The Titans

by John Jakes

  “All right, let me see what I can do. I wonder, though—”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Do you think you should be up quite so soon?”

  “Tomorrow is a workday. We have Monday’s track to lay—and the balance of Friday’s. I’ll be up.”

  Michael rose. “Very well. I’ll speak to Miss Dorn immediately.”

  “And tactfully. Tactfully!”

  “Of course.”

  “On your way out, fetch me a pen and some paper from the desk. I’ll write your gun requisition—and begin drafting my report. A friendly visit by a few Cheyenne”—his mouth twisted; Michael detected guilt in Casement’s eyes—“following which, a quarrel developed amongst the men. Worthing and Dorn were the casualties. It’s the Eastern money I’m thinking about. The meridian. The excursion—”

  His eyes almost pleaded for understanding.

  “Yes, sir,” Michael answered, feeling weary as he stepped out of the lamplight to the adjoining office. He rummaged on Casement’s littered desk.

  It’s the Eastern money I’m thinking about.

  It’s winning the war I’m thinking about.

  Always, the object was to win, no matter what the cost in lies, or human lives, or human misery. For him, the price was growing too high.

  Perhaps great enterprises automatically meant conflict. The saving of the Union, the binding together of the oceans with iron cords—perhaps each required a warlike attitude for success.

  And clearly Casement wasn’t entirely happy with what he had to do, even though he wanted to see the line go through.

  Michael understood human motives and human progress were seldom pure. Amanda Kent, whose ruthlessness had sometimes tarnished her idealism, had taught him that. So he didn’t scorn Casement too much as he delivered the paper and pen before saying good night. He too believed the line should go through.

  But he didn’t know how much longer he could fight this different but still sanguinary war. He didn’t know how much longer he could pay the personal price of constant struggle and no peace.

  ii

  The canvas-wrapped bodies of Gustav Dorn and Leonidas Worthing lay side by side between two shallow trenches dug near the right of way. Despite the unpopularity of both men, death demanded respect; almost the entire camp had turned out to stand silently under the vast, cloudless sky sprinkled with paling stars. A clean, sweet wind blew out of the northwest. To the east the treeless prairie was reddening.

  Michael stood across the circle from Hannah Dorn. She’d proved cooperative—more accurately, indifferent—about Casement’s scheme, and agreed to be evasive about her father’s death when she returned to Grand Island.

  She looked tired but composed. She’d put on her shapeless coat again. Her hat hung from her right hand. Her left rested on her brother’s shoulder. He was trying not to cry. Hannah’s eyes, a little shinier than usual, betrayed her own grief.

  Casement read from Hannah’s Bible. She had selected the passages.

  “‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’”

  Michael’s head was bowed just far enough to permit him to watch her. His red bandana snapped in the wind. Away in the east he heard the hoot of the iron train, rolling in early. To his left, Sean Murphy scratched his armpit, then blushed when Greenup Williams and Christian, propped on a handmade crutch, both noticed.

  “‘A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted!’”

  He believed he knew why Hannah had asked Casement to read from Ecclesiastes. After Sunday’s almost senseless violence, she needed reassurance that there was a divine reason for one of those lumpy canvas sacks—a reason why a man who had tried to find a place in a new land had failed and perished.

  As far as Michael was concerned, drunkenness and a vile temper were the causes of Dorn’s death. He sought no other explanation, and certainly found no hidden purpose in the event, not even while listening to words from the holiest of books.

  “‘A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.’”

  Casement sounded uncomfortable with the sonorous language. Michael lost track of the next few verses, pondering earlier ones.

  A time to kill. A time to heal.

  A time to break down. A time to build up—

  From First Manassas to the Wilderness, he’d seen the killing and the breaking down. He’d come out here not only to escape the memory of Julia but also to have a hand in building something worthwhile. Now he was utterly disillusioned. The price of helping to build the U-Pay was confronting a Leonidas Worthing. The price was more killing. The price was another war.

  Maybe that was the way of the world. The only way.

  Dear Lord, what a hateful idea! He yearned to believe it wasn’t true. But every scrap of evidence accumulated during the past few years said it was.

  His earlier enthusiasm about his unofficial adoption into the Kent family was gone. He had no idea as to how he’d use the money he would someday inherit. In fact he had no interest in it, because there was no longer any hope of discovering personal peace, or a way to conduct his life that didn’t involve brutal struggle.

  Still, he had to do something. This battleground was surely no worse than another he might stumble into if he were stupid enough to repeat his earlier mistake and again flee in the hope of finding a calm haven.

  There was none.

  “‘—A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.’”

  A lie, he thought. God have mercy on me, but that last is a lie.

  iii

  Casement’s pause was a signal to the men he’d chosen earlier. Michael, Artemus Corkle, Sean Murphy, and five others stepped forward. Four of them handled each of the canvas bags. They lowered the bodies into the trenches with great care.

  Michael picked up a shovel from a pile brought to the grave site late in the night. The whistle wailed in the east. A pillar of smoke rose on the brilliant red horizon.

