Golden Spike

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Golden Spike Page 13

by Robert Lee Murphy


  “Ah,” said Kavanagh, “thanks for bringing my special rye, darlin’.”

  Sally set the tray on the desk, then stepped over to the side wall. Why didn’t she sit down? Why was there only one glass? He’d expected Kavanagh to offer him a toast in farewell.

  Kavanagh placed his cigar in an ashtray, then poured himself a shot from the bottle. He raised the glass in a salute to Paddy and downed the liquor in one gulp. He slammed the glass onto the desk and reached into the desk drawer he’d left open after he’d pulled out the cigar. He brought out a revolver, pointed it across the desk at Paddy, and cocked it.

  “What the—” Paddy said. He looked from Mort to Sally, then to Randy, who stood in the doorway. Randy raised a shotgun he’d concealed behind his hip and cocked both barrels, which he aimed at Paddy.

  Kavanagh dragged the saddlebags across the desktop out of Paddy’s reach. “That’s some story you concocted about winning all that money gambling.”

  “Sure, and that’s how I got it, Mort. And that be the truth. ’Tis my money, for certain, it is.”

  “No, Paddy, it’s my money. Where do you think the cash came from to pay the ransom for Miss McNabb?”

  Paddy felt his eyes widen and his mouth drop open. What was Mort saying?

  “The Army threatened to declare martial law and shut down the Lucky Dollar if I didn’t advance them the five thousand dollars for the ransom. Since the workers haven’t been paid in months, it happened I was the only person around who had enough cash on hand to meet your demand.”

  Mort had provided the money? He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Paddy looked again at Sally, then Randy, then back to Mort. Surely, this was a bad dream.

  “You are right about one thing, Paddy O’Hannigan,” Kavanagh said.

  “Sure, and what’s that, Mort?”

  “We’re saying goodbye. You’re fired. You’re lucky I don’t blow your head off. Now take your mangy butt out of my sight . . . for good. I don’t ever want to see you again. Don’t expect me to honor my obligations to be your godfather, either.”

  “Mort . . . I.” What was happening? This was not the way Paddy had planned things. How had he gotten himself into this mess?

  Paddy looked at Sally. Her smirk expressed how pleased she was with Kavanagh’s actions.

  Paddy kept his eyes on Kavanagh’s revolver as he rose from the chair, then he turned and walked toward the open door. Randy stepped back, but kept the shotgun pointed at him.

  “Randy,” said Kavanagh, “see that he exits through the rear. I don’t want trash like him seen going out the front entrance.”

  Randy nodded and motioned with the shotgun toward the back of the tent area. Paddy walked across the dirt floor and lifted the canvas flap rear door. He looked back. Mort stood outside his office on the wooden floor, the revolver still in his hand. Sally lounged in the open door, leaning against the jamb. The sneer on her face was visible from across the room.

  Randy waved the shotgun at him. Paddy spat his tobacco wad onto the dirt floor at Randy’s feet and left the Lucky Dollar.

  Behind the saloon, the alley stretched empty in both directions. No one was visible. He stood alone. How had things come to this pass? What was he to do now? He hadn’t even transferred some of the ransom money from the saddlebags to his pockets.

  CHAPTER 31

  Jenny and Will stood on the boardwalk in front of the Wells Fargo station. She clung to Will’s arm as they observed her father giving final instructions to Franz Iversen, the station’s stockman.

  Franz looked down at his boss from his horse. He held lead ropes to a string of five other horses that trailed behind him down the street in front of the station. Duncan, Jenny’s younger brother, sat mounted on a horse behind Franz’s string, leading five other horses. Jenny’s father had received orders to send the two six-horse teams to Salt Lake City and close the Echo City station.

  “Franz,” Jenny’s father said, “after you turn these horses over to the stationmaster in Salt Lake City, you and Duncan catch a ride on the coach to Ogden. It might be tomorrow before you can hitch a ride, so use the money I gave you to find yourselves a hotel room for the night. We’ll expect to see you in Ogden no later than tomorrow evening.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. McNabb,” Franz said.

