Night's Child

by Maureen Jennings

For several more moments, Reordan continued to glare into Murdoch’s face, then reluctantly he loosened his hold while Murdoch shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to defend himself again if need be. Finally, the Irishman lowered his gaze and Murdoch released his grip on his wrists. He had no intention of being manhandled again.

  “Sir, I don’t know what your moan is all about but I won’t stand for any man, crippled or not, grabbing me.”

  Seymour quickly got in between them.

  “You’ve no need to fight my battles for me, John.”

  Murdoch was about to say, “That’s just an excuse for the fellow,” but he stopped himself and stepped back a little way. His heart was thudding.

  Reordan swayed slightly on his crippled leg and Seymour slipped an arm around his waist to ease him into the chair. “My God, man, we can’t be fighting our friends. We’ve got to save that for the real enemy.”

  “I didn’t like the way he was after talking to you.”

  “You’re not the only hot head around here. Will can get as fired up as you but he’s a man of honour.”

  Reordan muttered, “That’s hard to believe, he’s a frog, isn’t he.”

  “Yes, and I told you he’s a friend. Now let’s you and him shake hands and, John, you started it, you should apologize.”

  “That’s all right, Charlie,” said Murdoch. “Mr. Reordan was correct in saying I was speaking in a certain tone of voice that was uncalled for. I apologize to you for that.”

  “Well, while we’re all apologizing, I’m sorry too, Will. I know you’re only trying to help me.” Seymour ruffled his own thin hair so it stood up in wisps. “I think we all could do with a nip of brandy. Strictly medicinal, John, don’t worry.” He walked over to his bookcase, moved aside a couple of fat volumes, reached to the back of the shelf, and took out a bottle. He handed it to Murdoch first. “You’ll have to swig, I don’t have any glasses up here.”

  Murdoch took the bottle, unscrewed the top, and swallowed down a gulp, passing the bottle to Seymour, who did likewise, then gave it to Reordan, who indulged in a curiously ladylike sip. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  “So why are you riding Charlie?” he said. “Why don’t you chase after real criminals? They aren’t hard to find. Just look under a rock and you get any number of bosses.”

  Seymour frowned a warning. “John. We’re keeping to my business alone.”

  “Let him say his piece, Charlie. He might not be aware of the reality of the situation.”

  “No, Will. It was me you wanted to hear from.”

  Reordan stabbed his finger in the air. “Say on, Mr. Frog. I’m as aware of reality, as you call it, as the next man. Get it off your chest whatever it is.”

  Murdoch was thoroughly exasperated by the man and his rudeness and his own voice matched it, in spite of himself and his pity. “You call Charlie a friend and so do I, but he is in danger of losing his job. He’s a bloody good sergeant but that’s it for his career if it happens. He won’t be taken on by any other police force in the country.”

  “Maybe not such a loss,” snapped Reordan.

  “To him it would be. If you’re such a good friend, you’d know that. It’s not just a job.”

  The Irishman glanced over at the sergeant, whose expression said it all.

  Murdoch pressed on. “He’s been doing something that is against the law, as written on the statutes. Somebody knows about it and has been sending anonymous letters to the inspector in order to get him dismissed. Charlie, however, refuses to clear his name or give me any information so I can help him because he says there are other people involved. I presume you are one of those people, Mr. Reordan. So what is it you’re going to do? Let your friend slide down the drain or come clean and let me in on what this is all about?”

  Reordan gaped at him, then at Seymour. “Charlie?”

  Seymour replaced the cap on the bottle and put it on the lamp table. “I told Will that the secrets weren’t mine to reveal.”

  There was a brief silence, then Reordan grimaced. “Hey, you can have my secret any time you want. I ain’t ashamed of it. If it would help the frog to tell him about the Knights, you have my permission, no question.”

  Murdoch leaped on his statement. “The Knights? You mean the Knights of Labour? I thought they’d dissolved.”

  Reordan was indignant. “We ain’t going under. We’ve still got work to do.”

  “Do you belong to the Knights of Labour, Charlie? Is that it?”

