In Dubious Battle (26 page)

Jim moved his shoulder cautiously. “Better. Sure, that’s lots better.”

Mac said, “Why don’t you go and see the old guy, Jim, after you eat. He’s a friend of yours.”

“I guess I will.”

Burton explained, “He’s a little bit off, Jim. Don’t worry him. All this excitement has gone to his head a little bit.”

Jim said, “Sure, I’ll lead him along.” He stood up. “Say, that feels lots better.”

“Let’s get some mush,” said Mac. “We want to start this funeral in time so it’ll tie up the noon traffic in town, if we can.”

Doc snorted. “Always a friend to man. God, you’re a scorpion, Mac! If I were bossing the other side I’d take you out and shoot you.”

“Well, they’ll do that some day, I guess,” Mac replied. “They’ve done everything else to me.”

They filed out of the tent. Outside the air was filled with tiny drops of falling water, a grey, misty drizzle. The orchard trees were dim behind a curtain of grey gauze. Jim looked down the line of sodden tents. The streets between the lines were already whipped to slushy mud by the feet of moving people, and the people moved constantly for there was no dry place to sit down. Lines of men waited their turns at the toilets at the ends of the streets.

Burton and Mac and Jim walked toward the stoves. Thick blue smoke from wet wood poured from the chimneys. On the stove-tops the wash-boilers of mush bubbled, and the cooks stirred with long sticks. Jim felt the mist penetrating down his neck. He pulled his jacket closer and buttoned the top button. “I need a bath,” he said.

“Well, take a sponge bath. That’s the only kind we have. Here, I brought your food can.”

They stepped to the end of the line of men waiting by the stove. The cooks filled the containers with mush as the line filed by. Jim gathered some of it on his eating stick and blew it cool. “It tastes good,” he said. “I’m half-starved, I guess.”

“Well, you ought to be, if you aren’t. London’s over supervising the platform. Come on, let’s go over.” They slushed through the mud, stepping clear of the tracks when any untrampled ground showed. In back of the stoves the new platform stood, a little deck, constructed of old fence-posts and culvert planks. It was raised about four feet above the ground level. London was just nailing on a hand-rail. “Hello,” he said. “How was breakfast?”

“Roast dirt would taste swell this morning,” said Mac. “This is the last, ain’t it?”

“Yep. They ain’t no more when that’s gone.”

“Maybe Dick’ll have better luck today,” Jim suggested. “Why don’t you let me go out and rustle food, Mac? I’m not doing anything.”

Mac said, “You’re stayin’ here. Look, London, this guy’s marked; they try to get him twice already, and here he wants to go out and walk the streets alone.”

“Don’t be a damn fool,” said London. “We’re goin’ put you on the truck with the coffin. You can’t walk none with that hurt. You ride on the truck.”

“What th’ hell?” Jim began.

London scowled at him. “Don’t get smart with me,” he said. “I’m the boss here. When you get to be boss, you tell me. I’m tellin’ you, now.”

Jim’s eyes flared rebelliously. He looked quickly at
Mac and saw that he was grinning and waiting. “O.K.,” said Jim. “I’ll do what you say.”

Mac said, “Here’s something you can do, Jim. See if you think it’s all right, London. S’pose Jim just circulates and talks to the guys? Just finds out how they feel? We ought to know how far we can go. I think the guys’d talk to Jim.”

“What do you want to know?” London asked.

“Well, we ought to know how they feel about the strike now.”

“Sounds all right to me,” said London.

Mac turned to Jim. “Go and see old Dan,” he said. “And then just get to talkin’ to a lot of the guys, a few at a time. Don’t try and sell ’em nothing. Just ’yes’ ’em until you find out how they feel. Can you do that, Jim?”

“Sure. Where do they keep old Dan?”

“Look. See down that second row, that tent that’s whiter’n the rest? That’s Doc’s hospital tent. I guess old Dan’ll be in there.”

“I’ll look in on him,” said Jim. He scraped up the last of his mush on his paddle and ate it. At one of the water barrels he dipped water to wash the eating can, and, on passing his pup-tent threw the can inside. There was a little movement in the tent. Jim dropped on his knees and crawled inside. Lisa was there. She had been nursing the baby. She covered her breast hastily.

“Hello,” said Jim.

She blushed and said faintly, “Hello.”

“I thought you were going to sleep in the hospital tent.”

“There was guys there,” she said.

“I hope you didn’t get wet here last night.”

She pulled the shoulder blanket neatly down. “No, there wasn’t no leak.”

