The Trainmasters Read online

  “I see what you’re getting at now,” she said when he had finished with that thought.

  “And so I’m beginning to think that it’s not just Tom Collins that I’ve got to deal with and stop. It’s whoever is behind the entire plot to destroy the railroad.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I see. But how do you get to that person?”

  “Through Collins.”

  “Through Collins?”

  “If I play my cards right, Collins will lead me to his master. But only if I play my cards right. And that means that he must come to think that I am inconsequential. And that means he must believe that I’ve come over to his camp.

  “He also must believe, of course, that he has the backing of the railroad. I plan for him to think he has attained both of those goals.

  “So if I seem to go along with Collins, then he thinks I’m weak, and he can dismiss me from his mind… and from his fears. Once that happens, I can begin to manipulate him.”

  “How?”

  John didn’t explain that exactly.

  “After that I want to press him further. And for that I’ll need some good men to back me up. That’s why I want your brother, my son, and Francis Stockton. Those three are forces of nature, Teresa… They are human whirlwinds. But I’m an engineer, girl, and a good one. I intend to harness their natural force and direct it against those who are trying to hurt the railroad.”

  “I think you’re going mad,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “Perhaps,” he said with a nervous laugh of his own.

  “But I think there might be some reason in your madness,” she said soberly. And then she turned away from him to consider what he had said to her. She remained that way for quite a long time.

  John, losing his patience, stretched a hand out and lightly touched her shoulder. “Are you still with me?” he asked gently.

  “All right,” she said, still facing him. “I’m with you.”

  “Does that mean you’ll do it for me?” John asked anxiously.

  “Yes, Mr. Carlysle, I will do what you ask.” She then turned and faced him once more, giving him a surprisingly warm, radiant smile. “I’ve decided that I like you, Mr. John Carlysle… You’re maybe a bit too stiff, somber, and earnest, but you’re deep, too. And you’ve got in you more imagination than most railroad men have.” And then she let her eyes slide shyly away from him.

  John Carlysle did not hurry up the path to Teresa O’ Rahilly’s glade. He walked slowly in part because he was not looking forward to his encounter with the three young men. But there was another, deeper reason too why he lingered: For the first time in what seemed like weeks, John was able to be alone with himself without having to scheme or plan or organize.

  He took advantage of the solitude and the balmy June evening and strolled leisurely, enchanted by the soft wind and shifting leaves, by the moist, delicious, earthy scents, and the delirious summer songs of insects and birds.

  As the dusk faded and died, the woods began to shimmer with burnished silver light from a half moon. Under the grand and ancient trees, the moonlight did not so much shine as fall through the air like mist. John sensed Julia’s presence about him, and he felt profoundly calm. He could almost imagine her walking beside him, and in his mind he could see her face as she had looked during her pregnancy with Graham. And then, suddenly, Julia’s image was replaced with Kitty’s, and strangely enough her expression was the same as Julia’s had been. John was still daydreaming when he walked into the glade.

  As far as he could tell, no one was there. Or at least no one was visible. Yet he sensed the presence of others nearby.

  A cheery voice sounded from out of the deep shadows across the way.

  “Well, well, well, it’s Mr. Carlysle … It’s about time you got here.” The voice belonged to Francis Stockton.

  John wondered how Stockton knew to expect him.

  “We’re this way, Mr. Carlysle,” called Egan from off to his right.

  He stood still for a moment in the moonlight at the center of the clearing to collect himself. Then he heard a short, barking laugh, which belonged to his son Graham.

  “We’re playing hide and seek,” he called out. “And you are it.”

  And then he was more baffled then ever, for, emerging gracefully out of the shadows like a ghostly dancer, came a woman dressed in white. “This is a magic place, isn’t it, Mr. Carlysle?” Teresa said with a voice like bells.

  “Magic…?”

  She nodded. “If you could see your face,” she said, “you would believe in its magic.”

  “What the hell are you doing here, girl?” he said abruptly as soon as he realized who she was. “I didn’t tell you to come. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I am not your sweet and pliant messenger girl, Mr. Car-lysle. I belong here as much as the other three. I’m as much a part of your conspiracy as they are. And besides, there are uses for a woman like me, uses that no man can be put to.”

  He was about to respond but Teresa continued. “1 took it upon myself to tell Egan, Graham, and Francis what you told me this afternoon… even after you told me not to. I did it for a very simple reason. If they didn’t know those things, there could have been one tremendous row when you arrived and they saw who it was that had brought them here. You are not well thought of tonight, Mr. Carlysle, by most of the men in these parts. So I’ve saved all five of us time … and none of us has wasted ourselves in useless passion either.”

  “You told them everything I told you?” he asked, more than a little daunted by this young woman.

  “Yes,” she said. “You didn’t hope to make them your knights without telling them what you told me, did you?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “And now, because of that, the three of them are ready to put on armor and take up their swords and follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  “I should think that won’t be necessary,” he said, admiring her.