  “Duncan,” Jenny’s father said, “you listen to Franz. You haven’t been over the Wasatch Range yet. It’ll be a long, hard ride, but I have confidence you can do it.”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  “All right, Franz, on your way.”

  “Giddup,” Franz flicked the reins of his horse and headed north down the main street toward Weber where they would turn west to cross the mountains into the Mormon’s capital city.

  “Good luck, Duncan.” Jenny grinned up at her ten-year-old brother as he rode past her. “Don’t fall off.”

  Duncan shook his head, but grinned. “I’m not going to fall off.” He kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks and led his string down the road behind Franz.

  Jenny, Will, and her father watched until the horses passed beyond the end of Echo City.

  “Papa,” Jenny said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go over to Abrams General Store to see if he has a dress and a bonnet. I washed and patched this dress, but I’d like to have something nicer to wear for the festivities in Ogden. Will says he’ll walk over with me.”

  “Go right ahead. I’ll finish packing up the office records. Everything else is already over at the depot for loading on the train. Meet me there in an hour.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “You’re going to Ogden too, Will?” Jenny’s father asked.

  “Yes, sir. My uncle, Homer, and I are headed there to help Mr. Reed with the construction of the new yards.”

  “That was quite some gesture on the part of Brigham Young to donate all that bottom land to the railroad for the yards. I expect some of those farmers weren’t too happy about being forced to sell their parcels though.”

  “Uncle Sean says Mr. Young wanted to control the situation and not let the land speculators, like Mortimer Kavanagh, mess things up.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Come on, Will.” Jenny shifted her reticule to her right hand, linked her left with Will’s right arm, and the two of them stepped off the boardwalk into the dirt road.

  “Those moccasins feel better than regular shoes?” Will asked.

  “My feet are so sore. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to put on regular shoes again.” Jenny glanced down at her moccasins. “I’m glad I kept these.”

  Jenny held onto Will’s arm as they maneuvered diagonally across the street, weaving their way through the freight wagons rumbling down the road. Echo City remained a busy railroad town, but Ogden would replace it soon as the Union Pacific’s main facility in Utah. Echo City would continue to serve as the staging point for the helper engines needed to pull trains up the steep grade into Wyoming.

  The bell above the door of Abrams General Store tinkled when Will opened it for Jenny. She let go of Will’s arm and stepped up onto the wooden floor of the tent store.

  “Good morning, Miss McNabb.” Benjamin Abrams greeted her from behind a counter. He wiped his hands on his apron. “What can I do for you, today?”

  “I need a new dress, Mr. Abrams,” Jenny said. “I hope you have something to replace this.” She held up one arm and brushed a hand down the sleeve to show the storekeeper where she’d sown the ripped material together. She raised a knee to reveal the patch in her skirt.

  “I’m so sorry about the ordeal you had to go through, Miss McNabb. I heard tell Paddy O’Hannigan had to give the ransom money back to Mortimer Kavanagh.”

  Jenny’s mouth dropped open and she looked from Abrams to Will, then back to Abrams. “What? Where did you hear that?”

  Will stepped farther into the store and moved up beside Jenny. “I hadn’t heard about that, either,” he said.

  “Randy Tremble was over to the Chinaman’s café this mor
ning blabbing to everybody about it while he ate breakfast. Seems O’Hannigan came to say goodbye to Kavanagh, not knowing he was the one who’d provided the ransom money. Kavanagh took back the money and fired the rascal.”

  Jenny grinned and watched a broad smile light up Will’s face. “Well,” she said, “maybe there is some justice.”

  Abrams had one calico dress Jenny’s size.

  She held out the orange and green checked dress with its matching bonnet and studied it. “Not my first choice in color,” she said, “but it will do.”

  She went into the store’s back room to change clothes, then returned carrying her ruined dress. “Mr. Abrams, do you have a pair of scissors?”

  The shopkeeper reached beneath the counter and handed her a pair.

  She snipped off the buttons, dropped them into her reticule, and returned the scissors. “I’ll send the buttons to my sister in Sacramento. She can use them on a new dress. You may cut up this old one for rags, if you wish, Mr. Abrams.” She handed the ruined dress to the storekeeper.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I will.”

  A half-hour later, Will helped Jenny climb the rear steps of the last coach as they boarded the train bound from Echo City to Ogden. Her father, Sean Corcoran, and Homer Garcon were already seated on wooden bench seats near the center of the car.

  Hobart Johnson served as conductor on the train and stopped to check their tickets and passes after the train departed the station. “Nice to have all you folks on board for this run into Ogden. We have two full coaches in this train headed for the big celebration. The engine Black Hawk steamed into Ogden yesterday, making it the first Union Pacific locomotive to reach there. Since it was a Sunday though, the city fathers insisted everybody wait until today for the official welcoming of the UP. I understand they’re expecting quite a crowd.”

  “Oh, what fun,” Jenny said.

  The train rolled along at a good clip for about eight miles alongside the meandering Weber River, then slowed and stopped.

  Conductor Johnson came back into the rear coach. “A special treat today, folks,” he said. “The engineer has agreed to stop for a few minutes to allow you all to see two interesting landmarks. We will be here at the first feature about ten minutes . . . long enough for you to disembark if you choose. The lone, tall pine tree you see yonder on the left side of the tracks is the Thousand Mile Tree. Of course, you can all read the sign attached to the tree attesting to that fact. This marks the exact spot where the Union Pacific’s rails are one thousand miles from Omaha.”

  Some passengers left the coach, but Jenny decided to remain on board. “Don’t you want to get off, Will?” she asked.

  “Don’t need to. I passed through here before. I saw the tree right after they put the sign on it.”

  Ten minutes later, the train eased down the tracks a couple of miles and stopped again.

  Conductor Johnson returned to the rear coach. “This is the second feature, folks. I’ll ask you to stay on board this time. There’s no good place to stand alongside the tracks. We’ll only stop here a couple of minutes. Out the windows on the left side of the train you can see the Devil’s Slide. Sorry, ladies, that’s what it’s called. Geologists tell us the Devil’s Slide is two parallel limestone strata, which originally formed as part of an old sea bed. They were tilted vertically by the forces of nature and exposed to view through erosion. The two strata are twenty feet apart and extend up the mountainside over two hundred feet.”

  Jenny marveled at the spectacular rock formation through the windows of the coach. “It really does resemble a children’s slide,” she said.

  “Now folks,” said Conductor Johnson, “I’m going to ask you to take your seats and remain seated until after we cross the trestle at Devil’s Gate. It’s pretty rickety, and the car will sway as we pass over the bridge. I wouldn’t want anyone knocked off their feet and hurt.”

  The locomotive whistle blew, and the train lurched back into motion. It was only a matter of minutes until the train slowed to a crawl. Jenny felt the instability transmitted from the rails through the cars’ trucks and into the body of the carriage itself.

  She grabbed hold of Will’s arm. “Are we going to be all right? I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t care for it, either,” Will said. “This trestle was erected in a hurry to get the tracks through this gorge and on down the Weber River and into Ogden. Someday, it will have to be replaced.”

  Less than an hour after crossing the Devil’s Gate trestle, the train exited Weber Canyon and approached Ogden. Conductor Johnson once again entered the coach. He paused in the door after closing it behind him and withdrew his pocket watch from a vest pocket. “Let the record show,” he said, “that the first Union Pacific train bearing passengers entered Ogden at two-thirty in the afternoon of March eighth, in the year of our Lord one-thousand, eight-hundred, and sixty-nine.”

  A cheer from the passengers greeted Johnson’s announcement.

  Jenny, sitting at the window seat, pulled the sash down and leaned her head outside. “Oh, look, Will. There are hundreds of people . . . all dressed in their finest. They’re spread out all along the tracks. How exciting!”

  Jenny leaned across Will and pointed to the opposite windows. “Why, they’re on both sides of the tracks. Just look at the crowd. They’ve come for a grand celebration.”

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  “I haven’t heard artillery fire like that since the war,” Jenny’s father said. He sat in the seat in front of her. “Looks like they’ve brought out the local militia to fire a twenty-one gun salute for our arrival.”

