Authors: Donis Casey
All Men Fear Me (9 page)
“For the total abolition of the crime, disease, and death-producing practice of rent, interest, and profit-taking as iniquities thatâ¦are now being imposed upon the working class of the world.”
âManifesto of the Working Class Union
When they arrived at the jailhouse, Scott flung the brawler into a cell without ceremony.
“What's your name? I don't know you.” Scott tried not to sound as homicidal as he felt.
The man was blue-eyed, ill-shaven and shaggy-haired, dressed in worn overalls and a patched shirt. A tenant farmer, Scott decided. The toe was out of one of his boots. Scott wondered how he had managed to afford a night at Rose's. Now that he could see the man in the light, Scott decided that he was younger than he had first thought. The man lowered himself gingerly onto a cot and fingered the knot on his head before he mumbled. “Pip James. It was that other fellow's fault.”
“It always is. What was the ruckus about?”
Pip's lip curled. “We had a difference of opinion concerning the war, and then when the big colored fellow tried to throw him out, the jackass beaned him with his own axe handle.”
“Well, I hope you learned to keep your opinions to yourself. Win is Secret Service and mighty eager to report contrary ideology. Somebody said you're from Oktaha. Are you in town to hear whether your number gets drawn on Friday?”
Pip looked up at Scott from under his eyebrows and said nothing for so long that Scott began to get a very bad feeling.
“Did you register, boy? Tell me the truth, now.”
Pip's nostrils flared. “I ain't volunteering to die for this illegal war.”
A draft resister. Scott leaned his head against the bars. He was not wild about the idea of the draft himself. One of his four sons and his deputy, whom he loved like a son, had registered and would learn their fate on Friday. But his personal feelings had no weight here. He made no attempt to talk his prisoner into enlisting to avoid jail time. He could tell by the fire in Pip's eyes that it would do no good. “I'd have let you out tomorrow for rioting, but now I've got to send you to Muskogee for resisting the draft. You know that, don't you?”
“I know it.”
“Are you Working Class Union?” Scott asked the question, though he dreaded hearing the answer. The Working Class Union had started out a few years ago as an affiliate of the I.W.W., but since most of its members were tenant farmers and not wage earners, the W.C.U. had gone off on its own. The Industrial Workers of the World were unbending in their beliefs, but the W.C.U. was downright radical. Not that they didn't have plenty of cause. Tenant farmers were often little more than serfs and indentured servants with no hope of improving their lot. Their demand for an end to rent and the charging of interest on loans was too extreme for even Scott's easygoing philosophy of live and let live. In other parts of the state, some of the more hot-blooded members of the brotherhood had taken to night-riding and vandalism, even bank robbery.
Pip didn't answer, which was answer enough for Scott. “How many of you are there? I won't stand for no trouble, you hear me?”
“I'm not here to make trouble, Mister. Weâ¦I just come to town to meet with somebody. I don't aim to be any trouble, I promise.”
“Well, if it's your plan not to make trouble, you've already done a real bad job of it. You'd better hope your socialist pals don't come by for a visit or make themselves known to me at all, because I'll arrest them faster than you can blink twice. Now sit down and shut up. I'll deal with you in the morning.”
When he finally made it home, Scott's wife, Hattie, met him at the door with a mug of hot tea. “I warmed you up some stew,” she said. “You shouldn't go to bed on an empty stomach. Go wash upâ¦I declare! You've got blood all over your sleeve! What happened tonight?”
“Me and Trent had to break up a fight. I think we've got a bunch of anti-draft yahoos in town, honey. I've got one of them in jail, but I'm too tired to shake him down tonight. I don't know if they're planning something on Friday or not. He'll lie to me, anyway. Win Avey was the other combatant, but he got away. Probably ran back to his shack. I'll try to pick him up in the morning. Him and his Secret Service friends have lethal objections to draft-dodgers. I'm going to have to deputize half the men in town for the durn Liberty Sing next week. I wish they'd just call it off and let everybody get his draft notice in the mail like God intended.” Scott shook his head. “I'll tell you, Hattie, sometimes I despair of humankind.”
***
The moon was down. It was early in the morning, but no light had yet appeared on the horizon. The night was dark and still uncomfortably hot. The last dim yellow light disappeared from Rose's back window, but Nick did not move. He was in no hurry. Endless patience was one of the requirements for his line of work. He'd wait however long it took before he made contact.
He had been recognized, but he wasn't yet sure that his services were required. He had only caught a scent of lingering fury. A whiff of desire for something evil. He didn't know if what he was smelling was desire for revenge, a vendetta, jealousy, or simply a need to make a statement. It didn't matter why. Someone wanted to deal death, and that was enough for him.
