The Anarchist (42 page)

Seibold looked up from the notebook. “So you’re sorry for the crime?”

Czolgosz hesitated. Something had changed since he had been sentenced; it was over now except for the execution, and he wasn’t ready yet to think on that. He couldn’t say what was different, but he knew it was there. Gazing out the window, he said, “I am sorry I did it.” He watched the smoke drift off the tip of his cigar, and then added, “One thing more I want to tell. I would give my life, if it were mine to give, if I could help Mrs. McKinley. That is the saddest part of it. But what is the use talking about that now? The law is right, it is just. It was just to me and I have no complaint, only regret.”

Seibold didn’t write anything now, as though he understood that it might jeopardize the conversation. “If you had to do it over again, would you do it?”

“No, I would not,” Czolgosz said. “It was a mistake.”

“Was your mind influenced by the reading of anarchist newspapers or books?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know anybody in Paterson, New Jersey, any anarchists?”

“No, I don’t know anybody there.”

“Was your trial fair?”

Czolgosz stared at the reporter. “Yes, it was fairer than I thought I would get. The judge could not help doing what he did. The jury could not—the law made them do it. I don’t want to say now it was wrong. It was fair to me and it was right.” He looked back at his reflection in the window. “I have nothing to say about it.”

Seibold began writing again, swiftly, and when he was finished Mitchell nodded his head. Seibold stood up, tucking his notebook and pen inside the outside pocket of his suit coat, and stepped into the aisle. Czolgosz watched the reporter’s reflection in the glass: he paused, putting one hand on the back of the seat to help keep his balance. Turning back to Czolgosz, he said, “I understand you’re Catholic but don’t go to mass anymore. Will you see a priest … before?”

Without looking away from the window, Czolgosz said, “I don’t want to be ashamed. Maybe I will see a priest.” He needed to stop talking now. He needed to hold on until it passed. “It is worse than I thought it would be.” He looked up at Seibold.

The reporter averted his eyes; he didn’t seem to comprehend what he’d heard, and it made him frightened, anxious to get away. As the train rocked from side to side, he walked unsteadily up the aisle toward the front of the car, grabbing the backs of seats and pulling himself along, as though he were climbing some great height.

Czolgosz gazed out the window again and smoked his cigar. The train passed slowly through neighborhoods with clapboard tenements, warehouses, open fields. Occasionally there were small groups of people standing alongside the track. Their somber faces were illuminated by the light cast from the coach, and
sometimes he heard shouts, their voices murderously shrill above the clatter of the wheels. When the train ran beneath an embankment, there were people standing on top of a brick wall, holding lanterns. Their mouths were open, and he realized they were singing.

“How’d they know I’m on this train?” Czolgosz asked.

“Don’t know,” Mitchell said. “Word gets around, no matter what we do. It’s people want to see you dead and gone.” Mitchell fingered the hard brim of his bowler. “It’s Americans.”

“I’m an American,” Czolgosz said.

Mitchell only stared at him.

THE girl cried for so long that Savin finally turned to Hyde and whispered, “Jesus, if she doesn’t shut up
I’m
going to shoot her.”

From the house, a woman called out, “Lydia, you come up here this minute.”

“They shot him,” the girl said. “He’s dead, Momma.”

“Come up to the house now.” Something in the woman’s voice suggested that she had expected this all along.

“And they shot Josef, too.” The girl got to her feet and began walking toward the barn. Her gait was coltish and graceful, and her skirt swung easily about her ankles. “Josef?” she yelled. “You hurt, too?”

“He’s all right,” Bruener shouted. “Just do like your momma says.”

But the girl continued toward the barn, until her mother came out into the yard, took her daughter by the shoulders, and guided her into the house.

There was a sound to Hyde’s left, and he looked down the
creek to see Rutherford approaching, crouched down below the bank. When he reached them, Savin seemed both disappointed and amused.

“Well, Mr. Rutherford,” Savin said. “That was quite a shot. Looks like you put it right in his ear canal. You learn to shoot like that hunting rabbits?”

“Yes, sir. My father told me to aim for the head so as not to spoil the meat.”

“I see,” Savin said. “It’s a good thing, obeying your daddy. But did anyone tell you to leave your position?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, that is what you did, Mr. Rutherford. I don’t cotton to insubordination, but I’ll let it go this once.” Savin took a moment to survey the farm. “There’s at least four of them. The thing is not to let them know there’s only three of us. We need to spread out, give them the impression there’s more of us.” He looked at Rutherford. “Now I want you to go back to where you came from in the woods—but not the exact same place, so they’ll think there might be at least two of you out there. Get yourself a good view of the front of the barn.” Turning to Hyde, he said, “You stay here while I go down the creek that way”—with his pistol, he waved in the other direction—“and see if I can get around behind the barn. I’ll try to flush them out into the yard so you can get a clear shot.”

“What about the Pinkertons?” Hyde asked.

“What about them, Hyde?” Savin said.

“You told me Norris was important.”

