The Titans

by John Jakes

  The wind garbled Miller’s reply. He slipped again; almost fell. Gideon realized wearily that he might have to couple the entire train by himself. With the link-and-pin system, switchmen usually handled alternate cars.

  Gideon wigwagged his lantern at the engineer leaning from the cab. The sleet slanted through the backwash of the headlight like tiny silver arrows. “’Bout time, you damn lazy clods!” the engineer shouted. “Let’s get her together!”

  “Blasted thing”—Miller was struggling with the lid of the link box between the first boxcar and the adjacent track—“she’s stuck tight.”

  Gideon beat on the lid with his fist. Ice cracked. Pieces rattled on the frozen cinders of the roadbed. He wrenched the lid. On the third try he got the link box open.

  He checked the iron drawbars on the tender and the boxcar. To his relief he saw the bars were on the same level. He reached into the box for a link—a hoop of iron thirteen inches across—and two iron spikes.

  There was about a yard of working space between the cars. The minute he forced the link into the horizontal slot of the tender’s drawbar, he knew this would be no simple job. Ice clogged the slot. The link wouldn’t seat properly.

  He set his lantern down and began chipping at the ice with one of the pins. Then he used both pins to hammer the link home.

  He positioned a pin over the opening in the drawbar. More ice kept it from falling. He pounded with the other pin. Finally the first pin dropped, securing the link to the bar.

  Gideon stepped from between the cars and waved the lantern. “Back ’er up!”

  The engineer retreated into the cab. Gideon averted his face from the wind as the drivers reversed. Slippage on the rails produced a sound like a scream.

  The fireman clambered down, swearing loud enough to be heard above the storm. He flung four buckets of cinders and sand on the rails. Abruptly, the wheels found traction. The tender rolled backward. Horizontal wooden beams that served as car bumpers crunched under the impact. Gideon was lucky; the force of the collision drove the link into the boxcar’s drawbar. The pin dropped without difficulty.

  “I’ll take the next one,” Miller called. His lantern bobbed as he fished in the link box. The flickering light revealed a gooseneck in his glove. A gooseneck meant the drawbar of the second freight car was not at the same height as that on the first. It was a perennial problem with rolling stock; there were no uniform manufacturing standards.

  Gideon followed his friend and waited tensely while Miller wedged the gooseneck into the bar of the first car. Miller stepped back to signal the switch engine. He slipped. The engineer interpreted the sudden jerk of his lantern as a signal. Gideon barely had time to drag the floundering man to safety before the cars crashed together.

  “Too damn close, Daphnis. Let me do it—”

  He pried the pin out of Miller’s mittened hand. The older man snatched it back.

  “Listen, Gid. You been treating me like a baby all night. I knew how to do this job ’fore you were a pup!”

  Reluctantly Gideon let Miller have his way. It took the older man five minutes to seat the pin in the icy slot. Above the moan of the wind he heard the engineer hectoring them for taking so long.

  “Keep your britches on!” Gideon shouted. “We’re going as fast as we can!”

  His right hand was growing numb again. The wind had intensified, hurling the mingled snow and freezing rain almost horizontally. He managed to couple the third car fairly fast; the drawbars were parallel.

  Miller ran past with the link and pins for the next one. Again Gideon followed him, fretting. Miller stepped into the four-foot space between the cars. He had trouble with the link.

  “Lord! The slot’s solid ice—”

  “I’ve got an extra pin. Let me in. I’ll work on it.”

  He stepped to the edge of the boxcar. His boot skidded. He lost his grip on the pin. Without thinking, he bent to retrieve it as Miller again attacked the slot.

  Doubled over, Gideon realized his error. The lantern on his arm had dipped.

  The drivers squealed. Sparks shot from the cindered rails. He heard a chuffing, loud as doom.

  Standing up, he inadvertently smashed the lens of his lantern on the corner of the car. He reached for Miller’s bent back. “Daphnis, get out of there!”

  The cry went unheard. But Miller felt Gideon touch him. He swung around, his eyes angry. The train was shunting backward.

  Miller saw the end of the forward car moving. He tried to jump to safety. The toe of his boot caught on a tie. Gideon had hold of Miller’s overcoat. Trying to regain his balance, Miller jerked too hard and lurched the other way.

  The bumper beam of the forward car closed the gap and thudded against the one behind. Daphnis Miller was pinned at the waist between them.

  v

  Time seemed to stop. Gideon heard bones crack. Miller’s lantern went out.

  The older man’s upper body was twisted toward Gideon and projecting from between the cars. Not twelve inches from Gideon’s eyes, Miller’s face contorted. His hands scratched Gideon’s sleeve as he hung there and screamed.

  The scream faded. Miller’s eyes bulged. He slumped forward. His head slammed Gideon’s chest.

  “Daphnis!”

  Gideon seized his friend’s head, tore off the scarf, and slapped his cheeks in a wild, irrational effort to strike life into the body bent at the waist like a corn-husk doll. Terrified, Gideon went floundering toward the locomotive.

  “Go ahead! Ahead, damn it! Miller’s caught!”

  He heard the consternation in the cab. He couldn’t tell whether it was the engineer or the fireman who shouted, “You signaled! I saw the lantern—”

  “Just go ahead so we can get him free!” Snow mingled with tears in his good eye. “Just go ahead!”

  vi

  When the cars separated, Daphnis Miller was dying.

  Gideon caught him as he fell and dragged him to a spot between the tracks. He was nauseated by the wet feel of Miller’s overcoat. Not the watery wetness of snow-something sticky, welling from hidden ruptures in Miller’s body.

  The engineer and fireman bent over the switchman, stricken speechless. Snow whitened Miller’s coat. It turned dark as blood soaked it.

  Gideon ran like a man pursued.

  I didn’t think.

  I should have put the lantern aside; I saw Daphnis make the same mistake.

  I SHOULD HAVE DONE THE WHOLE TRAIN MYSELF!

  “Cuthbertson!” He almost fell into the shack. “Cuthbertson, hurry up! Daphnis has been killed.”

  “Oh Lord almighty—” White-faced, the superintendent ran for the door without stopping for a coat.

  vii

  Daphnis Miller resembled a fallen snowman by the time Gideon and the superintendent reached him. The fireman had located a lantern, but Gideon wished he hadn’t. The diffused rays illuminated Miller’s contorted face. Life had gone out of him at a moment of extreme pain. His mouth was open. Unmelted snow lay on his tongue. Sleet spattered his distended eyes.

  “My fault,” Gideon said, struggling out of his gray overcoat and kneeling beside the body. He flung off his scarf and cap. He was unable to hold back his tears.

  He’d seen men perish in wheatfields and forests. He’d seen them sabered, shot, blown apart by artillery fire. Terrible as that was, he’d never been shaken as profoundly as he was now. His hand stretched out to close Miller’s hideous eyes, and he wept his rage and shame.

  “Oh, Daphnis, goddamn it! This is my fault.”

  “Quit it, Gid,” Cuthbertson said. “He was tipsy when you come to work. Tipsy and half asleep.”

  “But it was my lantern—oh, hell, it’s too late.”

  Full of self-loathing, he covered Miller’s body with the Confederate overcoat. He cried into the palms of his mittens.

  “Listen, Gid,” Cuthbertson said gently. “I take a big share of the blame. I should have ordered him to stay inside the shack till he sobered up.”

  �
�His mind wasn’t on it.” Gideon talked to himself, and the storm. “He had a lot to drink today, but he was happy. He finally found out what his first name meant.” The tears dried up but the pain consumed him. “Jesus. Jesus!”

  Even the engineer seemed moved. “Kent, don’t take on so. Accidents happen.”

  “Happen all the time on this rotten line,” Cuthbertson agreed.

  Gideon’s head jerked up. The leather patch was white. His good eye glared.

  “I know. I know what happens afterward, too. Nothing.”

  The fireman didn’t understand. Gideon’s finger stabbed toward the body.

  “Miller’s my neighbor. He has a family, just like Augie Kolb. A wife. Four youngsters—”

  Cuthbertson batted snow from his eyes. “Who’s going to tell them?”

  “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them I killed him.”

  “Gid, you didn’t!” Cuthbertson protested.

  “They’re not the only ones I’m going to tell. I won’t see his children starve to death or his wife go to her grave like Gerda Kolb.”

  Cuthbertson tried to shush him.

  “Cuthie, if you’ll take him back to the shack, I’ll couple the rest of this goddamn train.”

  “Sure, Gid.”

  Snow flecked Gideon’s light hair. He twisted his scarf in his hands, the wind-raw skin under his right eye wet again. He thought of Louis Kent. His face grew ugly.

  He bent his head and whispered a promise to himself, “Once I tell them, they won’t forget, either. I swear before God they won’t.”

  Chapter VII

  Call to War

  i

  “CANT YOU SLEEP, DARLING?”

  “No,” Gideon said.

  She shifted her head close to his and tucked her forehead against his chin. Her hair smelled of the harsh homemade soap.

  The bed creaked as she changed position and brought her right leg to rest on his thigh. The warmth of her body was comforting. But it couldn’t banish the images of Daphnis Miller’s corpse, or Flo Miller’s worn face changing from disbelief to hysterical sorrow when he stood at the door of the neighboring cottage in the blustery dawn following the accident.

  All the heat of the kitchen stove had dissipated. A chilly dampness clung to the rooms; warmer temperatures had arrived twenty-four hours after the storm hurled by and swept out to sea.

  Gideon slid his right arm around Margaret while he folded his left under his head. The noise roused Eleanor in the truckle bed. Margaret tensed.

  When the child settled down, she said, “You haven’t had a decent rest in three days.”

  Nor had he reported for work at the yards.

  “Is it Daphnis?”

  He worked his head around and kissed her, but it was done in an absent way. “Don’t fret about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Fine! Gideon Kent, we’ve been married long enough for me to know when you’re fibbing. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Silence.

  Rain began to patter the roof. In moments it built to a downpour. A familiar dripping started in the parlor.

  “I’d better set the pail out.”

  She tugged him back. “Not until you say what’s on your mind.”

  “I don’t want to upset you, Margaret.”

  “Do you think I can sleep, or keep my mind on the house, or help Flo get ready to go upstate for the funeral when you’re in such a state? Refusing to eat? Sitting in the parlor till all hours with the lamp out? Barking at Eleanor?” A forgiving caress of his face. “Say it.”

  There was a peculiar blend of anxiety and relief in finally doing so. “I have to go after them.”

  “The owners?”

  “Yes. I’m going to get money for Flo, and for Augie Kolb.”

  She pondered that, said gently, “You know what the outcome will be.”

  “They’ll say no?”

  “You won’t get close enough for that. No one in a position of authority will even talk to you.”

  “They might.”

  “If they did, the answer would still be no.”

  “Cuthbertson said the owners are dead afraid of any bad publicity right now.”

  “They’ll accept bad publicity rather than meet demands that could set a precedent.”

  “Goddamn it, Margaret. I know the chances are slim. But I’ve got to try.”

  “I didn’t mean to anger you. I just want you to be realistic.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He hugged her. The drip in the parlor quickened. Eleanor turned again, muttering.

  “You’ll lose your job, won’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. That’s why I’ve been reluctant to say anything.”

  “Gideon, you know I’m willing to stand by you when I think you’re right.”

  “Do you this time?”

  “Your idea may be right. But it’s hopeless.”

  He tried to sound more confident that he was. “Maybe not.”

  “Your father would be glad to give you enough money to keep Mr. Kolb and Flo secure for the rest of their lives.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same. It’d be charity, not something deserved. The Erie owes those two families!”