A dark figure walked around the side of the house, into the yard, and stopped, back to the man under the tree. Sure he couldn't be seen, Nick observed his subject for a few moments, looking for any sign of nervousness or fear. But there was none. The dark figure stood still and straight, waiting. Nick sensed the heat of determination.
He made his move. He straightened his bowler hat and slid up behind his summoner. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible, smooth as silk. “You know who I am.”
His contact straightened, but didn't seem surprised. “Yes.”
Nick leaned in close. “Give me a name.”
“To the work! To the work! There is labor for all.”
â1869 hymn lyrics by Fanny Crosby
Before breakfast, Shaw pulled on his hat and made his way across the yard to milk and feed animals. From the kitchen window, Alafair watched him trudge, head-down, away from the house until he disappeared into the barn.
Sophronia ran into the kitchen, interrupting her thoughts, and it suddenly occurred to Alafair that Charlie had not come in for breakfast. He was always the first one into the kitchen after the bacon began to fry. Alafair went into the darkened parlor to check on him. She could just see his long shape on his bed in the back corner of the room, one stockinged foot sticking out from under the covers. She shook his shoulder, and he lifted his head enough to squint at her out of one half-closed eye.
“Is it morning already?”
“It sure is, sleepyhead. You feeling all right? It's not like you to lie abed.”
He turned over onto his back and groaned. “I reckon I stayed up too late arguing politics.”
“Well, you better get up and around or them cows will go to lowing to beat all. Daddy is on his way to the barn, and I expect Gee Dub and Robin are already there.”
Alafair went back into the kitchen, and Charlie swung his legs off the bed and sat himself up. He stretched, yawned, and scrubbed his hands through his mess of blond hair, leaving it sticking up every which way. Blanche sniffed at his appearance as she passed by, a ghostly figure in the half-light. “You look like a pretty untidy haystack.”
Charlie curled his lip at her witticism, but made a half-hearted attempt to comb his hair with his fingers. He rubbed his cheek hopefully, but it felt no more whiskery than it had yesterday. He sighed, envious of Gee Dub's newfound ability to sprout stubble. Oh, well, he expected he should be used to trailing along in his older brother's wake by now. He reached for the trousers he had thrown over the foot of the bedstead the night before, stood up and pulled them on before tossing off his cotton nightshirt. Grace and Bacon streaked through the parlor, eager for breakfast, and nearly knocked Charlie backwards onto the bed. He mumbled something under his breath that he hoped his mother had not heard, before he trod into the kitchen in his stocking feet, buttoning his work shirt.
Grace was pouring syrup on her bowl of oatmeal, and Sophronia and Blanche were already well along with breakfast. Charlie felt a pang of irritation that he was the only male left in this nest of females. Alafair looked over at him from the stove. “Grab a biscuit and put on your hat before you go out, son.”
The smell of bacon made his stomach growl, but Charlie made do by finishing off the biscuit in two bites. “I reckon I'd better get out to the barn with Daddy and them.”
Alafair didn't look at him, but she could feel his aura of discontent from across the room. She frowned over the frying eggs. “Why don't you take your uncle Robin fishing after church? It'll be a nice break for you before you have to start your new job of work on Monday.”
“I want to go, too!” Sophronia cried. “Why can't I go?”
“Nobody said you can't.” Charlie sounded exasperated, but the idea of fishing intrigued him, and his mood lifted.
Sophronia continued her plaint. “Y'all never let me come. Can I come?”
“Ain't decided to go, yet.”
“Looks like it might rain a bit this afternoon,” Alafair said. “There's good fishing when it's cloudy and cooler.”
Sophronia nodded her agreement. “After a rain, there's like to be lots of crawlers for bait.”
“Well, I'll see what Daddy says.” Charlie absently picked up a second biscuit and bit it. “I could try out that new pole I got stretching in the barn.”
“Right now you've got chores to do,” Alafair said, “so y'all better get to it.”
“Congress has provided that the nation shall be organized for war by selection; that each man shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him.”
âPresident Wilson on the Selective Service Act, 1917
Once the war started, most of the young men in Boynton were full of fire and ready to join up and kill the Bosch. And if some weren't, they generally kept their mouths shut about it. Trenton Calder, beloved of Ruth Tucker and deputy to Scott Tucker, was as hot-blooded about the war as the next young man. But with every able-bodied male in town rushing off to sign up, Scott had asked Trent if he would wait a few months to enlist, just until he could get someone to take the deputy's place who was too old or too married to serve in the armed forces. Trent wasn't optimistic that his boss would find someone who'd do it for what the town was willing to pay, not somebody with any brains, anyway. But Scott had been so good to him over the years that he said he'd wait until after the draft lottery. In the end, both men knew that if Trent's number did not come up, he would be off to Muskogee to join up before the next week was out.
