The Chase Part 31

The streets and sidewalks around the Ferry Building looked like a vast mob scene. Thousands were fleeing, believing the entire city would be destroyed. There was pandemonium and bedlam in the jumbled ma.s.s of people, some wrapped in blankets and loaded down with what possessions they were able to carry onto the ferryboat. Some pushed baby buggies or toy wagons, and yet, amid the nightmare, everyone was gracious, courteous, and considerate toward others.

Bell stopped beside a young man who seemed to be merely standing around and watching the fire across the street from the wharfs. He held up a twenty-dollar gold piece. "If you know how to drive a car, take this one to the Customs House and turn it over to Horace Bronson of the Van Dorn Detective Agency and this is yours."

The young man's eyes widened in antic.i.p.ation, not so much from the money but the chance to drive an automobile. "Yes, sir," he said brightly. "I know how to drive my uncle's Maxwell."

Bell watched with amus.e.m.e.nt as the boy clashed the gears and drove off down the crowded street. Then he turned and joined the ma.s.s of humanity that was escaping the destruction of the city.

Within three days, over two hundred twenty-five thousand people left the peninsula where San Francisco stood, all carried free of charge by the Southern Pacific Railroad to wherever they wished to travel. Within twenty-four hours of the quake, overloaded ferryboats were departing San Francisco for Oakland every hour.

Bell showed his Van Dorn credentials and boarded a ferry called the Buena Vista. Buena Vista. He found an open place to sit above the paddle wheels and turned back to watch the flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air, with the smoke rising over a thousand feet. It looked as if the whole city was one vast bonfire. He found an open place to sit above the paddle wheels and turned back to watch the flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air, with the smoke rising over a thousand feet. It looked as if the whole city was one vast bonfire.

Once he stepped off the Mole in Oakland, a railroad official directed him to the repair shop where his locomotive was sitting. The mammoth steel monster was a grand sight up close. It was painted black from the cowcatcher to the rear of its coal tender. Bell guessed the cab's roof was at least fifteen feet above the rails. The big drive wheels were eighty-one inches in diameter. In its time, the Atlantic-type locomotive was a masterwork of mechanical power.

To Bell, it looked mean and ugly. The number 3455 was painted in small white letters on the side of the cab; SOUTHERN PACIFIC, in larger type, ran across the side of the tender, which fueled the boiler with coal and water. Bell walked up to a man wearing the traditional striped engineer's coveralls and striped cap with brim. The man held a big oil can with a long spout and looked to be oiling the bearings on the connecting rods running from the piston cylinder to the drive wheels.

"A mighty fine locomotive," said Bell admiringly.

The engineer looked up. He was shorter than Bell, with strands of salt-and-pepper hair straying from under his cap. The face was craggy from years of leaning out a cab window into the full wind stream from a speeding engine. The eyebrows over a pair of sky blue eyes were curved and bushy. Bell judged he was younger than he looked.

"None better than Adeline, Adeline," the engineer answered.

"Adeline?"

"Easier to remember than her four-figured number. Most locomotives are given a woman's name."

"Adeline looks very powerful," said Bell admiringly. looks very powerful," said Bell admiringly.

"She's built for heavy pa.s.senger service. Came out of the Baldwin Works no more than five months ago."

"How fast will she go?" asked Bell.

"Depends on how many cars she's hauling."

"Let's say none."

The engineer thought a moment. "On a long, straight stretch of open, empty track, she'd top a hundred miles an hour."

"My name is Bell." He handed the engineer the paperwork. "I've chartered your engine for a special job."

The engineer studied the papers. "Van Dorn detective outfit, huh. What's so special?"

"Ever hear of the Butcher Bandit?"

"Who hasn't? I've read in the newspapers he's about as deadly as they come."

Bell wasted no detailed explanation. "We're going after him. He chartered a Pacific-type locomotive to haul his special private car. He's steaming to Salt Lake City before heading north for the Canadian border. I reckon he has a five-hour head start."

"More like six, by the time we take on coal and get a load of steam up."

"I was told there were repairs. Are they completed?"

The engineer nodded. "The shop replaced a faulty bearing in one of the truck wheels."

"The sooner we get going, the better." Bell paused to extend his hand. "By the way, my name is Isaac Bell."

