The Wrecker

Isaac smiled back as he opened his gold pocket watch. “The Great Magneta is sixty seconds fast.” He let his eyes roam over her, saying, “And I’ve never seen you prettier.” Then he swept her into his arms and kissed her.

He guided her to a pair of chairs where he could watch the entire lobby with the aid of several mirrors, and they ordered tea with lemon cake from a waiter in a tailcoat.

“What are you looking at?” Bell asked. She was staring at him with a soft smile on her beautiful face.

“You turned my life upside down.”

“That was the earthquake,” he teased her.

“Before the earthquake. The earthquake was only an interruption.”

Ladies Marion Morgan’s age were supposed to have married years before, but she was a levelheaded woman who enjoyed her independence. At thirty, with years of experience supporting herself working as a senior secretary in the banking business, she had lived on her own since graduating with her law degree from Stanford University. The handsome, wealthy suitors who had begged for her hand in marriage had all been disappointed. Perhaps it was the air of San Francisco, so filled with endless possibilities, that gave her courage. Perhaps it was her education by handpicked tutors and her loving father after her mother died. Perhaps it was living in modern times, the excitement of being alive in the bold first years of the new century. But something had filled her with confidence and a rare ability to take real pleasure in the circumstance of being alone.

That is, until Isaac Bell walked into her life and made her heart quicken as if she were seventeen years old and on her first date.

I am so lucky, she thought.

Isaac took Marion’s hand.

For a long moment, he found it difficult to speak. Her beauty, her poise, and her grace never failed to move him. Staring into her green eyes, he finally said, “I am the happiest man in San Francisco. And if we were in New York right now, I would be the happiest man in New York.”

She smiled and looked away. When she looked back to meet his eyes, she saw that his gaze had shifted to a newspaper headline: DITCHED!

Train wrecks were a part of daily life in 1907, but to have a Los Angeles flyer crash and knowing that Isaac rode trains all the time was terrifying. Oddly, she worried less about the dangers in his work. They were real, and she had seen his scars. But to worry about Isaac encountering gunmen and knife fighters would be as irrational as fretting about a tiger’s safety in the jungle.

He was staring at the paper, his face dark with anger. She touched his hand. “Isaac, is that train wreck about your case?”

“Yes. It’s at least the fifth attack.”

“But there is something in your face, something fierce, that tells me it is very personal.”

“Do you remember when I told you about Wish Clarke?”

“Of course. He saved your life. I hope to meet him one day to thank him personally.”

“The man who wrecked that train killed Wish,” Bell said coldly.

“Oh, Isaac. I’m so sorry.”

With that, Bell filled her in, as was his custom with her, detailing all he knew of the Wrecker’s attacks on Osgood He

“Motive is still an open question,” he concluded. “What ulterior motive is driving him to such destruction?”

“Do you believe the theory that the Wrecker is a radical?” Marion asked.

“The evidence is there. His accomplices. The radical poster. Even the target-the railroad is a prime villain to radicals.”

“You sound dubious, Isaac.”

“I am,” he admitted. “I’ve tried to put myself in his shoes, tried to think like an angry agitator-but I still can’t imagine the wholesale slaughter of i

“Could he be a madman? A lunatic?”

“He could. Except that he is remarkably ambitious and methodical for a lunatic. These are not impulsive attacks. He plans them meticulously. And he plans his escape just as carefully. If it’s madness, it’s under fine control.”

“He may be an anarchist.”

“I know. But why kill so many people? In fact,” he mused, “it’s almost as if he is trying to sow terror. But what does he gain by sowing terror?”

Marion answered, “The public humiliation of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.”

“He is certainly achieving that,” said Bell.

“Maybe instead of thinking like a radical or an anarchist or a madman, you should think like a banker.”

“What do you mean?” He looked at her, uncomprehending.

Marion answered in a clear, steady voice. “Imagine what it is costing Osgood He

Bell nodded thoughtfully. The irony of “thinking like a banker” was not lost on a man who had turned his back on an obligatory career in his own family’s powerful bank. He touched her cheek. “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve given me a lot to ponder.”

“I’m relieved,” said Marion, and teasingly added, “I’d rather you ponder than get into gunfights.”

“I like gunfights,” Bell bantered back. “They focus the mind. Though in this case we may be talking about sword fights.”

“Sword fights?”

“It’s very strange. He killed Wish and another man with what appears to be some kind of sword. The question is: how does he get the drop on a man with a gun? You can’t hide a sword.”

“What about a sword cane? Plenty of men in San Francisco carry sword canes for protection.”

“But just unsheathing it, drawing the blade out of the cane, would give a man with a gun all the time he needed to shoot first.”

“Well, if he comes after you with a sword, he’ll be sorry. You fenced for Yale.”

Bell shook his head with a smile. “Fenced, not dueled. There’s a big difference between sport and combat. I recall my coach, who had been a duelist, explaining that the fencing mask hides your opponent’s eyes. As he put it, the first time you fight a duel, you are shocked to meet the cold gaze of a man who intends to kill you.”

“Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Shocked.” She smiled. “Don’t pretend to me you’ve never fought a duel.”

Bell smiled back. “Only once. We were both very young. And the sight of spurting red blood soon convinced us that we didn’t really want to kill each other. In fact, we’re still friends.”

“If you’re looking for a duelist, there can’t be too many of them left in this day and age.”

“Likely, a European,” mused Bell. “Italian or French.”

“Or German. With one of those horrible Heidelberg scars on his cheek. Didn’t Mark Twain write that they pulled the surgeon’s stitches apart and poured wine in their wounds to make the scars even uglier?”

“Probably not a German,” said Bell. “They’re known for the plunging blow. The thrust that killed Wish and the other fellow was more in the style of an Italian or a Frenchman.”

“Or the student of?” Marion suggested. “An American who went to school in Europe. There are plenty of anarchists in France and Italy. Maybe that’s where he became one.”

“I still don’t know how he takes a man with a gun by surprise.” He demonstrated with a gesture. “In the time it takes to draw a sword, you can step in and punch him in the nose.”

Marion reached across the teacups and took Bell’s hand. “To tell the truth, I would be delighted if a bloody nose is the most I have to worry about.”

“At this point, I would love a bloody nose, or even a flesh wound or two.”

“Whatever for?”

“You remember Weber and Fields?”

“The fu