Lawless

by John Jakes

  Flinging her arms wide, then letting them drop, she collapsed in Shad’s arms.

  He practically foamed with emotion as he spoke his line.

  “Oh, heaven! This is dreadful! Oh! Tom my boy, it is killing me!”

  In character as the old black, Bascom pointed at Eleanor. “Look at her, mas’r.”

  “Eva!” Shad paused for effect “She does not hear. Oh, Eva. Tell us what you see. What is it?”

  Eleanor opened her eyes and smiled.

  “Oh! Love! Joy! Peace!”

  She collapsed again, even limper than before. It was the best she could do to follow her final stage direction—Dies.

  She heard clapping. Bascom said in dialect, “Oh! Bless the Lord! It’s over.” Then he abandoned the accent. “That’s fine.”

  Shad purpled. “But I have one more long speech.”‘

  “Not important. I have an idea of what you can do.” He seized Eleanor’s hand. “Miss Kent, you were highly impressive. Highly! Are you certain you can’t consider yourself a candidate?”

  She was surprised at how reluctant she felt when she replied, “No, sir, I have responsibilities at home.”

  “Oh.” He glanced at her left hand. “Already married, are you?”

  “Heavens no,” she began, but Shad interrupted.

  “She’s hardly of marriageable age, Bascom. She just turned fifteen.”

  She knew Shad said that because he was hurt by the older man’s indifference to his reading, and because he wanted to undermine her success if he could. Actors were warm, generous people, but she’d found they could also be supremely vindictive when professional success was at stake.

  Bascom, however, wasn’t the least put off.

  “Fifteen? I’d swear she’s three to five years older. So would every man, woman and child in our audience, I’ll wager.”

  “Well, be that as it may”—gracefully Eleanor sidestepped his attempt to draw her into the curve of his arm—“I’m not free to leave New York just now.”

  Bascom shook his head. “Too bad. You read well and move nicely and I’d love to get you under—ah—” He coughed. “That is, with proper tutelage and in a company as distinguished as ours, your talent would surely flower. Well”—he fished in a food-spotted waistcoat, produced a soiled card—“as I said, we won’t be leaving for some days yet. My office is my suite at the Paramount Hotel in lower Broadway. That’s jotted on the reverse of the card. If you should change your mind, please come see me.”

  He gave her a last, imploring glance that seemed a trifle sad. Eleanor had quite lost her fear of him. He was just a harmless old man in seedy clothes and a wig that didn’t fit very well. Yet, he had a certain avuncular quality that she liked.

  “Thank you, Mr. Bascom,” she said, meaning it.

  There were two more auditions. When they were over, Bascom again addressed the group.

  “I have been very impressed by what I have seen here this evening. Now I shall have to mull over my conclusions. Should I wish to call any of you back for a second reading, I shall be in touch on a personal basis, providing you have correctly listed your address on the sheet which Mr.—ah—”

  “Whittaker,” Charlie said.

  “—which Mr. Whittaker provided. Thank you again, one and all.”

  Once more the members and their guests rose to give him a round of applause. Eleanor suddenly saw that Leo was missing. She discovered him by the door leading to the stairs. He was clapping for Bascom but watching her. She couldn’t decipher the look in his dark eyes just before he turned and disappeared.

  Was he still hurt about the way she’d rejected his invitation? Or was he disappointed by the inconclusive audition? She had a strange feeling she wouldn’t be seeing him any more, and that made her sad.

  As the clapping faded, she realized she’d dropped Bascom’s card. She searched the floor until she found it.

  iii

  About four the next afternoon, Charlie Whittaker rang the mansion bell and asked for her. She met him in the library. He was out of breath.

  “Eleanor, he hired him. Bascom hired that little Jew!”

  “He hired Leo?”

  Pouting, Charlie nodded.

  She didn’t know what to think—or how she should feel. Pleased? Sorrowful? There was no doubt about Charlie’s feelings.