  While Casement turned to the New Testament, moistening his thumb nervously on his tongue several times, Michael and the others began shoveling dirt into Dorn’s trench. Casement sounded hoarse as he resumed, reading this time from one of the Gospels. St. John, Michael thought it was.

  “‘Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’”

  Chunk, a shovel of dirt landed on the sack. Michael heard a soft outburst of sobbing from Klaus Dorn and glanced up as Casement continued to read. Hannah was watching Michael with a curious expression whose meaning he couldn’t interpret well.

  For a few moments he didn’t hear Casement’s words. Hannah’s look had captured him. There was pain in it. But there was doubt too.

  Did she believe what Casement was quoting? Her faith was strong. Or had been. Was it still? Somehow he hated to see her tested so severely. Her faith was her whole way of life.

  “‘Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever—’”

  The whistle screamed. Hannah’s head turned, her eyes furious at the intrusion.

  But the supply train wouldn’t stop. The work wouldn’t stop. Otherwise men—and women—would grieve too long. Accomplish nothing. Permit a bitter sense of futility to drain them of hope, as Michael was drained. He inverted his shovel, chunk, full of impotent anger all at once.

  “‘—whosoever liveth,’” Casement repeated, louder because of the whistle, “‘and believeth in me shall never die.’”

  Slowly he closed the book.

  “Amen.”

  Michael flung one more load of dirt into the trench. The canvas was nearly hidden. Sean Murphy leaned on his shovel handle and crossed himself. Michael found his own hand rising, making the holy sign he’d traced so infrequently since his childhood. In his heart and mind, a s
trange, unexpected prayer stirred.

  He prayed that Hannah Dorn, a decent woman, would not grieve too long, or have her faith destroyed as his had been.

  iv

  When the trenches were covered, men set crude wooden crosses in place. Michael walked to Hannah and Klaus.

  He waited until a small group of workers had offered their shy, clumsy condolences and melted away into the larger crowd Casement was leading toward the train. Finally the last man, Christian, hobbled off. Michael stood awkwardly silent, his shovel canted over his shoulder and his neckerchief fluttering in the breeze.

  “What is it, Mr. Boyle?”

  To his relief, she was dry-eyed; her pain was contained.

  “Whenever you’re ready to go—tonight, tomorrow—”

  The whistle of the iron train interrupted him. Hannah spun again, sunrise reddening her eyes. She crammed the floppy brimmed hat on her head and gazed with loathing at the smoke plume.

  At last her features smoothed. “The sooner I’m away from this despicable place, the better I’ll feel.”

  “I can’t say I blame you.”

  “You don’t like it either?”

  “After yesterday? Not much. I think I told you I came out here because I was sick of fighting, and all I’ve done is fight.”

  “Leave.”

  He sounded as he felt—despondent. “And go where? Where will it be any different?”

  She looked at him sympathetically. He was ashamed of revealing his weakness, his nakedness of soul. He turned away and laid the shovel on the earth.

  Thankfully, she forgot his inadvertent admission when the whistle bellowed again. Over its noise, her voice turned hard. “I’ll have the tent packed and the mules hitched in half an hour.”

  Chapter VI

  The Coming of the Godless

  i

  AT TWELVE-MILE INTERVALS, SPECIAL crews following the railhead had erected pine-jacketed water tanks beside the track. The sun was setting that evening when Michael, Hannah, and Klaus made camp in the shade of one such tank. It resembled a primitive wash tub on thick timber legs, and looked incongruous on the rolling prairie—an ugly intrusion of civilization.

  While Michael and Klaus unfolded and raised the tent, Hannah laid a fire to heat coffee and broke out jerked beef and biscuits. Michael was using a stone to hammer a peg when he heard a creak of wheels south of the right of way. He dropped the stone and shot out his hand.

  “Klaus. The rifle.”

  Hannah hurried to his side. “What’s wrong?”

  Still crouched, Michael put the Spencer beside his boot. “As yet, nothing.”

  A wagon drawn by mules rolled through purple shadows on the east side of a round hill. A tarpaulin had come unhitched on the rear of the wagon’s bed. As the wagon creaked into the glare of sunset light, the breeze flapped the tarp and revealed slabs of black-speckled meat.

  An Indian clad in a hide shirt and leggings drove the mule team. Beside the lead wheel closest to the track rode a lean white man on a wiry pony. He was in his early twenties, wearing a threadbare flannel shirt without a collar and trousers held up by suspenders. Long hair visible under his plainsman’s hat shone fair in the sunset.

  Michael breathed faster. The two men took note of the campers but made no sign of greeting. The white man’s saddle was equipped with what looked like a handmade leather scabbard divided into two sections. The stocks of a pair of buffalo guns jutted from it. The Indian had a third rifle on the seat.

  Wagon and rider soon passed close enough for Michael to note the white man’s gaunt, high-cheekboned face. It was curiously familiar. He was sure he’d seen it before, but didn’t know where. Maybe the man looked like a Union soldier he’d met briefly and forgotten.

  The black specks proved to be flies swarming on the raw slabs of meat.

  “I thought they were hunters.” Michael nodded.

  “Is that buffalo in the wagon?” Klaus wanted to know.

  “Appears to be. Notice the bundle of hides there at the back?”

