"I'm sorry," she said, only a little louder. Her shoulder hunched even more and she leaned her forehead against the window.
He frowned, for her apology had been both uncharacteristic and unexpected. So abject, so contrite. No, she was definitely not herself. His anger faded, giving way to worry. "Are you all right?" he demanded.
For a long time he thought she wasn't going to answer. Finally, moving as if she was ancient and feeble, she turned to face him. Her fingers shook visibly as she untied her bonnet. Although the room was poorly lighted, he could see her face plainly. Silvery lines marked the tracks of tears down her cheeks and her eyes were swimming with more. "What is it? Did I hurt you?"
She shook her head. "I'm just tired," she said. "That's all. I'm tired."
He pulled her against him, holding her until she relaxed and her body stopped shaking with her sobs. Eventually she pulled a handkerchief from somewhere and blew her nose. "Good grief, what a watering pot. I must have been more tired than I realized." Her smile was tremulous. And about as artificial as a three-headed cow. "I hope you'll forgive me."
"Oh, that's good! You weep a few pathetic tears and expect they'll wash the slate clean! Let's just make sure what I'm supposed to be forgiving you for. Acting like we were chance acquaintances instead of family? Asking Katie not to invite me for Christmas? Or using me for stud service, then tossing me out in the morning?" Until he said the words, he hadn't acknowledged just how much her morning-after rejection had hurt him.
"You're no one to talk! At least I spoke to you the next morning. I didn't get on my horse and ride away, without a word!"
"What are you talking about? When--"
"Oh, so you don't remember. You broke my heart, and you don't even remember. That's really funny! And now we're even. Let's just agree we'll be cordial to each other when we meet and not try for anything more." She pushed at him. "Now, get out of my way. There are plenty of empty seats, and I want one to myself."
"You're not going anywhere, not until we talk."
"We've talked all we're going to. Are you going to move, or will I scream?"
She'd do it, too. He stood, stepped aside so she could get past him. As she did, he smelled the faint honeysuckle scent she wore. Then she jerked free and was gone. She took a seat at the other end of the room, about as far from him as she could get.
* * * *
The Station Master came in about seven in the morning. He rapped on the wall to wake everyone. "Folks, I've got some bad news," he said, after waiting until most of them had sat up. "The train's stuck in Bellevue. We hoped to have a snowplow in to clear the line this morning, but this storm has blocked the Union Pacific lines all over. Now they're saying it'll be tomorrow or the next day before they can get one here."
Having traveled the line between Hailey and Shoshone quite a few times, Tony could just imagine what shape it was in, with this snow. There were a couple of places where only a little wind could drift it closed.
"It's vitally important we reach Hailey as soon as possible," a well dressed fellow said. From his accent, he was British.
"Not much I can do about that," the Station Master said. "We've no spare engine, so another train can't be made up. And it wouldn't do no good anyhow, with the cuts snowed in like they are."
Some of the passengers raised a fuss, demanding to know why the train hadn't been kept running while the snow was falling, so the line would stay clear. Tony, having experienced the winds that often swept across the undulating plain between here and the Wood River, kept quiet. He seriously doubted it would have done any good. There was a good chance it would have resulted in the train being marooned somewhere in between, which would have endangered its crew. At least in Bellevue, they had a place to stay.
The two British gentlemen were particularly incensed, because they had some sort of business dealings that had to be concluded before the end of February. They immediately went to the telegraph office. Tony, knowing the lodging situation, went to the hotel to make arrangements for rooms for himself and Lulu. They might have to share them later, if enough Hailey-bound travelers showed up before the line opened, but at least they were sure of beds.
She was sitting in the station, wrapped in her quilt, when he returned. "Here. I got you a room at the hotel," he said, handing her a key. "You might as well go on over there and settle in. I doubt we'll see a train before day after tomorrow. They'll not even try to open the line until the snow stops."