  “To think a sheeny would win out over Christian actors—”

  “Charlie, you mustn’t keep making derogatory remarks about Leo’s religion. You’re only doing it because you’re mad. We both know he’s the best actor in the club. I can just see women fainting away when he emotes with that beautiful voice of his.”

  “How’d he get a voice like that? I suppose he thinks it’s some sign God has blessed him!”

  “Do sit down and get over your jealousy. The things you’re saying are very unkind. It isn’t at all like you.”

  He sank into a chair. “Guess it isn’t. Don’t know why I should be jealous, really. Pater and Mater wouldn’t let me go on a long tour. Not yet. That’s why I didn’t even audition.”

  “How’d you find out about Leo?”

  “Bascom came to the house.” Charlie studied the carpet a while, then finally mumbled, “Leo’s name and address were omitted from the list I gave him.”

  “Leo’s too bright to accidentally leave—oh, Charlie. You didn’t erase them?”

  He transferred his attention to his kneecap. “Well, damn it, yes, I did. Nobody has a right to be that handsome. Besides, no harm was done in the long run. I couldn’t keep up the pretense. I gave Bascom the address the minute he asked. I heard him tell his hack driver to go straight to Hester Street.”

  Strangely melancholy all at once, Eleanor sat down opposite her friend. “That’s grand for Leo. Just grand. I know he’ll go on the tour. He needs the money, and there’s hardly room for him in that tenement where he lives.”

  Charlie shot her a sharp glance. “You know quite a bit about him, don’t you? I’ve observed that you two are very friendly—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being friendly to anyone! And that’s all we are—friends.”

  He looked unconvinced. In a moment he went on.

  “I wouldn’t count on Leo getting rich. Before the meeting last night, Bascom told me he can’t pay his other people very much due to Mr. Prince’s high salary. Why do you think he came around to an amateur club?”

  “Oh, that’s it, then.” She felt naive. “Cheap talent.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Still, Charlie, it’s wonderful experience.”

  “I suppose. They are going all the way to California eventually. I wouldn’t mind that part of it, I confess. I wouldn’t mind being paid to travel and do work that’s essentially enjoy—” He stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  I must leave this house.

  But I can’t.

  And I may not even get to see him before he leaves.

  Charlie could tell she was troubled. With genuine sympathy, he said, “Eleanor, please tell me what’s wrong. Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

  She shook her head, then fabricated a flimsy excuse about not being herself because of some trouble among the servants. Charlie didn’t understand the reason her cheeks were red.

  “You needn’t feel bad about the readings,” he said. “You did splendidly. Bascom would have hired you in a trice—he told me so when he picked up Leo’s address. He wasn’t interested in you merely because of your looks, either.”

  “Yes—well—I wouldn’t be interested in two or three years of wandering back and forth over the prairies and mountains with Mr. Bascom’s Tom troupe, thank you. I realize it’s professional training, but I prefer to take mine here in New York.”

  Her face was red again. Liar, she thought. She was in a state of complete confusion. She knew it was dangerous to care for a boy, yet now that Leo Goldman was leaving, she discovered she cared for him.

  And she desperately wanted to go with Bascom. But her responsibilities to Will
and to her mother prevented it—“

  “Charlie,” she said abruptly, “I must get back to the kitchen. Thank you for coming all the way up here with the news.”

  “Why, certainly. I had some errands with the carriage, and I thought you’d want to know.”

  She wasted no time ushering him to the door. When he was gone, she walked slowly up the stairs to her room. There she gazed at the smudged card tucked into the frame of her pier glass.

  Jefferson J. Bascom’s

  ORIGINAL IDEAL UNCLE TOM

  COMBINATION

  featuring

  Mr. Bascom’s

  world-renowned personification of

  Legree

  “Finest Tom Troupe

  Traveling the Nation!”

  The musty, humid house seemed to close in around her—lightless, cheerless. Tears ran down her cheeks. She snatched the card from the frame, tore it and flung the pieces at her feet.

