The Striker (Isaac Bell 6)

* * *

“What’s troubling you, Jim? We did all right today.”

Jim Higgins looked up bleakly from his desk in the union hall. The local’s secretary and vice president had returned with celebrants’ beers under their belts. “Not counting eight in the hospital and two men dead?” he asked, although the victims were not his only source of concern.

“They died like heroes.”

“Speaking of heroes, wasn’t that little guy something?”

“Has anyone seen him since?” asked Higgins.

“Neither hide nor hair. Too bad. He deserves a medal.”

“He’s smart to lay low — better yet, light the heck out of Denver.”

“Halfway to San Francisco, if he’s got a brain in his head,” agreed Higgins, hoping against hope. From the first instant he had seen the slight figure with the rake he had an awful feeling that the “little guy” was neither a man nor a boy but instead a slim young woman in trousers named Mary Higgins.

He had sent telegrams to friends in Chicago and Pittsburgh, where she should have gone after West Virginia. So far, no one reported seeing her. Times like this, he wished he wasn’t an atheist. Times like this when there was nothing left to do but pray.

“Brother!”

In she walked, not in trousers and cap, thank God, but in a bedraggled skirt and a lady’s hat with a perfunctory feather decorating it.

“Mary,” he said, rising, “how wonderful to see you. When did you get into town?”

Mary took note of the red-faced vice president and secretary and replied, “I just got off the train. I had a feeling I’d find you here. How is it going?”

“Gentlemen, my sister Mary.”

The secretary and vice president nearly broke their arms whipping off their hats, reminding Jim Higgins how attractive men found his sister. They told her that the strike was going wonderfully and that they would surely win. Higgins waited until he and Mary were alone in his rented room before he told her the truth. “It’s not working,” he said. “The strike is stuck in Denver. It won’t spread far.”

“I saw Mother Jones in Chicago,” said Mary, referring to a brave old labor leader who was an inspiration to them both. “She was hoping you would convince the Western Federation to join with eastern miners back in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.”

“So was I.”

“She said that since all the mines are owned by Wall Street operators, the unions should strike simultaneously. The operators are national. We should be national.”

“Did you say you just got into Denver this evening?”

Mary looked him straight in the face. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that wasn’t you who derailed the ore train.”

“Why?”

“You could have been killed.”

“You could have been killed in Gleasonburg.”

“I would have been if that young miner hadn’t come to my rescue, but that is not the point.”

“Miner hell!” said Mary. “Isaac Bell is a Pinkerton.”

Jim Higgins could not believe his ears. “He can’t be. That’s not possible.”

“I saw with my own eyes.”

“Did he say he’s a Pinkerton?”