“What you scared of?” Jim asked. “I won’t hurt you. I helped you once, Mac and I did.”

“I know. That’s why.”

“What are you talking about?”

Her head almost disappeared under the blanket. “You seen me—without no clothes on,” she said faintly.

Jim started to laugh, and then caught himself. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “You shouldn’t feel bad about that. We had to help you.”

“I know.” Her eyes rose up for a moment. “Makes me feel funny.”

“Forget it,” said Jim. “How’s the baby?”

“All right.”

“Nursing it all right?”

“Yeah.” Then her face turned very red. She blurted, “I like to nurse.”

“’Course you do.”

“I like to—because it—feels good.” She hid her face. “I hadn’t ought to told you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, but I hadn’t ought to of. It ain’t—decent, do you think? You won’t tell nobody?”

“’Course not.” Jim looked away from her and out the low doorway. The mist drifted casually down. Big drops slid down the tent slope like beads on a string. He continued to stare out of the tent, knowing instinctively that the girl wanted to look at him, and that she couldn’t until he looked away.

Her glance went over his face, a dark profile against
the light. She saw the lumpy, bandaged shoulder. “What’s the matter ’th your arm?” she demanded.

He turned back, and this time her eyes held. “I got shot yesterday.”

“Oh. Does it hurt?”

“Little bit.”

“Just shot? Just up an’ shot by a guy?”

“Fight with some scabs. One of the owners potted me with a rifle.”

“You was fightin’? You?”

“Sure.”

Her eyes stayed wide. She looked fascinatedly at his face. “You don’t have no gun, do you?”

“No.”

She sighed. “Who was that fella come in the tent last night?”

“Young fellow? That was Dick. He’s a friend of mine.”

“He looks like a nice fella,” she said.

Jim smiled. “Sure, he’s O.K.”

“Kinda fresh, though,” she said. “Joey, that’s my hubby, he didn’t like it none. I thought he was a nice fella.”

Jim got to his knees and prepared to crawl out of the tent. “Had any breakfast?”

“Joey’s out gettin’ me some.” Her eyes were bolder now. “You goin’ to the funeral?”

“Sure.”

“I can’t go. Joey says I can’t.”

“It’s too wet and nasty.” Jim crawled out. “ ’Bye, kid. Take care o’ yourself.”

“ ’B-bye.” She paused. “Don’t tell nobody, will you?”

He looked back into the tent. “Don’t tell ’em what? Oh, about the baby. No, I won’t.”

“Y’see,” she explained, “you seen me that way, so I told you. I don’t know why.”

“I don’t either. ’Bye, kid.” He straightened up and walked away. Few men were moving about in the mist. Most of the strikers had taken their mush and gone back to the tents. The smoke from the stoves swirled low to the ground. A little wind blew the drizzle in a slow, drifting angle. As Jim went by London’s tent, he looked in and saw a dozen men standing about the coffin, all looking down at it. Jim started to go in, but he caught himself and walked to the white hospital tent down the row. There was a curious, efficient neatness inside the tent, a few medical supplies, bandage, bottles of iodine, a large jar of salts, a doctor’s bag, all arranged with precision on a big box.

Old Dan lay propped in a cot, and on the ground stood a wide-necked bottle for a urinal, and an old-fashioned chamber for a bed-pan. Old Dan’s beard had grown longer and fiercer, and his cheeks were more sunken. His eyes glinted fiercely at Jim. “So,” he said. “You finally come. You damn squirts get what you want, and then run out on a man.”

“How you feeling, Dan?” Jim asked placatingly.

“Who cares? That doctor’s a nice man; he’s the only nice one in this bunch of lice.”

Jim pulled up an apple box and sat down. “Don’t be mad, Dan. Look, I got it myself; got shot in the shoulder.”

“Served you damn well right,” Dan said darkly. “You punks can’t take care o’ yourselves. Damn wonder you ain’t all dead fallin’ over your feet.” Jim was silent. “Leave me lyin’ here,” Dan cried. “Think I don’t remember
nothing. Up that apple tree all you could talk was strike, strike. And who starts the strike? You? Hell, no. I start it! Think I don’t know. I start it when I bust my hip. An’ then you leave me here alone.”

“We know it, Dan. All of us know it.”

“Then why don’t I get no say? Treat me like a Goddamn baby.” He gesticulated furiously, and then winced. “Goin’ to leave me here an’ the whole bunch go on a funeral! Nobody cares about me!”

Jim interposed, “That’s not so, Dan. We’re going to put you on a truck and take you right along, right at the head of the procession.”

