The Trainmasters Page 33

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “There you go again.”

  And then they were at the door.

  “Good-bye then, Kitty,” he said. “I’m sorry that I caused you pain a few moments ago.”

  She smiled at that, and her face softened and grew warmer. “I’m sorry, too,” she said, “that I… that we both can’t stop ourselves from… doing what we always do.

  “But,” she added, “I am grateful to you, Francis, for wishing me and John well. I suspect that coming here and doing that took more than a little courage.”

  He said nothing to that, for he had no ready answer.

  “And,” she continued, opening the door, “in spite of everything, I think I’m glad that you came.”

  “You’re what?” he said, incredulous.

  “I needed to make an end to…” She stopped, began again, stumbled. “To finish with… I don’t know how to say it.”

  “But whatever you can’t say is over and done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good … I suppose,” he said. “Anyhow, good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Francis.”

  After he left her, he tried to do what he’d said he’d do. He tried to find Abraham Gibbon.

  But Gibbon was nowhere to be found.

  Fourteen

  United States Independence Day fell on a Sunday in 1852. That day John Carlysle’s first look at the peculiar American mixture of religious fervor, public self-congratulation, and exuberant patriotic display that characterized the celebration of America’s separation from the mother country. In England, of course, John’s fellow countrymen had felt every bit as much devotion to their own nation as these Americans. Most Englishmen were filled with boundless reverence and pride for queen and country, but few among the English would have ever brought themselves to display their patriotism with the same wild enthusiasm as their American cousins.

  The July fourth holiday was even celebrated at Gallitzin, though most of the people there were foreign bom. Banners decorated the buildings, and there was much singing and marching and noisemaking and speeches. John was prevailed upon to give a speech. It was conveniently forgotten that he was an enemy from the mother country.

  And much more recently an enemy from the ranks of management.

  However, there had been many changes at Gallitzin in the brief time since Tom Collins had been persuaded to run for his life.

  John took the moment he’d been given to remind the men he was speaking of their good fortune to be living and working in a nation where it was possible—and here he became quite specific—to remove the oppressors, whether they were bad rulers or bad bosses. In the Old World, they’d still be suffering under Tom Collins and his henchmen.

  The speech went over well, for one of the most significant changes at Gallitzin since Collins’s departure was that John had suddenly become very popular. Egan O’Rahilly had very quickly made it clear who had driven Collins out. And he had also made it abundantly clear to the men that there was now a good and reasonable explanation for John’s strange behavior before Collins left.

  So the workers were now back working, and they were now for the first time in months—for the first time ever, probably—eager to work.

  Egan had taken to his new position with energy and keenness. He had never once dreamed that he’d take over as labor contractor when Collins vacated that position, but when the offer from John came, even Egan realized how much sense the move made—and the justice of it as well. The workers adored him, and the railway management admired and respected him. If anyone could handle both the men and the railway management, it was Egan O’Rahilly.

  The Independence Day celebration lasted until late in the day. After it was over, and after John, Graham, and Egan had managed to excuse themselves from all the friendly drinking and good fellowship that followed, the three men walked up the mountain to the children’s glade, where Teresa and Deirdre had put together a picnic for the Carlysle and O’Rahilly families.

  The three men were all in a good mood. It had been a pleasant day, and they were looking forward to an even more pleasant evening. They chatted amiably as they climbed the path to the glade. John and Egan especially had a great deal to talk about: They were both pleased and relieved that things were going so well at the camp. And the celebration just finished symbolized their success in making that happen. In fact, in spite of Egan’s initial hostility toward John, the experiences and attitudes they both now shared were increasingly drawing them into a closer friendship, a friendship that was gradually bridging the chasm that had initially separated them. It was the last thing that Egan would have foreseen as recently as three months ago.

  It was still light by the time they reached the glade, but the sun had set, and the shadows had grown long and dark.

  They looked around, searching for the picnic place, searching for the women, expecting children suddenly to emerge from hiding places and run up to them, smiling and shouting.

  The glade was empty. No one was there.

  The three men looked at one another, questioning.

  “Is this another game?” Egan asked after they cast a second glance around and failed to discover anyone.

  “Could be,” John said, doubtfully. Chill fingers were beginning to close within his breast.

  “Teresa! Deirdre!” Egan called out.

  There was no answer.

  “Alex! David! Peg!”

  Still no answer.

  Graham, meanwhile, had crossed the clearing to their usual picnic place. “Look, over here,” he said, excited.

  The others came to where he was pointing, and they found the picnic baskets and sacks strewn about in disarray. Food and utensils were scattered everywhere.

  “Christ!” Egan said, bending over to touch a loaf of bread lying in the dirt, as if touching the bread would confer reality on this impossible and fantastic scene.

  “There was a struggle,” John said, forcing his voice to be calm. They both made a closer examination, looking for blood or other signs that anyone had been injured. There was no blood.

  “See, here!” Graham yelled. He’d been scouring the area away from the picnic place. “There were horses. It looks like several of them, at least eight or ten.”

