Car 4’s porter station was a small closet with a curtain for a door. It was crammed with clean towels and napkins, cold and hangover cures, a shoe-shine kit, and a spirit stove to heat water. Dow unscrewed a lightbulb to cast shadow on the short length of corridor along which he would dart to Marion Morgan’s Stateroom 4. Then he rehearsed.
He practiced watching the corridor through the porter’s curtain, tracing the route Isaac Bell would take from the front of the car toward the rear. Then he practiced stepping silently into the corridor and swinging his sap. Restricted by the confines of the narrow space, he swept it underhanded. The momentum of running the three steps, combined with a long reach that started well behind, would accelerate the heavy pouch of lead shot with deadly force into Isaac Bell’s temple.
ISAAC BELL PRESSED FINGERS to his temple.
“Headache?” Marion murmured.
“Just hoping this ‘short speech’ will be over soon,” he whispered back.
“Anarchy?” shouted Charles Kincaid, building steam. “Emperor worship? Who knows how the Chinaman thinks? Hatred of the white man. Or deranged by smoking opium, his favorite vice …”
His supporters leaped up, applauding.
Preston Whiteway, red-nosed on good wine, bellowed in Osgood Hennessy’s ear, “Didn’t the Senator nail the Yellow Peril threat square on the head?”
“We built the transcontinental railroad with John Chinaman,” Hennessy retorted. “That makes him good enough for me.”
Franklin Mowery stood up from the table and glanced at Whiteway, muttering, “Next time your train glides through the Donner Summit, cast your eye on their stonework.”
Whiteway, deaf to dissent, grinned at Marion. “I’ll wager that old Isaac here applauds Senator Kincaid’s understanding of the threat, since he’s the hotshot detective who stopped that opium-maddened Chinaman in his tracks.”
Bell thought that Whiteway’s grins at Marion were getting dangerously close to leers. Dangerous for Whiteway, that is.
“The motivation appears to have been money,” Bell replied sternly. Dodging Marion’s kick under the table, he added, “We have no evidence that the man who paid him smoked anything stronger than tobacco.”
Mowery gathered up his walking stick and limped toward the porch.
Bell hurried to hold the door for him, as his young assistant had not been invited to the banquet. Mowery tottered across the covered porch and leaned on the railing that overlooked the river.
Bell watched curiously. The engineer had been acting strangely all day. Now he was staring at the bridge piers, which were lighted by the electric arc lamps. The old man seemed mesmerized.
Bell joined him at the railing.
“Quite a sight from down here?”
“What? Yes, yes, of course.”
“Is something the matter, sir? Are you not feeling well?”
“Water’s rising,” said Mowery.
“It’s been raining a lot. In fact, I think it’s starting up again now.”
“The rain only makes it worse.”
“Beg your pardon, sir?”
“For thousands of years, the river has descended from the mountains at a steep gradient,” Mowery answered as if lecturing from a textbook. “At such a gradient, countless tons of debris tumble in the water. Abrasive materials-earth, sand, gravel, rocks. They grind the riverbed deeper and wider. In doing so, they dredge up more debris. Where the river’s gradient decreases, she deposits this material. Crossing flats like the one this town’s built on, the river spreads out and meanders. Her channels interweave like braid. Then they bunch up here in the gorge, laying down tons and tons of sediment. God alone knows how much lies between here and bedrock.”
Suddenly, he looked Bell full in the face. His own features reflected skull-like in the harsh electric light.
“The Bible tells us a foolish man builds his house on sand. But it doesn’t tell us what to do when we have no choice but to build on sand.”
“I suppose that’s why we need engineers.” Bell smiled encourag ingly, sensing that the engineer was trying tell him something that he was afraid to voice.
Mowery chuckled but did not smile. “You hit that nail on the head, son. That’s why we trust engineers.”
The door opened behind them.