The Striker

“You can feel it different in the wheel if the tow breaks up and you and the boat are out all by your lonesome while they’re drifting every which way. We’re doing fine, don’t you worry none. I don’t have to see what I know.” He spit tobacco juice into a box filled with sawdust. “Heck, most of what I can’t see I can feel in the floor or whether the paddle wheel turns sluggish. Feeling the river shoals tells me where I am. What I can’t see or feel, I have stashed in my memory machine.”

Bell wondered how the pilot saw other tows on a collision course with his. Je

“If in doubt, I ring the stopping bell,” came the laconic reply.

Bell looked back and saw a dim light that might be the barge fleet behind them. Je

Ahead, an eerie reddish luminescence began to spread in the dark. It grew steadily in size and intensity. “What’s that red light?”

“Jones & Laughlin blast furnaces… Watch close, you’ll see something you’ll never forget. There!”

A procession of red balls appeared to float in the air as they moved across the river, high above the water. Bell was mystified at first until his keen eyes distinguished the girders of trusswork. “Is that a bridge?”

“The Hot Metal Bridge.”

As the forward barges in their tow pushed under it, Bell could see a locomotive pulling flatcars through the trusses. On each car was a glowing red mass of fire.

“What are those railcars carrying?”

“J & L crucibles of molten steel from the furnaces across to the rolling mill. Ain’t that something?”

After clearing the bridge, the pilot nudged his big wooden wheel, which was as tall as he was, and coaxed the tow into a broad turn. There was a white glow to the left. A gust of wind shredded the fog momentarily, and Bell glimpsed the point of the Amalgamated Coal Terminal. It was ablaze in electric work lights as the conveyors lifted coal from barges to the tipple. Seven miles of dark river to go. At least an hour. Load the people, and seven miles back. The black fog thickened.

Suddenly, Bell sensed movement alongside. Camilla’s searchlight played on a masonry bridge pier. They passed close enough to see the cement between the stones. “Brown’s Bridge,” said the pilot. “We’re on our way.”

Below the Homestead Works, as the smoke thi

“Shoot!” growled Bell’s pilot. “That’s Captain Andy. Of all the boats to run into tonight.”

“What’s the matter?”

Je

He blew his whistle. The oncoming tow’s whistle answered. As they passed, the pilots played their searchlights on each other’s tow and stepped out of their houses to exchange hellos.

“Where you headed?” the downriver-bound Captain Andy shouted.

“Gleasonburg!” Bell’s pilot bawled back.

“Look out for that pack of strikers at McKeesport. I heard they’re getting a ca

“Where they going to get a ca

“Steal it. They’s strikers, ain’t they?”

Je

They passed beneath another hot metal bridge, over which ran the fiery juices of the Carrie Furnace and, soon after, a trolley bridge. A streetcar with gaily lighted windows thundered the wooden deck as the tow steamed under it.

“West Braddock Bridge,” said the pilot. “Smooth sailing from here to McKeesport. Just some railroad bridges with real wide spans. And a bunch of dredges crowding the cha

The black fog continued to thin. Bell could see the tow behind theirs and the lights of two behind it. “Hope nobody’s looking for us,” said Captain Je

Bell was not that worried about being seen. As long as they kept moving, who ashore would take notice? They had peeled the tows loose from the riverbank under cover of the fog. Now they were indistinguishable from the other river traffic. Nor did Bell fear, even for a moment, that Mary Higgins would betray them. His main worry was that “Claggart” had returned in time to see the last tow leave the Smithfield Bridge. But, so far, there was no pursuit.

He left the pilothouse and went down a flight of stairs to the galley where a grizzled deckhand was telling a dozen coal miners about the alligators that swarmed when novice deckhands fell overboard. “And I reckon you boys noticed how low the main deck is to the water. Sometimes them critters just walk on. Prowl about, looking for something to eat.”

“Been in West Virginia my whole life. Never seen no alligators in the Mon.”

“They congregate at Pittsburgh.” He winked at Bell.

Bell addressed the miners. “We’re almost at the trolley park. There’ll be a lot of folks milling around when we land. I’m hoping you boys can help keep order while we get them into the barges. You’ll see your own people and—”

“Ah wouldn’t bother your head too much about that,” drawled the West Virginian. “The Strike Committee organized committees for everything from Drinking Water Committee to the Cooking Committee to the No Cusswords Committee to the Defense Committee. You can bet by now there’s a Barge Gittin’ On Committee and a Barge Gittin’ Off Committee.”

Camilla’s tall-tale-telling deckhand stood up. “Right now, I’m organizing a Mooring Line Committee. The captain’ll do most the work driving us alongside, but I want every man of you ready to jump with a rope.”

Twenty minutes later, steaming at nearly eight knots against the current, Camilla squeezed her tow past a string of dredges that Captain Je

The dredges were working through the night. A lucky break, thought Bell, as their lights might provide cover for the towboats’ lights.

“There’s the park,” said Je

Bell had already spotted the tall circle of the Ferris wheel. It was silhouetted against the electric-light glow of the outskirts of McKeesport. If he had any doubts about the wisdom of this “stunt,” they evaporated when he saw the mass of men, women, and children crowding the riverbank with their bundles in their hands.

“Where’s the Defense Committee?” Isaac Bell called down from Camilla’s top deck as Captain Je

“At the gates.”

“Holding off the Pinkertons.”

Je

“Soon as your barges are full, head back down,” he told Captain Je

Bell hurried down the two flights to the main deck, jumped onto the muddy riverbank. Miners were dismantling a shuttered cold-drinks stand and spreading the boards across the mud. Bell walked inland, through acres of people carrying their belongings and loads of canvas wrapped around tent poles. He walked under the Ferris wheel and circled a swimming lake. A carousel stood still, with canvas tied over the horses. A freak show was boarded up for the winter. When at last the crowd thi