Ironhorse

91

The telegraph poles were creosote-soaked oak and stood more than twenty feet tall. Some were crooked and some were fairly straight. Jimmy John moved ahead a ways, and we rode under the line for about twenty minutes, heading west.

Berkeley nudged his horse up near me.

“This line is not that old,” Berkeley said.

I looked up overhead through the growing mist as we rode. I could see the line and the insulators at the top of the poles. They did look new, and the telegraph wire that ran between the poles was taut and didn’t appear to be much weathered.

“The mines weren’t up here that long,” Berkeley said. “They just moved south when the rail to Denison came to Half Moon last year. Move more coal faster. Fatter pay. Bigger business south to Texas.”

“Texas,” I said.

“Yes, great big Texas.”

“That it is...”

“Taller grass, fatter cattle...” Berkeley said.

When we got to the farthest west section of the line, Jimmy John turned his bay around to face Virgil, who was riding in front of Berkeley and me. Virgil stopped Cortez, and we stopped behind Virgil.

“I will start here and work my way back,” Jimmy John said, pointing to the pole just behind him.

Virgil had both of his hands draped over the horn of his saddle, looking up at the pole.

“If I find one of the lines is active, what will you do?” Jimmy John said.

“We’ll figure us a plan and get right in the middle of it,” Virgil said.

Jimmy John just looked at Virgil for a moment and offered a short nod. He swiveled his bay around, moved on down the line, and stopped close to the last pole. Jimmy John turned sideways in his saddle and faced the pole. He untied one of the pole climbing spikes from his saddle and slipped it under the sole of his boot. The bay stood stock-still as Jimmy John wedged his boot, pushing the spikes underneath it into the pole, and fixed the leather straps of the spike tight over the top of his boot. After he got one spike on, he strapped on the other. He pulled a wide braided belt with clasps on each end from his saddlebag. He pulled back his coat and clipped the belt to metal rings that were attached to his trouser belt on each side of his hip. This was most certainly a routine the horse and rider were accustomed to doing. He opened another bag and took out a leather-covered box with a strap.

“What is that box?” Berkeley asked.

“Galvanometer,” Jimmy John said as he lifted his sombrero, slid the strap of the box over his head, and replaced his hat.

Berkeley looked at me.

“Measures the flow of the electric charge on the wire,” Jimmy John said as he pointed up to the telegraph line. “Tells me who is home and who is not.”

Jimmy John placed first one foot followed by his other foot on each side of the pole. He unfastened one side of the belt, passed it around the pole, and refastened it to the metal loop on his trouser belt. Without saying another word, he lifted himself off the saddle and was on the pole.

With the aid of the belt we watched Jimmy John climb swiftly up.

“I don’t think that boy is altogether normal,” Berkeley said.

When Jimmy John got up to the wire, he leaned back into the braided belt like he was sitting in a comfortable armchair and opened the leather-covered box that was hanging from his neck. From the box he took out two wires with what appeared to be brass clamps on each end. He connected the two wires to the telegraph line, one on the line going in and one on the line coming out, and looked at the box in his hand. He wiggled the wires connected on the line, making sure he had good contact, and looked at the box again. He wiggled the wires again. Then he looked down to us and shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “Nothing on this one.”

Jimmy John undid the brass connectors from the wire and climbed down the pole. Within a moment he was sitting back sideways in his saddle aboard his trusty bay, which had not moved one step.

Jimmy John disconnected one side of the belt from his hip and pulled it around, freeing it from the post. He swung one leg over the saddle, straddling the bay, and with his spiked boots hanging free of the stirrups he moved the bay at a quick pace down the line and we followed.

By the time Jimmy John had checked the next line that dropped into the second camp, the fog was so thick we could barely see him at the top of the pole.

He checked three more lines and found nothing, and after he climbed down from the fourth pole, the fog that had turned into a mist, then finally became a steady drizzle.

The wire checking took some time. It was getting on in the afternoon by the time we got to the halfway point and Jimmy John got to the top of the fifth pole. I figured if Jimmy John’s judgment of distance to the pass switch was correct and if we were going to deliver the wherewithal to the mule before sundown, we didn’t have too much time left. I pulled out my watch and it was half past three. I turned to Virgil, and before I could say anything Jimmy John said, “Hombres?”

We looked up to Jimmy John.

“This hobby horse has a hickory dick,” he said.