What that had to do with him winning his bets remained a mystery. As did what he knew about Colm.
I gave serious consideration to leaving the city until the Haymakers had gone. But if McDermott and O’Donovan were as determined as I thought, they’d simply wait for me to return. I couldn’t stay away from Cait and the Stockings forever.
So running away was out. But not hiding.
The Haymakers trooped into the Gibson the next morning. Millar was there with a dozen other reporters. Throngs of well-dressed visitors, many of them gamblers, milled inside the lobby arguing with desk clerks in futile efforts to book rooms. Special trains would bring thousands more in the next twenty-four hours.
With unfortunate timing I arrived at practically the same moment from Gasthaus zur Rose, where I’d slept in a snug attic room and wakened to sunlight filtering through red geraniums in a window box. I glimpsed Bull Craver’s sullen bulk, the burly King brothers, Clipper Flynn’s hatchet features. I felt my muscles tensing.
All it took was seeing them again.
Practice was light and easy, mostly BP and muscle stretching. In the clubhouse afterward Brainard paid me five hundred dollars in crisp new bills.
“Hope you didn’t expect it all at once,” he said.“Hell, I didn’t expect any of it this fast.”
“Got my cart hitched to a swifter nag now.”
I was still wondering what that meant when I stopped to buy Timmy a toy steam locomotive. Arriving at Cait’s, I checked to make certain the derringer was loaded. My sense of foreboding was soon justified. Sitting as though waiting for me—which on reflection I supposed he was—I found Fearghus O’Donovan in the parlor.
“Where’s Cait?” I said.
“To your credit, Mr. Fowler,” he said, calm and contained, “you assisted a good Irish family. I have no quarrel with that.”
“Oh, thank you.”
He studied me like a cat sizing up a large and delectable but potentially formidable bird. “However, I have the responsibility of recovering certain long-missing funds.”
“How exciting,” I said, and started to step around him.
“You don’t seem to realize your situation,” he said crisply, blocking the way. “Grave-robbing is a heinous crime, Mr. Fowler. If necessary we can transport you to Elmira, remove those convenient whiskers, and see if a certain stable boy can identify you to the police.”
“My finances are none of your business,” I said. “And even if you could prove what you say—which you can’t—the authorities would confiscate everything; you’d never get it.”
“Ownership would be difficult to establish,” he agreed. “That is why I am trying to reason with you. Our lads’ blood darkened the ground of that camp. You could be excused for not knowing that when you took the money. But now there is no excuse.”
I felt like saying the money had been nothing more than a catalyst for cheating and murder. But I wasn’t about to acknowledge anything.
“Return it,” he said, “to serve the cause of Erin.”
“So you can buy guns and shoot Canadians? Spare me the bullshit.” His face was flushed as I pushed past him to the foot of the stairs and called for Cait.
“Up here, Samuel.”
I started upward and felt his hand clutch my sleeve. I shook free and whirled, poised to hit him. His fists were clenched and his breath whistled in through his teeth, but he made no move; I think he knew I’d flatten him.
I entered their room for the first time. It was spare and light, with two small beds. Timmy lay in one. He rose on one elbow when he saw me, then sank back.
“You still sick, Timmy?”
He nodded and said hoarsely, “Throat hurts.”His forehead felt hot to my touch.
“Fearghus went for quinine earlier,” said Cait.
“Oh,” I said. “Good.”
I filled the locomotive’s tiny boiler with water, stoked the burner, and after getting a head of steam, ran it across the floor as Timmy watched.
“It’s tip-top, Sam!”
“We’ll find cars to go with it,” I told him.
After a racking fit of coughing, he sank into sleep. I looked at Cait. “Shouldn’t he see a doctor?”
“Tomorrow, if he’s not better,” she replied. “Samuel, I have to ask something.”
“Yes?”
“Fearghus swears that you took money belonging to the brotherhood.” Her voice was tense. “He claims you’re a spy.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I don’t want to.”
I took a deep breath, weary of the whole thing. “Okay, sit down, then, and listen. I’ve got a lot to tell you.” I started with McDermott and Le Caron at the Rochester game and told her of the shooting in Albany and my third brush with Le Caron in Jersey City. I spoke of meeting Twain and learning of the treasure; of being touched by her mother’s plea; of going to recover the gold and what transpired in the cemetery.
“Not even Andy knows all of it,” I finished.
“McDermott sounds a monster!” she exclaimed. “Fearghus speaks scornfully of him, but I had no idea! The buried money was no more than gambling winnings, then?”
I nodded. “O’Donovan seems to think that since most of the guards and prisoners were Irish, it belongs to him.”
Timmy’s labored breathing sounded in the ensuing silence.
“Do you still think I’m a spy?”
“I never truly did,” she said.“Cait, what do you do with the Fenians?”
“Not with them, Samuel. I am one. I’ve tried to keep my work separate from you, all the time fearing I couldn’t.”
“What is your work?”
“I maintain this Circle House,” she said. “Beyond that I can’t say, Samuel. I’m sworn to secrecy. We all are.”
“The papers are full of invasion rumors, your basement is full of guns—”
“Which you took upon yourself to discover.”
“Only because I care about you.”
She reached out and touched my chest. “Oh, Samuel, what’s to happen?”
Pool sellers favored us two to one. That seemed a bit heavy, considering we’d barely pulled off the 37-31 win in Troy. But the Haymakers, though winning eleven of fifteen since then, had been spotty, beating the Mutuals decisively, getting blown out twice by the Eckfords, and splitting a pair with the Atlantics. Their run totals against weak teams had been
