The Octopus, Frank Norris [books you need to read txt] 📗

a bit.”

“But you said you didn’t feel very well. Where is it you feel sick?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sick. Oh, dear me, why will you bother?”

“Headache?”

“Not the least.”

“You feel tired, then. That’s it. No wonder, the way rushed you ‘round to-day.”

“Dear, I’m NOT tired, and I’m NOT sick, and I’m all RIGHT.”

“No, no; I can tell. I think we’d best have the berth made up and you lie down.”

“That would be perfectly ridiculous.”

“Well, where is it you feel sick? Show me; put your hand on the place. Want to eat something?”

With elaborate minuteness, he cross-questioned her, refusing to let the subject drop, protesting that she had dark circles under her eyes; that she had grown thinner.

“Wonder if there’s a doctor on board,” he murmured, looking uncertainly about the car. “Let me see your tongue. I know—a little whiskey is what you want, that and some pru–-”

“No, no, NO,” she exclaimed. “I’m as well as I ever was in all my life. Look at me. Now, tell me, do l look likee a sick lady?”

He scrutinised her face distressfully.

“Now, don’t I look the picture of health?” she challenged.

“In a way you do,” he began, “and then again–-”

Hilma beat a tattoo with her heels upon the floor, shutting her fists, the thumbs tucked inside. She closed her eyes, shaking her head energetically.

“I won’t listen, I won’t listen, I won’t listen,” she cried.

“But, just the same–-”

“Gibble—gibble—gibble,” she mocked. “I won’t Listen, I won’t listen.” She put a hand over his mouth. “Look, here’s the dining-car waiter, and the first call for supper, and your wife is hungry.”

They went forward and had supper in the diner, while the long train, now out upon the main line, settled itself to its pace, the prolonged, even gallop that it would hold for the better part of the week, spinning out the miles as a cotton spinner spins thread.

It was already dark when Antioch was left behind. Abruptly the sunset appeared to wheel in the sky and readjusted itself to the right of the track behind Mount Diablo, here visible almost to its base. The train had turned southward. Neroly was passed, then Brentwood, then Byron. In the gathering dusk, mountains began to build themselves up on either hand, far off, blocking the horizon. The train shot forward, roaring. Between the mountains the land lay level, cut up into farms, ranches. These continually grew larger; growing wheat began to appear, billowing in the wind of the train’s passage. The mountains grew higher, the land richer, and by the time the moon rose, the train was well into the northernmost limits of the valley of the San Joaquin.

Annixter had engaged an entire section, and after he and his wife went to bed had the porter close the upper berth. Hilma sat up in bed to say her prayers, both hands over her face, and then kissing Annixter good-night, went to sleep with the directness of a little child, holding his hand in both her own.

Annixter, who never could sleep on the train, dozed and tossed and fretted for hours, consulting his watch and time-table whenever there was a stop; twice he rose to get a drink of ice water, and between whiles was forever sitting up in the narrow berth, stretching himself and yawning, murmuring with uncertain relevance:

“Oh, Lord! Oh-h-h LORD!”

There were some dozen other passengers in the car—a lady with three children, a group of school-teachers, a couple of drummers, a stout gentleman with whiskers, and a well-dressed young man in a plaid travelling cap, whom Annixter had observed before supper time reading Daudet’s “Tartarin” in the French.

But by nine o’clock, all these people were in their berths. Occasionally, above the rhythmic rumble of the wheels, Annixter could hear one of the lady’s children fidgeting and complaining. The stout gentleman snored monotonously in two notes, one a rasping bass, the other a prolonged treble. At intervals, a brakeman or the passenger conductor pushed down the aisle, between the curtains, his red and white lamp over his arm. Looking out into the car Annixter saw in an end section where the berths had not been made up, the porter, in his white duck coat, dozing, his mouth wide open, his head on his shoulder.

The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Annixter, checking off the stations, noted their passage of Modesto, Merced, and Madeira. Then, after another broken nap, he lost count. He wondered where they were. Had they reached Fresno yet? Raising the window curtain, he made a shade with both hands on either side of his face and looked out. The night was thick, dark, clouded over. A fine rain was falling, leaving horizontal streaks on the glass of the outside window. Only the faintest grey blur indicated the sky. Everything else was impenetrable blackness.

“I think sure we must have passed Fresno,” he muttered. He looked at his watch. It was about half-past three. “If we have passed Fresno,” he said to himself, “I’d better wake the little girl pretty soon. She’ll need about an hour to dress. Better find out for sure.”

He drew on his trousers and shoes, got into his coat, and stepped out into the aisle. In the seat that had been occupied by the porter, the Pullman conductor, his cash box and car-schedules before him, was checking up his berths, a blue pencil behind his ear.

“What’s the next stop, Captain?” inquired Annixter, coming up. “Have we reached Fresno yet?”

“Just passed it,” the other responded, looking at Annixter over his spectacles.

“What’s the next stop?”

“Goshen. We will be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“Fair black night, isn’t it?”

“Black as a pocket. Let’s see, you’re the party in upper and lower 9.”

