If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  “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 suspiciously low. We figured that they’d been up to their old tricks of shaving scores, perhaps even losing deliberately to the Brooklyn clubs to establish themselves as underdogs against us. Given that scenario, they would now bet heavily on themselves and play their damnedest, using every trick at their command to contain us. Not that they needed more incentive, I reflected darkly, than avenging their loss in Troy, breaking our win streak, and drawing national attention to themselves.

  While the Haymakers themselves were shunted back and forth to the practice field and sequestered tightly at the Gibson, their supporters were boasting how they were going to knock us off.

  The downtown streets were a mess, clogged with thousands of visitors. The Gibson’s lobby and saloon were virtually impassable around the clock. Rival luxury hotels, the Burnet and Spencer, were overflowing. Smaller establishments had quadrupled their rates—and were booked solid. Contingents still poured in, trains from surrounding cities carrying dozens of excursion cars. Champion had ordered two thousand additional seats erected. We advertised “Plenty of space for ladies.” Johnny and I had doubled the size of our booth, tripled our foodstuff orders, hired yet another woman, and added five more vendors. The streetcar companies were offering half-fare rates to the ballpark, and a special line had been installed from Western Union’s downtown office to transmit scores in the showdown contest to cities everywhere.

  The national game indeed, and we were at its hub. In spite of my preoccupation with McDermott, I lay in bed at Gasthaus zur Rose the morning of the game and found myself dreaming that I had to go in for Allison again; punching out Craver once more; smashing a colossal home run over the fence with two out in the ninth to pull out a deathless victory, my name shouted through the city, wired across the nation. . . .

  Well, it was a nice fantasy. In reality, my services would doubtless be confined to the score book, Craver was unlikely to provoke another fight, we probably wouldn’t need last-ditch heroics to win at home, and even if I did come to the plate in that spot, more likely than not Cherokee Fisher’s fastballs would make short work of me.

  Restless and fairly certain I’d foiled McDermott by hiding in Over the Rhine, I decided to go out to the park early—it was a little after ten—and help set up the booth.

  I had barely reached the corner and was waiting for an omnibus when I heard a voice calling me. I spun around and saw Sweasy running toward me. His clothes were rumpled, his hair disheveled.

  “Jesus, where you been?” he cried, his voice edged with hysteria. “I’ve looked all night! Your nigger at the grounds sent me up here.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Andy—they’ve got Andy!”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “It’s all your fault, you son of a bitch!” He snatched
a crumpled paper from his pocket and thrust it at me. “When I came in last night, Andy was gone and I found this.”

  It was scrawled in pencil:

  Fowler—

  If you want Leonard in against the Haymakers bring the money you stole to public landing at noon. Put it in a satchel by the water post at the foot of Broadway. We will watch, just drop it and leave. If you don’t or try to bring police, the Leonard boy won’t be fit for games again.

  I crumpled it, thinking how stupid I’d been. McDermott had intended to take Andy all along, then trade him for me after the game. No wonder O’Donovan feared Cait finding out.

  “Where’s the money they’re talkin’ about?” Sweasy said. “You got to get it before noon.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “They won’t let Andy go before the game, money or no money. Who’ve you told about this?”

  “Nobody. I was going to Champion if you weren’t here.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Harry’s.” I waved at a passing hack. “But first we have to round up the others.”

  Chapter 20

  Cincinnati’s public landing seethed in the midday heat. It was far less crowded than it would be later, when fleets of packets would depart after the Haymaker game. Now a dozen steamers along the dock moved with the river’s undulations. Heat shimmered on the vast paved loading area. Across the river in Newport I made out the United States barracks and esplanade. To my left, wagons stood partially loaded with barrels from the hold of a freighter, the job put off until cooler hours. To my right, a street vendor pushed his cart along Front Street. He’d find few customers in these unshaded areas.

