Two in the Field (16 page)

A Miz Silk in training, I reflected gloomily.

“Please forgive me my foolishness last night,” she said, not looking at me. “The poteen weakened my will. ’Twas sweet to pretend I lay with my Jack again for those few lovely moments.” Her eyes glistened. “No harm was done. I don’t want you thinking of me as a low creature. I know you’re taken, Mr. Fowler.”

“How do you know that I’m taken?”

“It’s plainly written on you,” she said. “A woman can tell.”

I told her about Cait and asked if she knew of General O’Neill.

“Why, yes, that very man was here last year,” she said. “Jack went to hear one of his speeches. It surprised him how few in the patches were willing to go to the West. That was before the strike, to be sure.”

“Was a woman with him?”

“There
was
a woman,” she said, forehead creasing as she tried to remember. “Much younger than General O’Neill. Jack said the men were all a-rave over the look of her.” Noola’s eyebrows lifted. “Why she fits your description, Mr. Fowler. Beautiful as a fairy tale.” She paused. “I recall Jack saying there was a younger man, too—three of them in all.”

Jealousy licked at my brain.

“They made fine talks about the virtues of the country.”

“What country?” I asked quickly. “Where?”

“Ah, that I don’t recollect,” she said. “Jack mentioned several settlements. I remember thinking I’d be afraid out there among the savages.” She saw my disappointment. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fowler, I believe it was in one of the far territories that has an Indian name. You can find out in Tamaqua easily enough. That’s where General O’Neill had the most success recruiting. They’ll know where their neighbors went.”

I rose from the table. Tamaqua was less than twenty miles away. “I’m on my way.”

“Be careful,” she said. “These are terrible times. Everybody will be suspicious of you.”

I told her of yesterday’s killing.

“They’ve been wanting to get Bully Thomas,” she said. “It will make things worse now. The Welsh will strike back, mark me.”

I told her I wanted to give her a week’s rate and leave a small parcel which she should open if I didn’t return. She nodded soberly.

“Why don’t people here want to move West?” I asked.

“They love their patches,” she answered, “where life is more like in the Old Country.” She added that Jack had felt they had no experience in the kind of grain farming General O’Neill seemed to be talking about.

“If Cait and I are there,” I said, “and it turns out to be a good settlement, would you consider bringing Catriona to join us?”

She looked at me silently. “I might … now,” she said finally. “So many have gone away or died. I truly think I’d consider such a thing.”

“Let’s hope it works out.”

“God speed, Mr. Fowler.”

I reached Tamaqua on the Shamokin branch of the Reading—owned, naturally, by Mr. Gowen. Up to then I’d regarded Promontory, Utah, as the worst place I’d ever been. I quickly put Tamaqua down beside it. Saloons and gambling dens surrounded the station. The streets swarmed with down-and-outers who stared with booze-dulled and/or predatory eyes. In my new duds I felt like a piece of meat thrown into the carnivore cage. I was seriously thinking of offering cash to one of the down-and-outers for his clothes when a pair frazzled-looking whores flanked me. One grabbed my arm, the other reached boldly for my crotch. Shaking them off, I was treated to lurid opinions about my manhood.

Every hotel featured a saloon. I ducked inside one to escape the street and seek information. It wasn’t much of an escape; again my clothes attracted every eye. Several street types followed me inside and took seats close enough to eavesdrop as I tried to ask the bartender about General O’Neill. When he allowed as how he’d heard the name, one of the men got up and went out.

Minutes later, a thin, emaciated-looking man came in carrying a newspaper and trailed by a battered gray bulldog. The others, who’d taken note of everything up to then, didn’t so much as glance at him. Nor did the thin man look their way as he took a seat several stools down the bar. I noticed that his hand twitched when he signaled the bartender, who drew two beers and set one before me.

“Compliments of Mr. McKenna.”

