by Judith Pella
“I’m afraid so. He was caught up in an explosion.”
All Victoria could think about was how Kiernan’s brother Red had died in a tunneling explosion. Stumbling back against the door, panic rose up in her. She gasped for breath. “Is he . . . is he . . .” The room began to swim before her eyes.
“He’s not dead,” Hopkins assured her quickly, “but he’s been severely injured. It doesn’t look good at this point.”
“No!” She twisted her hands together. “I don’t believe you.” Her knees weakened and she suddenly felt as if she’d doubled in weight. A tight band spread across her chest, making it impossible to breathe. “This can’t be true.”
He nodded sympathetically, his usual sad-faced expression made even more evident by the news he had been given to bear. “I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Connor. Mr. Crocker sent the message straightway to me. I tried to contact you this morning, but you were already out for the day.”
Victoria wanted to scream. Kiernan had been lying near death all day, probably longer, and she had been off teaching English to Li and her friends! She could scarcely bear the thought.
“I want to go to him,” she declared, reaching for the table in order to steady herself. “Can you make this happen?”
Hopkins nodded quickly. “But of course. It seems to be the very least the CP could do to ease your mind. Come morning, I’ll have you on the first train out.”
“Morning? Isn’t there anything leaving yet tonight?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. The train left nearly half an hour ago.”
“If I’d only stayed home,” she murmured. Moving to the rocker Kiernan had made for her, she slumped into the seat and stared forlornly across the room. “He might already be dead.” She instantly envisioned Kiernan laid out for a funeral. She could see his pale skin, closed eyes, and expressionless face. No! She screamed in her mind and pushed the images away. I can’t think this way!
Hopkins came to stand uncomfortably beside her. “You mustn’t fret so, Mrs. O’Connor. You must have faith to believe he’s still with us.”
Faith, she thought. Faith was the only thing she had. Faith that God would be merciful and sustain her husband’s life. Faith that He would somehow give her the strength to endure yet another problem in their marriage of nine years. Oh, God, where are you now? Why has this happened? What am I to do? The thought of facing the night alone terrified her.
“Why don’t you prepare your things and come stay with us for the night? I couldn’t rest knowing you were here alone with no one to offer you comfort,” the man told her softly.
Victoria shook her head. She barely knew the Hopkinses, and she certainly couldn’t go taking advantage of them. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be alone. Her imagination could well drive her mad before dawn ever managed to grace the skies of Sacramento. “Thank you, Mr. Hopkins. You are most kind, but I couldn’t intrude. If you’ll come for me in the morning, it will be enough.”
For once she was quite glad she and Kiernan were without children. Children would have caused yet another problem for her in getting to Kiernan, for surely it would have been impossible to take a baby along with her to the railroad campsite. She put her face in her hands and began to weep softly. Oh, Mama, I need you so. How I wish you were here to stand beside me. But there was no one. No one who cared about her the way her family had. No close friend, with exception to Li, who was busy with Jia, and her only other close friend, Anna, who now lived on the East Coast.
Mark Hopkins put his hand on her shoulder. “Mrs. O’Connor, I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am for all of this. Your husband is a great asset to the line, and I will not even consider the thought of losing him.”
Victoria looked up and caught his sober expression. There was something so genuine and gentle in his face. She couldn’t help but nod. “You were very kind to come to me.” She sniffed back tears and forced her mind to focus. “Your strength inspires me.” In fact, his encouragement was all she had. God had evidently known exactly the right person to send to her to inform her of this tragedy. She would simply have to trust that God had also told the man how best to help her. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on your offer for the night,” she decided suddenly.
——
They arrived in Newcastle the following morning. Charlie was there to meet her in Roseville, then accompanied her to where Kiernan was still very much alive, but not doing as well as the doctor would like.
“He’s taken most of the damage to his face and head,” Charlie told her softly as they made their way to the house of Newcastle’s only doctor. “You mustn’t get too alarmed when you see him.”
