Ribbons of Steel (10 page)

“I’ll turn that switch.”

“We might as well die right here,” someone else yelled out, only to be grabbed around the neck and held captive by an officer, and then dragged down the street.

Charley turned his head just in time to see another man get his eye blackened with a billy-club. Charley hung back; he didn’t need to be involved and dragged off as well. Good Lord, the man hadn’t done anything to deserve such a fate. He simply hadn’t been fast enough in his escape.

The street was packed. The crowd gathered in size, voices raised. To the right, a small group of young boys began throwing stones. No one stopped them. Tension simmered all around Charley as he leaned up against the nearest building. It wouldn’t take much for the powder keg of emotions to explode.

The blue-coats stormed the area and made short order of the unruly. Including the boys who threw stones. As more and more agitated people gathered, however, the police backed off.

Charley couldn’t let the same thing happen in Philadelphia.

By late afternoon the crowd had grown to over two hundred. Men, women, and children, mere onlookers waiting to see what would transpire, lined the streets. Before long there were many more sympathizers than actual strikers.

Charley headed back to the hotel, an audible sigh escaping his tense lips.

He washed up, ate, and then returned to his room. He opened the window. The cool night air blew in and cleared out the staleness of the day. He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it, folding and placing it at the foot of the bed. A slight breeze blew across his bare chest, cool but refreshing. He stretched out on top of the covers and shut his eyes against the mayhem outside his window.

****

Charley woke to the sound of gunshots zinging into the evening sky. He rubbed his eyes and levered himself up against the headboard, then walked to the window. All was quiet. No sound of guns being fired. Had he been dreaming?

He lay back on the bed, but the sheet, hot and sweaty, clung to him. He sifted, rolled over on his side, punched at the pillow, and scrunched it up underneath his neck. The night air drifted in through the open window, cooler this time, but soothing against his exhausted and feverish body. He rolled over and settled in, hoping the dream wouldn’t return.

Two pistol shots rang out in the still of the night. Charley jumped from the bed and ran to the window, his head still fuzzy from sleep. More gunshots rang out. Screams rent the air.
Good, God!
He wasn’t dreaming.

He slipped his shirt on over his head, stepped into his shoes, and raced out the door buttoning his shirt as he ran. He met a handful of men in the hotel lobby all rushing out of the building. Together they headed toward Liberty Street.

Crowds filling the street hampered Charley’s progress. The people jostled him about, almost knocking him over twice. Eventually, he wound his way through the commotion to reach the front of the crowd. Had anyone been shot? No one appeared to be wounded.
Yet
.

The county sheriff stood atop a pile of lumber stacked to the side of the tracks, yelling at the rumbling, angry crowd in vain. The officer fired into the air to get the people’s attention. A foolish mistake, in Charley’s estimation. Any number of skittish strikers or sympathizers could have started shooting back if they had guns and a mind to. Thankfully, most of them didn’t carry weapons.

“Take a walk, Coleman,” someone called out above the yelling voices.

“We don’t want no trouble from you,” someone else shouted.

Others joined in. The sheriff climbed down from the make-shift platform and walked away, leaving an angry crowd ranting and raving.

The crowd refused to disperse and grew in numbers. Charley worked his way to the opposite side of the street and stood on a bench where he could watch without getting caught up in the mêlée.

When the sun rose over the mountains several hours later, not a single train ran. Engines were fired up, and rail crews were ready to go. The mob controlled the switches. They climbed aboard the trains, riding them back and forth between the stations at Twenty-Eighth Street and Torrens Station. Not a single passenger train was allowed to leave.

“Can ya believe it, chap. They’ve taken a loaded cattle car to the edge of town and let the dang livestock loose.” The man on Charley’s left laughed and slapped the sides of his legs in mirth. “That’ll teach’em, it will.”

Once again, Sheriff Coleman stood in the middle of the crowd trying to get them to disperse. Cries of ‘Bread or Blood’ roared over the sheriff’s pleading.

“All you women take your children and go home,” Coleman urged. “Get out of harm’s way. Go home. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. The militia’s on their way. Go home.”

“We won’t be leaving our men to fight alone,” several women yelled back. “We have nothing more to lose.”

