Until the Last Spike

by William Durbin

  When it comes time to head home, I just may shop for a steamship ticket if they haven’t shored up this bridge.

  March 1

  A blacksmith did a dumb thing this afternoon when he was showing off for the mule skinners. He put a drop of nitro on his anvil and hit it with a horseshoe hammer. The hammer kicked back and broke his jaw. Lucky no one else got hurt.

  March 4

  We’ve had our first big thaw, and it’s turned this whole place into a mud hole. The ground under the ties is so spongy that the trains can’t go any faster than five miles per hour.

  In the soft places, the ties are pounded down into the slush so far that you get a shower when the trains go by. If you don’t stand clear, water and muck shoots right up in your face. As soon as the train is gone, the ties pop back up, and the water and mud gurgle down around them.

  In the worst places, the packed snow has melted completely away under the ties and left the rails hanging way up in the air. The locomotive engineers are shaking their heads all the time. I’m afraid there’s bound to be an accident soon.

  March 6

  My spiking is getting better all the time, but I’ve still got to fight the urge to overswing. Pa has told me again and again to let the maul do the work and to not worry if I can’t put every spike down in three hits.

  I don’t always listen, though, because I love to swing hard. If my rhythm is good, and I’m knocking the spikes down in four blows, I can’t help but try to do it in three. That’s when I foul up and ding the rail or send a spike flying down the tracks.

  Pa bites his lower lip then, and mumbles, “Take her easy, son,” and I know he’ll be talking to me after supper. My worst fear is that I’ll mess up so bad that he’ll send me back to work with that pig, Jimmy Flynn.

  March 7

  Ogden, Utah (mile 1,028)

  Though the Mormons may be serious people who dress in plain clothing, they sure know how to celebrate the arrival of a railroad. As we laid the rails into town, a brass band led a parade of people down Main Street to greet us. The locomotives blew their whistles all at once, and a squad of soldiers answered with an artillery salute.

  They also hung a big banner between two arching trees that read, HAIL TO THE HIGHWAY OF NATIONS! UTAH BIDS YOU WELCOME! I finally got to see Brigham Young, the head Mormon. I couldn’t help but wonder if a man who had that many wives might look different from an average fellow, but I didn’t notice anything exceptional about him. His hat sat low on his forehead, giving him a broad-faced look. He shaves his mustache but has a chin full of black-and-silver whiskers. As ordinary as he looked, when he started his welcoming speech, you could tell by the way everyone in the crowd nodded their heads that he is the boss in these parts. Several U.P. officials also spoke. Their speeches were so boring that I was really glad when the last fellow stepped down from the podium.

  After the ceremony was over, Pa and I explored the town. Ogden has a more orderly and settled look to it than most of the railroad towns. Though the streets are a series of mud puddles, like every place on the frontier, the storefronts are mainly wood and look permanent compared to the raggedy tents I’ve seen so far. The amazing thing is that there aren’t any saloons. I heard a lot of grumbling from the boys when they saw there were no taverns, but if you ask me, I’d sure rather live in a clean place like this than any of the towns back along the line. It would be nice to walk down a street at night without having to get past fancy ladies swinging derringers from their dress pockets and liquored-up fellows who are ready to empty their six-shooters at the drop of a hat.

  A storekeeper told us that Salt Lake City, the Utah territorial capital, which is located just south of here, is so pretty that it puts even Ogden to shame. And everyone says that Brigham Young’s home is as big as a hotel. No wonder, with all those wives.

  March 8

  As the weather warms, I like my job as a spiker more and more. The pace is so hectic that I barely have time to catch my breath, but there is something in the rhythm of the work that makes the days fly. I am learning to be more patient, too. If I run into an extra-hard tie that takes a few extra swings, I fight the urge to overswing. It seems like the only time I mess up is when Pa is looking. Maybe I’m trying too hard to impress him.

  I feel like I’ve come a long way from my water­carrying and snake-hunting days. When things are going well, I wish that my mother were still alive to see me.

  I got a letter from John today.

  Dear Sean,

  The wind has really been roaring lately. We’ve had a three-day blowout of the northeast. The waves are crashing so hard down on the shore that I can hear them in my bedroom, even with the windows closed.

  Donald Reily dropped out of school last week to go to work in his father’s livery stable and funeral parlor: I don’t think I’d care to spend my life shoveling manure and fitting dead people for pine boxes, but some days even that would be an improvement over school. Don’s the third boy in my class to go to work full-time this spring. Sometimes I think about looking for a job myself, but we both know how Mother felt about us learning as much as we could. Aunt Katie is dead set against me quitting school, too.

  You mentioned in your last letter that you are thinking about finishing high school some day and maybe even going on to college. Maybe you can become a lawyer and get me a job downtown. Mr. Simpson has been talking so much about exports and imports lately that I am about ready to emigrate — that means to leave the country you are living in and go somewhere else.

  Meanwhile, I’ll keep on studying.