“Is he completely disfigured?” she asked, trying to imagine the extent of his injuries.
“He took a great deal of rock full in the face,” Charlie told her. “The worst of it blasted the left side. He must have turned to the right to shield himself, but it was too late. He has a great many cuts, and the entire face is swollen and discolored. I’m telling you this,” Charlie said, pausing outside the doctor’s simple one-story house, “because I don’t want you fainting dead away from the sight. It won’t be easy.”
“He’s my husband and I love him, Mr. Crocker. It might not be easy, but I’ll endure it.” She remembered the exchange she and Kiernan had shared not so long ago in Roseville. Love endures all things, she reminded herself. It would endure even this.
Charlie led her inside, and the doctor, a tall, willowy man with huge sad eyes and a neatly trimmed beard, greeted her. His large hands covered her smaller ones. “You must be Mrs. O’Connor.”
“Yes,” she managed to say. “How is my husband?”
“I’m afraid he’s quite damaged. He’s not regained consciousness, and that gives me great cause for worry.”
“I understand,” she said, swallowing hard. “May I see him?”
“Are you certain that you’re up to it?”
“I must be,” she replied with simple determination.
He nodded understandingly. “Then come with me.”
He took her down a short, narrow hall and opened the door to Kiernan’s room. “Has Mr. Crocker told you of his condition?”
“Yes. He said that Kiernan’s face is cut and swollen and discolored.”
“That’s the worst of it. The left side of his body and leg were embedded with much debris, and his left arm is broken in two places. He was trying to protect his face, but it did no good. He may lose his left eye—”
“What!” Victoria exclaimed, shaking her head. “Charlie said nothing about that.”
“Mr. Crocker most likely didn’t know. I’ve cleaned out the eye, but I have no way of knowing the extent of the damage until the swelling goes down. Right now, his face is bandaged, but if you are to care for him, you will have to see the full extent of his injuries.”
Victoria nodded. Dear God, she prayed silently, give me the strength to do what I must. Kiernan needs me now. Please don’t let me fail him.
“Lead me on, Doctor,” she said. “I need to be with my husband.”
Kiernan lay in a small wood-frame bed. The white sheet was drawn up to just under his chin, leaving Victoria unable to see his wounded arm. His face was swathed in bandages, just as the doctor had told her, and his right eye, the only one visible to her, was closed in sleep.
She went to the bed and reached out to touch Kiernan’s right cheek. It was mottled with bruising and cuts, but it wasn’t so bad as to require bandaging. “Oh, my sweet Kiernan,” she whispered, “what have you done to yourself?”
Two days later, Kiernan regained consciousness. The doctor declared this the best possible sign but still refused to assure Victoria of a full recovery. Kiernan thrashed and moaned. The pain he felt was so severe that the doctor prescribed heavy doses of laudanum. After that, Kiernan drifted in and out of unnatural sleep—sometimes calling out for help—sometimes whispering Victoria’s name.
A full two weeks after his accident, the doctor agreed to let Charlie move
Kiernan to Sacramento. Victoria felt this would be the best they could do for her husband, knowing that the medical facilities there would surely be better than what Newcastle could offer. Of course, the doctor didn’t believe there was much else to be done. Nothing but wait.
Victoria didn’t like waiting. Especially when it meant watching her husband waste away. He could barely take anything but soup as nourishment, and the laudanum left him so lost in his own world that Victoria couldn’t tell if he was getting any better or not.
Charlie sat beside her on the train. Without a private car for their trip, Charlie quartered off the back portion of the passenger car and arranged a makeshift bed for Kiernan. From time to time Charlie tried to say something reassuring, but Victoria found herself overwhelmed with the sudden worry that now they would have no money coming in. They had very little in savings, for what they could afford to give to his family in Ireland, Kiernan had faithfully instructed her to send.
She couldn’t very well share her worries with Charlie. She didn’t want him to think she was begging for charity or help that went above and beyond the call of duty. She would simply have to find a way to support them while Kiernan recovered.
