Ride to Valor

by David Robbins

  James grabbed for his knife and then recognized who it was. “Coil!”

  “Doyle. Good to see you made it out in one piece.” Coil’s shirt was smeared red in spots. He propped a hand against the same tree.

  “What went wrong?” James said.

  “Everything.”

  “We had it well planned—”

  Coil shook his head. “We thought we did but we were fooling ourselves.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “I wouldn’t know, and it doesn’t matter.”

  “How can you say that?” James asked, appalled at how callous Coil was being.

  “We have a more important worry.” Coil looked over his shoulder. “The whole city will be out for our heads.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They’ll want a scapegoat.”

  “Who will?”

  “Think, damn it. The politicians. When they hear that two gangs were involved, they’ll blame the Florentines and us. They’ll send extra police into the Five Points to catch as many of the Blue Shirts as they can.”

  “We can hide until it blows over.”

  Coil gave an emphatic shake of his head. “This won’t be the usual roust. It could mean the gallows for those of us as are caught.”

  “They’d hang us over an accident?”

  “They won’t care how the fire started. Trust me on this. It will be hunting season on Blue Shirts and Florentines.”

  A faint scream reached them.

  “Was that a little girl?” James asked.

  “A lot will die,” Coil said softly. “A whole hell of a lot.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I’m leaving the city.” Coil straightened. “I suggest you do the same.”

  James was stunned. “Where will you go? What will you do? And what about our brothers in blue? Mick and Devlin and Sweeney and everyone?”

  “Them that are alive would be smart to do as I am.” Coil tensed. “Did you hear that?”

  All James heard were distant shouts and screams. He was about to say so when feet drummed—a lot of feet. A large body of people appeared, some thirty to fifty strong, from the direction of the tenement. They were shouting back and forth. He thought he caught the words “Blue Shirts.” “Who are they?” he wondered.

  “Run,” Coil said, and pushed him.

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s a mob out for our blood.” Coil burst into motion, flying toward the far side of the park as if his feet were winged.

  Confused, James followed. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask.

  Behind him, a man rumbled like a bull.

  “There’re two of them now! After them, men!”

  “Get those Blue Shirts!”

  There was more but James didn’t listen. He ran full-out. New Yorkers were not above acts of vigilantism when they were incensed, as had happened recently on the docks when a man beat and robbed a woman and was chased down by enraged citizens. By the time the police got there, the thief had been strung from a street post, as dead as dead could be.

  Coil had pulled ahead.

  James glanced back and was disconcerted to discover several of the mob gaining.

  “Murdering bastards!”

  “Stop where you are!”

  James wasn’t about to. He weaved through trees and came to a flat grassy area and ran as he had never run before. He was almost to more trees when inspiration struck. A low limb hove out of the darkness, and he sprang. It was the work of seconds to pull himself up.

  Under him streamed dark shapes.

  Afraid one of the mob would look up and spot him, James scarcely breathed. Within moments they were past and he was alone.

  From out of the dark came a yell. “Here’s one!”

  “Get him!”

  A scuffle ensued, harsh curses and a flurry of blows.

  James thought the mob had caught Coil, and he was about to go to Coil’s aid when the noises stopped.

  “I guess we gave him what for!” someone gloated.

  “We shouldn’t stay. The police might come.”

  “Scatter!” a man urged. “They’ll blame us even though we were in the right.”

  Only when all furtive movement ceased did James hang by his arms and drop. He moved warily, so busy watching for lingerers that he nearly tripped over a sprawled form. It was a Blue Shirt. Dropping to his knees, he rolled it over. He was both relieved and horror-struck. Relieved that it wasn’t Coil but horror-struck that Flanagan had met his death in so gruesome a manner.

  James got out of there, stripping off his shirt as he went. If Coil was right, the entire city would be after them. There had been crackdowns on the gangs before, but this might be the worst ever.

  If he stayed he might be hanged.

  What was he to do?

  INTO THE WEST

  9

  The death toll was one hundred and sixty-nine men, women, and children. Four of the children were infants. Another eighty-four people had been so severely burned, they needed to be rushed to hospitals. An additional thirty-nine sustained what were described in the newspapers as “minor burns.”

  Three fire companies joined to fight the conflagration. They had been able to contain it to the tenement but at the cost of two firemen.

  It was all the newspapers had talked about for weeks.

  Especially after the mayor declared an investigation into the cause. Certain rumors, he said, led him to believe it was more than a bumped lamp or an overheated iron. Those rumors were in the form of witnesses who reported a gang fight had broken out shortly before the fire began. Then there was the battered body of a dead Blue Shirt found in Mulberry Park.

  The investigation was quick. It established beyond any shadow of doubt that the Blue Shirts and the Florentines were to blame.

  The city was outraged. The police were ordered to arrest Blue Shirts and Florentines on sight. Anyone suspected of being a Blue Shirt or Florentine was brought in for questioning. Nineteen gang members were put behind bars.

  Public sentiment was so incensed that the newspapers were saying those responsible should receive the death penalty.

