You had no mercy then. You will get none in return.
Tiberius waved the small sheet of paper. “Now I get why you were so eager to send your son packing. Is this the same threat Albers and O’Leary got?”
“Yes. Owen wanted us to stay together. Fight back. I wanted to skip town. So did Henry.”
“Any idea who wrote this?”
Silas nodded.
“Is he the fourth man in the photograph?”
“I’ve seen him around my house, watching me from across the street. But that’s impossible. I know it is.”
Tiberius folded the letter, placing the old photograph between the fold. “Man’s dead, ain’t he?” The thickening silence gave him the answer. “Did you kill him?”
“No. Yes. No.” Silas put his head between his hands. “Everything’s crazy.”
Tiberius reached the baker with a long stride. He placed both hands on the chair’s armrests. He pushed it back on its two rear legs and leaned in. Silas avoided his eyes.
“Look at me, Rowland. I’ve had enough of your whining. Time to spill the beans. Look at me, dammit!” He waited until the man grew the courage to hold his gaze. “Donner Pass, 1865. Go.”
21
“I tried to forget, I did. But I’ve been coming back to Donner Pass in my nightmares since the day I left.” Silas’ gaze became more unfocused and distant as he fell deeper into his reverie. “I was born in the East, but my family moved to California before I turned a year of age. My father worked as a blacksmith in San Jose, and my mother was a baker. I had two older brothers. They both died fighting for the Union. I was but a boy when the war broke. I remember feeling I’d lost my best chance to prove myself as a man.
“As I grew up, the West did too. I soon wanted more than the life my parents provided for me. I didn’t understand their hardships, nor I cared. I felt as rootless as the returning soldiers, a stranger in my own home. I always dreamed of finding my fortune in the gold fields, but by the time I was ready to make a name for myself, they’d either dried up or proven a wild goose chase. For a short time, I joined my father at his smithy. We mostly made horseshoes. I hated every second. Luckily something else came along, a place where a young man could gain a steady career: the transcontinental railroad. The summer of ’65, an old friend and I applied for a job at the Central Pacific. That friend was Henry Albers. He was 20. I’d just turned 17.
“Our work was harsh and thankless, but the pay was good and the prospects, better. Still, what kept most of us ticking was the sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. Together we’d build the largest achievement in engineering the world had ever seen. We’d earn our place in American history, even if no one would ever remember us by name.
“Construction became harder as we moved from Sacramento to Donner Summit, in the new neighboring state of Nevada. The terrain grew rougher and steeper. We found ourselves around 7,000 feet. We faced the Central Pacific’s biggest challenge: building the tracks through the High Sierras.
“Handling explosives became part of our day-to-day routine. We used to drill holes on the face of the mountain, fill them with black powder we got from Santa Cruz, and detonate it. Some parts of the mountainside were difficult to navigate in large numbers, so our foreman, an old crow from Oregon called McKinley, divided us into smaller groups. I ended up with my friend Albers, an Irishman, and a Chinese kid. The Irishman was Owen O’Leary. The Chinese went by Wang Lei, but we all called him Wally.
“Owen back then was just as you met him years later: loud, rowdy, and a drunk. He also had the same cheerful disposition, so we grew to like him well enough. Wang Lei was more of a mystery. We were the same age, though he looked much younger than me. He didn’t share much about his life, his family, or his past. Rumor had it he’d been born around San Francisco to mixed parents. That explained why Wally looked different from the rest of the celestial workers and why he spoke English way better than any of them. Heck, he spoke more properly than any of us! Wally tried very hard to fit in but never really did. Our men treated him with scorn, the celestials with suspicion. I felt sorry for him. I always thought Wally was a fine fellow. Truly.
“McKinley’s teamwork got us all rattled. Soon we behaved as if part of a sporting event. People bet about which team would dig more miles of tunneling, or build a longer set of tracks, or whatever we could turn into high stakes. We kept the competition behind our foreman’s back, but I guess he always knew. Maybe that was his goal all along.
