A SLIP ON A SPECIAL
Glover's train pulled into Medicine Bend, in the rain, at half-past two
o'clock. The face in the Lalla Rookh had put an end to thoughts of
sleep, and he walked up to his office in the Wickiup to work until
morning on his report. He lighted a lamp, opened his desk with a clang
that echoed to the last dark corner of the zigzag hall, and, spreading
out his papers, resumed the figuring he had begun at Wind River
station. But the combinations which at eleven o'clock had gone fast
refused now to work. The Lalla Rookh curtains intruded continually
into his problems and his calculations dissolved helplessly into an
idle stare at a jumble of figures.
He got up at last, restless, walked through the trainmaster's room,
into the despatcher's office, and stumbled on the tragedy of the night.
It came about through an ambition in itself honorable--the ambition of
Bud Cawkins to become a train-despatcher.
Bud began railroading on the Wind River. In three months he was made
an agent, in six months he had become an expert in station work, an
operator after a despatcher's own heart, and the life of the line; then
he began looking for trouble. His quest resulted first in the
conviction that the main line business was not handled nearly as well
as it ought to be. Had Bud confided this to an agent of experience
there would have been no difficulty. He would have been told that
every agent on every branch in the world, sooner or later, has the same
conviction; that he need only to let it alone, eat sparingly of brain
food, and the clot would be sure to pass unnoticed.
Unfortunately, Bud concealed his conviction, and asked Morris Blood to
give him a chance at the Wickiup. The first time, Morris Blood only
growled; the second time he looked at the handsome boy disapprovingly.
"Want to be a despatcher, do you? What's the matter with you? Been
reading railroad stories? I'll fire any man on my division that reads
railroad stories. Don't be a chump. You're in line now for the best
station on the division."
But compliments only fanned Bud's flame, and Morris Blood, after
reasonable effort to save the boy's life, turned him over to Martin
Duffy.
Now, of all severe men on the West End, Duffy is most biting. His
smile is sickly, his hair dry, and his laugh soft.
"Despatcher, eh? Ha, ha, ha; I see, Bud. Coming down to show us how
to do business. Oh, no. I understand; that is all right. It is what
brought me here, Bud, when I was about your age and good for something.
Well, it is a snap. There is nothing in the railroad life equal to a
despatcher's trick. If you should make a mistake and get two trains
together they will only fire you. If you happen to kill a few people
they _can't_ make anything more than manslaughter out of it--I know
that because I've seen them try to hang a despatcher for a passenger
wreck--they can't do it, Bud, don't ever believe it. In this state ten
years is the extreme limit for manslaughter, and the only complication
is that if your train should happen to burn up they might soak you an
extra ten years for arson; but a despatcher is usually handy around a
penitentiary and can get light work in the office, so that he's thrown
more with wife poisoners and embezzlers than with cutthroats and
hold-up men. Then, too, you can earn nearly as much in State's prison
as you can at your trick. A despatcher's salary is high, you
know--seventy-five, eighty, and even a hundred dollars a month.
"Of course, there's an unpleasant side of it. I don't want to seem to
draw it too rosy. I imagine you've heard Blackburn's story, haven't
you--the lap-order at Rosebud? I helped carry Blackburn out of that
room"--Duffy pointed very coldly toward Morris Blood's door--"the
morning we put him in his coffin. But, hang it, Bud, a death like that
is better than going to the insane asylum, isn't it, eh? A short trick
and a merry one, my boy, for a despatcher, say I; no insane asylum for
me."
It calmed Budwiser, as the boys began to call him, for a time only. He
renewed his application and was at length relieved of his comfortable
station and ordered into the Wickiup as despatcher's assistant.
For a time every dream was realized--the work was put on him by
degrees, things ran smoothly, and his despatcher, Garry O'Neill, soon
reported him all right. A month later Bud was notified that a
despatcher's trick would shortly be assigned to him, and to the boys
from the branch who asked after him he sent word that in a few days he
would be showing them how to do business on the main line.
