The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

“Run!” roared Straub.

“Law’s on our side. We got every right!”

“Let ’em have it, boys!”

The railroad cops scooped burning coals from the furnaces and whirled opened steam valves. Fire and boiling water rained down on Matters’ workmen.

“Stand your ground!”

Burned and scalded, they fled.

Matters intercepted the stampede and waded in with both fists, knocking men down as they tried to get away.

Spike grabbed his arm. “Ease off, Bill. Let ’em go. They’re outgunned.”

Matters smashed a ditchdigger’s ribs and knocked another man cold with a single blow. “Cowards!”

A burning coal sailed down from the starry sky trailing sparks.

It set Matters’ coat sleeve on fire. Hot coals fanned his cheek. The stink of singed hair seared his nostrils. He jerked his Remington from his coat, ran straight at the trestle, and climbed the pier.

Spike charged back into the battle zone and grabbed his boot. “Are you nuts? Where you going?”

“Kill Straub.”

“He’s got twenty years on you and fifty armed men. Run!”

Spike Hopewell outweighed Bill Matters. He dragged him off the trestle.

Fire and steam drove them out of range. Bill Matters aimed his horse pistol at Straub. Spike knocked it out of his hand, snatched it from the mud, and tucked it in his coat.

Matters watched with helpless fury. The hundred-ton crane lowered an excavator bucket. Its jutting spike teeth bit into the freshly dug soil like the jaws of Tyrannosaurus rex. Steam hissed. The jaws crushed shut. The crane clawed pipes out of the ground and dropped them in a welter of bent and broken metal.

A pair of dim lights bounced slowly across the starlit field. The county sheriff pulled up in a Pittsburgh gasoline runabout. A scared-looking deputy was seated beside him.

Bill Matters and Spike Hopewell demanded protection for their workmen. Matters shouted that they had a legal right to route an independent pipe line under the railroad’s right-of-way because they had bought this low-lying farm where the elevated tracks crossed on tall trestles.

“The railroad can’t block us! We own this land free and clear.”

Here was their deed.

Matters shook the parchment in the dim glow of the runabout’s headlamp.

The sheriff glanced down from his steering tiller. He answered too quickly, like a man who had been ordered to read a copy days ago. “Says on your deed that the Pennsylvania Railroad leased their right-of-way across this farm.”

“Only for track and trestles.”

“Lease says you mustn’t damage their roadbed.”

“We’re not hurting their road. We’re trenching between the trestle piers.”

Matters shoved more paper into the light. See their engineer’s report! See their attorney’s brief asserting their case! See this court case precedent!

“I’m no lawyer,” said the sheriff, “but everybody knows that Mr. Rockefeller has a mighty big say in how they run the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

“But we own—”

The sheriff laughed. “What made you think you can fight Standard Oil?”