The Railroad War (6 page)

“I don’t. I love it as much as you do. But the South must change.”

“And become like Massachusetts and its thousands of machines all click, click, clicking, and its tens of thousands of men
and women all click, click, clicking in time with the machines?” She caught Noah’s eye. “Slaves live better than that.”

“I agree,” he said. “Most factory workers are slaves by another name. But,” he insisted, his eyes holding hers, “the masters
of the factories and the railroads will win the future.”

“No,” she said, tearing her eyes away.

“And that’s where your father, and everyone like him, has blinded himself.”

“No,” she said again, but with much less force.

“But that’s what I aim to change.”

“You?” Ariel asked.

“If anyone can do it, Noah can,” Sam said quietly.

“How can you change the South?” Miranda said brightly, with a sparkle in her eyes. “I thought we were perfect the way we are.”

“Don’t you be sarcastic,” Ariel said.

“I was just asking,” Miranda said sweetly, “out of pure curiosity.”

“I’ll give you an example,” Noah said. “Take Atlanta, my home.”

“I love Atlanta,” Miranda said. “The Kembles have land near there.”

“If you love it the way it is, then you’ll love it more the way it can be—the way it
will
be.”

“You’d make it a dirty, smelly factory town,” Ariel said. “That’s what you’d do if you have your way. No thanks. I don’t want
any of that.”

“Four railroads meet in Atlanta. And more will come there in time. Atlanta will become a great city—when we so choose. It
will be the Chicago of the South. And there are factories there already: rolling mills, machine shops, arsenals. But it’s
railroads that have made Altanta. The town didn’t even exist before railroads, and now there must be fifty thousand people
living there.”

“That’s plenty of people,” Ariel said. “More than enough for me.”

“Atlanta even got its name from a railroad man,” he continued, ignoring her in his fervor. “Did you know that? A man named
Edgar Thomson christened her back when he was chief engineer at one of the Georgia railroads. Now he’s president of the Pennsylvania,
the richest railroad in the country.”

“I don’t want Atlanta to turn into Chicago. I want it to stay Atlanta,” Ariel said. “I don’t want any more machines. There
are enough machines already.”

Noah shook his head in exasperation. Then he looked at Lam and Sam. “I’m not just saying this because it would be nice for
the South to have factories and railroads. I’m saying it because the South won’t survive without them.”

“In a war?” Sam asked, uttering what the others would rather have left unspoken.

“Yes, in a war,” Noah said. “I think it will come to that.”

“Then the South will lose,” Sam said, almost casually.

Ariel’s mouth opened, but then she closed it. Miranda glanced at Noah and then at Lam. There were chill expressions on their
faces—expressions that pointed out to Miranda a problem in what she had at first thought was a perfect friendship.

If Sam had shouted, “There is no God!” at a revival meeting, he would have got the same look that Lam and Noah were giving
him.

Lam laughed nervously. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said anything like that.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that the South might lose,” Noah said to Ariel, disassociating himself from Sam. “Only that we will
have a tougher time than a lot of folks think.”

“I thought Texans were all wild men who love to fight,” Ariel said to Sam.

“I’d gladly fight for you,” Sam said. Then he looked at Miranda. “And your sister.”

“I thank you,” Ariel said coolly. “But that’s not what I meant.”

“If you meant to ask if I’m looking forward to a war, no, I’m not. The
gentlemen
of the South are spoiling for a fight, but I’m not.”

Miranda looked at him with even greater interest.

“What
do
you mean?” Ariel asked, which was a question Miranda very much wanted answered, too. But they were both to be disappointed.

“I won’t add to what I’ve said.”

Lam, meanwhile, quickly moved to cover over the chill Sam had produced.

“Don’t mind Sam,” he said to Ariel and Miranda. “He doesn’t count. He doesn’t love the South.”

“Then how can you and he be friends?” Miranda asked.

“Because he doesn’t hate it,” Lam laughed. “And besides, the South won’t lose. We’ve got the bravest and wisest men. In a
contest between machines and brains, the brains will win every time.”

