The Trainmasters (35 page)

“Yes.”

“He wanted me to speak for the company. He wanted me to support him. To give him the company’s approval. I refused. I told
him that if he dismissed you and the others, he would have to do it on his own authority alone.”

“What’s that do for me?”

“I want him to break the contract.”

“Yes?”

“As long as the men are working, then he does not break the contract. And if the men stop working—if they strike— then he
does
not
break the contract.”

“So if the men work, they live in hell; and he wins. And if they don’t work, they live in hell; and he still wins. If that’s
the way it is, we’ve got a devil’s bargain.”

“I know,” John said sadly, his voice filled with tension. There was clearly a giant struggle going on inside the man. “It’s
a terrible thing isn’t it?”

“I thought you said you have some ideas about fixing it.”

John looked at him. “We need to show that he is the cause of the delays.”

“It’s as clear as the five fingers on my hand.”

“Not as far as the company directors are concerned.”

“So how will you try to prove it?”

“That’s why I asked you earlier to keep me… well…appraised of the way the men are thinking. If some new piece of information
came up from them, something that I don’t already have, something that would conclusively prove…”

“But what’s in it for him? Why would he want to slow things down?”

“Exactly, Egan! Exactly! That’s what I don’t know!”

“You won’t find out that from me informing on the men.”

“I’m not asking you to inform,” he said. “But I need to find out why Collins is doing it. On the face of it, he doesn’t have
a good reason. It’s to his benefit to get the work done. That’s what he’s paid to do.”

“What you want is to spy on Tom Collins,” Egan said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. In fact, the thought
had never occurred to John Carlysle.

“Well then, could
you
do that?” John asked, as the idea dawned on him and began to please him.

“Me?” Egan laughed. “You don’t know the first thing about spying. Me? Why don’t you announce it with trumpets and drums? Jesus!
You might as well try it yourself.”

“But we have to do something with you.”

“I thought you were all set to let Collins dismiss me.”

“Yes. I couldn’t stop that. But then I would take care of you. You’d work for me, of course.”

“You’d do that?”

“Of course.”

“What would I do?”

“I need an assistant. You’d make a superb assistant.”

“And what about the others he’s going to let go?”

“I’ll find places for them.”

“No,” Egan said instantly and forcefully. “I… we… can’t accept that.”

“Goddamn it, Egan O’Rahilly,” John flared, “you are an exasperating man. Can’t you ever act after you’ve reflected on something?”

Egan didn’t say anything, for he was more than a little embarrassed. The man was on the edge of being right. Egan was also
more than a little impressed by him. What he liked was the struggle going on inside him that was clearly visible in his expression
and in his words.

John Carlysle was a man who was not convinced that he had all the answers. Unlike the great majority of bosses Egan had seen,
this man did not smugly believe in his own infallibility. He sifted evidence, he pondered, he was even in anguish sometimes.
He worked to attain his solutions.

But, in spite of his growing admiration for the man, Egan could not accept what John was now proposing. What was going to
happen, Egan knew… what
had
to happen… if Tom Collins dismissed Egan and the other leaders was exactly the thing John Carlysle feared: There would surely
be a strike.

“Don’t say no yet, Egan, to my offer,” John said. “Will you think of it for a time? And then give me an answer?”

“Yes, Mr. Carlysle,” Egan said. “I will do that. But I can tell you this. No matter what I decide, the men aren’t going to
stand much more of Tom Collins.”

“But we’ll talk again, Egan,” John said. He did not want to close off contact with this man. “And soon. Very soon.”

“If you like,” Egan said.

“Very soon,” John repeated vaguely.

Egan gave him a questioning look, but John did not respond. He was deep in thought.

He didn’t like what he had learned from Egan O’Rahilly about the imminence of labor trouble, for he could see that Tom Collins
was instigating a crisis that he himself could do very little to stop.

But a powerful idea was starting to build in his mind, an idea that was forming out of his growing realization that he had
no choice but to accept the inevitability of that crisis. He was beginning to see, however, that if he could not stop the
crisis, then at least he might be able to use it to his future advantage. If he could not prevent Tom Collins from carrying
through his plans, then he might at least be able to discover what—or who—drove Collins to make the plans in the first place.

How would he obtain that information?

Egan O’Rahilly had suggested it: John needed spies.

And who would be his spies?

Faces were beginning to form slowly in his mind. John associated Egan O’Rahilly, his own son Graham, and Francis Stockton
together. As these three faces appeared, excitement started to grow in him.

He took another long drag on his cigar and smiled.

Eleven

Philadelphia

Friday, June 25, 1852

My dear John,

Do please forgive me, for this letter will not be as long as the letters you are used to receiving from me. But I have had
to rush through what I absolutely
must
tell you, at the cost of failing to tell you what would most please me to say. However, I am doing my very best to finish
writing it in time to send to you on the morning train.

