Chapter 28

The single thing that impressed me most about the railroad end of the line camp was the fact that everyone seemed to have a purpose. They all moved around like kabuki players with a sense of moving to a final destination. The Chinese workers squatted in the dust and ate their food with strange utensils and brought back memories of soldiers and civilians alike pausing to catch a bite to eat in the midst of chaos. I respected that rite of survival and generally imitated the folks around me at such times knowing that eating and sleeping and other natural human needs had to be attended to in the cause of survival and the hope of winning final victory in any struggle.

Kit and I sat in a makeshift restaurant tent shaded from the glaring sun by the damaged canvas. The windowless place was stood on a platform of transport pallets to at least keep our boots out of the mud of the filthy street outside.

I noticed that not a single soul was jolted by the sound of gunfire not far from our vantage point. I resisted my ingrained instinctive reaction to “hit the dirt” and knew immediately it was the correct response because the pair of whores at the next table just continued eating their eggs and steak like they were surrounded by a platoon of armed security guards.

Surprisingly, the food was exceptionally good and I think it was because the proximity to the railroad ribbon of steel made the source of the food supplies instantaneous to the consumers at the end of the food chain. I knew that in places like Southeast Asia, the battlefield at Gettysburg and now, here in the far Pacific Northwest, the secret of swift transport was the key to logistically making lifestyles more palatable and in a harsh world of frontier living, a little comfort went a long way.

I was glad that I had taken the time to exchange my heavy little gold-dust poke for some real American minted coins. They had the little “P” down in the corner and not the symbol for the San Francisco mint. I tried to remember if the San Francisco mint was even open yet but my wandering mind was unable to pinpoint the details. In any event, I was not the sort of person to be interested in such details because I was not the collecting type.

The name on the station platform for the Great Pacific Northwest Railroad office said,

“Jefferson Davis Station – Rocky Mountain Terminal”

I was somewhat perplexed wondering if the Pacific Northwest people had suddenly reverted to showing homage to the former President of the Confederacy and leader of the Southern States in rebellion against the duly instituted Union of the United States.

It was a matter of some curiosity to me and I inquired of the station master about the origins of the naming of the station and he told me,

“Mister Davis was the head of the War Office way back before the start of the Civil War and he was the genius that started the whole Northern Route business back when everyone was all caught up in the central route a lot further south. He foretold that the Portland-Seattle route was the key to developing the entire Northwest Territory and predicted that a whole bunch of new States would be opened up by the northern route.”

I remembered that he was the Secretary of War before the start of the Civil War, but it was news to me that he was so prominent in the developing of the Northernmost part of the country before he was called down to manage the rebellion against the Union. Poor Kit was lost when I tried to explain to her the significance of the long-range planning by a man castigated as an enemy of the Union. His contributions to the Manifest Destiny of America were overlooked by history and he was remembered only for the negative aspects of his anti-Union leadership of the southern States.

The muddy street just outside the restaurant tent was the scene of a Hollywood style shoot-out between some soldier-boys and a pack of gold-field scum just itching for some action.

It was certainly short and sweet because the uniformed enlisted men made chop-meat out of the transient gold-field yahoos with their Navy Colts and repeating rifles at extremely close range. I was not in the least surprised because most of the men in uniform in these days right after the close of the Civil War were all combat veterans with extensive experience in quickly eliminating any threat to their survival. If only the men under Custer’s command had been properly armed and had reasonable intelligence about the enemy, the outcome of that famous battle at the Little Big Horn would have been a whole lot different. The undisciplined mob from the gold fields was all headed for a one-way trip to boot hill because of their over-blown sense of pride in their badness as superior force of arms. They were nothing more than incompetent bullies with terrible attitudes and little or no redeeming qualities.

I met with some of the executive types from the railroad hierarchy and they offered me and my military followers employment as security for the laying of the track and the protection of the payroll train that made a monthly run to the end of track for the vital payments for much-needed labor.

The deal seemed real tempting but I had already made a commitment to take the females to their destination and it seemed only right to follow through on that promise before taking on new duties that would break my word.