One Man's Calling : One Man's Calling, Ch 34 by Wayne Fowler |
In the last part, Ben caused his nemesis, Diamond Jim, to become exhausted chasing him around Chicago. Ben’s friend, Angelo fired his gun, causing a team of horses to run over and kill Diamond Jim. Ben boarded a train bound for San Francisco. ^^^^^^ “Bo-o-ard!” The conductor waved to the engineer, signaling him to depart, picking up his wooden stepstool for use at the next stop. “Excuse me,” Ben said to the conductor who was passing by his seat. Ben cleared his sleep- congested throat. “Where are we?” “Just left Rawlins,” came the reply. Ben sighed, settling into himself. Beginning at Cheyenne, and again at Laramie, Ben considered delaying his trip to San Francisco in favor of a visit with his very good friends in Colorado mining country. Rawlins would have been the last logical place to venture off the train. The excursion would have cost months – all a diversion from his calling. To this point, the trip had been rest – rest, restoration, and recovery. Recovery from the aches of his beating, restoration from the stresses of the pressures of Chicago, and rest. At Cheyenne, Ben strongly considered switching trains, hopping on to one headed for Denver. Surely God would have use for him in the growing city of Denver. Other trains or stagecoaches could get him to Creede. Or he could buy a horse, though he might have to get a job in order to save enough money to buy a horse and the necessary tack and outfit. He’d never be able to afford a horse as good as his Red that he’d given to William, Livvy’s husband. And the deviation would cost him weeks, or even months. Livvy had been Ben’s first serious relationship of his entire life, outside the one he held most dear, of course. Jesus was the reason he left Livvy. The calling Ben felt to fulfil Jesus’ plan for his life more important than anything. That plan seemingly culminated in his destruction as Ben found a way to end Mason Salinger’s evil existence, bringing an end to a massive opium drug infiltration. God, though, had other plans for Ben, sending him to Chicago in furtherance of the call. That same call pulled Ben toward San Francisco – not a return to Colorado gold and silver country. Very briefly, Ben considered what life in the arms of such a one as Livvy would hold. Ben immediately turned to prayer, asking God what He would have. +++ Getting off his eastbound locomotive in Reno, Engineer Clay Mortenson sought out the yard supervisor. “Hey, Hanson! Is it 1198 I’m getting for the ride back to Oakland?” “Same’s always,” Walter Hansen replied, wishing he could ignore Mortenson who it seemed always had one complaint or another. “Well, it isn’t either, and you know it. But the last time I took 1198 the water governor wasn’t working. Ended up I put in too much water and then barely made it up to Donner Pass.’ Hansen grimaced. “I’ll have someone look at it.” “Don’t send that new kid, he don’t know a water governor from a sand valve.” Hansen acted as if he was making a note and then walked away. “Bes’ be gittin’ over there. Be here in a few minutes,” Hansen said, his voice overpowered by an approaching yard engine that was preparing to position two dozen empty box cars for adding to 1198’s run to Oakland. Clay was supposed to be told the gross weight of his load, but never was. Counting the cars was no value because he wouldn’t know which were filled, and which weren’t. He had to admit, though, that Hansen rarely maxxed him to the limit, knowing the Sierra Nevada run to be all his 4-6-2 could pull. “Hullo, Mort.” The fireman, Joe Keller, was responsible for feeding coal to the firebox. He was the only person to call Clay, Mort. Clay let it go because Joe was so good at his job. “You see the coal they loaded,” Joe asked. “Too brown, this stuff ain’t gonna burn good. Too brown. Too much lignite in it.” “Well. Try to keep it hot,” Clay said unnecessarily as he checked the gauges and tapped the water governor. Finally under way, twenty minutes late waiting for the yard to add the extra box cars, Clay heard Joe muttering to himself, having to work too hard to keep the firebox fed. The water governor, crucial to maintaining the proper steam pressure, seemed to be working, but Clay worried, regardless. Between Reno and Donner Pass, the road climbed 3,000 feet, sometimes more than eighty feet a mile. It was a lot to ask of steam pulling millions of pounds. Straining far too soon to make the grade, Clay choked back the water, building up the steam pressure. Slowing to a crawl just short