  “Christ!” Egan repeated.

  John and Egan both went over to the place that Graham showed them. The ground there was churned up. And the reason why was evident. Several horsemen had swooped down on the women and children, and they’d taken them all after a brief struggle.

  The three also had a pretty good guess as to who was behind the act. But it was Egan who put their thoughts into words. “Who do you think did it?” he asked, after the three of them turned to face each other for a strategy session. Though he was outwardly calm, those who knew him as well as John was beginning to know him could detect the horror and outrage in his voice and features. The other two were equally horrified, equally outraged, and—to look at them—equally calm. Egan answered his own question before the other two had a chance to answer. “It has to be the Keans … and maybe Collins, too, if he is still around… yes?”

  John gave a brief nod. “It could have been no one else,” he said, with lips pressed tightly together in anger and frustration.

  “But why the children?” Graham asked.

  John looked at him oddly. “They could have many reasons—for extortion, to make us more perplexed and confused and ineffective, to hold up our work even more…”

  “Yes, yes, I know that,” Graham said, impatiently. “But the one the Keans have most reason to hate is me. And,” he added, “perhaps Teresa. I was the one that killed Ben. So why go after the children?”

  Egan just shook his head. Then he said, “It’s because they’re mad. You can’t expect reason from madmen.”

  “In any event, they have a start on us,” John said, practically, “so what can we do to catch them and stop them?”

  Then Graham said, “They can’t have been gone long. If we t
ake horses, we might overtake them.”

  “Not bloody likely,” John said. “Not at night in the wilderness.”

  “But we’ll try,” Egan said. They had to try, the determined expression on his face showed; there was no other choice.

  “Yes. We’ll do it,” John agreed. “We must do that.” Then he asked Graham, “Would you run down to the camp and break the news… and find maybe ten good men and get horses for them and for us? Be back here in… half an hour?”

  “Right,” Graham said and started to run. But before he left, he turned to his father. “You’ll be here? It would be faster if you both came with me.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not through here. I’d like to look around more. I’m not satisfied I haven’t missed something that I need to see.” Then he looked at Egan.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Egan said in answer to his questioning look.

  “All right then, Graham,” John said. “Move! Fast.”

  And Graham raced off.

  “What I want to do while we’re waiting for Graham and the others,” John said, “is examine the area carefully to see if the men who did this dropped anything, or lost anything, or if anything fell—anything that would give us a clue about where they’ve taken them.”

  “How do you want to do it?”

  He thought about that. “They must have known somehow or other about the picnic. And they must have been concealed just inside the woods,” he decided. “I’ll look for the place. And you see if you can follow the tracks of their horses far enough to get some sense of where they are headed.”

  “How would they have known about the picnic?” Egan asked. “And about this place, for that matter?”

  “It wouldn’t be hard to buy a couple of informers. We don’t keep our movements secret.”

  “We should have prepared for something like this, though,” Egan said bitterly. “I could kill myself for not suspecting they were capable of it—especially after what Matthew told Graham and Francis.”

  “You’re right, Egan,” John said. His voice was tight and sharp, and the creases in his face were etched harder than stone. “And I’m more to blame than you are. But…”

  “There’s no time to indulge in remorse,” Egan said, finishing the thought.

  “Exactly,” John said, softly. “Let’s go and see what we can find.”

  The two men searched as carefully and thoroughly as two men on foot could do in what was now near total darkness. There was a moon, but its light scarcely penetrated into the dense forest. And they came up empty handed. There was no trace of a clue that gave any hint that would help them find the stolen women and children.

  It took Graham close to an hour to gather a search party. And by the time the party joined Egan and John in the glade, the two men were hardly able to contain their anxiety. But the party had no more luck tracing the kidnappers than John and Egan had had in searching for clues. By morning, they were on their way back to camp. The day had given them no more help than the night before had. The horsemen had simply slipped away into the wilderness. The kidnappers had vanished without a trace.

  Even if they had gotten a much earlier start, John was forced to admit to Egan back in camp, they would have had no better luck.

  “Well then,” Egan replied, “I will find them. And I will bring them back. I don’t give up,” he said.

  “I know that,” John said. “And I’m with you. My two boys are there, too. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  On the night of July fourth, a body was found in the mud along the banks of the Schuylkill River just north of Philadelphia. The head and face of the man had been battered, and his skull crushed. The corpse was bloated and disfigured; and there was nothing in the clothes to establish its identity. Yet he had not been dead so long as to be completely unidentifiable. And in fact the clothes were of good quality, which helped the magistrate in charge of the investigation: The well to do dead don’t usually remain forever nameless.

  By the morning of the fifth, the magistrate had managed to successfully identify the body. It was that of Abraham Gibbon, the prominent lawyer.

  On the next day, during the afternoon, Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt arrived in Philadelphia quietly and without fanfare. Neither he nor the man he’d come to see, Mr. Edgar Thomson, wanted his presence in that city to be noticed.

