11
The Meadow with Many Streams

As the Trans-America ended its first week on the road to New York Flanagan had some reason for satisfaction. True, the two-thousand-man field had almost been halved, but though unexpected this had in many ways been a blessing. He had no desire to carry the halt, the lame and the weary all the way across the Mojave to Las Vegas and beyond. He had realized from the outset that in Doc Cole he had a star performer, but Morgan and McPhail had been unexpected bonuses. Muller, though lacking charisma, had also provided journalists with plenty of copy, as had Martinez. Kate Sheridan had been a complete surprise to him; he had not expected any female competitor to survive the initial stages, but now, by chance, he had his first female star, an athlete who would keep the Trans-America on the front pages of newspapers the world over as long as she stayed in the race.

Flanagan would have been less happy had he known of an occurrence almost three thousand miles away in Washington D.C., just a few days before.

There, in a still, high-ceilinged office, the tranquillity of presidential aide Gerald H. Gruber’s Monday morning had been rudely disturbed. As was his custom, he was busy at work on the crossword in that day’s Post. The clue for ten down ran, “Festival initiated by a French nobleman”, and was eight letters. Gruber, sitting in an office only a few feet away from the Oval Room, had been struggling with it for over ten minutes when the telephone rang. Gruber put down his pencil and picked up the White House telephone.

“Toffler here,” a voice announced at the other end, without explanation.

For a moment Gerald Gruber was at a loss. “Mr Martin P. Toffler,” repeated the caller, slowly stressing the “P”. Gruber’s neat mind finally produced the required information. The caller was one of the party’s biggest supporters in the mid-West. Gerald Gruber listened with attention, sharpened pencil poised over his pad.

Toffler was for some unknown reason talking about a race. Gruber could not tell if it was a horse-race, a car-race or for that matter the human race. He listened patiently, hoping that Toffler would somehow explain himself.

Eventually Toffler did – at least to a degree. The race was called the Trans-America, so it could hardly be a horse race. So far, so good. Strangely the race’s very existence concerned Mr Toffler, though for the moment Gruber could not see why.

“Let me write this down, Mr Toffler,” he said, scribbling on his pad. “The Trans-America. Exactly what nature of race is this?”

Toffler bellowed his answer down the phone.

“I see,” said Gruber patiently, writing on his pad. “A professional foot-race from Los Angeles to New York. Quite an undertaking. Now what exactly do you wish the president to do about it? Are you telling me that these athletes are breaking certain federal laws?”

No, it did not appear that they were. Mr Toffler, it further appeared, was speaking (and very loudly) as a member of the United States Olympic Committee responsible for the staging of the 1932 Los Angeles summer Olympics. This Trans-America race, if successful, would, he said, both seriously damage the world of Olympic track and field in general and next year’s Olympic Games in Los Angeles in particular.

For Gerald Gruber the mists were beginning to clear.

“And precisely what action do you wish the president to take?” he asked politely.

Mr Toffler’s request was not one which Gerald Gruber could put to the president without considerable modification. In short, it was that if he wanted any further goddam contributions to party funds, that he would have to put every possible barrier in the way of those Bunion Derby sonofabitches.

Gruber finished his notes, scoring out certain words and underlining others.

“Thank you, Mr Toffler. I think I have the full picture now. I will pass your message to President Hoover and am sure that he will give it every consideration.”

Gruber put down the telephone he had been using and immediately picked up one to its right.

“Carter, find out everything you can about the Los Angeles to New York Trans-America foot-race. And have its precise route on my desk by this afternoon. I want to know every town, every village, through which the race passes.”

Gruber then put down the internal telephone, sucked his pencil, and resumed his crossword. He smiled, and slowly pencilled in the word, “Olympics”.

After that things had happened quickly. Within a week the president’s office was in touch with FBI director Edgar Hoover, and for the first time the Trans-America came under the scrutiny of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Two days before Flanagan’s men had even reached Las Vegas the immediate fruits of Toffler’s work began to show. Federal agent Ernest Bullard, a lean, swarthy man in his late thirties, faced his superior, Charles Finley, across the heavy brown oak table of Finley’s sparsely furnished office.

Bullard opened the bulky grey file marked “Trans-America” on his knee. “I knew most of this before, sir,” he said. “I’m a track fan. I’ve been following the race since that guy Flanagan announced it last January. The papers and the radio have been full of it.”

Finley nodded, his face expressionless.

“But it’s a pretty thin lead, sir,” complained Ernest Bullard, pulling his belt up a notch. “Over a thousand runners, and one of them just might be a killer.”

Charles Finley, a thin, humourless department head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, looked at his agent across the table and frowned.

“There’s more to it than that, Bullard,” he said. “But first let’s have a look at what we’ve got on file.” He rifled through a pile of papers in front of him, selected one, then stood up, holding it in both hands.

“28 March 1929, Clairton, Pennsylvania. Money fight with fists, Starr’s Warehouse. Nick Wieck versus Chuck Petrack, the Bronx Bomber: Wieck goes down in the first round, dies a week later. Petrack blows town. Manslaughter, possibly more. Either way, we want Petrack.”

“But what do we have to go on, sir?” said Bullard. “One anonymous call – which didn’t even give us any real details. So Petrack just might be in this race – but how do we know Petrack is his real name?”

“It isn’t. Sure as hell Petrack was fighting under a false name; all these goddam street-fighters do. It’s not altogether certain that Wieck even died from the fight. We know that he walked home that night, after all, and we also know he had pneumonia. But the director has personally asked me to pursue this matter.”

