by Janet Dawson
“He’s an odd bird,” Mr. Benson said. “But so were a lot of them up on the Hill.”
“The Hill?” Jill asked. “Do you mean Los Alamos? The Manhattan Project? I know Dr. Kovacs was there. He’s a physicist. When I was going to school at Cal I heard him give a talk about his work on the project.”
“‘Lost Almost.’ That’s what we called it. Because it was at the backside of beyond. But that’s where I met Norma.” Mr. Benson gave his wife’s hand a squeeze.
“Little Norma Sanchez from Española. I joined the army and thought I’d get out of New Mexico, go somewhere I hadn’t been before. My chance to travel.” She laughed. “No such luck. They sent me to the Hill. I grew up in that area, so I’d been to Los Alamos before, over to Bandelier National Monument and Jemez Springs. Not much up there back then, except ranches and that boys’ school. That changed when they started building the lab in the spring of ’forty-three. I spent two years driving up and down that road. Back and forth, from the train station at Lamy, to Santa Fe, then up to the Hill, more times than I can count. My word, it was steep. At least they paved it.”
“I was with the MPs, the military police,” Ed Benson added. “Got there when they started construction. I was at Oak Ridge before that. The place was classified and security was tight. Down in Santa Fe, if you asked a question about the place, they’d deny it even existed.”
“It must have been fascinating,” Jill said.
“We didn’t think of it like that,” Mrs. Benson said. “We knew they were working on something big, and secret. But for people like us, it was just a job. Anyway, I met Ed and we kept company up there on the Hill. When we could get some leave, we’d go down to Santa Fe, or to Española to see my folks. We got married right after the war and came out to San Francisco. That’s where Ed grew up.”
“Yep, born and raised in the Mission District. I’m in insurance now. And Norma’s got her hands full with these two boys of ours.” Mr. Benson turned to his wife. “Say, you remember that redhead Kovacs was married to? That’s her, that came down the stairs just now.” He tilted his head toward the rear of the car. Mr. and Mrs. Cole had turned from the window and they were walking this way.
Mrs. Benson looked toward the couple and nodded, but she didn’t speak until the Coles had passed them, heading forward toward the sleeper cars. “Yes, I recognize her. She looks about the same, though she wears her hair different. Now her husband, I’ve seen him before, I’m sure of it. In New Mexico.”
“That’s odd,” Jill said. “I heard Mr. Cole say he’d never been to New Mexico.”
Norma Benson shrugged. “Could be I don’t have the right face. I saw a lot of faces in those two years I was on the Hill. Not surprising the professor’s marriage didn’t last. Living up on the Hill was hard on all of us, especially the families. They had more people than they had housing, with folks shoehorned into flimsy apartments. The water was bad and in short supply and the food was terrible. And the isolation. The military people were stuck there for the duration, but there were more than a few wives who couldn’t take the place and left.”
“What interesting stories,” Jill said. “I’d love to hear more. But we’re getting close to the Keddie Wye. You’ll want to see that.”
“What is it?” Billy asked.
“Let’s go up to the Vista-Dome and I’ll show you.”
Jill led the way up the stairs. As the train rumbled toward the split bridge that rose over Spanish Creek, passengers pressed toward the windows. Two sections of the Wye stood on high steel trestles, while a third tunneled through a hillside. One side of the split headed north through the trees, to connect with the Great Northern Line. The California Zephyr stayed on the other section of the Y-shaped bridge, known as the mainline.
“Western Pacific had a last-spike ceremony here in nineteen-oh-nine, when the track was completed.” Jill glanced at her watch. “We’ll be coming into the town of Keddie soon. Both the town and the Wye are named after Arthur Keddie. He’s the original surveyor of the railroad route through the Feather River Canyon.”
The Zephyr stopped briefly in Keddie, then continued east past Quincy Junction. Dusk darkened the sky, blurring landmarks as the train curved into the Williams Loop, a complete circle designed to provide the train with a one-percent grade as it continued up the canyon. As the Zephyr gained elevation, it crossed over itself on the trestle. Had it been summer, the passengers might have been able to see the first and last cars, looking as though they were traveling in opposite directions. But it was December, with the shortest daylight of the year. By the time the train emerged from the Loop it was dark. The Zephyr entered the tunnel at Spring Garden that took the tracks from the North Fork of the Feather River to the Middle Fork. The Clio Trestle was next, over a thousand feet long, towering some 172 feet over the valley, its view over the valley obscured by night.
