The Freight Road

The San Marcos railhead smelled of coal smoke and creosote before the sun had fully cleared the water tank, and Owen Rourke was already down among the wagon wheels when the first freight cars began shunting on the siding beyond the depot fence. Six wagons stood in a loose line across the yard, canvas tops still damp with night dew, their iron-shod wheels sunk an inch into churned mud from the loading. He worked his way down the line with a wrench in one hand and a tallow can in the other, kneeling at each hub long enough to feel for play and make certain the grease had been packed fresh.

The lead wagon carried the worst of it. Owen straightened and looked at the thing lashed to its bed, a great gray hulk of cast iron wrapped in burlap and held down by three separate turns of heavy chain. The Silver Basin mine's replacement pump casting sat low and square on doubled timber blocking. Even so, the weight showed in the wagon's running gear. Nathan Kincaid had strengthened the bolsters and bracing before they loaded it, and Owen meant to inspect the wheels and axles at every halt until the iron was off his hands.

"Manifest says thirty-six hundred," Jesse Colter said, coming around the tailgate with his thumbs hooked in his belt. "I had four men and two jacks get it onto that bed, and I'll tell you plain, it lifted like more than thirty-six hundred."

"How much more?"

"Four hundred, maybe better. Whatever they weighed at the foundry, they didn't weigh everything that's riding with it now."

Owen ran his hand along the top chain, testing the tension, then crouched beside the near wheel. "Then this wagon gets watched harder than anything else in the outfit. Every halt and every hard grade. If a hub starts heating or anything in the gear begins working loose, I want to know before it becomes a breakdown."

Nathan came out from beneath the wagon with grease to his elbows and a look of controlled excitement on his freckled face. He had been under three of the six wagons already that morning, testing spindle nuts with a wrench and his bare hand both, the way his father had taught him back in Iowa.

"Tires are seated tight on all six, Mr. Rourke. I reset the near-side hub on wagon four. It was running a shade loose."

"Good. Keep an eye on this lead wagon the whole route. If you feel heat in a hub after a grade, you sing out before we go another mile."

"Yes, sir."

Down the line, the thirty-six mules stood harnessed in their traces, heads low, tails switching at the early flies. Owen and Jesse worked through them together, checking collar fit against shoulder, running hands down forelegs, and lifting hooves to look at shoes and frogs.

Two mules on the fourth team showed shoes worn thin enough that Owen stopped over them.

"Nathan."

The young blacksmith looked up from the wagon.

"See to these before we pull out. I don't want either animal going lame once we leave the railhead."

Nathan came over, lifted the first hoof, and examined the shoe. "I can have them done."

"Do it. We can spare the time here easier than we can spare it halfway up a mountain."

Jesse straightened with a grunt for his knees. "Weather's turning early. Feel it in the mornings already. We get caught in the high country past October, this whole outfit could be finishing the run in snow."

"We've got days yet."

"Days you can lose to one bad river crossing." Jesse pulled his hat down against the climbing sun. "I've seen mountain weather turn in an afternoon, Rourke. Hard enough to put snow around your hubs before you thought winter had properly started."

Owen had heard the warning before, and it was true every time. Mountain weather did not improve because a freight contract said the load was due. He glanced toward the higher country, then went on with the inspection. There was still work to finish before worrying about weather they had not reached.

At the third wagon, Rachel Pendleton stood over an open crate with her sleeves pinned back and a ledger balanced against her hip.

"Mr. Rourke." She did not look up from the crate. Bottles of carbolic stood packed in straw beside smaller medicine containers and bundles wrapped in paper. "I need this crate and the two beside it kept dry. Not sitting in water after a crossing and not under a canvas that's already soaked through."

"That's medicine for the camp doctor?"

"Some of it. Quinine, dressings, and other supplies. The rest is letters, account papers, and parcels people have trusted me to carry into Silver Basin." She closed the ledger. "The bottles can stand some damp. The powders, dressings, and papers cannot."

Owen looked over the wagon bed. Flour sacks were stacked along the floor with crated hardware behind them.

"We'll put the three crates on blocking and give them their own tarpaulin. Nathan can help you restack once he's finished with the teams."

"That will do. Thank you."

