Heart of the Lonely Exile (10 page)

The crowd roared even louder. Spectators milling about behind the strikers shouted out encouragement, some cheering the policemen and the preacher, others egging on the strikers to attack.

Suddenly a gun exploded. Michael whirled. The dark-haired striker was holding
his
gun, aimed right at his head!

The striker's mouth twisted in an ugly smile. “Either your partner gets rid of his gun, copper, or I get rid of
you
.”

Beside him, Price muttered under his breath. “Sure, and we're in the soup this time.” Then he turned his gun on the striker. “Take it
from
me, rat-face!”

Suddenly, one of the black boys behind the preacher broke and started to run in the opposite direction, as if to escape.

Dalton shouted and whipped around, trying to stop the boy, but he was too late. The dark-haired striker with Michael's gun fired at the boy, hitting him high in the middle of his back.

With a sickening thud and a terrible scream, the boy hit the ground. The preacher ran and fell to his knees beside him.

Now the mob went berserk with blood-lust, cheering and roaring like savages.

Without warning, Michael saw Price move to charge the dark-haired striker with the gun. The hoodlum fired when he saw the policeman coming, but Price dropped low, his gun steady. One well-placed bullet in the striker's gun arm took him down, sending the pistol skating over the ground.

Michael lurched forward to retrieve his gun. At the same time, the big red-faced Irisher who had started it all hurled himself at the preacher, who was still on his knees beside the injured black boy.

Dalton whipped around just in time, rolling sideways to escape the striker's charge, then lunging to his feet. With formidable strength, the preacher flung the big Irishman into the crowd.

Stunned, the striker crumbled, landing in a dazed heap amidst his cronies.

When another angry striker lunged out of the crowd toward the preacher, Dalton easily shoved him aside. The striker lost his balance and went sprawling onto the ground.

His gun now in hand, Michael whipped around and fired into the air. Price, too, got off a warning shot, but the crowd had turned savage. The two policemen were no match for their rage.

Suddenly a shout went up from Mulberry Street. Some in the crowd turned to see where it came from. Another angry cry sounded, and two more policemen, both carrying nightsticks and guns, shoved their way through to the center of the square.

The taller of the two fired his gun in the air as he came. His partner, a burly bald man, roared like an injured bear,
“Move back—move back right now, or you'll be shot where you stand! Spread out and disband immediately!”

The din gradually ebbed and died away. There was some grumbling, a few angry protests, but little by little the crowd began to back off. At last they broke apart and dispersed, muttering and casting resentful looks back over their shoulders as they went.

The other two policemen helped to herd them out of the area while Michael and Price went to Dalton. The preacher was again on his knees beside the fallen black boy, the rest of the youths huddled close by.

“Is he dead?”

Dalton shook his head, raising his face to look at Michael. “No, but he's bad. We need to get help for him right away.”

“Doc Hilman's probably in,” offered Price. “He's just a few doors up, on Mulberry.”

“Go for him, why don't you,” said Michael.

Cradling the unconscious boy's head in his lap, the preacher's eyes never left the youth's face. “You'd best tell the doctor to hurry,” he said quietly.

10

The pharisee's cant goes up for peace,
But the cries of his victims never cease.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY (1844–1890)

M
ichael and Jess Dalton stood in the dingy hallway that served as a waiting room while Dr. Hilman worked on the injured black boy. Two chairs on the wall across from them were occupied by an elderly man and his frail, crippled wife.

Outside, the last of the late afternoon sunlight was ebbing, the shadows growing long and deep. The waiting room had taken on the damp chill of evening.

“Who is this
Captain Rynders
?” the preacher asked. “I keep hearing his name mentioned around Five Points.”

“Isaiah Rynders,” Michael said, scowling. “He's a gang boss. A gambler and a knife-fighter, too. He owns a number of dives in Paradise Square.” He paused, looking at the preacher. “He's also a Tammany politician.”

“Dangerous?”

“Mean as a snake—and more deadly,” Michael replied without hesitating.

