July 6, 1892
Homestead, PA
A cannon boomed from the northern shore. The man, called Thomas Ewing, or sometimes Wyoming on account of his pronounced drawl and that Wyoming was where he hailed from, spun where he stood on the shifting deck of the covered barge. He turned to see a thin line of wispy smoke trailing from the muzzle of the cannon into the ponderous clouds of soot that hung heavy over the city. On the steep bank men struggled to prepare another shot, sliding slightly from the dew moistened clay - the river was living up to the name the Iroquois had given it: the river of steep and sliding banks, the Monongahela. It was a name few of the men on the barges knew, let alone could pronounce, nor did they care to learn it.
Ewing took aim at the men loading the cannon, measuring the shot in his mind. He lowered the gun. It was too far away for this cheap pistol. He wished he had his old revolver, a well balance piece that had been designed and forged specifically for his use, not this Frankenstein's monster of interchangeable parts. But that piece was long gone, buried with his brother in the chalky soil of what had once been home. That place of idyll that could never again be returned to, that had been laid to waste one warm day in June - but then, hadn't it always just been a beautiful fantasy? He ran a hand through his chestnut hair, returning it from disorder to its usual, side-swept place on his high, broad brow which rose at the sides, giving the front of his hair a slightly rounded appearance. He turned his gaze to the East.
A red band was growing upon the horizon between the black of the land and the black of the sky, announcing the coming of the dawn. Yet it brought no sense of reprieve with it, instead it was as though the hellmouth were opening to swallow them up. The celestial announcement that they had been penned on this floating death trap for hours, since two in the morning, neither able to make landfall nor to leave as the people of Homestead, these Homesteaders, laid siege to the pair of barges. Covered barges, no better than floating metal boxes, inside of which three hundred Pinkerton Detectives, most of whom had been in the employ of the agency for less than twenty-four hours, were huddled.
Floating by, set in dark relief by the rising sun, skiffs piloted by armed Homesteaders took aim at those on the barge. Any Pinkerton agent foolish enough to leave the safety of the metal covering was quickly chased back inside by shots from both the shore and the river.
Smoke poured from the factory chimneys that dotted the horizon. The horizon was much closer than he was accustomed to. The mountains embracing the city made it difficult to see even a mile out. The Pittsburghers were a hardy people, when the flat land ran out, they built on the sides of the mountain. Homestead had been thus carved into the mountainside that ran along the southern bank of the river, east of the city of Pittsburgh. Even now, with all the lamps lit, the large hill upon which the Homesteaders had built loomed over them, reflected on the river, giving it the appearance of the stars come down around them. Except for by the steelworks where torches, now hidden with their men behind a bulwark of scrap steel, gave the building an eerie orange glow.
The cannon fired another shot passing just over the nose of the barge that bobbed helplessly on the great muddy river. Inside the barge, men threw themselves against the deck, hunkering against the metal walls. Some openly wept under bunks and tables while others made pleas to their God, most had surrendered rifles for life vests as bullets rained from the south and cannon fire from the north. One attempted to jump from the barge into the filthy river, but Tom caught him by the collar and hauled him back. Ewing had never seen a more disgusting loss of sense. Diving into the water was madness.
At nearly eight o' clock, the barge swung toward the shore once again. Orders were given to disembark. Ewing rounded on the attempted escapee and grabbed his pistol. Spinning the cylinder he saw it was fully loaded, the muzzle clean and cool. The coward who had left it had not even attempted to fire back upon the men on the shore. He turned toward the south shore, toward the steelworks, hit both guns against his outer thighs to close the cylinders, and took aim through one of the holes hastily cut into the side of the barge. The shining silver buttons of his uniform blouse, each embossed with the letter P, glinted orange with the reflected fire, the same fire that shone in his protuberant blue eyes.
It had been billed as an easy job, one that the Pinkertons had experience with. Two weeks was deemed more than sufficient time to prepare. They were to come by barge in the middle of the night and take the steelworks, securing it for the non-Union workers. Just a quick job. He had needed the money. Ewing hadn't held a stable position since his enlistment with the 7th Cavalry had expired last year. He was young enough to re-enlist, only in his mid-thirties, but what he had seen, what he had had to do in Pine Ridge was beyond his tolerance. Even now he could see that little face with its dark eyes, peeking out of the snow, almost completely buried, held forever frozen in his dead mother's arms. The end of the Sioux war, they had hailed it. And it was the end. He was done fighting other men's wars. But war was not done with him, it seemed. He had known that the moment he heard that low whistle blow only minutes after they passed under the bridge with its strange crisscrossing arches.