  Your favorite geographer,

  John

  March 9

  As if enough people aren’t getting injured by accidents on this railroad, I’m ashamed to say that some of the Irish workers have been hurting the Chinese on purpose. With the U.P. and the C.P. working so close together these days, the blasting is twice as dangerous. The Chinese always wave to let us know when they are about to set off a charge so we can clear out of the way. But, for some reason, we don’t warn them. Yesterday, one of our grading crews set off a charge that killed three Chinese workers and injured a half dozen more.

  Then Bill Flanagan and his buddies had the gall to laugh about it during dinner!

  March 10

  Of all the foolish waste I have seen so far, the Big Trestle wins the prize. The construction crews of the C.P. and U.P. are working side by side to build their tracks over a deep gully called Spring Creek Ravine. C.P. workers have been hauling material for the last three months, filling in a hole 500 feet long by 170 feet deep that they call the Big Fill.

  The foolish part comes in when the U.P. decided to build a bridge instead. So even though the C.P. is nearly done with their project, the U.P. has decided to span the very same gorge with a trestle running parallel to the C.P. grade. I’m sure they are hoping the government will pay both railroads for doing the same work.

  People complain about bank robbers and railroad bandits, but to my mind, the owners of these rail lines are the lowest sort of thieves. They are squeezing every dollar they can from the government. Call it a contract or a subsidy or whatever name you like, I say it is stealing, pure and simple.

  March 11

  Whenever they get the chance, the Irish fellows hoot and holler at the Chinese workers. They call them “godless heathens” and make fun of how they dress and how they look and how short they are. I’m ashamed to say that my pa joins right in with the teasing. For the life of me, I can’t understand why they have it in for these folks.

  March 12

  I may have figured out why the Irish resent the Chinese so much. I think the Irish may be jealous of all the work the Chinese get done. Though our fellows make a lot of noise, I really think the Chinese accomplish more. While we were waiting for the rails to be brought forward today, I watched the C.P. crew filling a ravine today. At first I thought they were moving at a snail’s pace. But the
more I watched, the more I realized that it wasn’t slow, it was just smooth and steady. Looking at them, I can see what Pa means about keeping an even pace when you work.

  They have two-wheeled dump carts for moving the fill, and they never stop rolling. As three carts are being dumped into the ravine, three more are being shoveled full. Their draft animals plod along at the same pace as the workers, and they never seem to need any lashing or prodding. If they are short of mules or horses, men don’t hesitate to pull the carts themselves. Yet as hard as they work, they manage to stay neat and clean compared to our fellows.

  In the place of a water carrier, they hire a boy who brings tea out to the men. Across his shoulders, he balances a pole hung with two used powder kegs filled with warm tea. At the work site he dumps the tea into a forty­gallon whiskey barrel that’s fixed with a little spigot for the men to tap their own drinks.

  Since our water gets awful green and scummy at times, it would make sense for us to drink tea, too, or at least boil our water. Instead, our fellows suffer through their stomachaches and diarrhea and laugh at what Flanagan calls the “weak-kneed tea sops.” It don’t make any sense to me.

  March 13

  Another Chinese worker died in a blasting “accident” today. I swear, if Bill Flanagan makes one more joke about “burying rice eaters under rock piles where they belong,” I will go after him with a pick handle.

  I heard that President Grant is getting ready to settle where the rails will meet. If he talks to all the bosses, I wish he would tell them to stop blowing up innocent people.

  March 14

  Though General Casement is usually all business, I was surprised to see him humming and smiling this afternoon. When I asked Pa why the general was so happy, he said that the U.P. board of directors just voted to cut back on Durant’s authority.

  It will be good to have that fellow out of our hair. I wish they would kick him out altogether.

  March 24

  It finally happened. The Chinese decided that they’d had enough, and they planted a grave — that’s a charge that’s meant to kill — above a rock cut where a U.P. gang was working. The blast killed one Irishman, and injured three others.

  Suddenly our fellows have agreed to call a truce. They promise to give fair warning of all our blasting from now on if the Chinese will do the same. My question is, why does it take someone dying to knock some sense into our heads?

  March 25

  They had a bad derailment back at Echo yesterday. A boxcar loaded with passengers jumped off the tracks on a tight curve and came within inches of sliding into a deep ravine. Pa says it’s dumb luck that a passel of people haven’t died in a wreck yet.

  March 27

  Corinne, Utah (mile 1,055)

  The payroll is up to date again, and just in time. Another town has sprung to life at the end of the track, and this one is as lively as they get. All the desperadoes and gamblers who weren’t welcome in Ogden have settled here. Fellows who have been itching to celebrate all month finally have a place to go. (Pa thinks General Casement had to take the money out of his own pocket to pay the men because the U.P. is in such bad trouble.)

  The Mormons are staying clear of Corinne.

  April 7

  The C.P.’s tracks are only fifty miles west of us now.

