He looked at me silently.
“Damn it, Johnny, you shouldn’t have come all—”
“Okay,” he interrupted. “I’ll be going on then. See you in Frisco.” He started down the hall, then turned. “Oh, one other thing. Remember the dark breed who got away from us, set the boat afire?”
“Le Caron.” My blood slowed abruptly.
“I saw him with that red-haired gambler, the one that laughs real loud when nothing’s funny.”
“Jesus, where?”
“A few stations out of St. Joseph, can’t recall which one. Just caught sight of ’em for a second climbing on a different train.”
“Oh, shit. Heading this way?”
He nodded and turned away again.
“Wait a second.” My thoughts spun in new directions. “You know when the next westbound’s scheduled?”
“In an hour, at seven, but it’s not an express.”
I made up my mind. The club had no chance of departing until much later. “Meet me at the depot in forty-five minutes.”
“Okay!”
I dressed and packed, knocked on Champion’s door. He looked silly in a nightcap and sleeping gown. I gave him my contrived story.
“That anxious to see your folks, eh?” He didn’t look heartbroken at the prospect of my departing. “Well, all right, though you’d probably make swifter time waiting for the express.”
“Thanks, sir, but I’m awfully anxious to see ’em—more so every minute.”
I woke Andy just before I left. “You in trouble again, Sam?” “Naw, just itchy.”
“Stay out of hot water this time, hear?” “I’ll try,” I told him. “See you on the coast.”
The depot was not nearly so crowded; by now only parties reserving entire cars, like the Stockings, still waited. The individual fare was $133 to Sacramento, $76 due then as the UP portion, another $57 to be paid the Central Pacific at Promontory, Utah, where all passengers changed trains. We had no problem converting Johnny’s ticket to first class. I broke one of my hundred-dollar bills grudgingly, hoping I could get a partial rebate from the club.
“Maybe I’ll strike it rich out West!” Johnny exclaimed as we put our bags on a loading cart.
I breathed the cool air, aromas of leather and hay and coffee. “The gold rush is over.”
“Money’s lyin’ around everywhere, so I hear.”
“Good luck picking some up.”
“With you familiar out there, Sam, I figure I’ll get a start.”
Great, I thought.
A shill shouted, “Last chance for train insurance! Spare yourself loss or injury! Reasonable rates!”
I thought about my cash and letter of credit. How dangerous was this trip?
“Just a dodge,” said Johnny. “Scare the suckers, then sell ’em your cure. Saw it plenty around the circus.”
We boarded a dismal day car that converted to a sleeper by means of hinged benches folding from the walls. Imagining the Pullman awaiting the Stockings—velvet carpets, spacious berths, ventilation, suspension system that removed all but the most severe bounces—I was already envious as we sat on threadbare upholstery, breathed stale air, and were jolted as the cars lurched forward.
“Ah, the real goods,” Johnny sighed, envying no one, stretching on the seat beside me. He pointed to an omnibus disgorging some thirty immigrants into third-class cars. “See them? That’s how it was for me all the way here.”
“In that case you’d better shape up as my darky,” I said. “Or I won’t keep you on.”
“Sam, don’t you start believing that stuff!”
We left Omaha’s bluffs and chugged across a wide plain. Occasional trees or rock outcroppings crawled past. When a rotund black conductor punched our tickets I asked how fast we were going.
“Twenty miles each hour, suh,” he said, eyeing Johnny narrowly. “Maybe twenty-five just now. Steady work.”
But slow. Faster trains averaged in the forties on level ground, twenty-five to thirty-five on ascents.
“How long will it take us to go on through?” Depends on the traffic, but only a few days.” He beamed at me. “A revolutionary time, suh! New York to San Francisco in ten days! Down to six when the rivers are bridged. A revolutionary time!”
It took some four weeks, I knew, by the Isthmus route. If nothing went wrong. And just about everything could go wrong, from storms to fatal epidemics. For overland pioneers in ox-drawn wagons it had been worse: crossing from St. Louis to California required three months. The railroad had reduced that journey to less than a week. Revolutionary, indeed.
The passengers in our car didn’t resemble the usual first-class crowd. Most looked a bit down on their luck. There were only three women, one with a squalling baby who promised to make our lives miserable. Sheathed in heavy clothing, they already wielded fans as the day’s heat began to break upon us.
The first dining stop, at Grand Island, was typical of those to come. Informed that we had thirty minutes, we poured into a rough dining room (the sign simply said R.R. HOUSE) where we gulped beefsteak, eggs, potatoes, and cubes of some sort of mush—all fried in thick grease. As we moved westward the steaks would become antelope and buffalo, though I suspected it was all stringy beef, accompanied by hoecakes, sweet potatoes, and boiled Indian corn soaked liberally in syrup. Any variance from this—chicken stew, for example, which might really be prairie dog—was cause for discussion. Meals were expensive, too, usually at least a dollar.
About a hundred miles out of Omaha trees disappeared entirely. We entered a high barren prairie dotted with bluffs. Squads of antelopes raced the train—and generally won. We saw occasional elk and numerous prairie-dog villages, sights which excited the easterners in the car. But as the miles passed and no buffalo or wild Indians presented themselves, telescopes and opera glasses were put aside.
“Har har!” chortled a leather-faced, Popeye-sounding man several seats ahead. “That’s a rich ’un!” He read laboriously from a Leslie’s supplied for a fee by pain-in-the-ass vendors known as “train butches,” who paraded through the cars selling everything from tooth powder to guidebooks.
A plump Chicago dry-goods dealer named Beard bent my ear interminably, claiming that the UP was pulling a gigantic swindle in wrangling ninety-six thousand dollars for each mile in this so-called mountain section, which was actually level.
