On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch (14 page)

And with those words, Tory slammed the door shut behind him and was gone.

Chapter 10

T
HE
Chicago and North-Western railcar rumbled along the tracks past the suburbs of Batavia and Dekalb. As the train left the sprawl of the city, the prairie opened like Lake Michigan to the east, empty and large, with sporadic dots of life. Farms and tiny balloon-framed houses scattered along the tracks. Small children raced along the train and gestured wildly. Some sat in trees and waved from branches. The engineer blasted the air horn. Gray smoke blew past the window from which Tory gazed out.

Immediately after rushing from home, he had drained his bank account of his last four hundred dollars and headed to the railroad depot on Wells Street. The thirty-five-dollar one-way fare to Omaha included supper.

In Omaha, he’d purchase another one-way ticket on the Union Pacific to Cheyenne City and then go onward to Deadwood via stagecoach, the way Franklin had mentioned people traveled to the Black Hills. Tory had never journeyed a long distance on a stagecoach, but he worried little about his discomfort. His only aim—to get away from his parents and Chicago, and to reach Franklin Ausmus.

He had no plans once he found Franklin. Yet he was driven to go to him. Even if he must remain clandestine. At the moment, Franklin Ausmus stood as the only person on earth with whom he felt a genuine and vital connection. In his mind, no other human being existed beyond him.

Staring out the window as the prairie grew wider, he imagined his mother wailing into her hands. His father certainly still fumed with resentment at Tory’s abrupt departure. Mr. Pilkvist, always expecting Tory would remain at the bakery and master the trade, was probably beside himself with both anger and grief.

“I had to leave, Pappa, I had to,” Tory whispered into the window, although even to his ears the words sounded like tin cans dropped on the thin red carpet of the coach car.

He had already told them once how he wanted to explore the country. He came from the new world, not the old, and no one could hold him back from satisfying his dreams. His real reason for leaving: to see a man whom he’d contacted via a matchmaker periodical. His venture might horrify his parents and his fellow passengers, but to Tory, westward expansion thrived solely for one purpose: so that he could meet his beloved.

He had left the stuffed bear Joseph van Werckhoven had given him on his bed. Tucked between his feather pillows, the bear, safe and sound from the perils of western travel, represented another life for him. A new world of unusual landscapes and realities awaited him in the far-flung distance, a mere train ride away—a world he’d only read about in newspapers and dime novels. A world inhabited by Franklin Ausmus. A man, in actuality, no more real to him than the romantic and fearless characters in the stories he’d read.

If he had one thing to dread, it was the uncertainty of whether Franklin would live up to his letters. Would Tory find a fragile, unkempt wild man living in the backcountry, unworthy of human companionship? Yet if anyone should be charged with misrepresentation, it should be Tory. Franklin knew “Torsten P.” as an idealistic young female with a heart yearning for romance and adventure. If Franklin had misrepresented himself to Tory, then Tory deserved likewise.

The conductor patrolled the car, announcing the next stop. Tory craned his neck to get a better look. There was barely a town at all. The open landscape appeared so different from his North Side neighborhood. Apprehension gripped him. Should he debark and return to Chicago on the next eastbound train? Suddenly the romantic adventure he’d planned loomed menacing and uncertain now that Chicago was solidly behind him.

With a squaring of his shoulders, he closed his eyes and inhaled, imagining Franklin Ausmus at his cabin nestled among the mountains and high granite walls, the way he’d described it in his letters. What else might Franklin have revealed to him when Postman Persson had begun burning his letters? He opened his eyes. What right had anyone to interfere with his life? Postman Persson, his mother, his father. They had all conspired against him. He was glad he had left them behind.

While the other passengers debarked and new ones boarded, Tory took out his tablet and pencil and composed another letter to Franklin to replace the one his father had destroyed. He needed Franklin to understand that he had not rejected him. Anger for what his father had done coalesced into his fingers, and the lead point tore into the paper. Using a fresh sheet, he started again, but this time he hesitated. What good would it do to write him? His letter would only create more confusion for Franklin. He balled up the paper, tossed it into a receptacle in the vestibule, and headed for the dining car.