Jill retrieved her binder from her compartment. Most of the dinner reservations had been made earlier, but she always checked to see if there were any last-minute arrangements to be made. The next stop was Portola, at 5:25 P.M., and there might be passengers boarding there.
In the lounge, Mrs. Tidsdale sat in her usual spot, the table by the window, a tumbler of Scotch in front of her, a cigarette in her hand. She wasn’t alone. Mr. Paynter sat next to her. Mrs. Tidsdale regarded him with a flirtatious smile. He leaned across the table, whispering something in her ear. Mrs. Tidsdale threw back her head and laughed. She recrossed her legs, showing them to advantage under the hem of her red dress.
“Miss McLeod, have you seen Emily? We’re supposed to have dinner at six. Ungodly early hour to have dinner.” Tidsy rolled her eyes for Mr. Paynter’s benefit, and he chuckled.
“She’s back in the Silver Solarium with the Finch girls.”
“Guess I’d better see to my chaperone duties.” Tidsy stubbed out her cigarette and downed the last of her Scotch. “See you later, Neal?”
“Certainly,” Mr. Paynter said, flashing his easy smile. He watched as she stood up and left the lounge.
A man and a woman seated at a nearby table waved at Jill. “Is it too late to make a dinner reservation? For two?” the woman asked.
“Not at all.” Jill consulted her binder. “The seven o’clock seating is full, but there are several seats available at six or eight.”
The man glanced at his watch. “Six is too early. It’s after five now. How about eight?” The woman nodded.
Jill filled out blue reservation cards for the eight o’clock seating and handed them to the passengers. Then she stepped into the passageway and headed forward, past the coffee shop, which was as crowded as the lounge. She walked through the third chair car, the Silver Saddle, making a last-minute dinner reservation. Then she headed into the second car, the Silver Palace.
The train’s motion changed, the rhythm of wheels on tracks slowing. The Zephyr was heading into the little railroad town of Portola. The tracks, train station, and downtown district were on the south side of the Feather River. Jill saw the lights of the station and the train shed, and in the distance, the glow illuminating buildings along Commercial Street. If this were summer, the train and its cars would be washed here in Portola, running through a curved series of pipes spraying water to chase dust and grime from the Vista-Domes. But this was winter, and washing the train would cause ice to form. Even now, snow swirled out of the darkness into the pools of light from overhead poles.
Jill went to the vestibule as the train came to a stop at the Portola station. She shivered in the chill, peering out. A few people waited on the platform, some with luggage, others there to greet passengers who were getting off the train.
A tall, stringy man wearing a cowboy hat walked toward the train, the collar of his sheepskin coat pulled up around his neck, a barrier against the winter cold. He carried a small carpetbag in his left hand, a ticket in his right. “Goin’ to Denver,” he said in a low voice.
The porter checked the man’s ticket. “Yes, sir. You’re on thi
s car. Your seat is a few rows back of the stairs leading up to the Vista-Dome. That’s on the right, on the aisle.”
“Thank you,” the man said. He climbed into the vestibule, towering over Jill. He tipped his cowboy hat. “Evenin’, ma’am.”
“Good evening. I’m Miss McLeod, the Zephyrette. Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”
“I sure could use some dinner, ma’am,” he said. “Do I need to put my name down on a list to eat a meal in the diner?”
“Yes, for dinner you do. Let’s get you settled in your seat. Then I’ll make a reservation for you.”
Pat Haggerty, out on the platform, walked by, calling, “All aboard.” The train whistle blew and the California Zephyr moved out of the Portola station.
She led the way into the chair car, where the man located his aisle seat. He nodded at the older man in the window seat and put his carpetbag and cowboy hat in the overhead rack. He removed his sheepskin jacket, revealing a red-and-black-checked flannel shirt. After taking a dog-eared paperback book from the pocket, he rolled up the jacket and stowed it in the rack. Then he sat down, stretching out long legs in faded jeans, over a pair of battered cowboy boots.
