Yeehawgust Day 15: Transcontinental Railroad
May 1869
Tumbleweed, New Austin
Hearing the clanging of the wooden spoon against the leg of the table again, May Griffith sighed and leaned down, pulling up the tablecloth and peering into the cave-like shelter. “Sadie, for the love of all that’s holy, will you please--”
Amber brown eyes, so like her own, peered back at her from the shade, and Sadie gleefully said “No!” Punctuated it with another thwack of the spoon against the table leg for emphasis.
Sadie, at a year old, had learned three words. Namely, Ma, Pa, and her current favorite, No. Probably learned because she’d been hearing it so much these past months from both her parents, as well as Will and Elsie Adler on the frequent occasions the two families got together for dinner in the afternoon.
Everyone said boys were the trouble. May gave a derisive snort at the idea. Henry, at three, wasn’t nearly so much of a handful as little Sadie with her willful curiosity. And Elsie’s Jake was as sweet as could be at six, though she hoped like hell that stayed with him when adolescence and manhood came upon him.
She heard the sound of Rob’s boots on the floor, and heard his low chuckle as he said, “We got a budding musician, I see.”
“A real stubborn one.”
Rob winked at her, and she couldn’t help but smile. “Stubborn as her mother. Whoever the lucky fella turns out to be, that husband of hers is gonna have quite the fine adventure.”
“Rob Griffith, you--”
He laughed, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. “No complaints on my end. And I figure any man who ain’t sensible enough to not try to bridle our Sadie won’t be worth the bother anyhow.”
She gave up on it, and accepted the wooden spoon music, such as it was. Given the things Sadie could be getting into, this one was relatively harmless. “What’s the news in town this morning?”
“They connected the rails in Utah two days ago. We got us a true transcontinental railroad now.” He handled his tin mug easily, despite the two fingers on his left hand lost in a skirmish in North Carolina just before the end of the war. He’d come home to Pennsylvania, and to her. Far more than many women had got.
He was here, and they were making a life together, in a world where all sorts of things seemed possible with the carnage of the war done and over. What a thing that news was. “Hope they start building a spur here to Tumbleweed soon enough. Ain’t gonna make for much of a cattle town like they promised us without the rail nearby.” It was hard land here in the desert, even for ranching, so unfamiliar from the green hills they’d both grown up in, far too close to a town called Gettysburg that nobody had heard of until six years ago.
But if they became a cattle town here in Tumbleweed, that would keep things steady and sure. The stockyards would always need cattle, and so long as the trains came here, cattle ranches and cattle trails would follow. America had proved it could build a railroad coast to coast--building one to here in New Austin would be child’s play by comparison, and Tumbleweed only made sense as the place to pin the western part of the state’s future. She poured herself a cup of coffee as well, letting herself savor Rob’s news, and the hopes they both had, now seeming all too real.
