Shanaghy spun a table in the path of the advancing men, and when several fell he crowned them with a chair. Ducking around the bar, he armed himself with bottles which he threw with unerring aim.
Another man went down, screaming. A bottle missed Shanaghy by inches and he ducked through the door to find Lochlin. The man was gone. He had scooped up the money he was to count and scrambled out the back door. Slamming the door into place, Cogan, who had joined him, dropped a bar across it and they ran for the alley. There were too many to fight, too many altogether. They had almost reached the back door when there was a shot and Lochlin staggered in, bleeding.
“Upstairs!” Shanaghy told them quickly. “Over the roofs!” He stopped and lifted Lochlin bodily from the floor, holding him in place with one arm while he scooped up the moneybag with the other. He ran up the steps, blessing his good luck for all the years at the blacksmith’s anvil, and then they came out on the roof, barring the trap behind them. The sky was covered with low clouds, and it was beginning to rain. Murphy, another aide of Morrissey’s, had joined them. “There’s a rig at Kendall’s,” he gasped.
Suddenly, from behind a parapet of a roof, a group of men raised themselves up. Shanaghy’s glance counted six. He turned. As many more were coming across the roofs behind them.
“This time,” somebody yelled, “ye’ll not get away!” Shanaghy dropped the moneybag and drew a snub-nosed pistol from a waistband holster. “I’m givin’ y’ fair warnin’,” he said, “git to runnin’ or somebody dies!”
“Hah!” a big roughneck shouted, lifting a club in one hand and a half-brick in the other, ready to throw. “Y’ll not git away this .. !” Men had been killed with sticks and stones for millions of years before a firearm was invented, and Tom Shanaghy did not hesitate. He had been well taught, and during the four years he had operated the shooting gallery he had practiced daily.
He palmed the gun and he fired even as the big man spoke. The gun was a .44 and Shanaghy fired three times.
The big man cried out and staggered. Another fell, and then they were all running.
Somehow Shanaghy and his men got to Kendall’s, got into the rig and fled. Cogan was holding Lochlin while Shanaghy drove, and never would he forget that wild night drive through the dark, rain-whipped streets. Where should they go? Shanaghy wondered. His own place was known and would not be safe. Lochlin’s bachelor quarters would be unsafe, too. Yet there was a hiding place, a place Morrissey kept off Broadway. He drove there. There was a floor safe in Morrissey’s bedroom and that was where Tom took the money. He withheld a handful of bills, made a hasty estimate and dropped a note into the safe with the remainder of the money.
Giving Cogan and Murphy each $100 running money. They will hide out in Boston … you know where. I am taking $500 and leaving $500 with Lochlin. He’s hurt bad but I’ll get Florrie in to take care of him. Watch yourself.
Shanaghy
He gave money to each of the men and told Cogan to get word to Florrie to come and care for Lochlin. Then he reloaded his pistol and went to Morrissey’s desk for another … There were two there and he took one. He got Lochlin on the bed and bound up his wound as best he could. He’d been shot in the side and was unconscious, his clothing soaked with blood. Florrie came to the door and he let her in, giving her Lochlin’s money. “Tell nobody he’s here and keep out of sight. I don’t think you’re known to them anyway.”
“What will you do?”
“First, I’ve got to get that horse out of sight and into a stable. If they see it they’ll trace Lochlin to this place. I’ll think of myself after.” He went out through the kitchen window and down the back stairs. All was dark and silent. Thunder rumbled in the distance and there was occasional lightning. When he came out of the alley, the horse was standing there, head hanging. Shanaghy looked carefully around, then crossed the walk and got into the rig, turning the horse down the street. The top and sides kept most of the rain off. He dried his right hand and felt for his guns.
He had killed a man up there … perhaps two. But they were coming for him and would have killed him. His quick shooting had saved many other lives … probably.
He drove down the dark streets.
John Morrissey was a man who had lived with trouble, and so he was constantly aware of its proximity. Wisely, he had prepared hideouts where he could hole up until softer winds blew, and stables where horses could be found. It was to one of these that Shanaghy now drove.
All was dark and silent. There were two horses in the stable and several empty stalls. Shanaghy led his horse inside, dried him off and put oats in the bin. The rig he put into a carriage house out of sight and then he went to the house hard by. Over a cup of hot coffee he considered the situation. Eben Childers had planned well. Obviously they had known that John Morrissey was out of town. The place on Barclay Street had probably been hit as well, and Childers’s men would be on all the streets. It was no time to be out and about. Morrissey would know of what had happened within a matter of hours, but Shanaghy, knowing his man, doubted that John would make any move until the force of Childers’s drive was spent. Knowing such men as Childers used, Shanaghy knew that within hours, when victory seemed complete, they would begin to drink. Some would simply turn in to rest, others would scatter to find their doxies or whatever. And that would be the time to strike. Sitting alone in the empty house with a coal-oil lamp on the table beside him, Tom Shanaghy plotted the strategy of the days to come. He would have to get in touch with Boynton and Finlayson, and they would gather the boys for him so they could be ready to strike back.
He paced the floor, muttering to himself, trying to plan the counterattack as John would plan it, trying to foresee all that must be done. First, he must get word to Morrissey. Then, when Boynton and Finlayson had gathered the gang together, they would choose their targets and strike. Finally, weary with planning, he went to sleep. He awakened in the light of a chill, rainy dawn and dressed. He checked his guns and then went down to the street. There was nobody around, but he had not expected to see any people. This was a quiet neighborhood and it was Sunday.
Boynton would be in the Five Points. Shanaghy went through the streets until he reached Broadway and there he hired a hack. When he mentioned the Five Points the driver refused flatly. “No, sir, I’ll not be goin’ yonder. Not for any man. They’d steal the fillin’s from your teeth, yonder. I’ll take you within a street or two, that’s all!”
No argument would suffice, and Shanaghy didn’t blame him. He found Boynton sleeping off a drunk and shook him awake. Shanaghy made coffee and forced a cup on the reluctant giant. Slowly, word by word, he filled Boynton in on all that had happened. “You’re to get twenty good men … tough men.” He went ahead carefully with the planning. They would gather in three positions, then strike fast and hard.
John Morrissey had made enemies, and Childers had tied in with some of them. Mostly they were former followers of Butcher Bill Poole, the only man who ever bested Morrissey in a rough-and-tumble fight. Sometime later, Poole had been shot and killed by Lew Baker. That was in 1855, and the funeral procession for Poole had been the largest in the city until that time. Several hundred policemen had led the procession, followed by two thousand members of the Poole Association, a political faction. That was followed by nearly four thousand of the Order of United Americans, and hose-and-engine companies from New York, Boston and Baltimore, as well as Philadelphia. As a special honor guard were two companies of militia named for Poole, the Poole Guards and the Poole Light Guards.
When the rites were completed, the various sections broke up, but the Guards and the Light Guards stayed together. It was evening before they reached Broadway and Canal Street, where a building was undergoing demolition. There, unknown to the Poole men, a number of the Morrissey faction had concealed themselves. The Original Hounds and a crowd of the Morrissey shoulder-strikers waited until the Poole men came within easy range, and then they cut loose with a shower of bricks and stones. Several Poole men went down, but they were the better-armed and charged the Morrissey faction with fixed bayonets. Scattering, the Morrissey men took to the alleys and roofs. Yet all of them were not to escape, for later that night the Poole men attacked the engine-house where some of the Original Hounds were holed up, destroying the place and putting them to flight.