Melford. His conviviality was slightly strained, and he knew that he was mainly cheerful because he was drunk, but he didn’t give a damn for Hannah, not a two-bit damn, and if she wanted to waste away the rest of her life with a haberdasher, then by God that was quite all right with him.

  ‘Now, you’re not going to cause another of your ruckuses, are you?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Collis, his cheeks flushed and his eyes dewy. ‘Your trouble, Andy, is that you don’t have enough faith in my New York courtesies and code of behaviour. I’m a gentleman, and besides, the plural of “ruckus” is “rucki”. They taught me that much at school.’

  ‘All you seem to have learned at school was how to make smart remarks,’ Andy riposted.

  ‘I learned geography, my friend, which was more than John Frémont seems to have done, for all his Army Topographical Corps. I learned that North was North, and South was South, and that West was west of East.’

  Collis led Andy through into the main reception room again, excusing himself and smiling indulgently as he pushed his way past inquisitive society matrons in dresses like wedding cakes, and their starch-fronted, wax-whiskered husbands. He peered over the heads of the dancing couples, but he couldn’t see Sarah Melford at all, and he was worried that she might have left. He asked Andy if he could spot her, but after craning his neck and looking all around, Andy shook his head. ‘All I can see is a whole damn lot of heads bobbing up and down, like a pondful of pintail ducks.’

  Quite suddenly, though, Sarah appeared at the door from the outside veranda, accompanied by a tall, broad-shouldered young man who could only have been her brother, Grant.

  She was wearing a low-cut evening gown of gleaming dark blue. Her hair was pinned up, and her huge eyes were emphasised with cosmetics. She was even more beautiful than Collis had remembered, and she walked through the room with a sensual poise that turned everybody’s head. He heard somebody say, ‘That Melford girl is too pretty for her own good, if you ask me.’

  Grant, on the other hand, was a rangy, big-boned boy, with all of his father’s physique and not very much of his composure. It was only because he shared a striking sibling likeness with Sarah that they looked attractive together. He had thick, unruly hair and deep-set eyes, and his nose curved up like a gold panner’s sluice. His collar was too tight for him, which made his neck bulge, and the sleeves of his tailcoat were too short. He probably hadn’t worn it since his last vacation.

  ‘Well,’ said Andy, with resignation, ‘there she is. You’d better go do your worst, and get it over with.’

  The string quartet were bringing a cotillion to a scrapish sort of an ending, as if the music were a fish which they were required to fillet, and which had nothing left on it now but grey skin and untidy bones. Collis took the opportunity to cross the floor between the dancers, pardoning himself as he trod rather heavily on a small woman’s toes, and to approach the younger Melfords from behind. They were talking politely to an elderly South Park duchess with a withered neck and strings of diamonds and pearls, and they didn’t see Collis until he was right up next to them.

  ‘Mr Melford,’ said Collis, in his correctest tone. ‘Would you permit me the pleasure of dancing with your sister?’

  Grant Melford turned around, and so did Sarah. Grant was a good head taller than Collis, with black bushy eyebrows and cheeks that were ruddy with youthfulness, rather than drink.

  ‘Do I know you
, sir?’ he asked, in a cautious voice.

  Sarah, with an odd smile, said: ‘No, Grant, you don’t. But I do. You’re the gentleman from the theatre, aren’t you? The one who irritated Father so.’

  ‘The same,’ said Collis, bowing his head. ‘Mr Collis Edmonds, at your command.’

  ‘What’s this about irritating Father?’ said Grant.

  ‘Only a jest,’ said Collis. ‘Now, about that dance?’

  Grant put on a pouting, pugnacious face. ‘Do you want to dance wtih him, Sarah?’

  Sarah spread out her fan with a twist of her wrist and fluttered it. ‘I’d be delighted,’ she said. ‘I’ve never had the pleasure of dancing with anyone so rude.’

  Grant began to look very unhappy. He was plainly under instructions to supervise his sister’s choice of dancing partners, and Collis had all the characteristics of that type his father had warned him to keep away, those ‘smooth-talking, well-dressed reptiles that your sister likes so damned well.’

  He said, ‘I’m not sure that you can accept this dance, Sarah. I’d better ask Papa. It’s Mr Edwards, is it?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Grant,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m quite old enough to choose my own partners, and if I want to dance with Mr Edmonds, then I’m sure that I shall.’

  The string quartet, after a few surreptitious swallows of steam beer from the glasses they kept under their chairs, began to strike up another dance. Already an awkward young man with a face as red as a newborn possum was struggling his way through the throng of guests towards Sarah, and Collis guessed that he was the next partner on Sarah’s card, so he held out his hand to Sarah and said, ‘Shall we dance, before it’s too late?’

  He led her out on to the polished parquet floor, and they joined with three other couples, two of them middle-aged and stiff as jointed marionettes, and the other young and awkward and inexperienced.