Брайан Гарфилд - Gangway!

Gabe had a window seat on the train, but there hadn’t been anything to see for three thousand miles.

There had been green days: grass flats, fourteen Indians riding around the train in warbonnets chasing five spavined buffalo. There had been brown days: the occasional yokel on a horse and at intervals an excuse for a town — a few tottering shacks, buckboard wagons, tall idiots festooned with huge revolvers and silly hats.

He remembered the curl of Twill’s lip. “West of the Hudson River it’s all horse manure.”

A wise observation, that. It even smelled that way — even Chicago. Especially Chicago, stinking to high heaven of beef carcasses. It was only a thousand miles after Chicago that you started to remember the place with a certain wistful fondness: It wasn’t a city, but at least by God it was trying.

Twill, he thought. He remembered the great big grin on Twill’s fat face. Twill had painted a big white X across Gabe’s back and then sunk the knife and twisted it. “Would you be showin’ the lad out of town, bies?”

This misbegotten wilderness.

Twill would get his. Gabe brooded at the plush seatback in front of him and plotted his triumphal return to Hell’s Kitchen. Someday soon. Someday...

A thousand miles of no shade but your own shadow. Five hundred miles crawling upgrade and down, trestles shuddering under the weight of the train, not even a decent paving stone to look at anywhere.

Was the train slowing?

He couldn’t see any excuse for it. A lot of muddy hills. Muddy hills: the train passed a prospector who either had very short legs or was standing in mud up to his knees.

A few shacks now. Magnificent architectural style they had out here in the West: everything was brand new, but it all looked a hundred years old, fifty years abandoned, and ready to fall over with the next breeze.

But the train was definitely slowing.

Through the filthy pane he saw trees go by, then more shacks, then something with a false front and big weathered lettering: SALOON in a crescent across the boards. Horses standing hipshot in front of it, swishing their tails and stomping the mud.

The train was behaving exactly as though it was going to stop. And the other passengers were getting to their feet. Collecting carpetbags and valises, crowding toward the vestibules.

Gabe pulled out his golden snap-lid pocket timepiece. Half past nine in the morning. A week ago at this time he’d have been making the collection rounds on Tenth Avenue. Towing a couple of guys along with him to beat up on the reluctant ones. He wondered who was doing the collections now.

He clicked the watch shut. Engraved on the case was the legend For G.B. from P.T. 1873 . He wondered if Twill knew he still had the watch. Probably Twill had forgotten it — otherwise he’d have told the “bies” to relieve Gabe of it before they hustled him onto the train with the one-way ticket to oblivion and the mild parting words: “Mister Twill says it might not be too brilliant if you ever decided to come back here. You just keep going west until your hat floats, Mister Twill says.”

Mister Twill’s turn would come.

A lot of beat-up buildings now. Brisk traffic of horses and hicks, a lot of them stopping to watch the train, gawking as if it was the most exciting thing they’d ever seen. Gabe rolled his eyes upward in disbelieving disgust.

Could this be the Coast? The train was lurching past buildings and through the alleys he glimpsed trees and the glint of water.

Water. He shuddered.

“Mind if I sit here?”

He glanced up and around. It was a stout citizen laden with bundles and a big round smile. Everybody else was standing up, this guy wanted to sit down.

Gabe shrugged; the stout man fell into the seat like a bed falling out a window. A duffelbag bounced off Gabe’s elbow and he shoved it back into the stout citizen’s lap.

He didn’t seem to mind. “I always walk to the front of the train,” he said cheerfully. “I just don’t know why I do that.”

“I don’t either,” Gabe said. He looked out the window. A platform, a lot of rail sidings. They were arriving somewhere, all right.

The conductor came through, bawling, “End a the line. End a the line.”

End of the line. In more ways than one. Gabe stared mournfully through the pane, his eyes full of memories of Manhattan. “So this is San Francisco,” he said.

“No.”

“No?”

“This is Sacramento,” the stout man said.

Gabe turned around to look at him. “Who?”

“Sacramento. The railroad stops here. It’s a hundred miles from here to San Francisco. They haven’t finished that part yet.”

“The train’s supposed to be coast to coast. They said coast to coast.” Gabe heard his voice rising, but he didn’t care. “A hundred miles more through that mud? On foot? ”

“Not at all, not at all. You see that wharf over there?”

It was sliding gently past. A short pier attached to a long paddlewheel boat. He’d seen boats like that on the Hudson all the time — they plied up and down to Albany. The boat was all gingerbread and brightwork. People were streaming up the gangplanks onto several decks.

The stout man said, “You take that riverboat if you want to get to San Francisco.”

“It’s not fair,” Gabe muttered.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

He remembered Twill, acidly polite: Now you got your choice, Gabe me bie. You can have the train or you can have a lovely sea voyage round the Horn. Just so long as you don’t get off till you’ve reached San Francisco. Now am I not bein’ fair, bie? You can’t be sayin’ old Patrick Twill was after bein’ ungenerous to you .

Why San Francisco? Because Twill had an associate in San Francisco who would be advised to keep an eye on Gabe. You see, bie, if you don’t show up, why we’ll just be obliged to issue a sort of warrant for you .

Well, Twill had issued warrants before, and Gabe himself had carried some of them out — generally in brass but sometimes in lead.

Knowing Twill’s mind, Gabe had pleaded and begged to be allowed to go on the boat. He just loved ocean voyages, he said. He hated trains. If God meant us to ride on sooty contraptions like that He’d never have invented the stagecoach.

Gabe had been very convincing. He’d had to be; it was a matter of life and death. He had to persuade Twill that he hated trains, because it was the only way to insure that Twill would put him on a train. Good Christ, just the thought of a boat...

“Pardon me,” the stout man murmured. He looked genuinely concerned. “Aren’t you well?”

Gabe didn’t answer. The train was lurching to a halt with a shriek of scraping brake shoes, and he still had his neck craned around to stare at the gaudy riverboat. He didn’t quite feel up to opening his mouth.

“You really don’t look fit at all,” the stout man said.

Gabe essayed a shrug. He still didn’t look around.

Then he felt the touch of the pudgy hand on his arm. “I think I understand,” the stout man said, soothingly. “A touch of mal de mer , is it?”

“Ung?”

“Yes, that’s definitely it. You’re susceptible to the malaise of the sea, I judge.”

“Ung?”

“You get seasick, don’t you?”

Gabe lifted his shoulders as though to dismiss this thrust.

“Well I shouldn’t worry if I were you,” the stout man said, briskly. “It’s only a river, you know. No waves, no pitching or rolling. It’s quite a smooth journey, I assure you. No rougher than this train.”