The Anarchist (40 page)

Titus said, “Your father and mother had nothing to do with it?”

“No, sir,” Czolgosz said very quietly. These people didn’t even know that his mother had died years ago. “Not only my father and mother, but there hasn’t been anybody else had nothing to do with this.”

Judge White looked at Titus. “What does he say?”

“He says no one had anything to do with the commission of this crime but himself, that his father or mother or no one else had anything to do with it.” Titus turned to Czolgosz. “Did they know anything about it?”

“No, sir, they didn’t know about it.” Czolgosz spoke so quietly that Titus, who was standing next to him, had to lean closer to hear. “I never told anything of that kind—I never thought of that until a couple of days before I committed the crime.”

Titus turned to the judge and said, “He never told anybody that he intended to commit the crime, nor did not intend to until a couple of days before its commission.”

“Anything further, Czolgosz?” the judge asked.

“No, sir.”

There was a burst of noise in the courtroom. The judge scanned the crowd and pounded his gavel until there was absolute silence again. Then he faced the defense table. “Czolgosz, in taking the life of our beloved president you committed a crime which shocked and outraged the moral sense of the civilized world. You have confessed your guilt, and, after learning all that can at this time be learned of the facts and circumstances of the case, twelve good men have pronounced your confession and have found you guilty of murder in the first degree. You declare, according to the testimony of credible witnesses, that no other person aided or abetted you in the commission of this terrible act. God grant it may be so. The penalty for the crime of which you stand convicted is fixed by statute, and it now becomes my duty to pronounce its judgment against you. The sentence of the court is that in the week beginning October 28, 1901, at the place, in the manner, and by the means prescribed by law, you suffer the punishment of death.” Judge White leaned back in his chair. “Remove the prisoner.”

Czolgosz’s legs felt weak, and both Geary and Solomon took his arms and eased him down into his chair. He was looking at
the floor, but realized after a moment that Titus had taken his right hand in his and was shaking it. “Goodbye,” the old man said.

Then the two detectives handcuffed him and lifted him by his arms out of his chair.

H
YDE SAW THEM for just a moment: two horses, the bay ridden by a girl, the sorrel by a boy. The horses were sauntering down the main street in Auburn, and Hyde caught a glimpse of them as they turned a corner two blocks to the east and disappeared behind Zemmin’s Feed Grain Store. It was evening, last light of day, and warm for so late in September. Hyde had been resting in his room on the second floor of the boardinghouse operated by Mrs. Czyznski. When he saw the horses from the window, he left his room and rushed down the hall toward the back of the house.

He and Savin had arrived by train the previous afternoon. They had talked with the local police. They had gone to every boardinghouse and hotel in the town. No one had seen anyone who resembled Herman Gimmel. In the afternoon they ate dinner in the Osborne House, the largest hotel in town. Savin was upset that they had made the trip all the way out to Auburn. He was convinced that Gimmel’s gang was still in Buffalo, and after finishing his steak he went into the hotel lobby and placed a telephone call to Chief Bull. Hyde sat on a leather couch and watched Savin as he talked a long time on the telephone. When he finally hung up he crossed the lobby and entered the bar. Hyde joined
him and they both had a whiskey. Savin was so angry he could hardly speak, but he did mention that the police were following some new leads in Buffalo. When he finished his drink he said, “And I’m stuck out here with you,” and then he left the bar and walked back to Mrs. Czyznski’s house. It was only a few blocks, and Hyde followed at a safe distance.

Now he knocked on Savin’s door and listened to bedsprings and footsteps; when Savin opened the door he was in his union suit. “What?”

“They’re here,” Hyde said. “I just saw Bruener’s boy on horseback, with a girl.” “You sure?”

“I’m pretty sure. He’s a tall thin kid.”

“I imagine there are a few of those in Auburn.”

“They had sacks on their horses—they must have come into town for supplies.”

“You never mentioned anything about a girl.”

“There is no girl,” Hyde said. “She must be from around here. We could ask in the stores along the street.”