Glancing around, he saw no available seats. One middle-aged, well-dressed man sitting alone at a table must have noticed Tory’s lost expression. He gestured for Tory to join him. Edging forward, Tory sat opposite the grinning man. They introduced themselves. The businessman, Abel Hendricks from Muskegon, Michigan, was traveling to Omaha to acquire lumber accounts.

“It’s the place to be in my line of business,” Mr. Hendricks said. Smoke from his cigar hovered above their heads. “They don’t have much lumber out there, so we have to ship it to them. I’m hoping to stay ahead of the ball. Where are you going, Mr. Pilkvist?”

Tory hesitated. “I’m traveling to… to the Black Hills.”

“Do you have business there?”

“No.”

Mr. Hendricks laughed, his broad shoulders shaking like the cinched curtains on their window as the train passed a rock quarry. “Go west, young man. Isn’t that what everyone says these days? Or is it already a cliché?”

Tory flushed and shrugged.

“Are you searching for gold?” Mr. Hendricks asked with a playful air.

Tory chuckled and shook his head. “I’m going for personal reasons.”

A waiter took their order. After he left, Mr. Hendricks put a finger to his goatee. “Perhaps I should consider traveling to the Black Hills someday,” he said. “I might be able to start a lumber company. I hear there’s plenty of lumber there.”

“I’ve never been, but I hear it’s beautiful.”

“Are you originally from Chicago?”

“Yes, born and raised.”

“I grew up on a farm in Indiana,” Mr. Hendricks went on. “I often miss the open country. But I couldn’t possibly earn the kind of money I make now toiling the soil the way my family had. Poor Father worked himself into an early grave, and with very little to show for it. Of course, droughts were to blame for most of it.”

A smile tickled Tory’s face as Mr. Hendricks rambled on about one topic after another. He was glad when the waiter served their supper to break up the string of endless sentences. Tory ate his quail and string beans while Mr. Hendricks continued to chat about the developing prairie and how the trains had carried unimaginable industry and people to places no one had ever conceived of living. Tory allowed the food to warm him. Dabbing at his mouth, he peered out the window. They were crossing a wide, twisting river. Mr. Hendricks must have noticed his dazzled expression, for he suddenly ceased speaking.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” he said after a moment, chuckling. “Each time I pass over it I’m always impressed. The lifeline of America.”

“Is it really the Mississippi?”

“None other.”

“I never expected it to be so broad.” Tory’s nose was near flat against the glass. The river wound to the horizon like a colossal bronze ribbon. A few hundred yards from the bridge, a riverboat churned upriver.

“Nothing like the picture books, hmm?” the man said.

“No, it certainly isn’t.”

The conductor announced the next stop: Davenport. The two men finished their coffee and bid each other farewell.

Back at his seat, Tory again gazed out the window. The industrial town along the Mississippi seemed similar to Chicago, only on a much smaller scale. There was even a five-story building, from what he could see. But soon after the train lurched westward from the train depot, cornfield after cornfield rushed by.

His entire life, Tory had lived in the city. Such expanses of rural land filled him with awe, but also fear. Much of the world, far larger than his neighborhood of River North, lay untouched by his hands, unseen by his eyes. He had grown accustomed to the world coming to him—people from every continent moved to Chicago. To find himself carried into that world both delighted and troubled him.

What really waited beyond the cultivated farmland of the vast heartland? Was Franklin Ausmus a mere figment of his imagination, nothing but a fantasy concocted in his head from letters written by an invisible hand?

He was glad to see the lumber dealer approach him with a grin. Someone from his own world, a man grounded in the reality of day-to-day business. For a moment, uncertainty subsided.

“Ah, my young friend.” The man, clutching his two satchels, greeted Tory with big yellow teeth. “Someone has taken my seat, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry. Would you care to sit here?” Tory patted the empty seat next to him. “This seat is vacant.”

