The Empire of Shadows Read online

  She led him to a front room where a china cabinet was stacked with boxes of cartridges in every caliber from .22 to .45-75. They settled up on a box of .32s, which he stuffed in his pants pocket. They were about to go when Tupper spotted a large wooden ammunition box on the floor filled with knives and bayonets. He bent and pulled out a medium-size belt knife with a five-inch blade. As he did, something else caught his eye and he dug it out and held it up to the light.

  It was a handmade weapon with a blade, a spike actually, made from a bayonet. It had been cut down and fitted with a bone handle, banded and capped with brass. The spike, maybe eight inches of blued steel, was perfect for hiding in a boot. There were two of them, relics of some soldier’s handiwork.

  “Two dollars gets you both, the knife and the bayonet I mean,” Bess said before he had a chance to ask. Tupper handed it over without a word. He didn’t have much cash left. “You ain’t takin’ much chances, are ya, Mister?” Bess commented over her shoulder as they walked towards the back door. Tupper had looped the knife onto his belt, but still fingered the needlelike point of the spike as he followed her. “No I ain’t, Bess,” he said in the dark.

  Three

  The stage is the worst form of traveling you can possibly imagine, unfit for anyone to ride in. I have heard that invalids sometimes die on their way to the Adirondacks; now I know why.

  —VERPLANCK COLVIN

  A steam whistle shrieked against the vaulted glass ceiling of the Grand Central train shed. The tortured water writhed and sputtered as it screamed from the boiler of an idling engine. Tom Braddock watched as the cloud of steam drifted up toward the roof. Slowly it shifted and shrank, cut here and there by unseen currents of air eddying uneasily. Change was never easy, Braddock thought as he listened to the mournful echoes of the whistle. He glanced at Mike, aloof and slouching against a nearby railing. Not all change was for the better either.

  Mary watched him from the corner of her eye. A cloud passed across her face. It was gone nearly as quickly as it appeared, but a crease in her brow seemed somehow deeper, a care line carved with a chisel of frowns. It wouldn’t smooth away any more, this last year had seen to that.

  “Where is that porter?” she said, craning back in the direction of Forty-second Street. Tom shrugged.

  “Got time.” He mumbled. Mike said nothing. Even Rebecca seemed to keep her distance, letting her brother be for once. The girl flitted about Mary’s feet, a bundle of gingham energy. She’d been talking about this trip for weeks, asking most every day how much longer it was till they’d leave. The questions had been unending.

  “Where will we sleep on the train? Does the man who drives the train sleep, too? Will we see deers, do you think, Mommy? Can I go fishing with Daddy? How much longer till we leave, Mommy? I’d like to pet a deer, a baby deer. Do you think I could do that, pet a baby deer? I would like that so, so much. We won’t see any bears when we go there, will we? Bears are bad, except baby bears, they’re cute. I’m scared of bears. We won’t see them, right? When are we leaving, huh Mommy, when?” Rebecca had pestered and pouted, but it never bothered Mary. The girl was hers, a perfect jewel of a girl, all honey curls and wide-eyed enthusiasm.

  She danced at Mary’s feet humming a tune of her own making. She skipped and swayed and twirled to the music in her head, all the while painting graceful little arcs and parabolas with her arms and hands, her fingers just so. She seemed to have been born with music in her. It filled her up so much it would spill out and be wasted if she didn’t dance it away. Where or when didn’t matter. It could be A. T. Stewart’s Department Store or on a crowded el. When the music called she would dance. Everyone said she’d be a dancer someday, but everyone was wrong. She was a dancer already.

  Mary had always been grateful for Rebecca, but never more so than the last few months. She pushed back the darkness and the worry that Mike seemed to manufacture with grinding repetition as he grew older. Rebecca didn’t know that, didn’t see herself as some sort of angel, driving away her brother’s teenage demons. She was just being Rebecca and that was enough.

  Even Mike, standing like a growling thunderhead, had to grin at his sister’s antics. The glimmer of a smile lifted the sullen corner of his mouth when he thought Tom wasn’t looking. He lowered his head, though, when Mary noticed, hiding behind the brim of his cap. It brought an exasperated sigh from Mary, and she was about to say something when Tom grunted, “There he is.”

