In Dubious Battle (33 page)

“What’s the idear?” London demanded. “What’s this you’re talkin’ about.”

Jim said, “This thing is being lost because there’s no authority. Anderson’s barn was burned because we couldn’t trust the guards to obey orders. Doc got snatched because his bodyguard wouldn’t stick with him.”

“Sure. An’ what we goin’ to do about it?”

“We’re going to create authority,” said Jim. “We’re going to give orders that stick. The men elected you, didn’t they? Now they’ve got to take it whether they like it or not.”

Mac cried, “For Christ’s sake, Jim! It won’t work. They’ll just fade out. They’ll be in the next county in no time.”

“We’ll police ’em, Mac. Where’s that rifle?”

“Over there. What do you want with it?”

“That’s authority,” said Jim. “I’m damn sick of this circle-running. I’m going to straighten it out.”

London stepped up to him. “Say, what the hell is this ’I’m goin’ to straighten things out’? You’re goin’ to jump in the lake.”

Jim sat still. His young face was carven, his eyes motionless; his mouth smiled a little at the corners. He looked steadily and confidently at London. “Sit down, London, and put on your shirt,” he said gently.

London looked uneasily at Mac. “Is this guy gone screwy?”

Mac missed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Might as well sit down,” said Jim. “You will sooner or later.”

“Sure, I’ll sit down.”

“O.K. Now you can kick me out of the camp if you want to. They’ll make room for me in jail. Or you can let me stay. But if I stay, I’m going to put this over, and I can do it.”

London sighed. “I’m sick of it. Nothin’ but trouble. I’d give you the job in a minute, even if you ain’t nothing but a kid. I’m the boss.”

“That’s why,” Jim broke in. “I’ll put out the orders through you. Don’t get me wrong, London; it isn’t authority I want, it’s action. All I want is to put over the strike.”

London asked helplessly, “What d’you think, Mac? What’s this kid puttin’ over?”

“I don’t know. I thought it might be poison from that shot, but he seems to talk sense,” Mac laughed, and his laugh dropped heavily into silence.

“The whole thing sounds kind of Bolshevik,” London said.

“What do you care what it sounds like, if it works?” Jim replied. “You ready to listen?”

“I don’t know. Oh, sure, shoot.”

“All right, tomorrow morning we’re going to smack those scabs. I want you to pick the best fighters. Give the men clubs. I want two cars to go together, always in pairs. The cops’ll probably patrol the roads, and put up barricades. Now we can’t let ’em stop us. If they put up barricades, let the first car knock ’em off the road, and the second pick up the men from the wreck and go on through. Understand? Anything we start goes through. If we don’t succeed; we’re farther back than when we started.”

“I’m goin’ to have a hell of a time with the guys if you give orders,” London said.

“I don’t want to give orders. I don’t want to show off. The guys won’t know. I’ll tell you, and you tell them. Now the first thing is to send out some men to see how that fire’s getting on. We’re going to get a dose of trouble tomorrow. I wish Sam hadn’t set it; but it’s done now. We’ve got to have this camp plenty guarded tonight, too. There’s going to be reprisals, and don’t forget it. Put out two lines of guards and have them keep in touch. Then I want a police committee of five to beat hell out of any guy that goes to sleep or sneaks away. Get me five tough ones.”

London shook his head. “I don’t know if I ought to smack you down or let you go ahead. The whole thing’s so damn much trouble.”

“Well, put out guards while you think it over. I’m
afraid we’re going to have plenty of trouble before morning.”

“O.K., kid. I’ll give it a try.”

After he had gone out, Mac still stood beside the box where Jim sat. “How’s your arm feel, Jim?” he asked.

“I can’t feel it at all. Must be about well.”

“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” Mac went on. “I could feel it happen.”

Jim said, “It’s something that grows out of a fight like this. Suddenly you feel the great forces at work that create little troubles like this strike of ours. And the sight of those forces does something to you, picks you up and makes you act. I guess that’s where authority comes from.” He raised his eyes.

Mac cried, “What makes your eyes jump like that?”

“A little dizzy,” Jim said, and he fainted and fell off the box.

Mac dragged him to the mattress and brought a box for his feet. In the camp there was a low murmur of voices, constant and varying and changing tone like the voice of a little stream. Men passed back and forth in front of the tent. The sirens raised their voices again, but this time there was no excitement in them, for the trucks were going home. Mac unbuttoned Jim’s shirt. He brought a bucket of water that stood in a corner of the tent, and splashed water on Jim’s head and throat.

