Haywood stood on the hearth, booming:
Vperyod! Vperyod! Vperyod! Vperyod! Vperyod!
(Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward!)
Thirty minutes later, when the quartet played “Blue Danube,” a quick-step Viennese waltz, Haywood danced with Winnie, and then for a few bars with his daughters. Afterwards, he stood near Neva and George while continuing to engage with others.
George whispered a few things with Neva before turning to Haywood. “Bill, Neva would like to dance, and—”
“Ah, no. I’m tuckered.”
“In that case, may I have the honor?”
“God speed,” Haywood snorted. “I like two good legs.”
Neva whipped her face away, refusing the blow’s impact, and muttered under her breath, “How about two good eyes?”
“Watch her crutches don’t crush you,” Haywood added.
“Yes,” muttered George before going to the musicians. “Sirs, do you know the new waltz—a slow one, ‘The Merry Widow?’”
“Aye,” replied the pianist.
Moments later, at the edge of people on swirling display, including Winnie and Haywood, George and Neva smiled and turned, wobbled and swayed, his hand at her waist, her nose to his chest. They stumbled some, laughed, whispered, and silently yearned.
<><><>
– 11 –
SATURDAY
December 29, 1906
The winter of 1906 was not unlike others on the bleak, wind-thrashed landscape of Idaho: it was hellaciously cold. And Saturday, December 29, was likewise unremarkable. The leaden sky had been dropping snow since before dawn, and by early afternoon a fresh four inches lay silent across the broad flats toward the Snake River, west and south of Boise; and almost erased the low mountain range to the north and northeast of what was perhaps the most banal of America’s state capitals. This vast covering also buried the frozen streets of Caldwell, a somnolent cluster of homes and businesses thirty miles west of Boise. And it was there along Caldwell’s longest boardwalk, reaching three quarters of a mile from the town’s center to its upscale neighborhood, that death came plodding in a bear coat tugged tight against the wind.
***
The stout farmer-newspaperman-banker-governor of Idaho, Frank Steunenberg (forty-four, six foot two, two hundred and thirty-five pounds) was standing by the window of his home study, wearing a smoking jacket, when his lanky young daughter bounded in. Pretending to be a butler, she stood at attention, announcing the man at the front door, Mr. O’Malley, was an insurance man seeking an audience with the governor—not at the house, but at the governor’s bank office, at 3:00 that afternoon. Frank grinned at her.
Just before his precocious “butler” had made her entrance, Frank had been watching from the window—observing the pointy-beaked, satchel-clasping Mr. O’Malley open the front gate and approach the house. Though Frank hadn’t seen the man before, he knew who he was. Frank’s $4,500 life insurance policy would expire at the end of the year—in two days. Thus, three weeks prior, Frank had gone to the Saratoga Hotel and left a message for the New York Life Insurance Company salesman who he knew was staying there. The message requested the man call on Frank before the expiration of both the year and the policy.
But today Frank was in no mood for a salesman. Least of all a salesman whose profession anticipated his death. It made his stomach gurgle with malaise, with melancholy—though in truth that grayness had draped him since Christmas day—the day an unfamiliar voice phoned Frank, warning him of some non-specific yet pending mortal danger.
Two months had passed since his mass arrests had ended. The Bunker Hill attack had been a horrific bombing, but— He winced at his decision to declare martial law in the aftermath, to have Pinkertons make the arrests. The papers had quoted him saying, “We have taken the monster by the throat and we are going to choke the life out of it. No halfway measures will be adopted. It is a plain case of the state or the union winning, and we do not propose that the state shall be defeated.” It was not just pretension, but trite obfuscation. He knew that. And yes, the incarcerations had been wrong—but he had promptly turned the men loose, hadn’t he? He hadn’t taken further actions. He didn’t hire the Pinkertons to release the men, but instead used men from the Thiel Agency, friendly to the Federation. His friend Senator William Borah had seen to that.
He understood campaign donations from the Western Federation of Miners, and from Bill Haywood individually, had played an important role in his election two years prior. Perhaps even the deciding element. And he was not so foolish or naïve as to fail to acknowledge his unwritten, post-election obligation to assist the Federation where he might—at least in Idaho. But that didn’t mean the Federation could indiscriminately run wild and murderous in his state, blowing up mines and killing dozens of innocent men. No. But perhaps he had overreacted ordering the arrest of thousands, holding them without trial, letting them be guarded by Negro soldiers. But he had needed to send a message. Hadn’t he?
Then, of course, the newspapers pounced, saying the captive union men were being held under the most brutal and tyrannical of conditions; and those same editors would further claim that he, the governor, had violated the free rights of every Idahoan. Well, that simply was not true, and Frank had said so, in writing: “The inhabitants themselves deprive themselves of a republican form of government by insurrection and rebellion.” It was a bit of prevarication, but it spawned a flood of poorly written, enraged letters, many from Colorado, threatening his death, declaring him a marked man. But surely Big Bill, a thousand miles away in Denver, would understand that it wasn’t all Steunenberg’s fault. In fact, Haywood must have understood that, Steunenberg reasoned, because the death threats had subsided. In fact, there hadn’t been one since Thanksgiving. It had reached its denouement, he had told himself. Then the telephone rang on Christmas Day. Another threat—not really—more of a warning.
In a few days Steunenberg would talk with the Federation’s Idaho representative. They would smooth things over. No, he would have that meeting in a few weeks. Maybe. He wanted the whole affair to be done with, for it to have never happened. Damn them, those capricious terrorists. Why couldn’t they leave him alone? 1907 was just a couple of days away. It held promise. Maybe in the new year he would go to Denver and meet directly with Big Bill. They would make peace.
But for now, not only would he not let his life insurance lapse, he would increase it to $10,000—requiring a lengthy conversation with the salesman who was now stamping for warmth downstairs on the front stoop. Yes, going to his office was best. There was no reason to risk his wife overhearing the conversation, thus increasing her anxiety. The German grandfather clock began to chime 2:00. He looked at his thirteen-year-old charmer. “Tell him ‘Yes,’ darling. I’ll meet him at my office at three.”
“Can’t you stay, Papa?” she implored. “Momma and I are making cherry pies.”
“I smell them! Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long.”
After she left, Frank went to the window and again peered at the stony man below. “Why didn’t you telephone?” he whispered as if the man might hear him, then added, “And on such a bitter day?” Then the thought came to him: perhaps the salesman didn’t know if the governor’s residence had a telephone. Yes, maybe that was it.
***
In a one-nag cart half a block away, on the same side of the street as the Steunenberg house (so as to be unseen from the house’s front windows), Harry Orchard shivered. He could see Steve Adams standing on the front step of the governor’s house, an empty clutch satchel in one hand, Orchard’s heavy bear coat around his shoulders. Adams’s other hand was hidden beneath the coat’s flap, and Orchard knew what it held: Adams’s damn Bowie knife. That imbecile had better stick to the goddamned plan, thought Orchard.
Upon his arrival in Boise two months prior, Orchard had commenced pursuing two objectives: One was
to conduct a thus-far-unsuccessful courtship with the paper-baby woman from the train, Miss Carla Capone. When he learned she’d come to Boise to serve as a waitress for the Saratoga Hotel, not only had he lodged himself there, but he dined at the Saratoga each evening. For the first week, Carla hadn’t stood still long enough for even a pleasantry. She’d flit to his table in her deep-red, narrow skirt that made his limbs turn jelly, receive his order in even tones, then turn on her heel before he could muster the slightest introduction. During the second week, when she gave him a convivial “good morning,” he took it for significant interest. In the fourth week, she lingered just long enough for him to learn her name and her opinion of the weather. He wanted to ask about the Denver Post child but lost his nerve. That was no way to woo a woman, he told himself, to interrogate her over something so private as a baby, real or not.
