Super

by Jim Lehrer

  He walked outside on the platform to the main baggage room and there on an unloaded cart was his case. Thank you, Jack.

  But he stopped abruptly and turned back toward the waiting room, then kept on going through the main door and outside to the street.

  A walk around Bethel, Kansas, to see whatever there was to see, struck him as a particularly good detective thing to do—now.

  Truman and Browne had barely noticed the brief stop at St. Mark. They were working on their second cup of coffee in the Turquoise Room, advertised by the Santa Fe as the only private dining room on any train in America. A small room that seated twelve or so at various-sized tables that could be arranged to suit the crowd, it had turquoise-colored decor related to various birds and other Navajo signs and symbols. It was available to Super Chief passengers by reservation only, for intimate dinners and cocktail parties as well as special occasions such as breakfast served by an attentive waiter for a former president of the United States.

  Jack Pryor, having delivered his prized possession, Harry Truman, to breakfast with a promise to return shortly, was gone in further search for both the sickly man and the man in dark.

  And then, from out of a small Turquoise Room closet in which only a tiny man could have hidden, Dale Lawrence emerged, shabby and coughing as ever.

  “Mr. President,” he said. “Please, sir. Hear me out. That’s all I ask.”

  The attentive waiter had gone to fetch orange juice and a plate of small sweet rolls. A. C. Browne, sitting across from Truman, grabbed the table knife by his right hand.

  Harry Truman made no movement or any sign of alarm. “All right, all right,” he said to Lawrence. “Sit down, say your piece and then leave Browne and me alone so we can have our breakfast.”

  Lawrence, moving slowly as if in pain, grabbed a chair and drew it up to the table between Truman and Browne, who took his hand off the knife. Truman had not told Browne about the earlier incident with Lawrence, so he didn’t know what was going on—or why.

  Lawrence opened his mouth to speak, but before he could he threw his right hand up to his mouth to muffle a cough.

  Truman and Browne, almost as one on instinct, threw white linen napkins up over their own mouths and noses.

  Truman said, “You need to see a doctor, not me. I don’t have the time or the inclination to argue with you or with anybody else about the atomic bomb, testing or anything else like it.”

  Lawrence said, “What about those people downwind from the Nevada testing grounds?”

  “What about ’em?”

  “You and I are killing them, Mr. President.”

  Browne picked up the knife again.

  “History’s going to be awful to you, Harry S Truman,” Lawrence said, now able to speak barely above a whisper.

  “Pleasing history was not my job as president. It was to end that awful war, save the lives of American people, build more bombs for the future, test them and move toward converting our nuclear program to peaceful power.”

  “You unleashed the most horrific killing machine in history.”

  “That’s right and I’m proud of it. End of discussion.”

  Dale Lawrence, who seemed even smaller and weaker now than he did a few minutes ago, said, “I’m not talking just about the bombs that hit Japan, Mr. President. I’m talking about ‘Dirty Harry’ and many more like it.”

  “‘Dirty Harry’?” Browne asked, speaking his first words since this exchange began.

  Lawrence, looking only at Truman, said, “It was a thirty-two-kiloton device that was exploded on May 19, 1953, in Yucca Flat, Nevada. Another right before was fifty-one kilotons, four times the power of the Hiroshima explosion.”

  “I was gone by 1953.”

  “I have tried to talk to President Eisenhower. Nobody around him will even give me an audience. You made the decision to do the tests. There were eleven alone in 1953, at least forty since. I was there for all of them. The wind has blown radioactive clouds as far away as two thousand miles. I’ve done the testing myself. Who knows how many people are at risk, maybe even some famous people.”

  Truman, no longer trying to drink his coffee, said, “Risk from what, exactly? I remember our briefings. They said the radiation would dissipate with no harm left for any living thing.”

  “That is not what is happening, Mr. President.”

  “Well, that’s what you say. I’m no longer involved, I have no information, no power to do anything even if I did.”

  “You’re the man who started the whole thing, Mr. President. You are responsible.”

  Truman’s face showed anger. But all he did was shake his head. “I don’t accept that, Mr.—What did you say your name was? I’m sorry.”

  “Lawrence. Dale L. Lawrence. The L is for Landrum.”

  “I will stand by the record, by history,” Truman said, holding back profanities he most likely had in mind to speak. “Now, sir, Browne and I would like to eat our breakfast.”

  Dale Lawrence broke into sobs.

  It was then that Jack Pryor returned, grabbed the little man by the shoulders and roughly removed him from the Turquoise Room.

  “‘Dirty Harry’ was not named for me, Browne, if that’s what you were thinking,” Truman said. “Some bureaucrat must have done that test naming through an alphabetical system—like storms.”

  A. C. Browne’s only response was a smile.

  The air was as fresh as a field of wheat sprouting up out of the fertile Kansas soil after a long winter …

  O beautiful, for spacious skies,

  For amber waves of grain,

  For purple mountain majesties

  Above the fruited plain!

  Charlie Sanders laughed to himself—about himself. You jerk! Here you are, supposedly a detective working on the case of a violent killing on the greatest railroad in the world’s greatest streamliner, and your head is teeming with songs and company travel enticements.

