Captains and The Kings (11 page)

Her peculiar uneasiness sharpened. "I wish I could know that all will be well for you, Joey." "Sister, your meaning of 'well' may not be mine, I am thinking." She looked at the height of him, the breadth of his thin shoulders, his hungry slenderness, and then she saw, as always, the power in his set face, the cold blue glimmer of his sunken eyes. But for the first time she felt that Joseph Armagh was dangerous. Instantly she chided herself for her absurdity: A young man, only seventeen! A hard-working and sober young man-dangerous! But she had known danger many times in her life and however she laughed at herself she remained apprehensive. He went out into the early night, unaware that Sister Elizabeth was watching him from the doorway, and he looked back at the fagacle of the convent-orphanage for the last time. He knew he would never see it again, and he was thankful. He thought of his brother and sister asleep behind those frail wooden walls, and he pressed his lips together against a wince of pain that he was leaving them without a goodbye. He returned to his boardinghouse and looked at his few belongings. He would have to leave his beloved books. He laid out his one change of clothing beyond what he already wore. He packed these tightly in a cardboard box, pitifully small, even though it included another pair of mended boots. He was glad that it was still cool enough, at night, to wear his patched greatcoat. He lay down on his bed and went to sleep at once, for long ago he had taught himself to sleep immediately and on demand. The violet twilight deepened outside and the swallows blew against a purpling sky, and the town murmured with the excitement of threatened war. But Joseph Armagh slept with resolution for it had nothing to do with him. "Go with God, Joey," Sister Elizabeth had murmured as his tall emaciated body had swung down the street, but Joseph had not heard her and he would not even have smiled had he heard. She no longer existed for him. It was only faintly light, faintly gray, when Joseph awoke in the morning. The silence was total, for it was too early even for church bells. The air, he was pleased to feel, was a little chilly and so his greatcoat would excite no attention. He wrote a note on a piece of brown paper to Mrs. Marhall: I am sorry to leave you, Mistress Marhall, but I have been offered an excellent post in Pittsburgh and will leave for it today. I could not give you notice, but kindly accept, with my compliments, this ten- dollar gold certificate. I will not be returning. I am grateful for your kindness to me in the past. Your obedient Servant, Joseph Armagh.
His handwriting, so meticulously taught to him by an old priest he no longer remembered, was copperplate and careful, as well as bold and strong and clear. He looked thoughtfully at the gold certificate he had placed on his note. He could not understand this rank mawkishness of his, for he owed the woman nothing. He took it in his hand and debated. It was precious; he had earned it. He despised himself as he put it back on the paper, and then he shrugged. It was the utmost folly to see that poor frightened face so sharply now, and the wavering and placating hands. But, she was an innocent and to the end of his life Joseph was moved by innocence and only by innocence. She too had owed him nothing, but she had prepared an "elixir" for him, and had placed a ragged afghan on his bed during the coldest nights this winter, and he suspected that it had come from her own bed. More than anything else, however, she had never threatened him with sentimentality or intrusion, except on those two occasions, and had granted him the dignity of letting him alone. Maudlin she might be, but insistent never. He looked at his books. He lifted the thin volume of Shakespeare's sonnets and pushed it under his blue cotton shirt. He picked up his cardboard box and stole silently from the house, never looking back. Like Sister Elizabeth, it no longer existed for him. The street lost its familiarity. He was done with it. Again, he was an absolute alien in an alien land. He had always carried his lunch in the cardboard box which now held his few possessions, so no one at Squibbs Bros. Grain and Feed, Harness, noted it as he arrived at the stables and office. His wagon and the horses were waiting for him in the new light. The first pale sun was touching high chimneys and the tops of trees, but the earth was still in morning twilight. There was a hint of the coming hot summer in the air, for the smell of dust and dryness was pervasive. "Good load, today, Scottie," said the foreman. "People are thirsty, thinking of the war," and he chuckled. He gave Joseph the customary few cents for his lunch and Joseph nodded, tucked the coins in his pocket and lifted the reins. "Big load," said the foreman. "Could be you'll be getting back late." "It doesn't matter," said Joseph. "But do not forget the extra fifty cents if I am." The town was still silent though here and there flutters of gray smoke were rising from chimneys. Not even the horsecars were running as yet. Joseph tied up the horses six streets from the depot, then ran swiftly. The depot was just opening, for the 7:10 was expected in an hour from Philadelphia. He hurried to the counter and asked for a ticket to Pittsburgh on the late afternoon train, and paid for it: two dollars from his store. He put the ticket in his pocket. The old stationmaster would remember, if asked, that a young man he had never seen before had that morning bought a ticket to Pittsburgh for two dollars. But it was very improbable that he would be asked. Moreover, Joseph had carefully tucked the last thread of his russet hair under his workman's cap and he appeared insignificant enough, and the stationmaster had seen no wagon and no horses. Ah, thought Joseph, poverty is marvelously anonymous. He raced back to his tethered horses and found them peacefully cropping some blades of grass that had forced themselves through the bricks of the road. He looked about cautiously. The gray-faced little