Jim opened his eyes and looked up into Mac’s face. “I’m dizzy,” he said plaintively. “I wish Doc would come back and give me something. Do you think he’ll come back, Mac?”

“I don’t know. How do you feel now?”

“Just dizzy. I guess I’ve shot my wad until I rest.”

“Sure. You ought to go to sleep. I’m going out and try to rustle some of the soup that meat was cooked in. That’ll be good for you. You just lie still until I bring it.”

When he was gone, Jim looked, frowning, at the top of the tent. He said aloud, “I wonder if it passed off. I don’t think it did, but maybe.” And then his eyes closed, and he went to sleep.

When Mac came in with the soup, he set it on the ground. He took the box from under Jim’s legs and then sat down on the edge of the mattress and watched the drawn, sleeping face.

The face was never still. The lips crept back until the teeth were exposed, until the teeth were dry; and then the lips drew down and covered them. The cheeks around the eyes twitched nervously. Once, as though striving against weight, Jim’s lips opened to speak and worked on a word, but only a growling mumble was said. Mac pulled the old coverlets over Jim’s body.

Suddenly the lamp flame was sucked down, the wick and darkness crept in toward the center of the tent. Mac jumped up and found a spout-can of kerosene. He unscrewed the lantern cap and filled the reservoir. Slowly the flame grew up again, and its edges spread out like a butterfly’s wings.

Outside, the slow footsteps of patrolling men went by. In the distance there could be heard the grumble of the great night cargo trucks on the highway. Mac took down the lantern from the tent-pole and carried it to the mattress and set it on the ground. From his hip pocket he brought out a packet of folded papers and a mussy stamped envelope and a broken piece of pencil. With the paper on his knee he wrote slowly, in large, round letters:

Dear Harry:

Christ sake get some help down here. Doc Burton was snatched last night. I think he was. Doc was not a man to run out on us, but he is gone. This valley is organized like Italy. The vigilantes are raising hell. We need food and medicine and money. Dick is doing fine, only if we don’t get some outside help I am afraid we are sunk. I never ran into a place that was so God damn organized. About three men control the situation. For all I know Dick may be in the can now.

Jim is sure coming through. He makes me look like a pin. Tomorrow I expect that we will get kicked out of this place. The V’s. burned the owner’s barn, and he is awfully sore. With Doc Burton gone, the county health officers will bounce us. So try to think of something. They are after Jim’s and my scalp all the time. There ought to be somebody down here in case they get us.

I am howling for help, Harry. The sympathizers are scared, but that’s not the worst.

He picked up a new piece of paper.

The men are touchy. You know how they get. Tomorrow morning they might go down and burn the city hall, or they might bolt for the mountains and hide for six months. So for Christ’s sake, Harry, tell everybody we have to have help. If they run us out of here, we’ll have trouble finding a spot. We are going to picket in trucks. We can’t find out much that’s going on.

Well, so long. Jack will hand this to you. And for the love of God try to get some help here.

Mac

He read the letter over, crossed a neglected t, folded the paper and put it in the dirty envelope. This he addressed to John H. Weaver,
esq
.

Outside he heard a challenge. “Who is it?”

“London.”

“O.K.”

London came into the tent. He looked at Mac, and at the sleeping Jim. “Well, I got the guards out like he said.”

“That’s good. He’s all in. I wish Doc was here. I’m scared of that shoulder. He says it don’t hurt, but he’s a fool for punishment.” Mac turned the lantern back to the tent-pole and hung it on its nail.

London sat down on a box. “What got into him?” he asked softly. “One minute he’s a blabber-mouth kid, and the next minute, by Christ, he just boots me out and takes over.”

Mac’s eyes were proud. “I don’t know. I’ve saw guys get out of theirself before, but not like that. Jesus, you
had
to do what he said. At first I thought he was off his nut. I still don’t know if he was. Where’s the girl, London?”

“I bedded her and my kid down in an empty tent.”

Mac looked up sharply. “Where did you get an empty tent?”

“Some of the guys scrammed, I guess, in the dark.”

“Maybe it’s only the guards.”

“No,” London said. “I figured on them. I guess some of the guys run off.”

Mac rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles. “I thought it was about time. Some of ’em just can’t take it. Listen, London, I got to sneak in an’ try to get a letter in the mailbox. I want to take a look around, too.”

