The Striker (Isaac Bell 6)

“The risks are enormous. Women. Children.”

“It’s more risky leaving them where they are. The camp is a shambles at McKeesport. It’s just a trolley park. A bunch of picnic tables, a swimming hole, and some shuttered-up amusement rides. You know, for working people to ride out on Sunday and have fun in good weather.”

Bell nodded. All around the country, trolley companies were building parks at the ends of their lines to get paying passengers on their day off. “But how did the marchers get in?”

“McKeesport cops looked the other way. They were glad to keep us out of the city. But now the trolley company is threatening to shut off the water and electricity. It’s a mess — too many people, more and more every day, no sanitation and no way to care for the sick. But here, we would be inside Pittsburgh’s city limits. There are hospitals and doctors and food and clean water nearby. Churches and charities to help and newspaper reporters to witness. Wouldn’t they temper the actions of the strikebreakers?”

“But to get here, you have to run the gauntlet of militia and those ‘bums’ and ‘jailbirds.’ You could set off a massacre.”

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Higgins fired back. His jaw set, his spine stiffened, and Isaac Bell saw that the mild-mannered union man had made up his mind to fight a fight he shouldn’t — a pitched battle with strikebreaking thugs and company police backed up by state militia.

Overriding his own better judgment and ignoring Joseph Van Dorn’s direct orders, the young detective said, “I know a better way.”

“What way?”

“Black Jack Gleason’s way.”

35

Me and Mack is too old for the boss to fire,” said Wally Kisley. “Even for backing you in a stunt like you’re proposing. And Joe Van Dorn won’t fire Archie, he’s just a dumb apprentice— No offense, Archie.”

“None taken. My classics professor at Princeton expressed a similar opinion in heroic hexameter.”

“But you, Isaac, you’re just starting out. You can’t afford to be fired— I know you’re rich, and you know I’m not talking about money. If you want to continue working as a private detective, there ain’t a better outfit for a young fellow to learn his business than Van Dorn. But, make no mistake: If he catches you in the middle of this, he’ll fire you.”

Isaac Bell rose to his full height, bumping his hat on the low wooden ceiling of the workboat cabin. The others were hunched over a galley table that was covered with oilcloth. A cookstove smelled of grease and coffee. It was dark outside. The porthole was open to the pungent odors of the river and coal smoke.

“I appreciate the thought, Wally. And you, Mack. But this ‘stunt’ is the right thing to do. I can only hope Mr. Van Dorn will see it’s right, too.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that.”

“I’m not betting on it. I’m taking my chances.”

Archie ventured a sunnier scenario. “Maybe Mr. Van Dorn will regard moving all those families into the safety of the city as a humanitarian act.”

“Maybe President Roosevelt will give the coal mines to the miners,” Mack Fulton said.

“And while he’s at it,” Wally added, “declare the United States Socialist Republic of the Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

“We’re agreed,” said Bell. “Jim, how many towboat pilots did you round up?”

“I’ve got five committed.”

Bell multiplied boats and barges in his head. He had hoped for more boats so the barges would not be too big and unwieldy. Five towboats pushing twenty barges apiece, one hundred people in each barge, crammed in tighter than sardines. Ten thousand people, if they all made it aboard before the Pinkertons noticed. God help them if any sank. “What about engineers?”

“Towboat engineers are like hermit crabs. They never leave the boat.”

“Deckhands?”

“A few, plus as many miners as we slip out of the camp.”

“Pretending to be deckhands,” growled Mack Fulton.

“They’re no strangers to hard work,” said Jim Higgins. “And they’ve spent their lives wrestling things heavier than they are.”

“They’ll do,” said Bell, knowing they would have to.

Wally and Mack exhaled loud stage sighs. “O.K., Isaac,” said Mack. “When do we do it?”