“All the way across America for two months to find a guy who might be in the race and who might have killed Wieck? Have a heart, sir.”

Finley smiled, and lifted a bulky green file from the desk. “I told you there was more to it than that. Much more.” He replaced the file on the table.

“This has come right from the top. The director believes that the Trans-America road-race may be the breeding ground for Reds and anarchists. He thinks that there’re bound to be strikes and riots in depressed cities all along the route because of these runners. That’s the real reason for your trip: to keep an eye on potentially disruptive elements.”

Finley looked up at the map immediately above him and placed his finger a couple of inches east of Los Angeles.

“Last reports say that they’re on their way to Las Vegas. Now, you may recall that our agents cleaned Vegas up a couple of months ago – cleaned it right out.” He chuckled drily. “So by about now Vegas should be just about back to normal. So have yourself a good time – and watch your expense account.”

Bullard sighed, stood up and shook his head.

“One more thing, Bullard,” said Finley.

“Yes, sir?”

“How often do you shave each day?”

Ernest Bullard tried not to show his surprise, but simply stroked his chin.

“Same as most people, sir. Once, before breakfast.”

“Then take my advice. Make it twice, 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Mr Hoover likes clean-shaven agents. And another thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Open or safety?”

“Safety razor,” said Bullard, blinking.

Finley took out a leather wallet from his inside pocket, peeled off a dollar and threw it down on to the table.

“Then go treat yourself to an open razor. Mr Hoover is of the opinion that Gillettes are a sissy way to shave. Know what I mean?”

Bullard did not reply.

Finley picked up the dollar bill and held it out to Bullard. “Have it on the agency. Just to please Mr Hoover.”

Bullard forced a smile, accepted the bill and left, closing the heavy door quietly behind him. Two months in a foot-race, looking for a killer and some Reds all the way across the face of the continent. His wife was never going to believe him. But he was damned if he was going to shave twice a day, J. Edgar Hoover or no J. Edgar Hoover. For a moment, he stood with his back to the door, looking at the dollar bill Finley had given him. He smiled. The dollar would buy enough Hershey bars for the kids to keep them happy till he returned.

 

Las Vegas, 27 March 1931. Only a month before, Bullard’s federal colleagues had swooped down upon the desert city, arresting two hundred citizens, including many public officials. The ragged rabble had been herded into the back-yard of the Brown Derby hotel, as the local jail could not deal with more than ten occupants.

While this was happening the majority of the populace devoted itself to drinking as much of the liquid evidence as it reasonably could within the time available. Others, in desperation, set fire to their liquor, and as a result the fire department’s engines clanged throughout the night. The streets were alive with fire engines and people scampering about to find lawyers or someone to set bail.

But within a fortnight the federal agents had departed to root out evil elsewhere and Las Vegas had indeed returned to normal. The first large casino, the Meadows, had opened: a Moorish-style building of buff stucco, designed and built by the fashionable architect Paul Wagner. The gambling casino was run by a former Goldfield gambler, H. H. Switzer, and featured celebrities like the Mormon Kid, Jimmy Lewis, W. H. Mitchel and Frank Morey. The Meadows was an immediate success, and at weekends was jammed with workers from the Boulder Dam project, forty miles to the south.

The Boulder men had always flocked to such clubs as the Bull Pen Inn, the Black Cat and the Blue Heaven. For five days a week twelve hundred men slaved on one of the most dangerous public projects since the first railways west. The enterprise was held in an iron grip by the Six Companies, which resisted even the power of state mining inspectors. Gasoline trucks had been used in narrow underground tunnels and there had been many explosions. There was only one doctor for the entire project and the men did not possess either rudimentary sanitary facilities or even sufficient water.

Two months before, eight hundred of the dam workers, led by International Workers of the World leader Eamon Flaherty, had gone on strike for better working conditions. The Six Companies had been forced to shut down and the men had set up a ramshackle camp just south of the city. The Boulder men called it “Camp Stand”, and there they held out, money and food dwindling.

In an attempt to gain favour in the town, the Six Companies had put up a $2,000 first prize for the first Trans-American into Las Vegas, with $1,000 for second, $500 for third and $250 for fourth. The men of Camp Stand were enraged. For that rage there was but one focus, and that was the Trans-Americans soon to slog their weary way across the sodden desert into their town. Nevertheless, as Flanagan sat himself down at the crowded speakeasy in the Blue Heaven two hours after his Trans-Americans had set out on their final stage to Las Vegas, there was no sign of any trouble on the horizon. The town now seethed with gamblers, sucked in by the lure of the Trans-America, and almost a quarter of a million dollars had already been laid on the stage, most of it on Muller, who now stood firm favourite at two to one on.

“You really think that young Kraut can take it again?” said the barman to Flanagan, uncorking a bottle of whiskey and pouring the brown fluid into a tumbler.

Flanagan, dressed in an immaculate white tropical suit, watched the whiskey surround the ice in his glass and listened with satisfaction to the crack of the cubes as they melted. He gulped down his drink, took out a cigar and struck a match with a flick of his thumb. He lit the cigar and took a long pull.

“The smart money says so,” he said. “That young German’s got an hour’s lead on race-aggregate already.”

“But what about Doc Cole?” said the barman. “My old man brought me up on stories about Doc Cole, so why ain’t he out there tanning the hide off that young whippersnapper?”

Flanagan was enjoying his new role as athletics expert. He pulled again on his cigar.

“Doc’s sneaky,” he said. “He probably reckons young Muller’ll blow a gasket by the Rockies. So Doc just sits back and lets him do it.”

“Sounds smart thinking to me,” said the barman, nodding as he topped up Flanagan’s drink. “So you reckon my fifty bucks on Doc Cole winning the Trans-America is safe?”

“I think you’ve put your money on a good man,” said Flanagan guardedly. “But it’s early days yet.”

Hearing a noise behind him, he made to turn and realized with a start that he was not alone. On his left side stood a small, red-haired, ruddy-faced man wearing a rumpled grey herring-bone suit and a bowler hat.

“You C. C. Flanagan, manager of the Trans-America?” asked the little man.

“Sure am,” said Flanagan, putting out his hand and swivelling on his bar stool. “What can I do for you, sir?” He settled back on his stool, only to become aware that there were now two other men directly behind him.

The little red-haired man had ignored Flanagan’s hand and stood staring at him. “My name’s Eamon Flaherty – I’m the head man of the IWW union here.”

Flanagan felt himself flush; there was trouble brewing.

“Then have a glass with me, Mr Flaherty.” He grinned and nodded to the barman.

Flaherty shook his head. “I ain’t drinking with no goddam Six Companies man,” he growled.

“What do you mean?” said Flanagan.

“You know exactly what I mean,” said Flaherty. “The Six Companies are putting up over five grand for the race – the papers are full of it. Those horsecocks need all the good publicity they can get in this town. Buying up your race has put a quarter of a million bucks into Vegas. Even my own boys have been laying money on it.”

“Look,” said Flanagan, picking up a glass, increasingly aware of the two men behind him. “Why don’t you and your colleagues have a drink on me and we can sit down and talk this over like gentlemen?”

“’Cause we ain’t no gentlemen,” said Flaherty. “All we want is that your boys don’t come into Vegas.”

“But that’s impossible,” protested Flanagan. “They’re on their way here now – there’s no way they could run round Las Vegas. I couldn’t stop them if I wanted to. We’ve got camp set up for them. These guys will have run nearly fifty miles – there’s no way I can re-route them now.”

“Then you better find some goddam way,” said Flaherty. Despite his size, he suddenly reached up, grabbing Flanagan by his lapels. Flanagan did not respond immediately, for his first reaction was to consider the ludicrous nature of the scene, with the tiny union leader suspended on his jacket like a man hanging on the edge of a cliff. Then Flanagan slowly felt the hot flush of Irish bile rise and he picked Flaherty up and dumped him on the bar stool beside him.

“Now see here, Mr Flaherty,” he said. “You’re starting to get me riled.” But the union leader was looking over the Irishman’s shoulder at the men behind him. Flanagan felt himself grabbed from the back by one of the thick-fingered henchmen. The man’s fingers were in his mouth, so Flanagan bit down hard and tasted the salt taste of skin and felt the soft crunch of bone. The man screamed and dropped back, clutching his injured hand.

Flanagan turned to face him, only to receive a glancing blow on his right cheek from the second of the two men. He fell back awkwardly, his shoulders scattering glasses from the bar behind him on to the floor. He could taste the salt blood from his cheek and threw himself in fury at the burly IWW man who had hit him, butting him in the chest and throwing him to the ground.

“Can it, you guys!” shouted the barman, picking up his night-stick from a ledge behind the bar.

But Flanagan was beyond restraint. He again lunged forward, his right eye closing fast. Flaherty, who had so far kept out of the fight, leapt like a monkey on to his back. Flanagan tried to shake him off as the two henchmen, having recovered, closed in.

“Three against one!” shouted the barman. “That ain’t fair!” He reached forward over the bar and directed a well-aimed blow with his night-stick, not at Flaherty, but at the back of Flanagan’s neck. Flanagan went down like a log, falling on to his knee with a glazed, sickly look before slumping to the floor.

The barman came round from the bar and looked down at his prostrate customer.

“Like I said, Mr Flanagan,” he said. “Three on to one just ain’t fair.” He looked up at Flaherty’s men.

“Less’n you boys want to continue the argument you best get outa here. I keep a nice place. And don’t forget – I got fifty bucks riding on Mr Flanagan’s race, so no funny business.”

Flaherty and his men looked at each other, said nothing, and left.

The barman took Flanagan under the arms and dragged him slowly into a back room where he settled him on a couch. There Flanagan lay throughout the afternoon, ignorant of the preparations being made at Camp Stand, for the evening arrival of the Trans-Americans.

 

Eamon Flaherty was a first-class organizer, and had made sure that his best weapons, one hundred and twenty-five pickaxe handles, went to his top muscle. Eighty-five fence-posts, also courtesy of the Six Companies, went to the youngest, most limber of his men. For the rest, it would have to be business as usual, with judicious use of knuckle and boot. Twenty banners, ranging from “Trans-Americans Out!” to “No to Blackleg Runners”, were distributed to women and children and completed Flaherty’s party. At five o’clock Flaherty’s welcome committee poured out of Camp Stand by car, mule-cart and foot, and by six o’clock had taken their positions in the main street, as news passed along the crowd that Flanagan’s runners had crossed the McCullough Range and would soon be within the city limits.

 

Since the destruction of the Vegas road by the flash flood Willard Clay had excelled himself: he had established an emergency feeding-station at the bridge, five miles south, and had clearly flagged the route from the bridge back north across the drying desert to the main Las Vegas road. At last, just as suddenly and dramatically as it had begun, the rain stopped, and the runners made their way diagonally back north-west to the road. Muller, not knowing that Doc and the others had crossed the flood ahead of him, drilled slowly and steadily across the desert towards the main route, again confident of victory, trailed by Bouin, Dasriaux, Thurleigh and a group of a dozen others.

The flood had broken the race into two distinct groups. The first was Doc’s group of four, who, with well over an hour in hand, were making their way north towards the main road to Las Vegas. The second was a stretched line of a thousand runners, its sub-groups shattered by the desert downpour, its leaders now reaching the bridge five miles south of the point at which the flash flood had broken the road.

At the front Doc and his group could afford to take it easy. They trotted along at about six miles an hour, aware of the gradual climb to the thin atmosphere above four thousand feet as they passed through the McCullough Range.

 

For some time Willard feared that he had lost Doc’s group, but at the improvised feeding-station other runners told him that they had crossed the flood, and Willard’s Trans-America bus churned its way painfully across the desert in pursuit. Willard picked up Doc’s group just outside the village of Jean, where he supplied them with food and drink.

“Where’s Flanagan, Willard?” asked Doc, sipping an orange juice.

“Up in Vegas, setting up camp,” said Willard confidently.

Like the others, Kate Sheridan had slithered south through the lashing rain, across the slimy desert, took refreshment at the feeding-station, then made her way back north to the main Las Vegas road. To her, the rain came as a welcome relief and she used the drop in pace to pass a dozen men before her return to the main road.

Around the runners churned the press buses, support-cars and motor-cycles, struggling through the desert mud, occasionally becoming marooned, to be pushed out of muddy ruts by journalists and runners.

 

Five miles out from Las Vegas Doc’s group began their drive into town. No one made any decisive break; rather, the pace quietly increased from a steady seven minutes per mile to a crisp six.

Normally Doc felt no trouble at such a pace, and could cover close on twenty miles at that speed. However, the residual effects of the week’s running, the altitude, the struggle across the muddy desert and his experience in the flood-stream – all had combined to sap him, and for a moment he felt again the doubt that all runners feel when the pace rises and the body makes its protest.

They ran four abreast, like soldiers in line, cutting through the steep, stony passes which carved through the mountains to Las Vegas. Luckily there were few really steep hills; but when such hills were encountered the pace dropped to a heavy-legged crawl and all four men struggled for oxygen in the thin air.

“Vegas,” said Doc at last, as they reached the crest of a hill.

Below them, twinkling in the early evening gloom, was “the meadow”, just four miles away: “the meadow with many streams”, as the Indians had originally baptized it. The first sight of the town charged Doc with a fresh surge of energy, but he knew that he could not risk a sprint finish, not with such young men. He would have to squeeze them, but squeeze them ever so slowly. Gently he started to inch up the pace. The others felt it, but held on through the next half-mile. Again Doc pressed, smiling inside himself as he heard the laboured breathing in response. He was getting to them; he kept pressing.

Juan Martinez was the first to succumb, easing off with a sob with little over a mile to go. But Hugh and Morgan held on, both gulping now rather than breathing hard. But Doc Cole could not be withstood. By the time they had entered the suburbs of Las Vegas he had set up a twenty-yard lead and was pulling away steadily. By this time the route was lined with thousands of Las Vegans cheering them on, but there was still half a mile to the finish – in the centre of town, at the Silver Dollar.

The runners moved through a blur of lights, every casino and speakeasy empty as its customers crowded the rapidly-narrowing road into the town centre. Through the roar and cheering of the crowds Doc Cole plodded, the sweat streaming down his lined, gnome-like face, the blood from cactus scratches showing red scars on his legs. He could see the finish now, the banners, the waiting tables only a few hundred yards ahead.

But then, with only three hundred yards to go, the cheers were drowned by angry, menacing boos. Through his fatigue Doc sensed the change and looked around him in bewilderment. It was the IWW strikers from Boulder, pressing in on the tunnel of spectators, pinned back by a thin line of straining policemen.

Doc could see the Golden Nugget casino sign on his right and the Trocadero on his left as he entered the final furlong: a band in front of the casino broke into an overture from the “Pirates of Penzance”. On each side hands strained and reached out to make contact with him, and he could feel their fingers touch him as he trotted the final yards. In one stage he had made up the deficit on Muller. Blocking out the jeers, he put all his concentration into completing the last two hundred yards . . .

But suddenly he was down, forced to the ground by a burly IWW man who had squeezed himself through the police barrier. For a second Doc did not respond, the fatigue of the day’s running having finally sapped his energy. The two men rolled over untidily on the rough ground, as the boos grew to a crescendo, and even in his fatigue Doc could smell the whiskey on the man’s breath. Then Doc became aware of another runner – McPhail, he realized – pulling his attacker off, leaving Doc gasping on hands and knees, blood seeping from a cut lip.

Hugh McPhail and the IWW man grunted and wrestled scrappily with each other on the ground and were joined by another IWW man, who grabbed Hugh by the throat from behind. Then Morgan, twenty yards behind Hugh, joined the fray, and the four men grappled clumsily to the boos and roar of the crowd and the din of the brass band. Doc pulled himself glassily to his knees, as a man pushed through the crowd, both hands raised. It was Eamon Flaherty, the strike leader.

“For Christ’s sake, stop!” he shouted, pulling one of the men from Morgan.

“What the hell do these boys have on their chests?”

He dragged Doc to his feet, followed by Morgan and Hugh. On each of their sweaty yellow shirts were the letters “IWW”.

Flaherty raised his hands.

“IWW,” he shouted. “IWW! Our boys! Our boys! They’re with us!” The message quickly passed through the crowd. Silence fell, to be replaced, not by jeers, but by mounting applause.

Morgan pushed at Doc’s shoulder, pointing to the finish. “On you go, Doc. It’s your money.”

Doc rubbed his lip and smiled. He realized now why Flanagan had insisted on the IWW vests. A moment later he was trotting towards the finish, through waves of applause, up the narrow channel in the crowd. He passed the finishing line as the applause reached a crescendo. Flanagan was standing just beyond the massed band, his face swollen and bruised.

Doc winked at him.

“Looks like you’ve seen a little trouble, Flanagan,” he said. “You should have worn one of your own vests.”

Flanagan fingered his eye and grinned wryly.

 

Eamon Flaherty entered the Trans-America caravan, slowly peeled the paper from a large red steak and slapped the meat on the table.

“It’s the least I can do,” he said. “Slap it on that eye of yours. The bruise’ll be out in a couple of days, with luck.”

Willard gingerly picked up the limp steak, took it over to the refrigerator and put it on the top shelf. Flanagan beckoned the IWW leader to sit down.

“Beer?” he said.

“Thanks,” said Flaherty. “I’m real glad you’re taking it so well. I told you there was nothing personal.”

“There’s always something very personal about a black eye,” said Flanagan, pouring out a foaming beer for his guest. “Still, I can see your beef. Your IWW boys are out on strike. The Six Companies sponsored the Trans-America. I took their money, so I’ve got to be the bad guy.”

Flaherty wiped the tears from his eyes as the cold drink hit the back of his throat.

“Christ, you don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Sure, the boys was fired up when they heard those fat-arses had backed your race. Hell, we’ve been out for over two months now. Two months of nothing but Mulligan’s stew and sourdough biscuits.”

“Why are you out, Flaherty? Is it the money?” asked Willard.

Flaherty took another pull at his beer and shook his head. “No, the money’s okay,” he said. “Good for these times. But my guys are losing blood at the dam. Three men dead in the last six months, fifty-two more busted up bad. No safety rules, no insurance, no sick pay. That’s all the IWW is out for.”

“Aren’t there state safety rules?” asked Flanagan.

Flaherty laughed and gave him a veteran’s look. “You’re damned right there are. A whole stack of them, a mile high. The state inspector, Malloy, has warned the Six time and time again, but they’ve got pull up at state Capitol, so they just laugh and spit in his eye. Malloy’s been beaten up twice himself. Godammit, we got gas trucks working underground against state laws, we got guys doubling up on hours, we got unsupervised blasting; you name it, here at Boulder we got it. It’s like a butcher’s shop in the tunnel when there’s a blow-back. The walls are red with blood.”

Flanagan swore loudly, shaking his head.

“Don’t ask God for help. God’s a rascal,” interpreted Flaherty. “If He were any good He’d have seen off those Six Companies a long way back.”

“You said there was more to it,” said Flanagan, beckoning Willard to refill Flaherty’s glass. “What did you mean?”

“I mean that somebody up there doesn’t like you,” said Flaherty. “Up at state Capitol. I know: some of my boys were slipped five-spots to make things tough for you.”

“Where did the money come from?” asked Flanagan thoughtfully.

“The cops,” said Flaherty. “You noticed they didn’t do nothing when those drunks hit your boys? The money came straight from the mayor’s office. Our drift is that it came from someone big back at state Capitol.”

“But the mayor himself invited us here,” interjected Willard.

Flaherty shrugged. “He couldn’t come out in the open earlier, on account you pulled so many gambling men into Vegas. But he was leant on from upstairs to make it hard for you. You can take it from me. Lucky your boys was wearing them IWW vests, otherwise it could have been real messy for you.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Flanagan, pulling on his nose.

Flaherty blinked questioningly, but receiving no response he gulped down the last of his beer, wiped the foam from his stubbled chin and stood up. “My boys would like to make it up to you, Flanagan; have some of your men down to Camp Stand. Can’t promise you no fancy food, mind, but we do make a real sweet line in bootleg booze.”

“Accepted gratefully,” said Flanagan, standing up. “Just give us a couple of hours to organize things.”

When Flaherty had left Flanagan closed the door behind him and stood with his back pressed against it.

“Well,” he said. “What do you make of that, Willard?”

Willard Clay shrugged. “Don’t make no sense to me,” he said. “Who would want to stop us?”

Flanagan sat down and opened another bottle of beer.

“No one I can think of,” he said. “But it all begins to add up. All those goddam bills that are piling up, the towns ahead making no-no noises . . . Still, let’s face each problem as it comes. And let’s see what friend Flaherty’s fixed up for us.”

Flanagan looked up at the map and traced with his finger the route east from Las Vegas. More desert, then up into and across the Rockies. It was going to be hard going, even without the hassle. For the moment, however, he was simply going to enjoy himself.

