The Striker (Isaac Bell 6)

“We will win, I promise. The newspapers will destroy the unions when they convince their readers that only the owners can stop murderous agitators.”

“When, dammit? Winter’s coming, and the miners have struck. What are you waiting for?”

“An earthshaking event.”

“Earthshaking requires an earthquake.”

“I have recruited an earthquake.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Stop playing games with me, Clay. What kind of earthquake?”

Henry Clay smiled, supremely confident of Judge James Congdon’s approval. “A lovely earthquake. In fact,” he boasted, “an earthshakingly beautiful earthquake.”

“A woman?”

“A lovely woman with a big idea. And who happens to be smarter, braver, and tougher than any unionist in the country. Her only weakness is that she’s so dedicated to ‘the good fight’ that she can’t see straight.”

“I want to meet her,” said Congdon.

“I told you at the start,” Clay objected coldly, “the details are mine.”

“Tactics are yours. Strategy is mine. An earthquake falls in the category of strategy. I will meet her.”

* * *

Isaac Bell paid extra for the biggest private stateroom on the Pennsylvania Special and tipped the porter to bring his meals on a tray. The train to Chicago, which steamed from the ferry head in Jersey City, ran on a twenty-hour schedule, and he intended to use every waking hour teaching himself how to draw his derringer from his new hat.

There was a mirror on the door to his private bath. He faced his reflection. He raised his hands in the air as if already disarmed of his Colt, his sleeve gun, and his pocket pistol. Moving in slow motion, he experimented, devising a series of steps to get the gun out of the hat and cocked to fire.

The special rocketed across New Jersey, stopped in Philadelphia briefly, and sped into Pennsylvania. Bell worked at the draw with an athlete’s hands and eyes and let his mind chew on the few facts he knew about the amber-eyed man who had gotten the drop on him and had taken away his weapons.

It was strange how they had almost identical throwing knives. And strange how he knew that Bell’s was in his boot. Some men hid it behind their coat collar. Some in the small of their back.

He also knew where Bell hid his derringer, knew it was in his sleeve instead of his belt or his boot. And he had spotted the tiny one-shot in his coat pocket, which no one ever noticed.

What else do I know about him? thought Bell.

He no longer doubted that his memory of being slugged unconscious in the coal mine was real and not a hallucination conjured by the damps. Nor did he doubt that the coalfield provocateur who shot him in Gleasonburg was the same man who had taken his weapons and run circles around him in New York. But other than that, he had more questions than answers. Why did he follow me all the way to New York? How did he find me outside the Tombs? Had he followed me down Broadway while I was shadowing Mary?

The train was two hours west of Philadelphia, climbing the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, when the tall young detective felt he had choreographed a series of movements to draw the gun swiftly using both hands, one for the hat, one for the gun. Now he had to master the sequence. That meant practice, drilling over and over and over again, until the steps were automatic. Hour after hour. Day after day. Starting now.

They stopped in Altoona to change engines and pick up a dining car. Bell jumped down to the ballast and walked briskly back and forth the length of the train to work out the kinks in his arms and legs. The cold air felt good, but it was beginning to rain. By the time the yard crew had the old Atlantic off and a fresh 4-4-2 coupled on, rainwater was streaming down the sides of the train.

Bell swung aboard as the special resumed rolling, asked the porter for a sandwich and coffee, and returned to his stateroom to practice, barely aware that the rain was lashing the window.

Eight hours after leaving Jersey City, the Pennsylvania Special slowed to a sedate forty miles an hour, and the conductors began announcing Pittsburgh. Bell sat on his berth and tore hungrily into the sandwich he had yet to eat and washed it down with cold coffee. Night and cloud had closed in. Through the window he noticed dots of red fire. He turned out the lights to see better in the dark beyond the rails.

Bonfires were burning in the rain, lighting the haggard faces of men and women huddled around them. The porter came for the tray. “Strikers,” he said.

“Hard night to be outdoors,” said Bell, and the porter felt free to say, “Poor devils. They got nothing and nowhere to go. Militia won’t let ’em into Pittsburgh.”

“Where are their tents?”

“Folks say the police impounded them. Took ’em off a train and stuck ’em in a warehouse.”

The bonfires vanished at the city limits, and the special glided into Union Station.

He knew me, thought Bell. My provocateur knows me.