Sam shook his head and smiled. His silence only made him more fascinating to Miranda.

“You were about to say?” Miranda asked him.

“No,” he said. “I’ve truly said more than I want to say. And besides,” he added as he started to rise, “it’s time to get back
down the hill. We’ve got a dinner to eat and a ball to dance at. And I’d be most pleased to have a few dances with you, Miranda.
And you also, Ariel.”

Miranda and Ariel both blushed. “I’d be happy to dance with you as often as you’ll have me,” Miranda said. “But I’d still
like to hear why you think the South will lose,” she insisted. She was deeply curious about Sam Hawken, and she was not a
girl who easily buried her curiosity beneath maidenly propriety. “I’d really like to know more about you.”

“About me?” he laughed.

“That’s right.”

“I don’t think I’ll find it difficult to oblige you.” He was now standing in front of her, offering her his hand.

The other two cadets had also risen to their feet, and Noah’s hand was extended toward Ariel.

“Walk with me on the way down to the hotel,” Sam said softly to Miranda, as she raised herself up. “We’ll follow the others.
Will you do that?”

“Yes, of course I will,” she said.

A few moments after that, the five had set off again toward the Academy. It didn’t take long for Sam and Miranda to lag several
paces behind the others. Sam pointed to Noah and then grinned at Miranda. Ariel’s hand was resting comfortably in the crook
of Noah’s arm. Lam was walking on Ariel’s right.

“Noah likes her,” Sam said to Miranda, offering her his own arm. She rested her hand on the proffered spot.

“Yes, I know,” Miranda said. “And she likes him quite a lot. If she didn’t like him, she wouldn’t have fought him so hard.
She would have tried to please him and make him want her.”

“Oh, God,” he said. “Girls! Always doing the opposite of what they really want.”

She laughed and tilted her head back. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” He looked down at her, catching her eye, liking the new cock of her head. “Do you always do exactly what you want?”

“Whenever I can.”

“How about your sister? Does she, for instance, really want to marry that fellow from Virginia she’s engaged to?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Lam told us all about you before you came.”

“He told Ariel he hadn’t done that,” she said. “He told her that so that she’d think she had the freedom to chase after one
or the other of us.”

“And you were willing to go along with the game?”

“I’m happy where I am now. And I think Noah is not unhappy, either.”

“Not one of you three is a gentleman.”

“On the contrary, we have done the perfect gentlemanly thing. We’ve let ourselves be graciously blind to the pretenses and
untruths that a lady has chosen to clothe herself with.”

“You sound like Uncle Ashbel,” she said.

“From what little I’ve seen of him, I think that is a compliment.”

“It is a compliment.”

“Well, then, I thank you.”

“But I’m still curious about you.”

“In what way?” His eyes were hooded, she noticed.

She was just about to answer him with, “In every way,” when Miranda spotted an opening that led away from the trail. It was
a narrow path, and for some reason it sparked her curiosity enough to leave her momentarily silent. The path was positively
inviting not only because the woods that way looked lovely and dark, but more importantly because Miranda at that moment wanted
more than anything else to be alone with Sam Houston Hawken.

She paused and stared down through the trees. “Where does this path lead?” she asked.

“Through the woods and along the heights above the river,” he said, stopping alongside her. “Eventually it rejoins this trail.”

“It’s so inviting,” she said. “Will you take me on it?”

He reflected on that. “It’s very steep,” he said after a moment. “And there are the others to consider….”

“All the better!” she said, smiling.

She could tell he was thinking that they would be alone and unescorted, so her smile grew wider. “I’m just a child,” she said
innocently. “I’m only fifteen.”

“I should be getting back to the hotel. There’s dinner and…”

But she did not hear him. Or more likely, he thought, she was ignoring him. For by then she was already moving briskly, well
along the path. “Come on, Sam,” she cried, “or I’ll be alone.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” he muttered. But then he called out, “Lamar? Noah? Can you still hear me?”

“Sam?” a distant voice called.

“We’ll be joining you a little later,” Sam yelled.