“Whyn’t you let me send one of the guys?”

“Well, this letter’s got to get there. I better go myself. I been watched before. They won’t catch me.”

London regarded his thick hands. “Is—is it a
red
letter?” he asked.

“Well, I guess so. I’m trying to get some help, so this strike won’t flop.”

London spoke constrainedly. “Mac—like I said, you always hear about reds is a bunch of son-of-bitches. I guess that ain’t true, is it, Mac?”

Mac chuckled softly. “Depends on how you look at it. If you was to own thirty thousand acres of land and a million dollars, they’d be a bunch of sons-of-bitches. But if you’re just London, a workin’ stiff, why they’re a bunch of guys that want to help you live like a man, and not like a pig, see? ’Course you get your news from the papers, an’ the papers is owned by the guys with land and money, so we’re sons-of-bitches, see? Then you come acrost us, an’ we ain’t. You got to make up your own mind which it is.”

“Well, could a guy like I work in with you guys? I been doin’ kind o’ like that, lookin’ out for the guys that travel with me.”

“Damn right,” said Mac eagerly. “You’re damn right. You got leadership, London. You’re a workin’ stiff, but you’re a leader, too.”

London said simply, “Guys always done what I told ’em. All my life they done it.”

Mac lowered his voice. He moved close and put his
hand on London’s knee. “Listen,” he said. “I guess we’re goin’ to lose this strike. But we raised enough hell so maybe there won’t be a strike in the cotton. Now the papers say we’re just causing trouble. But we’re getting the stiffs used to working together; getting bigger and bigger bunches working together all the time, see? It doesn’t make any difference if we lose. Here’s nearly a thousand men who’ve learned how to strike. When we get a whole slough of men working together, maybe—maybe Torgas Valley, most of it, won’t be owned by three men. Maybe a guy can get an apple for himself without going to jail for it, see? Maybe they won’t dump apples in the river to keep up the price. When guys like you and me need a apple to keep our God damn bowels open, see? You’ve got to look at the whole thing, London, not just this little strike.”

London was staring painfully at Mac’s mouth, as though he tried to see the words as they came out. “That’s kind of reva—revolution, ain’t it?”

“Sure it is. It’s a revolution against hunger and cold. The three guys that own this valley are going to raise hell to keep that land, and to keep dumping the apples to raise the price. A guy that thinks food ought to be eaten is a God damned red. D’you see that?”

London’s eyes were wide and dreaming. “I heard a lot of radical guys talkin’,” he said. “Never paid much attention. They always got mad. I ain’t got no faith in a mad guy. I never seen it the way you say it before, never.”

“Well, keep on seeing it, London. It’ll make you feel different. They say we play dirty, work underground. Did you ever think, London? We’ve got no guns. If anything happens to us, it don’t get in the newspapers. But if anything
happens to the other side, Jesus, they smear it in ink. We’ve got no money, and no weapons, so we’ve got to use our heads, London. See that? It’s like a man with a club fighting a squad with machine guns. The only way he can do it is to sneak up and smack the gunners from behind. Maybe that isn’t fair, but hell, London, this isn’t any athletic contest. There aren’t any rules a hungry man has to follow.”

“I never seen it,” London said slowly. “Nobody never took time out to tell me. I like to see some of the guys that talk nice an’ quiet. Always, when I hear them, they’re mad. ‘God damn the cops,’ they say. ‘T’hell with the government.’ They’re goin’ to burn down the government buildings. I don’t like that, all them nice buildings. Nobody never told me about that other.”

“They didn’t use their heads, then,” said Mac.

“Mac, you said you guessed we’d lose this strike. What makes you think like that?”

Mac considered. “No—” he said, as though to himself, “You wouldn’t pull out now. I’ll tell you why, London. Power in this valley is in very few hands. The guy that came out yesterday was trying to get us to quit. But now they know we won’t quit. The only thing left is to drive us out or to kill us off. We could stand ’em off a while if we had food and a doctor, and if Anderson would back us up. But Anderson’s sore. They’ll kick us out if they have to use cannons. Once they get a court order, they’ll kick us right out. Then where are we going to go? Can’t jungle up, because there’ll be ordinances. They’ll split us up, an’ beat us that way. Our guys aren’t any too strong as it is. I’m afraid we can’t get any more stuff to eat.”