 

Four miles south of Las Vegas stood Stand City, a tattered collection of tents and lean-tos, housing seven hundred and sixty-three Boulder Dam workers and their families. As Flanagan and his runners picked their way through the muddy ground towards Flaherty’s command centre, barefoot children ran between the tents, followed by thin, yapping dogs. Ragged women boiled clothes in black iron cauldrons at Flaherty’s “camp laundries” or poked brown bubbling messes of Mulligan’s stew.

“How do you like my centre?” asked Flaherty, after Flanagan, Willard, Dixie, a dozen of Flanagan’s Trans-Americans and a handful of journalists – now including agent Ernest Bullard – had pushed their way under the flap of the main tent. “This is where we put it all together.”

For all the signs of hardship, the atmosphere within the tent was very far from being one of despair. Flaherty had transformed his primitive command centre into a buffet area, with trestle tables spread with chicken, salami and hot pizza. On another table sat glass jugs of frothy bootleg beer.

Flanagan shook his head. “Beats me how you do it,” he said. “You can’t have left a chicken alive for a hundred miles around.”

“It ain’t often we entertain fellers running all the way to New York,” grinned Flaherty. “Usually it’s horse and rabbit stew here.”

“I know that recipe of old,” smiled Flanagan. “One horse to one rabbit.”

Certainly Flaherty’s fare was a welcome change from the monotonous diet of the Trans-America. The runners set to with vigour.

Hugh had never actually tasted chicken. He saw Dixie look at him as he gingerly picked up a chicken bone, and blushed.

“Never eaten chicken before,” he said.

“Don’t they have chickens back in Scotland?” asked Dixie, smiling.

“Yes, but not for people like me. I hadn’t even tasted coffee before I came here.”

In mock disbelief Dixie shook her head, then nibbled at her chicken. “You ought to taste it Southern style.” she said. “That’s really something.”

In another corner of the tent Flaherty was in conversation with Doc.

“I’d like to introduce you again to someone,” he said, drawing to him a rugged, bearded man. “You met him yesterday, only in different circumstances.”

Doc had indeed. It was the man who had put him down the day before. Flaherty’s companion stood towering above him, grinning sheepishly. Then he stuck out a great paw.

“Kovak,” he said. “Mike Kovak. Want to say sorry about yesterday. Nothing – ”

“I know,” Doc interjected, smiling wryly. “Nothing personal.” He shaped up to hit the big Pole but instead tapped him lightly on the chin. “Even up,” he said. “Have a beer.”

Flaherty smiled and moved over to Flanagan, who was standing talking to Willard. “Who the Sam Hill are those guys?” he said, pointing over to the Germans, who stood in an orderly group in a corner of the tent, sipping root beer.

“Krauts,” said Flanagan. “But they keep themselves strictly to themselves. Surprised they even joined us here. But they won’t trouble anyone.”

“I checked them out,” said Willard. “They’re from the National Socialist Party in Germany.”

“Socialists?” said Flaherty, smiling broadly. “Then they’re my kind of people.” He walked briskly over to Moltke, the German manager, and immediately started to engage him and his group in earnest conversation. They looked at him blankly through cold blue eyes and responded politely but without enthusiasm, while Eamon Flaherty jabbered on regardless.

“I’ve got a feeling they aren’t exactly his kind of socialists,” chuckled Flanagan.

“They’re sure cold fish,” agreed Willard, gnawing on a chicken bone. He looked around the vast crowded tent as the IWW men mingled freely with the Trans-Americans.

“What exactly do Flaherty and his IWW lot hope to get out of striking?”

Morgan, standing nearby with Kate, answered his question. “A fair deal. That’s all any man asks.”

“Has he got a chance?” asked Flanagan.

“Not much,” said Morgan. “All he’s got going for him is the fact that it’s public money going down the Swannee each day the dam is delayed. They say it’s going to be called the ‘Hoover Dam’. So perhaps the president will put in his two cents.”

“Hoover?” snorted Flanagan. “A marshmallow in a bag of marshmallows. He’ll just sit back and watch.”

Flaherty had left the Germans and now stood on the fringe of Doc’s group. “You’re right,” he said, re-entering the conversation unabashed. “We don’t expect no Washington cavalry riding in to the rescue. We’re on our own here, and we know it. If we lose we go back to more of the same. We just got to stay out as long as we can and keep out any blacklegs.”

“Irishmen like you have made losing an art form,” said Flanagan, smiling.

“But we can’t lose,” insisted Flaherty. “Not in the long run. You can take all your managers, your salesmen, your members of the board and dump them in the middle of the ocean, and we could still build this dam, but take away the workers, the muscle, and you’ve got nothing.”

“Let’s hope that’s the way the Six see it,” said Flanagan.

“It’s simple endurance,” said Morgan. “Who can last out longest. But you tell me, Flaherty, how many times have the workers won?”

For a moment Flaherty was nonplussed, his ruddy Irish face displaying a mixture of good nature, aggression and doubt.

“You’ve got to keep trying, just like we do.” It was Hugh, standing behind Flaherty, who spoke. “The moment you give up, you’re lost. The moment you give up, other men behind you die a little too. When you kill hope, you kill life.”

The words rushed from Hugh’s lips, surprising him with their passion. He blushed, ending lamely; “Well, that’s the way I see it.”

The group was silent. They knew he was right. Right about the Trans-America, right about Camp Stand.

 

It had been more an order from Flanagan rather than a request, that led to Mike Morgan and Kate Sheridan finding themselves driven by Willard Clay to the Blessed Mary Orphanage, on the outskirts of Las Vegas, on their rest day. Flanagan’s massive white Buick convertible threw up little whirlwinds of dust as Willard drove the car up the hill towards their destination.