  My footsteps echoed on the concrete landing. I made my way toward the embankment. Along the levee stretched a line of massive posts, three feet thick and twenty feet high, to which the steamers were moored. At high water the swelling current brought the vessels to the very top of the posts, most of which were marked in footage to gauge the river’s rise and fall. One of the posts stood squarely at the foot of Broadway. I headed for it, forcing my eyes straight ahead. I put the valise down at the foot of the post, arm muscles cramped from the heavy burden. I turned and walked back the way I had come. Sweat glued my shirt to my skin.

  Before I had gone thirty feet somebody yelled, “Mister, you left this here!”

  The voice was Johnny’s. I kept walking.

  “Mister!”

  I was nearly to the corner of River Street before I heard another voice. Glancing back, I saw a man approaching Johnny.

  “No, it’s his,” said Johnny loudly. “HEY MISTER!”

  A hack pulled up nearby, and Charlie Gould stepped down, looming huge and blond. I nodded pleasantly and climbed into the hack as Gould ambled toward Johnny and the other.

  “What’s the trouble?” I heard Gould say.

  And that was all, for as the hack entered River Street I yelled, “Hit it!” and the driver whipped the horse into a gallop. We clattered wildly for a half block and careened onto Walnut, scattering a group of boys playing marbles. Another lurching turn onto Front, and we raced to the rear of the Spencer House. I jumped out and sprinted down the landing. A small animated group had formed around the valise. Gould and Johnny were arguing with two men, one of whom was trying to wrest the valise from Gould.

  Johnny spotted me and, on cue, began screaming “POLICE!” His shouts carried along the riverfront. Somebody yelled in the distance. One of the men grabbed at Johnny, but he ducked easily behind Gould, who still gripped the valise. The yells were drawing a few onlookers from nearby streets. One was Sweasy, who walked rapidly toward the scene.

  Then I saw what I feared I would see. A dark figure emerged from a warehouse behind Gould. He took in the scene—including me running—and moved quickly into the struggling knot. Something glinted in his hand. I didn’t need to see his face clearly to recognize him: Le Caron.

  “Look out!” I yelled. “He’s the one!”

  Johnny tumbled out of the way as Le Caron’s knife flashed at him. Gould dropped the valise and stepped back quickly. The man wrestling for it went over backward. Le Caron snatched the valise from him.

  “Stop!” I yelled, fifteen feet away.

  He ignored me. I fired the derringer over his head. Its small pop! froze everything for a moment. Le Caron’s black eyes drilled into mine. I sighted on him, holding the gun at arm’s length with both hands, like in police movies.

  The shot had been in part a signal. In response, a wagon swung onto the landing from East Front. Le Caron looked at it nervously. I knew what he was seeing: Harry, George, Allison, and Mac—good-sized men, all brandishing baseball bats—coming straight for him. His eyes flickered at me; then, tucking the valise under his arm as if it weighed nothing, wheeled and broke into a crouching run along the embankment, moving with surprising speed. I fired another shot over him; he did not slow. As the coach pursued him and the others spread out to cut him off, I bent over the man on the ground and dug my gun into his neck. Its two chambers were empty, but he didn’t know it. His eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively.

  “Where’s Andy Leonard?” I demanded.

  Wet sounds came from his throat. “Boat.”

  “Which fucking boat?”

  “The Mary Rae.”

  I jabbed the barrel deeper. “Where do you have him?”

  “Starboard cabin,” he gasped. “Stern.”

  “Does it have a number?”

  His eyes rolled. “Don’t remember, honest.”

  “Where’s it docked?”

  “Other end, by the gasworks.”

  I turned and chased the others. Le Caron, already a hundred yards down the landing, dropped the valise as the four Stockings jumped out of the wagon behind him. Had he known it held scrap iron and newspaper, he might not have carried it so far. For a moment, as they closed in on him with bats poised, it looked as if he were trapped. But Le Caron turned and bounded goatlike up the steep embankment. He poised and dove. I heard a faint splash.

  “In the wagon!” I yelled.

  With Mac and Gould, I clung to the outside. Harry, handling the reins deftly, took us thundering along the docks. I scanned the names of boats as we passed. Melody Lady . . . Cheyenne . . . Silver Spray . . . Clifton . . . Moored at the foot of John Street sat the Mary Rae, a weather-beaten, medium-sized stern-wheeler. A rugged-looking deckhand stood in the shade of the pilothouse overhang.

  “Where you headed?” he growled, blocking the gangway as we swarmed up.

  Without a word Mac and Gould threw him in the river. It was a mistake not to muzzle him. He shouted a warning even as he plunged toward the surface. We scrambled up a runged ladder to the passenger deck and moved sternward like grim commandos, wrenching compartment doors open.

  There were few signs of life on deck, but that was hardly true in the cabins. Curses and shrieks echoed in our wake. Glimpses of gaudy clothing and hastily covered bodies told us what sort of passengers these were. I wondered if McDermott was aboard.

  Everything we’d counted on in our hurried strategy meeting at Harry’s had so far worked out: the kidnappers hadn’t expected a trap to be sprung from so many directions, particularly since I’d done nothing suspicious at the outset; Le Caron had been flushed, as I thought he or McDermott would be; and Andy was near the riverfront, where the kidnappers could escape far easier than by railway or road—which would be closely watched had I gone to the police.

  Harry and I burst into the last compartment and saw Andy bound and gagged in the far corner. His eyes bugged at us and his head shook violently. In the instant I realized he was trying to warn us, Harry yelled, “Watch out!”

  I twisted sideways as something exploded on my right shoulder. Staggering back against the bulkhead, I saw a man stalking me with something that looked like a rolling pin. Behind him, others crowded through the doorway. The rolling pin flashed at me. Sick with the certainty
that I couldn’t move fast enough, I tried to duck. There was a splintering impact over my head. For an instant I thought I had been brained. I tumbled to the deck as fragments of wood showered on me. I looked up and saw Harry drop the handle of his shattered bat. Swearing, the deckhand lifted his club. Harry stepped inside the upraised arm and crashed a textbook right hook to his jaw. The deckhand’s knees buckled and he sagged to the deck beside me.

  Then they were on us. A boot kicked at me. I grabbed it and pulled myself upward.

  “Help!” Harry was yelling. “In here!”

  They pressed us back against the bulkhead. It looked bad. Only the cramped space worked in our favor as the half dozen men trying to get at us were practically jumping over each other. I sent one down with a hard left but took several flailing hits in exchange. Harry, fighting desperately, suddenly crumpled as a plank thudded against his head. I grabbed him before he fell and tried to shelter him. I was rocked by a blow to my neck.

  God, I thought, this is it.

  THWAAAAACKKK!

  A burly man in front of me screamed and nearly folded over backward. A cloud of dust rose from him. Behind him, George cocked his bat and looked for a new target. I saw Mac and Allison, too. As our attackers turned to meet the new threat, I jumped one from behind. The next minutes were a jumble of straining bodies and brutal sounds. I pried a deckhand off Sweasy and slammed him against the bulkhead. Harry, back on his feet, threw a timely rolling block to save Allison from being blindsided. Gould snatched away a knife that had stabbed him in the shoulder and snapped its owner’s arm over his knee like kindling. I was having trouble landing clean punches. Mostly it was a matter of wrestling and gouging in the too-narrow space.

  Then, suddenly, straddling several inert bodies on the deck, only Stockings were upright in the cabin. Panting, we looked at each other. Sweasy bent over Andy and worked to free him, intoning, “I’m sorry, pal, I’m sorry, Andy, I’m sorry,” a litany which struck me as oddly uncharacteristic.

  “We gotta move,” said Allison, peering through the doorway.

  “Folks’re comin’ out everywhere. I think the roughs went to the Texas deck.”