The Striker

of rails ran side by side down a muddy slope into the Ohio River, and the owner of the yard— foppish young Mr. Court Held, who was anxious to borrow money or sell out, or both — boasted that his family had been launching side-paddle steamers and stern-wheelers down those rails for sixty years.

“Ah suppose you-all have the hang of it by now?” said Clay, laying a Deep South drawl on thick as he pleased. Not only was Court Held desperate, but repeated intermarriage among the founding families had bequeathed his generation the brainpower of a gnat.

“Yes, sir. In fact, crane your neck around that bend and you’ll see fine examples of our product.”

Henry Clay had already looked around that bend.

“I would like very much to see a large steamboat.”

Held & Court had two of the biggest paddleboats left over from the steamboat age that ended when fast, modern railroads rendered leisurely travel passe. Nimbler Cincinnati shipyards still boomed, launching by the hundreds utilitarian stern-wheelers that pushed coal barge tows. Numerous such workboats were churning the river white as Clay and the yard owner walked across the yard for a look around the bend. But Held & Court had persisted in building giant floating palaces until the last grand Mississippi riverboat companies went under.

“Behold, sir. Vulcan King and White Lady.”

They towered over their wharf. Four tall decks of painted wood, polished metal, and cut glass were heaped upon broad, flat hulls three hundred feet long. Topping their decks were glass pilothouses near the front, and soaring about the pilothouses were twin black chimneys with flaring tops. Each boat was propelled by a giant stern wheel forty feet in diameter and fifty feet wide.

“We installed the latest triple expansion engines.”

The White Lady was appropriately white.

“She’s the prettier one, don’t you think? A brag boat, sure as shootin’.”

The Vulcan King was painted a dull blue-gray color. It was this more somber of the vessels that had brought Henry Clay to Cincinnati.

“Which has the reinforced decks?”

“Where’d you hear about reinforced decks?” the owner demanded. “That’s a government secret.”

Henry Clay returned a smile much colder than his drawl. “Ah believe a United States senatah acquaintance confided War Department plans to dispatch a shallow-water gunboat to Cuba. Although it could have been my friend the admiral who told me about the cannon and the Maxim gun.”

“Well, then, you know the sad story,” said the shipyard owner. “A darn shame that the Spanish War ended too soon. We were just fixing to mount the cannon when the War Department canceled the order.”

“Which boat?”

“Vulcan King. The Navy said she couldn’t be white, so we found this gray paint.”

“How much are you asking for her?”

The young heir blinked. No one had offered to buy a steamboat from Held & Court since the aborted gunboat scheme and that was four years past. “Are you saying you want to buy her?”

“Ah’d consider it if the price is right.”

“Well, now. The Vulcan King cost the better part of four hundred thousand dollars to build.” He glanced at Clay and appeared to decide that this banker with friends in high places knew too much of her history to be fleeced.

“We would accept a rock-bottom price of seventy-five thousand.”

Clay asked, “Can you have her coaled by morning and steam up?”

“I could certainly try.”

“Try?” Clay asked with a wintry scowl.

“Yes, sir! I’m sure I can do that. Coaled and steam up tomorrow morning.”

“Throw in the cannon and the Maxim, and you’ve got a deal.”

“What do you want her guns for?”

“Scrap steel,” said Henry Clay with a straight face. “Defray the cost of a paint job.”

“Mighty fine idea. She’ll look her best in white.”

Black, thought Henry Clay. Her gigantic stern wheel would thrash the river white. But while she steamed up the Ohio River to Pittsburgh, his crew would paint the Vulcan King black as the coal that fired her boilers.

The strikers who marched down the Monongahela River had cursed the cruel and heartless owners for abusing them with Clay’s Cyclops. Terror bred anger. Hotheads shouted down the moderates, and the miners’ Defense Committee had armed themselves, spending their meager treasury on repeating rifles. How rabidly would they rage at the grim sight of an evil-looking Vulcan King steaming up their river? How angrily would they seize the gauntlet thrown in their faces? How violently would they defend their tent city?

So violently — Henry Clay had promised Judge James Congdon, who had balked initially at buying a steamboat — so rabidly, that law-abiding Americans would offer grateful prayers in their church pews: God bless the mineowners for mounting Maxim guns and cannon to protect them from the mob. And newspapers would thunder, commanding the defenders of property to pull out all stops to crush the socialists before labor tore the nation asunder with a second civil war.

Court Held cleared his throat.

“As ‘steam up’ implies, you intend to leave Cincinnati tomorrow. May I ask how do you intend to pay for her?”

Other than having satchels bulging with cash, it was always difficult to pony up an enormous sum of money in a distant city. It was even harder to do it quickly and anonymously. But there was a way. “Obviously, I don’t expect you to accept a check that would not clear until after I steam away. I can offer railroad bearer bonds in denominations of twenty-five thousand dollars.”

The shipbuilder looked uncomfortable. Bearer bonds were, in theory, negotiable as ready cash and a lot less cumbersome, but the holder had to hope that they were neither forgeries nor issued by an entity no longer in business.

“Would the issuing agent happen to have a branch office here in Cincinnati?”

Clay would prefer not to appear in that office, but he had no choice. “Thibodeau & Marzen have a branch in Cincinnati. Why don’t we go there now? They’ll guarantee the good faith of the issuer, and you can get the bonds locked up safely in your bank.”

“Would Thibodeau & Marzen redeem them immediately?”

“I don’t see why not. If you prefer to cash in, they will accommodate you.”

33

Mary Higgins walked fast from her Ross Street rooming house, down Fourth Avenue and across Smithfield, toward the waterfront. She was easy to track in the red scarf Isaac Bell had seen her buy from a peddler in New York. Even without it, how could he miss her erect carriage and determined stride?

In a factory town like Pittsburgh, workingman’s clothing was the simplest disguise, and Wish Clarke always said, Keep it simple. To shadow Mary, Bell donned overcoat, overalls, and boots, and covered his distinctive blond hair with a knitted watch cap.

Archie Abbott trailed Bell, alternately hanging behind and sprinting to catch up when he signaled. The streets were crowded with men and women pouring out of offices and banks and hurrying home from work, and Bell was teaching Archie what Wish Clarke had taught him: Alternating their profile between one figure and two made them less conspicuous when Mary peered over her shoulder, which she did repeatedly as they neared the river.

She crossed First Avenue into a district of small factories and machine shops.

“So far, she’s headed for the same place,” said Archie.