  Seymour made fists with his hands and bumped them together. Finally, he answered.

  “Yes, I do. And yes, I am quite aware I could get the bird because of it. As our illustrious inspector is forever reminding us.” He stuck his thumbs in his waistband and gave a fair imitation of Brackenreid’s posture and voice. “‘Gentlemen, a police officer must always be without partisanship.’”

  “Them’s all fancy words for saying that frogs toady to employers and them that already has,” scoffed Reordan. “Talk about justice being blind, frogs make up for that by having a great nose for what’s going to keep them smelling sweet.”

  “Give it a bone, Reordan, I’d like to hear what else Charlie has to say.”

  Seymour got to his feet. His face had brightened and his voice was that of an enthusiast. “This isn’t any ordinary labour group, Will. The full name is The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labour and it is an appropriate one.”

  Murdoch shrugged. “Maybe so but it’s still a secret society and a labour group.”

  “I’m aware of that but hear me out. They–that is, we–want to work toward permanent justice for every human soul, not just for one small class of society. I’ve come to believe deeply in their philosophy.”

  To Murdoch it was coming to sound more and more like a religion. “The stern-looking cove in the hall with the altar in front of his portrait, I gather he’s a Knight too?”

  Seymour ignored the jibe. He was too eager to tell Murdoch, for all the world as if he were a young man trying to convince a stern father that his choice of a bride was a good one.

  “That’s the founder, Uriah Stephens. He began the Order in Philadelphia in 1869. The Canadian chapters have shrunk a bit, more’s the pity, but we’re still going.”

  “There was a symbol in the corner, what’s that signify?”

  “Let me tell him,” interrupted Reordan like an eager schoolboy. “The principles of the order are secrecy, obedience, and mutual assistance. The three lines of the triangle indicate the three elements essential to man’s existence and happiness: land, labour, and love. The circle is the bond of unity by which the membership is bound together.” Like Seymour, Reordan was speaking as fervently as any priest.

  “That all sounds very noble, no, hold on, I’m not poking fun at you, it does sound noble. I’m all for it. The problem is that no police officer, including Charlie, can belong to a labour organization.” He nodded over at Seymour. “Are you going to resign from the Knights?”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t want to resign from the police force?”

  “No.”

  “Christ help us, Charlie, you can’t do both.”

  “Why shouldn’t he?” burst out Reordan. “He’s been doing both for months now and nobody’s come to harm.”

  “Look, I agree with you, but I’m not the police chief. He’ll lose his job.”

  Seymour did the punching movement again. “God, Will. I don’t know what to do. I’m like a man with two wives and I’d swear on a bible I loved both of them. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to choose.”

  Reordan addressed Seymour. “Perhaps your pal needs to know more about reality as I’ve seen it, Charlie. Maybe then he’d comprehend better why you ain’t going to give up the Knights easily.”

  Seymour hesitated. “If you want to, John, but I don’t think it changes the situation that much. I’ll still have to make a decision.”

  Reordan turned to Murdoch. “Do you want to hea
r my story?”

  Murdoch bit back his reply. “Go ahead.”

  Reordan touched his scarred face. “You’ve probably been wondering how I got burned like this. I would never have survived if it weren’t for the Knights. They saved me.” He stretched out his hand. “But before I go on, you’d better give me a swallow of that brandy.” Seymour handed over the bottle and Reordan drank some with the gasp of a man unaccustomed to liquor.

  “It weren’t no accident. It was done deliberate. I was tarred and feathered, you see.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Murdoch waited while Reordan took another drink of the brandy, a much bigger sip this time.

  “I got these burns nine months ago. I was working in Ottawa at the Perley and Pettee sawmill. Have you heard of them?”

  Murdoch nodded. “There was a big strike there that eventually involved all the mills in the area but it ended badly, I recall.”

  Reordan scowled at him. “I hope by that remark you mean it ended badly for the workers, not the bosses. They made piss-all concessions.”

  “I did mean it ended badly for the workers. They couldn’t hold out.”

