The Titans

by John Jakes

  Virtually unmolested, the rest of the Cheyenne swung westward and galloped after their leader, who obviously knew they stood no chance, and refused to squander more lives in a futile fight.

  Casement was on his feet now, wigwagging his rifle. “Let them go. Let them go! Someone see to the Dutchman.”

  “Stand aside, you damn coward,” Worthing yelled, appearing behind Casement and clubbing at him with the stock of the Spencer.

  Casement dodged. Worthing bellowed, “I’ll get one or two more before—”

  Casement beat Worthing’s arm with the muzzle of his Spencer. The bloodied, demoralized men who’d permitted Worthing to escape goggled from the bunk car steps.

  Casement avoided a second blow from Worthing’s rifle. The dust thickened. The last two Cheyenne leaned down from horseback with amazing suppleness, snatched up their two dead, and went racing away toward the trackless grade.

  Michael and other men were rushing to help Casement. But not quickly enough. The Virginian’s third blow glanced off Casement’s temple and knocked him down.

  Michael ran faster. Worthing saw him coming. Something uncontrollable had taken possession of Worthing. The Cheyenne were out of range, but he still wanted a target. The Spencer muzzle shifted through a quarter of a circle, aimed at Michael.

  Worthing’s eyes glowed with perverse joy. Michael flung himself face forward in the dirt as the rifle thundered. The ball hit Dorn’s wagon and sent splinters flying.

  “Pack of cowards!” Worthing bawled. “Wouldn’t have happened if you’d listened to me. You, Boyle.” He peered through the dust. “You’re the one responsible.”

  He aimed for Michael again but couldn’t get a clear shot. Too many men were hurrying to Casement’s aid. They pulled up short as the muzzle of Worthing’s rifle menaced them. On his knees, Casement groped for Worthing’s leg.

  Worthing had to concentrate on the closer adversary. Again he seized the rifle by the barrel. Started to bring it down stock first on Casement’s head.

  Lying prone with his gun hand extended and his view all at once unimpeded, Michael yelled Worthing’s name. The man in the duster didn’t hear. Or if he did, he was too angry to care. He bashed Casement on the top of the head.

  Casement cried out. Once again Worthing found Michael and leveled the rifle at him. God forgive me, Michael thought, and pulled the trigger.

  The Colt boomed and bucked. Two men who had almost succeeded in reaching Casement took headers in the dirt.

  Michael’s shot caught Worthing squarely in the chest, bulging his eyes and hurtling him backward.

  Sick, Michael leaned his cheek on his forearm.

  It’s the war again. In another place, another time, but it’s the war all the same.

  I was a fool to think I could ever escape.

  iv

  The railhead was in total confusion. Men were running, shouting. The one on the roof of the westernmost car fired vainly after the retreating Indians. It was too late. The last riders disappeared beyond the low hills near the river.

  The sunlit air smelled of blood, powder, the excrement of dead men. Michael wobbled to his feet as a black face emerged from the drifting dust.

  “Greenup? Look after General Jack.”

  The black and Sean Murphy reached the construction boss just as he struggled to a sitting position, blinking and coughing. A patch of lacerated scalp gleamed redder than Casement’s hair.

  “I—I’ll be up in a moment.” Casement gasped. He pushed with his hands, finally managed to stand. “How many are—hurt?”

  “Catch him!” Greenup cried as Casement collapsed.

  Sean Murphy and the black started to lift the fallen man. “Don’t!” Michael warned. “Not till you see how badly he’s injured.”

  He spun to a couple of Paddies who had crept forward to examine Worthing’s corpse. One wore a torn shirt. Michael had seen him behind the Virginian on the bunk car steps. He shook the Colt in the man’s face.

  “How the hell did that lunatic get loose?”

  “Jumped us,” the man panted, wiping his nose with the torn shirt’s tail. “Fought like a catamount.”

  “Thanks to you, he did almost as much harm as the Cheyenne.”

  “But we couldn’t help—”

  “Shut your goddamn mouth!” Michael pivoted away.

