‘Collis, I believe in the railroad more than anything,’ he went on, his voice quieter, but still shaking. ‘I’ve lived and breathed the railroad for year upon year, even when I’ve been mocked and ridiculed. The railroad pest, that’s me. And proud of it. But, sweet Jesus, Collis, I can’t match what you feel about it. You feel something about it that I can’t even begin to understand.’

Collis looked around at his partners. Leland was standing with his hands clasped in front of him, stiff and curious. Charles was open-mouthed, as if he were waiting patiently for a fly to buzz past. Theodore was still staring at him, with sweat on his forehead, his eyes dark from hours of drawing and reading.

‘The railroad will make us great,’ said Collis, in a very soft voice. ‘It will make this country great, too; and no greatness is achieved without sacrifice.’

‘Voluntary or involuntary, I suppose?’ asked Theodore bitterly.

‘We may not have to resort to such measures,’ said Collis. ‘But if this railroad isn’t going to die of starvation, and of neglect, and of general obstinacy, then we’re going to have to fight for whatever we can get by whatever means necessary.’

Theodore angrily gathered up his drawings and his maps. ‘You can contact me when you’ve raised the twenty-thousand,’ he said. ‘But please don’t tell me how you managed it, because I just might feel constrained to abandon this project once and for all.’

Collis lit up a cigar. ‘You’ll have one consolation, Theo,’ he said, as the engineer turned his back and walked towards the store door. ‘When the railroad’s finished, and you’re riding along its tracks, you’ll be able to reflect that however it was built, whatever it cost, you alone were guiltless and lily-white.’

Theodore paused, without turning around.

Collis puffed smoke and added, ‘Are you sure you still want that station named after you?’

There were three clouds in the sky on the day Collis and Hannah were married. It was a simple, direct ceremony, carried out by Justice Boardman in his front yard on I Street. An unseasonably hot wind blew from the South, and ruffled Hannah’s pale-blue silk dress. She looked pretty but tired as she walked on Collis’s arm from the white-picketed yard to the varnished carriage which was to take them around to 54 K for their wedding breakfast.

A photograph showed them about to mount the carriage, with Charles holding Hannah’s elbow, and Collis, bareheaded, frowning against the sunlight. Leland was posed with his thumbs behind the lapels of his morning coat. Mary was as rigid and white as the angel on a badly-sculpted tombstone. Jane McCormick was not there. A sick headache had obliged her to remain in her drawing-room with the blinds drawn, her pet dog snuffling and letting off wind in the corner.