  His comment agitated the Irishman and he got to his feet and began to hobble up and down the small room. Seymour watched him and Murdoch could see he was ready to jump in at any moment if need be.

  “For sure we couldn’t hold out because we were almost starving before the strike and even with relief money, men with families couldn’t endure. The wives of the bosses sat around in their silk and satin while our wives went in rags and fed their bairns cold water to stave off the hunger pangs. All we asked was a ten-hour day and that the wages be restored to what they were which was pitiful enough. I was bringing in seven dollars a week and I was a single man and could hardly live on it.” Reordan’s face was contorted with old anger. “All the workers at the Pettee mill and the nearby mills had stopped work. My foreman, a bastard by the name of Napoleon Leblanc, had ordered a shutout. But we had dragged ourselves through a terrible summer of near starvation and we were determined not to give in. We’d have had too, though, if it weren’t for the Knights who came in to organize matters.” He paused. “The bosses called them ‘walking agitators,’ like their own workers were too stupid or too downtrodden to rise up against them. Well, that weren’t the case. When I heard what the Knights had to say, I joined up in a flash…And you despise us, no doubt.”

  “I rather you didn’t put words into my mouth, or thoughts into my head that aren’t mine, sir. I have no reason to despise an organization of which I know little but what I do know has been favourable.”

  Reordan was only slightly mollified. He was hell bent on hating somebody and Murdoch, the policeman, was as good a target as any.

  “Like I said, we were determined to hold out. Then on the night of April 13, we heard that the bosses were bringing in scabs from Quebec. A lot of the men were at the boil when they got that news. They wanted to go and burn down the bosses’ houses and make a fight of it. But Jamie Paterson, who was one of our leaders, was as smart as a fox. ‘That’s what the bosses want, lads,’ he says to us. ‘They want the world to see us as a mob without morals or brains. Well we won’t give them that satisfaction.’ He says as how he wouldn’t put it past the bosses to set the scabs on a rampage and say it was us as did the damage. So he wanted four or five of us to go out on the watch and keep the property safe against anybody who come to pillage, don’t matter whether they’re calling themselves friend or foe. Well, it took a bit of persuading. There were a lot of hot heads in our own group at the end of their tether and they were ready to set fire to those big mansions stuffed with the food we had put on their tables. But finally they agreed.” He stood still, staring in to space as if he were watching his own story projected on the wall. “So that’s how it come that Saturday night, there I was sitting outside the boss’s house keeping watch. There was young Sam Gibson and me. We’d been issued with pistols, the both of us, which made us feel we could take on anybody as need be. It had turned cool and we were huddled around a brazier to keep warm, which was why we didn’t even see the scabs till they was on us. So much for our guns. There were two of them, muffled up with scarves so’s they wouldn’t be recognized. And they were on us in a flash. Sam was closer to them than me and as he turned to see what was happening, one of them smashed him in the jaw with his billy. They got me pinned to the ground before I could utter a peep and shoved a rag in my mouth. I was trussed and hogtied in seconds.”

  Reordan wet his lips but didn’t face Murdoch. “The one who had hit Sam says to me, ‘We heard you fellows was talking of tarring and feathering the scabs. Is that true?’ I couldn’t answer even I’d wanted to. There had been loose talk about what we’d do to scabs if they was brought in, but it was just talk as far as I was concerned. ‘Is it true?’ said the fellow again and he kicked me good in the chest. I tried to shake my head but he weren’t looking for an answer. ‘We don’t like that,’ he says with another kick. ‘We’ve as much right to work as you do.’ The other fella didn’t utter a word, just him. He was the leader. Then he goes, ‘So we thought we do a bit of tarring up ourselves,’ he says. I could smell hot tar and then I saw they’d brought a bucket of pitch with them and a sack. ‘It’s got to be hotter,’ he says to the other cove like he was asking for a cup of tea. ‘The feathers won’t stick else. And we want them to stick. We want all you lads to see what scabs can do back if they’re pressed.’ I tried to struggle but they had the better of me. The one talking gave me the boots again and again and I could heard the crack as my thigh bone shattered. He laughed when he heard that, like he was enjoying himself.”

