Words Spoken True (20 page)

Instead they began shouting and running toward something in the street ahead. Their words floated back to Adriane.

“Irish pup.”

“Trying to get away.”

“Grab him.”

Adriane barely caught sight of the young boy as they yanked him out of the shadows. She did see the boy’s hat before the men surrounded him. A cap like Duff’s.

She wasn’t sure how she got to the middle of the group to stand in front of the boy. Perhaps the prod of a gun barrel made the men instinctively give way. Whatever happened, one minute she was watching the backs of the men as they prepared to punish the boy for being Irish, and the next she was staring into their faces, the gun in her hand pointed at the nearest man’s chest.

“Stand back,” she ordered.

“Look there! It’s a woman,” one of the men shouted, and Adriane realized the hood of her cloak had fallen back in her push through the men.

“Rush her,” a big man in the front said.

Adriane turned the gun toward him. “Do you want to be the body the others step over to get to me and the boy?” She felt no fear, only cold anger.

“Aw, she probably can’t shoot,” another man said.

“Don’t count on it.” Somebody spoke up from the back of the group. A familiar voice. “That’s Wade Darcy’s girl. If he taught her to set type, he might’ve taught her to shoot.”

Adriane’s eyes searched through the men, but she saw no face she recognized. She couldn’t worry about that. She had to be sure she held the gun steady with her finger caressing the trigger while she stared at the men closest to her. She shifted the gun slowly and deliberately, pointing it at first one of them, then another.

“Which of you wants your name in the paper tomorrow morning?” she asked. “Man shot while attacking a woman.”

There was a roar from the next street over. “They’re burning Quinn’s Row,” the man in the back of the group shouted. “We’re going to miss it all.”

The big man in the front suddenly turned away from Adriane. “I didn’t come down here to shoot no woman.”

“Or be shot by one,” the man in the back said. He split away from the group and began running. The other men barely glanced back at Adriane and the boy as they followed.

The boy wasn’t as old as Duff. His eyes were enormous in his face as he looked at her and said, “Thank ye, missy. Our mothers must have been praying for the both of us tonight.” Then without waiting for her to say anything, he slipped away from her and was gone.

Adriane was still standing there on the street not sure what to do next when she heard footsteps running back toward her. She didn’t even have time to raise the gun again before the man grabbed her and spun them both into the shadows.

“What in heaven’s name are you trying to do? Get yourself killed?” Blake Garrett gripped Adriane’s shoulders and glared down at her.

“Blake,” Adriane said weakly. She had to fight the urge to lean against him as she realized it had been his voice at the back of the group. She should have known. “Once more it appears I have reason to be grateful to you, sir.” She tried to pull away from him so that he wouldn’t feel the way she was trembling, but he kept his grip tight on her.

“Don’t trot out your society manners for me, Adriane. I want to know, and I want to know now, what you think you’re doing out here on the streets in the middle of this rabble.”

A little fire pushed through her at the tone of his voice. “I don’t know that it’s any of your concern, Mr. Garrett,” she said, her voice tight and controlled. “But if you must know, I thought the boy might be Duff, and I could hardly stay hidden in the shadows and let those animals have him without a fight.”

“So you thought you’d just let them have both of you.”

“I daresay, given time, they would have listened to reason.” She tried to make her words sound more confident about that than she felt. He was right. She couldn’t have held off the men.

“There is no reason this night. Only madness,” Blake said. “You shouldn’t be out here at all.”

“I know,” she admitted. “But I must find Father. I have to warn him.”

“Warn him about what? I can assure you he knows about the riots. Men from his party of choice are the ringleaders, the ones who got this mob going.”

“Father didn’t want any of this to happen.” Adriane’s throat felt so tight she had to force out her words. “He would never advocate this kind of mayhem.”

“Maybe not, but surely you’ve been reading his editorials.” Blake looked away from her toward the noise of the crowd. “It’s evident the men on the streets have been as well, and now the Irish and Germans are paying.”