  Vanderbilt met Thomson at Thomson’s residence, in the study.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Vanderbilt,” Thomson said once his visitor was seated and comfortable.

  The Commodore smiled and dipped his head slightly to acknowledge the thanks. Then the smile altered ever so slightly but enough to make Vanderbilt’s look turn predatory. He was enjoying himself. He was in his element… in the jungle.. .hisjungle.

  “Things are moving swiftly here,” Thomson continued. “Shall I bring you up-to-date before you tell me the news you have brought.”

  “Go ahead,” Vanderbilt said with a wave of his hand.

  Thomson then went on to relate the story. After John Car-lysle had sent the contractor Collins packing, Carlysle’s son and Francis Stockton were led by Tom Collins to the place where the physical attacks on the railroad originated.

  “So you think these teamsters are behind the whole thing?” Vanderbilt asked carefully, cagily.

  “Do you?” Thomson asked.

  “No,” Vanderbilt laughed. “I know better. But you’ll have to wait for that story.”

  “Then let me go on.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Thomson went on to describe what Graham and Francis had learned from Tom Collins and Matthew Kean—the information that implicated Abraham Gibbon in the plot against the railroad.

  “Yes?” Vanderbilt asked during a space when Thomson took a moment to pause. Vanderbilt sensed Thomson was coming to a climax, and Vanderbilt’s attention was therefore cocked.

  “Gibbon was found dead last night. He was face down in the mud of the Schuylkill.”

  “Killed?”

  “Right. It was murder. After we learned that Gibbon was involved in this business, I sent Francis Stockton to question him.”

  “Good move,” Vanderbilt said.

  “And when Gibbon failed to turn up, I slipped a few quiet questions myself to one of the local magistrates whom I’ve dealt with now and again in the past. When he learned that Gibbon was discovered, he sent the news on to me.”

  “I take it that you don’t believe that this man Gibbon was leading the attack against you?”

  “Not at all. No more than Collins and the Keans. I knew Gibbon slightly; he was a fixer and a manipulator. Useful to those who move within the gray areas of the law. But he could never have conceived of anything like what has been happening to us. He was a go-between. Nothing more than that.”

  “The real author might even find it convenient to have him out of the way once his identity became known.”

  “Exactly,” Thomson said. “Although I believe that no one will ever prove that.” He gave Vanderbilt a wry, resigned look. “But there’s more.”

  “Yes.”

  And Thomson told him about the kidnapping of the women and children. “We’ve had no message from the kidnappers, but there’s little doubt about their identity. It was surely the Keans.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Kidnap women and children?”

  “Right. Why would they stoop to a thing that base?”

  “I don’t know,” Thomson said. “I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times. And I’m sure John Carlysle has asked himself the same thing at least twice as often.”

  “Kidnapping the women and children would sow more confusion,” Vanderbilt said reflectively, “if confusion’s their aim. But it’s such an outrage that it’s liable to stir up the hornets’ anger more than it baffles and disconcerts them.”

  “I expect we’ll receive some threats soon,” Thomson said. “Some kind of extortion demands will come before long.”

  “What’s your man Carlysle doing a
bout it?”

  “What you’d expect. Searched the immediate vicinity. Asked questions. But,” he shrugged, “they’ve had no luck.”

  “And that’s where it stands?” Vanderbilt asked.

  “That’s where it stands,” Thomson said with a soft sigh. But then his face lit up a little. “And now you have something to tell me?”

  Vanderbilt could not rein in his grin. “That I do.”

  “It must be interesting,” Thomson said, encouraged by the smile.

  “If you believe knowing who’s shorting your stock is interesting.”

  Thomson just stared. Finally, he found his voice. “Who?”

  “Dan’l Drew.”

  “So Drew’s the one.” He tilted his face to the ceiling, took a long breath, then turned his attention back to Vanderbilt. “How did you find that out?”

  “It wasn’t particularly hard. I asked around the exchange a bit. And on Wall Street. He’d hid his tracks, or at least he tried to, with some cover names. He used some men to buy for him, as blinds. But it was Dan’l for sure. No doubt about that.”

  “And he was the principal behind all our recent—”

  Vanderbilt answered before Thomson had finished that thought, “No doubt about that either. It was always Dan’s way to avoid a gamble when he could manage it. If he could put the Pennsylvania in a precarious way, then the stock’d go precarious, too. And that’d make selling it short a near certain thing. No risk. No gamble.”

  “What’s that mean for us?”

  “It means there’s a pretty good chance he can win…”

  “Unless.”

  Vanderbilt gave Thomson another one of his predatory grins. “You’re going to have to come up with a lot of money, Mr. Thomson. An awful lot of money.” The grin grew wider. “But,” he said as he caught Thomson’s eye, “there’s a tremendous opportunity in all this… if you’re bold. And smart. And if,” he laughed, “you can come up with the money.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s hard to say exactly how many blinds my friend Dan’l has set up. But the total amount of shorted stock’s in the neighborhood of sixty thousand shares.”