The Trainmasters (44 page)

The story that Francis told justified Thomson’s interest. And John Carlysle’s as well.

After Tom Collins and John Carlysle had surrendered to Egan O’Rahilly, Collins and Tom Henneberry had reunited. Apparently
Collins did not place any great blame on Henneberry for deserting him earlier. The other guards, however, no longer wanted
to have anything to do with either man. Then the pair were given horses, and they rode off toward Tyrone.

Graham Carlysle and Francis Stockton had followed them at a discreet distance. They were careful to stay well out of sight
and earshot; and their care was justified though it hardly proved necessary, for Collins and Henneberry scarcely looked behind
them after they left Gallitzin. They stayed for the night in Tyrone, while their two pursuers camped outside of town. And
early Monday morning they set out along the main road down the Juniata Valley toward the Susquehanna and Harrisburg. They
traveled quickly and purposefully, and Graham and Francis both began to think their journey might end in Philadelphia, but
at the small town of Huntington they turned north and proceeded once more up into the mountains.

About five miles farther they reached a large, sprawling log-and-stone structure. At first the two pursuers, who had stationed
themselves among the trees on the low ridge that overlooked the place, thought it might be an inn, for there were a number
of horses and wagons gathered around it. But it was not an inn; it was too far off the main roads. There were also three or
four men patrolling it. After Graham and Francis had thoroughly scanned the area, they began to realize that this was not
merely a good, solid, sturdy structure; it was for all practical purposes fortified.

“What do you make of all this?” Graham asked at last.

“I think we’ve found what we’ve come looking for,” Francis said.

“But who,” Graham wondered, “would have a place like this?”

“We’ll watch and find out.”

Collins, of course, and Tom Henneberry had long been inside the building by the time Graham and Francis placed themselves
on the ridge. Neither man showed himself outside again for a long time.

“Goddamn the guards,” Graham muttered about halfway through their wait. “I’d like to get closer.”

“You’d like to listen under a window?” Francis asked.

“Yes.”

“It wouldn’t work. That only works for children and suspicious wives.”

“Was it a suspicious wife who taught you that lesson?” Graham said, with a low, soft laugh.

“It was a husband,” Francis said, unsmiling.

It was late afternoon by the time anybody but the guards showed up. More than a dozen men poured out of the house; they had
all evidently been drinking. Collins and Henneberry were among them. But there was someone else that Graham recognized—Matthew
Kean. Francis recognized the older man who stood next to Matthew. It was George Kean, the most prominent of the Philadelphia
teamsters.

“What does this tell you?” Francis whispered to Graham.

“The same thing that it tells you,” Graham said. “Here is the other side of our mystery. These have to be the people who are
hurting the railroad.”

“Have you seen enough then? Should we go now?” Francis then moved on before he received an answer. “I wonder.”

“What do you wonder?”

“Look,” he pointed. Tom Collins and Matthew Kean were saddling horses. “What are they up to?”

“I wonder,” Graham said.

They decided to follow them. But on the way back to Huntington Graham and Francis decided to stop and question them.

Francis and Graham concealed themselves behind a large mass of boulders at a turn in the road. As Collins and Kean negotiated
the turn, Francis and Graham rode out and confronted them. The rest was easy. Neither Collins nor Kean wanted to challenge
a man with a gun pointed at his belly.

In no time both men were unable to move because rope bound their ankles and wrists.

Matthew Kean was relatively silent throughout all this activity. He was no ignoramus; he recognized instantly who had fallen
on him. Graham interested him especially. He understood why Graham was there but kept his mouth shut and abided his indignity
stoically.

But Collins chose the opposite tack. He protested. He complained. He made threats. Then he cursed.

But none of this did him any good. His two antagonists went about their business smoothly and efficiently without paying him
any heed. First they made a fire—a small fire, so as not to attract undue attention. Then Francis inserted a large bowie knife
he carried with him up to its hilt in the glowing coals.

“What’s that for?” Collins asked.

“You,” Francis said, matter of factly.

Matthew Kean just glared balefully.

“Is this something you learned at West Point?” Graham asked.

“Nope,” Francis said. “I learned it from a Cherokee in Texas after the war with Mexico.”

Then, with a rag wrapped around his hand as insulation, Francis withdrew the big knife. “We have a few questions for you,”
he said to Collins, holding the red-hot knife half an inch from his cheek.

And Collins started talking without any more persuasion.

Graham lost the opportunity then to find out what Francis learned from the Cherokee in Texas. In fact, Francis didn’t even
actually have to touch Collins with the knife… It turned out to be a very gentle piece of persuasion. And Collins told all
he knew about the operation against the railroad, from his first meeting with Abraham Gibbon and George Kean to the present
moment.

He and Matthew had been on their way to Philadelphia when Francis and Graham set upon them. They were going to see Gibbon,
to find out what Gibbon’s superior would want them to do now that Collins was no longer part of the picture at Gallitzin.

When Collins finished explaining that, Francis turned his attention toward Matthew, whom he had so far ignored. “Why did you
decide to go with Collins on this trip?” he asked. “His presence or absence doesn’t change what you and your father and the
other teamsters do or don’t do.”

Kean shrugged. He looked as though he was debating whether to tell them anything at all. Then he seemed to relax, apparently
having decided that it didn’t make much difference one way or another. “Do you know Gibbon?”

“No.”

“If you did know him, you’d know why my father wanted someone to be with Collins when they talk. I’d trust Collins in bed
buck naked with my wife sooner than I’d trust him alone with Abraham Gibbon.”

Francis gave Graham a look.