  He stopped talking and took another swig of the whisky. Seymour stood up and took him by the arm.

  “John, you aren’t going to find peace in that bottle. Do you want me to tell the rest of it?”

  The Irishman was trembling violently and Murdoch’s own mouth had gone dry at the horror of the story. Reordan allowed Seymour to lead him to the chair and he collapsed into it, his head in his hands. The older man touched his shoulder gently.

  “There wasn’t anything you could do to defend yourself.”

  Reordan looked up and his eyelids were red, the scars on his head livid and raw. “Or Sam, right? I couldn’t help Sam either.”

  Seymour waited for a moment, gripping the man’s shoulder until he gained more control. “The leader turned on Sam next–”

  “He was just a lad,” cried Reordan.

  “He was that and he’d been knocked unconscious with the billy so he couldn’t resist either. They poured hot tar over him and then rolled him in the heap of feathers they’d dumped on the ground. John was next.”

  Seymour’s voice was matter of fact, not from lack of feeling so much as controlled outrage. “The tar was almost at the boil and immediately burned his skin wherever it touched.”

  Reordan held up his hand. “I’ll tell him the rest,” he whispered. “Maybe it’ll help him understand.” He licked his dry lips. “They rolled me in the feathers the way they had with Sam Gibson. Then the short guy, the talker, looks down at me and says, ‘Let’s have pity here. Poor cove’s burning up. He needs cooling off.’ He made a gesture to the other fella. ‘Go on,’ he says, ‘cool his head off.’”

  He couldn’t continue and Charlie again spoke for him. “The man undid his trousers and made his water–on John.”

  Reordan held up his hand. “That’s enough for now.”

  Murdoch’s neck tightened. “I assume these men were never caught,” he said after a moment.

  Reordan spoke so quietly he could hardly hear him. “Of course not. They was helped to get away because the bosses were glad about what had happened to us, even though both Sam and me were hurt real bad. They thought it might make us workers buckle under.”

  “It did just the opposite, I’m happy to say,” interjected Seymour. “They held the strike for three more months.”

  “But there must have been an investigat
ion?”

  “I’m ashamed to admit it, Will,” said Charlie. “but the local police officers were in sympathy with the bosses. They did almost nothing. The two men have never been found or their identity discovered. Their faces were hidden and all John could offer was a general description of height. The leader was short and he talked with some kind of accent. He had a raspy voice, but the scarf muffled everything and he was most likely trying to disguise his voice. The man who defiled John was about six feet tall and seemed the younger of the two.”

  Reordan looked over at Murdoch. “I’m going to find them some day, don’t you doubt it.”

  Seeing the look in the man’s eyes, Murdoch didn’t.

  “I didn’t get no compensation,” Reordan continued. “The boss said I wasn’t injured while doing my work even though it was his frigging property I was trying to protect. I’d have been in a bad way if it weren’t for the Knights. They paid for a doctor and gave me a stipend to keep me going. I don’t have no family, but Mrs. Pangbourn, who used to live here, is my aunt. She had to go take care of her sister in Vancouver so she asked me to come here and run the house for her. Charlie, here, was already a boarder so he stayed on, then Amy and Wilkinson joined us. I ain’t too proud to tell you, Detective Murdoch, that these folks keep me alive. It ain’t just the money they gives me, it’s that they treat me decent as they would any other human being. And in return I’m what you might call their bulldog. I might be crippled but I’m still capable of a good bite if need be.”

  Murdoch stood up and walked over to him. “You’re as strong a man as I’ve encountered, John Reordan. Will you shake my hand now? I’m not here as an enemy but as a friend.”

  At first, he thought the Irishman would spurn him but he stared into Murdoch’s eyes for a moment, then smiled slightly. “Like I said, I’m a bulldog sort of fellow. I can smell out friends.” He took his hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Reordan declared they could all do with a mug of tea and he limped off downstairs to make it. At his leaving, Murdoch could feel himself letting out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding. Seymour went to the desk.