The engineer's shake was vigorous. "Nils Lofgren. My fireman is Marvin Long."

Bell pulled his watch from its pocket and checked the time. "I'll see you in forty-five minutes."

"We'll be at the coal-loading dock just up the track."

Bell hurried toward the Oakland terminal until he came to a wooden building that housed the Western Union office. The wire chief told him that only one wire was open to Salt Lake City and it was hours behind getting messages through. Bell explained his mission and the chief was most cooperative.

"What's your message?" he asked. "I'll see that it's sent straightaway to our office in Salt Lake."

Bell's wire read:

To the Van Dorn office director, Salt Lake City. Imperative you stop locomotive hauling freight car number 16455. It is carrying the Butcher Bandit. Use every precaution. He is extremely dangerous. Seize and hold until I arrive.

Isaac Bell, special agent

He waited until the telegrapher tapped out the message before leaving the office and walking to where Lofgren and Long were taking on coal and water. He climbed up into the cab and was introduced to Long, a heavy, broad-shouldered man with large muscles stretching the sleeves of his denim s.h.i.+rt. He wore no hat and his red hair almost matched the flames inside the door to the firebox. He pulled off a leather glove and shook Bell's hand with a hand that was hard and callused from long hours wielding a coal shovel.

"Ready whenever you are," announced Lofgren.

"Let's do it," answered Bell.

As Long stoked the fire, Lofgren took his seat on the right side of the cab, locked the reverser Johnson bar into place, opened the cylinder c.o.c.ks, and pulled the rope above his head down twice, causing the steam whistle to scream an about-to-move-forward warning. Then he gripped the long throttle lever and pulled it back. Adeline Adeline began to move and slowly gather speed. began to move and slowly gather speed.

Ten minutes later, Lofgren was signaled to switch onto the main track east. He eased the throttle back and the big Atlantic began to move forward. Slowly, the train wound through the yard. Long began maintaining his fire, light, level, and bright. In the five years he'd stoked locomotive fires, he'd developed a technique that kept the fire from burning too thin or too thick. Lofgren yanked on the throttle, the drive wheels churned amid a loud blast of steam, and black smoke spewed out the top of the stack.

Bell took the seat on the left side of the cab, feeling vastly relieved that he was at last on what he felt certain was the final chase to catch Cromwell and hand him over to the authorities in Chicago, dead or alive.

He found the vibration of the locomotive over the rails as soothing as floating in a rubber raft on a mountain lake, the chug of the steam propelling the drive wheels and the warm heat from the firebox positively restful for a man on a mission. Before they reached Sacramento and swung east across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Bell slid down in his seat, yawned, and closed his eyes. Within a minute, he was in a sound sleep, amid the clangor of the speeding locomotive, as Adeline Adeline aimed her big cowcatcher toward the Sierra Nevada and Donner Pa.s.s. aimed her big cowcatcher toward the Sierra Nevada and Donner Pa.s.s.

42.

ABNER WEED'S BARREL CHEST AND BEEFY SHOULDERS were sweating as he shoveled coal into the firebox. There was an art to creating an efficient fire, but he had no idea how. He simply heaved coal through the open door into the fire, ignoring the complaints from the engineer who shouted that too much coal would drop the fire temperature.

Abner took on the job only to spell the fireman, Ralph Wilbanks, a big, burly man who soon became exhausted after a few hours of sustaining the necessary steam temperature that kept the big Pacific locomotive running up the steep grades of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They traded one hour shoveling, one hour of rest.

Abner stayed alert during the effort, his Smith & Wesson revolver stuffed in his belt. He kept an eye on the engineer, who was constantly busy maintaining a fast but safe speed around the many mountain curves while watching the track ahead for any unforeseen obstacle, such as an unscheduled train coming in the opposite direction. At last, they crested the summit and it was all downhill until they met the flat-lands of the desert.

"We're coming into Reno," yelled Wes Hall, the engineer, above the roar of the flames in the firebox. An intense man with the features of a weathered cowboy, he would have stopped the train in protest when he found his pa.s.sengers demanded he set speed records across the mountains but relented after Abner put the Smith & Wesson to his head and threatened to kill him, and his fireman, if they didn't do as they were told. A thousand dollars in cash from Cromwell added to the persuasion, and Hall and Wilbanks now pushed the Pacific locomotive through the mountains as fast as they dared.

