Ribbons of Steel (2 page)

“The boss man wants to see you right away,” John Donahue gasped, drawing up next to him. “Best not keep him waiting. He doesn’t seem in the best of spirits today.”

The man wheezed, clutched his chest, and then started coughing. Charley ignored the weasel. He had a feeling deep in his gut whatever Mason Aderley was about to say couldn’t be good.
Shit.
He didn’t need this on top of everything else.

Not today.

Further down the track the men unloaded coal. The mining town of Eckly produced anthracite round the clock. Not only did it keep their trains running, it kept the need for them to run profitable. Wagons lined up waiting, and men scurried to do their jobs.

They looked like a pack of mad dogs let out of their kennels for the first time in weeks.

Scott had added a passenger coach to the line this past year, and people milled about down below waiting for those aboard to disembark.

Such chaos. Such chaos.

Charley shook his head and stepped back from the hot rails as a second train screeched to a stop alongside the first.

“Hey, Seamus,” he called to one of the workers. “I’m going up to the office. Take over for me, will ya? I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He sidestepped Donahue and headed toward Aderley’s office. His work boots crunched into the gravel in the well-worn path which led to the station. The sun had been up for hours, and the heat had taken a toll on everyone’s nerves. The men were riled already over the talk of another wage cut.

They were talking strike.

Charley arrived at the large, three-story brick building, bounded up the cement steps two at a time, and entered the darkened foyer. He welcomed the coolness as he climbed the mahogany staircase to the left. Aderley’s office door stood open. He hesitated as the boss man slid his timepiece back in his vest pocket and reached for one of his Havana cigars, then raised the long brown smoke to his nose, sniffed at it with undisguised pleasure, clipped the end of it, and clamped it between his teeth. He leaned across his desk, took a match from a small box, struck the miniature wooden stick against the box, and lit the cigar. He drew in and let the embers simmer and glow a bright red.

The man’s bushy eyebrows were drawn in tight, and his short stocky body slouched over his polished desk, a sure indication he wasn’t happy. Charley hated to disturb the man, but then, Aderley had summoned
him
.

He rapped on the doorframe to get Aderley’s attention. Aderley jumped at the loud sound, turned, and looked his way. A pretense of a smile didn’t quite match the man’s stern blue eyes.

“Come in, come in,” Aderley called, swinging his arm in the air, motioning him inside.

“Donahue says you wanted to see me about something important,” Charley said, entering the room.

“Yes. Yes. Have a seat. You haven’t been up to steam this past week. What’s going on? It’s not like you to be so distracted. The talk of a strike has me a bit concerned, I can tell you. What are those jackasses thinking? Just what do they want?”

Charley didn’t know where to start. But he had to be honest.

“To get paid for a day’s work,” he said. “They’ve heard about the cut in pay.”

Aderley jumped from his chair, paced the floor, and then settled next to the window. He stood with his hands behind his back staring out in silence. Charley wondered, not for the first time, if Aderley made it a habit to stand there all day making sure everyone did his job.

What did his boss have to worry about? The man lived in a mansion on the other side of town. What did he know about the little guys, working ten to twelve hours a day busting their asses along the rails? The firemen who stoked the fires or shoveled the coal? The engineers had to keep their eyes open as they sped along forty miles an hour over tracks where people and cows didn’t seem able to stay off. Aderley’s two young boys attended the best boarding schools, and his wife had daily help. At least she wasn’t sick like Emily.

Dear Lord.
Emily had been sick with fever the last few times he’d been able to make it home. There hadn’t been anything he could do to relieve her pain. Especially when he had to be in Philadelphia overseeing men who couldn’t make ends meet.

Charley didn’t care how impressed the nation was with the strides the railroads had made over the last couple of decades. He didn’t care that only eight years ago in Promontory, Utah, the golden spike had been hammered into the ground. He didn’t give a damn that not only did the tracks unite the East with the West by rail, or that a telegraph connected them as well.

But Emily cared.