Savin seemed greatly disappointed, as though such a routine exercise in police work were beneath him, but as he started to close the door he said, “Meet me downstairs in five minutes.”

The second store they went to was a grocer’s a block from the boardinghouse. An elderly woman sat on a stool by the cash register, while a man who appeared to be her son was cutting meat on a butcher block. “I was upstairs.” The woman’s gnarly hands fondled the head of her cane. Turning to her son, she asked, “George, that the Rumson girl come by here earlier?”

George, must have been in his late thirties and he simply looked at both men as he put down his cleaver and wiped his bloody hands on his apron. Savin took out his wallet, flipped it open, and displayed his badge. “It was the Rumson girl, all right,” George said.

“Blond girl,” Hyde said. “With a boy—you know him?”

“A boy?” George said. “Her cousin?”

“You know him?” Savin asked.

George shook his head. “No, she just said he was visiting. He didn’t say a word the whole spell they were in here.”

“He can’t,” Hyde said. “He’s a mute.”

George gazed down at the meat on the block a moment. “That’s why she kept using her hands and spoke to him loud like. I thought he mighta been, you know, simple.”

“What’s she done?” George’s mother asked.

“Nothing,” Savin said. “We just want to ask some questions.”

The old woman didn’t seem satisfied.

“It’s about a horse,” Hyde said. “Somebody reported a stolen horse.”

Savin turned to him, barely concealing his surprise.

The old woman laughed. “Them Rumsons may be a lot of things but they ain’t horse thieves, though I reckon they’re poor enough.” She shrugged as she looked at George.

He seemed to make a decision, one he knew would displease his mother, and he said, “Their farm’s maybe three miles south of town. Place is on the right side of the road. Small house, big barn, and a silo with a faded
R
painted on it. Can’t miss it.”

Savin led Hyde to the door, but they stopped when the woman asked, “There be any reward for this information?”

“Absolutely,” Savin said. “It was a good horse.”

When they were outside, Savin paused on the sidewalk to light a cigarette. “You know, Hyde, Norris was right about you. You ever be interested in police work?”

“I’m a canawler.”

“No future in it. That canal won’t last long.”

“Why?”

“It’s 1901, that’s why.” Savin took out his wallet and gave a five-dollar bill to Hyde as he nodded toward the western end of the block. “We’re going to need horses to get out to that farm. You go over to that livery stable and rent us two, and meet me back at Mrs. Czyznski’s.”

“You going to tell the local police?”

“I’d rather not. They’d just get in the way.” Hyde stared at him as he took a deep drag on his cigarette. “But we’d be outnumbered—there’s Gimmel, Bruener, and his son, and I suppose you have to figure the farmer into this, too.” He dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his shoe. “I might give them a call.” He started across the street and walked toward their boardinghouse.

Half an hour later Hyde was sitting on a roan mare in front of Mrs. Czyznski’s house, holding the reins of Savin’s bay. The horses kept their heads close together as though they were conspiring.

Savin came out the front door of the house and paused on the porch when he saw Hyde’s reaction. “What?”

He was wearing a khaki riding jacket with epaulets, jodhpurs, tall riding boots, and a bush hat with one side of the brim snapped up against the crown. A holster was strapped to his hip, and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.

“You look like one of Teddy’s Rough Riders,” Hyde said.

“I was.” Savin came down the steps, his boot heels knocking loudly. “You don’t think I’m going to sit a horse in my good suit?”

Hyde gave him the reins to the bay. “Thought never crossed my mind.”

Savin mounted his horse with ease and led Hyde down the main street; at the corner they stopped in front of a small brick building with
AUBURN POLICE
written in arcing gilt letters across the window. An older man in need of a shave pushed open the door and stepped outside; his uniform tunic was unbuttoned to accommodate a substantial belly.

“Afternoon, Sergeant,” Savin said.

The sergeant spit a black wad out into the street. “Captain, you going out after anarchists, here?”

“You said on the telephone you could spare me a man.”

