By morning they were in Rochester, by midday in Buffalo, waiting expectantly for a look at Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, their one glimpse, from a bridge some distance downstream, was anticlimactic. But their disappointment quickly vanished when they were informed that Professor Marsh expected to see them all in his private stateroom at once.
Marsh peered up and down the hallway, closed the door, and locked it from the inside. Though the afternoon was warm, he closed all the windows and locked them, too. Only then did he turn to the twelve waiting students.
“You have undoubtedly wondered where we are going,” he said. “But it is too early to inform you yet; I will tell you after Chicago. In the meantime, I caution you to avoid contact with strangers, and to say nothing of our plans. He has spies everywhere.”
Tentatively, one student said, “Who does?”
“Cope, of course!” Marsh snapped.
Hearing this unfamiliar name, the students looked blankly at each other, but Marsh did not notice; he was off on a tirade. “Gentlemen, I cannot warn you against him too strongly. Professor Edward Drinker Cope may pretend to be a scientist, but in fact he is little better than a common thief and keyhole-peeper. I have never known him to obtain by fair labor what he could steal instead. The man is a despicable liar and sneak. Be on your guard.”
Marsh was puffing, as if exerted. He glared around the room. “Any questions?”
There were none.
“All right,” Marsh said. “I merely want the record straight. You will hear more after Chicago. Meantime, keep to yourselves.”
Bewildered, the students filed out of the compartment.
One young man named Winslow knew who Cope was. “He is another professor of paleontology, I believe at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. He and Marsh were once friends, but are now the most steadfast enemies. As I heard it, Cope tried to steal credit for the professor’s first fossil discoveries, and there has been bad feeling between them ever since. And Cope apparently pursued a woman Marsh wanted to marry, and discredited her, or at least sullied her reputation. Cope’s father was a wealthy Quaker merchant, left him millions, I was told. So Cope does as he pleases. It seems he is a bit of a rogue and charlatan. There’s no end of sly tricks he will pull to steal from Marsh what is rightfully his. That’s why Marsh is so suspicious—he is ever on the watch for Cope and his agents.”
“I knew nothing of this,” Johnson said.
“Well, you know now,” Winslow responded. He stared out the window at rolling green cornfields. The train had left New York State, passed through Pennsylvania, and was in Ohio. “Speaking for myself,” he said, “I don’t know why you are on this expedition. I’d never go except my family made me. My father insists that a summer in the West will ‘put hair on my chest.’” He shook his head in wonder. “God. All I can think of is, three months of bad food and bad water and bad insects. And no girls. No fun. God.”
Still curious about Cope, Johnson asked Marsh’s assistant Bellows, a pinch-faced zoology instructor. Bellows immediately became suspicious. “Why do you ask?”
“I am simply curious.”
“But why do you, particularly, ask? None of the other students have asked.”
“Perhaps they are not interested.”
“Perhaps they have no reason to be interested.”
“That amounts to the same thing,” Johnson said.
“Does it?” Bellows asked, with a meaningful look. “I ask you, does it really?”
“Well, I think so,” Johnson said, “although I’m not sure, the conversation has become so convoluted.”
“Don’t patronize me, young man,” Bellows said. “You may think I am a fool—you may think we are all fools—but I assure you we are not.”
And he walked off, leaving Johnson more curious than ever.
Marsh’s diary entry:
Bellows reports student W.J. has asked about Cope! The audacity, the nerve! He must think we are fools! Am very angry! Angry! Angry!!!!
Our suspicions about W.J. obviously confirmed. Phila. background—the shipping background, etc.—Only too clear. Will speak with W.J. tomorrow, and set the stage for later developments. I will see that this young man causes us no trouble.
The farmlands of Indiana raced past the window, mile after mile, hour after hour, lulling Johnson to a sense of monotony. With his chin propped on his hand, he was drifting off to sleep when Marsh said, “What exactly do you know about Cope?”
Johnson sat up abruptly. “Nothing, Professor.”
“Well, I’ll tell you some things that perhaps you don’t know. He killed his own father to get his inheritance. Did you know that?”
“No, Professor.”
“Not six months ago, he killed him. And he cheats on his wife, an invalided woman who has never harmed him in the least way—worships him, in fact, that’s how deluded the poor creature is.”
“He sounds a complete criminal.”
Marsh shot him a look. “You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, Professor.”
“Also, personal hygiene is not his strong point. The man is odiferous and unsanitary. But I’ve no wish to be personal.”
“No, Professor.”
“The fact is he is unscrupulous and untrustworthy in the extreme. There was a landgrab and mineral rights scandal. That’s why he was kicked out of the Geological Survey.”
“He was kicked out of the Geological Survey?”
“Years ago. You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, Professor.”
“Well, you don’t look like you believe me.”
