Read Online The Journey of Josephine Cain by Nancy Moser - Free Book Online

chain. At the clasp there was a single red stone, hanging as a teardrop.
    “It’s a ruby. Or at least that’s what my mother always said it was. I’m afraid I don’t know a gemstone from a piece of glass.”
    She held it to the light. It certainly looked real. And if it was his mother’s? That made it extra-special. “Help me on with it.”
    He fastened the clasp with an expertise unusual for a man. She turned her wrist this way and that, loving the movement of the teardrop. “Thank you ever so much. I am honored that you trust me with something of your mother’s.”
    Lewis stopped her movement with his hand, and drew her hand to his lips, where he offered the lightest of kisses. “Thank you, Josephine, for being the woman I can never deserve.”
    The past was quickly forgotten, and Josephine’s thoughts focused on the future.
    Her future with Lewis.

    For the second time that day, the train slowed to a stop. The first time they had stopped at Fremont, Nebraska, where supplies had been cached all winter.
    “What’re we stopping for now?” Raleigh asked.
    Hudson carefully got to his knees atop the railcar and looked west. He saw a line of graded land and ties stretching forward—ties waiting for rails. “It’s the end of the line, men! We’re here!”
    When they climbed down he wasn’t sure if what surrounded him was a foreign netherland or hell. For they had indeed come to the end of the track. What happened next was a muddle of confusion and chaos. The men tumbled out of the boxcars like fleas jumping off a dog. No one knew where to go. They had been told what their jobs would be, but none of them had laid any actual track. Rumor was that up until now, when no one knew exactly what to do, the men before them were lucky to lay a half mile a day. Now with the new reinforcements and the general’s organization, the bosses expected nearer to two.
    Two
miles
. It didn’t sound like much, but when he broke it down to laying one rail at a time, hitting one spike at a time . . . Hudson could feel his muscles aching already.
    The men wandered around until hope stepped forward. General Cain stood atop a crate and directed them this way and that.
    “Don’t we get no time to check out the town, to take it all in?” Raleigh asked his brother.
    “Guess not.”
    All
was Columbus, Nebraska, an odd assortment of buildings and tents, scattered on either side of the track. Crude signs announced their purpose:
Saloon, Railway Office, Sawmill, Store
.
    But there wasn’t time to explore, as the general and Boss gave directions. Everyone had a purpose. Months before, another Union general, General Grenville Dodge, had scoped out the best route. His surveyors had marked the way, and graders smoothed the land, while other crews laid the wood ties like a ladder stretching toward tomorrow. Now it was the tracklayers’ turn. Hudson had heard it was General Cain who’d come up with the idea of giving each group of men a specialized job.
    Two generals who were used to getting men to do what needed to be done. Somebody was mighty smart putting them in charge.
    Raleigh and Hudson were handed their spike mauls. Raleigh ran a hand along the foot-long head with two tapered ends. “I bet we’ll go through a few of these before we meet up with the Central Pacific.”
    Hudson weighed it in his hands. “It’s not so heavy, about the same weight as a sledgehammer—ten, twelve pounds?”
    “Not heavy just holding it, but swinging it from dawn to dusk?” Raleigh squeezed Hudson’s biceps. “You may even get yourself some real muscles.”
    Hudson could’ve argued with him, saying something about Raleigh’s build, but the truth was, his little brother already had the physique of a spiker. He seemed to thrive on physical labor.
    Hudson was fine with labor, but he preferred a mix of mental and physical. He enjoyed the chance to plan and organize, to think of what things
could
be.
    But there was no call for thinkers here. Though they