Willard glanced over his shoulder at Morgan and Kate as they sat in the bright morning sun on the scat behind him.

“I suppose you’re trying to work out why Mr Flanagan picked you out?”

“It had occurred to me,” said Kate drily. “I’m sure no Sunday-school teacher.”

“Because they asked for you – that’s why,” said Willard, his eyes now fixed on the road ahead. “You may not know it, but you two are well on the way to being celebrities. The older kids up at the Blessed Mary know all about you – they get it all on the radio every day.”

Willard changed down expertly as they approached a steep curve.

“Anyhow, Flanagan reckoned you two would do a good job. And so did I.”

The Buick slowly drew to a halt in front of a massive brown oak doorway. The Blessed Mary had an unexpected atmosphere of stillness and calm. Kate and Morgan got out of the car and stood below its tall stone walls, occasionally glimpsing a child peering at them from the windows above, before he was pulled away by some unseen hand.

A tall, slim young nun, dressed in a black habit and white surplice, emerged from the darkness of the entrance doorway and walked over to them, smiling.

“Sister Eileen O’Rourke,” she introduced herself, proffering a hand to Kate. “You’ll be Miss Sheridan, I take it? We’ve heard so much about you.”

She shook hands with the two men and beckoned all three to follow her into the orphanage.

It was like being in church. Morgan could heard the hollow sound of his sandalled feet on the grey stone floors as Sister Eileen led them along a long, oak-panelled corridor. There was no sight or sound of a child.

At the end of the corridor Sister Eileen knocked gently at the door of the principal’s office and entered.

In the centre of the room sat an elderly nun in a high-backed leather chair behind an enormous desk. She rose, smiling, as they entered. Mother Theresa McEwan was at least sixty, but wore her years well, her face still retaining its strong, handsome features.

“Sit down,” she said, indicating three chairs in front of her desk. Sister Eileen placed herself behind her to the left of Mother Theresa’s chair.

“God bless you for finding the time to come,” Mother Theresa continued. “You see it was only yesterday that we asked Mr Flanagan to send you up to meet the children, but we never for a moment thought that it might be possible.”

She sat down.

“You must be very tired,” she said. “Would you like something to drink?” There was silence as Morgan and Kate looked uncertainly at each other.

“Orange juice?” volunteered Sister Theresa.

“Great,” said Willard. “I never drink anything else.”

Kate thought she saw the flicker of a smile in Mother Theresa’s eyes, but she could not be certain.

“Then orange juice it is,” said Mother Theresa, and nodded to Sister Eileen, who excused herself and left the room. The principal put her sun-tanned hands on the desk in front of her.

“Well,” she said. “We have over a hundred children here, aged between eight and fourteen. What would you like to do? Give them a lecture about the Trans-America?”

There was a further silence, again broken by Willard.

“If I might make a suggestion, ma’am . . .” he began uneasily.

“Yes?”

“Most kids don’t really want to listen to people talking at them, you know what I mean? They want to do something – run, jump, throw – let off some steam.”

Mother Theresa nodded. “That sounds a good idea,” she said. “I know that’s what I would have wanted at their age – I was always an active girl.” She smiled. “You know I always had an idea of myself as a great long jumper.”

She looked to her left as Sister Eileen entered with a tray on which stood a jug of iced orange juice and five glasses.

“What are your present sports facilities, Sister?” she asked.

Sister Eileen lay the tray on the desk and poured the juice slowly into the glasses.

“A field, a hundred yards by sixty, and two sand pits. That’s about all.”

“What exactly do you intend, Mr Clay?” asked Mother Theresa.

“A track meet,” replied Willard promptly.

“A track meet?” exploded Morgan, almost spilling the contents of his glass as it was handed to him.

“Sure,” said Willard. “I’ve organized meets for a thousand athletes in the Bronx in half this space. Here’s the way we play it – begging your pardon, Mother Theresa,” he said, nodding in deference to the principal.

Willard sipped his juice, then laid his glass down on the desk.

“We have three groups of thirty-odd children. I take runs, you take throws, Morgan, Kate takes jumps.”

“Throws?” said Morgan. “What do they throw?”

“A rock, a baseball, a medicine ball, anything. It doesn’t have to be no Olympics.”

“What kinds of jumps?” asked Kate.

“Make ’em up,” said Willard, gulping the remains of his drink. “Long jump for starters, hop, step and jump, standing long jump – when you run out of ideas, come over and see me, and we’ll make up some more.”

He looked at Kate and Morgan, then at the two nuns.

“Can some of your staff help?” he asked.

Mother Theresa nodded. “Just one question, Mr Clay,” she said. ‘

“Yes?” said Willard.

Mother Theresa smiled. “Can I judge the long jump? I fancy I’d be rather good at that.”

 

An hour later Carl Liebnitz pushed back his Panama hat and stood, hands on hips, on the rim of the natural bowl in which lay the primitive playing fields of the Blessed Mary Orphanage. Below him, the rough, sandy scrub grass of the playing field was covered by children running, jumping and throwing. That morning he had sought out Willard Clay to get the full story of the previous day’s fracas with the IWW workers, but had discovered that Willard, together with Kate and Morgan, had been given the orphanage assignment.

