by David Luchuk
My equipment was in a bin underneath the bench. When I was taken into custody, officers dismantled the chassis from my arms and torso to keep as evidence. They didn’t check under my slacks.
I still had the winch. This was my glimmer of hope.
The piston I primed at Waring farm was still full of steam. I was counting on there being enough power left in it to lift the ring out of the floor. If so, I would have a few seconds to act before the guards got to me.
I had one more idea about getting to the bottom of Judge Terrence Mansfield’s blackmail, the Schulte murder, maybe everything. I wanted a final stab at piecing it all together. If I could get my hands on those tools before the guards knocked me senseless, I might be able to get out.
The severity of my injuries allowed me to spend a lot of time hunched over. I let out an occasional moan. The guards ignored me. None noticed me grind the carbide tip of the jackleg winch into a seam between planks under the ring.
I clutched at my chest with both hands as though experiencing some new agony. Standing up, I pressed all my weight down on the bit.
“Quiet there.” One guard said. “Sit down.”
The other two reached for clubs. Trying to look intimidated, I sat in a heap and leaned to one side for leverage. The wood cracked. I held my breath, pleading in my mind for the ring to come loose.
A booming noise stung the inside of my ear canal. The seam between planks yawned open. A fissure ran up the wall to the ceiling causing the whole wagon split in half.
The guards looked terrified. They were still gripping their clubs.
My half of the wagon fell away. The wall I leaned against crashed onto the street, carrying all the carriage’s momentum. My arms and legs came free from the shackles. I skimmed along the roadway, sitting bolt upright and screaming from the pit of my stomach like a newborn.
The wheels of nearby coaches spun close. Passengers on all sides yelled and pointed. I approached a bend in the road. A carriage was bearing down behind.
I threw myself forward and grabbed the box holding my gear. I jumped off the wall and landed on the crate. My face swung down and smacked the side. I rolled head over heels into the tables of a curb-side cafe.
I got to my feet. The act of trying to brush myself off raised a few guffaws. Mostly, I just smeared dirt and blood together on my clothes.
It would take police an hour to get word of the accident, talk to witnesses and make any progress in searching for me. That was ample time for me to reach the Stock Exchange where I would make my last attempt and finding the truth.
New York’s first Exchange on Wall Street was destroyed by fire so the outfit moved to a temporary space on Broad. There were plans in the works for a lavish new structure but the current building only stood out because so many people streamed through its doors all day long.
Inside, the Exchange was no more glamorous than a warehouse. Every adornment was stripped away to make room for the men crammed inside and the machines tracking daily action.
Tradable commodities in America each had a code. These codes were posted on a board made up of shutters the size of playing cards, which flipped over as prices fluctuated. The dense grid of numbers and codes was constantly changing. The board dominated every sightline. It was so vast, all four walls were covered, starting halfway up and reaching to the ceiling.
A cube in the middle of the trading floor was twenty feet in every dimension. Electric leads hung from the cube like hair. Those leads connected to a device inside that counted prices and returns for every product in the Union economy.
This was what I needed. I forced my way to the cube.
I had retrieved my switchbox, among other equipment, from the wreck. When I plugged it into leads on the cube, it flared in my hand. The volume of information would be similar to the telegraphs I intercepted on the Golden Circle case. My machine could handle the data.
I wanted to know if information stolen from Henry Schulte had been entered into the Exchange. One of the silent investors in Schulte’s slave hunting business was New York judge Terrence Mansfield. He presided over my trial and, more importantly, a legal challenge against President Lincoln’s blockade.
The raw data in Schulte’s account log could expose Judge Mansfield as a slave profiteer. That was why Hunt wanted it. He was trying to shape the power of the President.
Judge Mansfield already rendered his decision. He supported the President’s blockade. If his blackmailers made good on their threat, they would leave a trace here.
Traders nudged each other and pointed at me as punch cards fell from the switchbox. I shrugged as though I didn’t know what it was doing either. A floor monitor approached. He took one look at the cards accumulating at my feet and gestured for security.
The switchbox went still in my hands. A card emerged under the heading: Returns—T. Mansfield.
It was confirmed. The judge was exposed.
The damning information was entered earlier that same day from a remote location here in New York: the offices of Northern Central railway. That was the same company I was investigating for embezzlement when Kennedy arrested me.
I detached the switchbox. It was no great feat to disappear on the Stock Exchange floor. The price of coffee rose a quarter penny and, in the commotion, I was gone.
The route to Northern Central was no trouble to recall. I had been there many times.
There was no chance of getting past reception so I circled to the back. Offices were on the first two floors. Conference rooms and executive suites were on the third. The fourth was empty. I held the dragline caster and looked at the fourth floor windows.
It was a long way up but this was my best chance of getting into the building. Whoever sent the Schulte data to the Stock Exchange might still have been inside.
I wound up a few times then launched the sinker, hoping it would snag a fire escape. It smashed through a window.