I raised my glass to the thin man. McKenna wore tinted spectacles that enlarged his eyes. The hair on his head was much redder than his coppery beard and looked like a wig.

“I hear it’s information you’re wantin’,” he said in a jovial tone. “Care to chat over the foam?”

I started to move toward him but stopped at a growl from the bulldog. I saw that its ears were torn from fighting. “Stay put, Kilkenny!” McKenna commanded. The dog settled on his belly, bloodshot eyes fixed on me. “Hell of a mate,” McKenna said. “Fiercely loyal—like an Irishman.”

“Why ‘Kilkenny?’ ”

“Oh, he’s ugly, brutish and foul, like lads from that very region—and has a fuckin’ regal attitude to match theirs. They consider themselves the only ones with true mining experience in Ireland, you see, and resent any of us gettin’ ahead of them. Worse, they consort with the Welsh!”

His explanation had seemed part performance. He studied me for a reaction, then asked where I was from.

“Minersville.”

I could tell he wanted more, but he smiled politely, and despite his haggard look his manner was friendly and engaging. “Lodging at Billy McIntyre’s? The Rainbow? Meahan’s Hotel?” He made it a guessing game, laughing each time I shook my head.

“At a widow’s,” I told him.

To my surprise he lapsed into song, his voice a pleasant tenor:

The bartender led the room in clapping when he finished. The bulldog let out a low moan, which brought laughter.

“Give us ‘Kathleen Mavourneen!’ ” somebody called.

“Another time, lads.” He waved to the bartender for more beer. “So,” he said, his voice lowering as he leaned toward me, “is it your opinion the Chain Gang did it?”

I stared at him.

“Perhaps the Modocs?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why, the shootin’ of Bully Thomas.” The magnified eyes studied me. “In Shoemaker’s Patch, only a few leagues up the mountain.”

“I heard that a man got killed.”

“Well, ye know
something.”
He peered at me. “But the job was botched—he was shot but still lives—and so he wasn’t murdered after all.” McKenna’s brogue made it “murt-hurred.” He tapped the newspaper he’d brought. “The
Shenandoah Herald
has the Mollies doin’ the job on Bully.”

“The Molly Maguires?”

“The same.” He pushed the paper toward me. “But the
Herald
is always against the Mollies, so it’s to be expected. What do you think, Mr.…?”

“Hemingway.”

He repeated it slowly. “That doesn’t sound Irish.”

“No.”

He leaned closer. “The
Herald
says that because the Mollies fought off the operators’ blacklegs, the army should come in to run the mines and fix the trouble-makers once and for all. Are you partial to the Irish, Mr. Hemingway?”

“Yes, Mr. McKenna.” I was losing patience with the quiz game. “But I have no idea who shot this Bully Thomas fellow, and I don’t know anything about the groups you named. I’m sorry about the hard times, but I’m not here because of the strike or anything connected with it.”

“Why are you here?” he said softly.

“To find out where General O’Neill’s settlement is located.”

“You’d be eager to settle there?”

I started to say yes, then hesitated, wondering if he might somehow be linked with the Fenians.

“You don’t resemble a farmer,” he said mildly.

Danger signals were flashing in my mind. The bulldog … the sandy whiskers … the Irish charm and singing … Could McKenna be the infamous Pinkerton informer? He didn’t resemble Richard Harris in the slightest, but it gave me the creeps to think I might be facing the real man. The most disturbing part of the movie was that the agent had stayed among the hard-pressed strikers not just for days or weeks but more than two years—and then coldly betrayed them.

“Do you know the location?” I said.

“It might be that I do.” He cocked his head slyly. “But it’s a fact that I’m not at liberty to recall before consulting the Body-master.”

“The who?”

He explained that it was the leader of the Order of Hibernians, an Irish benevolent association.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go talk to him.”

“Oh, he’ll come here.” McKenna smiled. “And soon, for a fact. His shift at the Boston Run Colliery is nearly ended, and he’ll be dropping by with the boys.”