They remained silent for a time. “The boy will need hospital care,” Dalton finally said, his voice low.

Michael looked at him wearily. “He's a penniless Negro, Pastor. It's not likely he'll get hospital attention.”

“He's only a child!” Dalton protested. “They certainly wouldn't turn him away—”

“Of course they'll turn him away! The Negroes have no rights in New York—things are as bad for them as the Irish, if not worse.”

Leaning against a decaying wall, the preacher hugged his big arms to himself and studied Michael for a moment. “If that's so, Sergeant, what accounts for the enmity between the two?”

Michael frowned. He would not have thought Dalton naive, but perhaps he was.

“Oh, I'm aware of
how
things are,” the preacher put in quickly. “Half of the brawls that go on down here seem to be between the Negroes and the Irish. But it's still difficult for me to understand
why,
especially knowing the history of both. Why do two persecuted peoples insist on persecuting each
other
?”

Michael considered the big preacher's words. It was a matter he himself had given much thought to, having been forced to put down countless battles between the two factions over the years.

“I understand what you're saying, Pastor—it would make more sense that our troubles bring us together, not divide us.”

Dalton nodded.

Michael drew a deep sigh. “Aye, so one would think. Yet any policeman in the city will tell you that persecution only breeds more persecution, just as crime seems to breed still more crime.”

The pastor studied him, saying nothing.

“I imagine part of the problem, at least for the Irish,” Michael went on, “is that the blacks compete with us for the jobs we're so desperate for—and for the same
kinds
of jobs, at that. There's little available to the Irish in the way of work except for the lowest, meanest jobs in the city: laborers, manure-cart drivers, housemaids, washerwomen. And it's the same for the Negro, don't you see? Both groups vie for the same jobs, but the Negro will work for even less than will the Irish. And they'll do anything at all—anything—to earn their bit of pay!”

“Breaking strikes, for example.”

Michael nodded. “And worse.”

The preacher raked a hand down his beard and looked toward the doorway. “I suppose it's difficult
not
to resent a man who seems to be taking food out of your family's mouths.”

“Exactly,” Michael agreed. “Oh, that's not the only reason the two are
always at odds, of course. I sometimes think we Irish are our own worst enemies.”

Dalton turned back, frowning. “How so?”

“Well, Pastor, we're a clannish bunch, it seems to me. Perhaps all the years England has kept our faces in the dirt accounts for some of what we are.” Michael shrugged and smiled grimly. “There was no improving our lot, don't you see? We were denied all the things we might have used to better ourselves: education, political involvement, job opportunities—why, we were even forced to suppress our language, and the Catholics their religion! I expect all that time of being treated like mindless savages has bred a kind of natural distrust in many of us, made us suspicious and even resentful of those outside our own circle.”

The preacher gave a slow nod. “Caused you to turn inward, you mean. Center on yourselves.”

“Aye, I should think so. Ourselves and our country—Ireland. Perhaps that accounts in part for our fierce patriotism, our secret societies, and the like. That being the case, we turn on anyone else who might seem to pose a threat.”

“The persecuted become the persecutors.”

“Aye, exactly. I'm not saying it's right, mind, but merely trying to explain things as I see them.”

The pained, sorrowful expression on Dalton's face piqued Michael's curiosity. The man truly seemed to
care
about people—about the Irish, the blacks, the people who couldn't defend themselves. And Michael couldn't help but wonder where Dalton's interest came from.

He already knew a bit about the pastor's father, of course. A lawyer and a labor reformer, Andrew Dalton had also been known throughout the East as a scrapper—a crusader for the rights of the working man. Apparently, championing the underprivileged was a tradition in the preacher's family.

Of course, with his wife being an immigrant herself, that might account for Dalton's concern. Yet there was the matter of his name. “Begging your pardon, Pastor,” Michael said, “but I can't help wondering: With the feeling you seem to have for the Irish—and with your name being
Dalton
—is it possible you have some family roots in the old country yourself?”