I hurried to attach the dragline to the fastener on my knee. When the filament wire retracted, I tipped upside down and rose through the air. My feet took the window frame apart as I crashed into the room. I was still rising.
The caster was lodged in the beams behind a light fixture on the ceiling. I twisted my knees coming to a sudden stop, dangling above the floor. From there, I heard two men approach.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Be quiet.”
I knew those voices.
“The equipment is bought. It will be delivered on schedule. I’m done.”
The door opened. S. M. Felton and Superintendent John Kennedy walked in. They traced the damage from the window to the broken glass on the floor and finally to the light fixture. Kennedy’s jaw dropped.
“This is what I’m talking about.” Felton said. “We are never going to be rid of them.”
“If you had done your job, this would not be an issue.”
“I tossed one out of an airship. I sent this one to face a thousand telegraph machines.”
“Too clever by half, Felton. That’s always been your way.”
Kennedy circled beneath me. A smile spread over his face and he clapped his hands.
“Robert.” He said. “Let us show Mr. Felton what he ought to have done.”
Kennedy drew his pistol. He spent a moment taking careful aim then fired.
I raised my hands in front of my face. The ball passed between my fingers, skimmed off my check bone, and ripped through my right leg. It clattered into the dragline device.
I cried out. Kennedy cheered. The impact caused the device to jam, straining as it tried to retract the filament wire.
“We wanted the Pinkertons to be out of our way.” Kennedy said. “How hard was that?”
“Hunt makes it hard. He has to kill Lincoln himself. He only presses a judge over slave issues. He only
steals from abolitionist towns. I’m surprised he accepted news of the Union attack from a woman.”
“Settle down.” Kennedy said. “It’s over now.”
I felt a burning heat near my knee, and then a shudder as the dragline pulled the filament free. It severed a wooden rafter from the ceiling and cut the screws holding the chandelier.
I fell, absorbing the impact in the shoulder to spare my leg. The rest landed on Kennedy.
My body throbbed all over. Kennedy was hurt but not seriously. He started pushing debris aside. The thought of him back on his feet was an outrage.
I lurched to a sitting position like a mummy rising from the crypt. Kennedy cast me a disbelieving glance. I hit his face, chest, arms. I even punched the floor. It was a wild flurry, completely out of control. When it was over, Kennedy stayed down.
Felton was paralyzed in horror. I must have been a ghastly sight.
I aimed the dragline at his chest. The device was ruined but he didn’t know.
“Northern Central has a dirigible.” I said. “You can fly it.”
“You need to go to a hospital, Robert.”
I didn’t feel all that bad. The fear of how much something might hurt was worse than the actual pain.
“No.” I said. “Let’s go have a look at that equipment you purchased.”
* * *
Ernie Stark
July, 1861
The town of Helena, in the Montana territory, was as far removed from the health and liveliness of Geneva as I could imagine. There were no businesses to anchor the community, no schools for the children. If there was a theatre, it was sure to be burlesque.
Of all the blights in Helena, the worst was the sight of mud spattered slaves tromping through their miserable lives. My thoughts turned to Ray. I could not let him disappear into this backwards world again.
I told myself to focus on the plan. That was the best way to help Ray.
After the bank robbery, Newton Edwards shipped a crate from Geneva to a woman named Norma Ellis in Helena. I checked the church registry. Ellis was her married name. She was born Norma Edwards, Newton’s sister.
Sticking to the plan, I visited to the local courier and paid to use his telegraph machine. I said that I had several messages to send, and expected to receive replies to them all. I would be spending a lot of time in their office over the coming days.
Prior to arriving in Helena, counterfeiters charged me a thousand dollars to prepare a set of documents. Some were intended for Norma Ellis. The rest were to help me rescue Ray.
If William Hunt tried to go south with Ray, he would need to prove his ownership. Otherwise, police down there could accuse him of trafficking in free men from the north and take Ray away. Not that Ray would be freed under those circumstances. He would be resold to a new owner. Hunt, however, would end up with nothing.
Knowing this, I had the tattoo faces create a set of false papers declaring me to be Ray’s owner just like before. They also drafted a legal petition claiming that my slave had been stolen and threatening to sue any trader that profited from my property.
I used the Helena courier to telegraph these petitions to every major slave auction house in the south. It was the sort of claim southerners took seriously. If Hunt tried to reintegrate Ray into the society of slaves, I stood a decent chance of finding out where they were.
My first few days in Helena were spent at the telegraph machine. I lost track of how many I sent. Every few hours, I asked to look through my old messages and read every new transmission received by their office.
This was part of the ruse. Being an annoyance made it excusable, even expected, when I ventured into secure areas of the courier depot that were supposed to be off limits.
I saw that the express delivery from Geneva was still unclaimed. It had to be the money. I was sure of it. Newton Edwards would have wanted to get the loot away as fast as possible.
He trusted his sister enough to have her hold the cash. Living in Helena, she was desperate enough to agree. What tripped them up was the need for her to sign for stolen goods.
