1
January 1861

"We must be near Galena already," Lon said with a look at the closed door of the baggage car. "Nothing's happened."

"Wait," his partner said. Sledge sat on a crated shipment, legs stuck out, the payroll bag between his heels. His boots were dirty and scarred. Lon's were spotless except for a few streaks of slush. Around the office they called him Gentleman Lon because of his manners and neatness. He out-Englished the English operatives, of which there were several.

The Chicago & Galena express was traveling northwest, toward Dubuque across the Mississippi. Adams Express paid almost four hundred dollars a month to rent space in the line's baggage cars. Its competitor, American Express, had similar arrangements, necessary because trains were favorite targets of thieves, and their routes crossed the territories of a legion of sheriffs who were crooks, bunglers, or both. Lon Price's agency had contracts with both express companies and a group of six rail lines who together put up ten thousand dollars a year for protection for their real estate and rolling stock.

Lon and his partner were replacing a regular guard because of a robbery attempt on the same train at the same time last month. The attempt failed; the inept holdup men had blocked the track with a flimsy barrier of barn siding. The engineer had smashed the locomotive right through without stopping. The boss had tried to persuade the Chicago & Galena to ship its next Dubuque payroll by another train, at another time, but management lived by schedules and timetables. So here they were, rolling through the winter night, waiting.

Lon blew on his hands. The car was frigid even though he could see flames in the small stove. The flue pipe went out through the solid wall at the head of the car. Near the stove, the railway mail clerk sat on a stool with his elbows on the counter. All his mail was sorted in pigeonholes and he appeared to be dozing. The clerk struck Lon as suspiciously furtive. Careful observation was a habit the boss demanded.

From his left pocket Lon took a well-thumbed book. Sledge Greenglass, whose given name was Philo, worked his gold-plated toothpick in a crevice in his teeth. Where Lon was fair and broad-shouldered, but otherwise slight, Sledge was taller, heavier, with curly black hair and perhaps an Italian or Greek ancestor. He was ten to fifteen years older than Lon.

"What's that?" Sledge said with a nod at the book.

"The latest by Charles Dickens. The latest novel published here, I mean. There's a new serial running in England, Great Expectations. Dickens is my favorite writer after Edgar Poe." Lon showed the book's spine.

"A Tale of Two Cities. Invite him over, maybe he'll write A Tale of Two Countries."

Sledge's sarcasm was justified. The Union was collapsing. Five days before Christmas, South Carolina had passed its ordinance of secession, and other Southern states were following—Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama last week. The commander of the Army garrison in Charleston had shifted his men to Fort Sumter in the harbor, and Star of the West, lame-duck President Buck Buchanan's relief ship carrying reinforcements, had already been turned back by Charleston harbor defenses. The problem would confront the President-elect, whom Lon had met once in Chicago. He was a downstate lawyer who had for a while represented the Illinois Central. Lon wondered if such a peculiar, ugly man could do anything to save the country from war.

The locomotive whistled mournfully. The train creaked and rattled around a bend. Three oil lamps hanging from the ceiling swayed and smoked. The car reeked of old cigars. Lon read half a page, then read it twice more. He shut the book and made a face.

Sledge said, "Nervous?"

"Some. I've only been at this for a couple of years. Do you ever get used to the danger?"

They noticed the mail clerk watching. Sledge lowered his voice. "Been a copper nearly thirteen years, since I joined the New York force." Sledge and the agency's senior operative, Tim Webster, a former police sergeant, had been assigned to guard the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1853. The boss had met them, liked them, and hired them away.

Sledge continued, "I been shot at, knifed, mauled in the line of duty maybe a dozen times. And no, I'm not used to it. But even if they hit us tonight, I wouldn't worry too much. Holdup men aren't only crooked, most of them are stupid. Look how they mucked up last time. The rule is, no matter how scared you are, no matter what your belly's telling you, keep it hid and always give back more than you take. That's how you stay alive. That's how you win."

Lon Price mostly liked his more experienced partner, but not this kind of talk. "We're supposed to be professional operatives, not roughneck detectives." In fact the boss forbade the use of the word detective in his presence.

"Oh, I forgot," Sledge said with his familiar mockery. "You grew up with a preacher in a preacher's house. All hymns, holiness, heaven, and hallelujah."

"Listen, Sledge. My father was a good man. He cut his life short trying to help Negroes escape to Canada. He was even shot once by slave-catchers. You can say anything you want about me but keep still about him."

"Sorry. Forgot my manners. Police work slaps 'em out of you pretty fast."

Lon was silent. Sledge changed the subject. "Think those Southron hotheads will start a war?"

"I hope not. They can't be allowed to destroy the Union. They can't go on enslaving an entire race and breaking up families for profit. The Negroes have got to be free."

Copyright © John Jakes, 2000.