  James lay low in his small apartment on Gramercy Street. He tried to find his friends, but they had scattered to the four winds. He could get by for a while on his own. He had some money saved.

  On a cold and blustery morning, James decided to visit his mother. He dressed in a cotton shirt and a bulky coat. Buttoned up, his hands in his pockets, a woolen cap pulled low over his brow, he made his way to her apartment.

  As usual Bunton’s bulk overflowed the settee, a bottle beside him. “Well, look who it is,” he said, sneering.

  James ignored him and went to the kitchen, but his mother wasn’t there. Nor did she answer when he knocked on her bedroom door. He returned to the parlor. “Where is she?”

  “Off to deliver laundry,” Bunton said. “She’s a hard worker, that woman.”

  “Too bad the same can’t be said about you,” James said before he could stop himself.

  Bunton’s ugly face became uglier with resentment. “You shouldn’t talk to me like that, boy. You don’t want to make me mad.”

  James turned to go.

  “Not when you’re worth so much money.”

  James looked at him and gripped the pistol in his pocket. “Money?”

  “I know you’re a Blue Shirt. Your mother told me what that old biddy upstairs had said, and I did some checking around.” Bunton raised the bottle. Some of the whiskey dribbled down his chin. “I know about the fire, too, and all those people who died on account of you.”

  James waited.

  “Nothing to say, boy? You’re always looking down your nose at me when you’re not any better.” Bunton sneered at him. “Heard about the reward? Fifty dollars to anyone who can point out a Blue Shirt or one of those others.”

  James walked over. He drew his pistol and pointed it. “Is it worth dying for?”

  Bunton did the last thing Jam
es expected. He laughed.

  “Listen to you. Trying to act the tough. What are you going to do? Shoot the man your mother cares for? I think not, a mother’s boy like you.”

  “You miserable lout—” James began, but got no further.

  Bunton levered his bulk off the settee and swung the bottle. James tried to duck, but it caught him across the temple. Pain exploded and he swayed. Bunton raised the bottle to smash it over his head and he staggered back, collided with the table, and fell.

  Pouncing, Bunton drove a knee into his gut. “Got you now, boy.”

  James punched him in the throat. Bunton jerked back and gurgled. James punched him a second time. Bunton dropped the bottle and clutched his neck, gasping noisily for breath. James pointed the pistol, but instead of firing he slammed it against Bunton’s head. Bunton tottered.

  James made it to his feet. A red haze filled his vision. In pure rage he hit Bunton again and again and again and would have gone on hitting him if the feel of wet drops on his hand hadn’t snapped him out of himself. He looked at what he had done. Quickly, he felt for a pulse. There was one, weak but steady.

  James straightened. He should shoot him. Bunton was bound to go to the police. But Bunton had been right. His mother did care for the slug. And it would be doubly devastating if her son did him in.

  James wheeled and left. For once luck was with him and he didn’t run into his mother on the way out. His emotions in turmoil, he walked aimlessly for nearly an hour before he bent his steps to his apartment. In grim determination he packed his bag.

  He was at the end of his block when he happened to glance back and saw uniformed officers entering his building.

  James had never been on a train. He bought his ticket and sat in the last seat next to the window with his bag in his lap. Coileanin had been right. He had to get out of New York, but he had no idea where to go. He figured a city would be best. Any city. He was accustomed to city life and liked it. His ticket would take him to Philadelphia, but after that, where? Philadelphia was too close to New York for him to feel safe. He thought of all the cities he’d ever heard about. Chicago might be good. It was big enough he could lose himself. Use a new name, and no one would ever suspect. Or maybe somewhere farther.

  James remembered hearing that New Orleans was lively. A man who had his hair cut at the barbershop came from there and used to talk a lot about the fine food and the nightlife. James also remembered hearing about St. Louis. The Gateway to the West, it was called, a bustling beehive with, as the newspapers grandly put it, “opportunity for all.”

  The door at the front end of the car opened and in came two policemen. One had his hand on his truncheon. They moved slowly down the aisle, studying each passenger.

  James looked out the window, his skin prickling. He took a gamble. He could pretend not to notice them or he could do what he did, namely, turn and say politely, “Good day to you, Officers.”

  The policeman with his hand on the truncheon acknowledged the greeting with a bob of his chin. Then they were past and out the rear door.

  James let out a breath of relief. It was short-lived. The train was delayed nearly half an hour, every second an eternity of suspense. Finally, with a lurch and a rumble, it was under way. At Baltimore he switched to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Later on, to the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. He enjoyed watching the scenery roll by, mile after mile of farmland and woods dotted by occasional towns and hamlets. It was his first glimpse of life outside New York City, and he soaked it in.

  The rest of the world, he realized, was little like the world he had known. For starters, people were more civil. In New York he’d gotten used to people being surly and sour. It never occurred to him that elsewhere people might actually be nice. He lost count of the farmers and their wives who bid him a hello and women who bestowed smiles rather than fearful glances. It came to him just how much his blue shirt had set him apart from everyone else.

