"Joe Haldeman - Guardian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

first action would have been to wire Kansas City, and have another agent waiting for the
train.
That would have been interesting. Daniel had his fantasies about shoot-outs, but
they probably didn't involve his mother on a train platform.
Our deception began in Ellsworth, where I was fairly certain we wouldn't be
recognized. I sacrificed the tickets to K.C., bought under my married name, and as Vivian
and Charles Flammarion we boarded the Union Pacific bound for San Francisco. We had
to pay an extra dollar for Daniel's bicycle, but he had read of people using them to get to
the goldfields. I doubted that myself, but thought he might be able to sell it for a good
profit in Skagway.
Six of the golden eagles got us a sleeper—the Pullman strike a distant memory—
and though we were ready to make use of it, the sun finally setting on a rather eventful
day, we first went to the dining car, which was a pleasantly stupefying experience. Crisp
linen and heavy silver and too much beef and claret—a novelty, since Kansas was
technically dry, and female schoolteachers might know where to go for a drink, but they
dare not show up there.
We both slept through the change to Mountain Time and the little hamlet of First
View, where we might have spied Pike's Peak in the light of the rising sun. It was quite
visible when we managed to stagger down to last call for breakfast.
It was a pleasant three days for Daniel—excitement, rather than the anxiety of our
first flight west. I treated him as an adult, even to the extent of letting him carry the
Pinkerton man's pistol in his coat pocket, though he acceded to my request that he not
carry it, or any other sidearm, to the Yukon. We knew enough about the Wild West to
know that fools with guns killed other fools with guns, and the safest thing was not to
challenge them.
In a way, I was terribly wrong. In the long run . . . well, no human will ever know
the long run.
Denver looked interesting, and under other circumstances we might have tarried a
day or two there. But we had to be realistic.
One of us an accused kidnapper and the other having assaulted a Pinkerton man
and, technically, deserted the army. I was reluctant to get off the train until we could lose
ourselves in the confusion of Gold Rush San Francisco.
Likewise, we didn't get off at Cheyenne, early the next day, which was the last
regular stop for over a thousand miles.
As we rose into the Rockies we were treated hourly to scenes of wondrous beauty.
Mountains snow-capped in July. Boiling cataracts a hundred feet below us, as we
crawled along trestle bridges that seemed none too substantial.
I couldn't properly enjoy the scenery, for my concern over what might be waiting
in San Francisco. Daniel had stopped shaving in an attempt at disguise, but three days'
growth wasn't going co make much difference.
Chance favored us the second night. At dinner we were seated with two men, a
father and son named Doc and Chuck Coleman, who were also headed for the Yukon.
They were better prepared than we, having received two letters from a friend who was
already there, and information from provisioners in Seattle.
The Canadian government, they told us, wisely would not allow any prospector to
enter the country unless he brought in a year's worth of food, as well as necessities for
panning. That's a ton of supplies.
Over coffee, after dinner, I made a copy of the list for Daniel, and later copied it
into my diary: