Golden Spike

by Robert Lee Murphy

He rolled off the bed and held his head in his hands before attempting to stand. He took a half-dozen steps to the window. From his second-floor vantage point he could see over the top of the depot opposite the hotel. A freight train rolled slowly by on the mainline heading down the steep slope toward Echo City.

  Paddy shook the cobwebs from his head and rubbed his eyes. He could hardly believe what he saw. Two familiar faces sat on the rear of the last of a dozen flatcars loaded with ties and rails. “The saints be with me,” he said. “Sure, and the luck of the Irish is good today.”

  Engrossed in a conversation and looking at each other with their legs dangling off the rear of the flatcar, Paddy watched Will Braddock and Homer Garcon drift past.

  On a siding parallel to the mainline, and directly opposite the depot platform, sat a string of boxcars. Paddy grinned. That will do the trick. He grabbed his bowler hat, strapped his gun belt on, and hustled down the stairs of the hotel. He’d paid cash for his room the night before, so he didn’t need to check out. He tossed the key on the desk, left the hotel, and headed for the switch that connected the siding with the mainline a few yards west of the depot.

  Paddy threw the switch, clearing the siding track, and providing access for the boxcars to the mainline. He hurried to the first of the boxcars and climbed the ladder on the end of the car. He twisted the wheel atop the long rod that extended down the rear of the car to the trucks, releasing the brakes on the wheels.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jenny washed the last of the dishes and stacked them on the shelf above the potbellied stove. The stage for Salt Lake City had departed a quarter of an hour earlier. She wouldn’t have to prepare another meal until tomorrow, when the return trip brought passengers from the Mormon capital who intended to board the train at Echo City for their journey eastward.

  The weather had turned unseasonably warm for January, and the rapid snowmelt added rivers of mud to the street that passed in front of the Wells Fargo station. She hoped she could find enough of a snowdrift left in the shade along the side of the building in which to bury the iron pot with its leftover stew. There was enough stew left that it would make a meal for her, her brother, and her father later in the day.

  The front door of the station opened, and Jenny turned to see Sean Corcoran enter. He carried his left arm in a sling.

  “Good morning, Mr. Corcoran,” she said.

  “Good morning, Jenny. And it is indeed a good morning. That warm sun certainly feels fine after so many days of rain and snow.”

  “The arm must be doing better if the doctor lets you travel this far from the hospital tent.”

  “Yes. The shoulder doesn’t trouble me quite as much. Doc thinks another couple of weeks and I should be able to start using the arm again.”

  “What brings you by? Can I help you?”

  “The food in that Chinaman’s café is so boring, Jenny. I’m sick and tired of the same old fare day in and day out. I thought maybe I could talk you into selling me a meal. Pretend I was a Wells Fargo passenger for a little while.” Corcoran grinned. “I’ll pay.”

  “Well, I was going to save this stew for Pa and Duncan, but since you make a good argument for consuming it now, I’ll agree. This once, mind you. I’ll be in trouble if I try to compete with the Chinaman.”

  Corcoran lifted a leg over a bench at the table in the center of the room and sat down. “Dollar and a half?” he asked.

  “Let’s say a dollar this time. It’s leftovers after all.” Jenny laughed.

  “I know it will be good. Bring it on.” Corcoran slapped a silver dollar on the table.

  “Let me reheat it. Take only a minute.” Jenny opened the door of the potbellied stove and stoked the coals to regenerate a flame. She set the iron pot on the top of the stove, lifted the lid, and stirred the contents.

  “Smells good,” he said.

  It made her feel good to see Will’s uncle lick his lips. She moved to the table and sat on a bench opposite Corcoran.

  “Will not back yet?” she asked.

  Corcoran shook his head. “General Jack returned yesterday. He said Will had planned to travel back with him, but Will and Lieutenant Moretti apparently got caught out at Bullfrog Charlie’s old cabin during a snowstorm when they went to visit Lone Eagle. General Jack said he couldn’t wait for Will. He wanted to hurry back here, what with all the labor unrest and the short timetable to build the Ogden facilities.”