  The porter was finally coming. He pushed a cart piled high with their trunks, his head barely visible above. The cart and its load sailed across the terminal like an ocean liner, breasting the waves of people rushing about the station. A pug-nosed face peered over the trunks, its dull eyes looking straight ahead despite the crowd of people who seemed all on fire to dash across his path. A shock of red hair dangled from under a round brimmed cap, pushed back on his head at a jaunty angle.

  “Found ye then, I did.” The porter lilted. “Such a boilin’ mess I never did see. Everybody rushin’ like ants whot got their hill stomped.”

  Tom shrugged. He’d seen about every kind of crowd New York could muster. They rarely made an impression on him one way or another, unless it was a riot. “Not unusual for a Friday night in August, I guess,” he said, turning toward their train. “Well, let’s go then. C’mere, my little ginger snap,” he said, holding his arms out to Rebecca. She stopped her dancing and charged at Tom, jumping into his arms with a whoop.

  “Chu, chu, chu, chu—whooo, whooo!” she cried, doing her best train imitation. Tom hoisted her up so she sat in the crook of his arm. “Wha’dya say we go on vacation, eh?”

  “Yeah!” Rebecca yelled in his ear. Tom winced, grinning all the while. “Right!” he said, shaking his head. “Off we go!”

  Later, after their trunks had been stowed in the baggage car and the porter had shuffled off in search of another tip, the four of them settled into their compartment. It was cramped but elegant, with over-sprung seats in claret velour. They were “bouncy,” Rebecca exclaimed with delight, springing up and down almost nonstop. Tom pulled his watch from his vest pocket and flipped open the case. “Best settle down, ’Becca. We’ll start moving soon,” he said. Just then a shadow darkened the door of their compartment.

  “Uncle Chowder!” Rebecca shouted. With a running leap she jumped into his arms.

  “Came to see ya off, especially you!” he said, giving Rebecca a big hug.

  Everyone smiled except Tom. Though Chowder Kelly was as close a friend as Tom had, he knew him well enough to know that seeing them off on vacation was not why he’d come. Tom watched as Chowder made a fuss over Rebecca, kissed and squeezed his wife more lustily than was proper, and slapped Mike on the shoulder. A wary eye cast in Tom’s direction was all that was needed. Mary caught it and gave Tom a dark frown as he stood.

  “I’ll just see Chowder to the platform. Back in two shakes.” When they were out of earshot, he scowled at Chowder and said, “So what’s so goddamn important, aside from groping my wife’s bum, you bastard.”

  Chowder grinned. “And a lovely bum it is, too.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Tom said with something between a grin and a scowl. “What’s going on?”

  “Murderer escaped from a Black Maria a couple hours ago. Busted a guard’s head. Got clean away.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Stuck a knife in a construction foreman. Caught him last night.”

  Tom started to question Chowder, asking what he knew about the man, where he came from, who he worked with, where he lived, whether he was married or had any other family in the city, where he drank, banked, and whored. He stopped himself after some minutes.

  “What the…” he said, stopping himself in midsentence. “I’m on vacation, Chowder. You’re a big, grown-up lad. You handle this. You weren’t thinking I’d stay and help, were you? If you were, forget it!”

  “Well, I was kinda…” Chowder started to say, then got serious as he watched the conductors swing
their arms and pull up the steps to the cars.

  “Listen, Tom, this is a big one. That foreman was a Tammany man, kept an eye on the construction trades for the big bosses at the Wigwam. The chief’s fumin’ an’ every damn captain in town’s got their boys on the jump. You goin’ off on a trip now, well it don’t look so good.”

  The train jerked and bumped as the engine pulled up the slack in the couplings. It rumbled to life, wheels squealing.

  “Byrnes ain’t looking for me, is he?”

  “Not yet,” Chowder allowed.

  “I’m leaving,” Tom said. He knew the truth of what Chowder was telling him, but he’d put off far too many trips already, given far too many late nights to the job instead of to Mary. A part of him hated to go, hated leaving in the middle of a crisis. For an instant he hesitated, letting the thrill of a good case lure him, but only for an instant. He could picture Mary’s face when he tried to explain.

