The Wrecker

Senator Kincaid came ru

“Mr. He

“I’ve got no time for banquets before I lay track across that bridge and build my staging yards on the other side.”

“Can’t you come down after dark?”

Mike Malone barreled up.

“Senator, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble would you please move that goddamned automobile before I have my boys throw it off the cliff?”

“I just moved it.”

“It’s still in our way.”

“Move it,” growled He

Bell watched Kincaid hurry off to move his car again, and said to He

“What the hell for?”

“It is a strange coincidence that Kincaid is here today.”

“I told you, he’s hanging around my daughter.”

“The Wrecker has inside knowledge of the Southern Pacific. How does he know about your plans?”

“I told you that too. Some busybody put two and two together. Or some fool blabbed.”

“Either way, the Wrecker is no stranger to your circle.”

“All right,” said He

The Senator professed astonishment. “Surely you won’t be across and set up in only three days.”

“Heads will roll if I’m not.”

The shrunken old man snapped his fingers. Engineers rushed to his side, unfurling blueprints. Surveyors were right behind, propping transits on their shoulders, trailed by chainmen with red-and-white ranging rods.

Isaac Bell intercepted Kincaid as he climbed into his car.

“Fu

“Not at all. I want He

“Still playing hard to get?” asked Bell, recalling their conversation at the Follies.

“Harder than ever. The moment you say yes to their sort, they think they own you.”

“Do you want the job?”

In answer, Charles Kincaid slipped a big hand under the lapel of his coat and flipped it over. A campaign button that had been hidden by the cloth read KINCAID FOR PRESIDENT.

“Mum’s the word.”

“When will you turn your button out?”

“I’m planing to surprise Mr. He

None of this rang true to the detective.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Bell said.

The Wrecker pretended not to notice Bell’s probing gaze. He knew his presidential ruse would not fool the Van Dorn detective much longer. But he stood his ground, allowing his eyes to rove curiously over the gleaming bridge as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“That broad plateau on the far side of the gorge,” he remarked casually, “seems the likely spot for He

“Do you regret leaving engineering?” Bell asked.

“I would if I didn’t enjoy politics so much.” Kincaid laughed. He let his smile fade as he pretended to reflect soberly. “I might feel differently if I had been as brilliant an engineer as Mr. Mowery who built this bridge. Look at that structure! The grace, the strength. He was a star. Still is, despite his years. I was never more than a capable journeyman.”

Bell was staring.

Kincaid smiled. “You’re looking at me strangely. That’s because you’re still a young man, Mr. Bell. Wait until forty overtakes you. You’ll learn your limitations and find other lines at which you might do better.”

“Such as ru

“Exactly! ”

Kincaid laughed, slapped the detective’s rock-hard arm, and vaulted into his Thomas Flyer. He engaged the motor, which he had left ru

In fact, he was exultant.

Osgood He

35

ISAAC BELL PLANTED MEN IN EVERY WORK GANG TO WATCH FOR sabotage.

He

Bell directed horse patrols to guard the route that the railroad was surveying deep into the mountains. Then he asked Jethro Watt to take personal command of his railroad police. They walked the bridge and agreed to beef up the contingents guarding the piers below and the span above. Then they inspected the surrounding area on horseback, the giant Watt mounted on an enormous animal named Thunderbolt who kept trying to gnaw the police chief’s leg. Watt subdued the animal by swatting its head, but any judge of horse-flesh knew that Thunderbolt was merely biding his time.

By nightfall that first day of frenzied activity, carpenters had erected temporary shoring in Tu

Osgood He

A thousand railroaders held their breath.

The only sounds were mechanical, the chuff of the locomotive, the dynamo powering the lights, and the grinding of cast iron on steel. As the lead car, heaped with rails, edged forward, all eyes shifted to Franklin Mowery. The elderly bridge builder was watching closely.

Isaac Bell overheard Eric, Mowery’s bespectacled assistant, boast, “Mr. Mowery was the same cool as a cucumber when he finished Mr. He

“But,” said a grizzled surveyor, peering into the deep gorge, “that one was a lot nearer the water.”

Mowery leaned nonchalantly on his walking stick. No emotion showed on his round face, no worry rippled his sweeping jawline, or twitched his Vandyke beard. He had a cold, smokeless pipe firmly clamped in his broad, good-humored mouth.

Bell watched Mowery’s pipe. When the materials car reached the far side without mishap and the workmen greeted it with a cheer, Mowery removed his pipe from his mouth and picked splinters of crushed stem from his teeth.

“Caught me,” he gri

They double-tracked the bridge by noon.

In a long burst of action, they laid dozens of sidings. Soon, the remote plateau had been transformed into a combination railroad yard and construction staging arena. He