Then came the conversation last week when she sat briefly at his table, resting herself, smiling at him. She asked about his business in Boise—to which he spoke of being in the sheep trade, scouting for land, and how he might have doings with Governor Steunenberg. But then her ebullient dark eyes looked toward people at another table—her expression implacable, unimpressed. As best he could tell, she seemed to anticipate something else from him, perhaps some higher occupation. The gall, from a waitress. He ached to tell her that he was a master bomb maker—the best in the nation. Probably the world. That would excite her. Maybe. Women were unfathomable creatures, impossible to cipher.
Of course his primary objective in Boise was to bomb the life out of Governor Steunenberg. After following the governor for weeks, Orchard became familiar with the man’s paths, his preferences, even his peculiarities about pipe tobacco and paper bills. He knew the man’s brothers and friends (one being Senator Borah), and Orchard had seen the governor’s wife and children. Meanwhile he quietly gathered the necessary supplies to kill the man. His plan was underway.
Then, to his severe disappointment, he discovered that the vermin Steve Adams was still in Boise. Big Bill had been clear: Adams was supposed to be in San Francisco killing the fairly-recently-one-handed Bunker Hill Mine superintendent. And Orchard, after assassinating the governor, was to kill Adams upon Adams’s return. Those were his orders—orders inked in the boss’s hand. Though the one to kill Adams had been reduced to ash in Big Bill’s office, the one to kill the governor was still fast in Orchard’s hat.
At first, Orchard managed to deflect Adams’s questions as to why Orchard was there. But one night, after they’d put away enough whiskey to marinate a buffalo, Orchard mumbled out the assassination plans. In response, Adams further delayed his trip to San Francisco, insisting instead that he be made part of the assassination plot. So Orchard reluctantly included him—Adams being an exceedingly dangerous man to refuse. Of course Orchard would still be the only one designing, making, planting, and using the bomb. But Adams could cause confusion. He might lead the Pinkertons away from Orchard’s scent.
Throughout December, while searching for a new plan, one possibility lingered in Orchard’s mind—in fact it tormented him: Adams might go off and kill the governor himself. This thought ripened as Adams vented growing jealousy over Orchard getting the task in the first place. Adams even suggested that he might warn the governor so as to spoil Orchard’s plan, thus leaving the governor to Adams’s blade. If anything like that happened, well, it would be bad. Adams would be breaking Haywood’s express instructions. Worse, it would rob Orchard of the chance to use the bomb he had so vigilantly devised. And, worse still, Adams would probably kill the governor’s entire family. That was not acceptable to Orchard. The innocent should pass unharmed. Killing should have limits, goddamnit.
One solution was for Orchard to kill Adams then and there, before any attack on the governor. After all, Orchard had been ordered to kill Adams eventually, so perhaps he should do it sooner than later. But that would be contrary to Haywood’s instructions. Moreover, then Orchard would have to go to San Francisco himself, and kill the one-armed superintendent. No, Sir! Not after that recent earthquake and devil’s fire killed everybody there. No, he wouldn’t be going to California anytime soon. That was entirely too dangerous.
So Steve Adams would be the feint, the cover, the distraction. He should be observed near Governor Steunenberg’s home a few hours before the bomb. Then, once the governor was a ghost, Adams should be seen hurriedly embarking a train east to Cheyenne, but with ticketing that included going west to San Francisco. That would draw the Pinks after Adams, and might confuse them, leaving Orchard time to slip from Boise securely—perhaps even with the charming Miss Capone on his arm. But under what pretense could Adams be seen near the governor’s home, in Caldwell, just beyond Boise?
A week before Christmas, the solution presented itself. Orchard overheard Governor Steunenberg at the Saratoga Hotel’s front desk dictating a message for one of the hotel guests: a life insurance salesman named Thomas O’Malley whom Steunenberg had yet to meet. (The message asked Mr. O’Malley to call on the governor before the year was up.) Orchard and Adams then tracked O’Malley, and on Christmas Eve they killed him beside Dickason’s Livery and Machines. That allowed Adams, posing as O’Malley, to walk to the governor’s house, making himself seen along the way. At the house, Adams would request the governor come to a meeting at 3:00. Orchard would be in position by 2:00. Then, when the governor walked out his front door, down his porch steps, along his walk, and opened his front gate—he would be blown into oblivion.