“A lot of my comrades were strong, diligent men. But none could compete with my group. ‘The Fast Four,’ they called us. Our secret? We added everybody’s best talent to the overall performance. I handled everything related to metalwork. Hank Albers had the endurance of a buffalo. He could dig into bare rock with nothing but a pick for hours at a time. Owen proved an excellent tinkerer. He turned scraps into tools that made our jobs smoother and our lives easier. He never shared his ideas with anyone outside the Fast Four. Wally was in charge of the explosives. And boy was he good at it! He juggled the black powder fearlessly, as one would a firecracker. He calculated the amount needed for each explosion with a precision close to witchcraft.
“Sierra Nevada was a stubborn beast. It didn’t want us there, and it sure didn’t want us to blow up its entrails. We found the best way to gain the upper hand was to set the charges along the wall of the cliff. Which meant we had to pull down someone over the edge, let him place the black powder in the crevices then pull him back up before the explosion went off. Crazy, I know. It was. But it worked. In my defense, we did what everybody else was doing. Just faster. McKinley warned us about becoming too reckless but also turned a blind eye. We were daredevils, but the foreman knew without workers like the Fast Four, the job at Donner Pass would take twice the time.
“About who’d be the one going down the walls, that was never up for a debate. The celestials were always the first in line for danger, plain and simple. The railroad never ran out of Chinese workers. They were always compliant. They came in big packs. That made them both useful and expendable. That’s the ugly truth. I didn’t see it then. Or chose not to see it, who’s to say? But I do now. We live in a world where your true value is decided at birth.
“We all liked Wally, we did. But he was a half-breed. That put him one half closer to danger than any of us. In the meantime, we lied to ourselves: ‘Wally’s better with the black powder. He’ll be just fine.’ Every day we put Wally in a strap, tied a rope around him, and down he went. We toyed with his life every time we lowered him down. We knew it. He knew it. He never complained. Wally performed this crazy task, a job none of us would’ve willingly taken, and never lost the smile on his face. I think he would’ve done anything to prove himself useful, worthy, part of the group.
“I’ll always remember the morning when sunrise seemed different from atop the canyon. Redder. We all noticed Owen was a wreck that day. He’d been drinking heavily the night before, more than usual. I even confronted him about it, arguing he was in no condition to work. The discussion escalated quickly. We would have punched each other silly if not for Henry and Wally breaking the fight. After that, it was clear we should’ve called it a day. But we didn’t. We were the Fast Four. We had a reputation to maintain and money to make. We were young and stupid. Lost. Our work is all we had, so to work we went. As any other day, we had to lower Wally down the face of the cliff with his little pouch of explosives under his belt. He never came back up.
“When we were pulling Wally back up to safety, the rope slipped through our fingers. I still have a rope burn scar on my palm. Maybe Owen faltered first, or maybe not. It doesn’t matter. We reacted fast enough to stop Wally’s fall, but he hung too close to the explosion. The mountain rumbled. The rope flew from our hands. We stood there, petrified. I was the first to look over the edge. I saw nothing but blackened rock and smoke, but the smell… I kneeled and retched. I would have stayed on my knees forever. Henry helped me to my feet.
“We wa
lked back to camp. Shocked. Doomed. Not one glance between us.
“‘We killed a man today,’ I heard myself say.
“‘It was an accident. McKinley will understand. He’ll help us,’ Henry replied.
“Owen stopped as if struck by lightning. ‘To hell with McKinley! Central Pacific couldn’t care less about another Chinese worker blown to pieces. But they sure can charge us with accidental manslaughter. We might avoid the gallows, but killing a half-breed still means half a sentence. Central Pacific won’t take any responsibility. They’ll argue they weren’t aware of the workers’ methods. And use us as the perfect scapegoats for their sake. Fed, groomed, and ready for the chop.’
“I looked at Henry. I hardly recognized him. His pleasant face had turned sour. That’s how it’d stay for the years to come.
“Owen bellowed like a buffalo. ‘Nothing will happen if we stay together. My father was a drunken bastard, but he taught me one thing: nothing really matters as long as you tell your own story and write your own epitaph.’ He locked his gaze on us. ‘Nothing happened today. When we woke up, Wally was gone. We don’t know where or why. Do you understand? Wally just left.’
“His words fluttered in my head. I heard him and refused to hear him at the same time. I felt my mind was tearing in two. I screamed. Henry covered my mouth with his hand. He pushed his brow against mine. ‘I don’t want to end up in prison, Silas. Do you?’
“His whisper cut me deeper than any blade. I shook my head, holding back my tears. Henry eyed Owen and nodded. He nodded back. I did too. We sealed our fate.
“We walked back to camp, gathered all of Wally’s belongings from his tent, and buried them in the woods. Then we told McKinley we’d lost track of Wang Lei after our shift. He had returned to camp by himself. He looked distressed. His things had disappeared, and we feared he might’ve left for good. I’m sure the foreman never believed one word but asked no further questions. He knew better than to dig deeper. An open investigation would delay the construction. McKinley didn’t let us completely off the hook, though. He fired us all on the spot, insisting we’d never be able to work in the railroad ever again, not for Central Pacific, nor for anybody else.
“Henry and I could’ve gone back to San Jose but were too ashamed to face our families. For the next couple of years, we traveled all around, Henry, Owen, and myself. We grew distant, but our secret kept us together, even if we wished to stay apart. When passing through Colorado during the fall of ’68, we heard of a mining town up in the mountains that had prospered and needed new people willing to move all the way up there: Souls Well.
“I never thought we’d stay for long. I’d assumed we’d be on the move for life, to be honest. I had no interest in becoming a miner and could never return to metalwork, so I became an apprentice for the town’s baker, George Reeds. And fell in love with his daughter, Flora. Suddenly there was nowhere else I’d rather be. Flora Reeds gave me a family, a chance to start again. A life I never believed I deserved.
“Henry and Owen also stayed. They’d grown tired of running. Henry opened his own carpentry workshop. Owen made his money as a trapper, always living with one foot in town and another in the woods.
“I was happy for a while. I think they were too. In Souls Well, no one cares about one’s past, for better or worse. Flora always knew I carried something on my shoulders, something dark. But she never asked. I wanted to tell her about Donner Pass one day when we grew old. I never could. One more regret to add to my list. Flora passed away. I lost my oldest son to the silver mine. And my youngest won’t even talk to me most of the time. I had always been waiting for my punishment.
“I brought so much darkness to my family, it sickened them. It killed Flora. It killed Julian. And now it’s come for Bennett. The only way to save my son is to break this circle of suffering and guilt that trapped me, Henry, and Owen, so many years ago.
“It all ends with me. I’m ready.
“If Wang Lei wants my heart, he’s welcome to rip it from my chest.
“God knows it hasn’t beat since that awful sunrise at Donner Pass.”
22
Nothing had changed inside the dusty room, yet all the mundane objects around them had become tenebrous. The distance between speaker and listener, intimate just a few minutes ago, had grown to an abyss. Tiberius never took his eyes off Silas during his story. He clenched his fists tighter as the grim memories filled the house with ghosts, rabid and desperate spirits scratching their way out of the man’s throat like a flock of bats.
“I’ve no sympathy for any of the men in your tale,” Tiberius said. “Anyone with such cowardly disdain for human life doesn’t deserve it, nor my respect.”
Silas whined, lowering his head.
“But I never met those men,” Tiberius added. “I’m only familiar with Henry, the carpenter, Owen, the trapper, and Silas, the baker. All three a part of Souls Well, with no record of any wrongdoing toward our community. All three under my protection. I failed two. No more.”
“Thank you,” Silas blubbered.
“Save your gratitude. As soon as this is over, I’m sending you as far away from my town as I can. I cannot trust you. I can’t be sure you wouldn’t betray your fellow townsfolk when things go south. And things have already gone way south.”
“But—”
Tiberius placed one finger on his lips. Silence. “Bennett can stay, if he so pleases. Chap’s old enough to make his own decisions, and he’s not to blame for his pa’s sins. That’s all I’m willing to say about the matter.”
