American Red

by David Marlett

  She sat up straight, pretended to have never been holding a baby or bundle of newspapers, and looked out the window. Keeping her coat about her, she tightened the tuck of her silk waistshirt into her narrow skirt, then lifted her breasts above her corset beneath, making them more pronounced under her now-tighter shirt. Then she removed her coat, placing it on the empty seat beside her. She cocked her deep-crowned hat, perching it at a slant, and feigned an absent-minded poke at her pile of brown curls where they had fallen about her ears. She wiped her teeth with her tongue, sniffed, and raised an eyebrow at her reflection in the glass, her resolute face flying across the grasslands beyond.

  A man slid in beside her and introduced himself.

  “Miss Carla Capone,” she replied, unaware that he was an undercover Pinkerton. Yes, she told herself, you’ll manage these men, and it’ll be a song.

  ***

  When the train stopped in Laramie, Wyoming for water, coal, and to substitute engines, Orchard took a stretch-n-piss stroll. In the small depot, he noted the two Pinkerton agents were still watching him. Idiots, he thought. Clowns on patrol. He moved to the window and sipped the coffee he’d bought at a concession stand. The rail crew were uncoupling the engine. He watched them until his focus shifted to the glass before him, and to the dark-haired girl in the blue dress—now “childless”—behind him. She was watching him. That was curious. Women didn’t notice him—a fact to which he’d grown gloomily accustomed. Why her? And, curiouser still, why were the two Pinks unaware that the beauty was also trailing their mark: him? Old man Pinkerton wouldn’t employ a women agent, undercover or not. Who did she work for? He moved. She moved. He scanned her way. She turned. He believed he recognized her. Had he seen her in Denver?

  “You a Wobbly?” asked a big man sidling alongside Orchard. Orchard considered him, realizing he was asking if Orchard was in the union, then noted the questioner was the same passenger who had landed the devastating upper cut.

  “Why you askin?” Orchard replied, keeping an eye on the man’s hands.

  “Heard that mess?” the man continued. “Steunenberg’s barns?”

  “Read on it.”

  “Governor was forced to let em out today.”

  “Oh?”

  “What do you think bout it?”

  “Keep my own counsel,” Orchard began. “Recommend same.”

  The man shrugged. “Just makin conversation.”

  The two men stood shoulder to shoulder, silent, looking outside as the rail crew continued their noisy, arduous work. Orchard thought to move away from the man, but curiosity compelled him to stay a moment longer. “That governor is a damned buffoon,” Orchard offered quietly, his fishing line touching the water. He remained facing the windows onto the platform, anticipating any quick movement from the man, while watching the young woman in the reflection. He gave the line a tug: “Foolish, sending in a Negro regiment.”

  “Union dogs, all of them!” the man exclaimed, taking the bait. “After that Bunker Mine bombing, I say lock em all up. Was horrific. Nothing but animals. Terrorists, I tell you. Every goddamned one of them. They don’t deserve trials. Hang em on sight. Easier still, line em up and shoot em down. Any man with a labor card.” He paused as if awaiting applause or an amen salute. When none came, he continued, “They were lucky to get let out of those barns after just two weeks. And who cares the color of the soldiers that kept em there. Even if they’re niggers. What do you say to that?”

  “A bunch of others care,” Orchard said.

  “You’re wrong that the governor’s foolish. What he is, is a yellow coward for backing down. Should’ve put a torch to those barns while the blackies had em surrounded. That’s what he shoulda done. We’d be done with the whole lot of em. Goddamned, un-Christian reds. Bunch of socialists.”

  “Socialists?” asked Orchard, unwilling to further restrain himself. “For fighting for fair wages?”

  “They’re lazy anarchists. Rats. Reds. Malcontents, what-have-you. Un-American is what they are, I tell you. But it don’t matter one goddamned bean what I call em—what anyone calls em.”

  ***

  Sixteen minutes after the train resumed, chugging into the sunset under the power of its new engine, the body of the fast-fisted, outspoken man was found in the men’s room of the Laramie depot—a small caliber bullet hole in the back of his head.