As you can guess, I have
news
for you! Much news!

During the past days Father has been more than unusually uncommunicative. He will ever be a quiet, contemplative kind of man,
but now he has become to me very nearly a man who does not speak. And this has shocked me. For previously, even in his most
silent moods, I could extract from him whatever I wanted to know … not
all
the time, of course, John, but usually. I am not infallible. But I am his daughter, and I know him better than anyone else
in the world knows him.

But his silence over the last few days has been so complete, and his face has been so taut with strain, so tortured, so fraught
with hopelessness, that I have gone almost out of my own mind because of it.

What could I do for him, John? I asked myself this question over and over and over. I even pretended to myself now and again
that you were present and that I could go to you with my dilemma.

However, I knew that I had only myself to fall back on. And I knew that 1 alone would be able to plumb the depths of this
thing that was inflicting itself upon him, this thing that had brought on such profound changes in him. And I knew that he
would be no help to me.

And so yesterday evening, after the railway offices were closed and everyone was gone from them, I surreptitiously entered
the building. I waited until the last lights were out and all the doors were locked. I have my own keys, of course, though
everyone there, my father included, is unaware that I possess them. I searched through my father’s desk looking for evidence.

And I found it, John! I found what has caused his anxiety.

There are serious discrepancies in the account books of the railroad! If the books are to be believed, the railroad ought
to have several hundred thousand dollars cash on hand that our bankers claim we do not have.

In my father’s office safe, I found several secret and confidential communications between my father and senior officials
of our banks.

After I read these, I came to the conclusion that my father must have come to: The railroad’s books
have been altered!
.

Those hundreds of thousands of dollars that we should have are now in some unknown person’s hands.

Who? Why?

There’s no answer to that, John.

But there is a consequence. A fearsome consequence: Without that money, the railroad is in desperate trouble!!

And then, on top of all this, I hear from you about the many incidents of unexplained damage to railroad property and equipment.
And I hear also of your own fears about impending labor trouble. I know these things weigh as heavily on my father’s mind
as the money troubles do!

What does all this mean, John? Why are all these things happening at exactly the same time!

It’s as though a malign force has been set against us.

I know that you cannot come to Philadelphia now to help us. You have your own crises to attend to. But I felt that you should
know what I do. Perhaps it will help you in some way.

Do write to me, John, as soon as you receive this.

Fondly,
Kitty

John Carlysle answered Kitty immediately.

Gallitzin

Saturday morning, June 26,1852

My dear Kitty,

I anticipate receiving every word from you with such pleasure and delight that you can imagine my consternation when I read
yesterday’s letter. Your news is truly every bit as disturbing as my recent news must have been to you.

And yet, having said that—and even allowing for both the letter’s urgency and your own concern—it was still a delight for
me to see your words on the table in front of me. Simply because they were your words, set in ink on the paper by your hand.
Seeing them was the next best thing to hearing your actual, living voice.

But enough of this. I could go on like this for many pages.

And we still must consider together our disturbing information.

As for your news, I am truly not astonished to hear it, even though it is unexpected, and I never predicted it. But you have
noticed, just as I have, that there has been an extraordinary cluster of misfortunes which can’t be explained unless we suppose
them to have a single instigator.

As for your father, Kitty, I can well understand how his recent behavior could upset you. And it’s not my place to apologize
or excuse what he has done. But I might be able to help you to understand it.

As you see him, your father is ignoring and rejecting you. As I see him, your father may simply be unable to prevent himself
from betraying those passions to you that he must now show in his dealings with others. It’s because he is certain of your
love and regard for him, and equally certain of your own strength of character and capacity for endurance, that he shows himself
to you in this unaccustomed way.

In other words, Kitty, I’m convinced that your father believes in you, believes that you’ll stand by him now, even if his
own behavior seems questionable, or even impossible.

And, if this is any consolation to you, your father’s communications with me have remained what they have always been: models
of clarity and incisiveness.

For example, we are almost certain to have serious labor trouble here very soon. It could even come within the next few days.
I have, of course, sent your father a number of memoranda detailing the issues and describing the events. I’ve told him as
clearly as I could what is at stake here.

He has responded with calm and alacrity. He has made it clear that he trusts my judgment. But he has made it equally clear
that he is the one who is ultimately responsible, that he is the man in charge.

I could not have hoped for better understanding or for direction that could be firmer or clearer.

In the matter of the labor trouble itself: Mister Tom Collins, the man whom you so admired when you brought my son and the
O’Rahillys to Gallitzin, is on the point of dismissing from his employ a large number of the best of the workingmen. He is
letting go not the men who impede the work. Rather, he is in pursuit of the ones who have become the head and the heart of
the laborers, the ones who give inspiration and direction to the other men. He’s labeling these the mischief makers, and he
blames them for the delays that have beset us recently.