He had felt the bridge's weird eyes upon him, as though it were watching them. They had not even reached the town before the first shots were fired by a steam launch. And then the whistle sounded, to be answered by another on shore. And he knew they would be waiting to greet the Pinkertons at the landing. The captains had known it as well for they began distributing firearms and billy clubs among the nervous men on the barges.
"We, the workers in these mills, are peaceably inclined," the tall, handsome, black mustachioed man who appeared to be the leader of the mob had shouted from the shore. "Peaceably inclined," he had claimed, after the crowd had already fired shots at them. "Peaceably inclined," after seeing even the oldest woman among them wielding a billy club and shouting threats of violence against them. "Peaceably inclined," as there they had stood, hundreds of them, on the shore, filling the landing: men, women, and even children brandishing any type of armament they could get their hands on and shouting threats of bloodshed and death upon the Pinkertons. The very sight caused a number of his comrades to lose their nerve. Whispers that perhaps they should go back rippled through the barrack barge, Iron Mountain. In minutes that choice would be lost to them.
Captain Heinde, the leader of the expedition, stepped out onto the deck and, with the arrogance of one who was used to getting his way, demanded that the Homesteaders withdraw or the Pinkertons would mow them down. From within the huddled masses of the barge, Ewing knew this was an empty threat. Most of the men had neither the heart nor the stomach for violence and already grumblings were beginning that this was not the job they had signed up for, to fight Frick's war for him.
There was shouting, a commotion at the shore. Ewing had pushed toward the open area of the platform, arriving just in time to see Captain Heinde knocked from his feet by a massive Hungarian. A gunshot rang out followed rapidly by another. Suddenly, the world exploded in a volley of gunfire. Ewing took aim at the leader of the mob, but just as he pulled the trigger, one of those men who had stood on deck dove for the safety of the covering, knocking Ewing's arm and causing the shot to miss. The man with the black mustache cradled his hand, retreating from the shoreline to the higher ground of the millworks.
A spurt of blood flew from Captain Heinde's leg, he fell to the deck in the company of a dozen other detectives. Packed in as they were in the barges, it was no more difficult than shooting hogs in a pen for the Homesteaders. Many of the Pinkertons had not even bothered to try to fight, rather they hid themselves behind any furniture they could find. Within ten minutes the shooting ceased and both sides regrouped while the tugboat that was their only means of escape chugged away with its cargo of wounded and dead. They would be forced to wait it out in the hopes that the Pennsylvania Militia would come to their aid. By six that morning, as the first rays of sunlight glowed from behind the mountains, reinforcements had come, but not to the side of the men on the barges. Ewing watched, a sinking within his breast, as the fiery salamander of torches snaked its way through the fog rising up from the hillside. The cannon boomed.
The Homesteaders had already proven they were beyond mercy, beyond reason. The Pinkertons had lost men, deaths the Homesteaders had cheered. The captains assured their men that the Pennsylvania Militia would soon come to rescue them. That Frick had planned for such an event, if it were to occur, and vowed support from the State were it needed.
That Frick had planned for such an event if it were to occur. Had Tom heard those words before the barge had disembarked, he never would have set foot onto it. The crates loaded with guns, the billy clubs, Frick, whoever he was, had anticipated this very thing would happen. He had expected it. He cared nothing for what might become of the three hundred souls on the barge. Nothing for the men who had bled and died on the barge deck. He had knowingly sent them into danger without even the decency to give them a choice whether they wanted to go.
Ewing glanced at his wristwatch. It was now minutes until eight. Six hours. Still, the tug had not returned. Still, there was no sign of the promised militia.
"Frick." Ewing pronounced the name and spat on the deck.
A lauded sharpshooter, Tom watched the steelworks from a hole roughly cut into the side of the barge, pistol cocked, waiting. From the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement from the pumphouse. He pulled the trigger. Time slowed for a moment as the dot of red on the workman's forehead grew. His eyes were frozen wide open, a cry escaped his gaping mouth as he fell backward, plummeting sixty feet from the pumphouse into the ditch below. Though he could neither feel nor hear it, Ewing winced from the percussion of the workman's landing. He could sense, within him, the shattering of the workman's bones. Shouts of rage echoed from the shore.
A cannonball ripped through the barge, just narrowly missing Ewing, he ducked down into a kneeling position. Another cannonball flew by, just narrowly overshooting the barge. The missile exploded upon the shore. A young man was bleeding from his head on the shore while another, who looked as though he could have been his brother, stared in shock as the life left the other's eyes.
