A Promise for Tomorrow (46 page)
“And what will you work at?” Carolina questioned. “You have not had any training for a job, and you’ve not taken your studies seriously enough to consider teaching or bookkeeping. There may not even be such opportunities for a woman out west, even if you began in earnest to improve your writing and math skills. Your only options might be to take in extra sewing or laundry, and I doubt that you have any idea just what hard work that would entail.”
“We’re going to mine for gold,” Victoria declared. “There’s no reason I can’t work with Kiernan. We heard tell that the stuff just lies about on the ground. You just pick it up, and when you have enough, you go to town and sell it.”
“I hardly think that’s very realistic,” Carolina replied. “Consider the coal mines in this area. They hardly just pick up the coal off the ground. They have to dig and blast and haul, and it’s all very difficult work that takes its toll on body and mind. Have either one of you bothered to look into the actual workings of a gold mine?”
“I’ve talked to a few blokes who’ve tried their hand at panning,” Kiernan admitted. “Ya take a pan and stand in a stream and dig down in the muck. This gets swirled around, and as the water rinses the dirt away, the gold is left behind. The fellows told me that a man can get mighty rich this way.”
“Then why aren’t they still at it?” Carolina questioned. “It seems that if it is such a good way of life, they’d still be in California.”
“I cannot say why they came back. Mebbe they aren’t the greedy type,” Kiernan offered.
“I suppose anything is possible,” Carolina replied. “My point, however, is that neither one of you knows much about this endeavor. I’m only asking that you give yourselves time to grow up. I’m not even asking you to forget your interest in each other. Perhaps if Kiernan is really concerned about taking proper care of you, Victoria, he could go first and prepare a home for you.”
“But I don’t want him to go without me,” Victoria protested rather loudly.
By this time, dawn was full upon them, and Carolina could see the fire in her daughter’s eyes. She had dared to suggest something that would fail to coincide with Victoria’s plans. Plans that Carolina knew would fall apart at worst, and be extremely difficult at best.
“I need to get your father some breakfast. I didn’t want to start an argument,” Carolina said quite seriously. “I merely want you both to think of the complications to this plan of yours. I want you to think of the cost.”
Kiernan remained fixed in place for several moments after Carolina’s departure. He knew the sense of her words, and she had awakened his mind to several issues he’d not allowed himself to consider before this time.
“I’m sorry Mother was so difficult,” Victoria said, throwing her arms around Kiernan’s neck. “She’s too old to understand how we feel.”
Kiernan looked down into the dark warm eyes and wrapped his arms around her. Her beauty astounded him. Her youth and vitality gave her added merit in his eyes. Youth generally meant strength, and strength was what would be needed if they were to forge a place in a new land. But her mother bore him sound counsel. Perhaps he should reconsider the situation. It would be unfair to ask Victoria to leave the conveniences and wealth she had grown up with. Maybe it would be best to establish a home for them in California and then come back for Victoria.
Seeming to sense his discomfort, Victoria pulled back and asked, “You aren’t going to let her spoil our plans, are you?”
Kiernan set her away from him. “I think we need to heed all the advice we can get. A wise man considers his path before movin’ ahead.”
“I don’t believe it. You
are
upset by this. Kiernan, we’ve been planning for this for a long, long time. I can’t believe you’ve changed your mind.”
Her distress was evident and Kiernan felt instantly sorry for the grief he’d caused her.
“Now, I’d not be sayin’ that I’ve changed me mind. I still love ya very much, and I want to be yar husband. But I’d not be at ease if I left things to chance. Me brother might believe in the luck of the Irish, but I’m not so easily sold. Seems to me the family suffered much at the hands of that same luck.”
“Papa says there is no such thing as luck. He believes in Divine Providence. He says that God has everything figured out and that luck has nothing to do with it.”
“He does, now, does he?” Kiernan half questioned, half replied. “Well, then, I’d suppose a good, long talk with yar da would do us both some good.”
