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“If in doubt, I ring the stopping bell,” came the laconic reply.
Bell looked back and saw a dim light that might be the barge fleet behind them. Jennings’s son was driving it. The three tows behind it were invisible. Bell had stationed the levelheaded Archie Abbott, who like he had grown up around sailboats and steam yachts, on the rearmost. He put Wally Kisley on the next, then Mack Fulton. And if there was anything to be grateful for, it was the blinding black fog.
Ahead, an eerie reddish luminescence began to spread in the dark. It grew steadily in size and intensity. “What’s that red light?”
“Jones & Laughlin blast furnaces… Watch close, you’ll see something you’ll never forget. There!”
A procession of red balls appeared to float in the air as they moved across the river, high above the water. Bell was mystified at first until his keen eyes distinguished the girders of trusswork. “Is that a bridge?”
“The Hot Metal Bridge.”
As the forward barges in their tow pushed under it, Bell could see a locomotive pulling flatcars through the trusses. On each car was a glowing red mass of fire.
“What are those railcars carrying?”
“J & L crucibles of molten steel from the furnaces across to the rolling mill. Ain’t that something?”
After clearing the bridge, the pilot nudged his big wooden wheel, which was as tall as he was, and coaxed the tow into a broad turn. There was a white glow to the left. A gust of wind shredded the fog momentarily, and Bell glimpsed the point of the Amalgamated Coal
Terminal. It was ablaze in electric work lights as the conveyors lifted coal from barges to the tipple. Seven miles of dark river to go. At least an hour. Load the people, and seven miles back. The black fog thickened.
Suddenly, Bell sensed movement alongside. Camilla’s searchlight played on a masonry bridge pier. They passed close enough to see the cement between the stones. “Brown’s Bridge,” said the pilot. “We’re on our way.”
Below the Homestead Works, as the smoke thinned, the black fog dissipated slightly, just in time to see a fully laden twenty-barge tow coming downriver straight at them — a fast-moving two-acre island of coal.
“Shoot!” growled Bell’s pilot. “That’s Captain Andy. Of all the boats to run into tonight.”
“What’s the matter?”
Jennings spat at the box of sawdust. “Captain Andy owns three steamers, inclining him toward the capitalist camp. Allowing what we’re up to for our friends in labor would be like dipping an oar in a nest of water moccasins.”
He blew his whistle. The oncoming tow’s whistle answered. As they passed, the pilots played their searchlights on each other’s tow and stepped out of their houses to exchange hellos.
“Where you headed?” the downriver-bound Captain Andy shouted.
“Gleasonburg!” Bell’s pilot bawled back.
“Look out for that pack of strikers at McKeesport. I heard they’re getting a cannon to shoot at our tows.”
“Where they going to get a cannon, Captain Andy?”
“Steal it. They’s strikers, ain’t they?”
Jennings waved good-bye and said to Bell, “Just hope the boys behind us tell him the same.”
They passed beneath another hot metal bridge, over which ran the fiery juices of the Carrie Furnace and, soon after, a trolley bridge. A streetcar with gaily lighted windows thundered the wooden deck as the tow steamed under it.
“West Braddock Bridge,” said the pilot. “Smooth sailing from here to McKeesport. Just some railroad bridges with real wide spans. And a bunch of dredges crowding the channel.” His searchlight flashed on a big white diamond board on the bank that marked another bend in the river.
The black fog continued to thin. Bell could see the tow behind theirs and the lights of two behind it. “Hope nobody’s looking for us,” said Captain Jennings. “We’re becoming mighty apparent.”
Bell was not that worried about being seen. As long as they kept moving, who ashore would take notice? They had peeled the tows loose from the riverbank under cover of the fog. Now they were indistinguishable from the other river traffic. Nor did Bell fear, even for a moment, that Mary Higgins would betray them. His main worry was that “Claggart” had returned in time to see the last tow leave the Smithfield Bridge. But, so far, there was no pursuit.
He left the pilothouse and went down a flight of stairs to the galley where a grizzled deckhand was telling a dozen coal miners about the alligators that swarmed when novice deckhands fell overboard. “And I reckon you boys noticed how low the main deck is to the water. Sometimes them critters just walk on. Prowl about, looking for something to eat.”
“Been in West Virginia my whole life. Never seen no alligators in the Mon.”
“They congregate at Pittsburgh.” He winked at Bell.