  <><><>

  – 8 –

  THURSDAY

  October 25, 1906

  The next morning, William Borah strolled Boise’s Main Street, tipping his hat to passersby, particularly the admiring women. In one week, he was to be elected to the United States Senate representing the state of Idaho. As he was the Republican candidate, the election was a mere formality. In the sixteen years since Idaho’s statehood, it had been fairly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. But, with the recent uproar over the union bombs in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District, and Borah’s Democratic opponent supporting the governor’s inflammatory incarceration of all union men, Democrat voters were fleeing the polls, if not the state.

  He pulled his black overcoat about him. Beneath it, he wore what was everyday for him but extravagant for most men—unless they were San Francisco shippers, Chicago railroad trustees, Philadelphia steel magnates, Boston mine owners, or New York bankers. Custom tailored in Chicago, Borah’s jacket was a navy-blue morning coat. With it he wore bespoke cuffs and collar, a paisley bow tie, striped trousers, and patent-leather cap-toes. And on his head—a black derby from Harrods.

  As he reached Tenth Street, he fell into the morning shadow of the Idanha Hotel, a new, large, well-appointed hotel dominating the center of Boise. It was garish in its conspicuousness, built like a red box cornered with white castle turrets climbing five stories, each capped with exaggeratedly tall conical spires. And it was entirely Republican. Another hotel, the Saratoga, two blocks west on Main Street, stood in contrast, primarily in opulence (though the Saratoga was not sub-par by any means). The Saratoga was known to host labor union leaders and Democrats. It had even hosted a Socialist Party rally the prior year at which the radical Eugene Debs spoke. Therefore, soon-to-be Republican Senator Borah’s appointment on this chilly October morning was in the lobby of the Idanha Hotel, and decidedly not at the Saratoga.

  Waiting to cross Main Street, Borah watched a passing, noisy automobile. He wanted one, an Oldsmobile, but was unsure what others might say. Surely they’d admire him for being brave enough to manage a buzz cart. He wondered how many other senators drove them. It didn’t matter. He’d get one and drive it around Washington, honking at Democrats. But not black. He wanted a burgundy red one, a Model B with a curved dash, like one he’d seen in Chicago.

  He entered the arched stone portico, climbed the granite steps, and passed through the Idanha’s tall oak-and-glass doors. Inside, he slowed his pace and removed his derby while scanning the room. A moment later he saw his objective: a disheveled man on a velvet couch, reading the newspaper, sucking an unlit cigar. A small traveling bag was on the seat next to the man. As Borah approached, the man noticed but kept the paper up, making no effort to clear the couch. Borah stood still for a second, then turned and dragged a chair noisily across the hardwood floor. When he had it close enough, he sat. “Captain Swain,” Borah began. Noting the bag, he added, “Catching the early to Spokane?”

  “Senator,” replied the lanky, dark-haired detective wearing an olive sack suit, black tie, and workman’s boots. His toothbrush mustache was narrow with vertical edges. He clenched his cigar in his exposed teeth while folding the paper with a dramatic flourish, then set the paper on his bag.

  Borah flipped his pocket-watch. “Should be in from Laramie.”

  Captain W. S. Swain nodded while adjusting the paper so it wouldn’t fall, then pulled the cigar from his mouth. “Senator, don’t ever ask me to this gilded pigsty again. I only work in the Saratoga.”
<
br />   Borah squinted at the demand but otherwise ignored it. “Your Thiel men were not very helpful.”

  Swain stiffened his neck, smoothed his mustache with the flat of his thumb and met the senator’s eyes. “Anyone get killed?”

  “Is that the Thiel Agency’s measure of success—anyone killed?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Governor Steunenberg was thankful the prisoners left the barns without incident,” said Borah.

  “Then we did our job. Believe you me, a right large number of those union men had killing in their eyes, ready to exact vengeance on the governor and his Negro guards. But, yes, they dispersed peaceably, after their guns were returned to them. And the army withdrew to its train.”