  He was growing sick at his stomach. He tasted sourness in his throat. Quiet began to settle all at once. A final rifle shot crashed and echoed.

  In the silence, Hannah cried out. It wasn’t a scream. It was lower, a hurt, guttural sound. Michael flung the revolver away, turned and saw her crouching beside her father’s body.

  She was trying to touch him. She rocked back and forth on her heels, her fingers an inch from the clothbound shaft of the hatchet. Young Klaus leaned against a wagon wheel, crying.

  Michael forced himself to walk.

  “Miss Dorn?”

  No response.

  “Miss Dorn, come away. We’ll take care of him.”

  She raised her head and looked straight at him. He might have been transparent.

  Suddenly her hand closed on the red-wrapped shaft. She wrenched the weapon out of Dorn’s skull. “Jaysus, she’s gone daft!” a man yelped.

  Stunned workers watched Hannah clamber to her feet, a strange moaning sound coming from her clenched teeth. The hatchet dripped red onto the worn toes of her boots.

  She seemed like some tortured animal, staring around the ring of astounded faces. Michael stretched out his hand.

  “For God’s sake, Miss Dorn, give me—”

  With a wailing cry, she turned and dashed to the wagon, to the one liquor barrel left unbroken.

  Both hands on the hatchet handle, she swung the weapon in a lateral arc, smashing the wood.

  She struck a second time.

  A third.

  The staves cracked. Liquor gushed over her trousers. Still she kept swinging, trying to find something to destroy—something to blame for the corpse on the ground behind her.

  Michael edged closer. “Careful, lad!” Sean Murphy called. “She may turn on you.”

  “We can’t let her do herself harm.”

  He shot his hands out, seizing her wrist.

  She wrenched, trying to tear free. The hatchet head grazed his left thumb, drawing blood.

  God, she was strong. Strong and wild with grief.

  Desperate to avoid the slashing head, he pressed her wrist with the nails of his right hand. While she shrieked at him to let go, the hatchet slipped, plopping into the slime of mud created by the spilled liquor.

  He wrapped one arm around her waist and dragged her against his chest. She struggled, but he held fast.

  She kept crying. The reaction to the killings struck him then. He began to shake, almost as badly as she was shaking. He fought to shut out sounds. Klaus hiccuping as he attempted to control his crying; Casement protesting feebly that he was fine.

  Gradually Michael’s trembling passed. He stood with both arms protectively closed around Hannah Dorn, asking himself whether the price of anything valuable—the price of Union, the price of freedom for the blacks, the price of a mile of track a day—always had to be this. Had to be war. A big war or a little one, with identical, inevitable endings—

  Savagery. Blood. Loss. Suffering.

  She came so far, he thought as he wrapped his arms tighter around her shuddering body. I came far too. Neither of us found a whit of peace.

  His heart broke for her. Again this morning, the faith she professed had been made to seem worthless. He lifted a hand to stroke her hair.

  It failed to calm her very much. She kept sobbing and shuddering. An anonymous voice clamored out of his memory: “Jaysus, she’s gone daft.”

  He didn’t doubt that for a short time she had. What frightened him now was something far more important. After what she’d seen, would she ever be rational again?

  Without realizing how it had come to pass, he discovered the answer mattered.

&n
bsp; Mattered desperately.

  Chapter V

  “To Every Purpose Under Heaven”

  i

  A GRIM-FACED JACK CASEMENT sat propped in his bunk in a tiny cubicle adjoining his office. It was shortly past seven that same evening. Michael had been summoned.

  Casement looked uncomfortable in his bulky nightshirt. Lengths of bandage were wrapped around his head. He directed his visitor to a stool with a quick, almost irritable gesture.

  Michael sat down, waited. A ceiling lamp illuminated half of Casement’s face. He gnawed his lower lip, changed position, grimaced.

  “Boyle, you were right.”

  “Concerning what, sir?”

  “Humiliating the Indians. Letting the engine beat them. It was my decision, and it was a bad one. If I hadn’t mishandled the situation we might have gotten them out of the camp with no casualties.”

