The Anarchist

by John Smolens

  “What about the Pinkertons?” Hyde asked.

  “What about them, Hyde?” Savin said.

  “You told me Norris was important.”

  “He is.” Savin seemed embarrassed that the subject had even been raised. “But what’s more important at this point is that dynamite.”

  “Dynamite, sir?” Rutherford said.

  “Right,” Savin said. “According to Hyde, they’ve got dynamite, which they intend to use to kill Leon Czolgosz when his train arrives in Auburn later tonight. Their idea is to make a martyr of him. It’s a hell of a notion—this is the kind of people we’re dealing with here. I want to get the Pinkertons out alive, but the dynamite is now our priority, understand?” He stared at Rutherford and Hyde, waiting for a response, and when there was none, he said, “Now, let’s move.”

  TUCK opened the back doors of the milk wagon. Gimmel had put the lantern out, and Norris could barely see him climb out and open a stall where one of the horses was kept. As he bridled the horse, he gave orders in German. He spoke rapidly and no one questioned him. There seemed a resignation in their silence.

  Tuck came over to Norris’s stall and knelt on one knee; with a knife he cut the rope that held Norris to the gatepost. Norris got to his feet with some difficulty, as his hands were still bound in front of him. Tuck opened the gate and then motioned with the knife. Norris stepped outside the stall and walked to the back of the wagon, where he turned and sat on the floor, and then leaned back so he could swing his legs inside. He watched Gimmel throw a saddle up on the horse’s back.

  “What are you doing, Gimmel?” he asked.

  “You’re going for a little ride, Pinkerton.”

  “Where?”

  Gimmel didn’t answer as he concentrated on tightening cinches, but when he was finished he said, “I suppose you believe in some form of eternity.”

  “Don’t really give it much thought,” Norris said. “I find the here and now occupies all of my time.”

  “Perhaps we have that in common.” Gimmel climbed up into the saddle and walked the horse a few steps toward the milk wagon. “Whatever’s at the end of here and now, Norris, that’s about where you’re headed.” He nodded, as a gesture of farewell, it seemed, and then Tuck closed the wagon doors.

  Again, Norris found himself sitting in the dark breathing that sickening smell of milk.

  THERE was noise in the barn suddenly—pounding hooves, wheels, yelling—and then a wagon came through the open doors, scattering chickens in the yard. The moonlight was bright enough that Hyde could see three men sitting on the driver’s bench, Bruener on the left, Josef on the right—both firing pistols in the direction of the creek, while the man between them slapped the reins on the horse’s haunches. Hyde stretched out his arm and began shooting. The wagon bucked over the rutted path that ran alongside the pasture, making it difficult to draw a bead. Mewling cows trotted in a panic across Hyde’s line of fire. He could hear Rutherford’s shots, muffled by the woods, and a burst of gunfire came from the far side of the barn. The smell of gunpowder filled the night air.

  As the wagon neared the house, someone stepped out on the porch—it wasn’t the girl, but the older woman, her mother. She carried a rifle on her hip, which she fired twice, taking down the horse. The wagon ran up on the animal’s hindquarters and for a moment it was poised at an angle on two wheels before it fell over on its left side. All three men were thrown to the ground, where they lay hurt, and a fourth tumbled out of the back of the wagon.

  The woman sat down on the porch step and began to cry. The girl and two small children came out and hovered around her. Hyde climbed up over the bank of the creek and ran across the pasture. He could tell that the man thrown from the back of the wagon was Norris; his hands were tied in front of him but he managed to get to his feet. He limped badly as he went to the nearest man—Klaus Bruener—picked up a gun that lay on the ground, aimed, and fired. Bruener cried out and began crawling back toward the barn. Norris fired twice more and Bruener stopped moving. Norris hobbled over to the man who had been driving the wagon and shot him once in the head.

  “Norris” Hyde shouted when he reached the barnyard.

  Norris was working his way toward the boy, Josef, who was writhing on the ground, holding his leg. “I’m going to finish them, Hyde.” He seemed oddly gleeful. But then he knelt down and sat back in the dirt, clutching his injured foot. “Goddamn, I think I must have busted my ankle.” Looking around, he said, “I don’t see Gimmel. You already shoot that bastard?”

