Meet You in Hell

Author:Les Standiford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307238375
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2005-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

15

OVER THE EDGE

HAD THIS BEEN A MODERN-DAY standoff, with Frick in close touch with his emissaries by cell phone and Carnegie observing the scene via CNN satellite feed, there might have been some last-minute intercession, some barked command to send history down a different path. But for the slumbering Frick, the matter was out of his hands. His terms had been dictated, and events would proceed however they would.

As for Carnegie, he had given Frick free rein. If he glimpsed any dire omens in the mists above a secluded lake in Scotland’s wilderness that early July morning, there was little he could do about it.

As it was, the exchange between Heinde and O’Donnell was followed by a period of motionless silence on the banks of the Monongahela, broken finally when Heinde ordered a group of his men to lower the Iron Mountain’s gangplank to the shore. The moment the plank hit ground, William Foy, the former Salvation Army commander, strode to its foot, followed by a group of striking workers.

Heinde, with a riot stick in hand, stepped onto the gangplank. “Now, men,” he warned, “we are coming ashore to guard these works and we want to come without bloodshed. There are three hundred men behind me and you cannot stop us. . . .”

“Come on, and you’ll come over my dead carcass,” Foy shouted back.

It was enough for Heinde, who stepped forward suddenly, slashing his stick at Foy’s temple. Foy managed to duck in time, but Heinde’s momentum sent him stumbling down the gangplank, his men surging after.

Heinde’s foot clipped the flat end of an oar left untended on the dock, sending its knotted handle flying upward. The knurled end of the oar cracked against the cheek of one of Foy’s companions, who went down with a cry of pain. Another of Foy’s men jumped forward and drove a club of his own into Heinde, sending him onto his back.

Accounts differ as to what exactly happened next—historians, trial transcripts, newspaper articles, and eyewitness accounts debate who fired first according to their predispositions. The only certainty is that two shots were fired in quick succession.

One hit Foy, the other Heinde. And the battle was on.

Pinkerton captain J. W. Cooper shouted his orders, and from a row of Winchester rifle barrels poised from the Monongahela’s stem to its stern, flashes of fire shot out. Incredibly, only two men on the tightly packed shore, scant yards from the tethered barges, were dropped by that first wave of Winchester fire.

Hugh O’Donnell had just raised his hands in a futile attempt to quell the crowd. “For God’s sake put down your guns and look to the protection of your families,” he cried, when he felt a burning sensation on one of his hands. He snatched it down to see that the flesh of his thumb had been notched by a rifle bullet, taking along with it the last hope of reason. As O’Donnell clutched his bloody hand, the men on shore opened up with return

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