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The engineer clanged the bell. The whistle blew two shrill blasts, and the old steam locomotive - the celebrated Engine No. 9 - huff-puff-puffed away from the station platform, pulling passenger cars. She was a black giant with six huge driving wheels propelled by the relentless thrust of piston rods. The engineer leaned from his cab with his left hand on the throttle and his eyes upon the rails; the fireman shoveled coal into the firebox; black cinders spewed from the funnel-shaped smokestack. It was a scene from the past.
Yet, this was a Sunday afternoon in the hightech present. Thirty-six prominent residents of Moose County had converged on the railway station in Sawdust City to pay $500 a ticket for a ride behind old No.9. It was the first run of the historic engine since being salvaged and overhauled, and the ticket purchase included a champagne dinner in a restored dining car plus a generous tax- deductible donation to the scholarship fund of the new community college.
When the brass bell clanged, a stern- faced conductor with a bellowing voice paced the platform, announcing, "Train leaving for KenNebeck, Pickax, Little Hope, Black Creek Junction, Lockmaster, and all points south! All abo-o-oard!" A yellow stepbox was put down, and well- dressed passengers climbed aboard the dining car, where tables were set with white cloths and sparkling crystal. White-coated waiters were filling glasses with ice water from silver-plated pitchers.
Among the passengers being seated were the mayors from surrounding towns and other civic functionaries who found it in their hearts, or politics, to pay $500 a plate. Also aboard were the publisher of the county newspaper, the publication's leading columnist, the owner of the department store in Pickax, a mysterious heiress recently arrived from Chicago, and the head of the Pickax Public Library.
The flagman signaled all clear, and No.9 started to roll, the cars following with a gentle lurch. As the clickety- clack of the drive wheels on the rails accelerated, someone shouted, "She's rolling!" The passengers applauded, and the mayor of Sawdust City rose to propose a toast to No.9. Glasses of ice water were raised. (The champagne would come later.)
Her black hulk and brass fittings gleamed in the sunlight as she chugged across the landscape. Steel rumbled on steel, and the mournful whistle sounded at every grade crossing.
It was the first run of the Lumbertown Party Train.... No one had any idea it would also be almost its last.
Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, had a rich history, and railroads had helped to make it the wealthiest county in the state before World War I. Fortunes had been made in mining, lumbering, and transportation, and many of the old families were still there, hanging on to their inherited money or lamenting the loss of it. Only the Klingenschoen millions had escalated into billions, and then - by an ironic quirk of fate - had passed into the hands of an outsider, a middle-aged man with a luxuriant pepper-and-salt moustache and a unique distaste for money.
The heir was Jim Qwilleran, and he had been a hard-working, prize-winning journalist Down Below, as Moose County citizens called the polluted and crime- ridden centers of overpopulation. Instead of rejoicing in his good luck, however, Qwilleran considered a net worth of twelve digits to be a nuisance and an embarrassment. He promptly established the Klingenschoen Foundation to dispose of the surplus in philanthropic ways. He himself lived quietly in a converted barn and wrote the twice-weekly "Qwill Pen" column for the local paper. Friends called him "Qwill," with affection; the rest of the county called him "Mr. Q," with respect.
If a cross-section of the populace were to be polled, the women would say: "I love his column! He writes as if he's talking to me!"
"Why can't my boyfriend be tall and good-looking and rich like Mr. Q?"
"His moustache is so romantic! But there's something sad about his eyes, as if he has a terrible secret."
"He must be over fifty, you know, but he's in terrific shape. I see him walking and biking all over."
"Imagine! All that money, and he's still a bachelor!"
"He has a wonderful head of hair for his age. It's turning gray at the temples, but I like that!"
"I sat next to him at a Red Cross luncheon once, and he listened to everything I said and made me feel important. My husband says journalists are paid to listen. I don't care. Mr. Q is a charming man!"
"You know he must be a nice person by the way he writes about cats in his column."
And if the men of Moose County were polled, they would say:
"One thing I'll say about Mr. Q: He fits in with all kinds of people. You'd never guess he has all that dough."
"He's a very funny guy, if you ask me. He walks into the barber shop, looking as if he's lost his last friend, and pretty soon he's got everybody in stitches with his cracks."
"All the women like him. My wife goes around quoting his column like it was the Constitution of the United States."
"They say he lives with a couple of cats. Can you beat that?"
"You wonder why he doesn't get married. He's always with that woman from the library."
"People think it's strange that he lives in an apple barn, but what the heck! It's better'n a pig barn."
Qwilleran did indeed live in a converted apple barn, and he spent many hours in the company of Polly Duncan, head librarian. As for the cats, they were a pair of pampered Siamese with extraordinary intelligence and epicurean tastes in food. The barn, octagonal in shape and a hundred years old, had a fieldstone foundation two feet thick and as high as Qwilleran's head. Framing of twelve-by-twelve timbers rose to a roof three stories overhead. Once upon a time a wagonload of apples could go through the barn door, and bushels of apples were stored in the lofts. Now the interior was a series of balconies connected by ramps, surrounding a central cube of pristine white. There were fireplaces on three sides, and three cylindrical white flues rose to the octagonal roof. It was a lofty perch for cats who enjoyed high places. As for the spiraling ramps, the Siamese considered them an indoor race track, and they could do the hundred- meter dash in half the time required by a human athlete.
One evening in early summer Qwilleran and his two friends had just returned from a brief vacation on Breakfast Island, and he was reading aloud to them when the telephone rang. He excused himself and went to the phone on the writing desk.
"I got it, Qwill!" shouted an excited voice. "I got the job!"
"Congratulations, Dwight! I want to hear about it. Where are you?"
" At the theatre. We've just had a board meeting."
"Come on over. The gate's open."
The home of the Pickax Theatre Club had been carved out of the former Klingenschoen mansion on the Park Circle. Behind the theatre a fenced parking lot had a gate leading to a patch of dense evergreen woods that Qwilleran called the Black Forest. It was a buffer between the traffic on the Park Circle and the apple barn. Within minutes Dwight's car had negotiated the rough track through the woods.
"Glad everything worked out so well," Qwilleran said in greeting. "How about a glass of wine to celebrate?"
"Just a soft drink," said the young man. "I'm so high on good news that anything stronger would launch me into space. How do you like my new facade?" He stroked his smooth chin. "My new bosses don't go for beards. I feel suddenly naked. How would you feel without your moustache?"
"Destitute," Qwilleran said truthfully. His moustache was more than a facial adornment, more than a trademark at the top of the "Qwill Pen" column.
As Qwilleran carried the tray of drinks and snacks into the lounge area, Dwight pointed to the top of the fireplace cube. "I see you've got your ducks all in a row."
"I haven't heard that expression since the Army. How do you like them? They're handpainted, hand-carved decoys from Oregon.