  A band struck up a tune Jenny thought she’d heard before. She giggled as she watched the smoke from the cannon fire wrap itself around the festively costumed bandsmen. “What’s that song they’re playing, Will?”

  “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “Oh, yes.” She remembered now that the song had become a favorite of the Yankees during the recent war.

  Hobart Johnson passed back down the aisle.

  “Can we get out and join the crowd, Mr. Johnson?” Jenny asked.

  “In a minute,” he answered. “We’re not quite to the end of track. The crowd has spilled over onto the rails, and the engineer is having trouble pressing through them.”

  The train crawled slowly ahead. The locomotive’s whistle blasted two quick notes, followed quickly by two more, then yet another two.

  “The engineer’s trying to signal the people the train’s moving forward,” Will said, “but, they’re not paying any attention. Reminds me of the buffalo blocking the tracks in Nebraska.”

  Sean Corcoran leaned forward from behind Jenny and Will and laid a hand on their seat back. “These folks have never seen a train before, so they don’t know to stay clear.”

  A long, steady blast emitted from the engine’s whistle and the train lurched to a halt. Jenny happened to look toward the front of the train when the engine blew excess steam from the cylinders. The spectators closest to the locomotive pushed back against those behind them to escape the engulfing white vapor. Black soot shot into the air from the smokestack and drifted down onto the crowd.

  Shouts from the gathered throng intensified. Move! Move! Get away!

  Jenny watched mothers grab the hands of frightened children and run from the locomotive and its cloud of steam and rain of ash. Whole families dashed into the swampy ground that lay a few rods away on either side of the gravel roadbed. Children fell. Mothers and fathers helped them up, their dressy clothes covered in mud.

  “Oh, those poor people,” Jenny said. “Their day is ruined. They aren’t afraid of the warlike firing of cannon, but they panic at the peaceful sounds of a locomotive.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Two weeks after entering Ogden, the Union Pacific pushed its rails twenty-five miles farther north up the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake and swung west another six miles along the northern end of the lake to reach the new town of Corinne. On March 23, 1869, Corin
ne, advertising itself as the Gentile Capital of Utah, became the final major location for Hell on Wheels. Smaller versions of the sinful town would follow the UP all the way to Promontory Summit.

  Will Braddock, his uncle, and Homer, entered Abrams General Store, which the Jewish merchant had relocated to Corinne along with all the other Hell on Wheels merchants.

  “Good afternoon, gents,” Benjamin Abrams said.

  “Afternoon, Ben,” Will’s uncle responded. “I need a dozen cigars. You have my brand?”

  “I do.” Abrams took a wooden box from within a glass-topped case and pushed it across the top. “What can I get for you two?”

  “Nothing for me,” Homer said.

  “I only have a nickel,” Will said. “Guess I’ll spend it on some jawbreakers.”

  Will looked at Homer and grinned when his friend wrinkled his nose in disgust at the sloppy candy.

  “Here you go,” Abrams said. He lifted a glass container from a shelf behind him and set it on the counter. “The price has gone up to two cents each, Will.”

  “I can only afford two, then.”

  Abrams took the lid off the jar. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll sell you three for five cents. How’s that? Or, I’ll give you a penny change.”

  Will smiled broadly. “I’ll take the jawbreakers. A penny won’t do me much good.” He selected his three jawbreakers while his uncle finished counting out his dozen cigars.

  “How much for the cigars, Ben?” Will’s uncle asked.

  “They’ve gone up a bit, too. They’re fifteen cents each now. So, your total comes to one dollar and eighty cents.”

  Will’s uncle dropped two silver dollars on the countertop and Abrams gave him his change.

  “Now, gents,” Abrams said. “You’ve been good customers these past two years. I’d like to treat you to a drink at the Lucky Dollar Saloon.”

  “Ben,” Will’s uncle said, “I’ve avoided that place ever since Julesburg.”

  “I know, Sean, but it’s the best place here. I’d really like to buy you each a drink. Surely you can give me that pleasure . . . once.”

 

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