  Michael shrugged in a tired way. “Why worry now, General? It’s done.”

  “It certainly is not! I’m obliged to tell General Dodge. More important, I’ll have to write a report for the directors. Frankly, I’m thinking of falsifying it. If I put the truth on paper, I’ll be trumpeting to the world that the line’s run into more difficulty—exactly the sort Dodge predicted. In Omaha, he told me privately we’d be lucky not to lose a man for every mile of track laid west of Kearney.”

  Michael said nothing. He liked the hard-driving little man too much to encourage such questionable behavior.

  He wondered exactly what Casement wanted of him, then decided the construction boss would let him know when he was ready. He kept silent while Casement yanked his nightshirt over his pale knees and shoved at the bedding to raise himself.

  “Don’t you see, Boyle—if anything gets into print concerning what took place this afternoon, Dr. Durant, Dix, and the rest of the officers will have an even harder time attracting capital. God knows the job’s difficult enough already. Now personally”—he covered his mouth, coughed— “I don’t give a damn what people say about me. My brother and I are merely contractors. We can push the line through whether we’re pilloried in the press or not—”

  A pause. Then a sardonic smile quirked Casement’s mouth.

  “No, I’m lying to you. I do care about my reputation. I’ve always despised being a small man. That’s why I want to build part of the biggest damn construction project of this century. But it is the truth when I say I’m not thinking solely of myself. The more trouble reported to Wall Street and Washington, the more the line’s in danger of collapsing altogether.”

  His eyes pinned Michael. “The next two months are crucial.”

  Michael felt compelled to be honest. “I don’t see how it’s possible to suppress what happened today.”

  “It’s possible for six or eight weeks. That’s all I need. All the line needs—nothing in print until we pass the hundredth meridian. Of course the men will talk. They’ll talk to the supply train crews. But rumors in Omaha are one thing, newspaper stories quite another. I’ve already taken one step to forestall problems. I’ve telegraphed headquarters saying I’ll permit no more journalists at the railhead till we reach the meridian.”

  “I realize the meridian’s an important goal. But what difference does it make whether the story’s spread before we get there?”

  “Because”—Casement hesitated; when he resumed, he sounded almost conspiratorial—“because Dr. Durant has informed me he’s planning a mammoth rail excursion.”

  “A what?”

  “A trip out here on a special train, to celebrate the line passing the meridian. Keep that to yourself. Otherwise I’ll get a second-best effort out of the lads. All they’ll be thinking of is a celebration—and they’ll crucify me if they learn they won’t be taking part.”

  “Can you tell me any more about this excursion?”

  Casement’s sour look suggested the whole scheme was an irritant.

  “Yes. Durant telegraphed the details last week. Even though the Federal acts don’t require us to reach the meridian until next year, we have to reach it before winter. As you know, the line’s charter is unofficial until we do. But that’s not half so important as the cash problem. If we go one more year without a big infusion of capital, the line may wash right down the drainpipe. So the good doctor has come up with this”—an annoyed wave—“this publicity party! The purpose is to impress invited guests from New York and Chicago. A hundred of them, perhaps more. Reporters. Potential investors. Foreign nabobs. The military. Members of Congress—maybe even Andy Johnson himself. It’s the same sort of holiday that Central Pacific arranged last year for Schuyler the Smiler.”

  “Who?”

  “Schuyler Colfax, that Republican trimmer from Indiana. Speaker of the House.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “It’s evident Durant means to stage something ten times as lavish as the Central Pacific excursion. He’s already purchased the Lincoln car—the armored one built for Abe in sixty-four. Only time the poor devil traveled in it was when he went home to Springfield. Dead. Anyway, Durant’s cleaning out the till to make the trip a success. My God, the man’s a gambler!”

  “I’ve heard railroad promotion requires that kind of temperament.” Michael smiled.