The imminent change in his circumstance had gotten Trenton Calder to thinking. He was sure his number would be picked. He never for a minute expected that God would allow him to miss his chance to be a hero.
If he went away to war, he'd be gone for two years. He needed to consider the state of his relationship with Ruth.
Ever since she got back from her music course in Muskogee, Ruth had been living with her mentor Beckie MacKenzie, and had taken over Mrs. MacKenzie's business of teaching music to the local youth. Since she now lived so close, Ruth frequently walked into Boynton to visit Trent at the jailhouse, or to have a meal with him at the Newport Cafe. Sometimes he was even invited to take supper at Mrs. MacKenzie's grand house just north of town, or to accompany Ruth out to her parents' farm for Sunday dinner.
He loved her dearly. But until he made something of himself and could support her properly, he had been hesitant to declare himself. He was sitting with his feet on his desk in the sheriff's office, pondering his dilemma, when the object of his consideration walked in. Ruth smiled at him as his boots hit the floor with a clunk.
Something about the way she looked at him with that quirky smile and “you can't fool me” expression made his cheeks hot. He stood up.
“Hello, darlin', you look mighty pretty,” he said. “What blows you into town?” He restrained himself from smacking his palm against his forehead at the lame remark.
Ruth stifled a smile and sat down in one of the chairs by the window. “I thought I'd come by and see if you want to escort me to church.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, but Scott asked me to hang around the office today and keep an eye on the draft-dodger we got locked up. He rode out to Win Avey's a while ago to arrest him for brawling last night.”
“Who's your draft-dodger? Anybody I know?”
“Naw, some fellow from Oktaha name of Pip James.”
“Are you going to be at the Liberty Sing on Friday?”
Trent grinned. “I better be there. Wouldn't want anybody to think I was an unpatriotic public servant. Maybe we can go to the shindig together.”
Ruth liked the idea. “That would be fine.”
“What time shall I come by for you on Friday?”
“I'll be ready about four.” Ruth stood, but looked back over her shoulder at him before she left. Her expression was grave. “It could be they won't call your number.” She sounded wistful, but that's not the way Trent heard it.
He didn't intend for her to think him a coward. “I'll enlist, then. You won't find me sitting around, trying to think of ways to get out of it. ”
“I wish you didn't have to go.”
The light finally dawned, and he stood up from his chair and took her hand. “I wish there wasn't a war at all.” He said it because he knew that's what would please her to hear, but he was thinking about how exciting it was going to be to see Paris. “But there is, and I can't leave other folks to do my fighting for me.”
She looked down at her hands again, unsure how to reply to that. So she changed the subject. “My mother's brother showed up on our doorstep a couple of days ago, and I expect he'll be lingering for a week or so. ”
He blinked at the conversational shift. “Your mother must be pleased. I don't believe I've ever met any of your ma's folks. How long has it been since you've seen your uncle?”
“This is the first time in ten years that any of us have seen Uncle Robin. He travels a lot.”
“Robin? Your uncle is called Robin?” His tone indicated that he thought that a strange name for a grown man.
“Well, his name is Robert Gunn, but so is my grandfather's and his father's, and his father before him, so the family calls my uncle âRobin.' I think most everybody else calls him Rob. Just like Robert Burns. Miz Beckie told me Robert Burns was called Robin when he was a boy. Rantin', rovin' Robin.” Ruth's laugh was ironic. “Rantin' and rovin' indeed. That's my uncle Robin to a fare-thee-well. He's like a swallow, Mama says, just spends his life on the wing and never alights anywhere.”
Trent listened to Ruth's description of her uncle with interest, even though he had no idea who this Robert Burns was. “What does your uncle do for a living that takes him on the road so much?”
“He's a⦔ Ruth hesitated. Many people had no use for Robin's line of work, and tender-hearted as he was, Trent was quite conservative. But there was no point in dodging the truth.“He served in the Army for a long time, mostly in the Philippines. But for the past several years, he's been a union organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. The Army took him all over the world, and now the union takes him all over the United States.”
Trent's eyes widened. “A Wobblie.”
Ruth looked him up and down, gauging his disapproval. “Yes, Trent, and you can wipe that look off your face. It is my opinion that I should allow my fellow humans their peccadilloes and hope they would allow me mine.”
Trent did not immediately realize he was being chastised. “I hope he isn't spouting anti-war nonsense to folks who aren't smart enough to see that we have to go to war now, after what the Germans have done to us.”
“Now, Trent, Uncle Robin is a good man and he's only here for a short visit to see family. He's helping Daddy with the farm, and he assures Mama that he has no intention of doing union work while he's here.”
“I hope not, honey! I'd hate to have to arrest my sweetheart's uncle for rabble-rousing.”
Ruth withdrew her hand from his grasp. “I don't agree with my uncle, but it's not illegal to belong to a union, Trent. At least not yet.”