“The hell you say. Who are you? What’s your name?”
“Claggart,” Clay replied, extending his hand and reeling them in with a drummer’s smile. “John Claggart.”
“What’s this about Higgins being a spy, Claggart? I heard he’s a union man.”
“So did I,” said the other.
“That’s what the company wants you to believe. Those fellers told me that the minute their pal said yes to the snake, the Pinkertons were all over him like paint. Blackjacked him something awful, bloodied his face, busted his hand.”
Clay continued toward the back of the mob, casting aspersions calculated to inflame, and stepped up on a horse trough for a better view. Lo and behold, there was Joseph Van Dorn’s favorite — young Isaac Bell — springing up the courthouse steps to try to reason with the mob.
6
Isaac Bell had vaulted up the steps just as the grieving crowd of the victims’ friends and families exploded into a savage lynch mob howling for Jim Higgins’s blood.
“Hold it!”
Bell had a big voice, and when he filled his chest and let it thunder, it carried to the farthest man in the mob and echoed off the mountain. He raised both hands high above his head and it seemed to double his height. He spoke slowly, clearly, and loudly.
“Jim Higgins is no spy. Jim Higgins is an honest workingman just like every one of us.”
Bell pointed a big hand at the miner who had shouted.
“Who told you Jim’s a spy? Come on, man, tell us. Was it anyone you know? Any man you trust? Who?”
The miners looked at one another and back at Bell.
“Jim Higgins is no more a company man than you or me.”
The men in front were looking confused. But from far in the back, Bell heard shouting.
He could not see who was shouting in the failing light. A shadowy figure in a slouch hat flitted behind the mob. A dozen throats picked up the cry
The company police guarding the jailhouse door edged aside.
“Stand fast, you men!” Bell shouted down from the steps.
The cops broke and ran. Some fled straight into the crowd, some around it, and when they had gone nothing stood between the lynch mob and the union organizer but a young Van Dorn detective on his first case.
Isaac Bell drew a single-action Colt Army from his coat and leveled it at the crowd. Then he delivered a cold promise.
“I will shoot the first man who steps near.”
Those in the front row, close enough to see his eyes, believed him.
They hesitated and started to fall back.
He reached inside his voluminous coat.
Fool or not, young Bell cut a brave figure. The mob, teetering moments before on the cusp of violence, had been sidetracked by his commanding voice. Clay had fired up the back ranks again. But now the young detective had a gun in his hand and it was time to stop Bell before he ruined everything.
The marksman’s weapon in Clay’s shoulder holster was a top-notch Colt Bisley .45 single-action revolver smithed to a fare-thee-well. In the right hands, at this range, it was as deadly as a rifle. And Henry Clay, who had been trained by a master gunfighter and had drilled with the Bisley as religiously as he had with shotgun, rifle, knife, and fists, had no doubt that his were the right hands.
Isaac Bell saw someone come pushing through the mob even as the front ranks hesitated.
It was Mary Higgins, shoving through them and racing up the steps to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
“If you brought a gun,” said Bell, “give it to me and get out of here while the getting is good.”
“I don’t need a gun.”
“If you believe that, you’re dreaming worse than your brother—
Bell caught his footing and aimed his Army. He raked the crowd, trying to locate the man who shot him. He still could not see him. He was somewhere behind them. Then he saw that the second shot emboldened the angry miners. Pushed by those behind, the men in front surged straight at him.
Isaac Bell triggered his weapon, held it firmly at his waist, and fanned the revolver’s hammer spur repeatedly with his left hand. Four shots roared out of the barrel so fast that the individual reports combined into one long, loud explosion.
The rapid fire sent a blizzard of bullets inches above the mob. Heads ducked, men scattered for cover. Spanish War veterans familiar with field cannon flung themselves face-first in the mud. Their mad scramble lasted just long enough for Bell and Mary to dive down the steps and into the jailhouse — a small, low-ceilinged cellar that smelled of river dampness and the kerosene lamps that lighted it. It was furnished with a crude wooden desk, a gun rack, two cells, and a dark hall that Bell hoped led to a back way out. He bolted the door.
Jim Higgins was watching from his cell, gripping the bars. Bell spotted keys on the rack and a double- barreled shotgun. He unlocked the cell and shoved the shotgun into Higgins’s hands. Higgins stared at the weapon as if Bell had passed him a snake.
“Don’t worry about hitting anything. The noise’ll scatter them.”
“Are you all right, Isaac? There’s blood all over your coat.”
“Tip-top,” said Bell. His ribs felt like he had just fought ten rounds with a strong man who specialized in body blows. But he could breathe, a good sign that no ribs had splintered.
“Here they come!” cried Mary. She grabbed a lantern off the desk and looked down the hall.
The mob was beating at the door. Bell took back the shotgun. Mary returned. “There’s a door and a ladder down to the riverbank.”
“How many are out there?”
“No one. It’s too steep. It’s right on the bank.”
“Take your brother.”