  From the open barn door Savin said, “He rode off.” He walked out into the yard, holding his left arm tight to his body as though in fear that he might somehow drop it. His forearm was slick with blood which glistened in the moonlight. “I believe I have lost a good portion of my elbow.”

  “Gimmel shoot you?” Norris asked.

  “He rode a horse out the back of the barn,” Savin said.

  Norris nodded toward a crate that lay on its side near the back of the wagon. “He took some of the dynamite.”

  They were silent for a moment, and the only sound in the yard was of Josef grinding his heel in the dirt. The girl had gone to him, but she didn’t seem to know what to do.

  “Where is that boy with our horses?” Savin asked.

  As if in response they heard the sound of hooves; turning, they watched Rutherford lead their horses out of the woods and across the creek at a point where its banks were low, and then they trotted up the pasture. They came into the yard and stopped, breathing heavily and snorting.

  “You’re losing a lot of blood,” Hyde said.

  “Gimmel’s on his way to Auburn,” Savin said.

  “You need to have that looked after,” Hyde said.

  “There’s an old doctor,” the girl said. “Lives two farms to the south.”

  “Rutherford,” Hyde said, “you fetch that doctor.” He went over and climbed up on his horse.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Hyde?” Savin asked.

  “Somebody’s got to go to Auburn.”

  THE train made a brief stop in Rochester, where a conductor and a porter boarded the Pullman car. They told Sheriff Caldwell that they’d received a wire saying that a large crowd was gathering in Auburn. After that the policemen seemed more somber; they talked quietly and the car was filled with cigar smoke. At the station in Victor a series of bloodred lanterns had been hung above the platform, and in Canandaigua another group of people stood alongside the tracks.

  Sheriff Caldwell came down the aisle and again sat across from Czolgosz. “If there’s a mob in Auburn,” Mitchell said, “they might tear him apart.” He spoke as though Czolgosz weren’t sitting next to him.

  The sheriff nodded. “Maybe so.”

  “We could go on through,” Mitchell offered, “not stop at Auburn. Wait it out till the mob breaks up and sneak him into the prison.”

  Sheriff Caldwell considered this for a long moment, and then he leaned toward Czolgosz. “You want another cigar?” he asked. “You might not get any more once the train arrives.”

  For some reason Czolgosz couldn’t decide whether he wanted a cigar or not, and he just stared back at Caldwell. Finally the sheriff prepared the cigar, clipping the tip with his pocketknife and then lighting it for him. “You know, Leon,” he said, drawing hard, causing the match flame to be sucked into the rolled end of the cigar. “I do think you look the least bit nervous. I understand you’ve been real calm about everything in Buffalo.” He handed the lit cigar over.

  Czolgosz took a puff; it was a mild cigar, not too harsh. “These are good,” he said. “The president, he liked Garcias. These are good but they’re no Garcias.”

  “Your guards gave them to me back in Buffalo.” Caldwell got to his feet. He began to turn up the aisle, but looked back at Czolgosz. “This train stops at Auburn. We’ll get you in prison—I don’t care how big a mob there is. We’re not traveling five hours from Buffalo just to skip out on delivering our man.” Without wai
ting for a response, he began to make his way toward the front of the car.

  “I was raised on a pig farm outside of Elmira.” Mitchell closed his eyes as he slid down and made himself more comfortable, his feet propped on the opposite bench. “I had a cousin Jody that fell off the fence and knocked hisself out. Them hogs tore’m apart. We heard him screaming something awful, but by the time my pa got there it was too late. They was dragging him around the pen by his intestines. Never seen nothing like it.”

  Czolgosz leaned toward the window again, until his forehead touched the glass. His chest was tight and he found that he had to breathe carefully. The last time he felt this way he had been at Big Maud’s—the night before he shot the president. Moses Hyde had come upstairs to Motka’s room, drunk. Czolgosz was half asleep when his Iver Johnson revolver fell on the floor. Brand-new, loaded, but never been fired. Hyde picked up the gun and aimed it at Czolgosz. There was a moment as he sat up in bed, staring at the end of the barrel, when Czolgosz’s chest seized up so tight he couldn’t get any air down into his lungs. But then Motka crowned Hyde with the chamber pot, and Czolgosz was able to take a deep breath. A Russian immigrant girl trapped in the attic of a whorehouse, with a chamber pot—it was a moment that changed everything, it changed history. But now, as he stared out at a moonlit cornfield, Czolgosz wished Hyde had pulled the trigger. Only Hyde had known what he was capable of, what was in his heart. He could have ended it all there.

  ORDINARILY the streets of Auburn would have been empty after two a.m., but tonight men were everywhere, walking in groups, talking among themselves. Lamps burned in windows; women and children stood on front porches and in doorways, watching. On the main street, Hyde dismounted and tied his horse to a post. He fell in stride with the others, who seemed drawn as if by a siren’s call. They were walking toward the prison, which loomed high above a stone wall. A mob—perhaps a thousand people or more—was gathering in the street between the front gate of the prison and the train station. Some men held torches and there was a collective murmur that seemed both angry and joyous. Occasional shouts and bits of song rose up from small groups. The night had turned cool and there was the smell of whiskey in the air. Hyde was reminded of the crowds that gathered around the baseball field in Buffalo, there as much for the chance of a good brawl as for watching the game.

  He tried to study each face but it was hopeless. Even with his grossly disfigured features, Gimmel could easily get lost in such a mob. Still, Hyde pushed his way through, toward the station platform. Most likely Gimmel would strike quickly, soon after the train arrived. Hyde finally reached the platform, where the crowd was more agitated and boisterous, as though they were on the brink of some great ritualistic ceremony. The uniformed policemen who tried to keep order were merely shoved and jostled about by the swarming mass.

  There was a large wooden box next to one of the lampposts; SAND was painted on the side. Two boys stood on the closed lid, watching the crowd, and there was just room for one more—Hyde hoisted himself up and stood behind them. They were perhaps twelve years old, both wearing knickers and wool caps, and they regarded him as an intruder.

  “Listen,” he said, taking some coins from his pocket, “I need to find a man here and I’ll give you a dime to help me out.” He placed a coin in each of their hands, and they exchanged startled glances. “My friend has scars on his face, terrible scars, and if I don’t get him home quickly his wife will—well, she’ll give him a good thrashing, understand? So let’s see if we can spot him, all right?”

  The boys nodded, and then they began to scan the crowd. Minutes passed. The crowd grew larger, more densely packed on the platform, which flanked both sides of the tracks. A man stepped outside of the station and shouted, “Ten minutes!” which brought cheers.

  The taller of the two boys tugged on Hyde’s coat sleeve. “There?”

  A man with a deep scar down his cheek stood at the edge of the platform.

  “No,” Hyde said. “Keep looking.”

  “How ’bout that one, mister?” the other boy said. He pointed across the tracks, and Hyde saw Gimmel standing near the edge of the platform on the far side.

  Hyde put several more coins in the boys’ hands and leaped down from the box. He shouldered his way to the front of the platform. As he crossed the tracks Gimmel saw him, and disappeared into the crowd. Hyde followed, though he was unable to see Gimmel. There were fewer men on this side of the tracks, and soon Hyde reached a wooden fence; he caught a glimpse of Gimmel climbing over the fence and plunging into some tall bushes. Hyde placed his hands on the top rail of the fence, vaulted over, and then crashed through the bushes, branches whipping and scraping his face. He emerged into a street and heard footsteps to his left. Gimmel looked over his shoulder as he turned a street corner. Hyde pulled his revolver from his belt and ran after him.