She was already moving to the next crate before Owen turned away.

Abel Holloway was waiting near the fifth wagon when Owen came around to inspect the last team, arms crossed and his weight shifted onto his good leg, the bad one held stiff behind him.

"You know what that thing weighs now," he said, jerking his chin toward the lead wagon. "Jesse's already told half the yard it came in heavy. We're getting paid freight rates on a manifest number, not on what the foundry actually sent."

"The pay's set by contract."

"Contract didn't figure near two tons of iron riding a road that goes into mountain country this late in the year." Holloway's pale eyes moved from Owen to the lead wagon and back. "A man could get killed moving that kind of weight over a bad grade."

"A man can get killed moving an ordinary load over a bad grade if he handles it wrong."

Holloway's mouth tightened. "That lead wagon gets away from Jesse downhill, it won't matter which wagon I'm driving. Four thousand pounds of iron starts running and the rest of us are on the same road."

"Which is why nobody crowds the wagon ahead on a descent," Owen said. "We'll give Jesse room, use the brake before the grade gets away from him, and double teams on the hard pulls where we need to. If a piece of road isn't safe for that load, we stop and make it safe or find another way."

"You make it sound simple."

"No. I make it sound like freight work."

Holloway held his stare a moment, then looked off toward the mules.

"Get back to your wagon, Abel. We roll when Nathan finishes those shoes."

Holloway muttered something under his breath and limped off.

Jesse, watching from a few yards away, shook his head slowly. "That one's going to be trouble before we clear the first pass."

"Maybe. He's also got hands enough to drive a team, and I'm short of hands I can afford to turn away."

Owen looked toward the northern rim of hills, where the sky had gone the color of old iron above the peaks. A rider was coming down off the ridge road at an easy trot. It took only a moment to recognize the sheepskin jacket and the deliberate, unhurried seat of Tobias Garrison.

Garrison reined in beside the lead wagon and sat looking at the pump casting before he spoke.

"Rockslide took out near a quarter mile of the main road above Cottonwood Bend. Happened sometime in the last week, from the look of the scar. Whole shoulder of the mountain came down onto the grade."

"Passable?"

"Not for six loaded wagons. Maybe not for one."

"How far did you follow it?"

"Far enough to know waiting won't help us. There's more rock still loose above the cut."

Owen looked toward the peaks. "What about another road?"

"There's a bypass runs higher along an old survey route. Nobody's freighted it in years. Narrower and rougher, but it gets around the slide."

"You rode it through?"

"Most of it. There's one steep pull and two turns that'll take care with that lead wagon, but nothing I saw that six wagons can't manage if we take them slow."

"Water?"

"A spring above the old survey camp. Running yesterday."

"Enough for thirty-six head?"

Garrison considered it. "Enough if we water them in shifts and don't waste it."

"Any ground where that lead wagon can't turn?"

"One place will be close. We'll want a man ahead watching the inside wheel."

"How much time?"

"A day, maybe two, over the main road." Garrison glanced toward the dark sky behind him. "And there's weather building beyond those peaks that I don't care for the look of. I'd sooner take the bypass slow than sit here waiting for a road crew that may not reach the slide before the weather does."

Owen looked down the line of wagons. Rachel's crates were being reset on timber blocking. Nathan had the second worn shoe off one of the fourth team's mules. Jesse was already checking the lead harness again. Holloway sat on the fifth wagon seat with the reins loose in his hands and a sour set to his mouth.

Waiting at the railhead might gain them nothing but colder weather.

"We'll take the bypass," Owen said. "Slow where it's narrow. We'll double the lead team on the hard pull if we have to."

Garrison nodded once.

By the time Nathan finished the mule's second shoe, the sun was well above the depot roof. Owen made one final walk down the line, checked the lead wagon's chains again, then mounted.

"Move them out."

Jesse started the lead team. The six mules leaned into their collars, traces drawing taut one after another until the heavy wagon gave a slow lurch and began to roll. Iron tires ground over the packed yard. The second wagon followed, then the third, until all six were stretched into line.

By the time the last wagon cleared San Marcos, coal smoke from the railhead was thinning behind them. Ahead, the road climbed toward the first long rise of the mountain country beneath a darkening sky.