The fastest way for me to get back on Newton Edwards’ trail was to force Norma to do whatever her brother originally asked. She knew where Newton was and would lead me right to him but, first, she had to accept the delivery.
This was the sort of moment that made it half tolerable to be a Pinkerton. It was easier to lie when it was for the Agency.
I visited Mrs. Ellis. The house was so run down that the knocker almost fell off in my hand. Norma answered. Her finger nails were black with dirt, though I could see no signs of a garden on the property. This was a life spent in true squalor.
Time spent at the courier depot showed me how to dress like one of its staffers. I handed her a notice advising that, if she did not claim the Geneva delivery within 24 hours, the crate would be confiscated. It never occurred to her that it was all fake.
To make the swindle cut deeper, I made sure that another paper found its way into her hands. It was little more than a scrap. All it showed was the watermark of New Orleans Police and a subject header with Newton Edwards’ name. The counterfeiters had lifted it from the missing person notice. Norma Ellis would assume the law was closing in.
She reacted the way I hoped. The next morning, she rushed to the courier office and sent a telegram, emphasizing to the teller that it was an emergency.
I was there, like always, surrounded by a mountain of paper. Responses to my petition had been flowing in for days. When the reply to Norma Ellis’ telegraph arrived, I was reading through incoming messages. I saw what I needed:
Northern Central # 47-A–21. Forward package. Thomas Duncan. Manassas, Virginia.
There were two men at the Geneva robbery. Newton Edwards was one. Thomas Duncan must have been the other. They fled to the trains after the heist. That was smart.
I needed to get back on the rail network in a hurry if I hoped to intercept Edwards and Duncan on their way to Virginia. I swept the telegraph messages aside and called for the clerk to issue me a bill. I paid my tab and left.
In my rush, I almost forgot to bring the one transmission that mattered out of all the pointless telegraphs I sent and received. It arrived the previous day:
Sir—Thank you for contacting us. Your property is on record at our auction house. Please speak to our legal department to pursue your petition.
-Heritage Estate Brokerage—Shreveport, Louisiana
Ray was in Louisiana. Edwards and Duncan were going to Virginia.
I mulled this over a glass of moonshine in a dingy saloon on a train connecting with the Northern Central line. I had no trouble locating 47-A–21 but found it impossible to justify pursuing these men any further.
I had no real allegiance to William or the Pinkerton brood. Let them try to send me back to Ryker’s Island. If I didn’t reach Ray soon, I never would.
A pair of counterfeiters approached. I had spent so much money that now they came looking for me now. They were everywhere.
I had asked these two to find out which car Edwards and Duncan rented on the train to Virginia. I also ordered a draft legal document that I could send to Shreveport demanding to know the whereabouts of my slave.
“Two thousand.” One of the dealers said.
It was more than any of the others charged. I had seven hundred dollars left.
“Be reasonable.” I said.
The second man tapped his partner’s shoulder. I could never tell which of these traders I had dealt with face to face. The effect of the tattoos was so confusing. I felt like maybe I had seen him before. The one in charge dismissed him with a wave.
“Two thousand.” He said.
“Take the seven hundred.” I insisted.
Our negotiation ended. They turned without another word.
; I leapt from my chair and grabbed the one who set the price. The second twisted my arm and pressed me back down on the table. There was nothing to be gained by fighting with them. I was on my own again.
The saloon operator asked me to leave. Other customers thought I might be police. He didn’t want any trouble.
I reached into my pocket for money to pay for my drink. I found the stub of a train ticket that did not belong to me. Train 47-A–21, Cabin D–4.
I did know that man. He helped set Ray free on the trip to Philadelphia.
I was closing in on Edwards and Duncan but no nearer to pulling Ray out of the south. If I went to Shreveport, I could find him. If I went right away, there might be time.
We connected with Northern Central. A porter led me to the car marked on my stub. The hall was packed with people. They crowded around an open cabin door: D–4.
I shoved past the jostling mass and stepped into the room. A man was on the floor, his back against the wall. The front of his shirt was stained with blood from a gunshot.
“You must be Newton Edwards.” I said.
“Are you a doctor?” The man asked.
“No. I’m a Pinkerton.”
“Oh God.” The man looked like he had just accepted he was going to die. In desperation, he stammered on. “You have to help me. Okay? It was a con. Duncan never wanted the money. Look out the window. He paid for some sort of machine.”
Up ahead, in a section reserved for factories and heavy industry, I saw a man hang over the side of the train to inspect straps that held a massive vehicle in place. It looked like many machines rolled into one.
I assumed that man was Thomas Duncan. He looked back at the window. It was one of the baseball players from the Golden Circle.
“What did you get yourself into, Edwards?”
“I wanted a new start. That’s all. I trusted Duncan.” He said. “Help me.”
Every second I spent with this man was a second I stole from Ray. William sent me to find Newton Edwards. Here he was. Whatever connection existed between the Geneva robbery and the Golden Circle, I didn’t care. I took a piece of paper from the desk and wrote a note:
