The Styx (13 page)

After he’d dressed, in the only other pair of pants he owned, Byrne went out onto the depot siding and found a patch of shade over a bench. There was a discarded newspaper on an unused luggage cart and he picked it up. The
Jacksonville Times Union.

On the front page there was news from Washington of which he had no interest or knowledge. Something about trouble in Cuba, wherever that was. A piece about emerging conflict in Germany. On the inside pages there was a testimonial for Herbine, described as “the most perfect liver medicine and the greatest blood purifier.”

Byrne had seen or heard the equal in New York City from corner criers or on store window announcements since he was a boy. But as he skimmed the pages a clump of unfamiliar words caught his eye:

Jacksonville is scheduled to have a triple hanging on Friday, August 7th.

He re-read the first sentence and then worked out the rest.

Governor Jennings has signed death warrants fixing that date for the execution of three murderers convicted in the circuit court for Duval County, and they have been forwarded to Sheriff John Price, of that county. The men are Frank Carter, convicted of the murder of Charlie Phillips on November 2; Frank Roberson, convicted of the murder of James Smith on October 26. All of the murders, of course, were committed in Duval County.

Byrne read the item again, counted the names and wondered what happened to the name of the third man. But more than that mystery he was taken aback by the governmental announcement. The punishment of hanging for convicted murderers or acts of treason had long been replaced by the use of the electric chair in the state of New York. Now, Byrne was no stranger to brutality. Three times he’d been called to the scene of suicides in the city as a police officer. But one glimpse of a hanging by the neck from a staircase or plumbing fixture, the body loose and discolored, was enough to sour any thoughts of such an end being condoned by a civilized state. He lay the paper down on the bench next to him and conjured the scene of turquoise water and white sand beach. The juxtaposition of such an Eden with three hanging men was difficult to fathom. But a whistle jarred his thoughts: “All aboard, Mr. Byrne,” Harris shouted. “Next stop Palm Beach.”

Byrne was on the rear apron of the caboose when they started, a perch he favored when they were leaving a place, and he watched Jacksonville disappear. The landscape quickly returned to that of hot, spare pine tree forests and low, prickly-looking scrub vegetation. The train was still gaining speed when Harris joined him.

“Since you’ve the knack for reading, lad, here’s a clipping from early in the week,” he said, handing Byrne a folded sheet of newsprint:

Jacksonville, Fla., Feb. 16 — Specials from Titusville, Fla., indicate an alarming state of affairs in the Indian River Country. H.M. Flagler, owner of the Royal Poinciana Hotel on Lake Worth, is building a railroad to the hotel. This road cuts through many of the prettiest places on the Indian River, and thirty of the property owners, it is said, have combined and placed dynamite along the route of the said railway through their lands. These bombs are placed so that they will explode at the stroke of a spade. Signs warning all engineers have been posted, and the property owners have notified the railroad officials of the steps taken. James Holmes, a banker of Jansen, Fla., and J.V. Westen, Tax Collector of Brevard County, have been arrested for complicity in the dynamite plot. Mr. Holmes’s lawyer has advised him to remove the dynamite, and it is reported that he has agreed to do so.

Harris watched while the younger man’s lips moved. When they stopped Byrne was still staring at the page.

“You know anything about dynamite?” Harris said.

“Blows the hell out of stuff.”

“Aye.”

“We watched ’em use it when they were building the foundations of the Washington Avenue Bridge,” Byrne said. “But not up close,”

“How close?”

“Close enough to hear someone yell ‘Fire in the hole!’ and then feel the ground move under your feet.”

Harris shook his head. “My father, rest his soul, was a miner in the old world,” he said. “Explosions every day. While he and his mates ate lunch. Blow the hell out of the ground and turn coal into a chokin’ dust.

“Then I seen the results of a stick or two goin’ up in the loo of a tavern in Derry. Turned the bar into dust as well.”

“Bloody anarchist, were ya?” Byrne said, turning on an accent for the first time and cracking a grin.

