Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

The news of approaching cavalry seemed to have spread widely in Bad Jump, for by the time we had packed our possessions and left the barn the whole town was in turmoil.

We hurried down to the vicinity of the tracks, where we stood as the train approached.

Anxious as I was about the threat from the north, I was captivated by the arrival of the engine and its immense chain of freight cars. Some of the cars were labeled SULFUR or BAUXITE or NITRE, and must have come by way of California , Cascadia, or the fearful mines of the Desert Southwest. Some bore goods imported from Asia to our Pacific ports, and were inscribed with Chinese characters like arrangements of tumbled sticks. There were cars that stank of cattle, goats, and sheep, followed by cars that smelled of wood and cold iron. The engine at the head of it all was a very fine one, in my estimation—what the lease-boys back in Williams Ford would have called a “prime charger.” Its iron and brass and steel parts shone as if freshly polished. The crew had attached a rack of caribou antlers to the span between the headlight and the smokestack, giving it a fierce appearance; and it arrived at the coaling station with such a hissing of steam and clanging of muscular metal parts that I was almost paralyzed with awe. Its shadow fell over the prairie like a giant’s fist.

Sam and Julian, who had seen more trains than I had, hauled me out of my trance by the collar of my coat, as the flood of would-be pilgrims rushed to the “Phantom Cars.” These cars were manned by Travel Agents, as they were called—minor employees of the Rail Trust who supplemented their incomes by riding herd over black-market passengers.

Not all of the transients at Bad Jump had bought passage, but all of them were eager to escape the threat of approaching horsemen. Many of these people were indentured laborers fleeing their Estates, who dreaded the punishment that would be inflicted on them should they be returned to their rightful employers; others had committed crimes even graver than Theft of Due Service, or were afraid of the new conscription; and their panic created an unexpected crush. Travel Agents shouted from the open doors of the Phantom Cars, demanding the presentation of paid tickets and fending off desperate stragglers. They made their rifles conspicuous, and a shot was fired within our hearing, which only aroused the mob to more frenzied exertions.

“Stay close!” Sam ordered as we pushed our way through that gauntlet of elbows and knees. The car on which we had bought passage was Number Thirty-Two, last in a line of six such cars. The Travel Agent in charge of it was a burly man in a tattered Trust jacket, with two pistols strapped to his hip and a rifle in his left hand. He discharged the rifle into the air twice while I watched; but still the mob pressed him, and he began to look uneasy.

“The train won’t be stopped long,” Sam said. It was taking on coal and water with obvious haste. “But look there.”

On a low ridge to the northwest a group of riders had appeared. They were too far away to be individually distinguished, but I didn’t doubt that their leader was the persistent One-Leg Willy Bass.

“Paid passage only!” the Travel Agent shouted as we pressed through the mass of ill-dressed refugees. “Show papers or be shot! No passage without papers!”

The car was filling quickly. I glanced back at the cavalrymen, who had begun to approach the train at a steady gallop. Sam waved our credentials like a flag in the air. “Come on, then!” the Agent said, and we were lofted aboard like so many sacks of mail. Then the Travel Agent fired his rifle at the sky and announced that the next unticketed man within three feet of him would be shot dead.

The cavalry rode down on us at a gallop, closing the distance. Just then the train gave a lurch and began to move, and the Agent turned to the nearest of his passengers and said, “Secure that door!”

The ticketless mob shrieked to see their hopes thus extinguished, and the door as it slid closed encountered many scrabbling hands and fingers. I was able to catch a last glimpse of the horsemen under the command of One-Leg Willy Bass as they charged through the tents and shacks of Bad Jump, the cavalrymen shouting and gesticulating in an attempt to delay the train’s departure. Then the door clanged fully shut; and only by putting my eye to a crack in the boards could I see blue sky, a few pearly clouds, and the prairie seeming to move with ponderous grace as the Caribou-Horn Train began to gather speed.

10

A book could be written about the events that transpired aboard the Phantom Car, but it would a sad and often obscene volume. I mean to chronicle only the adventures that affected us most directly.

The car was a converted freight-box that ought to have been retired from service years ago. It was essentially a single room, long and narrow, with loose straw scattered at one end of it, and a few bound bales on which passengers might sit or lie, and at the other end a stove, vented through the roof, and a chair on which the Travel Agent sat vigilantly, his rifle in his lap. Of other furniture there was a water barrel, a whiskey barrel, and a barrel of salt meat, probably horse. The walls of the car were poorly-joined planks through which the wind came rushing in. The skimpy daylight admitted by these cracked boards was supplemented by the glow of the stove and glimmer of three or four hanging lamps.

Our fellow passengers were among the best and worst men I have ever met, the latter outnumbering the former by a fair throw.

We introduced ourselves to a few of them as Bad Jump receded behind us. I “kept my mouth shut,” for the most part, as Sam had suggested, speaking only the polite minimum; but I was tempted to curiosity now and then. I had never seen such folks as these. There were a dozen indentured men from a cruelly-managed California Estate, for instance, who spoke the Spanish language, and wore tattoos in the shape of weeping roses on their arms. There were cattle-herders and shepherds who were evasive about their origins. There were manual laborers aiming for work in the East, and many single sullen men who growled insults when spoken to, or confined their sociability to the card games that sprang up as soon as the train left Bad Jump.

There was at least one well-spoken and literate man aboard. His name was Langers, and he described himself as a “colporteur,” that is, a salesman of religious tracts. As soon as the train was in motion Langers opened the large sample case he carried and began to offer his wares at what he called “discount prices.” At first I was astonished that he would bother attempting such sales, since the great majority of the passengers was almost certainly illiterate. But on closer examination his pamphlets proved to be little more than picture-books got up to resemble sacred literature. [ The Song of Solomon, Frankly Illustrated , was one title; another was Acts Condemned by Leviticus , Explained and Described , with Diagrams . They did not bear the Dominion Stamp of Approval.]

These were offensive, and I put a distance between myself and the colporteur; but he did a brisk trade among the laborers and refugees, whose appetite for religious instruction seemed nearly insatiable.

Many of the men had been wage-workers, and during the afternoon we were treated to massed choruses of Piston, Loom, and Anvil , the popular anthem of the industrial laborer. This was the first time I had heard the chorus of that song:

(though I have heard it many times since), and it struck me as awkwardly rhymed and, in its later verses, seditious. I asked Julian about the bellicosity of the song, and he explained that the ongoing War in Labrador had engendered new industries that employed mechanics and wage-laborers in large number. The complaints of that emerging class had lately become vocal; and these discontents, Julian said, might eventually transform the traditional rural economy of Estate and Indenture.