Ignoring the passing scenery, Victoria bit at her lower lip as a new thought came to mind. I could write to Mother. I could just explain the situation and beg them to send me the funds. But even this thought came with its own problems. They had lied to her parents long ago when the financial crisis of 1857 had stripped her of her fortune. Just prior to that Kiernan had convinced her father to let him control Victoria’s money as they moved west to seek additional fortune in California. Her father had agreed, but Kiernan didn’t have James Baldwin’s knack for investments. And he couldn’t have seen the crisis coming that would rob them of most everything they had in the bank.
If I write to them, they’ll know we’ve been lying all these years. They might worry, or even come here, Victoria thought. And while she wouldn’t have minded her mother’s company, she knew Kiernan would be mortified.
She looked at her sleeping husband and frowned. He wouldn’t want her to acknowledge the truth to them. He was a proud man, and if she wrote and asked for money, he would despise it—maybe even come to despise her. He wanted to take care of her himself, and he had promised he would find a way to restore her money.
Oh, God, what am I to do? She prayed and pleaded for answers, but nothing seemed to come clear. They were at God’s mercy. God’s and the Central Pacific Railroad’s.
16
In the weeks that followed their return to Sacramento, Victoria and Kiernan found life to be overwhelming. Victoria had to literally do everything for Kiernan the first week or two, but even as he recovered from his physical wounds, his spirit plummeted and a severe depression set in. If it hadn’t been for Li, Victoria would surely have gone mad.
Kiernan suffered from great bouts of pain, sometimes screaming out when the intensity was too much. The doctor hired by the railroad deemed it a normal matter of recuperation, then after dosing Kiernan with medicine, went off to make his other rounds. Victoria hated his seeming indifference. It wasn’t long before she begged Mark Hopkins to dismiss the unfeeling man in favor of hiring on Dr. Benson. The only problem with Dr. Benson was that he wasn’t a firm believer in the use of laudanum. He thought the medication too habit-forming and feared for Kiernan’s mental abilities should he be too long on the drug. Instead, the doctor closely examined Kiernan and, in the wake of doing so, found the wounds of his left arm had festered. For a time he feared he would have to amputate, but after much prayer and round-the-clock attention, Kiernan’s health improved.
The comfort Victoria received from her friendship with Li crossed all barriers that could possibly stand between them because of language or culture. Li saw the need in Victoria’s life and, with Jia in tow, was often at the apartment from the first moment Victoria woke up until she went to bed that night. Li always seemed to know what to do to offer comfort and hope, and Victoria praised God for having sent this dear woman into her life.
After the crisis with Kiernan’s infection, Victoria’s routine pretty much set itself, as one day blended into another. She and Li washed bandages and bedding and Kiernan himself before ever attending to anything else. Li took up all of Victoria’s mending and many of her household chores, while Victoria worked to knit her husband back together. But it was no easy task. For although Kiernan’s body was mending, his heart had hardened. Even Li was surprised by this change in the once gentle man.
Kiernan was surly and outright ugly at times, often refusing to allow the ministrations of his wife or Li. Charlie had come to check Kiernan’s condition on several occasions, but Kiernan always remained silent and disinterested. Victoria tried to comfort herself in the fact that hers wasn’t the only company Kiernan rejected. She knew it was hard on this once vibrant and well-muscled man to be reduced to a state of bed rest and nursing care. She knew he despised being waited on, but there was nothing else to be done. She could hardly demand that the man get up and come to the table for his meals, not when he could barely remember from one minute to the next what it was that had actually happened to him and why he was injured.
The head wound was taking a long time to heal. Dr. Benson had deemed there was little to be done for Kiernan and that time was the only thing that could help him now. He believed the brain was swollen and, after digging out additional bits of rock and dirt from Kiernan’s face, suggested he wear a patch over his wounded eye.