Now the plan was underway. Orchard was watching from the distant cart as Adams stood on the governor’s porch—waiting for something or someone to return. Doubt swamped Orchard’s mind. The plan was off to a bad start due to the weather. All the way down the boardwalk, Adams had covered his face with Orchard’s bear coat, protecting himself from the howling wind. That meant no one would be able to testify to having seen Adams in the neighborhood. Regardless, Adams was now on the governor’s porch, having just spoken with the governor’s daughter. The daughter, Orchard thought—yes—Adams had in fact been seen by her. This might still work.
But in the next few seconds, there in that quiet, snowy neighborhood, it might also go entirely wrong—Adams might reach for his knife. Orchard cursed himself for making the plan too complicated, for making it require him to trust Adams, of all people. What a fool he’d been. Adams would cut the eyes from an angel only to piss in her sockets. So why trust Adams to show restraint? Even in the cold, Orchard found himself in a clammy sweat. “Don’t do it,” he whispered. “Don’t kill him before I do.”
***
When the Steunenberg’s door opened, Adams flexed, preparing to spring into deadly action if necessary. But instead of the governor, there stood the same young girl with whom he had first spoken.
“Yes, he’ll meet you at his office at three.” She shut the door.
Adams stood for a moment, then turned and walked down the step and crunched across the snow-packed walk to the white-picket gate set in the matching fence that circumscribed the front yard—the fence’s peaks and posts standing sentinel over the snow. As Adams opened the gate, he paused to touch the latch post, then knelt as if tying his shoe. From that perspective, he could see a portion of a white cord in the snow, one end disappearing along the walk path, the other dipping into a mixture of ice and fresh dirt near the gate. He then rose and strolled toward the horse cart.
As Adams approached, he groused to Orchard, “Bastard’s all yours.” Then he climbed aboard while the snow-dusted horse roused in its traces.
“Good,” said Orchard, stepping down from the box. He checked his watch and waggled his hand in the air. “My coat.”
Adams grumbled while removing it.
“Train to Cheyenne is leaving on the hour. But say you’re going to San Francisco. Be seen,” said Orchard, donning his coat. “But don’t board till you hear about the blast.”
“I know.”
Orchard
looked squarely at Adams. “I’m obliged that you didn’t kill the governor’s girl. We need her to identify you.”
“I don’t kill no kids,” snapped Adams, but clucked his tongue. “Unless I gotta.” After a beat he added, “Saw your trigger wire.” Another pause, and then, “He’s coming out shortly. Going to his office at three. You remember I made this happen for you. Might oughta thank me.”
“I said I’m obliged. Get gone.”
“Hup!” barked Adams. The horse clomped and soon the grinding sloosh of the iron-banded wheels faded away. Orchard slipped between houses to wait.
***
At 5:30 that evening, Frank Steunenberg smiled in remembrance, the image of his children engulfing him. Earlier, around 2:30, having left his home through his kitchen door so as to avoid his son following him out, Frank had walked the snowy mile to his office for the appointed 3:00 meeting. But when the insurance man never arrived, Frank finished some light paperwork, then rose to make the thirty-minute walk home. Though it was after dark, if he left now, the children might still be awake for a wrestle to the bemusement of his wife. He put his arms through his coat, snuffed the oil lamps, locked the bank office doors, and left.
The near-black starless sky had resumed dropping its silent snow. Frank’s shoes crunched; and, as he felt the moisture against his ankles, he wondered why he had not worn his boots. He made the turn from the boulevard onto his street’s long boardwalk, and there he saw his home at the end, the warm glow from the windows. As he approached, he saw the silhouette of his daughter watching for him in the window. Good, they are still up, he thought. With two more houses to go, Frank passed a row of holly bushes, their black-green leaves almost buried in the dark-gray white of the evening snow. Noting the small silhouette of his son had joined that of his daughter in the window, he failed to see the figure of a man crouching low in the blackness of the hedge row.
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