All Men Fear Me (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

“Eat More Fish. They Feed Themselves”

—U.S. Food Administration poster, 1917

After church, Shaw gave his permission for Charlie to spend Sunday afternoon on the banks of Cane Creek with Rob and Gee Dub, but the price Charlie had to pay was to include Sophronia. Sophronia was delighted, Rob was cheerful, Gee Dub was amused, and Charlie accepted the stipulation with as much good grace as he could muster.

It had rained a bit, but stopped shortly after dinner. By the time the four of them stretched out on an old blanket next to the bank and arranged their poles in the water, puffy, rain-laden clouds were scudding across a bright blue sky, driven by a fresh breeze. Branches of spindly sassafras, pin oak, and locust, still wet from morning showers, overhung the bank, and with every breezy burst, fat droplets of water rained down. To protect them from the intermittent spray, Rob rigged a lean-to out of a horse blanket propped over two long sticks with rocks on one edge. Bacon complicated matters by sniffing around in the wet undergrowth, then vigorously shaking off his wet coat in their direction before flopping himself down between the bodies on the blanket.

Sophronia, who had ditched her Sunday frock for a pair of Charlie's outgrown overalls, baited all four hooks with night crawlers and staked the poles in the muddy bank. The males were content to let her take over the fishing enterprise with just an occasional teasing word of advice. Eventually they fell into a desultory conversation.

“How much longer are you going to be here, Uncle Robin?” Charlie asked.

“Not much longer, cowboy. A few more days yet.”

Gee Dub was reclining on the blanket with his hands behind his head and one ankle crossed over his knee. He appeared to be asleep, his hat covering his eyes, but he wasn't missing any of the conversation. “How come you're not up on the stump while you're here?” he asked. “You could do some satisfying recruitment for the I.W.W. around these parts.”

Rob adjusted his position and didn't answer for a moment. “Well, Gee, don't think I haven't ruminated on it. Y'all have some good organizations around here, active too.”

“So why…?” Charlie began, but Rob anticipated his question.

“I don't want to take advantage of your folks' good nature, sport. What I do ain't exactly popular with the powers that be, you know, especially right now. I admire your daddy and mama. I don't mind bringing the house down on my own head, but I'd just as soon not worry your folks with it.”

“Everybody around here knows our folks and what they believe in, Unc. The neighbors aren't going to think that your Red thinking has rubbed off on Daddy.” Gee Dub's delivery was deadpan, but Rob could hear the hint of teasing in his voice.

Rob didn't laugh. “You'd be surprised what the neighbors might do, Gee. I've seen men turn on each other like rats for more unlikely reasons than having a Wobblie in the family.”

“That don't seem right,” Charlie said.

Rob's eyes crinkled. “You know what they say, pal. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.”

“You being the dog we're lying down with.”

“That's right. Your neighbors are entirely like to think that the old nasty flea of unionism will jump on anybody who gets near me.”

They were interrupted by Sophronia, who had grown tired of staring at the corks bobbing in the wind-ruffled water and rushed back up the bank. She threw herself down on the blanket between Rob and Gee Dub. “What are y'all talking about?”

The two men eased themselves over enough to give her some room. “Mr. Woodrow Wilson,” Rob answered, “president of these here United States of America.”

“We studied the presidents in school.”

Charlie was annoyed at the change of topic. “Fronie, nobody cares about that. We're talking about important stuff….”

Rob held up a hand.“Well, now, wait a minute, slick. Presidents are important stuff. What did you learn about presidents, sugar plum?”

Sophronia made a face at Charlie before she replied. “I learned that Teddy Roosevelt was president when I was born.”

Gee Dub lifted his hat off his eyes and winked at her. “Why, that's right! Fancy you remembering that.”

She elbowed Gee Dub in the ribs. “Who was president when you were born, Uncle Robin?”

“I had so much on my mind on the day I was born that I didn't think to ask, Fronie. But later it came to my attention that Rutherford Birchard Hayes was in the White House at the time.”

“How about you, Gee?'

“George Washington.”

Sophronia sat up straight, indignant. “You'd have to be more'n a hundred years old!”

“Why else do you think Mama and Daddy named me after him, then?”

“You're not named after him!”

Charlie forgot his impatience for a moment and sputtered a laugh. “What did you think Gee Dubya stands for, then?”

Sophronia gasped. “Gee Dubya!”

“The light dawns!” Gee Dub exclaimed.

“Oh, Gee!” Sophronia jumped on her brother and tried to pummel him, but he held her off with one hand as she flailed the air in front of his face. “No kidding, now! Who was president when you were born?”

He was enjoying her ineffectual attempt to get at him. “I don't remember. I was just a baby at the time. You figure it out. You're the president expert.”