An ominous subtext?

McKenna must have picked up on my uneasiness—he seemed highly intuitive—for he launched into a tale of his own brief mining career. Soon after he began working below the ground, a coal car broke loose from its moorings and went thundering at him. He’d dived aside barely in time to escape death, and still limped from his leg being caught beneath hundreds of pounds of coal. Afterward he’d caught pneumonia and nearly died.

“My hair fell out and vanity led me to buy this horrible thing.” He tugged at his wig. “The worst is that I suspect that car was set loose on purpose—and not by the Welsh.”

“Who, then?”

“Irish,” he said dolefully. “Likely the Sheet Iron Gang, our deadly foes. ’Tis a shame, but the truth is that we’re split among ourselves.”

I couldn’t resist. “Aren’t the Pinkertons supposed to be sniffing around too?”

“You have knowledge of that?”

“Rumors.”

He leaned close. “Do y’know that in Schuylkill County well over a hundred have been murdered, many of them mine bosses and foremen, without a single conviction?”

I stared at him, perplexed. Was he deliberately breaking from his role? Was it a test? Another probe to see who I was? I remembered that more than one agent had been sent to infiltrate the Mollies. Did McKenna think I might be a fellow Pinkerton? Or a potential Molly?

I muttered something about violence begetting violence.

He held my eyes a second longer, then his face changed as the doors burst open and soot-grimed men crowded in. McKenna immediately ordered a round, then got up and spoke to a broad-shouldered man with dark hair who, I gathered, was the body-master. They glanced at me several times before McKenna beckoned me to follow them into a small room off the bar. The dark-haired man motioned curtly for me to sit.

“Mr. Hemingway,” McKenna said officiously, “I’ve told Jack Kehoe here what it is you want.”

Kehoe
 … That was the name of the man played by Connery. The leader of the Mollies. I was almost positive of it. The real Kehoe didn’t look much like the star actor, but he had a leader’s
presence. He was solidly built, his hair and whiskers threaded with gray, his steely blue eyes suggesting that bullshit would not fare well with him.

“I’ll be talking to him alone.” Kehoe’s rumbling bass allowed no dispute. McKenna looked slightly confused, then turned with obvious reluctance toward the saloon.

Kehoe and I stared at each other. Just when I’d decided it was a contest to see who would blink first, he said, “I don’t care who you are or what you want—I want you the hell out of here.”

I refrained from pointing out that Tamaqua wasn’t my idea of a vacation spot. “I’m just looking for General O’Neill.”

“I know what you
say
you’re doing.”

“McKenna doesn’t speak for me,” I began.

“It’s not him alone,” Kehoe interrupted. “A message came to me in the mine today—about you.” He smiled but it wasn’t pleasant, his teeth briefly bared in the begrimed face. “Mrs. Sullivan spoke up for your character. But she called you Fowler, not Hemingway.”

Whoops
. I started to respond but he waved me silent. “She asks that I protect you while you’re here.”

I waited.

“I’ll do that, not for your sake but because you showed kindness to Noola and her lassie. And the memory of Jack Sullivan is precious to me.”

I nodded cautiously.

“I’ll give you the information you want,” he said. “At least, what is known from months back.”

My hands balled into fists. “Great!”

“It’s not
great,”
he snapped. “It’s to get you gone. We’re headed for trouble here and don’t care for outsiders hanging about. If it weren’t for Noola, you’d find your leave-taking a spot rougher.”

I’d already reached the same conclusion.

“John O’Neill’s grand settlement is on the Elkhorn River.”

I waited for elaboration. None came. “Where is that?”

“Nebraska Territory.”

At last!

“Word was that the settlement is thriving.”

“Through farming?”

“Perhaps that,” he said. “But the place lies on the route taken by gold-crazed lunatics bound for the Black Hills. They need provisions, which O’Neill’s people are providing.”

“Isn’t that Indian country?”