A spattering of gunshots sounded a few streets away. “The
Tribune
’s not to blame for this.”

His eyes came back to her. “Can you be so sure?”

She met his look fully and after a minute whispered, “No.” She felt dangerously close to tears, and she wanted nothing more than to be back at the offices putting together a normal front page full of nothing but the dullest stories.

All of a sudden, his look gentled and he folded her into his arms. “I’m sorry, Adriane,” he whispered into her hair. “I have no right to accuse you or the
Tribune
. We’re all to blame.”

It felt so good there in his arms, so safe. The noise of the shouting crowd faded away. Even the gunshots sounded distant and unimportant. Nothing mattered but his arms holding her, his voice soft in her ear.

He went on. “But I’ve been half out of my mind ever since I saw you marching beside Stanley Jimson in the parade, and then tonight when I saw you surrounded by those men, I didn’t know what to do.”

Stanley’s name brought back in a rush why she was on the streets. Why she had to find her father. Beck may have thought Stanley’s threats were just words. Adriane knew better.

She jerked away from Blake to ask, “Have you seen him?”

“Who? Stanley?” All the gentleness disappeared from Blake’s face.

“No. Father. I must find him.”

Blake’s face was still hard as he answered, “I saw him earlier with Mayor Barbee’s group when they stopped the mob from burning the church at St. Martin’s.”

She grabbed hold of the front of Blake’s jacket, and when she spoke, she was shamelessly begging. “Could you help me find him? Please, Blake. I’ll do anything.”

A
nything? You shouldn’t make idle promises, dear lady, especially not on a night like this.” Blake stared down at Adriane for a long moment, expecting her to turn her eyes away. When she didn’t, he said, “You don’t love Stanley Jimson.”

“No,” she said. “It would be better if I did.”

“That could never be better,” Blake said.

Adriane dropped her eyes from his. “You don’t know everything.”

“Then tell me.”

“There’s not time now.” She looked back up at his face again as she pleaded, “And I know I have no right to ask your help, but I have to find Father. Please, I beg of you, Blake, help me.”

He stared down at her. Even as he agreed to go with her, he knew it wasn’t what he should do. He should take her straight back to the
Tribune
offices and lock her inside. She wasn’t safe out here. Nobody was safe on the streets this night.

He’d seen riots before. He’d been witness to how hatred could ignite and spread like a flash fire through a group of ordinary men, burning away their consciences and turning them into a massive instrument of destruction, but those other times he’d only been a reporter scribbling notes about what was being destroyed. This time he was one of the forces behind the riot. His words. His editorials. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that the mob might turn on him if he was recognized.

He was ready to take that chance as he stayed out on the streets. What was happening might not be news he wanted to happen, but it was news. So with his hat pulled low over his face, he had been doing his best to blend in with the fringes of the crowd while watching the havoc.

Then he’d seen Adriane, her head thrown back defiantly as she stood between those men and that poor Irish kid, and his heart had almost thudded to a stop. She’d never looked more beautiful to him than she did standing there trying to stare down the men. She couldn’t have done it, not even with the gun. The men had been like a pack of hungry wolves with the scent of a cornered doe in their noses.

He looked over at her now as they moved silently toward the terrible roar of the mob and the chilling screams of its victims. With the hood of her cloak pulled back up over her head, he was only able to catch a glimpse of her pale face, but he could see how she was straining to see ahead to whatever was happening farther down the street.

Once again, he told himself he was crazy to be taking her toward the mob. Her father wouldn’t be there. He thought they both knew that, but they were drawn to the noise. Even if she had a sudden change of mind and begged him to take her home, he wasn’t sure he could turn his back on the story unfolding on the other side of this line of buildings. And though he wasn’t touching Adriane now, he sensed she was feeling the same pulse quickening mixture of dread and excitement, the same reporter’s hunger for the story, no matter how bad that story might turn out to be.