  “Yes, but I’m left to wonder,” Borah said. “Perhaps it would’ve happened the same without your agency’s efforts? I say this because your agents were nowhere to be seen.” When Swain nodded again, Borah added, “I’m not sure they were even—”

  “What were you hoping for?” Swain pounced. “You and Steunenberg.” His brows lifted as if an answer might be forthcoming from the senator. “If the governor wanted virtuous dandies in white shirts and pressed collars, hell, he should’ve hired himself some Pink ladies. Same ones he hired to arrest all those innocent men firstly. I’ll tell you—there was a fellow there named Baxter who had worked for me, and while in my employ he was safe. But then that fool went over to Sherlock McParland and he got himself found out down in Denver. Got burned alive. Might as well have been killed. No, I don’t let my men get known. Not to Big Bill or anyone in the Federation. Not to your bosses, the mine owners. Not to anyone. And certainly not to any godforsaken dictator governor. Or womanizing senator.”

  Borah nodded slightly, giving a no-teeth smile combined with a slow blink that unmistakably said, You’re an ass. He rubbed his nose before speaking again—his tone now even and measured. “So, Governor Steunenberg is paying you two thousand dollars for services for which I have no evidence were ever rendered.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “All right.” Borah withdrew a bank draft from his breast pocket and held it for Captain Swain to take. But Swain just looked at it dangling midair at the end of Borah’s fingers. Borah sighed, laid it on the brass-edged coffee table and stood.

  Swain’s eyes narrowed. “Instructions were for cash.”

  “Well,” said Borah, pointing at the check, “that’s what you get.”

  <><><>

  When Harry Orchard stepped from the train that morning in Boise, he hurried for a hansom cab pulled by a black horse standing at the depot’s curb. But before approaching, he paused, reversed course, and sat on a bench. That made the trailing Pinkertons adjust their stride and return inside the depot. Orchard stood, his tactic accomplished, and resumed walking to the cab. But before he could get there, the young lady who’d been holding the paper-baby reached the cab first—a bellman freighting her bags in tow. Orchard stopped and observed. She boarded the cab without the slightest notice of him, though they were only eight feet apart. Once her bags were loaded, and the bellman told the driver, “Saratoga,” the dark horse went into motion and the cab was away. So she wasn’t following me, thought Orchard. He grinned at his dumb, wishful thinking. At least it’d been nice to imagine.

  From the far side of the depot, came a bellowing call: “All aboard for Caldwell, Pendleton, Walla Walla, and points west! Fifteen minutes for departure! All aboard!”

  Orchard tossed his bag in the next cab and said, “The Saratoga Hotel, please.” He climbed aboard, snapping the door shut.

  Behind him, just as his cab clip-clopped away, yet another cab arrived, and from it stepped the boots of Captain Swain. The tall man paid the fare, retrieved his bag, surveyed the area, then strolled into the depot—all the while being watched by the two Pinkerton agents inside—both peering like bird dogs on a fresh scent.

  <><><>

  McParland was in his shirtsleeves and vest, alone in his Denver office, standing at the wood-boxed telephone on the wall, the receiver to his ear, hearing nothing. As he waited, he began to softly sing the Irish ballad, “Red is the Rose”:

  Red is the rose by yonder garden grows.

  And fair is the lily of the valley.

  Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne.

  But my love is fairer than any.

  Hearing something, he shouted into the mouthpiece, “Can you hear me, Robert?” But still no sound came from the earpiece. “Damnit,” he muttered and hung it up. As he walked back to his desk, the bells in the telephone box began ringing. He returned and picked up the receiver. “Robert?”

  Jim? came the crackled voice through the wires.

  “Aye. This damn telephone. Can you hear me?”

  Barely, said Robert Pinkerton.

  “All right. Morris Friedman is going to publish.”

  The Jew?

  “Aye.”

  Are you certain?

  “Aye.”

  Can you stop him?

  McParland paused. “I tried.”

  Send someone. Try harder.

  “I don’t know.”

  What about “whatever it takes”?