  “You’re doing this because you feel guilty about Daphnis—”

  “In part. I think I wanted to do it for Augie before Daphnis got killed. I kept trying to deny it to myself. The accident tipped the scale, that’s all.”

  “You realize it’s almost like going to war again? You said you never would.”

  He nodded. “A man changes his mind, Margaret. Circumstances change his mind.” The exhausted face of Bill Sylvis drifted past his inner eye. “Daphnis was kind to us. When he died, he was almost as close to me as I am to you. Have you ever been close to someone who died violently?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s ugly. Ugly and dirty and sad beyond belief. Last month Cuthie was reading one of those Beadle novels. Some tale about Army scouts in the West. I looked at a column or two. Three men were killed in as many paragraphs. The author knocked them down like ninepins. There was no hint of pain. Nothing about the foulness when a dying man’s functions fail. The writer made it clean and—and trivial. The deaths shocked no one. Left no one hurt. Undoubtedly the author’s never seen men die either. A real human being can’t be forgotten so easily.”

  “It’s still a lost cause, Gideon.”

  A short, sad laugh. “I expect. But I fought for one of those before and survived. The thing is—I have no choice.”

  “Well,” Margaret murmured, “it’s decided. We can go to sleep.”

  “You’re not against it?”

  “I can’t say I like it. But I suspected it was coming.”

  He rumpled her hair, tried to tease. “Aren’t you going to caution me not to canter off with Beauty Stuart because I’ll get hurt?”

  “No, Gideon. I’ve learned something about you and your family. The Kents have a tendency to go wherever they must, and hang the consequences. Just the other night, when everyone else stayed home during the storm, your conscience sent you to work with Daphnis. Even when I think about what might happen this time, I can’t help feeling proud of you—”

  She kissed his cheek. “Where will you start? The superintendent of the yards? The general manager?”

  “They only take orders. I’ll start with the people who can make a decision. I don’t know any of them. But I have a connection with one.”

  Astonishment: “You don’t mean Louis?”

  “Why not? They elected him a director last week. It was in all the papers.”

  “He’ll give you no special treatment. He despises your father. And you’ve never even seen him.”

  “Even so, I’m closer to him than to any of the others. I know where Louis lives. Father knows what he looks like. I must fix that damn pail—”

  He disentangled himself, climbed out of bed, barked his shin on a post of the truckle bed and almost woke Eleanor. The rain pelted harder as he groped his
way into the kitchen.

  She’s right, he thought as he lugged the pail to the parlor and placed it beneath the leak. She’s too loving to insist you abandon the idea, but she knows you’re a damn fool. She knows it as well as you do.

  It had simply come down to a choice between doing nothing or making an effort. He had no great hope of success. But without making an effort, he’d never sleep well again.

  ii

  His tension and the river’s choppiness combined to unsettle his stomach when he rode the ferry to the foot of Courtland Street next morning. Margaret had emptied her jar of kitchen money to provide him with a dollar and a half for boat fare and trips on the horsecar lines. He walked to the parsonage on Orange Street.

  The study in the house next to St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church reeked of cigar smoke. But there was no cigar in evidence when Jephtha Kent opened the door, just the haze of his secret vice.

  “Gideon!”

  “Hello, Father.”

  “I thought I heard the bell.”

  “Molly let me in.”

  Gideon entered the cozy, book-lined room. Outside the window, the narrow walkway between the parsonage and the church proper looked dark as twilight.

  “I hardly expected to see you in town during the week,” Jephtha said.

  He looks old, Gideon thought with a touch of astonishment. In not much more than a year, Jephtha would be fifty; his long, straight black hair had a generous streaking of white. Age had softened his gaunt features. But many of his flock said he still resembled a red Indian.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Margaret or the baby?”

  “No, they’re fine.” Gideon sank into a chair in front of the littered desk. He coughed.

  A flush crept into Jephtha’s gaunt cheeks. “Stuffy in here,” he muttered as he raised the window. The sudden rush of air set the smoke moving and only made it doubly noticeable.