  He was also surprised by how little vice he saw. In Five Points, it was as common as sin. Drinking, gambling, prostitution went on twenty-four hours of every day. The truth be told, he’d reveled in it, the same as the rest of the Blue Shirts. He drank. He gambled. He had tried to take up smoking, but it didn’t agree with him.

  But from what he saw from the train, vice outside New York appeared to be as rare as virtue in a Five Points whorehouse. The few layovers he had, he strolled about towns as clean and wholesome as fresh-made bread.

  Finally, James arrived at his destination. He had chosen St. Louis. Situated on the west bank of the Mississippi River, the city was puny compared to New York, but it was a thriving river hub with over one hundred and sixty thousand souls. And when it came to hustle and bustle, St. Louis wasn’t second to anyone.

  His first day, James took a cheap room along the waterfront. That night he visited a tavern and had his first taste of liquor since leaving Five Points. It went down smooth.

  So smooth, the next day his head pounded and he lay abed until noon. Then he went on a tour.

  St. Louis was two worlds joined by the common seam of the river. Along the Mississippi were countless docks for steamboats and other craft. Saloons, grog shops, and taverns were as common as fleas on a city rat. So were dance halls and houses where gentlemen consorted with ladies in private chambers.

  Above the waterfront flourished another society entirely. Culture was its byword. Money was its god. Its temples were theaters and music halls. That there were a lot of people who were well-to-do was testified to by the many mansions.

  James strolled about, feeling much as he had as a boy when his mother took him to his first mercantile. Everywhere there was something new, something different. The river and the boats and ships particularly fascinated him. The huge steamboats with their giant wheels churning sent tingles down his spine.

  On his fourth day James looked for work. Finding a job in that great bustling hub of commerce wouldn’t be hard, he figured, and he was proved right. That afternoon he was hired to load flatboats bound for New Orleans. It involved a lot of lifting and carrying, but he was young and vigorous and liked the work. It didn’t pay much, however, and within a month he was loading steamboats. It wasn’t much of a change, but it paid better.

  Months trickled by and became a year. James packed on more muscle and grew a couple more inches. He was content with his life if not happy. He almost forgot about his old life and New York.

  Then he killed a man.

  10

  His favorite tavern was called the Keelhaul. It was right on the water. River rats, gamblers, and other rowdies packed the place every night.

  James usually showed up within an hour after he was done with work for the day. He’d order food and rum to wash it down, then would sit in on a game of cards or sometimes dice or talk with acquaintances.

  On this night, he joined a poker game and soon won several hands. He had a sense he was on a winning streak and bet big on a full house. To his delight, the only player who hadn’t folded had only a straight. James chuckled and commenced to rake in his winnings.

  The man who lost—a river rat known as Twitch—riffled the cards and scowled. “That makes how many you’ve won, there, mister?”

  “I haven’t kept count,” James admitted. He began to stack his chips.

  “I have,” Twitch said. He had a string mustache and a pointed chin. “That was four in a row.”

  “Lady Luck is with me tonight.”

  “Something is.”

  James glanced up. He didn’t like Twitch much, and he definitely didn’t care for Twitch’s tone. “If you have something to say, out with it.”

  “Could be you make your own luck.”

  James bristled. That was the same as saying he cheated. He stopped stacking and leaned his forearms on the table. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Me, either,” said an older man called Harper. “You dealt the last hand, Twitch. If anyone was bottom-dealing, it was you.”

  Some of th
e others laughed, but Twitch didn’t find it amusing.

  “Stay out of this, you old goat. What do you know of cards, anyway?” Twitch’s beady eyes bored into James. “How about you let us have a look up your sleeves?”

  “How about you go to hell?”

  Twitch had drunk a lot. He always had. And the more he drank, the more hotheaded he became. Now he smacked a hand on the table and snarled, “No one talks to me like that.”

  “I just did.”

  “Calm down, Twitch,” Harper said.

  “What did I tell you?” Suddenly rising, the river rat came around the table. “I’ll check your sleeves my own self.”

  James pushed back his chair. He was wearing a bulky coat and had his pistol in a pocket. He also had his knife in a sheath at the small of his back. He supposed he shouldn’t carry them, but old habits were hard to shake off, and besides, most men in St. Louis went about armed in one way or another, with knives, daggers, sword canes, guns, you name it. “I don’t want trouble.”

  Twitch grinned. “Tucking tail, are you?” he said louder than need be for the benefit of those around them.

  “From a runt like you?” James shook his head. “I’d never live it down.”

  A few chuckles and laughs didn’t improve Twitch’s disposition. He put a hand on a knife at his hip. “Show us there’s only skin under there.”

  “How about I show you this?” James said, and came up out of his chair unleashing an uppercut that started with his fist down near his knee. His knuckles cracked hard on Twitch’s chin, and Twitch’s feet left the floor and he crashed onto the table, spilling cards and chips every which way. Twitch lay there and didn’t move and James turned away, thinking the river rat was unconscious. It felt as if he had broken his hand. He flexed his fingers a few times, and it hurt like hell.