When at last they were close enough to see, it was even worse than anything Blake could have imagined. At least half the buildings on Quinn’s Row were already burning, and men were torching the rest of them with no concern for the faces peering frantically out the windows. A few women and children were allowed to slip out of the burning buildings, but when a man tried to escape the flames, a gunshot rang out. The man fell and a roar from the crowd sounded approval as if somebody had just hit the bull’s-eye at a shooting contest.

Beside him, Adriane trembled as she said, “Can’t anybody stop them?” She was nearly shouting, but he barely heard her words over the noise of the crowd as more shots rang out.

He looked down into her face and told her the truth. “No.”

Suddenly he was sick of the news. Sick of his fellow man pushing against him on both sides. Sick of himself for watching. He took hold of Adriane’s arm under the cloak and pulled her back away from the crowd. “Come on.” He leaned down to speak close to her ear. “Your father’s not here. No one with any honor is part of this.”

She went with him without protest. They were two blocks away from the screaming crowd before she spoke. “I still need to find Father.”

“Your father’s probably back at the
Tribune
, frantic with worry about you. Worse, he’ll no doubt try to shoot me again when we get there.”

“I’ll explain how you rescued me yet again.”

“He won’t listen.” Blake looked at her in the light of one of the streetlamps.

“No, he won’t listen.”A frown tightened Adriane’s face.

Blake wished he could believe her worry was for him, but that he sensed had nothing to do with him. “Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help,” he said.

“How? By writing an editorial in tomorrow’s
Herald
about our troubles?” The words hinted at their former verbal duels, but her voice carried no fire, only sadness.

He had no heart for dueling words with her either, so he answered softly, “There’ll be more than enough headline news tomorrow without your father and me attacking one another.”

“We’re leaving the headlines behind.” Adriane glanced back over her shoulder.

“We saw enough.”

“Yes,” Adriane agreed. She shuddered as yet another gunshot sounded behind them. “Duff was right. The men are like animals. Animals with guns and torches.”

He tried to reassure her. “They won’t come back this way.”

“Some of them may have already come this way. There was a fire a few streets over when I left the
Tribune
.”

A needle of worry jabbed Blake. Joe was watching over the
Herald
offices, but maybe he should have gone back and guarded the press himself. “Where?”

Adriane hesitated before she answered, “It may have been close to the
Herald
, but I heard the fire alarms. I’m sure they got it under control.”

“Nothing’s under control tonight.”

They didn’t say anything more then as they rushed back through the almost deserted streets. Sometimes he glimpsed a white face peeking out around a pulled back curtain or heard the click of a door shutting as they passed, but most of the buildings loomed dark and empty around them.

They were almost back to the
Tribune
when they practically ran headlong into Beck. The old man barely glanced at Blake before grabbing Adriane. “Addie, you promised you’d stay put.”

“I know, Beck, but I couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening. I wanted to be sure Father was all right.” Adriane’s words came out in a rush. “You did find him and warn him, didn’t you, Beck?”

Beck hesitated a second as though he didn’t want to answer before he said, “I found him, Addie, but I was too late to warn him.”

“What happened?” It was easy to hear the panic in her voice.

“I don’t rightly know if anybody could say exactly. I had just spotted the boss up on this platform trying to reason with the men, but I couldn’t get close to him for the crowd of people around him. Some of the men went to shouting, and then somebody started shooting. The boss took a hit to the shoulder that knocked him clean off that platform he was on. Things still might not have been so bad ’cepting the crowd was like a mad herd of bulls. They ran right up on top of him. It took five of us to beat them back so’s we could get him out of there. He took a bad knock to the head besides the gunshot in the shoulder.”

“He’s all right, isn’t he?” she demanded.

Beck’s voice was sad. “I don’t know, Addie. He ain’t dead, but he ain’t never come to. I ain’t sure he’s going to. All I can tell you is the doc’s on his way.”