She quit struggling and rolled back onto the blanket. “Let's see, now. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison … oh, never mind! This is boring.”

“At last!” Charlie threw up his hands. “Go check the lines again and quit bothering us.”

Sophronia stood and flounced off, her long, reddish, damp-frizzed hair streaming behind her and the wet hound close on her heels.

Charlie turned back toward Rob. “Are you a traitor?”

Rob blinked at him, taken aback by the sudden mood shift. “Well, now, Charlie, just because I disapprove of this war don't mean I'm a traitor. I think of myself as a patriot, and a patriot of the real kind. This is my big, messy country. I love it. I want for it to be the best country there is. If it suffers ills, I want to cure them. I want for every citizen to enjoy all its rights and privileges, and I believe it is my duty to try and help that happen.”

“But who are you to decide what's right, Uncle? If the president says it's so, don't he know best? We can't all be running off in all different directions. We'll never get anywhere that way!”

Rob sighed. “Charlie Boy, that's for every man to decide for himself, and woman too. In this country we're free to think whatever we determine is the best thing to think. At least I hope that's still the case.”

“I'm volunteering as soon as I turn eighteen. I just hope this war don't end before I can get into it and kill me some Huns.”

“That so? You'll have to have your mama and daddy's permission to enlist before you're twenty-one. You think your ma is eager to see you go get your yourself killed?”

“My parents won't stand in my way, nor Gee Dub's way either. Tell him, Gee. Tell him how you're going to show 'em a thing or two.”

Gee Dub sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. He gazed at Rob for half a minute before nodding toward the knife hanging in its sheath from Rob's belt.

“I been meaning to ask you, Unc. Where did you come across that Arkansas toothpick, there?”

Rob was more than willing to change the subject. “What, this little old pig sticker?” He pulled it out of the sheath to reveal a slightly curved, single-edged, six-inch blade.

Charlie sat up straight, instantly diverted. “Whoa!”

“I got this from a young fellow name of Buck, up in Washington state. He makes them out of old rasps. I never had a knife that held an edge better than this one. I use it for everything from dressing game to peeling peaches to shaving my fair and tender cheeks as smooth as a baby's bottom, when shave I did. Not only that, this here buck knife has got me out of more than one skinny situation, and I've amused myself on many a lonely night on the road by playing a game of mumbledepeg with it, or carving works of art or flutes from a handy stick.”

The boys were laughing when Sophronia made her way back up the bank toward them. She stood and looked at them quizzically for a moment, aware that something was up. Rob looked up at her and smiled.

“You get a fish, popover?”

She shrugged. “Fish ain't biting, boys. They've all gone to the bottom.”

“Honey bun, why don't you go ahead on and pull in the lines?” Rob said. “It's time we got home, anyway.”

The males stood to gather up their gear while Sophronia returned to the fishing poles. They had just taken down the lean-to when a light rain began to fall. They exclaimed and pulled their hats down, and Charlie hurried down the bank to throw a half-dry blanket over Sophronia's head and relieve her of the poles. She came at a run, enshrouded in the blanket head to toe, and punched Gee Dub in the arm. “Grover Cleveland!” she yelled.

Chapter Thirty

“Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy
parasite

Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us
with his might?

Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?

For the union makes us strong”

—“Solidarity Forever,” I.W.W. anthem
by Ralph Chaplin, 1914

Supper was over and the children were scampering around the yard trying without much success to capture lightning bugs in a jar. Charlie, Blanche, and Sophronia joined the little ones and soon they were gathered around in a circle listening to Charlie tell scary stories by the illumination of half a dozen lightning bug lanterns.

“Charlie, if them young'uns can't sleep tonight, you're going to have to let them crawl into bed with you,” Alafair called from her seat on the front porch. The night was warm and sticky, punctuated by the loud whirr of cicadas. Alafair, Shaw, and Rob were arrayed across the porch in kitchen chairs, watching the children play.

No one said anything for a while, content to watch the youngsters. Alafair fanned herself with a dishtowel. Eventually Rob rolled a cigarette and lit it up. The flash from the match roused Alafair enough to turn her head and regard her brother's shadowy figure on the chair next to her.

“You heard from Mama and Daddy lately?' she asked.

Rob took a drag and gently exhaled the smoke into the air before he answered. “Not for a while.”

“So you aim to see the folks any time soon?” Alafair could tell Rob didn't want to talk about their parents, but she wasn't going to let him off the hook.

“Sure would like to. I'd like to visit with Mama, at least.”

“You haven't been home in close to a dozen years, Robin. I'm sure Daddy would like to see you, as well.”