houses were quiet; a door banged somewhere but no one was about. He climbed onto his seat and set about his deliveries. By ten o'clock he had collected sixty dollars. At this time the people were going to church in the quiet and sunlit town, most on foot, a number in buggies or carryalls or shabby surreys, and all dressed respectably and all with pious downcast eyes. They did not notice the heavy wagon lumbering slowly along the curb or if they did they ignored it. They did not speak of the approaching conflict or even of the beset President for such was "unseemly" on the Sabbath. Church bells began to ring, competing stridently from steeple to steeple, and Joseph could hear the solemn murmurings of organs through doors open to the warming air. Children walked decorously with parents. Feet shuffled on brick. Carriages rattled by importantly. Sunshine lay on the trunks of trees or like bowers of light in the branches. There was a warm smell of manure in the streets and the ever-present dust and heated brick. Birds darted from bough to bough and an occasional squirrel was pursued by a stray dog or cat. To Joseph Armagh it was a street scene that might have been but a mural for all it had life to him and he did not hear the loud fervency of the singing which burst from door and opened window in the churches. By three o'clock he had collected over one hundred and fifty dollars and had watered his horses at a street trough and had fed them their oats in the bags. He had also eaten his dry lunch. At four he admitted to a furtive saloonkeeper that he was thirsty and hungry and accepted, for thirty cents, two large mugs of foaming yellow beer and a package of hard- boiled eggs, four ham sandwiches, a German sausage in a long bun, and two pickles and one salt herring and two slices of seed cake, including a package of potato salad, a German delicacy he had never eaten before. He complained about the price, and so the saloonkeeper returned five cents and magnanimously included another mug of beer. He gave Joseph forty dollars. At the next saloon, at five, Joseph collected another fifty dollars. It had been a very successful day, and the load had been twice as much as usual as Mr. Squibbs had learned to trust his newest "Sunday lad." Two hundred and forty dollars. With the twelve dollars in his money belt it reached the enormous sum of two hundred and fifty-two dollars. At half-past five he turned his wagon about, reached a street of warehouses completely barren on this Sunday of any passers-by or vehicles, abandoned the horses after patting them, and ran for the depot. He reached it just as a train in the station, with its gigantic funnel and blinking headlight, was shrilly sounding its bell and letting off painful shrieks of steam. Its wheels were already grinding as Joseph leaped aboard the last coach. The conductor, about to shut the door, growled at him, "Almost got kilt, you did, and where's your ticket?" He suspiciously examined it front and back and glared at Joseph who muttered something in what he hoped would pass as a foreign language. The conductor sniffed, said, "Foreigners! Cain't even speak a word of English!" Joseph humbly touched his cap, gabbled again pleadingly. The conductor roughly pushed him inside the coach and forgot him. Joseph, whose breath was short from his long run, found the coach partly empty and so he chose a seat in the rear and huddled down, pulling his cap as far over his eyes as he could. He did not sit up until he was certain that he was beyond the confines of the town, and then he looked through the filthy window at the countryside. He listened to the howl of the whistle as the train gained speed and rocked on its roadbed. The coach was hot and airless. He tried to open the window but a gush of black soot and steam blew by it. He did not take off his cap but he loosened his greatcoat. He discovered that he had not only taken his cardboard box with his belongings, but had accidentally included the truncheon as well. This amused him. Cautiously, watching his fellow passengers all the while, he pushed the weapon into the long side pocket of his coat. It seemed, to his Irish soul, that this was some sort of an omen, though he usually despised superstition. He hoped that the horses, intelligent beasts, would eventually grow tired of waiting for him-for he had not tethered them-and would find their way back to their stables. By now it was past time when he should be arriving at the stables, himself, with that great sum of money. He knew that the other men would be looking up the street for him. By eight o'clock they would be searching and would be making the rounds of the saloons. By ten they would be convinced that he had departed with the collections. By eight tomorrow Mr. Squibbs would receive his letter: I have not stolen your money, sir, but have only borrowed it, on my honor. I have been offered a fine post in Pittsburgh and needed some money to tide me over until I have become settled. You may find this very reprehensible, sir, but I beg of you to trust me for a few months, when I will return your money with six percent interest. I am no thief, sir, but only a poor Scotsman in desperate circumstances. Resp'y your Servant, Joseph Armagh. Mr. Squibbs would not dare to go to the police for a variety of reasons, and his thugs would not find a Joseph Armagh in the big city of Pittsburgh, for the simple reason that Joseph's destination was not Pittsburgh at all. He felt in his pocket for the worn newspaper clipping he had kept these long months and reread it:
