The Trainmasters (28 page)

“I don’t think so, Durl,” John Carlysle said. “After we come back, I—”

But before he could finish his thought, Francis Stockton called out in surprise and alarm. He had been ranging around the
room, poking into whatever pricked his curiosity. “Hey Durl,” he cried, “come on over here and take a look. You’ve been invaded.”

“Well, shi-it!” Durl yelled. Then he started moving. “What the fuck is this?” He was moving fast now. And his light was shining
on the space on the other side of one of the barrels. John followed him, and a moment later he, too, could make out what had
caught Francis’s attention: Two booted legs protruded just enough into the aisle to be visible. The boots were wet and covered
with mud and slime, and so were the trousers above them.

Durl and Francis moved around the barrel so they could see the man face to face; John followed close behind them. And then
John moved in front of the other two so he could get a clear view of the man who owned the boots.

What he saw made his breath choke in his throat. The man was injured—perhaps close to death. He was only half-clothed. And
what he was wearing was torn and ragged. His flesh was torn and ravaged and abraded. He looked unconscious, but he was breathing.
John bent over and checked his pulse. It was steady. There may have been whiskey on the man’s breath, too. But John knew that
this man’s troubles hadn’t been caused by whiskey.

And then there was a yell from Francis Stockton. “There’s another one over here.”

“Alive?” John called back.

“Barely.”

At that moment, the one John was bending over opened his eyes. “Ferdy?” he whispered.

“Ferdy?” John repeated. “Is that your name, boy? Ferdy?”

The man’s eyes grew wider, frightened, desperate. “Ferdy? Ferdy? Are you all right? Where are you?” Then he looked at John’s
face and shuddered violently.

“I’m not Ferdy,” John said gently. “But I think Ferdy is all right. I’m John Carlysle.”

The man closed his eyes and opened them again. Then he tried—unsuccessfully—to lift his hand to his face. But his hand wasn’t
ready to obey him right then.

“Get some water,” John said to Durl. Then he asked the ravaged man, “What’s your name? Can you tell me that?”

The man looked away a moment. Then returned his gaze to John’s face. “You’re an English bastard, aren’t you?”

“I’m English.”

“Well, then, I’m Irish scum to you, you English bastard.” He paused. And then when he resumed, his voice was stronger. But
Irish scum that I may be, you English prick, I crawled out of the tunnel and down through the fucking caves, and I’m still
fucking alive, by God. And I’d like to see any fucking limey do that!”

“Christ Jesus!” Francis Stockton said. “Is this man serious?” But of course he knew he was. There was no other explanation
for his appearance and the appearance of his companion.

John just looked at him, not knowing what to make of the man’s half-crazed words, not knowing what to say, and especially
not wanting to set the man off. “Can you tell me your name then?” he asked finally, in a voice as calm and warm as he could
manage.

“I’m O’Rahilly,” he said. “Egan O’Rahilly.”

Nine

It was an impressive funeral even for Philadelphia, on this gray, damp Wednesday morning. The city was full of people of substance,
and it, therefore, hosted many elaborate funerals. Scarcely a day passed without a long funeral processing wending westward
along Market Street, across the bridge over the Schuylkill River, and out to the cemetery in West Philadelphia.

But the funeral for Ben Kean was especially notable. Twenty-eight carriages rode behind the funeral hearse. And a hundred
and thirty-seven mourners walked. The Keans were a large clan. In addition to Ben’s father, George, and his mother, Melanie,
there were two brothers, Matthew and Henry, two sisters, Deborah and Aliene, and a large assortment of aunts, uncles, cousins,
and grandparents. And that was just the immediate family. More than a few of George Kean’s teamster friends came to mourn,
in addition to numerous other close acquaintances of George’s from various trades and professions. Among these, for instance,
was the lawyer Andrew Gibbon and his two spinster daughters; the family physician,

Fleming, and his wife, Dolly.

The deceased had had friends, too, and these—all fourteen of them—trailed behind at the end of the procession feeling somewhat
self-conscious, for they knew that this funeral was more of a tribute to the father of the deceased rather than to the deceased
himself.

In addition to family, friends, and colleagues, there were journalists who were not as interested in the deceased as they
were in fresh tales and gossip of the living about the living. There were also curious rumors about the actual manner in which
the deceased had made his exit from the veil of tears in which, up until two nights before, he had dwelled. But the family
and friends, clearly at the direction of George Kean himself, said little about that. Everyone uttered the simple statement:
“Ben has met with a dreadful accident.” That, of course, was no information at all. It was as good as saying he died of heart
failure. The truth—as every journalist is well aware—is that we all ultimately die of heart failure. And for most of us, death
comes as a dreadful accident.