Jill opened her binder of dinner reservations. “I can seat you at six o’clock or eight o’clock.”
“Six would do me just fine, ma’am,” he said.
Jill filled out a red card. “Just give this to the dining car steward and he’ll seat you. By the way, you don’t need reservations for breakfast or lunch. That’s first-come, first-served.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” he said, taking the card. He tucked it into the pocket of his flannel shirt.
The train moved away from the lights of Portola, traveling in darkness on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada now, moving east into the Sierra Valley, over five thousand feet in elevation, a passage between the steep mountains. It was here that the mountain man James Beckwourth built his trading post. There was still a tiny community that bore Beckwourth’s name, and the train went through it in the blink of an eye. Farther east the train would go through a six-thousand-foot tunnel at a place called Chilcoot, coming out onto the Nevada desert, angling across the Great Basin to Gerlach, where the engine crew would change.
Jill made another dinner reservation in the first chair car, then she headed back to the buffet-lounge car. In her compartment, she sat for a moment, checking the binder. It looked like all the Pullman passengers had reservations. She closed the binder and left it on her berth. Her stomach rumbled as she left her compartment. Time to get some dinner herself.
Chapter Nine
It was just after six when Jill entered the dining car. She saw Mrs. Tidsdale and Emily seated at a table in one of the semi-private nooks, with an older couple from the chair cars. The Finches, who also had a six-o’clock seating, were a few tables down. Then she spied Mrs. Tatum at a table, sitting next to Mrs. Barlow, who was traveling on the Silver Palisade. Across from Mrs. Tatum was the tall cowboy who’d boarded the train in Portola.
“Miss McLeod, please join us,” Mrs. Tatum said.
“Yes, ma’am,” the cowboy said. He was already on his feet, pulling out the chair next to him. Jill took a seat.
“This is Mrs. Barlow,” Mrs. Tatum said.
“Yes, we met earlier, when I was making dinner reservations.”
“When that man in the roomette across from me was rude to you,” Mrs. Barlow said. “I just can’t abide rude people.”
“And this is Mr. Alvah Webb,” Mrs. Tatum said. “He and I have discovered we have something in common. We’re both from Gunnison, Colorado.”
“Born there, anyway,” Mr. Webb said, fingering the menu. “When I was growing up we lived all around that part of Colorado, over to Montrose and up to Delta, down toward Lake City and Creede.”
“Where do you live now?” Mrs. Barlow asked.
“I work on a ranch at Beckwourth, ma’am,” he said. “That’s a little town just east of Portola. We went through it a while back. I been there two years now, since I got out of…”
He hesitated, as though he didn’t want to say where he’d been. Maybe he’d gotten out of the army, Jill thought. But Mr. Webb appeared to be in his fifties or sixties. That seemed a bit old to have been in the army. Maybe he wasn’t as old as he looked. He had the leathery, seamed skin of a man who’d spent years working out of doors. The sun could age a man.
Jill took a menu from the rack on the table. “Where are you headed, Mrs. Barlow?”
“Akron, Colorado.” The woman smiled. “I’m spending Christmas with my son and his family. I’m sure a lot of people on the train are doing the same. Except you, dear. You’re on the train until it gets to Chicago on Christmas Eve. What a shame to be working on the holiday.”
“I don’t mind,” Jill said. “I’m looking forward to some time off with my family when I get back to the Bay Area. We’re having a Christmas party for the children tomorrow afternoon. That will be here in the diner. The chef is baking a cake.”
“What fun,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Mrs. Tatum tells me her daughter is in Grand Junction. What about you, Mr. Webb? Who will you be spending Christmas with?”
Again Mr. Webb hesitated before answering. “Got a daughter, ma’am. She’s married, has two little kids. They live in a place called Arvada, Colorado. I guess that’s outside of Denver.”
“How lovely,” Mrs. Barlow said. “How old are your grandchildren?”
“I don’t rightly know, ma’am.” Mr. Webb looked uncomfortable. “This’ll be the first time I’ve seen them.”
“I have quite an appetite,” Mrs. Tatum said before Mrs. Barlow could respond. “What looks good on the menu, Miss McLeod?”