  He went down a narrow street lined with small houses. Ahead, Gimmel’s coat bulged, and he ran as though he were weighed down—Hyde was sure he had dynamite strapped about his torso. People watched from their porches and front yards. At the end of two blocks there was an open field and Hyde stopped next to the trunk of a tree and listened—he heard nothing but the distant sound of the crowd back at the station. As he stepped away from the tree, there was a gunshot from the other side of the field and chips of bark sprayed his face. He stepped back behind the trunk, and rubbed his stinging right eye. Then, looking across the field, he saw Gimmel for a moment as he lumbered toward a row of weeping willows. Hyde crossed the field, which was covered with corn slash, and when he reached the willows the land dropped off to a stream. To his right he could hear Gimmel’s feet push through water. Hyde went down into the stream, the water cold, the bottom silt and littered with fallen branches. After about fifty yards, he rounded a bend in the stream and could no longer hear Gimmel ahead of him.

  He climbed up out of the stream and dropped to one knee on the muddy bank. He could see that the stream went over a low falls and fed into a pool. Next to the falls was a building with a partially collapsed roof and the remnants of a wheel hanging above the cascading water. Gimmel fired again, the flash of his muzzle coming from between the paddles in the wheel, and then he went behind the building.

  Hyde got to his feet and worked his way slowly down alongside the stream. He could only hear the relentless hiss of the water pouring over the falls. The windows had been removed from the building, leaving tall oblong openings, and Hyde watched the second story. The footing became difficult as he moved over slick rocks. Just as he neared the falls, he saw movement in the opening at the left corner of the building. Gimmel called out, but Hyde couldn’t understand a word over the sound of the waterfall. Gimmel shouted louder, his voice both desperate and angry. Hyde thought he heard the word “strife.” Or perhaps it had been “life.” Then Gimmel fired twice.

  Hyde lost his footing, and as he fell backward his gun went off just as his head struck rock. The pain brought white streaks to his vision, and he lay on his back, dazed. Above him, Gimmel seemed oddly poised and then he took a step forward. Hyde realized he had dropped his gun—he rolled onto his side and ran his hands over the rocks, but couldn’t find it. Raising his head, he saw Gimmel fall from the window and plunge into the pool, sending up a wall of whitewater. There was no sound, no sight of him.

  Hyde got to his feet and walked to the edge of the pool.

  Gimmel broke the surface, flailing his arms, and he had difficulty keeping his head above water. He sounded like he was choking as he pawed at the water frantically—but the weight of the dynamite was too great, and he suddenly disappeared. Hyde waited, but Gimmel didn’t come up again. The surface of the pool calmed and Hyde could see a wavering reflection of the moon. In the distance there was the sound of a train whistle.

  AS the train passed slowly through the outskirts of Auburn, Czolgosz felt as though he were stationary while houses and buildings were moving past his window, an optical illusion that caused a hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach. He
was still handcuffed to Mitchell, who was dozing. Sitting across from him, Sheriff Caldwell periodically took a nip of whiskey from a flask he kept inside his overcoat.

  Mitchell opened his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Just about three o’clock,” Caldwell said.

  The train slowed to a crawl, allowing four guards to board the Pullman car, and as soon as they came inside one of them said loudly, “They’re waiting for him, boys.”

  Sheriff Caldwell got to his feet. “How many?”

  “Oh, God. Easily over a thousand.” The man, like most of the detectives, was broad in the shoulders and he wore an overcoat and a good suit. He was trying not to show fear, but it was in his eyes. “Prison’s just across the street from the station, but we got to get him through them.” His voice cracked a bit. “It ain’t far to the front gate, but there’s a lot of them and they’re hungry.”

  “I’m telling you, we could still pass on through,” Mitchell said. “Stop at the next town and bring him back once the crowd gives up.”

  Czolgosz looked at the sheriff, who ignored him—sitting with his hand cupping his chin, his forefinger pressed against his lips. “No,” Caldwell said, “we’ll proceed as planned.”

  An involuntary trembling developed in Czolgosz’s arms and legs, and as the train pulled into the station he could see hundreds of men gathered alongside the tracks, shouting and screaming. Some carried torches, which illuminated their angry faces.

  Sheriff Caldwell got to his feet and hollered, “Listen now, boys. We’ll go out the back door here. Surround the prisoner and don’t stop—keep moving toward the prison gate.” He looked up and down the car, studying each man. “And whatever you do, no guns.”