| General Fiction posted January 26, 2025 | Chapters: |
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A train ride is sometimes more than a ride
A chapter in the book Ben Paul Persons
Ben Paul Persons, ch. 22
by Wayne Fowler
In the last part Ben Paul and Sylvia met Ben Paul’s sister and toured northern California. Headed for Alaska, they ministered to a couple in the Seattle airport.
Chapter 22
“I feel like I’m in the Old West, only they have cars and concrete,” Sylvia said, soon after leaving the Juneau airport. They had their taxi deliver them to the visitor center where they got a state map.
“Would you just look at this map?” Sylvia asked in amazement. “I’ll bet bureaucrats in Washington D.C. decided that Juneau should be Alaska’s capital. Look; it’s an island. You can’t get here by road, not from the lower 48, or even from the main body of its own state. Anchorage isn’t in the middle of the state, like Fairbanks is, but my goodness!”
“I agree entirely,” Ben Paul said. “But at least the D.C. people knew enough to follow up on Seward’s Folly. Alaska was as good a deal as the Louisiana Purchase. According to this, it’s paid for itself multiple times over in gold, timber, fish, fur, and now maybe oil.”
“And imagine if Russia still owned it,” Sylvia added.
After getting ferry boat schedules to Skagway, Ben Paul lost interest in Alaskan history. “Let’s go to the docks.”
“It’s changed too much,” Ben Paul said as if he’d been there before. He had – not as a person, but in Beth’s womb.
“There was a wooded dock here. This whole area was wood, not concrete. And there were saloons and such up close, probably over there.” Ben Paul pointed to a few acres where there was a fenced dockyard area where pallets of material were staged.
“Sailing ships docked here… somewhere. My father and another man stood guard at this end of the dock while a hundred or so men met onboard the ship to discuss a militia for the territory of Alaska. But Alaska wasn’t a legal territory for thirty more years. Seward got the government to buy Alaska in ’67. My father got here in 1890. After they discovered gold. Soapy Smith, William Smith, came up from Creede with his lucky bar of soap scheme and his crooked games of chance, and formed his gang. The locals, even though many of them came up here to avoid the law, actually wanted to start over, turn the page on their past. But their sensitivity to hiring a decent sheriff, who might look into their pasts made them consider other methods of protection against Soapy’s mob. The marshal they had at the time was corrupt, him and all his deputies.”
“So, vigilantes?” Sylvia asked.
“Close. But like the folks in San Francisco, they didn’t want a legal mob, either. They were on the boat discussing a Committee of Vigilance, just like San Francisco. They were on the ship because anywhere on land Soapy’s gang could surround, maybe burn them out, kill every one of them. That’s when Soapy and his gang challenged the dock.”
“And directly faced your father.”
“Shot him, probably in the liver, just like Alexander Hamilton.”
“And the great Ben Persons killed the Bad Man of Alaska.”
“Somewhere near here. Maybe right here,” Ben Paul said.
“When’s the next ferry to Skagway?” Sylvia asked.
“Tomorrow. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Salmon?”
“Or halibut.”
“Or both and we share?”
“I love you.”
“I love you!”
+++
“How many times have I thought this is the most beautiful place on earth?” Sylvia asked speaking of the various places they’d been as their ferry traversed the inside passage, waterfall after waterfall on either side of the ferry, snow-capped peaks just beside the sometimes very narrow channel.
The ferry ride was an all-day affair. By the time they’d arrived at Skagway, both were exhausted.
“Let’s just get a room, and then something to eat. Neither one of us had anything on the ferry,” Sylvia suggested.
“It didn’t look too appetizing, did it?”
After a glance around once they’d disembarked, Ben Paul agreed with Sylvia. “You’re right. As much as I want to see, to feel… I’m just not up to it. Where do you want to stay?”
“The first one on the right,” she said, soliciting a grin. The first thing on the right, was a much-overused, favorite phrase of Ben Paul’s when responding to Sylvia’s question about what he would like for lunch or supper when they were at home.
“The first hotel on the right looked decent enough, the Golden North Hotel. And it had a vacancy. The hotel also had a decent menu. They were both asleep before dark.
+++
“Let’s see if we can get tickets on the train, the White Pass and Yukon.” Sylvia handed Ben Paul the brochure she’d picked up in the hotel lobby.
“It says Jack London hiked that trail,” Ben Paul said.
“When he wrote The Call of the Wild.”
Ben Paul didn’t tell her about his connection to Jack London, the man who lived in Glen Ellen, a short distance from Santa Rosa. He would save that conversation for another day.
“Skagway was once the largest city in Alaska,” Ben Paul said. “About the time my father was here.”