“Motivation to leave the mother country,” Harris answered. “But these farmers don’t know nothin’ from dynamite if what it says there is true, and mind you I don’t for a minute believe a pinch of what newspapers say. But you can’t set it off with the whack of a spade.”

“Electric,” Byrne said. “From a box.”

Harris looked at Byrne for a moment. “You were closer to the Washington Avenue Bridge than you made out to be.”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, just in case, I’ll want you up with the conductor and engineer. Keep those all-seein’ eyes of yours out front and let ’em know if you spot any thing that looks suspicious. I already told them to hold down the speed. We’re taking the threat seriously, especially when Mr. Flagler is aboard. These folks down here take their land being snaked away from them personally.”

Byrne stood and looked into the eyes of his fellow Irishman: “Where don’t they take it personally?”

Byrne had not yet ridden in the locomotive and found himself up front on an outrigger step, watching the rails spin out ahead, listening to the pound of engine cylinder and slide of metal, smelling hot grease and burning coal. The engineer and boiler man were rough dressed in canvas dungarees, their clothing stained in soot and coal dust, their brows speckled with sweat. Unlike in the passenger cars, Byrne felt at home, except for the landscape that unfolded one flat mile after the next.

Mile upon mile of pine forests ran to the horizon on the west, with occasional open acres that were stripped of lumber and spread out in tall grasses. On closer inspection, the dark dot-like objects on the distant plain turned into cattle, which he’d never seen anywhere but in the stockyards where the beasts had been penned awaiting slaughter. Recalling the smell and blood of that place caused him to refocus on the tracks in time to pick out a new structure. He called out to the engineer to slow, but the response came as a sneer.

“It’s just a siding, boy. For local ranchers and grove owners to use when they’re loading,” the engineer said. When they came close Byrne could see that the dock-like platform was bare. The weathered wood of the foundation was old work with newer lumber used on top. The new wood brought the ramps up to the level of the train car carriage.

“Used to be a small gauge railroad here till Mr. Flagler bought up the old line and put down standard tracks,” the engineer said as Byrne stared at the siding.

“Suppose someone hid underneath and jammed a pipe out into the wheel gear?” Byrne said.

“Ha! She’d shear any piece of metal clean off,” said the boiler man. “This engine’s pushing two hundred pounds per square inch in a cylinder bigger’n two square feet with each stroke, son. Nobody’s goin’ to trip her like that.”

Byrne nodded, not knowing what the hell the old man meant, but started looking for something more formidable that might be a danger to Mr. Flagler’s train. Eight miles east of the small town of Palatka, he found it.

Near the end of a wide, yawning curve in the tracks Byrne again picked up a squared-off blemish in the sameness of the trees and scrub grass lining the way. In the distance he recognized an upcoming siding, but as they came close he could tell that this time there were a number of people on the platform. Closer still, he made them out to be not just field or farm hands, but also women and children. The engineer squinted at the sight himself, an unusual situation that made him pull back on the throttle, taking away the speed that he had already been ordered to cut back on. Less than a quarter mile away someone on the platform began waving a red flag. The engineer applied the brakes.

“You’d best go fetch Mr. Harris,” he said to Byrne and then set his jaw. “This ain’t right.”

Harris was working his way along the walkway alongside the fuel tender with a storm cloud forming in his face.

“No goddamn unscheduled stops,” he shouted, but his eyes were looking out on the dozen or so people standing on and about the siding rather than at the train crew.

“You want I should just run over the man and hack ’im into pieces,” the engineer said and pointed out through his observation window. In front of the locomotive an elderly man, perhaps in his late fifties, his hair as white as Mr. Flagler’s, was standing between the rails, feet spread wide, arms akimbo.

“Christ on a cross!” Harris spat and then said to Byrne as he started down the iron stair, “You’re with me.”

Byrne scanned the crowd on the platform, level with the train: four men, thin and of average height. The rest women in worn dresses with defiant looks on their faces but either holding protectively onto small children or standing next to boys whose eyes were wide and dancing over the enormity and close metallurgy of the locomotive.