Dan’s mouth dropped open, exposing his four long squirrel-teeth. His hands settled slowly to the bed. “Honest?” he said. “On a truck?”

“That’s what the chief said. He said you were the real leader, and you had to go.”

Dan looked very stern. His mouth became dignified and military. “He damn well ought to. He knows.” He stared down at his hands. His eyes grew soft and child-like. “I’ll lead ’em,” he said gently. “All the hundreds o’ years that’s what the workin’ stiffs needed, a leader. I’ll lead ’em through to the light. All they got to do is just what I say. I’ll say, ’You guys do this,’ an’ they’ll do it. An’ I’ll say, ’You lazy bastards get over there!’ an’ by Christ, they’ll git, ’cause I won’t have no lazy bastards. When I speak, they got to jump, right now.” And then he smiled with affection. “The poor damn rats,” he said. “They never had nobody to tell ’em what to do. They never had no real leader.”

“That’s right,” Jim agreed.

“Well, you’ll see some changes now,” Dan exclaimed.
“You tell ’em I said so. Tell ’em I’m workin’ out a plan. I’ll be up and around in a couple days. Tell ’em just to have patience till I get out an’ lead ’em.”

“Sure I’ll tell ’em,” said Jim.

Dr. Burton came into the tent. “ ’Morning, Dan. Hello, Jim. Dan, where’s the man I told to take care of you?”

“He went out,” Dan said plaintively. “Went out to get me some breakfast. He never come back.”

“Want the pot, Dan?”

“No.”

“Did he give you the enema?”

“No.”

“Have to get you another nurse, Dan.”

“Say, Doc, this young punk here says I’m goin’ to the funeral on a truck.”

“That’s right, Dan. You can go if you want.”

Dan settled back, smiling. “It’s about time somebody paid some attention,” he said with satisfaction.

Jim stood up from his box. “See you later, Dan.” Burton went out with him. Jim asked, “Is he going nuts, Doc?”

“No. He’s an old man. He’s had a shock. His bones don’t knit very easily.”

“He talks crazy, though.”

“Well, the man I told to take care of him didn’t do it. He needs an enema. Constipation makes a man lightheaded sometimes; but he’s just an old man, Jim. You made him pretty happy. Better go in and see him often.”

“Do you think he’ll go to the funeral?”

“No. It’d hurt him, banging around in a truck. We’ll have to get around it some way. How is your arm feeling?”

“I’d forgot all about it.”

“Fine. Try not to get cold in it. It could be nasty, if you don’t take care of it. See you later. The men won’t shovel dirt in the toilets. We’re out of disinfectant. Simply have to get some disinfectant—anything.” He hurried away, muttering softly to himself as he went.

Jim looked about for someone to talk to. Those men who were in sight walked quickly through the drizzle from one tent to another. The slush in the streets was deep and black by now. One of the big brown squad tents stood nearby. Hearing voices inside, Jim went in. In the dim brown light he saw a dozen men squatting on their blankets. The talk died as he entered. The men looked up at him and waited. He reached in his pocket and brought out the bag of tobacco Mac had given him. “Hi,” he said. The men still waited. Jim went on, “I’ve got a sore arm. Will one of you guys roll me a cigarette?”

A man sitting in front of him held out a hand, took the bag and quickly made the cigarette. Jim took it and waved it to indicate the other men. “Pass it around. God knows they ain’t much in this camp.” The bag went from hand to hand. A stout little man with a short mustache said, “Sit down, kid, here, on my bed. Ain’t you the guy that got shot yesterday?”

Jim laughed. “I’m one of ’em. I’m not the dead one. I’m the one that got away.”

They laughed appreciatively. A man with a lantern-jaw and shiny cheek-bones broke up the laughter. “What they goin’ to bury the little guy today for?”

“Why not?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, but every’body waits three days.”

The stout little man blew a jet of smoke. “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

Lantern-jaw said somberly, “S’pose he ain’t dead. S’pose he’s just in a kind of a state? S’pose we bury him alive. I think we ought to wait three days, like everybody else.”

A smooth, sarcastic voice answered. Jim looked at a tall man with a white, unlined forehead. “No, he isn’t sleeping,” the man said. “You can be very sure of that. If you knew what an undertaker does, you’d be sure he isn’t in any ‘state.’”

Lantern-jaw said, “He might just be. I don’t see no reason to take a chance.”

White-forehead scoffed. “Well, if he can sleep with his veins full of embalming fluid, he’s a God damn sound sleeper.”

“Is that what they do?”

“Yes it is. I knew a man who worked for an undertaker. He told me things you wouldn’t believe.”