“I believe you,” Johnson insisted. “I believe you.”
There was a silence. The train clattered on. Marsh cleared his throat. “Do you know Professor Cope, by any chance?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I thought perhaps you did.”
“No, Professor.”
“If you did know him, you would feel better if you told me all about it now,” Marsh said. “Instead of waiting.”
“If I did, Professor,” Johnson said, “I would. But I do not know the man.”
“Yes,” Marsh said, studying Johnson’s face. “Hmmm.”
Later that day, Johnson met a painfully thin young man making notes in a small leather-bound book. He was from Scotland and said his name was Louis Stevenson.
“How far are you going?” Johnson asked.
“All the way to the end. California,” Stevenson said, lighting another cigarette. He smoked continually; his long, delicate fingers were stained dark brown. He coughed a great deal, and in general did not look like the sort of robust person who seeks a journey west, and Johnson asked him why he was doing so.
“I am in love,” Stevenson said simply. “She is in California.”
And then he made more notes, and seemed to forget Johnson for a time. Johnson went off in search of more congenial company, and came across Marsh.
“That young man there,” Marsh said, nodding across the carriage.
“What about him?”
“You were talking to him.”
“His name is Stevenson.”
“I don’t trust a man who makes notes,” Marsh said. “What did you talk about?”
“He’s from Scotland and he is going to California to find a woman he is in love with.”
“How romantic. And did he ask you where you were going?”
“No, he wasn’t the least interested.”
Marsh squinted at him. “So he says.”
“I have made inquiries about that Stevenson fellow,” Marsh announced to the group later. “He’s from Scotland, on his way to California to find a woman. His health is poor. Apparently he fancies himself a writer, that’s why he makes all those notes.”
Johnson said nothing.
“Just thought you would be interested to know,” Marsh said. “Personally, I think he smokes too much.”
Marsh looked out the window. “Ah, the lake,” he said. “We will soon
be in Chicago.”
Chicago
Chicago was the fastest-growing city in the world, both in population and in commercial importance. From a prairie village of four thousand in 1840, it had exploded into a metropolis of half a million, and was now doubling in size every five years. Known as “Slabtown” and “The Mud Hole of the Prairie,” the city now extended across thirty-five square miles along Lake Michigan, and boasted paved streets and sidewalks, broad thoroughfares with streetcars, elegant mansions, fine shops, hotels, art galleries, and theaters. And this despite the fact that most of the city had been razed in a terrible fire just five years before.
Chicago’s success owed nothing to climate and locale; the shores of Lake Michigan were swampy; most of the early buildings had sunk into the mud until they were jacked up by the brilliant young Chicago engineer George Pullman. Water was so polluted that visitors often found small fish in their drinking water—there were even minnows in dairy milk. And the weather was abhorrent: hot in summer, brutally cold in winter, and windy in all seasons.
Chicago owed its success to its geographical position in the heartland of the country, to its importance as a rail and shipping center, and most particularly to its preeminence in the handling of prodigious tonnages of beef and pork.
“I like to turn bristles, blood, and the inside and outside of pigs and bullocks into revenue,” said Philip Armour, one of the founders of the gigantic Chicago stockyards. Along with fellow meatpacking magnate Gustavus Swift, Armour ruled an industry that dispatched a million head of cattle and four million pigs each year—and which employed one-sixth of the population of the city. With their centralized distribution, mechanized slaughter, and refrigerated railroad cars, the barons of Chicago were creating a whole new industry—food processing.
The Chicago stockyards were the largest in the world, and many visitors went to see them. One of the Yale students was the nephew of Swift, and they went off to tour the yards, which Johnson regarded as a dubious tourist attraction. But Marsh was not stopping in Chicago for tourism. He was there on business.
From the magnificent Lake Shore Railroad Depot, he took his charges to the nearby Grand Pacific Hotel. Here the students were awed by one of the largest and most elegant hotels in the world. As everywhere, Marsh had arranged special accommodations for his party, and there were newspapermen waiting to interview him.
Othniel Marsh was always good copy. The year before, in 1875, he had uncovered a scandal in the Indian Bureau, whereby bureau officers were not dispensing food and funds to the reservations, but were instead keeping the proceeds for themselves, while Indians literally starved. Marsh had been informed of this by Red Cloud himself, the legendary Sioux chief, and had revealed the evidence in Washington, severely embarrassing the Grant presidency in the eyes of the liberal Eastern establishment. Marsh was a good friend of Red Cloud, and thus reporters wanted to talk to him about the Sioux Wars now raging. “It is a terrible conflict,” Marsh said, “but there are no easy answers to the Indian question.”
Then, too, Chicago reporters never tired of repeating the story of Marsh’s earliest public exploit, the affair of the Cardiff giant.