Liebnitz’s lean face cracked into a grin as he gingerly descended the steep slope down to the field. A baseball rolled to a stop a few feet to his left, pursued by a tiny, red-haired boy. Liebnitz stopped, picked up the ball and lobbed it underarm to the boy.

The boy grinned and rushed back to Mike Morgan who was surrounded by a dozen excited children. Liebnitz nodded at Morgan as he passed, raising both hands.

“Don’t let me stop you, Morgan,” he said. “Looks like you’re doing a great job.”

Morgan feigned a scowl, as Liebnitz moved on and passed a sister vigorously engaged in conducting a javelin competition – which consisted of throwing a wooden broom-handle for distance. Just beyond, another group of children were throwing stones for accuracy at squares of paper imbedded in the slope, this time organized by a white-haired sister.

In the centre of the arena, Willard was conducting handicap races around a vaguely circular two-hundred-yard track. Liebnitz winced as a tiny boy, legs in steel braces, struggled past the tape to win a race, then fell to his knees. He rushed to the boy, placing his hands under the boy’s armpits, to heave him to his feet. Sweat streamed down the little boy’s face as he stood hands on hips, chest heaving.

“You all right, sonny?” asked Liebnitz, bending down to brush dust from the boy’s shorts with his hands.

“Did I win?” the boy asked. “I got it, didn’t I?”

Liebnitz gripped the boy by both shoulders and looked into his eyes.

“You sure did, son,” he said. “You won it clean.”

He got to his feet as Willard Clay, a whistle between his teeth, walked over.

Willard blew a blast on his whistle and gesticulated at a group of children moving to their marks for the next heat of the handicap race.

“On your marks,” he shouted.

He waited till they all stood poised on their marks, strung around the rough, uneven track.

“Get set!”

A moment later Willard blew a blast on his whistle and ten children scampered round the track, the older children at the back, giving massive starts to scurrying infants at the front. Willard let his whistle drop from his mouth to dangle at his plump waist and grinned as a dozen children ran past him and lunged at the finishing tape.

“Great handicaps,” he crowed, turning up both thumbs to Sister Eileen, who held one end of the broken finishing tape.

“Who’s the handicapper?”

“You are, Mr Clay,” said Sister Eileen, smiling primly, as she noted the result of the heat.

“What on earth is this, Willard?” asked Liebnitz, taking off his hat and fanning his face with it. “The kindergarten Olympics?”

“That’s about it, Mr Liebnitz,” said Willard, walking with Liebnitz towards the far corner of the ground, where Kate Sheridan, Mother Theresa and three other nuns were conducting a variety of jumping competitions.

“How did you find us here?”

Liebnitz grinned. “I weaseled that out of Flanagan,” he said. “He’s a strange guy, your boss. Thinks he’s some kind of a cissy if someone sees him doing a good deed.”

Willard and Liebnitz stopped at the long-jump pit, where Sister Theresa was measuring the jump of a large long-legged girl who stood over the principal, her skirt tucked into her knickers.

Sister Theresa looked up at the girl standing above her.

“Fourteen foot six inches exactly,” she said, smiling. The girl ran shrieking back to her friends assembled at the end of the approach-run, informing them of the distance she had achieved.

A few feet away, at another sand pit, Kate Sheridan was reaching the final stages of an absorbing high-jump competition. The high-jump stands were makeshift, being broom-handles stuck into the ground with nails inserted all the way up, on which a strip of wood rested.

Two competitors remained, and the other children surrounding the sand pit became silent as the first, a leggy Mexican fourteen-year-old, approached the crossbar, which stood at four foot eight inches. It was a fine, high “scissors” jump, but the Mexican grazed the bar with his rear leg. It quivered for a moment, then fell to the ground, to groans from the audience.

Then the last jump of his rival, a tiny, freckled Irish boy of about twelve. The Irish lad sprinted at the bar from the front and hurled himself into the air, bunching himself into a ball. Like the Mexican, he touched the bar and as he landed in the soft sand he turned round towards the trembling bar to see if he had dislodged it. It stayed on. The boy bounded from the pit, to be engulfed by the other children. Kate smiled and looked at Liebnitz.

“You know the most popular kid here?” she asked. “That little fat guy over there. He got himself over three foot six inches. You should have heard the other kids when the little guy made it.”

Liebnitz looked round the field, hands on hips, as the sports drew to a close.

“You seem to have given these kids here a real nice time,” he said. “Most people who’d just run fifty miles through the desert would be putting their feet up today, not holding kids’ sports.”

“I wasn’t sure when Flanagan asked me,” said Kate. “But he was right. It’s been great here. I wouldn’t have missed it.”

They walked together towards a table in the centre of the arena around which the children and staff were now gathering.

“It’s so obvious, plain as the nose on your face,” said Liebnitz. “But we always tend to forget it. When you recognize effort, and achievement, then everyone’s a winner. And when you’ve got no losers, then everyone’s with you.”

The hundred children squatted expectantly in a semi-circle in front of the table in the middle of the field in the setting sun. Behind the table stood Mother Theresa and her staff, to be joined by Morgan, Kate and Liebnitz, and a few moments later by a sweating Willard and the school caretaker, both carrying large cardboard boxes.

“Back to your groups,” shouted Morgan and in a moment the children had obediently divided into their original three divisions.

Willard dipped into the large cardboard box below him, pulled out two chocolate bars and held them above him, to the whoops of the children.

“Prize-giving,” he shouted. “Compliments of Mr Flanagan.”