In the early dawn, Jake Marlowe’s mine still smoldered. The wisps of gray smoke joined the mist dancing along the tops of the blue hills. The day’s first light shadowed the canvas tents where, inside, the miners and their families slept and dreamed. On the edge of the camp, the militiamen gathered. They passed the guns down the line, hand over hand until all were armed.
The foreman pulled back the chamber on his rifle.
“Let ’em have it.”
FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE
“I hate to say good-bye,” Mabel said as she leaned against the doorway of Arthur’s garret. She wanted nothing more than to lead him back to bed and spend the day in his arms. But she’d been gone too long as it was.
“That makes two of us,” Arthur said, kissing her deeply. “See you tonight?”
Mabel nodded. Tonight and tomorrow and forever, she wanted to say.
Arthur stood at the window, looking down. Mabel waved up at him and he waved back as she went on her way. Across the street, the man in the brown fedora stood under the street lamp, staring up. He tucked his newspaper under his arm and turned up Bleecker Street. Arthur slipped out of the bookshop and followed the man, keeping a safe distance all the way to Bedford Street, where the man knocked at number eighty-six: Chumley’s. Arthur waited a few minutes, then went in. The brown-hatted man was already at a table in the back, a drink in hand.
Arthur took a seat next to him and ordered a Coca-Cola.
“You’re late,” the man growled without looking over.
“I couldn’t get away.”
The man snorted. “I’ll bet. You responsible for that business at Marlowe’s mine?”
“You told me to gain their trust. To encourage them.”
“Well, you certainly did that.” The man took out a pack of Wrigley’s gum. He offered it to Arthur, who shook his head. “And what about Mabel Rose?”
Arthur’s jaw tightened. “What about her?”
“She’s the enemy. Or have you forgotten?”
Arthur sipped his soda. “You don’t know her. She’s a good egg.”
“She’s the daughter of muckraking socialists. She cavorts with Diviners and anarchists. I’d say that’s far from innocent. The Bureau wants her taken down, too. We get her, we get her parents. We get her parents, we get a whole load of socialists in jail.”
“That wasn’t part of my deal.”
“Your deal was whatever we say your deal is,” the man said. “You avoided prison, Arthur. If you want to keep on avoiding prison, you’ll feed us the information we need until we round up every Red in this town. We still have your brother, you know. We could execute him at any time. We could take you back in. Blowing up Marlowe’s mine wasn’t in the plans.”
“I had to make a decision. Nobody got hurt!”
“Keep it down.” The man waited until the people around them had gone back to their booze. “I know you, you little agitator. You wanted to blow up that mine. And I suppose Miss Rose was part of that little excursion.”
“No. She didn’t know anything about it.”
“You lying to me, Arthur?”
Arthur stared the G-man down. “I’m telling you: She’s innocent.”
The man socked Arthur, bloodying his lip. People looked on, shocked. And then they looked away again.
“The Bureau wants an arrest. Mr. Hoover wants to purge this country of radical scum. Your job was to deliver the Secret Six, nice and neat.”
Arthur wiped his lip with his knuckles. “You already have my brother!”
“And now we want the rest. Minus you, of course. By the way, you might be interested in this. It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper. Don’t disappoint us, Mr. Brown.” The man grabbed his brown hat, squaring it over his ears, and left the newspaper on the table.
Arthur read the front page. Then he went into the bathroom to throw up.
Arthur wandered to Washington Square Park, where he sat for hours, watching the cars drive under the arch, the newspaper still tucked under his arm. By the time he returned to his apartment, the Secret Six were there waiting for him.
“There you are!” Gloria said. “We were about to send out a search party.”
“Arthur, what is it?” Mabel asked, concerned. “And what happened to your lip?”
He swiped a mug from the sink, filled it with cold water from the tap and swallowed it all down. Then he dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands, squeezing his fingers in his hair.
“Arthur?” Mabel said, softer this time.
He swiped a hand down over his face. “Early this morning, the militia boys went after the miners with guns. The women and children took cover in the holes they’d dug inside the tents.” Arthur paused. He was fighting for every word. Mabel felt as if he were speaking to her from very far away, as if she were in a dream and her one mission was to keep whatever he said next from coming out. “It was chaos in the camp. And then the lanterns caught on one of the tents. The wind was strong.”
“No,” Gloria whispered, burying her face in her hands. “No, no, no, no.”
“The women and children were trapped in the tents. The tents were on fire. The children…” Arthur stumbled on the word. “The children screamed. And the men just kept shooting.”
“Those sons of bitches,” Aron said, sniffing back tears. Mabel had never seen Aron cry.
“Hearst is already putting the blame on the miners. Saying they started it,” Arthur said, throwing down the newspaper. Gloria scooped it up and read aloud, “‘Anarchists to Blame for Fiery Fiasco. Striking Workers Blow Up Mine and Set Fire to Camp.’ Those liars!”
“What do you expect? Marlowe can have the story written any way he likes,” Aron said.
“Twelve dead kids and they’re blaming the striking workers. And the Secret Six,” Arthur said. “Mr. Hoover has vowed to put more muscle behind finding us. I don’t think we should meet here anymore. They might be watching.”
The night before seemed incredibly far away to Mabel now. She tried to remember the feel of Arthur’s arms around her as they lay in his bed under the creaking attic roof. Everything had seemed so right; now nothing did.
“We told them to trust us,” Luis said. “We said they would be safe. That Marlowe would cave. What do we do now?”
In the high white shine of the street lamp leaking through the garret windows, Arthur’s eyes were the bright blue of the day before. “We make Marlowe pay.”
By the time they’d finished talking, it was nearly dawn. The milk wagons jangled up Bleecker Street. In the distance, the elevated Sixth Avenue train rattled around a curve. The newspapers would be hitting the streets in bundles any minute.
“Luis, you know where to get what we need.”
“Yeah. I know a fella. Doesn’t ask too many questions. He’s sympathetic to the cause.”
“Are we decided, then?” Arthur said.
“Yes.” Gloria held out her hand.
“Yes,” Aron and Luis said, adding theirs on top.
Arthur turned to Mabel.
“You’re talking about assassination. About murder,” she said, looking down at her hands. They seemed small and useless to her just now.