  “We can only do so much with Friedman,” said McParland.

  Do more than “so much,” Pinkerton grumbled.

  “He’s a stubborn fellow. Could sharpen an ax on his head.”

  More stubborn than you or me? I doubt that.

  “Maybe so. But we don’t want to cause bigger troubles with—”

  Nothing bigger than a book he might write.

  “I can think of a few things,” said McParland.

  The little socialist Christ-killer is your problem. Don’t make him mine.

  “Aye,” said McParland. The line died. He hung up, leaned against the wall, and huffed air toward his feet.

  <><><>

  – 9 –

  WEDNESDAY

  December 12, 1906

  The plain, brown-suited towering mass of Bill Haywood was just getting started—his words drubbing down, anvil blow after anvil blow. “While your brothers, your fellow union men, good and family men, were languishing in that miserable barn by order of that tyrant, the governor of Idaho—while they were there, unable to defend themselves—it was US Army soldiers, Americans who are supposed to be protecting the workers—who went to the workers’ homes, insulting, outraging, ravishing their wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts!” Six feet over his head and nailed to the back wall was a round board painted white with the blue seal of the labor union. The white words WESTERN FEDERATION OF MINERS arched across the top, and ORGANIZED MAY 15, 1893 arched across the bottom. In the middle were the union’s three resonant symbols: a hammer, a pick, and a sheaf of wheat, along with three stars, each bearing one of the initials: W, F, and M.

  The Colorado Federation rally was underway in a Denver meeting hall on Arapahoe Street. Their hulking leader stood at the podium, his most beloved residence. He thundered on, “Those soldiers were there to incite disorder, not to prevent it. You know it. I know it. The world knows it. We all do.” On the last sentence, he swept his outstretched hand across the audience with such vigor that he felt his snub-nosed Colt Army .38 slide inside his coat pocket, as if it might tumble out. He removed it and placed it on the podium, his right hand covering it. As he continued the speech, he occasionally rapped it against the podium’s top—its nickel-plated steel against the wood making echoing punctuations across the dimly lit, white-washed room teeming with men in various shades of brown.

  “The Western Federation of Miners, our Federation, our most beloved union [gun rapped on wood] is now over forty thousand strong. Two hundred locals spread across Colorado [gun again], Nevada [gun], Idaho [gun], and Arizona [gun]. Hell, we’re even in Canada! And we’re advancing into five more states right now, including California. At ne
xt January’s gathering of the locals, we’ll have representatives from every western state and Canada. In this past year we’ve become bonded—fused into a single, irrefutable iron force for freedom!”

  Rapturous applause and stomping erupted.

  Haywood continued, “We have arms depots and hidden caches across our territory, rivaling any country in the world. And, most important, we’ve trained disciplined men with the courage to use those arms whenever and wherever they’re required—for the effective defense of the US Constitution and the advancement of the working class of America. For you! And if that most unfortunate of occasions arises, if the time comes, I know you can be called upon as well. You’ll rise up as one magnificent fist and join our armed men in that most noble of battles for the preservation of your freedoms—to strike a fatal blow against those corporations and collective trusts that would scheme against us, against you, would buy your government, would deny you life [gun on podium], liberty [gun again] and the pursuit of happiness! [gun raised high] We are the future of this country. You are the future!”

  The audience was already on its feet, clapping wildly.

  Awaiting the cessation of the noise, Haywood gave a kind glimpse toward Winnie—the spirited blonde minx with an upturned nose and winsome eyes in the front row. She was also on her feet. He noted her youthful cheeks framing her sensuous grin, her smooth cleavage alive as she clapped. In the aisle beside Winnie, Haywood’s wife, Neva, looked up at him and gave a small nod while tapping a minuscule half-clap against the wooden arm of her invalid chair. Her pained face bore an almost imperceptible upturn of the lips, something placating. Or was that bristling condescension, wondered Haywood. Nevertheless, as a product of performed impulse, he kept his focus longer on her than on her sister. Finally, Neva dipped her chin, releasing him.