  “Was I right to do that then?”

  “I should take you over my knee, girl, and spank you until your arse is nothing but black bruises… But, yes, you were right. And thank you.”

  “I’d planned a speech to you,” John said after the three men gathered around. “But Teresa tells me I don’t need to do that.”

  “It’s a good thing that she did, too,” Egan said. “If she hadn’t, I think I might have killed you.”

  He was only half joking, and John was well aware of that.

  “So it appears that I’ve saved us both,” John said with the slightest, grimmest of smiles.

  “That it does,” Egan said, with a grin that was—if possible—even slighter and more grim.

  John then turned his attention to the other two men. Graham had stationed himself next to Teresa. And when John examined them closer, he noticed that her hand was resting in his. This did not at all surprise John Carlysle.

  As always, Francis had an alert, inquisitive, and faintly supercilious expression on his face. But there was something else there, too—a kind of envious, knowing look, as though he was aware that John had just been thinking about Kitty Lancaster.

  On the positive side, each one of the three looked ready for action. Teresa had done her work well. Now he would find out if they would follow him to the ends of the earth.

  He glanced again at Francis Stockton. “You have a question in your face,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  “I do have a question,” Stockton said. “I’m curious about why you are calling on us to help you.”

  “Are you looking for flattery, Francis?” he asked. “If so, I have an easy answer for you: I like the three of you. I trust you. And I need three men I like and trust.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant,” Francis said, “though I’ve never been known to reject flattery.”

  “I didn’t actually think it was flattery you were after,” John said while Stockton paused to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. />
  “It’s like this,” Stockton went on. “Tess told us that you suspect Tom Collins has been involved in an intrigue against the railroad. I understand that suspicion very well. The man inspires it. I also understood from Tess why you believe that there’s more to the intrigue than just Tom Collins. That doesn’t surprise me either. But I don’t understand what you intend to do about it… and about him.”

  John turned and, with his hands clasped behind his back, faced the moon for a time. Then he turned his attention back to Stockton and the other three.

  “My belief,” he said, “is that Tom Collins is nothing but an officer in the secret army that is attacking the railroad. If I’m right, then we have to discover who the general is.”

  “How specifically are you going to do that?” Egan asked.

  “Specifically, I want to make Tom Collins run… but not just to run: I want him to run to the general. Once I know who that person is, then I’ll begin to be able to put together the puzzle about who is attacking the railroad.”

  “And where are we in this?”

  “Partly you are simply with me. I need the help of men … and women,” he glanced at Teresa, “that I know and trust. But I have something else in mind, too.

  “As I said, Collins must lead us to his master. And this means he must be made to go there. And that means he must be made to panic. His world must be falling in around him. He must see his fortunes falling in an instant from the heights to zero.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard to do,” Francis said playfully, with obvious, theatrical bravado.

  “You’re right,” Graham said, laughing, catching his spirit. “We should be done by lunch tomorrow. But then,” he went on, stagily crestfallen, “what will we do in the afternoon? Or the evening?”

  “These men aren’t knights,” Teresa said with a grin, “but jesters.” And then she made toward Graham an elaborate, courtly dubbing motion, holding a pretend sword. “I dub thee, sir clown,” she said.

  John laughed. “Graham, a clown? Maybe the boy has promise after all.”

  “He takes after his father,” Graham said, grinning.

  “Collins will run to mother because he’ll die laughing if he doesn’t,” Francis said.

  “Not exactly,” John said, once again serious. “I’ve got something more painful in mind for him.” And then he turned to Egan. “How are the men now?”

  “Bad,” Egan said. “Miserable, restless, ugly, more ready than ever to go out on strike.”

  “Good,” John said.

  “Good?” the four others said in chorus.

  “What would it take to push them to violence?”

  “Not much.”

  “Could you do it?”

  “What?”

  “Could you make them strike?”

  “Me?” Egan said almost voicelessly. “I never considered anything like that.”

  “You’ve never considered the authority and the power you have over them?” John said.

  “Never,” he said, sucking in his breath.

  “Egan,” Francis said, “if you asked them to lift themselves off the ground into thin air, they’d do it.” Francis was not being playful now. His voice was completely level and steady, as though Egan’s power over the men was as certain as sunshine.

  And Graham, with a nod, instantly seconded him in that certainty.

  “Tomorrow Collins is going to make his move,” John said. “And when he makes it, he is going to believe he owns the world. Everything will be working in his favor. And the men will go out on strike, which, for him, will be a victory.

  “But what if the men don’t just strike? What if they grow violent, violent enough to threaten him, violent enough even to put his life—apparently—in danger?”

  “You want me to manage that?” Egan asked with growing skepticism.

  “I want a rebellion tomorrow … not a great rebellion with loss of life and destruction of property … controlled rebellion.”

  “I doubt that can be done. Even if I could whip them up, I could never control them.”

