Death at Pullman (20 page)

It was only later that I heard what had happened from some of the other Pullman people who were in the crowd. The military had become organized in their attempts to clear the tracks. But the strikers, and others who banded with them, felt betrayed that their own country had turned against them and taken the side of the owners. Without any direction from the ARU, or anyone else, they organized themselves.

They did it all without any formal plan. With the cunning of a crowd they realized that there was no way for the soldiers to spread out far enough to prevent the sabotage of tracks ahead while they were protecting workers who were removing cars or repairing rails closer to hand. They also discovered that by putting women in the front of the crowd they slowed the engines that were approaching with soldiers and deputies hanging on the front and sides. By the time a train was able to move, the men ahead had finished their work overturning the next boxcar or damaging the switches. It made the movement of the trains an inevitable stop and go process.

Colonel Turner had a full train moving north on the tracks that day. Soldiers were positioned all over the outside of the train. In addition, Sheriff Arnold had stationed some of the three thousand deputies he had sworn in. When there were more and more stops, the officers became more and more impatient. They had their orders to get the train through to the city by evening. The Pullman people told me that the military men perched on the cowcatchers and car tops were fearsome to see. They leveled rifles while they held bullets in their mouths like some kind of awful metal fangs. It seemed that everyone knew the prohibition against firing at civilians had been lifted, so the soldiers were allowed to shoot.

It was at one of the previous stops that someone in the crowd had recognized Stark. The O'Malley children heard and ran home to tell Gracie and Joe. Gracie had been sitting in their shack, not eating, and drinking only water, staring into the darkness ever since Mooney's body had been laid to rest. The children were frightened by her reaction. She started muttering about Stark and Mooney and Stark and her father. She pushed the children aside when they tried to stop her from picking up a pistol that had been owned by their father. They ran after her, but finally gave up. Patrick had seen Detective Whitbread and me at the shed. The children knew the policeman and liked him, despite his past arguments with Gracie Foley. It seemed he had returned more than once, bringing supplies to them since Brian O'Malley had died.

When Gracie arrived at the spot where the crowd had moved to hold up a train once more, she was recognized by some of the people. They egged her on, they later admitted to me with shame on their faces. They said they were just trying to stall the train until they got the signal from the men ahead that they had finished sabotaging a switch. But Gracie was incoherent and when she saw Stark she pulled out the pistol.

The crowd moved away then, but continued to taunt Stark. They accused him of being afraid of a woman, while others distracted the soldiers with rocks and insults. They pulled Stark down off the engine, then stepped away so he could see the gun. The captain in charge also saw it and yelled for the soldiers to protect Stark. But, as they moved in with bayonets, Stark raised his own gun. He was behind the soldiers, who didn't see his action. They said Gracie was screaming by then, the gun wavering in her hands, but Stark just took aim, cold-blooded steady aim. He surely would have killed her, but suddenly Whitbread leapt through the crowd, falling on Gracie and getting between her and the bullet.

The crowd came to their senses then at least, even if the soldiers didn't. The people from Pullman, and a couple of weary policemen on the edges, commandeered a carriage and got us back to the clinic and Dr. Chapman. By then, Joe O'Malley had disappeared. Detective Whitbread was unconscious, but the doctor was hopeful he would survive. Gracie Foley also seemed to come to her senses then. She followed every direction the doctor gave her quietly and with great skill. She seemed to have awakened from a dream. I thought she would become hysterical back in the same clinic, the same room where we had brought poor Mooney, and where he had died. But she did not. She pulled herself together and helped the doctor, who judged it better to occupy her with commands and keep her with him as he shooed the rest of us out of the makeshift operating room that adjoined his office clinic.

I realized that I still had the burlap bag, with its frightening contents, clutched in my hands and decided to hide it behind a pile of empty boxes in a corner of the storeroom. Then I sat on a barrel and wept. It was a while later that I finally came out of the storeroom, locking it behind me. The young soldier at the door tried to avoid looking at me. He must have heard me weeping. I passed him quickly and went down to the hallway outside the clinic. There were half a dozen Pullman people waiting outside the frosted glass door of the operating room. On a table in the hallway there were the remains of a hasty meal that had been sent up from the grocery below—brown paper with crumbs of bread, and bottles of beer. They looked up at me, but said they were still waiting. There was a mere murmur that could be heard from the doctor and the two women he had helping him in addition to Gracie Foley.

I saw a pile of bloody clothes on the end of one of the wooden benches. They were Whitbread's clothes. Even his bowler hat had been retrieved from the scene and someone had placed it carefully on top of the hastily folded suit. His well worn, but polished, black shoes were on the bottom. I gathered the pile up and took it into the doctor's office. There was a heavy lump weighing down the middle. As soon as I carried it in and put it down on a table, I looked under the hat. It was the detective's long-barreled gun that weighed down the mass. It was lying on the bloodstained shirt they had removed. The shirt was torn through high on the sleeve by the left shoulder. I gulped back a sob, picturing again that moment when the shot rang out, with the acrid smell of the smoke lingering in the air afterwards. I pushed the pile away and sat in the doctor's armchair behind the desk in the corner.

The high windows were open in an attempt to let in some breeze. Outside, the sun was going down and dusk was descending, that dusk that lasts a long time in the summer months. But the air was hot and still.

I thought of Detective Whitbread and how I had first met him in his small office with a window looking onto a brick wall and a poster listing twenty maxims such as: “Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today,” and “It is not enough to be honest and lazy.” He had been so unexpectedly willing to work with a representative of the university and it was nothing to him that I was a woman. His enthusiasm for the project of collating the Bertillon measurements, that he had been collecting in shoeboxes from all over the city, was immense. He had a great love of the scientific method and a confidence in the ability to improve the condition of people he saw every day.

I soon found out that he did not spend much time in that office. He was hardly ever there when I was. He was always out on the streets of Chicago—sometimes in disguise—finding and arresting those who preyed on the weak. He was the one who was at the Harrison Street station when a murder happened at Hull House on Christmas Day. And he had no fear of going against political interests in the city if he thought they obscured the truth. Many times he had shown that he was incorruptible and indefatigable. He had mentored me in a brusque and efficient manner and I learned more than I ever could have imagined from him.

How could it have come to this, that so useful a man should be sacrificed in this insane occupation of the city by the troops of our own country? I dropped my head in my hands and entered a dream of bad thoughts. There was nothing good I could see coming in the future, nothing but a barreling downhill to disaster. I knew Raoul LeClerc was still out there with a stick of dynamite and that Detective Whitbread would want me to warn someone. But why? What would that do except to release more violence against those who least deserved it? I felt I wanted nothing to do with it any more. I didn't want to help either side. I could not bring myself to tell the army, and without Whitbread, I had no one I could trust.

The doctor came in at last, his arms full of bloody sheets. I helped him to stuff them into a hamper. They gave off the sickening smell of warm blood.

“I think he will live. He is weak from loss of blood. But I think he will live.” He went to the table in the back and poured water into a porcelain basin and scrubbed his hands, neck and face. He was in shirtsleeves, with the sleeves rolled up and his suspenders over his shoulders. The ugly scars on his right arm had turned white and he favored that injured hand. The heat had made him tousled and sweat-stained. He turned away and grabbed a towel to dry his face and hands briskly. “What happened out there, Emily?” He stood toweling his hands, waiting for an answer.

I had to gulp back a sob and get control of myself. “It was Stark, again. Again! How can they let him go on like this?” I took a deep breath and told him the whole story, starting when Joe O'Malley had beckoned to me from the alley, through the scene at the brickyard, the race to the tracks, and the hectic scene bringing Whitbread back to the clinic. The only thing I didn't tell him about was the missing dynamite. Why burden him? What could he do? Besides, he already disliked LeClerc and the ARU. I could not bring myself to admit he was right. I still did not believe Raoul would really use that single stick of dynamite. By the time I had finished, he was sitting behind his desk. His eyes never left my face.

“And the dynamite?”

“Hidden in the locked and guarded storeroom. No one will get to it. But if Colonel Turner knew about that there would be an immediate search and arrest of Raoul LeClerc. Yet, Leonard Stark is allowed to go out and kill people. He has even shot a policeman—he may have killed him—the very policeman who would eventually prove him a murderer. I am sure of it. But he is protected by the sheriff and the army. Will they never stop him? Does he just get to go on and on like this?” I was still on my feet in front of him, walking back and forth in my agitation. “We cannot allow this to go unpunished. He would never allow it—Detective Whitbread would not stand for such injustice. We cannot allow that man to go free. I won't allow it. I plan to go over to Colonel Turner and demand he do something. I was only waiting to hear from you how Whitbread is doing before I go.” It was a test. If the army would do nothing about Stark, how could I tell them about Raoul and the last stick of dynamite? Why should I?

“I left Mrs. Foley with him. Seeing to him has calmed her down considerably. She seems to want to. I think it is best for both of them to let her care for him. Not that there is much to do, just make sure no fever takes hold, and wait for his body to heal enough to be able to eat and drink. He is not fit to move to the hospital and, in any case, they could do nothing more for him. I cannot say with any certainty whether or not he will live. We will know more tomorrow.”

“How terrible for her if once again her vigil ends in death,” I mumbled.

“Terrible for all of us if we lose him.”

“I cannot bear it.” I wiped my eyes and walked to the window. “And what to do about Raoul LeClerc and Fiona MacGregor? If we hadn't been called away by little Patrick and Lilly, I know Whitbread would have pursued them. But how can we blame them for a crime that was averted, when that murderer Stark goes free for a crime actually carried out? I am determined—if the colonel will do something about Stark, then I will know he is worthy of trust and I will tell him all. But if, as I fear, he tells me there is nothing he can do about such a murderer, then he will learn nothing from me about what happened in the brick shed.” I purposely kept my back to the room, looking out at the street where darkness was falling.

He sighed. “As long as no one was hurt, I suppose you must follow your conscience. I am not sure what good it would do to tell the military now.” After that, the doctor was very quiet. Ominously so. I did not want to face him.

I struggled on. “I know it must pain you to learn that Miss MacGregor has been so unwise as to follow LeClerc. Joe O'Malley practically begged her to stay, but I fear she has fled with him. I do not know where. Since Detective Whitbread cannot pursue him, there is no telling how far away they may get. She is very foolish, but I can tell you that Mr. LeClerc can be very . . . engaging, when he wants to be, and Miss MacGregor is very young. She will regret it in the future, I know she will.” I turned to see how he was taking it, but he was looking at me with a blank face. “Her illness no doubt clouded her judgment,” I said, making excuses for the young woman. What a shock it must be for Stephen to learn what she had been doing with Raoul.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. I thought he suspected me of being insincere, but I was doing my best to understand. It seemed to me that Fiona MacGregor had captured his affections in a way that I had never done. And she had let him down, much as Raoul LeClerc had let me down. “Doctor, I am very sorry. I am sure it is a great disappointment to you that Miss MacGregor would act in such a manner.”

He sat there squinting up at me in the lamp light. “I am disappointed in Miss MacGregor, but not, I think, in the way that you imagine. Emily, I must trust that you will never repeat what I am going to tell you. When Brian O'Malley was killed, Fiona MacGregor was already with child. She was with child when I first met her, here at the clinic.”

“I did not know.”

“No one knew. You have heard how Mrs. Foley was treated, even after she married the father of her child. No one knew and she was afraid to reveal her secret.”