“I think I will. Thank you.” Abel Hendricks secured his luggage in the bin above and settled next to Tory with a sigh. “There’s nothing like a comfortable train ride, is there?” he said, adjusting the legs of his breeches.

“It’s my first real long one,” Tory said. “I’ve only traveled as far as Washington to visit my sister.”

“Oh my, then this must be a real treat for you. Long train journeys are full of so much more, well… romance and adventure. Especially those heading west. The landscape is unmatched.”

“Have you been far west?”

“As far as Denver. You wouldn’t believe the mountains.” He shook his head. “So towering they cut the day’s length by two hours.”

“Really?”

“‘Behold the rocky wall, that down its sloping sides, pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, in rushing river-tides.’”

Tory smiled at him. “Is that from a poem?” he asked.

“Oliver Wendell Holmes,” Abel Hendricks said. “Are you an aficionado of poetry?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. My favorite is Walt Whitman.”

The man lifted his eyes to the silk-lined ceiling and clasped his veiny, chubby hands in his lap. “Walt Whitman? Well, he is quite a poet. You have excellent taste. He’s rather transcendental, don’t you agree?”

“Oh, yes. He uses the most interesting similes and metaphors.”

“Some say for things most of us would rather not speak about.” Mr. Hendricks elbowed Tory lightly on his arm and chuckled.

This last exchange left the two men silent. Tory stared out the window at the setting sun. He wondered if the train might never stop chasing the red orb. Finally, the sun fell beyond the western horizon and darkness oozed into the car, turning the window into a mirror. Tory could see from Abel Hendricks’s reflection that he’d fallen asleep. Soon Tory, too, nodded off to a jostling, dreamless sleep.

He awoke to feel something on his lap. The conductors had lighted the lanterns while he’d slept, and the dim glow revealed the hand of Abel Hendricks, still in a slumber, on Tory’s right thigh. His heart somersaulted. Even more arresting, Tory had his usual middle-of-the-night arousal. No way had it come from the man’s touch. The aching throb had occurred almost nightly since he’d turned twelve. What if the man awoke and believed Tory’s erection was because of him? He slowly tried to ease himself from under Mr. Hendricks’s hand, but the salesman stirred, and his hand nudged closer to Tory’s swelling.

The businessman’s lone visible eye opened. He was awake. But instead of removing his hand, he let it lay. To Tory’s horror, Mr. Hendricks moved his hand closer until he completely enveloped Tory’s bulge. No doubt the salesman was fully awake and wanted to fondle him right there on the train.

Almost as a punishment for losing Joseph, Tory had given himself to the fabric salesman from Maryland back in Chicago. In many ways, he blamed himself and his city for Joseph’s death. Tory had fallen along with Joseph on that horrible afternoon. They had both landed in a dark hole, where despair and cold emptiness sealed their gloomy future. But now, hope beckoned. Each passing railroad tie pumped him with fresh optimism. Out there, Franklin Ausmus waited. Someone who unwittingly loved him.

Tory no longer sought to sacrifice himself upon the liturgical hill, like he had with Calvin McGregor in the hotel room on the South Side. He must save himself for Franklin, and Franklin alone, even if his surrender was merely symbolic.

Tory wanted nothing intimate from Abel Hendricks. Sharing a meal, a seat, polite conversation—he fancied nothing more. Allowing no other thought, Tory jumped from his seat and darted for the water closet.

When Tory returned, Abel Hendricks had gone, along with his two satchels. The next morning, when they encountered each other in the dining car, the lumber salesman refrained from speaking to him or making any kind of eye contact. Just as well. Who needed a masher like him for a travel companion?

By midmorning, the train had rolled across the swift Missouri River into Omaha’s West Lawn Station. Luckily, that was Mr. Abel Hendricks’s last stop. Tory watched the middle-aged lumber dealer fumble with his luggage on the platform and, with only a cursory glance back at Tory, amble for his waiting stagecoach.