The Trainmasters (27 page)

“How’re you doing?” Egan O’Rahilly asked Ferdy O’Dowd. Ferdy was just now returning to consciousness after the ordeal of the
rapids.

“I’m fine, Egan,” he said. “Just fine.”

Egan had managed to restart the lantern, and so in its dim and flickering light, he could see Ferdy’s face. He did not look
fine at all. He looked feverish and wasted.

“Well, hell, man, you look terrible,” Egan said.

“Are you trying to give me encouragement?” Ferdy said, attempting to smile in the hope of making light of a situation he saw
little hope in himself. “Or do you just like to see the gloomiest side of everything?”

But Egan did not rise to the bait. He turned away from his friend and stared out across the broad pool of water without replying.

Though the light flickered, and there wasn’t much of it, he could see across the great vault to the other side of the lake,
which was maybe one, maybe two hundred feet across. It was hard to tell distances in the dark. He stared off across the lake
for some time, and as he stared, he sank into the deepest, loneliest, and most hopeless cavity of his soul. For a long time
he hung suspended in his hopelessness and despair.

After a time, though, Ferdy called out to him. “Egan?” he called, a little desperately, like a child who has lost sight of
his parents in a strange place. “What’s happening, Egan?”

“Nothing’s happening,” Egan said vacantly.

“You don’t sound good.”

“How do you expect me to sound?” he snapped.

“Like it’s not hopeless for us,” Ferdy said.

“Sure,” Egan said, bitterly, sarcastically, “I’m just dancing on top of the world, I’m so filled with hope.”

Ferdy didn’t answer. He crawled over to Egan and placed his arm across Egan’s shoulder. “We’ll make it out of here, Egan,”
he said quietly.

“We might,” Egan said. “Maybe.”

“Then can we start moving again?”

“Yes, I suppose.” But then he remembered Ferdy’s fever. And he looked at him, hard, but with warmth. “You can’t walk. You
know you can’t. You’ve got a raging fever. You’re on fire.” He was beginning to think that he could leave Ferdy here, and
then come back to him once he had found the way to the surface… If….

But Ferdy, guessing what he had in mind, had other ideas. “I don’t feel wonderful,” Ferdy admitted. “That’s true. But you
can’t stay here, and I won’t stay here. Never!” he said with such passion that Egan could not refuse him. “I can’t stand the
dark alone. So 1 guess we’ll just have to manage somehow together.”

And with that, he made a tremendous effort and rose to his feet. “Let’s go,” he said. And then he staggered up the beach.

“All right,” Egan said. “Let’s go.” He lifted himself to his feet, gathered up the lantern and the other necessities, and
went after his friend.

“Here,” he said when he caught up with him, “take my shoulder.”

“I think I’ll do that,” Ferdy said.

And so together they walked along the beach until the lake narrowed once more to a stream. At that point, there was a hole
in the cave wall. When they investigated the hole, it proved to be another gallery, and it apparently led upward.

They turned into it.

It was almost dark by the time John Carlysle and Francis Stockton rode the three miles down the mountain to Aaron Kolb’s place.
Before leaving the camp, both men had changed into warm, dry clothing, and they carried with them the gear they would need
for the expedition into the caves: sturdy, brass lanterns and plenty of oil, stout rope, and mountain climbers’ pikes. John
also carried a notebook and pencils, in order to make a record of the journey.

Kolb lived in a two-room cabin built up against a steep cliff that formed the end of a narrow valley. Just behind the cabin,
John could make out in the dim light a wide overhanging brow at the base of the cliff. This had to be the cave entrance. Snuffling,
snorting, grunting noises issued from under the brow, along with a heavy, noxious, nearly overpowering stench. John began
to wonder what it was, then he remembered that Kolb kept hogs penned under there. Off to one side of the brow was a fairly
large open shed, containing what John took to be Kolb’s still.

The door to the Kolb cabin was open when the two men approached, and the light streamed out. And after they dismounted, they
saw Harold Harrison standing in the doorway waving to them.