  “I hope Will is all right. He seems to have a knack for getting himself into tight spots.”

  “I agree. On the other hand, my young nephew has also exhibited innovative ways to extract himself from his messes.”

  “I fussed at him the last time he was here,” she said. “Feel kind of guilty about that, now.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t let something like that be a worry, Jenny. He undoubtedly had it coming. Probably did him good, in fact.” Corcoran laughed.

  Jenny stood and checked the pot. “This is hot now.” She reached above the stove and brought down a bowl into which she ladled a sizable helping of stew. She placed the bowl and a spoon on the table in front of Corcoran.

  He wasted no time delving into the food. “My, that is good. Jenny, you’re the best cook in Utah.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that, Mr. Corcoran. But thanks for the compliment. And, where are my manners? You’ll need a cup of coffee with that, surely.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Jenny filled a mug from the pot she kept on the stove and handed it to Corcoran. “Do you hear anything from General Dodge?”

  “Received a telegram from him yesterday, as a matter of fact. Says he’s anxious to return, but the negotiations with Huntington in Washington keep dragging out. The CP still won’t agree to a meeting place. Guess General Dodge will have to stay back there until something breaks.”

  Corcoran finished his stew and coffee, lifted a leg over the bench, and stood. “Thanks for the wonderful meal, Jenny. Best cook this side of the Mississippi, I’d say.” A broad smile crossed his unshaven face.

  “You are prone to exaggeration, Mr. Corcoran.” Jenny returned his smile.

  CHAPTER 15

  “I don’t know why we’s in such an all fired hurry, Will.” Homer pulled up the collar of his coat. “It sure is cold riding on this here flatcar, out in the open, when we could have waited and taken the evening passenger train and been inside with a nice woodburning fire to keep us warm.”

  “I want to get back and check on Uncle Sean. I missed catching the train out of Fort Fred Steele with General Jack. I don’t want to waste any more time returning to Echo City.” Will hunched his shoulders to bring the collar of his buckskin jacket higher on his neck.

  The two of them sat on the end of the last flatcar in a string of twelve that were loaded with iron rails and freshly hewn ties bound for end of track. Homer’s left arm was in a sling to help immobilize his shoulder. He’d remained in Wahsatch to recover from the injuries he’d suffered during the train wreck at the “Zig-Zag” a little over a week ago.

  When Will had arrived last evening on the regular passenger run from Wyoming, he’d left that train to look for his friend in order to help him return to Echo City. The passenger train had not waited for Will, so he’d spent the night camped out on a cot in the railroad hospital where Homer was recuperating with his broken collarbone. This morning, Will had recognized Alf Patton readying a freight train for departure, and he’d approached the railroad engineer about hitching a ride to Echo City. Alf had been the engineer who’d been the victim of Paddy O’Hannigan’s experiment with nitroglycerin last year, resulting in his locomotive being wrecked at a bridge in the Rattlesnake Hills of Wyoming.

  “It’s a nice day, Homer. The sun’s shining. The snow is melting. This pile of ties behind us breaks the wind, so we can ride in comfort.”

  “Humph! Ride in comfort? Not my idea of comfort. Besides, my arm don’t like being out here in the cold none.”

  “Oh, stop whining, Homer. We’ll be in
Echo City in a couple of hours, then you can find a nice potbellied stove to curl up beside.”

  Homer rubbed his shoulder and stared back up the track behind the train. He leaned forward slowly, and his chin thrust out, as he studied the scene before him.

  “Will,” Homer said, “that looks mighty strange to me, so it does.” He tossed his head upward indicating the direction in which he was looking.

  Will followed Homer’s gaze, then leaned forward himself. He squinted. “There’s no locomotive pulling those boxcars. And there’s none behind them either. They’re runaways!”

  “And they’s gaining on us, so they is.”

  “I have to alert Alf. I don’t like the idea of those cars running up our backside.”