Mail was delivered faster now that the rails cut across the vast countryside. Keeping in touch with her cousin, Marybelle, was more convenient. Emily lived for the occasional letter from her cousin. And Charley loved to see the happiness shining in her eyes whenever she received those letters.

What was a man to do? He wanted to be there for his wife. If not for the trouble ahead on the railroad, he would be. But he needed the pay, just like everyone else. If the big bugs cut their pay, and the workers called a strike, he didn’t know how they would all survive.

“I asked you a question, damn it,” Aderley spat, bringing Charley out of his contemplations. “What the hell is going on?”

“There’s talk. That’s all I know right now. Nothing definite yet. The men know Tom Scott was in Chicago last month to meet with the other railroad owners. They know the two of you have been talking and are considering a ten percent cut.”

“I don’t like this. What are they up to?”

“I’m not sure. Something about a walkout, but nothing definite. If they get hit with the ten percent cut, they’ll strike for sure. They need the money. And they’re not happy with the present working conditions. Too many of them are getting hurt. Don’t forget that last week Schmidt died when he was caught between the cars and cut in half.”

“They need to be more careful.”

Charley had heard it all before. True, many had been killed on the job, or were hurt and unable to work. And when they didn’t work, they didn’t get paid. Families whose husbands and fathers were killed had no income and had a hard time making ends meet. Many of them were starving, even with their current wages.

“Damn it, Charles, you know as well as I do the bargaining unit isn’t worth the price of hen’s teeth. This time it isn’t going to make any difference. The agreement in Chicago was unanimous—from coast to coast. I have no control over their decisions.”

“But Scott does.”

Aderley ignored him.

“Have those fools already forgotten about the strike three years ago? The mayhem created by their actions? All the major trunk lines were disrupted for weeks. What a horrible mess that was. We can’t let that happen this time.” Aderley puffed on his cigar, the smoke curling up around his head.

“I don’t think they care. They don’t have much left to lose.”

The strike three years ago might have created a mess for the trunk lines, but the workers had made their point.

“They tore up sections of the rails and cut the telegraph wires,” Aderley continued as if Charley didn’t know. “They even removed the pins from the freight cars and destroyed water towers.” Aderley ran his hands through his receding hair, and then clenched them at his sides. “It didn’t help that the citizens and police sympathized with the strikers.”

“It’s bound to happen again,” Charley said.

“Big trouble, Charles. Real big. I need to know where you stand. I need to know,
now!
” Aderley barked. “All the major trunk lines agreed to this cut, and I have to follow through. Tell your men that as of today we’ll be double-heading the freight cars.”

“They aren’t going to like it. As for announcing a cut, the repercussions will be devastating. The merchants, the mills, the coal mines, not to mention other smaller industries depend on products transported by rail. If the men strike, the rails don’t run, and the businesses will create a ruckus.”

Charley was caught between a rock and a very hard place with no give in between. The best place for him right now was on Mason Aderley’s and Thomas Scott’s side. He needed to do all the ass-kissing he could do to keep his job. But he didn’t want to leave his men to flounder on their own.

“I need the work. Just like the others. You know I’ll work ’til I can’t work no more. Strike or no strike. I have a family to support. Just like everyone else down below.”

Charley moved to stand next to Aderley, the two looking at the men working in the yard. The Boss Man had him over a barrel. Charley knew it. Aderley knew it; had counted on it.

Charley had to keep things from exploding.

“I promise you, Charles, you’ll be rewarded for your trust and loyalty to the company once this fiasco is over.”

Aderley combed his large shaking hand over his face, and then heaved a deep sigh.

“How long do you think we have before it blows?” Aderley asked, defeated. “A month? Two?” He turned and looked Charley square in the eyes.

The man was scared. Charley read it in the slump of his shoulders, the white at the corners of his pinched lips. Again, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t lie. The situation was too dire.

“It’s been simmering ever since Chicago,” Charley said. “They’re just waiting for the axe to fall. If you make the announcement today, could be tomorrow.”

“If we have to call in the militia, we will,” Aderley said. “Scott and the others are determined to call in every favor they have owing them, and then some. I want you to go back down below. Pacify the engineers and trainmen as best you can. You’re able to talk to them better than anyone. Convince them not to strike.”