The chance came even sooner. O'Neill went hunting the following day,
overslept, came down without supper and could not get a quiet minute
till long after midnight. Heavy stock trains crowded down over the
short line. The main line, in addition to the regular traffic, had
been pounded all night with government stores and ammunition,
westbound. From the coast a passenger special, looked for in the
afternoon, had just come into the division at Bear Dance. Garry laid
out his sheet with the precision of a campaigner, provided for
everything, and at three o'clock he gave Bud a transfer and ran down to
get a cup of coffee. Bud sat into the chair for the first time with
the responsibility of a full-fledged despatcher.
For five minutes no business confronted him, then from the extreme end
of his territory Cambridge station called for orders for an extra, fast
freight, west, Engine 81, and Bud wrote his first train order. He
ordered Extra 81 to meet Number 50, a local and accommodation, at
Sumter, and signed Morris Blood's initials with a flourish. When the
trains had gone he looked over his sheet calmly until he noticed, with
fainting horror, that he had forgotten Special 833, east, making a very
fast run and headed for Cambridge, with no orders about Extra 81.
Special 833 was the passenger train from the coast.
The sheet swam and the yellow lamp at his elbow turned green and black.
The door of the operator's room opened with a bang. Bud, trembling,
hoped it might be O'Neill, and staggered to the archway. It was only
Glover, but Glover saw the boy's face. "What's the matter?"
Bud looked back into the room he was leaving. Glover stepped through
the railing gate and caught the boy by the shoulder. "What's the
matter, my lad?"
He shook and questioned, but from the dazed operator he could get only
one word, "O'Neill," and stepping to the hall door Glover called out
"O'Neill!"
It has been said that Glover's voice would carry in a mountain storm
from side to side of the Medicine Bend yard. That night the very last
rafter in the Wickiup gables rang with his cry. He called only once,
for O'Neill came bounding up the long stairs three steps at a time.
"Look to your train sheet, Garry," said Glover, peremptorily. "This
boy is scared to death. There's trouble somewhere."
He supported the operator to a chair, and O'Neill ran to the inner
room. The moment his eye covered the order book he saw what had
happened. "Extra 81 is against a passenger special," exclaimed
O'Neill, huskily, seizing the key. "There's the order--Extra 81 from
Cambridge to meet Number 50 at Sumter and Special 833 has orders to
Cambridge, and nothing against Extra 81. If I can't catch the freight
at Red Desert we're in for it--wake up Morris Blood, quick, he's in
there asleep."
Blood, working late in his office, had rolled himself in a blanket on
the lounge in Callahan's old room, and unfortunately Morris Blood was
the soundest sleeper on the division. Glover called him, shook him,
caught him by the arm, lifted him to a sitting position, talked
hurriedly to him--he knew what resource and power lay under the thick
curling hair if he could only rouse the tired man from his dreamless
sleep. Even Blood's own efforts to rouse himself were almost at once
apparent. His eyes opened, glared helplessly, sank back and closed in
stupor. Glover grew desperate, and lifting Morris to his feet, dragged
him half way across the dark room.
O'Neill, rattling the key, was looking on from the table like a
drowning man. "Leave your key and steady him here against the
door-jamb, Garry," cried Glover; "by the Eternal, I'll wake him." He
sprang to the big water-cooler, cast away the top, seized the tank like
a bucket, and dashed a full stream of ice-water into Morris Blood's
face.
"Great God, what's the matter? Who is this? Glover? What? Give me a
towel, somebody."
The spell was broken. Glover explained, O'Neill ran back to the key,
and Blood in another moment bent dripping over the nervous despatcher.
The superintendent's mind working faster now than the magic current
before him, listened, cast up, recollected, considered, decided for and
against every chance. At that moment Red Desert answered. No breath
interrupted the faint clicks that reported on Extra 81. O'Neill looked
up in agony as the sounder spelled the words: "Extra 81 went by at
3.05." The superintendent and the despatcher looked at the clock; it
read 3.09.
O'Neill clutched the order book, but Glover looked at Morris Blood.