In 1869, the fossilized skeleton of a ten-foot giant was unearthed in Cardiff, New York, and quickly became a national phenomenon. It was generally agreed that the giant was one of a race of men who had been drowned in Noah’s flood; Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald and a number of scholars had pronounced it genuine.
Marsh, in his capacity as the new paleontology professor from Yale, went to view the fossil and said, within earshot of a reporter, “Very remarkable.”
“May I quote you?” said the reporter.
“Yes,” said Marsh. “You may quote me as saying, ‘A very remarkable fake.’”
It was later determined that the so-called giant originated as a block of gypsum, carved secretly in Chicago. But the incident brought national attention to Marsh—and he had been talking to reporters ever since.
“And what brings you to Chicago now?” one reporter asked.
“I am on my way west, to find more bones,” Marsh said.
“And will you be seeing bones in Chicago?”
Marsh laughed. “No,” he said, “in Chicago we will see General Sheridan, to arrange our army liaison.”
Marsh took Johnson with him, because he wanted to be photographed with General Sheridan.
Little Phil Sheridan was a compact, energetic man of forty-five, with a fondness for plug tobacco and tart expression. He had assembled the army staff now waging the Indian War—Generals Crook, Terry, and Custer, all of whom were in the field, hunting out the Sioux. Sheridan was particularly fond of Armstrong Custer, and had risked the disapproval of President Grant by ordering Custer back into service along with Generals Crook and Terry in the Indian Wars.
“It’s no easy campaign,” Sheridan said. “And we need a man with Custer’s dash. The Indians are being driven from their homes, whether we care to see it that way or not, and they’ll fight us like devils. And the fact that the Indian agency supplies ’em with good rifles doesn’t help, either. The main conflict promises to be in Montana and Wyoming.”
“Wyoming,” Marsh said. “Hmmm. Will there be problems for our group?” He did not seem the least perturbed, Johnson noticed.
“I can’t see why,” Sheridan said, spitting with remarkable accuracy at a metal basin across the room. “So long as you stay out of Wyoming and Montana, you’ll be safe enough.”
Marsh posed for a photograph, standing rigidly beside General Sheridan. He then obtained letters of introduction to the three generals, and to the post commanders at Fort Laramie and Cheyenne. Two hours later, they were back at the train station, ready to continue westward.
At the departure gate, a rough-looking man, very tall, with a peculiar slanting scar on his cheek, said to Johnson, “How far are you going?”
“I’m on my way to Wyoming.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he remembered he should have said Colorado instead.
“Wyoming! Good luck to you then,” the man said, and turned away.
Marsh was beside Johnson a moment later. “Who was that?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked how far I was going.”
“Did he? And what did you say?”
“Wyoming.”
Marsh frowned. “Did he believe you?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Did he seem to believe you?”
“Yes, Professor. I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I am fairly sure, Professor.”
Marsh stared off in the direction of the departed man. The station was still crowded and busy. The echoing din was loud, pierced by departure whistles.
“I have already warned you about talking to strangers,” he said finally. “The man you spoke to was Cope’s favorite foreman, Navy Joe Benedict. A brutal thug of a human specimen. But if you told him we were going to Wyoming, that is all right.”
“You mean we are not going to Wyoming?”
“No,” Marsh said. “We are going to Colorado.”
“Colorado!”
“Of course,” Marsh said. “Colorado is the best source of bones in the West, though you can’t expect a fool like Cope to know it.”
Going West
The Chicago and North Western Railway carried them across the Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa, over a twelve-span iron bridge nearly a mile long. The students were excited to cross the largest river in America, but once its great muddy expanse was behind them, their lethargy returned. Iowa was a region of rolling farmlands, with few landmarks and points of interest. Dry heat blew in through the windows, along with an occasional insect or butterfly. A dreary, perspiring tedium settled over the party.
Johnson hoped to glimpse Indians, but saw none. A passenger beside him laughed. “There haven’t been Indians here for forty years, since the Black Hawk War. You want Indians, you have to go wes
t.”
“Isn’t this the West?” Johnson asked.
“Not yet. ’Cross the Missouri.”
“When do we cross the Missouri?”
“Other side of Cedar Rapids. Half a day on.”
But already the open prairie, and the fact of having crossed the Mississippi, had an effect on passengers. At each station and refueling stop, men would step onto the platform and fire their pistols at prairie dogs and prairie fowl. The birds would go screeching into the air; the little rodents would dive for cover, chattering. Nobody ever hit anything.
“Yep,” said one passenger. “They’re feeling the wide-open spaces now.”
Johnson found the wide-open spaces extraordinarily tedious. The students amused themselves as best they could with cards and dominoes, but it was a losing battle. For a while, they would get out at each station and walk around, but eventually even the stations became monotonously the same, and they usually remained inside.
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