  Chapter IV

  “Hell with the Lid Off”

  i

  THE CITY OF Pittsburgh rose on a triangle of land whose western apex was the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Eastward from the point to about Eleventh Street, the site of the Union Depot, the land was fairly level. Near Eleventh a hill rose to divide the triangular land mass.

  The hill resembled a kind of fish fin running eastward to Twenty-eighth Street and beyond. It was a steep and formidable barrier to easy passage between the Allegheny and Monongahela sides although at Twenty-eighth it dipped down sufficiently to permit the cross street to straggle over the summit. The principal east-west railroad tracks lay at the base of the hill’s north slope. There was a major crossing where Twenty-eighth intersected the tracks.

  It was late Saturday afternoon following the start of the strike in Martinsburg. For several hours, individuals and families had been gathering on the north side of the hill directly above the Twenty-eighth Street crossing, as well as to the east and west. Now the hillside teemed with five to seven thousand observers, by Gideon’s best guess. Most of them had come anticipating the arrival of the Philadelphia militia. And not a few of them had come in anticipation of bloodshed.

  He really had no call to be superior, though. As a newsman, he was present for essentially the same reason.

  Commanded by General Robert Brinton, the militiamen had arrived a short time ago. Six hundred of them—about half the number placed on active duty in response to the deteriorating situation in Pittsburgh.

  The railroad strike had spread from West Virginia. Trainmen who worked for the Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh had refused to operate the line’s engines, thereby idling nearly two thousand freight cars containing durable goods as well as perishables. All of those cars stood in the yards that stretched out below the north face of the hill. The durables would come to no harm, but thousands of dollars’ worth of fruit and vegetables were rotting.

  Since Thursday, relatively few freight or passenger trains had moved in or out of the city. Crowds of striking railroaders, their families, and those of sympathetic steelworkers had joined together to swarm through the yards and prevent it. Once in a while the strikers would allow a freight with livestock to pass so the animals wouldn’t die. Everything else came to a standstill, the steelworkers swearing solidarity with the railroad men until the Pennsylvania canceled its wage cuts.

  There had been occasional outbreaks of violence when the strikers came in contact with yard officials. Local militia and the Pittsburgh police had been unwilling or unable to stop the trouble. So finally, on this Saturday afternoon, July 21, a desperate telegraph appeal had been answered. The six hundred Philadelphia militia had arrived on a train whose cars had been struck and damaged by rocks and bricks thrown by mobs at Harrisburg and other points along the line.

  Now, below the hill where the people stood or sat like spectators in a Roman arena, an officer of the militia shouted an order, “The tracks must be cleared.”

  A stir of excitement rippled along the hillside. In the crowd, Gideon noticed some members of the Pittsburgh militia. They had retired to rest and observe their fellow soldiers from the east. The Philadelphians, some in smart red blouses and some in blue, were formed up to the east of the Twenty-eighth Street crossing. The militiamen nearest the crossing had shifted into a formation Gideon hadn’t seen since the war—the hollow square.

  Those in the square faced hundreds of roughly dressed civilians massed at the crossing and around it. Gideon’s vantage point for all this was just about halfway up the hill, a few steps west of the rutted track of Twenty-eighth Street.

  On command, the militiamen began to advance slowly toward the crossing. There were a few curses, then some shouted taunts; those at the crossing were in an ugly mood.

  So were most of their supporters watching from above. Soon a chant began on the hill. Though it was barely audible at first, Gideon had no trouble distinguishing the words. Ever since his arrival late last night, he’d been hearing the same words growled in ale houses and shouted by bands of men roaming the yards.

  “Bread or blood! Bread or blood! Bread or blood!”

  Trouble was coming, serious trouble. He had no doubt of it any longer.

  The mob on the hillside contained some odd elements. Gideon had encountered several groups of well-dressed people who’d brought picnic hampers. That reminded him of First Manassas, when great crowds of Yankees had driven out from Washington to watch the carnage. He’d briefly interviewed one dentist who had come out because he’d heard there was going to be “a good big fuss.” Why in the world was the viewing of violence so popular in America?