  “He has it. He’s putting thousands into four new coaches being built in the Omaha shops right now. When the excursion train arrives, there’ll be every kind of lawful diversion you can think of—and no doubt some unlawful ones to boot. There’ll be fireworks. Lectures on phrenology. Demonstrations of horsemanship and Indian tactics by Frank North’s tame Pawnee scouts. Picture takers all over the place—food catered by that high-priced Kinsley outfit in Chicago—and Rosenblatt’s Band of St. Joseph and the Western Light Guard providing the music.”

  “Sounds like quite an investment.”

  “Quite a risk, you mean. I’ve wired Durant I won’t permit the festivities to interfere with work. But I know he needs the excursion to attract cash. A press account right now, describing an Indian attack, will practically guarantee its failure.”

  He scrutinized Michael. “Do you understand why I’m considering a falsified report?”

  “Now I do.”

  “I suppose I’m also fishing for advice.”

  “And for someone to ease your conscience by endorsing a fake story?”

  “Mr. Boyle, some men would boot your ass for that remark.” But he was smiling.

  Michael wasn’t. “I’m just trying to establish what you want of me. Is it advice on whether to lie?”

  “Don’t be presumptuous. Besides, there’s no way to lie about two dead men. I’m talking about a—” He tilted his hand back and forth, a gesture of equivocation. “Call it a coloration of the facts. It can be done. I won’t have to account to Worthing’s kin. I had the employee records brought in a while ago. The departed captain listed no relatives except a distant cousin in Mississippi. The Dorn girl, though—with her father murdered, she could make trouble for us.”

  He scratched his nose. “Suppose I put nothing really damaging on paper. Suppose we just had a camp altercation—reported as such.”

  Casement studied the other man, awaiting a response. When he got none, he prodded, “The difficulty is still the young woman. Have you seen her?”

  “Yes. About half an hour ago, I called at the tent to offer my sympathies.”

  “Does she intend to stay here?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. When she goes home, she’s liable to talk. Word could reach Omaha—”

  “That’s true.”

  “Goddamn it, Boyle, give me some facts! How is Miss Dorn? How’s her state of mind?”

  “About what you’d expect it to be. It’s obvious Dorn wasn’t the most admirable parent in the world. But he was her father.”

  “Is she calm?”

  “Under the circumstances, I’d say she’s quite calm.”

  “Resentful? Does she blame the railroad?”

  “Not that I’m aware. She’s humiliat
ed because she fell to pieces. And of course she’s hurting.”

  Nor is she the only one.

  He bent forward. “General, I’d like to ask a question. May I have leave to quit the gang?”

  “Quit? You may not! I need every man.”

  “I meant only for a few days. I expect the Dorns will be leaving for Grand Island as soon as possible. The boy’s doing all he can to look after his sister, but he’s hardly old enough to provide adequate protection on the trip. Someone should go with them. Armed.”

  “Someone who could urge her cooperation along the way?”

  Casement’s flinty stare told Michael the terms of the bargain had been proposed.

  “Yes. Considering what you’ve said about the importance of the next six or eight weeks, it wouldn’t bother my conscience to do that.”

  Casement scratched his beard. “How far do you propose to travel with her?”

  “As far as Kearney. East of there, she and her brother should be relatively safe. Cooperation aside, General, I believe we owe Miss Dorn that protection. She’s tended men who were injured.”

  “You don’t have to remind me. She’s a fine person.” He pondered. “All right, you can go.”

  “I’ll need guns. A Spencer. Several magazines of ammunition. A revolver.”

  “I’ll sign the order tonight. Now. What does Miss Dorn propose to do with her father’s remains?”

  “Why, remove them to Grand Island, I suppose.”

  “I don’t want that body seen by anyone in Grand Island. Any half-witted mortician who’s been out here more than thirty days could guess what sort of weapon killed Dorn.” Casement’s voice grew sterner, more businesslike. “Talk to her again this evening. Tell her the corpse will putrefy before she gets it to Grand Island. Tell her a burial here will be much easier on her than riding home with a decomposing body. Since”—again, he hitched himself higher in the bunk—“since I don’t intend to be lying here much longer, I recommend we bury Dorn and Worthing at dawn. I’ll read the service.”