"I didn't..." She shook her head. "Thank you. I'd like to refuse, but the thought of a real bed is irresistible. How much do I owe you?"
"We'll settle up when we get home. Mr. Eagleton has an account at the hotel, since he comes through here often."
She frowned, as if suspicious, but said only, "Thank you," again.
He wanted to offer to carry her valise across the street for her, but refrained from offering. She'd probably throw it in his face.
* * * *
After supper, a meal taken family style in the hotel, the men sat around the small lobby, conversing desultorily or reading books or magazines. The only woman among the stranded passengers, Lulu went to her room. Tony rather imagined he was far warmer than she, for the upper floor of the hotel was heated by a single chimney. Her room was at the opposite end of the hall.
Morning brought an end to the snowfall, but no train. Lulu refused to stay in her room. She joined the men for meals and staked out a chair in the corner of the hotel lobby for her own. Fortunately the drugstore in town sold writing paper, so she was soon working on an article she hoped to sell to Harper's Weekly or Appleton's Journal. She did her best to ignore Tony's ubiquitous presence. Even so, she felt him watching her, and found concentration difficult. Each time she looked up from her work, it took her longer to force her thoughts back to the article.
Writing could not occupy her every hour though, particularly since she no longer experienced the terrible lethargy that had plagued her these past several weeks. Each day she took a vigorous walk, exploring the small town that had grown up with the coming of the railroad. Shoshone was a wide open town, its main street lined with more saloons than anything else. Because there were few other cleared roads, she walked the length of the main street early each morning, before the saloons were operating at full spate. No one accosted her, probably because she was never really alone.
Much to her disgust, Tony followed her every time she left the hotel. He always stayed a block or so behind, which was the only reason she let him live. Rather than give him the satisfaction of knowing he made her furious, she ignored him.
Except for one time. She had been working for several hours, struggling with an argument that seemed weak. The words simply would not come, and finally she threw her pencil down in disgust. The lobby was empty, although she knew Tony was somewhere nearby. She simply could not escape his vigilance. She hoped he was amused by all the waiting about he was doing.
Perhaps some fresh air would clear her mind. She closed her portfolio and set it under her chair before pulling on her coat. It was snowing again, she discovered when she stepped outside, harsh, icy snow blown along by a gusty wind. Isn't it supposed to be warmer when it snows? Lulu tied her scarf more tightly about her head and started out on her usual route. For a change, she didn't see Tony, but the weather was too miserable for her to enjoy her temporary solitude. After walking for about five minutes, she gave it up and headed back to the hotel.
Head down, bending into the wind, she might not have seen him had she not slipped on an icy patch. With a wild windmilling of arms, she managed to keep on her feet, one of them planted in the deep snow beside the path. As she pulled it free, she saw motion, and turned her head in that direction.
He was like a ghost in the white world, dancing across the snow, his arms and legs moving with an almost feline grace, his face blank and serene. She recognized his movements as the same she'd seen before, in the barn at Christmastime. Like a dance, but also as if he fought an invisible enemy, both of them
caught in some thick substance that slowed every movement.
He circled away from her, then back. When he was facing her, he came to rest, legs still bent, hands upraised. His eyes opened...
And gazed directly into hers. Lulu shivered, unable to look away. Passion shimmered in the icy air between them, an almost intangible heat, warming her from the inside out. Time seemed suspended, until a door slammed and a man's voice called out. Tony clasped one hand over the other fist and gave her a slight bow. Automatically Lulu curtseyed. Without a word he followed her into the hotel lobby, where she went to her corner and he threw himself into a chair in the opposite one. Neither spoke, then or later.
Once she had her article in good shape, Lulu borrowed a book from one of the British gentlemen, brothers named Palmer, and forced herself to read it, a scholarly tome about the British campaign in Spain and Portugal in the early part of the century. It put her to sleep often, but she kept reading. It was that or do nothing, which she was constitutionally incapable of.