Dalton smiled. “More than possible. My grandfather came from Ireland. He was a printer,” he went on to explain. “He got himself into trouble with the English authorities, printing ‘inflammatory materials'. His intention
was to go back to Ireland once his offenses were forgotten, but he met my grandmother here and stayed.” He paused, then added, “And there's my wife, of course. She immigrated only a few years ago. So you can see I have strong ties to Ireland and its people.”

The big pastor lifted his regretful eyes to Michael. “What will it take to change things, Sergeant? What can the
church
do to make a difference for the Irish—or the Negro? It does seem that the solution ought to begin with God's church, but I confess I sometimes wonder where to start.”

Michael met his look. “I would ask you this, Pastor: Where
is
the Lord's church? Where was it—other than a brave few, of course—when the Irish were dropping by the thousands along the road, dying of starvation and the fever?”

Tasting his own anger, Michael knew he should stop. This was a man of God he was addressing, after all. A man of the
church.
But the spurs of resentment and disillusionment in his soul drove him on. “Where is the church when the black slave is torn away from his wife and his babies and put in chains or when he's beaten to a bloody pulp for accidentally looking into a white man's face?”

The preacher's eyes were pools of sadness. He did not speak, but merely shook his great head.

Michael's voice grew hoarse from the acrid sting of bitterness. “You ask me what the church can
do,
Pastor. Well, I ask you: What has it
done
? Where has it been? Where, exactly, is it now? Right now?”

Dalton delayed his reply, looking off into the distance for a moment. Turning back to Michael, he finally said, “That's a fair question, Sergeant. With no easy answer. One thing I'm certain of: It's not the celebrated saints who always achieve the greatest things for the Lord. The greatest orators, the fieriest preachers, the most eloquent writers—they do a fine work, and we need them, every one. But it seems to me that the Lord often uses the smallest soldiers to gain the greatest ground—one victory at a time.”

The pastor's good-natured face creased with a smile, but his eyes burned with the zealous faith of the patriarchs. “The reality of the Lord's church has little to do with great cathedrals and congregational meetings. I suspect its presence in the world is less dependent on hymn singing and sermons than on compassion and love.

“I'll tell you where God's church is, Sergeant: It's with the aging Quaker widow ladling soup to an endless line of starving Irish peasants.”

As the pastor spoke, Michael watched him carefully. Sensing the man's passion, his fervor, he felt a faint stirring in his own spirit. The intensity of the preacher's words drew Michael into the very center of the flame that burned within Jess Dalton's spirit.

This was a man on fire…on fire for God.

Michael's interest quickened, and the preacher nodded, still smiling. “Yes. And it's with the emaciated, ailing priest who has given his own meals in order to feed the starving children in his parish. It's inside the prison walls with the repentant felon who spends the remainder of his life telling his cell mates about the changing love of Christ. It's with the circuit-rider evangelist in his worn-out clothes on his run-down horse, who gives up hours, and even days, teaching Negro slaves to read and write. It's with fine young women like Sara Farmington who are willing to leave the luxury of a Fifth Avenue mansion to nurture dirty, lonely children in a rat-infested tenement.”

The preacher put a hand to Michael's shoulder—a big, calloused, ever-so-gentle hand. “And it's with the honest, noble-hearted policeman like yourself, Michael Burke,” he said softly, “who puts his life on the line every day to make the city a safer place for decent people.”

He paused, gazing intently at Michael for a moment before going on. “Don't you see, Sergeant, the church is where it's
always
been. In the humble, servant hearts of all those who are willing to be the helping hands of the Savior.
That's
where the church is.”

Michael swallowed against the lump in his throat, his eyes locking with the kind, knowing gaze of the preacher. The unspoken understanding between them brought an unexpected thrill of joy to his soul.

Aye,
he thought with dawning conviction,
indeed, that is where the church is. And it is also with this soft-spoken, heavy-shouldered preacher who is willing to risk his life defending four frightened Negro boys in the middle of New York's greatest shame.