  “Have fun catching the bad guys,” he said with a tone that almost sounded like regret.

  “O’ course, Tommy. ’Course. Just figured you’d want to know, is all,” Chowder said, seeing how things were. “Get your ideas, see if we’re thinking along the same lines. You know. Always a help to kick the ideas about.”

  Tom grunted as Chowder stepped off onto the platform. “You’re gonna have to kick ’em about with someone else, pal. I’m off to the north woods, where the likes o’ you dare not tread. I’m gonna do my best to forget we ever had this little chat. Catch some fish, or whatever they do up there.” He gave Chowder a wave. “Good luck. See you in a couple o’ weeks.”

  Mike lounged, his cap pulled down over his eyes in studied boredom when Tom got back to the compartment. Windows in the next train over started to slide by, sometimes showing brief frozen images of riders napping, porters stowing bags, a woman in a large pink hat, a child’s face pressing the glass. They began to dance away as their train picked up speed. Mary didn’t ask about Chowder. It was enough that Tom had come back and not run off on police business as he had so many times before.

  They burst from the monstrous train shed into the early evening sun. The orange ball cast long yellow heat waves through the compartment. Mary struggled with a window, at last getting the catches to release. She threw up the sash, with Tom’s help, letting in a refreshing, warm blast of air into their little furnace.

  The sun hovered over the roofs of the distant mansions on Fifth Avenue, setting mansard roofs, turrets, and cornices gleaming. To the east, the river glistened here and there through the canyons between the buildings. The city slid by, the grubby factories belching smoke, steaming breweries, rendering plants, row houses all trooped past their windows, growing more sparse and shabby the further they went. Uptown, the naked streets, many still unpaved, were laid out neat and square. Tall new brownstones stood like teeth in the barren jaws of the city.

  Not far was desolation, treeless, shanty-littered no-man’s lands where squatters grubbed for what the city cast off. The park was a green mirage in the distance. Tom watched it all pass, amazed as always at the wealth and the squalor of the place.

  Mike studied his feet. Rebecca’s nose bounced against the glass.

  “It’s good to get away from this place at least once in a while,” Tom said as he watched ragged people picking through an uptown dump. That was particularly true in the summer months, when disease often swept through the tenements in merciless and arbitrary waves. In a real hot spell the only people left were those with nowhere else to go. Undertakers were plentiful in the summer though. It was their busy season.

  “Place isn’t healthy,” he said to the window.

  “Be good to get some fresh air,” Mary said. Though she stared out the windows, too, she didn’t seem to see.

  “They have baby deer where we’re going,” Rebecca said to Tom. “There’s no deer here anymore. Mommy said. No deer for-ages and ages.” She shook her curls and pushed out her lower lip in mock mourning. “They all went to the Ron-dacks, I guess.”

  Tom smiled. “Sort of like us, right, ’Becca? Just like us.”

  The train rolled north through the evening. The orange sun kissed the tops of the trees before sinking into New Jersey. After a while, stops were made. As they got up into the Hudson Valley, the stations became veiled in night. They often didn’t know exactly what stop it was, only that it was not theirs. They were going to the end of the line.

  Dinner was eaten to the rhythmic rumble and clack of the rails. Beds were unfolded. Sleep came on as the land passed by. Not everyone slept soundly. Albany arrived at 6:30 A.M. They transferred to the Delaware-and-Hudson line for the trip to Saratoga.

  Mary wasn’t sure what time it was when the car rumbled to life. It was another two and a half hours till they had to switch trains again at Saratoga. Mary dozed on and off, not so much sleeping as doing a groggy imitation of it. Listening to Tom snore hadn’t done anything for her rest in the hot, cramped compartment. She looked at Mike’s sleeping form, thinking for the hundredth time that if this trip could help set things right there was no amount of sleep she wouldn’t forsake.

  The transfer to the Adirondack line at Saratoga was weary and tedious. A handful of shuffling, sleepy passengers boarded the short train for the sixty-three-mile trip to North Creek, although some were probably bound for other stops in between. North Creek was the last stop. The mountainous cost of carving a rail line through the Adirondacks and the economic reverses of seventy-six had put an end to the line. Still, it shortened the trip from Saratoga to hours, where in the past it had taken days.