Unsuccessful at pleading with the masses to disperse, the chief left, defeated. When the militia arrived, he’d be back with the back-up necessary to help confront the situation.

Back in his room, Charlie stood at the hotel window. Thousands of people milled about, many of them looting and trashing storefronts. They lit fires in the middle of the street. Rioters threw goods from the stores they either didn’t need or couldn’t carry into the middle of the flames. Men who worked the rails, as well as women and children, walked in and out of the open storefronts grabbing whatever they could carry. God Almighty, these people were just as needy here as they were back in Philadelphia.

How had things become so desperate?

Charley shook his head at the chaos an hour later, waiting for the militia to arrive. When the troops crested the horizon, they marched into town with bayonets raised. Charley cringed as they rushed straight into the crowd without impunity. A shot rang out, followed by more shots and shouts. Charley recoiled at the piercing, blood curdling screams. He closed his eyes, but the people’s cries of pain penetrated his senses. More yelling, screaming, and now crying followed. Good Lord, he couldn’t take much more.

Charley opened his watery eyes in time to see a man’s big burly body go down. Then another. Two children were being shoved to the cobbled street, blood pooling from the sides of their faces. A mother’s scream filled the air like banshees blowing down the lane. Charley shut his eyes at the mournful sound, but the vision, vivid and horrifying remained; the mother bent over her bloodied child. He sent up a silent thanks his family was nowhere near any of this chaotic bloodbath.

The crowd gathered like a million ants on a mission and forced the militia into the roundhouse despite their lack of weapons. There had to be fifty to seventy-five of them pushing the troops back. A flame shot up as several rail cars were engulfed by fire. Before he could catch his breath, the depot burst into flames. Yelling and screaming and cries of torment tore at his heart. He couldn’t take another moment of the chaos and loss of life happening right before his eyes.

Aderley was right. Pittsburgh’s mill town was filled with a burly lot of men, young and old alike. Men and women and children. And despite the consequences, they stood up for what they believed in. The entire town, along with those who had come to support the workers and fight the militia, grew in numbers.

He needed to get back to Philadelphia and report to Aderley. A strike in Philadelphia was inevitable. Aderley was going to need all the reinforcements he could get as soon as he could get them.

How the hell were they going to stop the madness? How were they going to deal with the trouble coming their way? How in God’s name were they going to keep the bloodshed from taking its toll in Philadelphia?

Charley hopped the next stagecoach back to Philadelphia hoping he would arrive before this bloodshed in Pittsburg beat him there.

****

The train curved into the countryside and chugged past dense forests. Emily wanted nothing more than to lay her head back and sleep. The steady motion of the train, however noisy, soothed her mind. Even the Aderley boys, usually squirming in their seats, had quieted. Marian Aderley’s head bobbed back and forth with the motion of the train as it swayed westward toward Marshall, Michigan.

Emily’s stomach grew queasy. She dozed uncomfortably.

“Mrs. Carmichael. Emily.”

Emily woke to Marian Aderley’s hand gently shaking her arm.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Marian said. “We’re nearing Detroit. It’s our last connection. The conductor says we’ll pick up the Chicago and Northwestern Line after we eat. We’ll be able to get out and stretch our legs and walk around a bit.”

Emily’s head buzzed with the lack of sleep. Half an hour later, the train stopped at the depot. Emily stretched before following the others outside into the bright, hot sunshine. After the initial hustle and bustle, things settled down, and the passengers were ushered into a small dining hall for a noonday meal.

“That’s Mrs. Young sitting at the far table with the baby.” Marian leaned across their table and whispered to Emily.

Emily glanced across the room to find a young mother holding a tiny bundle in protective arms, a broad smile shining lovingly down at her child. The mother’s face looked pale, her light brown hair brushed back into a knot on the top of her head. Her maroon frock with lace around the neckline was simple.

“When did they board?” Emily asked.

“Oh, my dear, they’ve been with us since Philadelphia. The baby has been such a dear,” Marian said. “She must be a very loving mother to manage her child so well.”

“I’ve not heard a peep out of the child. Are you sure they’ve been traveling with us?”