“The light will damage the tissue,” he told Victoria as he took his leave that evening. “I will bring you a patch next time I visit. Then we’ll remove the rest of the bandages from his face and eye and see exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“Thank you for coming. I know he’s not always easy to work with, but he’s just so angry right now.”
“Understandably so,” Dr. Benson replied. “The recovery will be a long one, and who is to say whether the brain has been permanently affected. We shall hope for the best.”
And pray against the worst, Victoria thought as the doctor took his leave. She turned to find Li crocheting, something Victoria had taught her to do. Jia played contentedly at his mother’s feet, batting the ball of crochet yarn and laughing at the way it unraveled. Victoria smiled down at the chubby-cheeked boy. His dark-eyed gaze fixed on Victoria for a moment before he got up and toddled over to where she stood. He beamed her a smile, and Victoria couldn’t resist picking him up.
Burying her face against his neck, Victoria cherished the feel of the baby in her arms. There was nothing in the world quite so sweet.
“He like you very much,” Li said, glancing up. “Maybe more than yarn.” She smiled and pointed to the forgotten ball at her feet.
“Well, I think he’s the best baby in the world. He comes and plays so quietly. Why, I’ll bet Kiernan doesn’t even know he’s here.” Victoria carried him to the rocking chair and sat down to play pat-a-cake with Jia. “Li, you’ve been so very good to me—and to Kiernan.”
Victoria knew she would never have made it through these difficult times without her friend. Surely Xiang was beside himself in her long absences. After all, despite the slowing of business up the line, they were still taking in laundry here in town.
“Li, doesn’t your husband resent your time spent here? I mean, what about the washing business and the railroad?”
“Husband gone three week now trying to find more business. He say he go first and find us good place to work. He not know if he find good men or bad. He not want Jia and me to be in bad place.”
“Xiang is gone?” Li nodded, then turned her attention back to the shawl she was crocheting. Victoria considered this for a moment. “Are you living in the tent by yourself?” Again Li nodded.
Victoria considered the situation for a moment. “Why don’t you come live with me? You and Jia and I can sleep out here in the front room. It’s small, but we could help each other that way. You can use the pump downstairs for wat
er and hang the washing on the lines in back of the house. When you need to deliver mending and washing to other people, I could take care of Jia. And when I need to go to the market, you could stay here with Kiernan.”
Li nodded. “It would be good.”
“Do you know how long Xiang will be gone?”
“Husband no say.”
“Well, it’s no matter. You can stay here as long as you like. Kiernan won’t be able to do much for a while, and in that time maybe you and I can put our heads together and think of a way to bring in some money.”
“Put heads together?”
Victoria chuckled at the look on Li’s face. “It just means we’ll work together.” Jia laughed and grabbed hold of Victoria’s fingers. Without warning he tried to put them in his mouth. Victoria chuckled and drew the baby’s fingers to her own lips. Kissing him playfully, Victoria said, “It’ll be nice having a baby in the house.”
“There be number two after celebration of Jesus.”
Victoria felt as if Li had dealt her a blow. “After Christmas? Another baby?”
Li nodded. “Husband say another son. Plenty strong like number one.”
“That’s wonderful, Li,” Victoria replied, trying to infuse her words with enthusiasm. Victoria ignored the aching in her heart. The longing there for a child was so strong she could hardly speak. She didn’t want to make Li feel bad for her happiness, but it was hard to hear this news and not feel overwhelmed.
Deciding it was time to check on Kiernan, Victoria put Jia back down on the floor and went into the kitchen to pour some hot tea for Kiernan to drink.
Tiptoeing into her bedroom, Victoria whispered, “Are you awake?”
“Unfortunately so,” came Kiernan’s sour reply. He was propped up in the bed, his left arm bound in a sling, the left side of his face bandaged to cover his eye.
“I’ve brought you some fresh tea.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Kiernan, you know what the doctor said about keeping up your strength. You’re supposed to be eating better and drinking plenty of fluids. The tea will make you feel better, you’ll see.”