El Paso: A Novel (2 page)

That dreary afternoon, clouds of gray smoke billowed into the air from scores of engines, uniting with a low bleak autumn sky that could either mean rain or the season’s first snowfall. Arthur’s mood matched the ominous weather. He put the telegram on his desk, sat down, and looked at it again.

WILL BE ON AJAX TO IRELAND STOP SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT—FATHER

Something sagged in Arthur.

He despised that damned yacht—boat—ship—whatever-you-called-it—and the fortune it cost the company. And to Ireland, of all places, just as the whole business might go to pieces. How could the Old Man not?

John Shaughnessy, Arthur’s father, had built the railroad up from a dinky two-hundred-mile passenger and freight line all the way out to Chicago and had been headed west fast as he could until construction stopped cold on the Dakota plains. And he was even going to overcome that until . . . Arthur cleared his throat and fingered the telegram, moving it around on the desk as though wiping up dust with it. The Old Man might have picked up the phone and called him so they could discuss things. But Arthur knew the reason he hadn’t was precisely because he did not wish to discuss it.

SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT

Arthur had been working at New England & Pacific—NE&P—ever since he was old enough to be an office boy in the Boston headquarters. Summers between day school and college he worked in the rail yards or on the trains themselves, while his friends—at least those from the upper-crust Shaughnessy connections—whiled away their time in Bermuda or Newport or sailing on Nantucket Sound with girls manning the yards.

The Old Man was a stern taskmaster, especially in those days, but to Arthur he once said: “Son, someday this will all be yours, and your children’s and their children’s children’s. The only way to learn it is from the ground up.” This Arthur had done, with a sense of duty, if not always cheerfully, because if Colonel John Shaughnessy and his wife, Beatie, had not plucked him out of an orphanage in South Boston one winter morning twenty-three years earlier and taken him into their home and given him their name and the considerable benefits of their considerable wealth, he might right now be peddling apples from a cart on Boston Common or eating out of a garbage heap.

Arthur wadded the telegram and tossed it into the trash. His plan, his hope—the thing he had perceived to get the company back on stable financial footing—was to take it public and acquire an influx of stockholder cash and a sensible board of directors who could put a lid on his father’s extravagances, such as the
Ajax
and other costly fancies that he knew were draining their assets.

He was proud of the NE&P and the progress that it stood for. But the Colonel didn’t want to be troubled by the whims of stockholders or the controlling votes of any board of directors—or for that matter the snooping of newspaper reporters that would come with a public company—and after many futile discussions Arthur felt bound to honor his father’s wishes.

After all, he didn’t just owe him a lot; he owed him everything.

BEATIE SHAUGHNESSY HAD GIVEN BIRTH
to one daughter, Alexa—and could bear no more children. The news made Arthur’s father—the Colonel, as he was known—more heartbroken than his wife, but not over worry or concern; like every man, he simply wanted a son.

Then one afternoon a decade later, while doing charity work for the church, Beatie found herself in the stark environs of the Laura Bostwick Foundlings’ Home. Every Christmas she delivered presents to the orphans—candy, cookies, hand-me-downs, and worn-out toys. Though she seldom went into South Boston, where Irish Catholics lived, the Bostwick orphanage was not limited to Irish Catholics only. It was a nonsectarian institution and Beatie felt it her duty to help the most unfortunate. All children deserved Christmas, and certainly those who were made orphans through no fault of their own.

That same afternoon, the custodian told Arthur to help get the things out of the carriage as usual. Right away he put on his most charming demeanor for the tall, handsome lady, and when Beatie asked his name, he replied, “Arthur.”

Without thinking, Beatie asked, “And what is your surname, Arthur?”

To which he replied with his most bashful, poignant expression, “I don’t have a last name, mum.” Beatie bent down and hugged him and apologized, her eyes misty and his glistening, too. While Arthur did in fact have a last name, Gray, he was never sure if it related to his true father or mother or was just something given to him at the orphanage so he wouldn’t be embarrassed at school.

Nevertheless, the real Christmas presents soon arrived. Two days before Christmas Eve, the custodian told Arthur what every child in the foundling home wanted to hear more than anything else. To wash up and put on clean clothes: Arthur had visitors.

As he came downstairs, Arthur saw the handsome lady again. With her was a burly man, with blue eyes, graying hair, and an easy smile, dressed as a true gentlemen, with a black top hat in his hand. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Shaughnessy, Arthur,” the custodian said. “They want to speak with you.”

The three of them then sat in a little drawing room the orphanage used for important visitors. There the burly gentleman gently questioned Arthur. He asked if he knew who his parents were. Arthur replied that he did not. He asked how Arthur liked going to school. Arthur told him he did. It was the truth. He liked learning. The man asked Arthur if he liked the orphanage. Unsure how to reply, Arthur said nothing. The man asked again.

“Yessir, it’s nice.”

“Good,” replied the man. “That’s what I like to hear.” He smiled at his wife.

There was a silence for a moment. Arthur hadn’t known what to think. If he said he didn’t like the orphanage, they might think he was a troublemaker; not grateful for what he had. If he said he did . . . well, why would they ask that? Had they come just to find out if he liked living here? As he forced a smile, he began to choke back a sob that rose in his throat.