  Will laid his Winchester and haversack on the floor of the flatcar beside Homer. He stood and climbed the pile of ties to the top of the load. Ties were stacked to the sides of the car, leaving no passageway around them. The train wobbled from side to side as it moved down grade toward the “Zig-Zag,” which Will estimated to be a dozen miles farther ahead.

  This part of the railbed had been laid hurriedly in the Union Pacific’s race to move deep into Utah as quickly as possible, and the grade was not level. The flatcar swayed left, then right, and Will had to hold his arms out to the side to balance himself as he made his way along the top of the pile.

  When he reached the end of the load of ties, he dropped down onto the bed of the flatcar in preparation for a leap across the space separating the car on which he stood from the next in line. He took a short step backward—that’s all the room he had—then stepped forward and jumped as hard as he could. He flew across the open space. His glance down revealed the link and pin coupler connecting the two cars, and below that the ties of the roadbed rapidly flashing by like a dealer riffling a deck of cards.

  Will landed with a thud on the next flatcar, his momentum carrying him hard into that car’s stack of ties. He grabbed at the wooden ties to steady his balance and wound up with a fistful of splinters. He picked the larger pieces out of his hand and reached up to grab a handhold to assist him in climbing to the top of this load. He wished he had worn his gloves, but they were packed in his haversack.

  He surmounted five more cars loaded with ties, then five loaded with iron rails before reaching the locomotive and its tender. He leaned across the space ahead of the leading flatcar and grabbed the rungs of a ladder extending to the top of the water tank, which formed the back end of the tender. When he reached the top of the ladder, he looked into the open cab of the engine. Engineer Patton and his fireman were both watching forward and did not see him. He stumbled over the cord-wood stacked on end in the forward half of the tender to reach the cab.

  He jumped down onto the floor of the cab. Alf and the fireman whirled in surprise. The fireman reached for a revolver he wore at his side. Will raised his hands. “It’s me, Alf,” he shouted. The noise from the locomotive’s mechanisms, coupled with the roar of the blaze from the firebox, made normal conversation impossible in the cab.

  “What are you doing up here?” Alf asked.

  “Runaways bearing down on us.” Will told the engineer what he and Homer had seen.

  “I’ll put on more steam . . . try to outrun them. But the ‘Zig-Zag’ is coming up, and I’ll have to stop when we get there. Drop ties on the roadbed and see if we can derail the boxcars.”

  Will nodded and retraced his steps to the rear of the freight train. The boxcars were now only fifty yards behind.

  He fished his gloves out of his haversack and put them on, then laid his rifle and haversack to one side of the car’s flat bed and helped Homer to stand. “I’ll slide ties off the top of the pile and you kick them onto the tracks. See if we can derail the boxcars. Can you do it, Homer?”

  “You drop the ties down here. I’ll kick them off the rear.”

  Will threw one tie after another down to where Homer lodged a foot against the tie and shoved it off the back of the car. Most of the ties bounced onto the roadbed and settled between the rails. The boxcars simply rolled over them.

  Every fifth or sixth tie managed to prop itself against a rail, but the wheels of the boxcars crushed them like matchsticks. The boxcars were heavily loaded and the weight of the runaway cars was too much for a wooden tie to affect it.

  “This isn’t working, Homer.” Will stood on the top of the diminishing pile of ties. Sweat ran off his nose.

  Homer nodded and heaved a sigh from the exertion.

  “We have to disconnect this car and let the boxcars run into it.”

  “You can’t pull that pin out of that coupler, Will. There’s too much tension on it.”

  “I know. I’m going back to tell the engineer to slam on the brakes and give me some slack.”

  “That’s too dangerous,” Homer said. “That’s how Zeke got crippled. He became trapped between two cars he was trying to uncouple.”

  “Well, those boxcars are going to crash into us and derail this whole train. That doesn’t give us much choice. I’m going back to talk to Alf about how we’re going to do this. While I’m gone, Homer, see if you can move to the rear of the next car.”

  Ten minutes later Will returned to the rear of the train. Homer had managed to bring Will’s rifle and haversack with him and had jumped between the two cars, even with his bad shoulder.