Silas kept his head lowered. “I understand.”
“Go to Doc Tucker’s. Be with your son. Tell the doctor to hide you both. No wandering, and absolutely no trying to leave town. Is that clear?”
“Y-Yes. What about the ghost?”
Tiberius pointed to the small pistol shaking in the man’s hand. “That won’t do you any good if the killer finds you, ghost or no ghost. The doc’s only a few blocks away, but if you catch as much of a glimpse of the killer, you better run away until your legs fall off. And pray.”
Silas staggered up his chair. “Ain’t you coming?”
“Later. There’s someone I need to see first. Get a move on, Rowland. I won’t say it twice.”
Silas’ steps creaked on the floorboards then down the stairs. A door screeched, opened, and closed. Tiberius turned to the window. The blizzard was so thick he could hardly see Silas scurrying away through the snow, sticking to the shadows of the buildings like a mouse hiding from a hawk.
He left the house soon after. He moved slowly toward Main Street. His boots dug deep in the fresh mounds of snow. He welcomed the numbing cold around his ankle. Tiberius eyed every corner, every slight movement that crossed his peripheral vision. If the ice creature was on the prowl, the snowstorm would give him hundreds of places to hide. It would be a fish inside a coral reef, a white butterfly in a garden of lilies.
His gut tied in a choking knot when he saw the big lettering over the facade of the Silver Moon. The end was near. What kind of end, he could not know. He could only hope Souls Well would stand one more winter. Tiberius walked to the porch of the saloon. He wiped the frosted pane of the double doors with his sleeve. Inside, Jesse Valentine tended bar, though only a handful of clients had defied the blizzard to share a drink or some company. Ray Wilson sat in his usual spot, leaning lazily on the counter. The fireplace blazed in the back. Miss Gray slept in a rocking chair in front of the flames.
Tiberius entered the Silver Moon. He welcomed the heat and the scent of frankincense Madame Valentine used to cover the stench of any men unacquainted with a bar of soap. He limped to the bar, leaned on a stool, and stretched his injured leg, groaning.
Ray eyed him from his stool. “What happened to your leg?”
“A misstep.”
Tiberius placed Silas’ letter on the counter, drumming on the crumpled paper with his fingers.
Ray glanced at the envelope. “What’s that?”
&nbs
p; “You tell me.”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Haven’t you seen a letter before?”
Ray frowned. “Are you trying to be funny, Tiberius? Cause I’m not in the mood. Look at that storm outside. I’m gonna be stuck here for God knows how long. No offense, but I’m starting to hate your goddamned town.”
Tiberius pushed the letter closer to Ray’s tumbler. “Is it one of yours?”
“Is there anyone else delivering the mail ’round here?”
“Just you.”
“Then yeah.”
Tiberius clapped his back. “You take your job very seriously, don’t you Ray?” he said, raising his voice.
“I guess. Why are you shouting?”
“So you’ll hear me out.”
Ray turned to face him, quizzical. “Are you drunk? Not that I’d blame you.”
Tiberius tapped the wrinkled envelope, now damp with spilled whiskey. “Take a good look at it, would you?”
Ray grumbled and picked it up. He flipped it in his hand several times. “It’s an envelope all right. Addressed to Silas Rowland. You want me to read the letter inside?”
“No need. Anything odd on the outside?”
“Odd in what way?”
No answer. Ray brought the paper closer to his eyes, glancing back and forth between the envelope and Tiberius. He spun it clockwise twice, then counter-clockwise, as if waiting for an invisible message to appear. He placed it on the counter. He picked it up again, bewildered.
“No postage,” Tiberius said.
“Huh?” Wilson took a long look at the envelope. “Oh, yeah. Huh.”
“No postage, no record of mailing. This letter went from someone’s hand directly into your rucksack.”
“So what?”
Tiberius nabbed the envelope from his fingers. “Letter’s a death threat. One of three. You put them inside your bag with the rest of the mail and handed each one to your victims in plain sight.” He raised his voice even more. “That was a smart move!”
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