With the water trickling from his hair down his wrinkled face, beading
his mustache, and dripping from his chin he stood, haggard with sleep,
leaning over O'Neill's shoulder. A towel stuffed into his left hand
was clasped forgotten at his waist. From the east room, operators,
their instruments silenced, were tiptoeing into the archway. Above the
little group at the table the clock ticked. O'Neill, in a frenzy, half
rose out of his chair, but Morris Blood, putting his hand on the
despatcher's shoulder, forced him back.
"They're gone," cried the frantic man; "let me out of here."
"No, Garry."
"They're gone."
"Not yet, Garry. Try Fort Rucker for the Special."
"There's no night man at Fort Rucker."
"But Burling, the day man, sleeps upstairs----"
"He goes up to Bear Dance to lodge."
"This isn't lodge night," said Blood.
"For God's sake, how can you get him upstairs, anyway?" trembled
O'Neill.
"On cold nights he sleeps downstairs by the ticket-office stove. I
spent a night with him once and slept on his cot. If he is in the
ticket-office you may be able to wake him--he may be awake. The
Special can't pass there for ten minutes yet. Don't stare at me. Call
Rucker, hard."
O'Neill seized the key and tried to sound the Rucker call. Again and
again he attempted it and sent wild. The man that could hold a hundred
trains in his head without a slip for eight hours at a stretch sat
distracted.
"Let me help you, Garry," suggested Blood, in an undertone. The
despatcher turned shaking from his chair and his superintendent slipped
behind him into it. His crippled right hand glided instantly over the
key, and the Rucker call, even, sharp, and compelling, followed by the
quick, clear nineteen--the call that gags and binds the whole
division--the despatchers' call--clicked from his fingers.
Persistently, and with unfailing patience, the men hovering at his
back, Blood drummed at the key for the slender chance that remained of
stopping the passenger train. The trial became one of endurance. Like
an incantation, the call rang through the silence of the room until it
wracked the listeners, but the man at the key, quietly wiping his face
and head, and with the towel in his left hand mopping out his collar,
never faltered, never broke, minute after minute, until after a score
of fruitless waits an answer broke his sending with the "I, I, Ru!"
As the reply flew from his fingers Morris Blood's eyes darted to the
clock; it was 3.17. "Stop Special 833, east, quick."
"You've got them?" asked Glover, from the counter.
"If they're not by," muttered Blood.
"Red light out," reported Rucker; then three dreadful minutes and it
came, "Special 833 taking water; O'Brien wants orders."
And the order went, "Siding, quick, and meet Extra 81, west, at
Rucker," and the superintendent rose from the chair.
"It's all over, boys," said he, turning to the operators. "Remember,
no man ever got to a railroad presidency by talking; but many men have
by keeping their mouths shut. Lay Cawkins on the lounge in my room.
Duffy said that boy would never do."
"What was Burling doing, Morris," asked Glover, sitting down by the
stove.
"Ask him, Garry," suggested Blood. They waited for the answer.
"Were you asleep on your cot?" asked the despatcher, getting Rucker
again.
"If that fellow woke on my call, I'll make a despatcher of him,"
declared Morris Blood, with a thrill of fine pride.
"No," answered Rucker, "I slept upstairs tonight."
The two men at the stove stared at one another. "How did you hear your
call?" asked the despatcher. Again their ears were on edge.
And Rucker answered, "I always come down once in the night to put coal
on the fire."
"Another illusion destroyed," smiled Morris Blood. "Hang him, I'll
promote him, anyway, for attending to his fire."
"But you couldn't do that again in a thousand years, Mr. Blood,"
ventured a young and enthusiastic operator who had helped to lay out
poor Bud Cawkins.
The mountain man looked at him coldly. "I sha'n't want to do that
again in a thousand years. In the railroad life it always comes
different, every time. Go to your key."
"I'm glad we got that particular train out of trouble," he added,
turning to Glover when they were alone.
"What train?"
"That Special 833 is the Brock special. You didn't know it? We've
been looking for them from the coast for two days."