Summary
A soot-choked industrial fable unfurls inside the yawning maw of Regan Steel, where molten ribbons hiss like serpents and every girder groans under the weight of inherited duty. Esther Regan, swathed in funeral crepe, steps onto the foundry floor and the clang of hammers stalls—an operatic hush—because the men recognize, in the angle of her chin, the same adamantine resolve that once glowed in her late father’s eyes. Across town, the mahogany-lined boardroom of Associated Trust exhales cigar smoke and predatory laughter; Darwin McAllister, their wolf in a bespoke three-piece, is dispatched to gut the mill and ferry its carcass back to the shareholders. Instead, the sulfurous sunrise glinting off slag heaps becomes a private revelation: he watches Esther stride between blast furnaces, clipboard in hand, coaxing poetry from pig iron, and the ledger in his breast pocket suddenly feels like sin. What follows is not a courtship but a crucible—two wills tempered by strikebreakers’ lies, sabotaged freight cars, and the crimson night sky that looms when Cyrus Moulton orders Dan Cullen to derail a contract shipment that could bankrupt the Regan kingdom. McAllister defects, not with a thunderbolt but with a quietly slid resignation letter onto Moulton’s silver tray; the paper trembles, ink still wet, like blood on a surgeon’s scalpel. Esther rallies her laborers with speeches that taste of coal dust and transcendence; together they reroute trains, outwit Pinkertons, and push a locomotive through dawn’s fog so thick it could be sliced with a putty knife. When the final ingot rolls out on schedule, the whistle’s shriek is less triumph than lament—for every scorched palm, every widow’s rent voucher, every dream smelted into that iron heart.
Synopsis
Upon her father's death, Esther Regan promises to carry out his wishes that she protect his workers and manage the Regan Steel Mills as well as he. The Associated Trust has been trying to gain control of the Regan plant, but has always met with resistance from Regan. Now that he is dead, they see their opportunity for a coup and send Darwin McAllister to accomplish the deed. However, McAllister is impressed with the way the plant is run and, growing fond of Esther, resigns his position to help her fight the trust. This arouses the ire of trust president Cyrus Moulton, who employs Dan Cullen to sabotage plant operations by delaying the shipment of a critical contract. McAllister and Esther appeal to the workers; united, they manage to rout the trust and get through to deliver their shipment.