  But in his real life that was what he was supposed to have in his head. That was the job of assistant general passenger agents.

  The Farmers and Drovers Bank of Bethel was the first building immediately across the street going north. It was two stories, one-third the size of the Santa Fe station, which, with its many parts and track, was essentially the southern border of downtown Bethel.

  Sanders walked over and peered inside the front window of the bank. There were four or five tellers behind cages, assistant managers and loan officers behind desks, customers in lines and at tables.

  None of them was a white man in his early thirties with curly dark hair, dressed in a dark suit, shirt and tie.

  The main street, which was named Main Street, was almost as wide as Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Sanders knew why. From his reading of Santa Fe material, most particularly a booklet titled Along the Route, he knew details about Bethel as he did about all cities and towns served by his railroad.

  Cattle drives used to come through here, right up Main Street in Bethel, on the way from Texas to Abilene, Kansas, to what was then the closest pre–Santa Fe railhead to take cattle on to stockyards and slaughterhouses in Kansas City and Chicago. The wide street was a permanent souvenir of those days.

  Bethel Dry Goods, the largest store on up the street northward, looked fairly busy with customers. So were Lidiak Rexall, Allison Flowers and a Woolworth’s store. Sanders assumed the people were Randallites, who, yes, looked just like everybody else. Most of them, at least. He did see a few so-called simple people, men in flowing beards and wide-brimmed black hats along with women in bonnets and long dresses.

  After five blocks, Sanders crossed Main to the entrance to several buildings behind a gate with a decorative sign that said: Kansas Central Randallite College—Founded 1893—First Randallite College in America. Sanders, thinking again of Sheriff Ratzlaff, assumed it was a college just like any other.

  Heading back south toward the station and the tracks, he came to what appeared to be the second-largest building in Bethel, the Ol
pe Hotel. It was taller than the Santa Fe station but not as long or as wide.

  “Coffee Shop” said a lit red neon sign near the hotel entrance.

  As he got closer he could see a row of booths lining the large plate glass window next to the sidewalk.

  His attention went to two men in the first booth, leaning across the table talking intently.

  There he was! There, at least, was a man in his early thirties with curly dark hair, dressed in a dark suit, shirt and tie.

  At first, Sanders could see only the back of the head of the other man; he seemed familiar.

  It was Pollack, the late Mr. Wheeler’s assistant.

  Jack Pryor had no trouble manhandling Dale Lawrence down and out of the Turquoise Room into an empty compartment in an adjoining sleeping car. The weak, crying man was incapable of resisting.

  “Let me see your ticket,” Pryor said once the compartment door was closed behind them.

  “I lost it.”

  “You don’t have one, do you?”

  Lawrence looked away, saying nothing.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Pryor. “How did you get on and stay on this train?”

  Lawrence dropped his head. He coughed once, twice, with his right hand over his mouth.

  Pryor felt the Super Chief beginning to slow down again. Dodge City was coming up.

  “You paid off one of the sleeping car porters, didn’t you?” he said. “He got you on and then helped you stay out of sight, right? Cheap fare, right?”

  Lawrence still neither looked up nor spoke.

  “Did you also pay him to get you to Mr. Truman?”

  Still silence from Lawrence.

  “It was Ralph back in the observation car, wasn’t it?”

  The train’s brakes were squealing.

  “All right, Mr. Lawrence, here are your choices,” said Pryor. “We are coming into Dodge City, where you are getting off this train. I can hand you over to local police and prefer theft-of-services charges on behalf of the Santa Fe against you or I can just let you go.”

  Lawrence raised his head. “Please don’t put me in jail. I just need to rest—to lie down.”

  “Was it Ralph?”

  Lawrence looked away again.

  “Say it, please. ‘It was Ralph, a sleeping car porter.’”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “How much did you pay him?”

  “Please, just let me go. Please.”

  “Where did you get on?”

  “Chicago.”

  “How did you know Mr. Truman was going to be on this train?”

  Lawrence did not respond.

  The train stopped.

  It took less than a minute for Pryor to escort Dale Lawrence to the car’s vestibule and down the steps onto the platform at the Dodge City train station.

  “I’ve never been to Dodge City before,” said Lawrence, putting his hand to his mouth and coughing again and again.

  “You better see a doctor, Mr. Lawrence, fast,” said Jack Pryor. “You don’t sound or look so good—you’re a sick man.”

  “Isn’t this where that famous cemetery is?” asked Lawrence in a weak voice, not waiting for an answer as he walked away.

  The Dodge City station was at their window side now. But Harry Truman and A. C. Browne could not see the forced leaving of Dale Lawrence, because Jack Pryor had done the deed up near the front of the train, out of their line of sight.

  So what Truman and Browne saw was a long four-story bright red brick building that clearly at one time had been a major Harvey House hotel and restaurant, a saloon and possibly many other things besides a place for the Santa Fe trains and buses to stop.

  “What’s the name of that cowboy cemetery here?” Truman asked.