When Harris’ feet touched the ground and started moving out toward the man on the tracks, three of the men on the platform started down the platform stairs. Byrne felt the metal wand at his hip but did not touch it. He scanned the men’s clothing again, could detect no weapons and moved to a spot halfway between the crowd and where Harris was now confronting the flag bearer.

“I demand to see Mr. Flagler,” the man was saying. “I know that his personal car is attached and since he and his railway company have ignored our continued entreaties to end his unfair and despicable takeover of our land and our access to market I demand to confront him in person.”

The man was dressed in a worn gray suit, shirt buttoned to the neck despite the heat, and he set his newly shaved chin a few degrees at an upward cant.

Harris folded his huge arms, gripping each elbow and widening his stance. Was he containing his anger, or just building steam to knock the man off the rail bed, Byrne wondered.

“I’m sure you’re a fine country lawyer what with your command of the King’s English,” Harris finally said. “But Mr. Flagler does not meet with anyone without an appointment and he does not answer to demands.

“That said, I’ll be pleased to ask you to move yer arse, sir, or I’ll have that train plow you under like a bushel of yer own tomatoes.”

The lawyer, or farmer, or whoever he was, widened his own stance and crossed his own arms in defiance or in a mock imitation of Harris and the smell of confrontation blew into the crowd, causing all to begin down the platform steps. Byrne again assessed them. These were obviously farmers, the boots under their cuffs stained by the soil, their weathered faces creased by the sun and their forearms cabled with work-hardened muscle. Still, they were nothing like the vicious gang members or violent dock workers he’d dealt with in the city. Nevertheless, he found the handle of his wand with the tips of his fingers.

“
I
surmised that you would be unconvinced,” the man said to Harris, his tone unchanged in the face of thousands of pounds of steel and a big Irish tough. “Behind me, sir, is a charge of explosive that upon my signal will be detonated to make these tracks impassible until Mr. Flagler answers to our grievances.”

The words caused both Harris and Byrne to slide to the side and peer down the tracks with a more intense scrutiny. Some thirty yards down the line they could make out some form of package that appeared to be wedged beneath the west side rail.

“We have men in control of a device, a plunger if you will, who will not hesitate to blow this train to kingdom come if you attempt to pass.”

Byrne watched Harris’ back, could see the muscle in the big man’s neck start to bulge and the flush of his skin growing redder. Harris seemed to take a deep breath and looked down at the ground. After an anxious moment he turned and began walking back toward the train, his eyes scanning the group of farm families, who had now all gathered at the base of the platform.

When he reached Byrne’s side, he winked. The look was not one of resignation or defeat and only made Byrne take a better grip on his baton. The three forward men in the crowd began nodding, muttering their victory, thinking perhaps that Harris was on his way to fetch Flagler. But Byrne had seen Irish like Harris before, men who would never in their lives be trumped on the street by any lawyer, dandy, pimp or bureaucrat.

Turning as the sergeant passed, he watched as Harris shouldered between the three men and then with a quickness that belied his size, he shifted. His hand darted out and snatched the back collar of a boy who had been looking down as Harris walked by, as in deference to an embarrassed adult. Harris then whirled back toward Byrne with the gangly child of some eight years, who was now flailing like a rag doll plucked from a toy chest.

Harris had taken three steps back before the crowd could even react, but with one of their own in peril the three front men began to move to block him. The first man reached out to grab the child but the whoosh and snap of hard thin metal on his forearm stopped all three in their tracks. The stunned man yelped, bent with the pain and folded over at the waist, his now useless arm cradled to his stomach. When Byrne spun the baton a second time, the vibrating sound of air, like the buzz of a giant insect, caused the others to stare at him, seeing the flash of metal for the first time. But with the boy screeching now as Harris dragged him toward the lawyer, one man gathered himself and took another step but was instantly caught by another stroke of Byrne’s weapon, this time across the back of the hamstring, which dropped him to his knee. Byrne stepped back, squared himself, let them all see the baton in his hand and spun it wide with a speed that made a few of them gasp.