"The signal ahead reads red," said Wilbanks.

Hall waved that he saw it, too. "We'll have to stop and lay over on a siding."

Abner pointed the gun at the engineer's head. "Lay on the whistle. We're going through."

"We can't," said Hall, staring Abner in the eye. "There must be an express carrying relief supplies to San Francisco coming toward us on the same track. I'd rather you shoot me than cause a collision with another train that would kill all of us and stop traffic in both directions for maybe a week."

Abner slowly slid the revolver back under his belt. "All right. But get us back on the main track as soon as the relief express pa.s.ses."

Hall began closing the throttle arm. "We can use the delay to take on coal and water."

"All right. But mind your manners or I'll blow holes in the both of you."

"Ralph and I can't go on much longer. We're done in."

"You'll earn your money-and stay alive-by pus.h.i.+ng on," Abner said threateningly.

Leaning out the left side of the cab, Abner could see the train depot and the small town of Reno, Nevada, looming in the distance. As they came nearer, Abner spotted a figure waving a small red flag standing by a switch stand. Hall blew the whistle to announce their arrival and to let the flagman know that he understood the signal to slow down and was prepared to be switched off the main track.

Hall precisely stopped the Pacific's tender directly under an elevated wooden water tank on one side of the track and a coal bin on the other. Wilbanks jumped up on the tender, grabbed a rope, and pulled down the spout hinged to the tank until water flowed on board due to gravity. Climbing down from the cab with an oil can, Hall began checking all the bearings and fittings of the locomotive, and, since Cromwell had refused to wait for the arrival of a brakeman, he had to examine the bearings on the wheels of the tender and freight car as well.

Keeping a sharp eye on Hall and Wilbanks, Abner moved past the tender to the door of the freight car. He rapped twice with the b.u.t.t of his Smith & Wesson, waited a moment, then knocked again. The door was unlatched from the inside and slid open. Jacob and Margaret Cromwell stood there, looking down at Abner.

"What's the delay?" asked Cromwell.

Abner tilted his head toward the locomotive. "We switched to a siding to let an express relief train through. While we're waiting, the crew is taking on coal and water."

"Where are we?" asked Margaret. She was dressed uncharacteristically in men's pants, with the legs tucked into a pair of boots. A blue sweater covered the upper half of her body, and she wore a bandanna on her hair.

"The town of Reno," answered Abner. "We're out of the Sierras. From now on, the landscape flattens out into desert."

"How about the track ahead?" inquired Cromwell. "Any more relief trains to delay our pa.s.sage?"

"I'll check with the switchman for scheduled westbound trains. But we'll have to stand aside as they come."

Cromwell jumped to the ground and spread out a map on the ground. The lines drawn across it displayed the railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi. He pointed to the spot signifying Reno. "Okay, we're here. The next junction with tracks going north is Ogden, Utah."

"Not Salt Lake City?" asked Margaret.

Cromwell shook his head. "The Southern Pacific main line joins the Union Pacific tracks north of Salt Lake. We swing north at the Ogden junction and head toward Missoula, Montana. From there, we take the Northern Pacific rails into Canada."

Abner kept his eyes trained on the crew. He saw the fireman struggle with the coal flowing from the chute into the tender and the engineer moving about as if he were in a trance. "The crew is dead on their feet. We'll be lucky if they can run the locomotive another four hours."

Cromwell consulted the map. "There's a railyard in Winnemucca, Nevada, about a hundred seventy miles up the track. We'll pick up another crew there."

"What about these two?" inquired Abner. "We can't let them run to the nearest telegraph office and alert law enforcement up the line that we're coming."

Cromwell thought for a moment. "We'll keep them with us, then make them jump the train in a desolate part of the desert. We'll take no chances of Van Dorn agents getting wise to our leaving San Francisco and wiring officials down the line to stop our train, so we'll cut the telegraph lines as we go."

Margaret took a long look toward the Sierras and the track they had traveled. "Do you think Isaac is onto us?"

"Only a question of how long, dear sister," he said with his usual high degree of self-a.s.surance. "But by the time he realizes we've flown San Francisco and finds a locomotive to give chase, we'll be halfway to Canada and he'll have no chance to stop us."

43.