“If you can hold off for a couple of days, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Watch your back, Charles. Someone’s been riling up the men. I don’t know who, but if I catch him, I’ll wring his neck in front of the whole lot of them.”

Charley’d been thinking the same thing. Someone had them worked up, talking strike. John Donahue came to mind. He didn’t trust the man any farther than he could spit, and he’d never won a spitting contest. The weasel rubbed him the wrong way.

“Do you think Donahue is behind it?” Charley asked. Not a betting man, he’d lay odds he was right. “I’ve seen him down there a few times.”

“I’d bet my best race horse he’s not the one.”

“Still, I wouldn’t rule him out, seeing as he handles all your business. He knows what’s going on.”

“I think you’re wrong, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Aderley rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands and sighed. “I want you to know I’ll stand beside Scott to fight, every railroad spike by every railroad spike along the way if I have to. I want you to promise me you’ll be right beside me.”

“I’ll be there.” Charley didn’t hesitate, nor did he flinch at his own words. Words that laid heavy in his gut.

“I have another matter I want to discuss with you. A private matter,” Aderley said, his voice low, his eyes focused on his wide, uncluttered desk. “Have a seat.”

Mason Aderley was a private person. He never shared family news with him or any of the other men. This had to be something serious.

Aderley sat at his desk and then stretched forward toward his humidor. He ran his hand over the smooth, deep, rich, polished tiger-maple box. He drew in on his cigar, blowing another puff of smoke into the office. Charlie wished he could afford to buy just one of those expensive stogies.

“It’s an unusual piece, isn’t it?” Aderley stroked the unique box. “It belonged to a relative on my father’s side of the family. They were coal miners.”

Charley stared at the hand-carved box with interwoven circles in the center of the lid and a large, handsome diamond inset in the center of the middle ring. He always admired it whenever he was in Aderley’s office.

“The diamond represents coal,” he continued. “The circles, the family bond of coalminers. My father died of lung disease when I was thirteen. As the oldest of five sons, my mother passed the humidor on to me. I vowed never to work the mines. I keep this close by as a reminder that I can do better.”

And, like Tom Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Trunk Line, Aderley was a self-educated man who had earned the respect of the other railroad magnates. He’d climbed the ranks of the rails on his own steam.

As Scott’s manager, Aderley was well aware the trainmen down below were unhappy. That wasn’t anything private. Charley wondered where Aderley was going with his story, what it had to do with the strike.

“Sorry to burden you with this, Charles, but you might be able to help.” Aderley choked up.

The man’s change in direction was hard to follow. Confused, Charley sat in silence waiting for him to speak.

After a loud meditative exhale, the man continued. “My wife has received kidnapping threats. Someone is threatening to abduct my two boys.”

“Kidnapping? Have you called in the law?”

No wonder the man looked so haggard. Something like that would worry any man. God forbid someone try to take one of his children; he’d kill the son-of-a-bitch himself. His kids might be a handful and rub him the wrong way sometimes, but they were his. No way would he stand by and let someone hurt them.

Aderley didn’t need this on top of the pending strike. With everyone’s pockets empty these days, Charley figured anyone could be the culprit, someone trying to survive. But to use kidnapping as a means to get money, well, this was serious business. Someone had to be desperate, or crazy. But then again, Aderley had the money to pay a ransom, no matter how much they asked.

“Yes. But we’ve been advised to stay quiet for now. I’m only telling you because the authorities think you might hear something from the men down below.”

“Nothing so far. But I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

“My wife has a sister who lives out west. I’m going to send my family to stay with her until things here blow over. With any luck, they’ll be long gone before this strike hits. You’re lucky, Charles, your family is in New York. Away from this turmoil.”

“They’re away from the danger of the strike, but my wife hasn’t been well.” Charley figured if Aderley could share his family problems, then his boss needed to know he had problems of his own. “If this strike is just around the bend, then I want a few days to go home to check on Emily. Make sure things are in order.”