“Come on inside,” he called out.

Someone then moved next to Harrison, a big man with a wild mane of red hair who had to be Kolb himself.

“You must be Aaron Kolb,” John said as he reached the door.

“That’s right,” the man said. “That’s me, by God, and no one else. And this,” he pointed to a younger man who was only a shade
smaller and a shade less hairy than he was, “is my son Durl.”

Harrison ushered them in and introduced them to Kolb’s wife, a timid-looking woman who was standing off to one side, and a
couple of other children, a boy and a girl. The girl, who looked to be about fourteen, smiled shyly at Francis Stockton. She
obviously recognized him. But the boy, who was a few years younger, stared sullenly and stupidly at the newcomers. A half-wit,
John decided.

Durl, on the other hand, though he didn’t look especially smart, either, seemed alert enough; and he had a pleasant, open
face. His father, it quickly became apparent, had a quick, sly, shifty smile, flashing eyes, and the gift of gab and nothing
whatever to say.

“So you want to know about the caves, then,” Kolb said when the introductions were finished. “Well, I can tell you more than
you’d ever want to know about that place, by God. I’ve lived next to those caves most of my life. I’ve been up ‘em and down
‘em and through ‘em and inside ‘em. I know ‘em better than I know my wife, by Jesus.”

“Then I’m sure you can help us,” John said.

“You bet I can help you,” Kolb said. “Just tell me what you want to know.”

“Some months ago, you did some work with Mr. Stockton here?” John said. “You inspected the caves?”

“Yep, I did that. My son and me and Joel Crawford took Mr. Stockton into the caves. We spent a bit of time in there, maybe
a day, maybe more. I don’t recall directly—”

“After you were in the caves with Mr. Stockton,” John said, interrupting him, “he wrote a report. In the report he said that
no part of the cave extends as far as the route then projected for the tunnel. Are you aware of that?”

“To tell you the truth,” Kolb said with a slow, evasive, conspiratorial wink, “I don’t know about that. I don’t know anything
about the report. But I guess Francis Stockton wrote one, because that’s why we went into the caves, wasn’t it? Yep, he must
of written a report, but I wouldn’t know what it said, would I? I wouldn’t have anything to do with any report, not me.”

And then John realized what Kolb was up to. The man didn’t want to take any responsibility for what Francis Stockton had found
in the caves.

“I realize that,” John said. “Don’t worry. The report is none of your doing… But what I want to find out has to do with the
caves: Do you know whether any branch of them extends up in the direction of the runnel?”

Then Kolb looked at his son. “Durl,” he said, “what do you know about that? Do you know anything about that?”

Durl glanced at his father, searching for cues, for he didn’t know what he was expected to say. But John did not want either
of them to feel that he was forcing them to commit themselves. He simply wanted information.

“Let me explain a little bit to you, Mr. Kolb,” he said, while Durl waited for help from his father. “I believe that the tunnel
cave-in occurred because part of the tunnel passed over one of the caves. If I’m right about that, then there’s a chance some
of the men working that part of the tunnel survived. If there are survivors, then I want to try to save them.”

Well, I don’t know about that,” Durl said slowly, with none of his father’s evasion or shiftiness. “I don’t know of any part
of the caves that goes up that way… They may be some caves goin’ that way; but I sure don’t know of any.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” Francis Stockton said to John, “but nobody wants to believe it.” There was a note
of triumph in his voice despite its angry edge.

John gave him a nod and a smile, acknowledging that he now believed that Stockton had been telling what he believed to be
the truth.

“Then do you think you could spare us some of your time and experience,” John asked Durl, “to look over some of those caves
that you don’t know—in the off chance I’m right?”

Durl looked reluctant but agreeable. “I guess so,” he said.

“You mean right now?” Aaron Kolb said. “Tonight?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I don’t know if I could go into the caves tonight.”

“I didn’t ask you to go,” John said. “It was your son that I asked.”