“Imagine having to haul 2,000 pounds of tools and food up this route,” Sylvia said. “That’s what the Canadian government required of each miner. They said it was to prevent miners from starving to death, But I bet it was to keep miners from murdering one another for their food.”
“You’re probably right,” Ben Paul agreed. “Are you seeing anything odd?”
Sylvia noticed Ben Paul’s gazing about the car as the train chugged up a long grade. “You mean that fancy-dressed dude of a cowboy and the young lady who could be half his age? Or, are the old couple behind us asleep this entire sightseeing trip?” She looked around. “Or Mr. Happy in front who looks like he just filched and ate his neighbor’s watermelon right in front of the sleeping guard dog.”
Ben Paul couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s probably nothing. You want to try to get to the rear platform, watch from outside?”
“We can?”
“We can try. It’s only two cars back.”
Sylvia was game.
Once outside, they decided that it was too crowded to enjoy. As they began returning to their seats, they noticed a man between the cars who appeared to be hiding, obscuring his face. It was the one who drew Ben Paul’s attention, causing him to ask Sylvia his question.
“I’m going to walk a few cars forward. Want to join me?”
“No, thank you. I’m a bit wobbly walking with the train as jittery as it is. But be careful. No falling.”
Ben Paul eased past Mr. Happy, who was alternating from looking out the left window and then to the right.
Obviously troubled, Ben Paul finally returned to his place beside Sylvia, who took his hand and smiled. “You can’t turn it off, can you?”
“Not sure I’m supposed to,” he replied. “Are you still imagining the miners’ lives?”
“Been thinking about Slim and how hard a life he and thousands of those like him have had.”
After a brief moment of thought, Ben Paul replied. “He has been blessed.”
“By the hand of God… through the Persons family.”
Ben Paul squeezed Sylvia’s hand.
+++
A sheriff’s deputy met Ben Paul and Sylvia just as they left their hotel room, heading out to begin their day. After introducing himself, he asked if they could spare a few minutes.
“Shall we return to the room, or would you prefer the lobby?” Ben Paul asked.
“Well sir, it depends on your answer to a single question. I understand you two were on the White Pass and Yukon train yesterday.”
That wasn’t a question, so the two both waited for it.
“Did you see anything noteworthy?”
Sylvia thought about his question in the most literal sense since the deputy had a small notebook in his hand.
Ben Paul withdrew the door key from his pocket and opened the door, gesturing Sylvia and the deputy inside. He offered Sylvia the more comfortable chair. “To directly answer your question, and yes, we were on that train. I did see something that disturbed me.”
Not playing word games, or making the man squeeze information from him, Ben Paul continued. “I saw a woman walk very quickly through our car. I’d been looking at the scenery out the window, so I more felt than saw. I’m certain that I did not see her face, but she had dark, maybe black, hair. She was wearing jeans, denim probably, and a… some shade of light red jacket. Not a coat, but a jacket.
“The odd part came a few minutes later after the woman had exited our car going toward the rear. A man, a man with a square jaw, exaggerated so by its flexing as if he was grinding his teeth. He virtually ran through the car after nearly bowling over Mr. Happy.”
“Mr. Happy?” the deputy asked, raising a chuckle for Sylvia.
The deputy looked to Sylvia expecting her to explain. Which she did. “We were people-watching a little bit, I confess. Mr. Happy was a heavy, very delightful person thoroughly enjoying the train ride.”
The deputy nodded and looked back to Ben Paul. “Anything else? Can you describe the running man?”
“Yes, some. He was wearing slacks, gray cotton, I would guess. Not really appropriate for Alaska. He had a heavy, brown corduroy coat, a heavy jacket, maybe you’d call it. He had a dark blue stocking cap. My Arkansas kin might call it a toboggan.”
Sylvia giggled.
“But the oddness came as Sylvia and I returned from visiting the platform at the end of the train. I saw this same man. He seemed to be trying to hide between cars. He had his head turned into the corner. But what bothered me were the blood drops on his shoes… brown wingtips. I have a pair just like them. I doubt he’ll easily clean the blood from the holes.”
The deputy had been writing furiously in his small pad, turning a page to finish. He then asked Ben Paul’s and Sylvia’s names. “Would you mind coming into the office this morning and giving us a complete statement?”
Ben Paul’s questioning eyes brought the answer to his unasked question.
“The woman you saw was probably the one we received a courtesy check call about. Her family was expecting a call the minute she got to town. They never heard from her. They described a man who could be your man as bad news, ‘bad news boyfriend’, they said.”
“We certainly will, Deputy. Right after breakfast?”
“That would be fine. Thank you.”
After the deputy left, Sylvia said to Ben Paul. “Looks like you were right not to turn it off yesterday. But just so you don’t beat yourself up, you could not have saved that woman. She was probably dead and thrown off the train long before we headed that way.”
Ben Paul nodded.
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