The lobby was heated by a coal stove in its center, an inefficient monster that had certainly been designed by someone more suited to designing locomotives. It used the same sulfurous coal that the trains did, and whenever new fuel was added to its firebox, it gave off choking fumes for several minutes. Once in a while the gas would build up until it exploded, blowing the door open and filling the lobby with black smoke.
Everyone then trooped outside until the smoke cleared, leaving the doors open so that the lobby lost what heat it held. After a while they trooped back in again, and sat in relative comfort until the stove grew red hot and drove them into the cold once more. After this second exodus, they returned to a frigid room and dying coals. So the whole rigmarole began again. Lulu almost welcomed these regular distractions, and wondered what other small events she might find amusing if she were to be stuck here for a week or more.
Tony returned from the station as they were emerging around ten in the morning of their sixth day in Shoshone. "Here's good news," he cried as he approached, waving a telegram. "Listen to this. 'I will arrive at Shoshone with a snow outfit tomorrow morning, and clear the branch to Hailey in the afternoon.' It's from Dodderidge, the railroad superintendent."
The men all cheered. Lulu clapped. What a relief it would be to get home. Once settled, she would find just the right time to tell Tony. Guiltily she admitted that she had had numerous chances to inform him of his impending parenthood, but had kept putting it off. She knew what his reaction would be. That was a battle she wanted to fight on her own terms and her own territory.
The promised snow outfit arrived on schedule. It consisted of six units, an engine bearing an enormous snowplow, two smaller engines, two cabooses fitted up as bunkhouses for the laborers who would wield picks and shovels as needed, and last of all, an elegantly appointed private car belonging to Mr. Dodderidge. The superintendent recognized Tony and immediately invited him to travel in his private car. After a brief conversation, he extended the invitation to Lulu and the two Misters Palmer. The rest of the northbound passengers would follow in a regular train that had arrived behind the snow outfit. He assured everyone that they would be in Hailey before the day was out.
Thank goodness. This morning Lulu had been unable to button her jacket over her waist.
Chapter Fourteen
The traffic over this new line, through a thinly populated district, is, of course, small, and consequently the company were only running one train a day each way. This train used to go up in the morning to Hailey, the terminus, fifty-six miles from Shoshone, and return in the evening, and it was the only rolling- stock available. The previous day, while we were running through the snow between Granger and Pocatello, the storm had caught the train up at the far end of the line, and there it was still.
"Snow Bucking" In The Rocky Mountains
The Living Age, Vol. 104, Issue 1342
~~~
The first twenty miles of the journey was uneventful. A couple of brief warm spells during the week had allowed some of the snow to melt, so the line was all but clear. The enormous snowplow on the first engine of their train seemed superfluous for the first few miles, but Tony knew that the worst was to come. He'd seen cuts half-filled with snow when he came down the line three weeks ago, and with the blizzard of last week, he could imagine just how well packed they were now.
"You'll want to hang on whenever you hear the whistle," he warned the others. "When we hit the drifts, we'll hit hard. It can get pretty rough." He looked at Lulu, who sat in an armed chair a little apart from the rest of them. "You'd be better off in one of the secured seats. It wouldn't take much of a jerk to tip over that chair."
For the past week she'd spoken to him only when she couldn't avoid it, and this morning was no different. "Thank you," she said in a voice as icy as the air outside, and moved to one of the upholstered benches in the dining area.
They started hitting drifts just short of Tikura. Tony could see that they were deep ones, some almost as high as the window he looked out of. The slight thaws of the past week had done more harm than good here, for they had caused a thick crust of ice to form on top of the snow.
The whistle sounded, and a moment later the train gave a great, rattling jerk, as it hit a drift and burst through. No sooner were they past it, then the same thing happened again. And again. Sometimes the intervals between drifts lasted several minutes; sometimes they came one after another, until he wondered how they could possibly break free.
When the train stopped for water, the younger Mr. Palmer said, "Are we at Tikura yet?"