She heard him chuckle. “I doubt it, Sis. Neither one of us has changed our opinion on how the world ought to be run.”

Shaw finally offered an observation. “Y'all are too alike. That is the difficulty. Neither one of you will bend an inch.”

“Why, I take exception to that remark, Shaw. I never did try to foist my beliefs off on Daddy. Always did my best to keep my thoughts to myself when I was in his presence. But he won't be content unless I bow to his superior wisdom in all things and agree to each and every point of his philosophy.”

Alafair smiled. Rob's assessment of their father's attitude was right on the mark. “Daddy is just old-fashioned, Robin. He was taught that it is his duty as a father to guide all us children down the path of righteousness. Wag your head up and down and say, ‘yes, Daddy,' a couple of times and peace will be restored.”

“I ain't a liar. I won't pretend to ascribe to a doctrine I don't believe.” Rob's tone was sulky.

Alafair and Shaw exchanged a glance. Too alike indeed.

Several tykes pounded up the steps and clamored across the porch in a noisy game of chase. Zeltha, currently “it,” took shelter under her grandfather's chair and was promptly set upon by her pursuers. Shaw joined in the game by shifting his arms and legs to keep the children from tagging their prize, much to the merriment of the participants. Zeltha's brother Tuck, just beginning to walk, was stuck at the bottom of the steps and loudly voicing his displeasure at being left behind.

Alafair stood and beckoned to Rob. “Mercy! Come on, Brother, let's take some air and leave these ruffians to their brawling.”

They strolled away from the house and into the woods with the old shepherd, Charlie Dog, wagging along at Rob's side.

“That old dog likes you,” Alafair observed. “That bespeaks well of you. He has a sense of how folks are.”

Rob rubbed the silky ears and was rewarded with a wet nose to his palm. “I liked your sons-in-law, Sis. Seems like the girls all picked well.”

“Mostly they did.”

Her tone caused him to slide her a glance. “Oh? I get the feeling that at least one of them don't meet with your approval.”

She shrugged. “Well, Alice could have done better, I think. But then not everyone has the same requirements for husband as I do. He seems to suit Alice. Now, tell me the truth, Robin. What have you been up to, and what really brings you here after all this time?”

“Well, Sister, I'm wounded that you would think I have a purpose other than a long-held desire to reconnect with my kinfolks.”

“Oh, I'm sure that figures in to your calculations.” Her tone was more than a little ironic. “But after church I saw you talking to Dutch Leonard, who makes no secret of his anti-government views. So unless you've changed right down to your heels since last I saw you, there must be some wrong that needs righting around here and you think you're just the man for it.”

Rob had fallen behind as they wound through the pin oaks, Alafair doing the talking as they strolled. When he didn't respond to her jibe, she glanced back over her shoulder.

He had stopped and was studying his boots, hands in his pockets, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Robin?”

He looked up. “Alafair, I've spent most of my life fighting for the working man, and in spite of the awful abuse I've endured and seen other men endure, I've seen a lot of progress, too, when it comes to the rights of the downtrodden. But this war has changed everything, and I'm afraid we're going to lose everything we've fought so hard to gain.”

His sudden declaration of despair almost brought tears to her eyes. Robin had always been full of fire and fight when it came to his principles, and so sure that what he considered right would prevail in the end. She shook her head. So many start out with a burning yen to make the world a better place, and it is always a bitter disappointment to realize that it can't be done. “Brother, you can't change the world. You can only change what's right in front of you, and sometimes not even that. But I'm sure you've helped many a man find dignity in his work.”

Rob's laugh was bitter. “I'd just like to help more than a few men find wages enough that their families don't have to live like dogs.”

“Well, why would anybody work at a job where they don't make enough to live on? They ought to quit and find a better-paying position.”

Rob blinked at her naiveté. “Sorry to say it don't work like that, Sis.”

“Oh, honey, I wish I knew something to say to make you feel better.”

“I know you do. That's why I'm here. Even if you don't agree with my beliefs you never have desired to shoot me for them. It does me good to spend a little time in the company of decent, good-hearted folks for a change.”

“I wish you'd give up this dangerous life. It'd break my heart if you got yourself killed. It'd break Mama's heart, too, and Daddy's, make no mistake. No matter how much y'all have butted heads over the years. Don't go back to the union. Stay here. Let me fatten you up a while. We'll find you a good wife. You must be lonesome all the time, flitting hither and yon without a place to lay your head.”

“You tempt me, Alafair. But I can't quit. Like Dad always says, keep fighting the good fight. Somebody's got to do it and I reckon it's me.” He sounded sad about that. Yet he perked up when he said, “But I'm right happy to let you fatten me up a mite.”