Annixter caught at the back of the nearest seat, just in time to prevent a fall, and the conductor’s cash box was shunted off the surface of the plush seat and came clanking to the floor. The Pintsch lights overhead vibrated with blinding rapidity in the long, sliding jar that ran through the train from end to end, and the momentum of its speed suddenly decreasing, all but pitched the conductor from his seat. A hideous ear-splitting rasp made itself heard from the clamped-down Westinghouse gear underneath, and Annixter knew that the wheels had ceased to revolve and that the train was sliding forward upon the motionless flanges.

“Hello, hello,” he exclaimed, “what’s all up now?”

“Emergency brakes,” declared the conductor, catching up his cash box and thrusting his papers and tickets into it. “Nothing much; probably a cow on the track.”

He disappeared, carrying his lantern with him.

But the other passengers, all but the stout gentleman, were awake; heads were thrust from out the curtains, and Annixter, hurrying back to Hilma, was assailed by all manner of questions.

“What was that?”

“Anything wrong?”

“What’s up, anyways?”

Hilma was just waking as Annixter pushed the curtain aside.

“Oh, I was so frightened. What’s the matter, dear?” she exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Only the emergency brakes. Just a cow on the track, I guess. Don’t get scared. It isn’t anything.”

But with a final shriek of the Westinghouse appliance, the train came to a definite halt.

At once the silence was absolute. The ears, still numb with the long-continued roar of wheels and clashing iron, at first refused to register correctly the smaller noises of the surroundings. Voices came from the other end of the car, strange and unfamiliar, as though heard at a great distance across the water. The stillness of the night outside was so profound that the rain, dripping from the car roof upon the road-bed underneath, was as distinct as the ticking of a clock.

“Well, we’ve sure stopped,” observed one of the drummers.

“What is it?” asked Hilma again. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

“Sure,” said Annixter. Outside, underneath their window, they heard the sound of hurried footsteps crushing into the clinkers by the side of the ties. They passed on, and Annixter heard some one in the distance shout:

“Yes, on the other side.”

Then the door at the end of their car opened and a brakeman with a red beard ran down the aisle and out upon the platform in front. The forward door closed. Everything was quiet again. In the stillness the fat gentleman’s snores made themselves heard once more.

The minutes passed; nothing stirred. There was no sound but the dripping rain. The line of cars lay immobilised and inert under the night. One of the drummers, having stepped outside on the platform for a look around, returned, saying:

“There sure isn’t any station anywheres about and no siding. Bet you they have had an accident of some kind.”

“Ask the porter.”

“I did. He don’t know.”

“Maybe they stopped to take on wood or water, or something.”

“Well, they wouldn’t use the emergency brakes for that, would they? Why, this train stopped almost in her own length. Pretty near slung me out the berth. Those were the emergency brakes. I heard some one say so.”

From far out towards the front of the train, near the locomotive, came the sharp, incisive report of a revolver; then two more almost simultaneously; then, after a long interval, a fourth.

“Say, that’s SHOOTING. By God, boys, they’re shooting. Say, this is a hold-up.”

Instantly a white-hot excitement flared from end to end of the car. Incredibly sinister, heard thus in the night, and in the rain, mysterious, fearful, those four pistol shots started confusion from out the sense of security like a frightened rabbit hunted from her burrow. Wide-eyed, the passengers of the car looked into each other’s faces. It had come to them at last, this, they had so often read about. Now they were to see the real thing, now they were to face actuality, face this danger of the night, leaping in from out the blackness of the roadside, masked, armed, ready to kill. They were facing it now. They were held up.

Hilma said nothing, only catching Annixter’s hand, looking squarely into his eyes.

“Steady, little girl,” he said. “They can’t hurt you. I won’t leave you. By the Lord,” he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement getting the better of him for a moment. “By the Lord, it’s a hold-up.”

The school-teachers were in the aisle of the car, in night gown, wrapper, and dressing sack, huddled together like sheep, holding on to each other, looking to the men, silently appealing for protection. Two of them were weeping, white to the lips.

“Oh, oh, oh, it’s terrible. Oh, if they only won’t hurt me.”

But the lady with the children looked out from her berth, smiled reassuringly, and said:

“I’m not a bit frightened. They won’t do anything to us if we keep quiet. I’ve my watch and jewelry all ready for them in my little black bag, see?”

She exhibited it to the passengers. Her children were all awake. They were quiet, looking about them with eager faces, interested and amused at this surprise. In his berth, the fat gentleman with whiskers snored profoundly.

“Say, I’m going out there,” suddenly declared one of the drummers, flourishing a pocket revolver.

His friend caught his arm.

“Don’t make a fool of yourself, Max,” he said.

“They won’t come near us,” observed the well-dressed young man; “they are after the Wells-Fargo box and the registered mail. You won’t do any good out there.”

But the other loudly protested. No; he was going out. He didn’t propose to be buncoed without a fight. He wasn’t any coward.

“Well, you don’t go, that’s all,” said his friend, angrily. “There’s women and children in this car. You ain’t going to draw the fire here.”

“Well, that’s to be thought of,” said the other, allowing himself to be pacified, but still holding