  “Are they going to the railhead, Michael?” Hannah asked.

  “I assume so. Probably to sell the meat.”

  Klaus looked disappointed. “They’re not going to stop.”

  “Just as well,” Hannah told him. “They’re carrying too many guns for honest men.”

  Michael scratched his mustache. “Odd combination, a white and a Sioux. At least the other one’s chunky enough to be a Sioux.”

  “Sure don’t look friendly,” Klaus murmured, just as the white man jerked two fingers to his hat brim to acknowledge their presence. Then he booted his mount and sped west raising dust.

  The Indian whipped the mules with the reins. The wagon rapidly grew smaller. Michael still felt he’d seen the white hunter before. But he couldn’t pinpoint a time or place. He relaxed and forgot about it when the travelers disappeared, leaving only a haze to mark their passage.

  Presently the three sat down to eat. Michael kept the Spencer within easy reach. He’d also fetched a borrowed Colt from the wagon and buckled the holster belt around his hips.

  Klaus munched a biscuit, drank some coffee, yawned, and said good night. A moment later the lantern Hannah had hung inside the tent went out.

  Twilight was rapidly deepening into darkness. Hannah clasped her hands around her knees and gazed at Michael through the tatters of flame. Her strained expression finally compelled a response.

  “Are you feeling any better, Miss Dorn?”

  “Better than I was this morning. By the way, you’re perfectly entitled to call me Hannah.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been concerned about you. You’ve said so little all day. I know your father’s death wasn’t easy to bear.”

  “I’ll bear it. I believe the words General Casement read from St. John.”

  “I admire your conviction—as I think I noted when we first talked.”

  “Then you’ve no faith in life after death?”

  “Let’s say my view on that is more a question than an opinion.”

  “But you aren’t without a belief in something. You will be going back to the line?”

  “Yes. For want of anything better to do.”

  Hannah swept off her hat and laid it on the parched grass near the fire. “Do you know what I was thinking about while we drove?” He shook his head. “The passage from Ecclesiastes. I believe those words too. I believe there must have been a reason for Papa’s death.”

  Although the theological waters were growing a bit deep, Michael said, “You mean some purpose to it?”

  “Exactly.”

  He was dubious. “What is it, then?”

  “Why, I—I don’t know.” She glanced away. He had the feeling she knew the answer but was unwilling to reveal it. Spots of color in her cheeks reinforced the suspicion.

  “Tell me, Mr. Boyle—”

  “Fair’s fair. If I’m to call you Hannah, you must call me Michael.”

  An appreciative smile. “All right, Michael.” The sound of it was pleasing. “I’d like to know a bit more about you. Did you leave a family to come west?”

  “Only my adopted family. The Kents. I believe I mentioned them.”

  “Yes. They were people you admired—”

  “Some of them.”

  “Have you ever been married?”

  The question was so matter-of-fact, he was stunned. Why the devil would a woman who’d just lost her father be interested in such a subject?

  “No, never,” he answered. “There is—was—a woman, but she—ah—best we forget it. May I have more coffee?”

  She poured with a steady hand. He was conscious of the intimacy of the fire, and of the handsome curve of her full bosom beneath the shabby coat that grew taut when she leaned forward.

  He heard a rustle and a series of rapid thumps south of the track. Possibly one of the huge plains jackrabbits bounding by. All the red light had leached from the west. A thousand stars shone, but none quite so bright as the blue-gray eyes of t
he woman close to him.

  How lovely she is by firelight.

  “You seemed upset a moment ago,” Hannah said as she returned the pot to the coals. “I didn’t mean to intrude in a delicate area.”

  He waved. “No intrusion. I just prefer not to discuss the woman.”

  “Why?”

  A sadly cynical smile. “If I told you the tedious truth, it wouldn’t enhance my already low standing in your eyes.”

  This time her smile was disarming. “Your standing is not low at all, Michael. What is the truth?”

  Lord, she had a way of digging into a man!

  “I joined Meagher’s Irish Brigade to escape an altogether sordid situation. If you must know, I coveted another man’s wife—which I believe is definitely frowned upon by the Bible.”

  The coffee tasted as bitter as his mood had become. He shouldn’t be revealing his past to a virtual stranger, yet he was. Perhaps he was like Casement discussing his report. Perhaps he secretly wanted a judgment about the degree of his guilt. Against all good sense, he kept on.

  “The relationship was, in fact, adulterous. Which makes me a violator of more than one commandment, does it not?”

  Asking for scorn, he got none. “Christ says all men can be forgiven. Did the woman love you?”

  “No.”

  “But you loved her.”

  “I wanted her. I don’t know if it was the same thing as love.”

  “Do you think of her a great deal?”

  He started to lie, changed his mind.

  “All the time.”

  “Does she write you?”

  “Never. She doesn’t know where I am. Or care.”

  A long silence.

  “When you’ve finished your work out here, are you going east to look for her?”

  “She’s still married.”

  “That isn’t quite an answer.”

  Sometimes I want to go, but—

  “The answer is no.”

  “So the truth is, you didn’t come out here just to compensate for what you did in the war. You were running away.”