  “Good work, Homer. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  Will explained the plan he and Alf had worked out. He levered a chamber into the rifle and handed it to Homer, who stood against the rear of the stack of ties on the car and raised the Winchester above his head so the muzzle would be visible above the pile of wood.

  Will climbed down off the deck of the flatcar and straddled the coupler. His feet dangled down either side of the heavy iron connecting rod protruding from the rear of the car.

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. Turning, he nodded to Homer. Homer pulled the trigger on the Winchester. A blast of white smoke erupted from the muzzle. Engineer Patton would not be able to hear the rifle shot, but he could see the smoke. Homer levered another round into the chamber.

  A loud blast from the whistle signaled Will that the engineer was slamming on the brakes. Each car from the front of the train collided with the one in back of it until the domino-like collapsing motion happened to the final car in the train.

  That sudden forward motion of the last car, crashing into the one where Will sat, created a momentary slack in the coupler. When it happened, Will yanked on the pin. It lifted partway out of the coupler, then jammed. Will pulled hard on the pin, twisting it as much as he could. It moved another inch, then another. On the third twist, Will jerked the pin free from the links in the coupler. The rear car separated from the one Will rode.

  Will turned to Homer and nodded. Homer raised the rifle and fired it again. Another puff of white smoke signaled the engineer, who blew his whistle to let Will know he was accelerating again.

  Slowly the distance between the freed flatcar and the rest of the train opened. Homer reached down with his good hand and helped Will back up onto the floor of the car. Both Homer and Will leaned back against the pile of ties and watched the boxcars barrel down on the lone flatcar.

  CHAPTER 16

  Paddy strained to see forward out the window of the passenger coach. He pressed his face against the pane of glass, but the only time he had a clear view of what lay ahead was when the train rolled through a curve. Had it been a summer day, he would have lowered the sash and stuck his head out. Winter still gripped the Utah countryside, however, and the other passengers would throw him off the train if he tried such a thing today.

  He’d boarded the regular evening passenger train out of Wahsatch less than an hour ago to make his return trip to Echo City. His headache had diminished as the hours had passed from when he’d awakened. He felt pretty good at the moment. He’d managed last evening to convince the tracklayers to think seriously about striking. That was what Mort Kavanagh had sent him to do.
Mort should be pleased with his efforts. Then, the opportunity to loose the string of boxcars onto the mainline to chase after the flatcar on which he’d seen two of his enemies riding provided the crowning point of his day.

  Paddy was surprised he hadn’t already seen evidence the free-running boxcar string had caught up to the freight train and crushed the rear flatcar. Paddy’s train slowed, and he strained for a better view. Something was happening. There— coming into view along his side of the coach—the boxcars lay toppled off the side of the roadbed. A crew of workers busied themselves shifting cargo out of the boxcars and stacking the items alongside the track.

  When his coach had rolled past the last of the wreckage, the engine whistle blasted twice, and his train picked up speed. A single flatcar lay upside down in front of the half-dozen boxcars, its load of ties scattered down the slope. Where was the rest of the train Will Braddock and Homer Garcon had been riding?

  Two hours later, Paddy entered the back flap-door of the Lucky Dollar Saloon. He nodded to Randy Tremble, who served drinks to a half-dozen customers ranged along the bar. Randy held up an envelope and motioned Paddy to come get it.

  “I’m fed up being your personal mailman, O’Hannigan. You never go to the post office yourself. The clerk’s tired of holding your letters, so he keeps dumping them on me.”

  “Well, it’s happy I am that ye are so accommodating, Randy, me good man.”

  “Humph.” Randy turned his back.

  Paddy only had to glance at the envelope to recognize his younger sister’s scrawl. No return address was necessary. She would be pleading again for money for her and their mother. He shook his head and stuffed the envelope, unopened, into a vest pocket.

  He trudged across the packed-dirt floor and up onto the wooden one where Mort Kavanagh had his office. He guessed he’d have to send some of the money Mort would pay him back to Brooklyn. He couldn’t seem to get ahead.

  When he knocked on the door, a loud voice beckoned him to enter.