“Oh, yes, poor dear. I conversed with her while you slept the other day. She confided in me. Said her husband was killed in some kind of accident. Farming, I believe she said.”

“She looks a bit frail.”

“Yes. So tragic. Leaving the poor woman without a means of support. And with a child, too, poor thing.”

“What of her family?”

“Said she has none to speak of, poor, poor dear. A child herself.”

Emily looked over at the young mother. Her eyes settled on the small bundle. If only her Sarah were with her now so she could cuddle her. Eyes bright and blurry, Emily lowered her head to hide the tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks. But she needn’t have bothered hiding them. Marian tried to settle a dispute between her boys who had grown tired of remaining still for so long only to have to sit at a table and mind their manners. She couldn’t imagine her own boys sitting still for so long, either.

By the time Marian had her sons under control, Emily had wiped the tears away with unsteady fingertips. The urge to go to Mrs. Young and ask to hold the baby was almost vital.

In an effort to take her mind off her family, Emily looked around at the other passengers as they filed into the dining hall. She found it difficult to concentrate and had all she could do to lift the fork to her mouth to eat the food in front of her.

Lord, she was more than ready for this journey to end.

After the lunch, Emily stayed behind to enjoy a cup of tea while Marian ushered her boys outside so they could run off their pent-up energy before boarding the train. The dining hall emptied of many of the passengers. Emily smiled as two elderly women approached. They had boarded the train at the last stop and sat several seats behind her, across the aisle. The ladies were as different as day and night. Possibly in their late fifties, they had a vitality Emily envied.

“Hello, dearie, I’m Pansy Weaver and this is my sister Violet. I hope you don’t mind if we sit and have tea with you.” Pansy set her cup and saucer down and pulled a chair out at the same time. “It’s such a shame about our Mrs. Young losing her husband at such an early age. Why, what gumption she has traveling alone to such a God-forsaken place as the West.”

“Now Violet, it’s not God-forsaken else we wouldn’t be traveling it ourselves, now would we? Pay her no never mind.” She waved her hand at her sister, then sipped her tea. “Why, we enjoy an adventure just as much as the next person. Ain’t that right?”

“So, Mrs. Carmichael, what’s your story? Everyone has a story.” Pansy bit into a pastry that looked as if it’d been in her bag for days.

“Pansy,” Violet gushed. “You should not be so rude. Now Mrs. Carmichael, pay her no mind. You don’t have to answer if you don’t have a mind to.”

Emily’s insides warmed at the exchange between the two women. “I don’t mind,” she told them. “There isn’t much to tell. I’m on my way to stay with my cousin in the northern California Territory. I’ve been ill and need the rest from my family.”

“Tell us about your family, then, dearie,” Pansy encouraged. “It must be hard to leave them behind.”

Emily took a deep breath. The sisters had no idea how unbearable it had been to step on the train in Candor with her children in tears, waving goodbye and not knowing if she’d ever see them again. With a heavy heart, she shared her family with the two inquisitive sisters.

Before long the train whistle blew and the conductor called ‘all aboard.’ Once everyone was on the train and settled, the locomotive jerked forward, slowly at first, then worked up steam and a steady, rocking pace. They crossed the steam-powered drawbridge over the mile-wide Mississippi and the pleasant and prosperous lands of Iowa. Emily’s head drooped and nodded uncomfortably with the motion of the train. When the conductor stopped by to chat with the Aderley boys, she managed to sit up so as not to appear rude.

“This here’s Council Bluffs, a real bustling city,” the conductor told Jonathan and Jason. The man had kept the boys busy with tales about each of the locations they passed through to help keep them occupied. “Lewis and Clark held council with the Indians here not so long ago, ya know.”

Jonathan’s and Jason’s eyes shot up at the mention of Indians.

“Will we see an Indian?” Jason asked. “Will they shoot at us with their bow and arrows? I’ve never seen a real Indian before.”

“Now boys,” Marian admonished. “Of course we won’t be seeing any Indians. I told you we have nothing to worry about on this trip. Indians have been civilized for some time. They don’t attack people, do they, sir?” She looked to the conductor for confirmation.