However, the journalists knew that Ben Kean, unlike his father, was not well loved. It was, in fact, hard to find anyone—aside
from his father, his brother Matthew, and his fourteen reluctantly attending friends—who had cared for him at all. That was
a fact from which journalists could make interesting copy: “The young, black-sheep of a prominent family dies under mysterious
circumstances.” It was much more intriguing than, for instance, “The young saintly daughter of an impoverished family, having
devoted her short life to unremitting prayer, has died after a long, wasting, painful illness.”

Unhappily, as far as the journalists were concerned, their instincts about Ben’s mysterious death were perfectly sound, but
their efforts to produce hard facts proved fruitless. Nobody at the funeral who knew the truth was talking, and the one person
in Philadelphia who would have talked, had she been asked, was not called upon. That was Bridget O’Dona-hue, Kitty Lancaster’s
maid.

It was Bridget, of course, who eventually let the truth out—first to her friends, then to the tradespeople she dealt with.
And these people passed it on to others, until, in time, the story was in circulation throughout Philadelphia. But by the
time the actual cause of Ben Kean’s death became generally known, the story was no longer news. And journalists were chasing
other, more immediately pressing rumors, gossip, and scandal.

George Kean had much greater success than the journalists in chasing down the same story, or at least the aspects of it that
interested him. But he had access to better informants than did the journalists. His son Matthew had been an eyewitness to
much of what had happened. And his family physician, Fleming, had also been involved. And the lawyer Gibbon had access to
the sort of people who could root out that information which Matthew and Fleming could not have known. And George himself,
of course, knew still others who could tell him anything else.

The result was that by the morning of the funeral, George Kean had many answers to the questions that had plagued him early
the previous morning when he had first learned about Ben’s death. He had immediately discovered a great deal about Graham
Carlysle and Teresa Derbyville, as well as about Teresa’s relationship to Ben. George had not known about Teresa until after
his son’s death.

He found out who the Carlysles were, where they dwelled, where they came from, and about John’s connection with the Pennsylvania
Railroad. He found out that Graham was a much better than average poker player and that he spent a great deal of time at McMullen’s
Saloon. And he found out that Graham could not have known Teresa for more than a few days. And he found out all he needed
to know about Teresa Derbyville… that is to say, Teresa O’Rahilly, and about the other men in her life besides Ben.

He was confused by one aspect of the story: the connection between the Carlysles and Kitty Lancaster. But that connection
did not leave him baffled; rather, it sparked his curiosity. He wanted very much to learn about that, because there was a
growing association in his mind between the Pennsylvania Railroad, which he despised, and the death of his son Ben, which
he was determined to avenge.

Kean did not want to involve the state and its justice system as Dr. Fleming had advised because he felt that official authorities
could never repay him for his loss. Kean did not give a damn about the state’s justice system. He personally wanted to make
certain that Ben’s killers paid for what they did. He also realized that by ordinary standards, his son had brought his death
upon himself. And ordinary justice would let the killers go free. But George Kean could never allow that. Graham Carlysle
and Teresa O’Rahilly must be made to pay-George was fascinated to learn on Tuesday that Carlysle and O’Rahilly had fled Philadelphia
for an unknown destination. That simply confirmed for him that they knew what he knew. It proved the correctness of the course
of action he must inevitably follow.

The funeral procession wound through the cemetery and finally reached its destination. And Ben Kean, after the usual words
were pronounced over him, was consigned to the dust from which he and every other man had originated. Afterward, George and
Matthew and a few of George’s most trusted teamster friends retired to a private dining room in the Fairhope Hotel. And there
they embarked on preliminary discussions about sabotaging the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Another subject they discussed was the debt that Graham Carlysle and Teresa O’Rahilly had contracted with George Kean and
the manner in which it was to be repaid.

But George, to everyone’s surprise, was not anxious to take immediate action on that matter. He was patient. He wanted to
wait and let interest and dividends build up.

The train that left Philadelphia at nine o’clock on Tuesday morning was scheduled to reach Tyrone at eleven the same evening.
But it did not arrive in that town until sometime after ten Wednesday morning.

The train was delayed because the hard rains of the previous day had washed away a partly finished cut some forty miles east
of Tyrone, and so there was a wait of several hours until it was repaired. And then there was another wait for over two hours
while the westbound train was shunted onto a siding. This was to allow the passage of an eastbound train. After the westbound
train had stood on the siding for over two hours, the passengers in it finally saw the cause of their delay: a locomotive
and tender and a single car, the private car of Mr. Edgar Thomson, raced by them at full throttle toward Philadelphia. Thomson
was doing his best to reach the city in time to attend the board of directors meeting scheduled for that afternoon.

One of the passengers on the westbound train was Tom Collins. He was the least disturbed by the long delay. In fact, the delay
turned out to be an opportunity for him. When the train departed from Philadelphia, he found himself in the same car with
a fascinating group of fellow travelers. There were three women, two of whom were surpassing beauties, a young man who was
recovering from a gunshot wound, two young boys, and a very young girl.