When Victoria made no further comment, Kiernan tipped his cap and headed back in the direction of his small cabin. He had a great deal to contemplate, not the least of which was Carolina’s sound advice. He loved Victoria. There could be no doubting that. He found her a lively companion and an amiable friend. He also admired her loyalty. She might not agree with her mother and father, but she was fiercely loyal to them both. She had a strong sense of family and of what that family meant. And why not? Kiernan reasoned. She’d lost both her mother and father when she was a young child. To accept Carolina and James Baldwin as her parents, Kiernan sensed that she had looked her grief in the eye and dealt with the fact that bitterness and anger wouldn’t change a thing. But love could. Love could bring her peace and contentment. Kiernan knew it certainly had brought him something to hold on to.
In Ireland, he had known the love of a close-knit family. A family so loyal and true to one another that no outsider could ever come in and spoil it. Even now Kiernan felt the ties of those bonds tugging at him, urging him to hurry, to bring his family to America. An ocean might separate them, but nothing else stood between them. Nothing of consequence.
He wanted to share that kind of life with Victoria. But he knew, without anyone showing him the future, that to take her in a manner that would alienate her from James and Carolina would be to forever curse their union. It might not happen at first, but in the years to come, Kiernan had little doubt that it would be a constant wall to climb. Carolina had given him much to consider, and he would not take it lightly.
As Christmas neared, James regained his strength and made his way back to work on the Kingwood Tunnel. Bitter cold had set in, and where the previous winter had been mild—allowing for high performance from the workers—the winter of 1851-52 would be remembered for its record cold.
Tunneling was never easy, even under the best of circumstances. The simplest tasks became lessons in objectivity. Just when the crew had one plan figured out and in motion, some problem would arise to set the entire thing back and cause everyone to revert to drawing out new plans.
At four thousand one hundred feet, the tunnel was to be the longest in the nation. It would arch at a height of twenty-two feet and be twenty-four feet in width to accommodate a double-track line. In order to organize the beastly project into a workable feat, engineers had taken up the routine process of aligning the tunnel. This required that a survey be made over the top of the hill to be tunneled through. A surveying team, of which James had been a part, laid out a line for the tunnel and then plotted the positions of three shafts. The shaft sites were agreed upon by taking the lowest point on the ridge, equidistant from the ends of the tunnel and the other shafts. The shafts would be excavated by tunnelers to provide a number of things. First, they helped to keep the alignment of the tunnel. The shafts themselves were kept from deviating vertically by use of a plumb line and rule. In other places, nails were set in the roof of the tunnel, and string was stretched between them. These nails were kept centered with the transit, a surveying instrument used for measuring angles, and all of this worked together to keep the tunnel perfectly aligned.
The shafts also kept fresh air circulating, and tunneling at the three separate positions allowed the men to secure the tunnel against cave-ins. It was the preferred method of tunneling, and these men were well versed in their trade.
And so from the first ring of the hammer in the fall of ’49, to the sound of blasting and the smell of black powder that currently filled the air, James had watched this tunnel take shape before his very eyes. He was proud of the work. As proud as if he’d accomplished it single-handedly, and yet he knew that without the hardworking Irish laborers, the tunnel wouldn’t exist.
“Mr. Baldwin.” Red O’Connor lumbered toward James as though he had all the time in the world. His unruly red hair was further accented by an equally unruly red beard, and his green eyes blazed as they ever did, in a mix of hatred and hostility. “If I didn’t know better, I’d be sayin’ that I was seein’ a ghost.”
“Well, I suppose I’ve been called worse,” James countered.
“I suppose we both have,” Red replied, coming to stand directly in front of James. They stood in silence for several moments, white puffs of steam billowing out around them with each breath they took.
“It’s definitely cold enough,” James replied.
“Aye. Makes tunneling hard.”
“What is our status?”
Red shifted from one foot to the other as though trying to keep warm. James noted that he was dressed in a threadbare coat and that his boots had holes in them. He might have offered to help the man, but James knew better. Red was too proud to accept his help. He was the type of man who would rather die of exposure than accept the charity of another.
“There’s ice in the shafts and on the cables. Makes workin’ the winches impossible, and without them we can’t take out the rock or have proper air down below.”