“Nope,” Kolb said. “He don’t go without me. An’ I don’t go into no caves at night.”

“Mr. Kolb,” John said, with growing exasperation, “I understand your position. But we can’t wait. If there are men still alive
in that tunnel, most of them are sure to be senously injured, they are surely suffering… So I’ve got to try to find them now.
Tonight. Not tomorrow.”

“He’s right, Papa,” Durl said.

“Durl!” Kolb warned. “You shut up.”

Then came a high-pitched, woman’s voice. It was Kolb’s wife. She was so unobtrusive that John had almost forgotten about her.

“Aaron Kolb,” she said, “why are you so ornery? You can’t just let somethin’ happen. You have to stand in the way of it or
else poke at it with a stick. This thing they are doin’ ain’t goin’ to harm you. So why don’t you just go along with it.”

Kolb just glared at her. Francis Stockton started to smile and say something. But he stopped himself.

“I’m taking them in now,” Durl said. “I’m goin’ into the caves.”

“Durl, you ain’t goin’ tonight. An’ that’s final!”

Goddamn fool
, John thought. Then he realized what he had to do. He reached into the pocket of his trousers and came up with a dollar.
“Francis?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You got a dollar?”

Stockton searched into his own pockets and came up with the bill. “Right here,” he said.

“Give it to me.” He did that. Then John passed the two bills over to Kolb. “This is for you,” he said. “But it’s for staying
and not coming. I can do better without you.”

“Well, shit,” he said, but all the bluster was out of his voice.

I wish all my problems were so easy
, John thought. “Let’s go, Durl,” he said. And then he remembered Harrison. “Are you coming with us?” he asked.

“If I’m asked,” Harrison said.

“You’re asked.”

“Then I’m glad to come.”

And the four of them marched out of the door.

A few moments later they were at the cave entrance, standing under the overhang formed by the wide, granite brow. The entire
width of the entrance was enclosed by a split-rail fence, and behind the fence there were a couple of dozen hogs. They were
making a terrible racket, even for hogs. And this made Durl curious.

“They aren’t usually so skittish and rambunctious this late,” he said. “Somethin’ must of disturbed ‘em.”

“Do you have any idea what it was?” John asked.

“Nope,” he said. “I expect it’s a coon or a polecat. A coon’ll go anywhere, steal from anybody, even from hogs. That’s why
God gave them robbers’ masks over their eyes. But I don’t know. Sometime a man’ll sneak in behind the hogs. Papa keeps the
whiskey he makes back there. If they can get through the hogs, they can get to a lot of booze. But the hogs make pretty good
watch dogs. I guess we’ll find out soon enough what’s botherin’ you people.” He was addressing the hogs now, not the other
men. Then he swung his leg over the top rail of the fence. When he did that, the hogs came closer and crowded next to the
place where he was entering the yard. “You back away now,” he said. “I don’t have any food for you.” Now he was among them,
waving them away with his arms. “Go on, now. You go on back. Back up.” Then to the men, “You can come in now. They won’t bother
you. Not while I’m here.”

“Here goes nothing,” Francis Stockton said, and went over the fence. He was quickly followed by John Carlysle and Harold Harrison.

It was completely dark now, so each man carried a lantern. The lanterns allowed them to see fairly well as they moved single
file into the yard, but their light was eerie, and it made the shadows shifty. The floor of the yard was covered with filth
and muck and shit and slop. But that proved to be the worst problem they had to face in the yard, for Durl was telling the
truth about his hogs. The animals parted before him the way the sea did for Moses. And so all of the men walked safely through
them.

At the other side of the yard, there was another split-rail fence. When they crossed that, they found themselves in a smaller
gallery than before. But it was still large enough to hold more barrels than John could easily count.

Here the overpowering stench of the hog pen was itself overwhelmed by the deep, rich aroma of aging whiskey.

“Would you like some?” Durl asked. “For courage?” He pointed to one of the barrels. “We’ve tapped that one.” He moved closer
to the barrel so he could shine his lantern light on it.