“Where are you going?” Ariel called out. But Miranda was not listening. After a moment, Ariel’s voice came again: “You shouldn’t
go off by yourself like that!” But Miranda still did not bother to hear her. “Don’t you be late, Miranda,” Ariel called out,
finally admitting defeat, but only Sam heard her.

He had to hurry to catch up with her, and by the time he did, she had gone a considerable way.

“Well,” he said when he was near enough to her to talk normally, “you handled that maneuver with considerable skill.”

“Handled which maneuver?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder; the path was too narrow for both of them to walk abreast.

“Splitting me off from the others.”

“Oh,
now,”
she protested, but not vigorously.

“But I’d be lying if I told you I was displeased.”

She looked at him again, and then she smiled.

“Now you can tell me all about yourself,” she said, “and there’ll be only me to hear it.”

“Does that make a difference?” he said.

“To me it does.”

His eyes brightened with mirth, and he broke into a smile. But he did not answer her. And then he laughed.

“What is there to laugh at?” she said.

“At inquisitive little girls.”

“I’m not a little girl.”

“You just said not five minutes ago that you were a little girl of fifteen,” he laughed. “You can’t have it both ways.”

“Oh, you knew what I meant.”

He laughed again.

“Quit teasing me,” she said.

“I wouldn’t dare treat you with anything but the utmost seriousness and respect,” he said with a grin.

“Then why do you refuse to tell me about yourself?”

“Do I look like a man with dark secrets?”

Her face showed that he indeed did, and his smile grew wider because he had guessed right. He was enjoying this sparring with
her, and she wasn’t liking it at all. She wanted to get through to him—to make him see her as a woman and not as a child.

They had been walking through trees, but now they emerged into the open. Sam’s face grew worried.

“Look where you’re going,” he warned. She had been looking back over her shoulder at him as she walked.

When she made no move to comply, he repeated, “Look where you’re going. I mean it.”

“Oh, really?” she said, thinking he was still playing with her. But she did turn and look ahead. And when she did, she made
a little frightened cry, for she was standing on the brink of a steep grassy decline. It wasn’t a cliff; yet it only failed
to be a cliff by a few degrees.

She stepped back a little dizzily. But then she felt his hand on her shoulder, steadying her. “Why didn’t you tell me it was
so close?” she snapped. “I could have gone off the edge.” His hand, she was aware, had remained on her shoulder. She shrugged
it ofif and stepped away from him.

“I did tell you,” he said reasonably.

“But you almost let me fall off,” she persisted.

“There was no danger. I was right next to you.”

She moved close to the edge and looked down. At the bottom of the steep grassy slope was a rocky spring. Then she heard him
laughing again.

“I hate teases,” she said without looking up at him. In fact, she wasn’t peeved at him because he was teasing her, but because
he was so successfully fending off her efforts to direct the conversation toward himself. She was also growing aware of an
aching pain from the burn. The exertion of her brisk walk and the heat and the chafing of her underclothes all contributed
to her discomfort. The ache made her both nervous and lightheaded.

He didn’t respond directly to her remark about teases. “Am I correct in understanding that you and your sister are very similar?”
he asked.

“How?” she asked, giving him a look that said that she thought she and her sister were quite different.

“Do you both fight the people you like?”

“I fight the people that tease me and play silly games with me,” she said.

What happened next neither Miranda nor Sam afterward remembered clearly. Miranda was certainly giddy due to the pain of her
wound. At any rate, she lost her footing near the edge of the decline and pitched forward, reaching out helplessly toward
Sam. He grabbed for her but missed her hand and failed to stop her progress downward. What he did instead was fall with her.

They both spilled head over heels down the precipitous grassy hillside.

“Jesus Christ!” he said at the moment his balance deserted him.

Miranda hit the grass first and rolled over and over. As she turned and as the sky and earth reeled crazily around her, she
realized that the hill wasn’t as steep as it had looked from the top.

The truth was that she was having fun.

She laughed, then let out a whoop of joy and pleasure. She bounced and rolled and reeled crazily. There are my feet and legs
and pantalets! she thought to herself. They’re sticking straight up into the sky! How silly!