James nodded. Not long ago, Ben Latrobe had replaced the slower horse-operated winches with steam-powered machines. This allowed for rapid excavation of the sandstone, shale, and limestone, and also doubled as a power source for ventilation fans in the tunnels.
“And there’s precious little water,” Red continued. “Ya got to have water to have steam, and without it ya cannot run a steam-powered winch.”
“No, I suppose you can’t,” James answered. “Why don’t we go inside and discuss what needs to be done.”
Red followed him into the shack, where two of the supervisors were hugging a woodstove. James nodded to the men and greeted them.
“Glad to have you back, Baldwin,” the older of the two men said. “We’ve got a world of trouble with this cold.”
“So I was just discussing with Mr. O’Connor,” James admitted. “I suggest we sit down and combine our knowledge and see what is to be done.”
“Water is a problem. There’s very little of it, and what little there is happens to be frozen,” the supervisor told James.
“Can we haul some in?” James questioned. “I know several families, my own included, whose wells are still holding at a good level.”
“I hardly think it would do us much good,” the younger supervisor replied. “After all, it’s gonna freeze before you could get it from town to the tunnel.”
“Yes, but we could set up caldrons and keep good fires going. It might take laborers off the tunnel, but it would be worth it if you could keep at least a portion of the work continuing.”
“It might be worth a try, lads,” Red said, surprising James with his congeniality.
“The birds can’t take the cold,” the older man announced. Birds were used with the mining efforts to alert the tunnelers to poison gases. Because the birds were smaller and much more sensitive to the gas, they would die from the slightest exposure. This in turn gave the tunnelers advanced warning of the gas leaks and saved many lives on more than one occasion.
“We can’t tunnel without being sure that we aren’t exposing the workers to certain death,” James said.
Red laughed at this. “Mining has always carried a brand of certain death. Ya’d not understand the deathtraps of such a job, havin’ never found yarself in such a position.”
James eyed him sternly. “Neither have I ever performed as a surgeon, Mr. O’Connor, but I can appreciate the complications of such duties, just as I can appreciate the dangers associated with mining.” He turned to the other two men. “Is there nothing else that would work instead of the birds?”
“Might be we could just work the men in two-hour shifts,” the older man replied. “It’s cold enough, so I doubt any of ’em could stand up to much more anyway.”
“I’d hate to risk their lives,” James said, thoughtfully considering the problem. “Perhaps we could have an early holiday and delay work on the tunnel for a few days and see if the weather improves.
After all, given that Christmas is next week, it might do a great deal for the morale and health of these men.”
“Morale and health is all well and fine,” Red countered, “but a man can enjoy neither one without the funds to do so. If ya lay off work on this tunnel, the men won’t have two pennies to rub together.”
“Then we’ll have to continue paying them,” James answered evenly. “I don’t propose to starve people at Christmastime; neither do I propose to see men die from exposure to cold or gas. The way I see it, we have no choice. The weather is against us, leastwise the temperature is, and we can’t very well work the tunnel if we don’t have the proper machinery to work it with. Let’s give it a day or two and meet here again to see what our choices are.”
“If this is on your authority,” the older man replied, “then I’ll adhere to it. I just want assurance that I’ll not be made to suffer the consequences for the tunnel progress slowing.”
“It’s under my authority,” James replied. “Now, I suggest we all head for home. Red, you tell your men to close up shop for a spell. If they need anything, they can come see me.”
Red nodded. “And if the cold stays with us?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” James answered honestly.
But the cold held on, and days passed on top of each other, as record temperatures were recorded. Greigsville reported ten below zero, while to the north, Morgantown noted a temperature of eight degrees lower still. It wasn’t a contest anyone wanted to win.
James felt a growing despair at seeing the tunnel stand idle. They were too close to completion to fall back now. Daily he faced the cold and rode the distance to the tunnel in order to contemplate what might next be accomplished. Kiernan generally accompanied him, as he had on this day, but usually very little was said between the two men. The cold made it impossible to converse for long. The icy air had a way of penetrating their bodies and stinging their throats and lungs. It was easily concluded that conversation could wait until they were in a warmer, more sheltered place.