“What do you think, Francis?” Graham asked. “I’ve heard enough.”

“Me, too.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

“Leave ‘em tied?” Graham asked.

“Yeah. They’ll work loose after a while.” Then he thought a second. “But we’ll take their horses. We can let ‘em go later.
They’ll find their way back to wherever they belong.”

But then Matthew Kean spat out some of the venom he’d been holding back during the time they’d all been together.

“Carlysle, before you go listen to this.”

“What do you want, Matthew?”

“Just remember on this. Remember that you caught me not lookin’ this time. But next time it’s gonna be you.”

“I won’t forget.”

“And remember on this. Remember that you killed my brother.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“You’re gonna pay for that. Pay hard and pay dear. With somethin’ so vallible you’ll scream with pain every time you think
on it for the rest of your miserable life. Do you got me?”

“I got you.”

“Let’s gag them,” Francis said.

“Yeah. Let’s,” Graham agreed.

So they gagged them both. Then they mounted their horses, and Graham returned to Gallitzin and Francis went on to Philadelphia
to report to Carlysle.

Before they separated, Graham looked hard at Francis. “You have to tell me something,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s something 1 can’t live without knowing.”

“Fine, fine, what’s it you want to know?”

“What did you learn from that Cherokee in Texas?”

“There wasn’t any Cherokee in Texas…”

“You made that all up?”

“Yep.” Then he laughed. “Now it’s my turn.”

“All right.”

“It sounded to me like that big bastard Matthew Kean is putting together something that might have something to do with Teresa.
What do you think?”

“I think the same thing. That’s why I’m going back to Gallitzin. You can handle my father well enough.”

“Watch yourself,” Francis said. “Be careful.”

“I’ll try.”

“So it’s the Keans and the teamsters,” Edgar Thomson said after Francis concluded his report. He called out to Sam his assistant
to bring some liquid—amended to alcoholic— refreshments to wet Stockton’s and John’s, not to mention Thomson’s own, palates.
“So it’s George Kean himself who’s been doing the physical damage to us. Goddamn him, I should have predicted that. George
has more than enough reason to hate the railroad. It could kill his business.”

“You know Kean?” Carlysle asked. He only knew the name from his son’s encounter with the Kean family.

“I know him pretty well. He’s a hard, rough man—not a bad man,” Thomson was quick to add, “but as fiercely possessive of his
territory as any clan chief. And his wagons are his fief. He’ll fight for them until there’s no more breath left in him. And
then on top of that, he has plenty of reason to hate the Carlysles. Put all of that together, and we have much trouble. And
danger… You better watch out, John. Watch out for your boys. Now that they no longer have reason to keep themselves concealed,
they could go directly after them.”

John closed his eyes, thinking. He kept his eyes closed for a long time. “You’re right,” he said at last. “I can’t leave them
alone. I have to return to Gallitzin immediately.”

“There’s a train in the morning,” Thomson said.

“Right. I’ll go then.”

“But,” Francis said, “are you just going to wait for the blow to fall?”

“What do you mean?”

“Collins and the Keans were not acting on their own. They were paid by someone else.”

“We knew that already.”

“You what? Already? If you already knew that, then why did you go through this huge charade with Tom Collins?”

John laughed. “Don’t worry, Francis, we needed you to do what you did. And we didn’t know any more than you did until a few
pieces fell in place yesterday.” Then he told Francis about the short sales and the meeting with Cornelius Vanderbilt.

“Well I’ll be damned to the hottest hell,” he said when John had finished. “This railroad surely does have a few problems.
And what do you intend to do about it next?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I said, are you going to sit around and wait for the next blow to fall?”

“Give me a plausible alternative,” Thomson said.

“At the military academy they claimed that sound military doctrine is to attack first.”

“Attack who?” John asked reasonably. “We don’t know who is Gibbon’s boss. That’s what Vanderbilt has promised to find out.”

“Have you thought of asking Gibbon?”

“No. Do you think he would tell?” Thomson asked.

“I think I’d like to find that out.”

Thomson looked at John, and John gave a short nod of agreement. Then Thomson returned his gaze to Francis. “Try it,” he said.

The following morning John Carlysle was on the train to Gallitzin.

Toward noon of that same morning, Francis Stockton appeared on Kitty Lancaster’s doorstep. And after an agony of indecision,
Kitty decided to have him admitted.

She received him in her father’s study, even though this room was normally her father’s sanctum sanctorum, used only and solely
by him. But Kitty felt that the room’s masculine atmosphere would better serve her own needs than the parlor, which was softer
and more feminine.

She wanted a man’s strength now. Francis’s coming, she knew, was providential. There was a step she had to take with him,
a boundary that had to be crossed. She hoped the crossing would go easily, but she doubted it. Their relationship had never
been easy.

So, before Bridget led Francis into the room, she placed herself in her father’s leather chair, his massive desk acting as
a barrier between her and Francis.

“G’morning, Kitty,” he said when Bridget announced him.

“Hello, Francis,” she said. “Would you like to sit down?” She motioned to the chair she intended him to sit in.

“Happy to,” he said, looking around the room. “You were always a subtle woman,” he said, as he sank into the seat.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Receiving me here, in your father’s study, behind his desk… A sturdy fortification, that desk.”

She gave him a wry look. “You
were
always painfully adept at seeing through my subtleties,” she said.

“It was part of what kept us—”

“Don’t say it, Francis.” She had no intention of letting him even begin to mention what had kept them together. That was part
of the boundary she had to cross.

“Apart,” he said, finishing his thought with what might have been the trace of a wicked gleam in his eye.