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Wish said, “Amazing how many things went wrong at once.”
Isaac Bell’s eyes shot from the drifting tow to the burning yacht to the bewildered scabs milling on the dock to the steamboat, whose captain had stopped his engine to let the current sweep him away from the wreck.
“Too many things. And I have a bad hunch it isn’t over.”
When the boat was a safe distance from any possible survivors still in the water, her big stern wheel churned, and she raced to capture the drifting coal barges. Deckhands scrambled with lines and the steamboat tied on. Stern wheel thrashing the water, she swung the lead barges into the current to master the tow.
“He’s got her,” said Wish. “Captain’s a man to ride the river with.”
Just as he spoke, the big steamboat exploded with a colossal double roar that toppled her chimneys and wheelhouse into the river. To Bell’s ear, the double roar echoed the one-two that destroyed the Monongahela.
But unlike the yacht, which was still drifting and on fire, the big steamboat sank straight to the bottom, leaving the wreckage of her upper decks exposed. The current slammed the coal barges against her, ripping their wooden hulls. Within minutes, twenty had sunk, blocking the cha
“My provocateur,” said Isaac Bell, “is getting the hang of his line, too.”
17
A pipe organ dominated the front room of bloom House, the finest mansion in Pittsburgh. The dining room, ablaze in candle- and electric light, seated thirty-six comfortably. Livery servants glided in with silver trays from a distant kitchen. But R. Ke
Bloom Sr., red-faced and carrying too much weight to be healthy, planted both hands on the snow-white cloth in order to stand up from his chair. He raised his glass.
“I won’t say I liked him. But he was one of ours. Gentlemen, I give you Black Jack Gleason— Struck down by the union! May he rest in peace.”
“Rest in peace!” thundered up and down the long table.
“And may the unionists burn in Hell!” echoed back.
Isaac Bell touched water to his lips.
Ke
“Thank you for inviting me.”
Ke
“I do appreciate it.”
Halfway up the table, Pe
“And Gleason murdered.”
“That, too. Yes, sir, the rabid dogs will pay.”
Ke
“I’m not convinced,” said Bell, “that the union had anything to do with it.”
The military precision of back-to-back dynamitings simultaneous with the barge tow set adrift seemed to him far beyond the capability of the union organizers, who were scrambling to keep one step ahead of the Pinkertons. Inspections of the steamboat boiler rooms had increased his skepticism.
But Ke
“Did it work?”
“Did it work? I’ll say it worked,” Ke
At the top of the table, Bloom Sr. was addressing the strikers’ demands.
“The eight-hour workday will be the ruination of the coal business.”
“Hear! Hear!”
“And I’ve heard more than enough nonsense about safety. The miner has only himself to blame if he doesn’t keep his workplace in safe condition.”
Another baron agreed. “It’s not my fault if he refuses to mine his coal properly, scrape down dangerous slate, and install proper timbering.”
“Risk is naturally attached to the trade. Fact is, with prices tumbling, we’ll be lucky to stay in business.”
Bell noticed a perplexed expression on the face of an older mine operator, who called up table, “The iniquitous price we’re paying to ship coal isn’t helping either.”
Bloom Sr. returned a tight smile. “The railroad’s hands are tied, Mr. Morrison.”
“By whom, sir? Surely not the government?”
“Them, too, but it’s not like we don’t report to our investors.”
“There you go blaming Wall Street again. Didn’t used to, in my day. We called our own tune. If the banks wanted to make money, they were welcome to invest with us. But they did not presume to tell us how to dig coal or how to ship it.”
“Well, sir, these are different days.”
Isaac Bell noticed Ke
“What makes you think I will run the railroad?”
“You’re his son, his only son, and you’ve been working with him since you left Brown.”
“I’d like nothing better,” said Ke
“Surely your father prefers you.”
“Of course he does. That was settled the day I graduated. But what if they don’t?”
“They?” asked Bell, though he suspected the answer already.
“The banks.”
Bell glanced up the table at Mr. Bloom. Behind the boasts and the bluster, even the rich and powerful railroad president R. Ke
“Which banks?” he asked.
“The New York banks.”
“Which ones?”
Ke
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Bell leveled a stern gaze at the railroad heir. “Not at liberty? You sound like a cautious lawyer instead of the pal who ran off to the circus with me.”
“That almost got us killed.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Yes.”
“Which banks?”
Ke
“End or begi
“We’re dodo birds out here, Isaac. The self-determined Pittsburgh operator is going extinct. So’s the independent railroad that hauls coal. Wall Street is killing us off. Black Jack Gleason was a dodo. So’s every man at this table. Some of them just don’t know it yet.”
“Not you. You’re young. You’re like me. It’s 1902. We’re just starting out.”
Ke
Bell formed a grin as lopsided as Ke
Ke
Bell’s father was a banker, a Boston banker. Boston was a long way from New York, and the two cities banked differently. But some things were the same. And if there was one thing Isaac Bell had learned from his father, and his grandfather, about banks, it was those who called the tune lay low.