"More and more fine oil wells are being drilled at Titusville monthly and are richly yielding, some of them thousands of barrels a week at least. The little town is booming as the Klondike in '45, and workers are receiving unbelievable wages. Men are flocking from all over Pennsylvania and other States to work in the fields, and regrettable Vice is accompanying them as it always does Riches. Incredible wages of up to twelve and even fifteen dollars a week are being paid for mean labor such as hauling the oil barrels to the flatboats and loading them. Those engaged in drilling, it is rumored, receive far more. So close to the surface is the Rich Oil Deposit that it gushes out of the ground on mere drilling. But a few of the wells are much deeper, and these have the best of oil, more refined. So some are being 'blown' by nitroglycerin, though not many, and it is quite a novelty. Intrepid young men, with apparently no regard for their Lives, are willing to haul nitroglycerin, a very dangerous Element, for the wells, and it is said that they can receive up to twenty dollars a week, unheard-of Recompense. No wonder Corruption is an inevitable Companion, and there are now more saloons in Titusville than there are churches, impossible though this may be in the opinion of Our Readers. It is fortunate that Titusville still has only one train a week, on Sunday night, but it is expected that in a few months it will have daily runs and our Fears mount accordingly. It is hoped that young Men of Decorum in other sections of the State will not rush to Titusville to make their fortunes but to imperil their Souls. "It is rumored that Pithole, a few miles from Titusville, has even more astounding Oil deposits, but it is in rough country and is arduous to reach over some formidable hills and rude territory. Men from Titusville and other parts of the State, it is said, are buying up land near Pithole and hope to do what, in their parlance, is called 'wild-catting.' It is said that 'oil lies on the very ground and in holes and pits, ready for the taking, without drilling, in Pithole.' Alas, if it is so, for a quiet and God-fearing community of a few souls. If enough oil is discovered there a shuttle may be run to Pithole, but that, we hope, will never transpire. There are enough ruthless Entrepreneurs and Gamblers already in Titusville, with eyes on Pithole, and are selling stock certificates hand over fist for Enormous Sums. Yet the Standard Oil Company, we have heard, is evincing interest. So far the owners of the oil fields in Titusville have resisted the blandishments of the Standard Oil Company, so the battle continues for control of the new wealth which will soon entirely eliminate, it is believed, the market for whale and other oils. We are not that sanguine, for we have heard that the odor of crude natural oil is beyond bearing and creates Hazards of smoke and fire.
"While we all rejoice at the abounding wealth of our Great Commonwealth, we must also mourn that its Cohorts abound also, women of unspeakable morals and card-sharps and the vendors of liquors and beer, and dance-halls and opera houses and other dens of Vice. We pray with the deepest piety and apprehension, for the Souls of-" But Joseph had torn off the rest and had kept the clipping. He tucked the paper in his pocket again. Months ago he had decided to become a "ruthless Entrepreneur" as soon as possible. Men do not get rich by honest labor, he had often thought. They study and then gamble cautiously, but not too cautiously. He knew the danger of failure, but he did not intend to fail. He thought of Pithole as well as Titusville, and the oil which lay there for the taking. He had no grandiloquent dreams of sudden fortune, but he had the intuition of the Irish for the place of eventual fortunes, if a man used his intelligence and overlooked no opportunity. For a beginning, he was willing to do any work and had discovered that willing and able and industrious workers were not as plentiful as employers always desired, and if a man had intelligence, too, then employers were inclined to regard him favorably. Joseph had seen lanquid, impertinent workers at the sawmills who would work only when under constant supervision, and not even poverty could drive them to greater efforts, nor could the threat of discharge. They were of feeble character, even the most burly, and grumbled and short-shrifted their work, so Joseph had slowly come to the conclusion that they were not worth more than they were paid and were not exploited. By their very shiftless being they were hindrances to such workers as Joseph Armagh, and his kind had to redouble their efforts to attract the benign-more or less-eye of ambitious employers. It was dark beyond the train window. Joseph opened his parcel of food and devoured three hard-boiled eggs, all the ham sandwiches and pickles and herring and the sausage and its bun, and then finished the meal with the cake. He discarded the potato salad. This done he looked furtively about him at the stinking coach with its poor and nodding passengers, its rattan and broken seats, its floor covered with straw and the ends of cheroots and tobacco-stained spittle. The conductor had lighted the three lanterns that hung from the round wooden ceiling, and the smell was intense in the sooty heat. The whistle howled as the train pounded through the hidden countryside and past little villages where it did not stop, and tiny lighted depots, and the rocking of the coach almost threw Joseph from his seat. The steam and soot spewing past the window were lighted with red sparks, and some of the filth found its way even into the shut coach and the murk and smoke set all to coughing. Joseph saw that his hands were already blackened and he suspected that his face was, also. He had no watch. He did not know the time and dared not ask the trainman for fear of revealing that he understood English. But he knew that the train stopped at a small town in about two hours, and had a shuttle to Titusville, and that it met this train before it turned east towards Pittsburgh. He thought of Corland, twenty miles from Titusville, and he said to himself, I have found a way to be rich, and nothing will stop me! It needed only what Americans called "a stake," and that he would have in a very short time. It needed concentration on the only thing which mattered in this world. Joseph, watching the backs and heads of the other passengers, felt for the twenty-dollar goldpiece in a pinned pocket. It was secure. He felt for his money belt, heavy now, and that was secure too. He was on his way, and he smiled and waited.