"No, not yet. A few miles more, I think." Identifiable landmarks were concealed by the snow, and he really had no idea where they were.
Soon they were underway again. The whistle sounded a series of blasts as the train built up speed. "Hold on tight," Tony warned the others, just before the plow struck. The entire train shuddered, slowed, but didn't stop. They could hear the engines laboring mightily. It crept ahead, yards, then feet, and finally inches, until it came to a full stop.
On both sides all they could see was a wall of white, although to the west a narrow line of gray sky showed above the snowdrift. "Let's go see," Tony said, heading toward the observation platform at the rear of the car. The others followed.
Looking backward, they could see how the drift sloped steeply away from the train. The elder Mr. Palmer stepped to the ground, saying, "I imagine one could climb to the top and see what has occurred."
They could, for the thick crust easily held their weight.
The great snowplow and the other two engines were all but buried, covered with blocks of ice and gobbets of snow thrown up when the plow forced its way through the enormous drift. As they walked along the top of the great mound of snow, they found they were standing higher than its tall smokestack.
"Look," Lulu said, pointing. "We almost made it through."
The drift petered out only yards beyond the nose of the plow. Even now the crew from the two cabooses were digging and hacking away at the snow piled up around the engines' wheels. At the same time, the engine of the following train, now free of its cars, had inched forward and hitched onto the private car and the two cabooses and was pulling them back so the snow and ice that had piled up under them could be cleared.
Noon came and went before the line was cleared enough for another run. Tony and the others retired to the private car to partake of an excellent lunch, prepared by Mr. Dodderidge's chef.
As they dined, Lulu chatted cordially with the Palmers, discussing the music of Messers. Gilbert and Sullivan. She had seen their operetta, "The Pirates of Penzance" in New York the previous year. Tony added little to the conversation, afraid that if he were to join in, she would retreat into silence again.
It was close to one o'clock when they started again. One after another, the great snowplow conquered the drifts, but at a cost of long delays and much fuel. Tony felt battered and bruised, just from the jolting and jerking they'd endured in rela
tive comfort. He could only poorly imagine what the trainmen and the pick-and-shovel crews must be enduring.
He was more concerned about Lulu, though. Her face was gray and her posture showed how exhausted she was. He went to her and said, "There's a bedroom forward. I'm sure Mr. Dodderidge wouldn't mind if you used it."
She bristled, as only Lulu could, and sat up straight. "Don't be silly. I'm as capable of enduring this as you are."
He noticed, when he'd gone back to his own seat, that she slumped again. Damn stubborn woman!
Twilight was upon them the last time the train attacked a drift and lost the battle. The men from the cabooses moved more slowly now, and digging out took longer than before. Seeing their evident exhaustion, Tony went out and helped dig. In doing so, he realized how soft he'd become with town living. His fine leather gloves were completely unsuited to the work, and the finger seams soon gave out. When Dodderidge came back from a reconnaissance of the line ahead, he was glad to set his shovel aside and join the superintendent and his lieutenants for a conference inside the private car.
"That next cut's a good half-mile long," Dodderidge told them, as he sipped hot coffee. "Jake here knows the line, and he puts the snow depth at close to thirty feet. So we'll back down to Shoshone and let the men get some rest. Tomorrow morning we'll get an early start on clearing it."
It was midnight before they reached Shoshone, and even later when they found their beds, fortunately not let to anyone else in their absence.
The next day Tony rode in the engine, along with Dodderidge. The explosion of snow and ice as the train plowed into blockages took his breath away. He found himself thinking he would like to have the helm of something as powerful as the great engine for just one hour.
When they came to the deep, snow-filled cut that had stopped them the night before, the train stopped and let the crews out. Tony went back to suggest to Lulu and the Palmers that they climb up onto the rocky ridge the cut went through and watch from there. They all agreed, and soon they were comfortably seated well out of range of any thrown snow and ice but with a good view of the action to come.
THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER Page 15