The Striker

up and the boys fed. We’re going back to work.”

The appearance of Captain Jennings, master of the exploded Camilla, was even more unexpected, and Isaac Bell thought for an instant he was seeing a ghost. But the old pilot was no ghost, only a grieving father. “We swapped boats that night. They murdered my boy.”

“I am so sorry, Captain.”

“I’ll run your boat. I know this stretch of the Mon better than your fellers from Cincinnati.”

“She’s a lot bigger than Camilla.”

Jennings started up the stairs to the wheelhouse. “Boats are the same. Rivers ain’t.”

“Letter came for you,” said Wish, pulling an envelope from his vest. “Lady’s handwriting.”

He stepped aside to give Bell privacy to read it.

Bell tore it open. It was from Mary. But it contained only four lines.

My Dearest Isaac,

What I am going to do, I must do.

I hope with all my heart that we’ll be together one day in a better world.

He read it over and over. At length, Wish stepped closer to him. “You’re looking mighty low for a fellow about to fight a naval battle.”

Bell showed him Mary’s letter.

“Write her back.”

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where to send it.”

“Write it anyway. If you don’t, you’ll wish you had. You’ve got a moment right now before all hell breaks loose.”

Bell stood aside while the firemen wheelbarrowed coal and tried to pen an answer in his notebook. The words would not come. He stared at the crowded tent city. They’d flown a defiant red flag from the top of the tipple. But people were staring at the river, bracing for attack. He saw Archie Abbott, running down the slope, waving to get his attention, and, in that instant, he suddenly knew what to write.

Dear Mary,

When you hope we’ll be together in a better world, I hope you mean a changed world on Earth so we don’t have to wait until Heaven, which your words had the sound of. Wherever it is, it will be for me a better world with you by my side. If that’s not enough for you, then why don’t we do something here and now to fix it, together?

He paused, still grasping for clarity. Archie was almost to the stage and calling him. Bell touched his pen to the paper again.

What I’m trying to say is, come back.

All my love

“Isaac!” Archie bounded up the stage, out of breath. He spoke in a low and urgent voice. “The miners got a cannon.”

“What?”

“I heard that someone — presumably, our friend Mr. Clay — gave the strikers a cannon. I found it. They told me it’s a 1.65 Hotchkiss Mountain Gun. Fast-firing and accurate. Look up, right at the foot of the tipple. They just pulled the canvas off it.”

Bell focused his eyes on the distant emplacement. It was a wheel-mounted gun, and largely hidden behind stacked gunnysacks of coal and thick masonry at the base of the tipple.

He said, “The first shot the miners fire at the Vulcan King will give the militia all the excuse they need to pounce ashore shooting — unless the miners get lucky and sink her with their first shot, which is highly unlikely. Even if they did, it would just prolong the inevitable and make it worse.”

“What are you going to do, Isaac?”

Bell called, “Hey, Wish, do you have a cigar?”

“Of course,” said Wish, tugging a Havana from his tailcoat. “What dapper bon vivant attends a ball without cigars?”

Bell clamped it between his teeth.

“Want a light?”

“Not yet. You got a sawed-off in your bag for Archie?”

Wish beckoned Archie and handed him the weapon. “Try and make sure no innocents are downwind.”

Archie said, “I thought apprentices aren’t allowed—”

“You’re temporarily promoted. Stick it under your coat. Don’t get close to me unless I yell for you.”

Bell strode down the boarding stage and hurried across the point to the powder shed the miners had erected far from the tents to store the fresh dynamite they’d managed to smuggle in at night. They were guarding it closely, recalling, no doubt, the accidental explosion that nearly sank the Sadie and half her barges. The Powder Committee remembered, too, the tall detective, who had recommended — at gunpoint — that the dynamite ride in its own barge apart from the people, and greeted him warmly.

“That’s a handsome steamboat you brought us, Mr. Bell. What can we do for you?”

“I need,” said Bell, “one stick of dynamite, a blasting cap, and a short safety fuse.”

“Want me to assemble it?”

“Appreciate it.”

He watched as the miner worked quickly but meticulously.

“How short a fuse do you want?”

“Give me ten seconds.”

The miner looked at him. “I hope you can run fast.”

“Fast enough.” Bell slipped the greasy red stick in his coat and gestured with his cigar. “Got a light?”

“Let’s move away from the powder shed.” The miner struck a match and shielded the flame from the wind and rain until Bell got the cigar lit and glowing.

“Thank you.”

“I’d recommend keeping the business end away from that fuse.”

Puffing on the cigar, trailing aromatic smoke, Isaac Bell walked up the slope to the gun emplacement. The Hotchkiss was oiled and well cared for, not a speck of rust on the wheels or the tube, and the men serving looked like they knew their business. They had seen White Lady arrive and echoed the gratitude of the men at the powder shed.

Bell turned around as if to admire the steamer, which gleamed in the Pittsburgh murk as tall and long and white as the finest seaside resort. He puffed the red-hot coal at the front of his cigar, took the dynamite from his pocket, touched the cigar to the fuse, and puffed up a cloud of smoke to distract the gun crew as he faced the cannon and slid the cylinder of dynamite down the four-foot barrel.

“What did you—”

Hurrying down the hill at a fast lope, Bell called over his shoulder in a commanding voice, “Run for it! It’s dynamite. Archie!”

Fifty yards down, he looked back. The dynamite went off with a muffled peal. The gun jumped off its wheels, and the breech peeled open as if made of paper. The crew gathered around the shattered weapon. Angry men ran after Bell, shouting:

“What did you do to us?”

Bell kept walking fast, signaling Archie not to pull the shotgun until they really needed it.

“Why?”

“What did you do to us?”

“I’m hoping I saved your damned fool lives,” Bell said.

“How can we beat ’em? How can we win?”

The shouts died on their lips. All eyes flew to the top of the tipple. A lookout was bellowing through cupped hands:

“They’re coming! The black boat is coming.”