“He is.” Savin seemed embarrassed that the subject had even been raised. “But what’s more important at this point is that dynamite.”

“Dynamite, sir?” Rutherford said.

“Right,” Savin said. “According to Hyde, they’ve got dynamite, which they intend to use to kill Leon Czolgosz when his train arrives in Auburn later tonight. Their idea is to make a martyr of
him. It’s a hell of a notion—this is the kind of people we’re dealing with here. I want to get the Pinkertons out alive, but the dynamite is now our priority, understand?” He stared at Rutherford and Hyde, waiting for a response, and when there was none, he said, “Now, let’s move.”

TUCK opened the back doors of the milk wagon. Gimmel had put the lantern out, and Norris could barely see him climb out and open a stall where one of the horses was kept. As he bridled the horse, he gave orders in German. He spoke rapidly and no one questioned him. There seemed a resignation in their silence.

Tuck came over to Norris’s stall and knelt on one knee; with a knife he cut the rope that held Norris to the gatepost. Norris got to his feet with some difficulty, as his hands were still bound in front of him. Tuck opened the gate and then motioned with the knife. Norris stepped outside the stall and walked to the back of the wagon, where he turned and sat on the floor, and then leaned back so he could swing his legs inside. He watched Gimmel throw a saddle up on the horse’s back.

“What are you doing, Gimmel?” he asked.

“You’re going for a little ride, Pinkerton.”

“Where?”

Gimmel didn’t answer as he concentrated on tightening cinches, but when he was finished he said, “I suppose you believe in some form of eternity.”

“Don’t really give it much thought,” Norris said. “I find the here and now occupies all of my time.”

“Perhaps we have that in common.” Gimmel climbed up into the saddle and walked the horse a few steps toward the milk wagon. “Whatever’s at the end of here and now, Norris, that’s
about where you’re headed.” He nodded, as a gesture of farewell, it seemed, and then Tuck closed the wagon doors.

Again, Norris found himself sitting in the dark breathing that sickening smell of milk.

THERE was noise in the barn suddenly—pounding hooves, wheels, yelling—and then a wagon came through the open doors, scattering chickens in the yard. The moonlight was bright enough that Hyde could see three men sitting on the driver’s bench, Bruener on the left, Josef on the right—both firing pistols in the direction of the creek, while the man between them slapped the reins on the horse’s haunches. Hyde stretched out his arm and began shooting. The wagon bucked over the rutted path that ran alongside the pasture, making it difficult to draw a bead. Mewling cows trotted in a panic across Hyde’s line of fire. He could hear Rutherford’s shots, muffled by the woods, and a burst of gunfire came from the far side of the barn. The smell of gunpowder filled the night air.

As the wagon neared the house, someone stepped out on the porch—it wasn’t the girl, but the older woman, her mother. She carried a rifle on her hip, which she fired twice, taking down the horse. The wagon ran up on the animal’s hindquarters and for a moment it was poised at an angle on two wheels before it fell over on its left side. All three men were thrown to the ground, where they lay hurt, and a fourth tumbled out of the back of the wagon.

The woman sat down on the porch step and began to cry. The girl and two small children came out and hovered around her. Hyde climbed up over the bank of the creek and ran across the pasture. He could tell that the man thrown from the back of the wagon was Norris; his hands were tied in front of him but he managed to get
to his feet. He limped badly as he went to the nearest man—Klaus Bruener—picked up a gun that lay on the ground, aimed, and fired. Bruener cried out and began crawling back toward the barn. Norris fired twice more and Bruener stopped moving. Norris hobbled over to the man who had been driving the wagon and shot him once in the head.

“Norris”
Hyde shouted when he reached the barnyard.

Norris was working his way toward the boy, Josef, who was writhing on the ground, holding his leg. “I’m going to finish them, Hyde.” He seemed oddly gleeful. But then he knelt down and sat back in the dirt, clutching his injured foot. “Goddamn, I think I must have busted my ankle.” Looking around, he said, “I don’t see Gimmel. You already shoot that bastard?”

From the open barn door Savin said, “He rode off.” He walked out into the yard, holding his left arm tight to his body as though in fear that he might somehow drop it. His forearm was slick with blood which glistened in the moonlight. “I believe I have lost a good portion of my elbow.”

“Gimmel shoot you?” Norris asked.

“He rode a horse out the back of the barn,” Savin said.

Norris nodded toward a crate that lay on its side near the back of the wagon. “He took some of the dynamite.”

They were silent for a moment, and the only sound in the yard was of Josef grinding his heel in the dirt. The girl had gone to him, but she didn’t seem to know what to do.

“Where is that boy with our horses?” Savin asked.

As if in response they heard the sound of hooves; turning, they watched Rutherford lead their horses out of the woods and across the creek at a point where its banks were low, and then they trotted up the pasture. They came into the yard and stopped, breathing heavily and snorting.

“You’re losing a lot of blood,” Hyde said.

“Gimmel’s on his way to Auburn,” Savin said.