of the summit, Clay eased further back on the water the tiniest bit. It was the last thing he ever did for the Union Pacific railroad Company. The explosion was heard for miles, though there weren’t but a handful of people scattered over those mountainous miles. Joe was killed instantly. While the boiler blew completely off the frame in one direction, Clay blew off the train in the other. He lay to the side of the tracks broken, red, and blistered, his clothing burned and shredded. Going so slowly, few people were injured by the sudden stop, bruises, mostly. Ben scrambled off as fast as he could and ran the couple hundred feet toward the engine. The damage was catastrophic. It didn’t take Ben long to find Clay. “Mister? Mister? Can you hear me?” Clay was in shock. He should have been dead, or at least unconscious, but lay in a stupor, his melted lips quivering. Ben knew he didn’t have long to live, his skin half melted and falling off his body in hunks. “Mister? Can you hear me? Pray with me, can you? Dear Jesus, I know you love me and want me to be in paradise with you. I’m sorry for all my sins, for every bad thing I’ve ever done. Forgive me, Jesus.” Ben had locked eyes with the engineer, not certain he could even see. But as long as he had breath, Ben was going to keep praying the sinners’ prayer. Clay grunted and nudged Ben. A little louder, encouraged, Ben prayed on, thanking Jesus for saving Clay. While Ben knelt over the body, Clay felt himself lift up from the ruined corpse, directly through the man praying over him. Clay looked about at the wreckage. Wanting to thank the man who was now rejoicing, Clay understood that he knew already. Clay instantly followed a light. Approaching Ben, the conductor, Alonzo, waited for Ben to rise up from lifeless Clay. “Baptist, myself. Glad for Clay. Too bad about poor Joe, though. He was a good man. Lost, but a good man.” Ben glanced at the top half of what used to be the fireman, wondering. “First of seven tunnels up ahead. Then a siding. We’re supposed to take the siding and wait for the eastbound to pass,” Alonzo said. “Uphill has the right-of-way.” Ben not responding, Alonzo continued. “Not a big worry. There’s a switchman who mans the water tower. He isn’t supposed to, but he keeps both switches turned to the siding. The engineer and caboose brakeman both have to get out and throw ‘em back, keep from a head-on. Train from the east won’t be here to hit us for hours. Then, it’s no worry, he’ll be going slow enough to stop. But when we don’t get to Truckee, they’ll probably telegraph Reno and hold ‘er up. Hope. They don’t and the problem will be him stuck on the uphill slope running out of steam.” “So what needs done?” Ben asked. “Someone was to go behind, that flat stretch six, eight miles back. Maybe build a fire on the track.” “He’d have to stay there and keep it lit,” Ben said. “Stopping the eastbound shouldn’t be a problem. He should be on the siding, but someone needs to go that way to get a message out.” Ben thought a moment. “You need to stay with the train and the passengers,” Ben declared. “I’ll run up ahead. Take care of that end. Then I’ll come back and go back east and set that signal fire. I’d like to be the one to do it to make sure we don’t start a forest fire, anyway. ‘Preciate it if you’d have me some food an’ water to take with me.” Alonzo nodded to Ben’s back, as Ben began jogging up the grade toward the tunnels and the siding. +++ “Just gonna get my Bible an’ I’ll be off,” Ben told Alonzo when he returned from the siding. “Your switchman said they’d probably send an engine and empty cars to transfer the people. Equipment to clear the track would be after that.” Alonzo agreed. “Might not be a train from Reno at all,” he told Ben. “I’ll send someone to you when I know. Maybe you should take a blanket? Maybe a slicker?” “And an ax,” Ben added. After a moment’s thought, Ben said that he would get someone to help him carry things, someone fit enough to directly return. “Best get two. Brakeman could be one. He has a gun. There’re grizzlies up here. Your one man wouldn’t want to hike back alone.” Ben smiled. “A pistol won’t be much account against a grizzly. Neither would a 30-30, much. But they’d feel better carryin’ it. Long’s they stay on the tracks and do a lotta shoutin’, they’ll be safe enough.” “How about, you, Ben?” Ben smiled. “I have a calling. And, I know what’s waiting for me.” Ben smiled.
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Wayne Fowler
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