In the last part Ben sent a telegram to D.L. Moody. He will travel to San Francisco regardless of troubles. James sent for Jones, Ben’s friend at Creede. Ben axed off one of the Chicago gang member’s foot after a trolley car accident. With him out of commission and another scared and sent away on a train, the gang is down to three. Ben and friends agree to set up a street fight at an abandoned pier.

Piers eighteen and nineteen were vacant. Each had empty warehouses, and the space between would do. The next day was a busy one. Jones managed to glue himself to Ben, despite the San Francisco hills.

Ben, James, Angelo, and Jones spent the night before the day of the showdown at the pier in one of the warehouses. They would not chance arriving after the place had been set up by their foes. The arrangement was for a nine o’clock meeting. At first light the four were in the area between the warehouses with their backs to the bay. At about 7:30 the three Colosimo gang members, accompanied by three more who appeared to be San Francisco policemen in civilian clothes, probably fellow Italians, arrived, spreading abreast.

“Perfect,” Vincent yelled. “Exactly where I want you. We will finish this and throw you into the ocean.”

No one on Ben’s side responded, simply spread somewhat, their four facing Vincent’s six.

The gang of six, Vincent Colosimo stopped their forward movement as they spread out. As if choreographed, they began advancing.

“The three policemen will not have guns,” Angelo whispered loud enough for the others to hear. “Billy clubs. Don’t let them get behind you.”

Ben’s people stood firm. Ben began to pray aloud. “God in heaven, we thank you that you have heard our hearts’ cry. You know that we do not want to hurt these men. We hold their families up to you, praying that their men return to their family bosoms unharmed.”

The gang members and police thugs looked to one another, none certain whether it was right to attack someone before they’d finished praying.

“Lord, please do not send your angels to obliterate your adversaries. Lord, we do not wish to see them consigned to Satan’s hell. We know that you are for us, and not against us. I ask now, Lord God Almighty that you stiffen the trigger fingers of these small children. We know they are tiny in your sight, as they are in ours. Lord stay our power that we not too badly hurt them. In the powerful name of your son, Jesus, we ask. Amen.”

At the amen, the four began to slowly stride toward the six.

Vincent and his two fellow Chicagoans, all three, drew their right hands into their lefts, looking down to study their trigger fingers. By that time the four had closed half the distance to the six. The three policemen had their clubs in hand, whacking their off-hand palms, nervous grins on their faces.

To a man the three gang members reached for the weapons, awkwardly extracting them from stubborn holsters. Double action revolvers, they could be fired with simple, though more purposeful trigger pulls, or by cocking back the hammers, lessening the force necessary to allow the hammers to strike the firing pins. In three easy strides Ben, James and Angelo had Vincent and his two friends’ gun hands bound in theirs. Each easily took the guns, quickly heaving them over the tops of one or other of the two warehouse roofs. Jones had positioned himself at Ben’s back, prepared to protect him.

At that point, chaos seemed to reign, though in slowed motion, choreography again seemed staged. The four jabbed, dodged, and parried as the six attempted to zero in on a man who’d escaped, moving off to jab and body-punch another.

Within the first few seconds, Angelo inserted himself between Vincent and Ben. Angelo absolutely believed that God had miraculously saved Ben’s life against his own stiletto, but instinct took over, and he chose to intervene. He suddenly learned that his previous life’s knife-attacking skills served him well when on the defense. He soon had the knife airborne to join with the guns on the other side of the warehouse.

As if on cue, as one of the six went to the ground, twenty-five or more uniformed policemen poured from either side of the warehouses, amassing as a force headed for the combatants.

Again, as if practiced, from within either warehouse, forty preachers, pastors, priests, and ministers of all types ran toward one another to lock arms creating a wall separating Ben’s four and the gang of six from the police.

The police whistles appeared to be the signal for Clyde’s union men to run out from the same doors as had the clergy, backing them up, holding them up, and even inserting themselves to replace fallen preachers as the police wielded the clubs.

Within minutes that seemed seconds, three gang members and three civilian clad policemen either lay, or sat on the ground with Ben and his three friends standing, heaving for breath and bleeding, but standing over them.

As loud as had Jackson of the 56-horse team, possibly heavenly assisted, Ben cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted “HOLD!”

To a man, they did.

“Where’s the captain?” Ben shouted, though he needn’t.

As the policemen withdrew somewhat, a man in a civilian suit approached.

“Captain,” Ben said. “These three wish to be escorted to the train station.” Ben pointed to Vincent and his two friends. “Today’s activities have come to a close. We do not wish to file any charges.

“Thank you, gentlemen, one and all. And the Lord thanks you.”