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y monster. I created him. I’ll kill him.”
“No. If you fail — if Clay eludes you even for a moment — ten thousand people’s lives are at risk. You have to do more— You met the President.”
“TR. What about him?”
“Can you meet him again?”
“Not easily. I’d have to go to Washington. It could take a week. What for?”
“Go to Washington. We have to keep the strikers and the strikebreakers from killing each other until someone persuades cooler heads to negotiate. If we can’t stop Henry Clay, the President will be the only one who can even try.”
“You want me to organize a fallback?”
“If all else fails.”
Before Van Dorn could formulate an answer, Bell whirled on Kenny and his cook.
“Cook! I want a big breakfast laid on for twenty men. Kenny! I want a fresh locomotive and train crew.”
“What for?”
“I’m highballing your special back to Cincinnati.”
“Why?”
“We have only two days. There isn’t a moment to lose.”
44
Mary Higgins tipped a nickle-plated flask to her lips and tossed her head back. Her glossy black hair rippled in the thin sun that penetrated the smoke.
“I was not aware you drank,” said Henry Clay.
She was amazed how a man who could be so brutal was so prim. “My father had a saloon. I learned how when I was young.”
“At his knee?” Clay smiled. She looked lovely, he thought, wearing a long coat she had borrowed from her new landlady and a wide-brimmed feathered hat that he had persuaded her to accept after most of her belongings had burned in the union hall. They had ridden the cable-powered incline up Mount Washington and were sitting in a little park with a murky view of the Golden Triangle and the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio rivers. He was in business attire: frock coat, homburg, and a walking stick that concealed a sword.
“Father always said a girl should learn to hold her whiskey.”
“Didn’t you say he had a tugboat?”
“The saloon was another time, in another city. He was always changing jobs.”
“A jack-of-all-trades?”
“He could master anything. Except people. Just like my brother, Jim. It broke his heart that evil people exist.” She touched the flask to her lips again. “He also said, ‘Never drink alone.’ Would you like some?”
“It’s barely noon.”
“Don’t put off ’til tonight what you can do today. Here.”
She handed it to him with a smile. Henry Clay weighed the flask tentatively in his hand. “Pass it back if you’re not going to use it,” said Mary, her gray eyes warming as she teased him.
Clay tilted it toward her in a toast, “Don’t put off ’til tonight…” and raised it to his lips. He handed it back.
Mary said, “See you on the other side,” and drank deeply.
When the flask was empty, Henry Clay said, “I’ll run and get us a refill.”