“Yes, sir,” Arthur repeated. “They’re . . . they’re . . .” He hadn’t been coached, but heard from others that crying could sometimes get you what you wanted. Beatie rushed to the sofa where the boy sat and embraced him tightly as he fought back the tears. The man over Beatie’s shoulder shifted awkwardly, something between a frown and pity on his face. Beatie turned to him.

“We’re taking him with us right now!” she said.

“Well, my word, Mother, we can’t just—”

“Yes, we are!”

“Well, I think we ought—”

“No,” Beatie said firmly. “He is going home with us.”

But Arthur did not go home with the Shaughnessys that day. The orphanage wouldn’t permit it, no matter that the Shaughnessy name was among the most influential in Boston.

By Christmas Eve, however, and under a most unusual arrangement, Arthur went to the Shaughnessy home for something of a trial period. Shaughnessy had worked it out with the orphanage people. Arthur would stay with them over the Christmas holiday. If it worked out, they would discuss the matter further. The orphanage didn’t like such things because there was always the chance the child would be returned—more hurt and confused than ever—but this was John Shaughnessy, owner, president, and chairman of the New England & Pacific Railroad Company. He was not a man to disagree with, especially if donations were in the air.

TURNING AWAY FROM THE WINDOW
and the hustle-bustle of the Chicago rail yards, Arthur gazed at the large oil painting that dominated the opposite wall. In the picture, the Colonel stared down at him, at anyone who entered the room. His features seemed larger than most men’s: high wrinkled forehead, thick dark hair slicked back, a great black brushy mustache, full lips, aquiline nose, square jaw, and a strong, masculine chin that could take, and had taken, many blows. Then there were the same deep-set, penetrating blue eyes that Arthur first noticed at the orphanage so many years before, and on this day the painting reminded him of the morning he first entered into the Shaughnessy household.

Arthur had been nine when the Colonel and Beatie removed him from the Laura Bostwick Foundlings’ Home. At the time, the boy had all but given up hope that his fate would be any different from that of the countless other boys who turned sixteen without finding a home. Like them, he dreaded the day when he would be sent out into the world with nothing more than a hand-me-down suit and some pocket money. Aside from what he wore on his back, the only things Arthur owned were his collection of butterflies and a glass cutter. He had always wanted to collect coins or stamps, but they cost money. Butterflies were for the taking.

He’d amassed an impressive lot of specimens from nearby parks and along the waterfront, and after finding one would make his own plate frames from scrap wood and cast-off glass from a window manufacturing business down the block where one of the workers had given him a glass cutter. On that strange day when he moved to the Shaughnessys’ fabulous Beacon Hill home, he proudly lugged with him a little cardboard box of neatly labeled insects, which included moths of all descriptions, dragonflies, and a number of large aerial biting creatures such as the horntail wasp, the giant cicada, and robber flies.

Beatie and the Colonel had come for him on the morning of Christmas Eve.

TWO

U
p in his third-floor room in the foundling house, Arthur had carefully packed his butterfly collection into a cardboard box and said good-byes to his roommate, Michael Martin, who was off to the last day of school before the holiday. Arthur was especially fond of “Mick” Martin, who, even though only a year older, was vastly mature compared with himself. Mick was fearless, daring, and mischievous, and a natural-born leader.

He also looked the part, with his dark hair and eyes, impressive height, and a full, strong mouth that made him look more like an adolescent than a ten-year-old. That same year he had gotten Arthur into trouble—or, better put, Arthur had gotten himself into trouble, by letting Mick persuade him to run away from the orphanage together. It had been summer and they were just returning from a two-week camp at the other end of the state. For the most part, it had been a memorable experience, except that Mick, who everybody believed was the bravest and strongest of all the boys, had managed to develop an unreasoning fear of snakes after stepping on one in the woods. It was just a large harmless black racer but, startled, had hissed and struck Mick several times on his bare leg before racing off. From the marks on his leg, no one knew but that it was not a venomous copperhead. They put iodine on the bite and confined Mick to a bed in the camp infirmary, where they watched carefully for swelling that never developed.

They’d been back at Laura Bostwick for a week after camp when things began to go sour for Mick. Until the snakebite he’d never known pleasures like those at the camp, in the wilds of the countryside, and coming back to the city depressed him. Summer at the orphanage was drudgery anyway. The boys were made to scrape paint and whitewash walls and scrub floors and kitchen equipment—clean out the jakes. The chores weren’t so bad but there was half a summer to go and Mick was fed up. Late one afternoon, as Mick and Arthur were walking down a hot filthy street, Mick stopped to look at his reflection in a shop window. He studied it for a long time, as Arthur stood patiently by.

“Arthur,” Mick said finally, “we can do better on our own.”

“What’s that mean?” Arthur asked.

“We can do better. I met some fellers a few days ago on Dorchester. They were just like us, but living their own way. They got a shed to stay in and nobody tells them what to do or to go to school or when to go to bed and all that. Why, they’re free as birds.”

Arthur was puzzled. “How do they eat? Who—”

“They got jobs, see, when they want them. They feed themselves.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“All kinds.” Mick told Arthur that if a guy at the barbershop wants a pint of cold beer, one of the street guys runs and gets it for him—and gets a tip. Or if somebody wants some numbers run, “You stop in the shop and get the money and the guy picks his number—and all you got to do is take it back to the main runner. There’s lots of things like that.”