“No.” The word exploded out of Adriane as she jerked away from Beck to run toward the
Tribune
offices.

“Wait, Adriane!” Blake started after her, but Beck put a hand on his arm to stop him.

“I’m obliged to you for bringing Addie back safe and all, but you’d best let her be right now.” Beck’s eyes sharpened on Blake as if he was only now realizing exactly who he was. “Besides, from what I hear you’ve got troubles enough of your own.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ain’t heard?”

“Heard what, man? God only knows the whole town has troubles.”

Even in the dim light, Blake could see the pity on the old man’s face as he looked at him. “The
Herald
’s burning down, Mr. Garrett. And that ain’t all. They say when your boss heard about the fire, he dropped down dead on the spot.”

“Chesnut dead?”

“That’s what I heard, Mr. Garrett. A funny thing. Chesnut and the boss going down so close together like that after all their years of fighting one another in their papers.”

“But you said Darcy’s not dead.”

“Not yet.” Beck shook his head slowly. “Not yet.”

Blake looked toward the
Tribune
building. Adriane had already disappeared inside.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Beck said. “I’ll be taking care of her. You’d best go take care of your own.”

Blake wanted to tell the old man that Adriane was his own, more important to him than anything that might be burning up a few streets over, but he had no assurance Adriane would welcome him beside her right now.

“Tell Adriane I’ll be back,” Blake told Beck. “And don’t let Stanley Jimson talk her into anything she might regret.”

The lines on the old man’s face tightened. “That no-good shows his face around the
Tribune
offices again tonight, he’ll be the one doing the regretting.”

Before Blake could ask what the old man meant, the doctor’s buggy clattered past them, and Beck ran after it.

It took Blake fifteen minutes to cut through the streets and get to what had been the
Herald
’s offices. The building was a gray mass of smoldering debris with an occasional flame flickering to life as if the fire wasn’t quite ready to surrender completely to the firemen milling about on the street. Blake spotted Joe, his head in his hands, sitting on a pile of sodden newspapers somebody had pulled out into the street.

“You all right, Joe?” Blake asked him.

“Boss.” Joe looked up and some of the hopelessness went out of his face as if he expected Blake to be able to fix things. “I guess one of the boys finally found you then.”

“No, but I heard.” Blake looked at the gutted building. The sight of it seemed to take all the life out of him, and he sank down beside Joe. “What happened?”

“I guess I let you down, boss,” Joe said.

“Don’t worry about that, Joe. Just tell me what happened.”

“Well, it was like this. I heard something in the back of the building. So I got the gun you give me ’cause of how you’d told me to be ready for trouble. Anyhow, I went back there to look around and somebody banged me on the head. The next thing I know I hear somebody shouting my name, and the smoke’s choking me and it’s hotter than the stoking room on a steamboat. I reckon if one of the boys hadn’t found me to pull me outta there, I might not be here talking to you now.”

“Did you save anything?” Blake stared across the street at the smoldering remains of the building.

“Not much. It was just too hot.”

His files gone. All his stories and ideas up in smoke. The press gone. Everything gone. Jimson was going to have a victory all around. “And how about John? Is he really dead?”

“So they tell me, boss. I didn’t think he looked hisself when he come by this morning. I reckon hearing about the fire and all was just too much for his heart.” Joe stared down at the street.

Blake was silent a moment before he said, “Wade Darcy got shot trying to reason with the crowd.”

“You don’t say. He dead?” Joe jerked his head up to look at Blake.

“Not yet, but his man Beck doesn’t think he’ll make it.”

“Poor Miss Adriane. She’ll take that hard. Seeing as how she doted on her pa.” Joe turned his eyes back toward the ruins of their building. “I reckon there’s trouble enough to go all around tonight.”

Again there was silence between the men as they considered those troubles. Finally Blake asked, “The boys been running in any stories?”

“A few before the fire. Was things really that bad, boss?”

“Worse.”