Jill read through the items and prices on the dinner menu. Mrs. Tatum considered for a moment, then chose the roast beef. Mrs. Barlow wanted a steak. Jill marked her own check indicating the pork loin. Mr. Webb stared at the menu as though he couldn’t make up his mind. Then he marked his selection, fried chicken. At $3.30, it was the least expensive entrée on the menu. And nothing to go with it. Maybe he was being frugal, or maybe he just liked fried chicken with nothing on the side. If he was short of funds, the railroad had steps to deal with that. They didn’t want passengers to go without food. In her nearly two years as a Zephyrette, Jill had encountered the situation several times before, diplomatically inquiring to determine if there was a problem. Passengers who weren’t eating might be sick, or they might be short of cash. If such situations arose, Jill reported the information to the conductor, who was authorized to sign chits in the diner for any passenger who was hungry.
“I’m going to have a glass of wine,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Or we could share a bottle. How about the rest of you?”
Mr. Webb shook his head. “No, thank you. I don’t drink.”
“None for me,” Jill said. “Not while I’m working.”
“I’ll share a bottle,” Mrs. Tatum said.
She and Mrs. Barlow agreed on a cabernet. Mrs. Barlow was talkative, dominating the conversation during dinner. Mr. Webb hardly spoke at all, content to let the others talk. They finished their entrées and the waiter cleared away the dishes.
“How about some coffee and dessert?” he asked. “We’ve got chocolate cream pie tonight. And it’s mighty good, I must say.”
“Oh, that sounds delicious,” Mrs. Barlow said. “I’ll have a piece of that.”
“What are the other choices?” Mrs. Tatum asked. “I certainly enjoyed that apple pie I had at lunch.”
“We do have some of the apple pie left,” the waiter said. “Pumpkin pie as well, and custard.”
Mrs. Tatum chose the apple pie and so did Mr. Webb. Jill considered pumpkin then chose the chocolate. “I shouldn’t, really.”
“Oh, you get plenty of exercise walking up and down this train, I’m sure,” Mrs. Barlow said. “You have a nice, trim figure, looking so professional in that uniform of yours.”
Jill felt her cheeks grow pink. They ordered coffee
all around. When they finished their desserts and got up to leave the diner, Mrs. Barlow excused herself, saying she was tired and wanted to make an early night of it. Mrs. Tatum turned to Mr. Webb. “Let’s go to the coffee shop. I want to talk more about Colorado.”
“That would be my pleasure, ma’am.” The cowboy offered his arm.
“You, too, Miss McLeod. You told me earlier your mother’s family has been in Colorado for years. I want to hear all about it.”
“I’ll join you later,” Jill said. “I do a walk-through every couple of hours, so I think I’ll head back to the sleepers.”
She watched Mrs. Tatum and Mr. Webb go forward, past the steward’s counter, where several passengers with seven o’clock reservations waited to be seated. As they made their way down the passage next to the kitchen and pantry, Jill turned and headed the other direction, toward the sleeper cars. Mr. and Mrs. Finch and their daughters had finished dinner and were walking back to their accommodations in the observation car. Nan and Cathy stopped at the table where Mrs. Tidsdale was drinking coffee while Emily polished off a piece of pumpkin pie.
“Come back to our car,” Nan said.
Emily scraped up the last bit of pumpkin and whipped cream with her fork. “Okay.”
Nan and Cathy caught up with their parents. Mrs. Tidsdale set her coffee cup in its saucer and checked the time on her wristwatch. “Don’t you want to get ready for bed?”
Emily’s face took on a stubborn look. “No. It’s too early. You said I could stay up till eight-thirty.”
Mrs. Tidsdale sighed. “So I did.”
“You don’t have to go with me.” Emily wiped her mouth with her napkin. “If you want to go to the lounge, I can go to the observation car by myself.”
Tidsy pursed her mouth, as though momentarily taken aback. Then she smiled across the table at her nine-year-old charge. “All right, sweetie. But first a quick stop in our bedroom.”
Jill walked with them back to the sleeper cars. In the Silver Gull, Mr. Paynter was coming out of bedroom A. He nodded at them, his eyes lingering for a moment on Mrs. Tidsdale. Then he stepped past them, heading for the dining car.