  “He’s right,” Stockton said. “You’d have a mob.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” John said, “not if you follow my directions.”

  “And what about the rest of us? What do you have in mind for us?” Graham wondered.

  “Listen,” John said.

  And so John explained to them what else he had in mind for the following day. And after they heard him, they agreed to do what he asked.

  Twelve

  At ten minutes to three on Sunday afternoon, Tom Collins and twenty-four armed men marched down the main street of the Gallitzin camp and approached the administration building where John Carlysle was waiting on the porch. He was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, trying to look calm, hoping his apprehension did not show in his face.

  The day was hot and humid; the sun was high in the sky. There was a heavy, relentless feeling in the air. Yet in spite of the oppressive heat, John had worn one of his dark Savile Row suits together with a tall beaver hat and elegant accessories to match. He wanted to set himself apart as much as possible from everyone else in the camp. He wanted to turn himself into a stranger, an alien.

  And so John, looking elegant and refined but drenched with sweat, gazed out at the ragged-looking group Tom Collins was leading toward him. The little man had tried—and failed—to shape these men into some kind of military order. It was the kind of civilized touch that appealed to Collins’s skewed sense of the proper way to do things.

  In fact, as the band came closer John observed that aside from Collins and Tom Henneberry, who was his chief aide and factotum, the men with Collins were clearly not looking forward to their duties this afternoon. Collins had assured them that the workers would not become violent, regardless of how loud and noisy they became. And Collins had also paid his men quite well, since his assurances had not been convincing.

  But there was no denying the actual mood of the crowd moving up in front of John in clumps of five and ten and twenty. It was ugly. And dark. And as oppressively sullen as the sun in the sky.

  It won’t take much to push them over the edge, John thought.

  John mentally crossed his fingers, hoping that Egan and his friends could manage the nearly impossible assignment John had mapped out for them.

  And Egan had toiled most of the night as well as most of this day setting things up, organizing, meeting other men he could trust, explaining to them what they would have to do when the assembly took place. All this organizing was done in secret, or at least John and Egan hoped it was done in secret. If it was done right, Collins would not get wind of it.

  John Carlysle’s part in the plan was also kept secret. That was Egan’s easiest problem to solve, for no one would have suspected John’s involvement. What was expected was that all the bosses would stick together. They were all equally despised simply because of their position and because they made the workers’ lives miserable.

  Will they do what I need them to do when the time comes? John thought, letting his eyes wander speculatively over the men standing sullenly in the open space in front of him. It all comes down to Egan.

  Collins and his troupe had now reached the administration building. John rose up from the rocking chair where he’d been sitting and greeted them. Collins’s men had carried with them six heavy wooden boxes. They proceeded to set these up on the porch, making a small stage for.Collins to use as a pulpit.

  John gave the contractor a quick, cool appraisal. And what he saw pleased him. Collins had surely completely taken his bait from yesterday afternoon. He had a proprietary look on his face; for he thought he had Carlysle exactly where he wanted him.

  But it wasn’t just his control of John Carlysle that made Collins’s eyes bright and his walk brisk; it was his role in the drama surrounding him. The ugly mood of the men gathering in front of his pulpit gave him no more concern than he gave to night moths that bash themselves to death against a lighted window.


  “Well then, now, Mr. Carlysle, isn’t it a fine day?” He had placed himself very close to John, uncomfortably close. So close that John felt invaded. Yet, at the same time, there was no trace in Collins of the sarcasm or the hostility of a few days earlier. The man was a priest, or at least was once a priest. He was well familiar with repentant sinners. When they returned to the fold, he welcomed them with elaborate courtesy and without rancor. Though naturally he looked down on these returnees from the loftiest of heights, especially when they came back to his flock. Then their position sank even lower than ever in his eyes.

  “It is a nice day,” John agreed. “The sun is warm and pleasant.”

  “And you yourself are most elegantly turned out, just like a Mayfair gentleman among London bluestockings.”

  “I thought these clothes would be appropriate for the occasion,” John said.

  “Then you must be ready for our little do?” Collins asked with a broad grin on his face.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” John said evenly.

  And then, smiling even more broadly, Collins slipped closer to John and laid his arm across John’s shoulder. The arm resting there was as pleasant as a rattlesnake, and John tried desperately to mask his revulsion.

  “You know, John—” Collins said, giving John’s shoulder the smallest, yet most intimate of squeezes, “it’s all right to call you by that name, isn’t it?”

  “By all means,” John said.

  “That’s good.. .John. Lovely, to be sure. You’ll call me Tom, then?”

  “Of course, Tom.”

  “Well then, John, I’m delighted to welcome you to the flock. It’s a truly marvelous thing that you’ve come to see reason. And I’m glad to have your backing—and the railroad’s too, that’s for sure—for what I have to do.”

  “I’m glad myself,” John said, with as much repentance in his voice as he could plausibly muster, “to be on the right side.”