  Most of the men and women on the hillside weren’t picnickers, but poorly dressed working people. Mill hands, with their wives and their children. They’d come to show support for the Pennsylvania crews.

  On a spur track parallel with the main lines, Gideon suddenly saw dozens of men climbing up the sides of four coupled coal cars. The men scrambled into the coal, laughing and jostling one another, then dabbing each other’s faces with sooty thumbs. Soon several picked up lumps of coal—weapons inadvertently provided by the line that couldn’t meet its shipping commitments.

  The spread of the strike had been swift and unpredictable. President Hayes had sent the requested troops to Martinsburg, only to receive another message saying that violence there had stopped. Meanwhile a confrontation was taking place in Baltimore. State troops called out for the emergency fired into a mob and killed at least ten civilians, perhaps more.

  That had happened last night, while Gideon was aboard one of the few passenger trains permitted to enter the city. When he stepped off and heard about it, he was glad one of the Union’s men was in Baltimore.

  He’d boarded the train for Pittsburgh on a hunch the city would be a major flashpoint. When he’d come in, there had already been crowds at the crossing, which was now completely blocked. But the train had gotten through to the depot. And during the night there had only been small and isolated outbreaks of violence.

  This afternoon, however, the situation was entirely different. Moving through the crowd and making rapid notes—phrases that described what he was seeing and hearing—he still felt like a ghoul. His hunch had paid off, and here he was, just waiting for trouble to start. When it did, lives might be lost. The railroad strike was a perfect symbol of the tormenting paradox of his profession—human suffering sold more newspapers than happiness did.

  He drifted on, all but unnoticed. He was dressed in a shabby jacket and old trousers with a dark blue scarf tied around his neck and a peaked cap on his head.

  He paused to introduce himself to a weary-looking woman of middle age. “Is your husband a railroad man?”

  After regarding him suspiciously for a moment, she answered, “No, but he’s down there at the Crossing because he’s a workingman. It’s all the same cause.”

  A cloud passed in front of the sun. The hillside darkened. The woman glanced at Gideon’s pad and busy pencil. “You sure you aren’t an
eye?”

  “What?” He touched the leather patch. “Do you mean this?”

  She shook her head. “I mean, are you a Pinkerton?”

  He understood then. Allan Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency employed a wide-open eye as its symbol, along with the motto “We Never Sleep.” Once or twice before he’d heard the agency’s operatives referred to as “eyes”—either sarcastically or nervously, depending upon the speaker.

  The woman went on. “You sure you aren’t taking down names? You ain’t gettin’ mine.”

  “Ma’am, I told you I’m with the New York Union. Our paper supports the strike, provided no one starts destroying property or taking lives—”

  “Hah! Then you don’t really support the strike at all. You think Tom Scott and the rest of them rich bastards will give us bread just because we ask? Devil they will. We got to take it. Scrap for it. Bleed for it.”

  Sadly, he realized he might have been listening to Sime Strelnik. The woman scanned his face, contemptuous.

  “Your newspaper’s probably like all the rest of them. Your bosses don’t really give a damn if people like us starve by the thousands.”

  Before he could argue, she turned her back on him. He watched her walk to another worker hunkered down a few feet away. The man was fingering a melon-sized rock.

  The woman said, “Beg pardon, mister. Have you seen two youngsters with their hands full of leftover Fourth of July torpedoes?” When the man shook his head, she moved on down the hill, calling, “Lindsey? Verne? Where’d you boys get to?”

  Gideon was suddenly diverted by a flash of color higher on the hillside. He turned, focused his good eye, and frowned at the sight of a man with a nondescript face and equally drab clothing. What distinguished the man was the neckerchief he wore. A railroader’s neckerchief, like Gideon’s, except that it was an unusual color—bright yellow. Most were dark blue or dark red, to absorb sweat and hide dirt.

  But even at that, the yellow neckerchief would have been unremarkable except for one fact. Not ten minutes ago, back near the Union Depot, he’d seen a different man wearing one exactly like it.