Ewing turned and reloaded his guns, returning to his post just in time to see the head of one of the workers split from the lip, the top half disappearing. A loaf of bread rolled from the dead man's hand.
"He was unarmed!" Ewing shouted at the old sharpshooter who smiled with satisfaction at his kill.
"What do you care? He was just a hunky. I had a shot and I took it."
Ewing spat. Holstering his spare pistol he continued to watch. The sounds of battle died down again. Still came the intermittent retort; here from the shore, there from the barge. The cannon fire had ceased. Perhaps they had run out of shot, he thought, indifferently, no longer able to muster from within himself the ability to care. It was just one more battle in an endless stream of wars.
He slid down with his back against the north-facing barge wall, hands hanging loosely from his knees, the pistol dangling from his fingers. Killing was one of the few skills he possessed and he was so weary of it. He rubbed his face against the rolled sleeve on his bicep. He was vaguely surprised to see a streak of oily filth where his forehead had been. It was only now he realized his jaw was sore - he had not even been aware he had been clenching it. Ewing massaged the joint of that squared bone. Too squared. Too broad. Too short. It told tales on him that he wished to forget. He leaned his head back against the wall, and there, lulled by the sound of screams and gunfire, he fell asleep.
He awoke some time later to great shouts of acclamation and joy. Getting to his feet he grabbed one of the other men by the shoulder.
"What's going on?" he drawled, still not fully awake. The drawl had a bit of a hard catch, not natural of Wyoming, what had once been normal now the result of an unguarded moment.
"It's the tugboat! He's come back for us!" the other man cried, almost weeping with joy.
Tom Ewing pushed through the cheering crowd. There, coming toward the barges, American Flag streaming in the wind, was the Little Bill.
As the tugboat approached a sudden volley of shots exploded from the shore, peppering the Little Bill. The few windows on the boat that had not broken in the original volleys were now shattered, forcing the pilot from the wheel. A shot just narrowly missed the captain. A crewman went down, bleeding profusely from the groin. The tugboat began to drift downstream to the horror of the men in the barges. Any hope that had sprung up in them was now dashed. They looked as though men facing the ferryman's approach, for surely this must be the river Styx. And how many of them, in that terrible moment, might have willingly joined Charon, if only that he promised escape from the interminable waiting.
A cheer of victory rose from those on shore as the tugboat floated away.
Ewing shook his head, turning back toward cover when he heard a terrible groan from the men at the barge opening followed by hysterical jabbering. Ewing spun to see, there, on the shore, the Homesteaders were loading a raft with lumber. A man poured oil on the load and then, grinning, lit a match. The lumber burst into flame as the raft was shoved out toward the barges. They meant to set the barges on fire!
Men rushed toward the deck, clearly intent on jumping when one of the Pinkerton captains brandished a gun and threatened to shoot anyone who tried. Men wept as their doom slowly drifted toward them. Ewing held his breath, waiting. He would swim if he had to, but he was not ready to surrender yet.
As though an act of mercy from God Himself, the flaming raft burned itself out before reaching the barges. But the relief of the Pinkertons was short lived. The sharpshooters on their rafts remained at a distance, rifles at the ready, waiting. Perhaps they knew something the Pinkertons did not. Then a scream rose from one of the cut out barge windows and Ewing saw it. A second fireball barreled toward them in the form of a burning railroad flatcar loaded with barrels of oil. Men screamed, running over each other to try to get as far from the end of the barge where the flatcar would collide as they could, rocking the barge perilously, an unsettled sensation that only added to their panic. Water sloshed over the tilting edge of the barge, splashing onto the men who were beyond caring about such matters. Ewing knew better than to attempt to fight his way into the crush. In his mind he could see the flatcar tearing through the thin metal flesh of the barge. To jump would be certain death, to stay, the same. His only hope was that he might be thrown far enough by the impact that he could evade the men on their rafts. He braced for the impact, his eyes never wavering from his fiery death. And then, just as it hit the water's edge, it stopped. The flatcar sat, burning, just yards away from where the barges floated. Curses rang out from the Homestead side while a number of the Pinkertons, on bended knees with tears flowing from their eyes, gave thanks to God for this second miraculous act of deliverance.
The Homesteaders were becoming more desperate to do away with the trapped detectives. After a few paltry attempts to dynamite the barges failed, Ewing watched as they began dumping barrels of oil into the water. The dark rainbow slick drifted toward the barges, lapping at their edges. With dawning horror, Ewing realized what the Homesteaders were planning.
They were going to set the river on fire.