The sergeant appeared both amused and disgusted. “I got a train coming here in the early-morning hours, delivering this assassin fella to the prison, and I’m hearing talk about a lynch mob. I can’t really spare you even one man while you go riding off into the countryside like the damned cavalry.” He spit again, and this time a strand of black juice clung to his grizzled chin.

From around the corner of the building came a horse, ridden by a uniformed policeman. He looked to be still in his teens.

“So consider it a professional courtesy,” the sergeant said, as he turned to go back inside the station. “Just don’t get him shot or nothing ’cause he’s the son of my wife’s cousin and I’d catch hell for it.” He slammed the door behind him.

Savin looked the policeman over and asked, “And what’s your name?”

“Mance Rutherford, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Rutherford,” Savin said, “at least you come armed.” He dropped the leather satchel down off his shoulder, opened it, and removed a holster and revolver, which he gave to Hyde. “Strap this on, canawler.” After Hyde buckled the holster about his waist, Savin rummaged around in the satchel once more and took out a box of shells. “How you fixed for ammunition, Mr. Rutherford?”

“Fine, sir.”

“Ever shoot at a man?”

“No, sir,” Rutherford said.

“Ever shoot anything?” Savin asked.

“Rabbits, sir.”

“I see.” Savin tossed the box of shells to Hyde, and then hung the satchel over his pommel. “The thing to do, Mr. Rutherford, is to think of anarchists as rabbits.”

They walked their horses back to the main street, went east a block, and then turned on the road where Hyde had seen Josef
and the girl. South of town they broke into a trot, on a dirt road that wound through rolling pastures. An enormous full moon was rising above the distant hills. There was the smell of manure in the air, spiced by the sweetness of rotting apples.

“What makes you say the canal won’t last long?” Hyde asked.

“River commerce, canals—even your horse,” Savin said. “All will become things of the past. I read about it in a newspaper article. You’ve seen these automobiles in the streets of Buffalo? A hundred years from now that’s what we’ll be riding.”

It seemed, to Hyde, so incredible that he almost pulled up on his reins. “All of us?” The horse sensed his indecision and snorted so that he could feel her ribs contract between his legs.

“And roads,” Savin said with confidence. “They’ll have to be paved, and there’ll have to be a lot more of them.”

Mance Rutherford glanced at Savin warily but didn’t say a word. He only now seemed to appreciate what he’d gotten himself into, and his eyes were clouded with confusion and not a little fear.

Finally, Savin said, “Mr. Rutherford.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You ever been to Buffalo?”

“No, sir.”

“Somehow I suspected as much. How about Rochester?”

“No, sir. I’ve been to Utica.”

“Utica,” Savin said with interest. “You have a question about our mission, about your role in all this?” When the boy hesitated, Savin said, “Just do as you’re told, son. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

They passed several farms and after a couple of miles could see the barn and a silo above a copse at the edge of a field. Savin drew up his horse and waited for the others to do the same. From his breast pocket he produced a small pair of binoculars, which he used to survey the terrain. “It’s best that we not be seen or heard approaching the farmhouse,” he said, putting the binoculars
away. He pointed toward the barn and silo, the woods in the foreground. “So we’ll ride across this pasture and enter those trees. Then we’ll see how close we can get on foot.”

They turned their horses off the road, easing down into a narrow culvert, and once they climbed out Savin give a kick and led as they rode hard across the pasture. Cows ambled out of the way and birds, hidden in the grass, lifted up into the night sky. When they reached the trees they dismounted and walked on into the copse. Finally they stopped and tied their horses to a stand of birch, and then continued on, until they reached the far edge of the woods. They could see the farm a hundred yards across a pasture, bathed in moonlight. There was the sound of trickling water, and to their left a creek emerged from the woods, ran along the edge of the field, and passed to the west of the farm. Savin drew his gun, waited till the others did, too, and then led them down into the creek. The water was low and they walked through mud and sand, crouched down beneath the lip of the bank. Some of the nearby cattle paused in their grazing. The barn doors were open and weak lantern light cast moving shadows across the chickens in the yard. Savin raised his hand and they all stopped.