  Beyond North Creek there was nothing but endless miles of forests, mountains, and bad roads. The closest thing to paving was the spots that were “corduroyed” with logs laid crossways in the wet patches. Mary was bleary-eyed and blinking in the early morning sun. Tom carried Rebecca. She hung limp and sweaty-faced in his arms, her damp forehead resting on his shoulder. No amount of prodding could wake her. Mike brought up the rear.

  Nobody slept but Rebecca on the ride north from Saratoga. She had curled up in a corner of their seat, her head on the pillow that she had insisted Mary bring for her. Tom, who had a window seat, tried to doze but found his eyes drawn to the world outside. A cool breeze blew in through the window. It was cool enough so that Mary asked him to shut it for fear Rebecca would catch a chill. He left it open an inch, enjoying the fragrant air after the heat of the city.

  In the distance, they could see the smoke from the mills at Glens Falls, where the growth of centuries was sawed, chipped, pulped, and otherwise shaped to fit the hand of man. The smells grew sweeter north of there, and the towns smaller. At a little place called Riverside, a narrow suspension bridge swung across the rolling waters, looking as out of place as a Bowery B’hoy at a Sunday sermon.

  The Hudson swept close by the tracks, and when they stopped the river’s whispering voice could be heard. The water spoke its own language, laughing and roaring at stones in its way. When again they began to roll, the rumble and clack that had lulled them through the night seemed an annoyance as Tom strained to hear the voice of the Hudson.

  At last, North Creek chugged into view. All Tom could see of it was maybe a dozen houses and stores strung along a dirt road close by the tracks. The station was small and ordinary, with a raised platform and a freight warehouse at the far end. A couple of porters pushed luggage carts forward as the train came to a smoking stop. They leaned on their handles, eyeing the passengers as they descended. One of the men said something to the other that made them both laugh. They slapped their thighs at their private joke.

  “I think those men are laughing at us,” Rebecca said, frowning at them.

  A slow hurricane of activity blew people and luggage about the platform. A couple of shays, a buckboard, and a plain, faded-red farm wagon took away the locals. The rest waited. The stage to the Prospect House wouldn’t be in for another two hours.

  It was close to 1 P.M. when all the passengers were finally loaded. Mary and Rebecca
managed to grab a cramped seat inside, but Tom and Mike, in deference to the other ladies of the group, had to scale their way up the side of the stage to the bench seats on the roof. There were nineteen passengers all told. Nine men and one woman perched on top.

  “Everybody up?” the driver called as the horses stamped and chewed their bits. When all were safely seated, luggage stowed and tied in the separate baggage wagon behind, he clambered up and gripped the reins. He was joined by another, riding “shotgun.”

  “Five miles to North River, folks. Stop there for lunch. Pretty good road hereabouts, so you can sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  Breakfast was good, the road less so. About an hour later they were off again. The road from North River began to climb only about a mile outside of town, getting steeper and rockier as they went. Everyone on top clung to their seats as the tall stage lurched and bucked. In places the road was corduroyed. The big coach stuttered across these, setting teeth on edge and turning knuckles white on handrails. Mike hung on in silence.

  After a time, the slope became so steep that the coach slowed to a crawl. The six horses strained, leaning forward, stomping the slope as harness leather creaked. Finally they came to a halt. The driver set his brake and turned to the passengers on top.

  “Gotta lighten the load,” he said with a jerk of his head over the side. Tom and Mike got down with the other men.

  “Great vacation,” Mike said, making sure it was loud enough for Tom to hear. They were the first words Mike had uttered in hours.

  It was a long uphill climb following the coach. Even when the driver finally had to tell everyone to get off except Rebecca and two small boys, the stage went no faster than a slow walk. Tom, Mike, and especially Mary trudged and stumbled. Rebecca all the while kept up a game of peeking out the coach windows, calling to Mary or Tom when she thought they weren’t looking. Mary did her best to keep up her spirits. She stopped for a moment at last, turning to look back.