Miners with lever-action rifles guarded the gates, which they had barricaded with planks, crossties, and lengths of track pried up from the station. The riflemen had their backs toward the retreating crowd and the towboat searchlights piercing the sky, concentrating on what was outside the gate.

“Where’s Fortis?”

The miner in charge of the detail, a hard-eyed man in his forties, was in the ticket booth. He looked like he had not slept in a long time.

“Mr. Fortis? I’m Bell. Jim Higgins said you were covering the retreat.”

“Not a minute too soon. Look at those boys.”

Bell peered through a crack between the planks. The lights were on in the trolley barns and the huge doors open. Inside, scores of strikebreakers armed with pick handles had sheltered from the rain. A streetcar parked outside the barn drew his eye. Twenty men with Winchesters sat inside it.

“Pinkertons?”

“In that one. Coal and Iron cops in another behind the barn.”

“Where’s the militia?”

“So far, the government’s holding them in reserve in McKeesport. But one of our spies says those jailbirds are waiting to attack about four in the morning. I’m worried they’ll jump the gun when they cotton to your barges.”

“They must have spies, too.”

“We caught three tonight. A triple play. They won’t be telling nobody.”

“What did you do to them?”

“Bought us some time,” came the opaque reply.

Bell said, “I want to be sure you boys make the last boat.”

“We’re loaded and ready to run.”

Bell had already noticed the wheelbarrows lined up and covered with canvas.

“What’s in those barrows?”

“Rifles, ammunition, and dynamite.”

Wondering whether he had led the Van Dorn Detective Agency into a shooting war, Bell asked, “Sure you need explosives?”

“Sure we won’t get caught short.”

“I’ll come for you when we’ve got the last of your people loaded.”

Back at the river Bell found the loading going slowly. When Camilla finally swung her barges away from the bank and started down the Monongahela, and Captain Jennings’s son maneuvered the second fleet alongside, the tall detective opened his pocket watch. At the rate this was going, they would be lucky to land the last tow at Amalgamated before the morning fog lifted ten hours from then.

Chapter 37

37

HENRY CLAY SPOTTED A JUNIOR STOCKBROKER WAITING under a light where the Vulcan King landed for coal in Wheeling, West Virginia. He recognized the type employed by Midwestern branch offices of the brokerage that Judge Congdon controlled with his secret interest. Hair short and combed, suit pressed, collar freshly starched despite the late hour, smile hopeful, the young man was hungry to please anyone from New York headquarters.

“Mr. Claggart?” he asked, his eyes wide at the spectacle of the biggest steamboat he had ever seen hulking over the wharf, broad as a steel mill and twice as black.

“You from the office?”