ADELINE WAS LOFGREN'S PRIDE AND SWEETHEART, and he spoke to her as if the locomotive were a beautiful woman instead of a steel, fire-breathing monster that charged up the curving grades of the Sierras and through Donner Pa.s.s. Without having to pull two hundred tons of cars weighed down with pa.s.sengers and luggage, she performed effortlessly. WAS LOFGREN'S PRIDE AND SWEETHEART, and he spoke to her as if the locomotive were a beautiful woman instead of a steel, fire-breathing monster that charged up the curving grades of the Sierras and through Donner Pa.s.s. Without having to pull two hundred tons of cars weighed down with pa.s.sengers and luggage, she performed effortlessly.

The spring air was cool and crisp, and snow still covered the ground. Donner Pa.s.s was the notorious section of the mountains where the most poignant event in western history had taken place. A wagon train made up of a dozen families that would pa.s.s into legend as the Donner party became trapped in the winter blizzards of 1846 and suffered terribly until rescued. Many survived by eating the dead. Out of the original eighty-seven men, women, and children, only forty-five lived to reach California.

Bell had been fully awake since pa.s.sing through Sacramento and was finding the scenery spectacular-the towering, rocky peaks; the forest of fir trees, some with branches still laden with snow; the summit tunnels, which were blasted out of granite by Chinese laborers in 1867. Adeline Adeline plunged into the black mouth of a long tunnel, the roar of the train's exhaust reverberating like a hundred ba.s.s drums. Soon, a tiny circle of light materialized ahead in the darkness and quickly grew wider. Then plunged into the black mouth of a long tunnel, the roar of the train's exhaust reverberating like a hundred ba.s.s drums. Soon, a tiny circle of light materialized ahead in the darkness and quickly grew wider. Then Adeline Adeline burst into the bright sunlight with a noise like thunder. A few miles later came the panoramic view of Donner Lake, as the train began its long, curving descent to the desert. burst into the bright sunlight with a noise like thunder. A few miles later came the panoramic view of Donner Lake, as the train began its long, curving descent to the desert.

Bell stared with some uneasiness down the sheer thousand-foot drop that was within a step or two of the edge, as the locomotive swung around a sharp bend. He did not need to urge Lofgren to go faster. The engineer was pus.h.i.+ng the big locomotive at nearly thirty-five miles an hour around the mountain curves, a good ten miles faster than was considered safe.

"We're across the summit," announced Lofgren, "and have a downgrade for the next seventy-five miles."

Bell stood and gave Long his fireman's seat on the left side of the cab. Long thankfully sat down and took a break, as Lofgren closed off steam and allowed Adeline Adeline to coast down through the pa.s.s in the mountains. Long had been shoveling coal almost nonstop since they had swung onto the main line at Sacramento and up the steep grade into the Sierras. to coast down through the pa.s.s in the mountains. Long had been shoveling coal almost nonstop since they had swung onto the main line at Sacramento and up the steep grade into the Sierras.

"Can I give you a hand?" asked Bell.

"Be my guest," said Long, lighting up a pipe. "I'll tell you how to shovel the coal into the firebox. Even though we're loafing along for the next hour, we can't let the fire die down."

"You don't just throw it in with a shovel?"

Long grinned. "There's more to it than that. And it's not called a shovel shovel; it's a fireman's scoop, fireman's scoop, size number four." size number four."

For the next two hours, Bell labored in front of the maze of pipes and valves as he learned the intricacies of firing a locomotive. The tender was rocking from side to side around the turns, making it difficult to shovel coal into the firebox. It was easy work, however, with Adeline Adeline running downhill. He shoveled just enough coal to keep the steam up. He quickly learned to open the firebox door wide, after hitting the scoop against it and spilling coal over the floor. And instead of stacking the coal in a fiery pile, he developed the knack for making a level fire that burned bright and orange. running downhill. He shoveled just enough coal to keep the steam up. He quickly learned to open the firebox door wide, after hitting the scoop against it and spilling coal over the floor. And instead of stacking the coal in a fiery pile, he developed the knack for making a level fire that burned bright and orange.

The sharp curves were left behind as their arc increased as they dropped down to the foothills. An hour after Bell turned the scoop over to Long, the fireman shouted to Lofgren: "We've only got enough water and coal for another fifty miles."