Clive Cussler: The Striker

“Be careful, Isaac. You heard Gleason. Labor and owners are scheming for every advantage in a high-stakes war. They’re digging in to fight to the death. Look out you don’t get caught between them.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“And whatever you do, don’t end up choosing sides.”

“I’ll be careful, sir. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The young man stiffened. “Sir, I’ve given you my word.”

“No,” said Van Dorn. “You will break that promise and do something reckless the moment you let your better instincts take command.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve watched you operate. You have an eye for the downtrodden. Unlike most of your privileged class, you notice that they exist. That sets you miles apart, which is commendable probably. But don’t get yourself killed trying to upend the natural order of things.”

Isaac Bell changed into miner garb in his five-cent lodging house, paid the landlady to store his bags, and hurried back to the coalfields, traveling to Morgantown, West Virginia, in a B & O day coach and the final eight miles up a narrowing valley on the newly laid interurban Gleasonburg line. The trolley’s last stop was near the courthouse, a slapped-together wood-frame affair wedged between a steep hillside and the Monongahela River. It stood next to the bigger, more substantial yellow-brick Gleason company store and housed a justice of the peace, who was the highest legal authority in the coal-mining town, his courtroom, and, in a cellar under the building, the Gleasonburg jail.

Bell headed for the jail.

With only a week to prove his theory, or at least make enough of a case to keep the Boss interested, he had decided on the train that his most productive first step would be to persuade the jailers to let him visit Jim Higgins. The union man knew his business. He had laid the groundwork for a strike by learning who to trust among the miners, who to look out for among the police, who to cultivate among the bosses. Bell was anxious to test his theory on the labor organizer and pick his brain as to who the provocateur might be and what he wanted.

A crowd of miners and their wives and children were gathering around the entrance to the jail, a separate doorway beneath the courthouse steps. Bell glided through them, politely touching his cap to the ladies and sidestepping small fry. They were a somber crowd. Some of the women were red-eyed from weeping. They were the mothers, Bell realized, of the doorboys. How many, he wondered, were widowed like Sammy’s mother? How many of the boys had been their family’s sole breadwinner?

They spoke in low tones, like a congregation waiting for the service to begin, and as Bell passed among them he heard whispers that seemed to blame Jim Higgins more than the Gleason Company for the doorboys’ deaths.

The jail was guarded by company police. They were fat, older men and Bell feared if the mood turned ugly and the crowd swelled into an angry mob, as grieving crowds were wont to do, they were not up to protecting the accused unionist. A Pinkerton usually commanded the company squads, but he saw no detectives there. At the moment, however, the crowd was peaceful, the company police were firmly in charge. They saw him coming and blocked the door.

Bell said, “I’d like to visit Jim Higgins.”

“No visitors.”

“His priest in Chicago sent me a telegram, asking me to look in on him.”

“Ah don’t care if the damned Pope telegraphed. No visitors.”

“Jim’s priest wired some money, thinking a little cash might help keep him comfortable until his lawyers get here.”

The company cop wet his lips. He wanted the bribe. Bell reached in his pocket. But the old man shook his head. “I got orders. No lawyer, no priest, no visitors.”

“I already tried,” said a woman who had come up behind Bell. “If they won’t let his sister see him, they won’t let his priest.”

Isaac Bell turned to her musical voice. When he saw her, a certainty steamed through his mind like a runaway locomotive: If the cops refused admittance to this gray-eyed, raven-haired beauty, then God Almighty Himself would be cooling His heels. He swept his cap off his head and extended his hand. “Isaac Bell,” he introduced himself. “I was not aware that Jim had a sister.”

“Mary Higgins,” she replied, regarding his hand with a skeptical gaze. “I was not aware that Jim had a priest.”

“From his parish in Chicago,” Bell said for the benefit of the cop, who was listening with a suspicious expression.

“Jim is an atheist,” she said and walked away.

Bell followed her through the crowd and caught up at the trolley stop.

“Are you an atheist, too?”

“Not yet,” she said. “And who in hell are you?”

“I met Jim in the mine. He was trying to talk me into joining the union.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Bell shrugged. “Honestly, I was afraid of getting fired.”

“So why are you visiting him in jail?”

“I thought he got a bad deal.”

“Visiting him in jail will get you fired just as fast as joining the union. What’s up with you, Mr. Bell?”

Bell had an ear for expressions and recognized “What’s up?” as English or Australian. Perhaps she had lived abroad. Perhaps she read novels. “While I explain ‘what’s up,’” he answered with a smile, “would you do me the honor of joining me for tea? I believe they serve it in the company store.”

“I would not spend one penny in a Gleason company store. Or any other company store.”

“I don’t know of any other establishment where I could offer you tea.”

“That is the point, Mr. Bell, isn’t it? The company store has a monopoly. The workers have no choice but to pay the owners’ exorbitant prices or do without. They’re paid in scrip instead of real money, which they can spend only at the company store. They’re no better off than serfs.”

“Or sharecroppers,” said Bell.

“Slaves.”

“It sounds as if your brother is not the only unionist in your family.”

“You’re right about that.” The faintest hint of a smile warmed her eyes as they roamed over the features of the handsome young man before her. “Except that Jim’s beliefs are too mild for my taste.”

“Are you sure you won’t make a company store exception for one cup of tea?”

“Positively sure,” Mary Higgins fired back. She glanced up and down the row of shabby barracks, lodging houses, and shanties that lined the dirt street and fixed on a saloon with a lantern in its one small window. “There are other ways. Come with me.”

Bell appraised the crowd around the jail, which was growing larger, then followed her across the street. She walked fast. She was tall and her skirts swayed, he noticed, as if her legs were long. As she stepped up to the wooden sidewalk, her skirt parted, revealing low boots laced around shapely ankles. A dance hall gal’s figure, he thought, with a schoolmarm’s stern gaze.

As she led Bell in the door the owner rushed up, crying, “No ladies allowed in here.”

Mary Higgins unleashed another faint smile, looked the barkeep straight in the eye, and said, “Somewhere behind your bar is your office and in it a pot of hot coffee. I wonder if this gentleman and I might buy a cup we could drink at your desk.”

The barkeep’s mouth popped open. “How did you know?”

“My father owned such an establishment once. He always said if you drink what you sell you’ll end up in the poorhouse.”

“He knew his business,” said the owner. “Come this way.”

Mary Higgins swept ahead, skirts swirling the sawdust strewn upon the floor. In his office, the barkeep apologized, “I have no milk.”