  “Boot Hill, sir,” said Browne. “It’s right on the west side of downtown so once the train starts moving again we’ll be able to see it.”

  Truman seemed pleased. “Who was the famous sheriff or gunfighter who hung out here? Wyatt Earp?”

  “He was here. So was Bat Masterson.”

  “What about that Matt Dillon fella?”

  “He was made up for television.”

  “There are always people who come along and want to mess with history, aren’t there, Browne. Why can’t they leave things alone the way they really happened?”

  The train was moving. And in a few moments, they saw Boot Hill Cemetery, which from the window of the Turquoise Room seemed tiny compared to its big reputation. Not more than a dozen or so wooden signs and crosses stood in close proximity at the far west corner of the hill. It took little imagination to see how a couple of trees off to one side might have been used to hang people.

  Truman and Browne were well into breakfast, both having ordered bacon and eggs—the former president’s were sunny-side up, the prominent journalist’s over easy. And there was buttered toast and Danish, juice and coffee. A breakfast fit for both of us, thought Browne.

  “I guess you’ve got an opinion about the bomb and the testing just like everyone else?” Truman suddenly asked.

  The Super Chief was back to full speed.

  “I never once doubted your decision, Mr. President,” said Browne. “You did it to end the war.”

  “That’s right. To save lives.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “One-quarter of a million of our boys and the same or more of theirs would have died if we had had to invade Japan.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Everybody seems to want to know about that. Here we are ten years later. I guess talk and lies about it will never stop.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I know what you want to know,” said Truman. “I guess I should have known you came on this train to ask me about that damned bomb.”

  Browne shook his head. “Sir, I didn’t even know you were going to be on the Super Chief—”

  “Maybe so but you want to know whether I have any second thoughts about dropping the atomic bomb. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Browne said nothing.

  “Well, let me say as straight as I can—no, sir. I have no second thoughts, no regrets. I don’t care what that Lawrence fella or any of the other crybabies of today say, I made the decision because I wanted the killing to stop.”

  This man is making a speech—to himself as much as to me, thought Browne. He said, “Yes, sir. As I said, I supported you then and I support you now. I can only thank the good Lord that you were strong enough to make such a difficult decision.”

  “It wasn’t difficult. Only a fool or a nincompoop could have, would have decided otherwise.”

  “I understand.”

  Their waiter, a man named Fred, came to clear their plates and refresh their coffee.

  “Where were you when you heard the news?” Truman asked Fred.

  “What news, sir … Mr. President?”

  “The A-bomb. The big bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”

  Fred thought for a count of two or so. Then he said, “I was right here on this train, the Super.”

  “What did you think when you first heard it?”

  “I was happy the war was going to be over.”

  “See,” said Truman to Browne. “That’s the way it was for everyone.”

  “Yes, sir. I agree.”

  “How did you get the news here on the Super Chief?” Truman asked Fred. “What time of day was it?”

  Fred said, “Well, now let me think … It was after dark, but the dining car was still open. Somebody, I think it was a conductor, came through and told everyone. Kind of made a public announcement. He’d heard it on the radio.”

  “What happened in the dining car?”

  “There was some hard gulps and talking about what it was and what it meant and then a lot of cheering and then a lot of drinking.”

  Truman smiled at Browne. “See?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  A. C. Browne began to consider the reality that here now was a much better story than the one he was going to
California to work on: how, ten years later, Harry Truman was dealing with his decision to obliterate two Japanese cities.

  And what the sick man Lawrence had to say.

  “Is there anything to what the man said about the Nevada radioactive fallout?” Browne asked Truman.

  “Not that I know of. What famous victims was he talking about?”

  “I have no idea, sir,” Browne said.

  “Makes you think that maybe whatever sickness he has is up here,” Truman said, putting a finger to the side of his head.

  Mathews and Rinehart had had a great view of Dodge City.

  After finally finishing breakfast and their coffees, they had moved to adjoining swivel seats in the glass-enclosed dome atop the lounge car in the middle of the train. They had come here, as always, in anticipation of the spectacular scenery just up ahead in the southeast corner of Colorado and then east to west through the entire State of New Mexico.

  Rinehart, the first few times he made this trip, was brought close to tears by the sheer beauty of these deserts and hills. The pastel colors were beige, rust, light green and blue. To Rinehart, it seemed as if somebody with a soft touch had literally come along and painted everything. Not with real paint but with colored chalk.

  Now, to Mathews, he said, sweeping his hand out across Dodge City and beyond to the great Southwest of the United States, “There are only so many times you can be wowed by the same thing. That’s why nobody ever made a living showing the same picture twice. They’re talking about someday putting movies on television—you know, as repeats. Forget that. It’ll never happen. You’ve seen Gone with the Wind, you’ve heard Gable say ‘Frankly, lady’—or whatever—‘I don’t give a damn’ and you don’t want to hear him say it again. You with me on that, Gene?”

  “Always with you, Dar,” said Mathews.

  “What about The Super Chief as a title for our train movie?” Rinehart said suddenly.

  “Forget it,” Mathews said. “Sounds like an Indian picture.”

  “What about The Super?” Rinehart asked.