  April 8

  I can’t believe the greed of these two railroads. It looked like we would be joining the rails together in just a few days, but since both companies are paid by the mile, they keep preparing two separate grades side by side. I swear, if the government doesn’t tell them to stop, these rascals will build two sets of tracks all the way from Omaha to Sacramento.

  April 9

  As fast as everyone has been rushing lately, it’s no surprise that there’s been an accident. This afternoon a man on the grading crew was tamping some powder into a drill hole with a steel lining bar. He accidentally struck a rock and set off a spark. Ben, who had his wagon parked nearby, said the explosion blew the poor fellow a hundred feet in the air, and that he broke every bone in his body when he landed. Three men who were standing nearby were cut up by stone fragments and burned badly.

  April 10

  President Ulysses S. Grant ordered officials of both the U.P. and the C.P. to meet and settle this craziness about where these railroads are going to join. After some haggling, they agreed on Promontory, Utah Territory.

  When the president had all those crooks in one room, he should have had them hauled off to jail.

  April 12

  Today would have been Mother’s thirty-fifth birthday. Pa was real quiet after dinner. I thought about mentioning her birthday, but Pa didn’t seem to be in a talking mood. So I just let it rest, and for once, Bill Flanagan took the hint and was quiet, too.

  Though I know Pa will never get over it — and neither will John nor I — he is showing more strength all the time.

  April 18

  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I aim to do when this job is done. General Casement can already see the end of things, and he’s letting a few more men go each day.

  Pa says there will be lots of jobs on a new rail line they are planning to build from Duluth to Seattle called the Northern Pacific.

  Would I be foolish enough to put myself through this all over again? Whatever we decide, our first stop will be Chicago. I never thought I could miss that city so much. After I visit with my family, the first thing I want to do is stroll up Michigan Avenue and watch the boats offshore and look in the shopwindows and do absolutely nothing until it is time to sit down to dinner.

  April 22

  Word is that the crew chief of the C.P., Charlie Crocker, is finally going to take Durant up on his ten-thousand­dollar tracklaying bet. No one knows why he’s taken this long to give it a try, but it’s supposed to happen any day now.

  The fellows are laughing over the bet. “What’s Crocker going to do with all his little Chinamen — give them toy rails to play with?” Bill Flanagan declared over supper.

  Though I don’t admire his bragging, I’ve got to believe that no one will ever match the seven and three-fourths miles we laid last October.

  April 28

  The C.P. tried to beat our all-time tracklaying record today. Mr. Casement asked Pa to come along as a witness, and since the tracklaying has slowed on our side — why rush when we can’t go any farther than Promontory? — he brought me along to watch.

  I was impressed with how organized things were. The C.P. track boss, James Strobridge, had his materials ready, and a crew of five thousand, including iron men, spikers, tampers, and mule skinners, were lined up before daybreak.

  Strobridge is so valuable to the C.P. that they’ve coupled a personal car to their work train for his family. His wife, Hannah, and her six kids travel right along with him. She’s hung potted plants across the front of the car to make it into a real homey place, and she even keeps a singing canary in a cage outside her door.

  A whistle blew at dawn, and with a huge clang of iron a crew of Chinese fellows unloaded the first sixteen cars of rails. Though they looked mighty skinny, they had their handcars piled with rails in only minutes. Then they flew down the grade, dumping rails, spikes, and fishplates within easy reach of the all-Irish crew of iron men.

  As quick as a man could walk, the rails were set, bolted, and spiked. Each worker did his job so smoothly that it looked like the opening night of a well-rehearsed play.

  Shortly after they started laying the track, Pa pulled out his watch to time their progress. He was astonished to see that they had put down two hundred feet of rail in a single minute. “They’ll never keep it up,” he muttered.

  By 6:00 A.M. the C.P. had spiked and tamped an amazing two miles of track. Mr. Casement, who paced alongside the completed section, could do nothing but admit that the work was well done.

  Their planning was so perfect that I could tell right the
n that no locomotives would be running dry, like they did on our record day, and no one would be slowed by a lack of materials. They had things figured to the last keg of spikes.

  Through the morning the newspapermen jotted down notes and counted the tons of iron. By lunchtime the C.P. had done six solid miles of track, and I knew that barring a disaster, there would be no stopping them.

  Though the C.P.’s Chinese men had been working side by side with the Irish, as soon as the lunch whistle blew, it was like someone had drawn a line in the sand between the two groups. I overheard a reporter ask through an interpreter why the Chinese ate by themselves. A man who looked to be the leader of his crew said that it was their wish. He explained that they hired their own cooks and shipped most of their food in from China. They ate things I’d never heard of, like dried cuttlefish and abalone and bamboo sprouts and seaweed. Maybe that food helps those Chinese work as hard as they do.

  The minute lunch was over, the crews melted back together and hit her as hard as ever. When dusk fell, by our engineer’s own measurement they’d finished exactly ten miles and fifty-six feet of track. To test the quality of the work, Crocker ordered his heaviest locomotive to take a forty-mile-per-hour run down the full length of the track. I was impressed that hardly a tie trembled.