Red Jacket (23 page)

62

Bumbletown Hill

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1913

A nervous man called Bartlow came to the house late Friday morning to report a riot under way in Allouez, and the fact that no special deputies or army men were there to restore order. Bapcat had doubts about intervening. Harju and Sandheim had not come back last night and were out patrolling somewhere. But after some urgent pleading, Bapcat and Zakov followed the man down the hill into the village, which initially looked quiet.

Soon they saw two men hurrying to catch the electric; they were being chased down the street by a dozen women and girls wielding buckets and brooms, swatting wildly at their prey, who tried to defend themselves using cylindrical lunch pails as shields. The swats from the women eventually knocked them to the ground and the women swarmed, raising a scream that made the hair stand up on Bapcat's arms and the nape of his neck.

Paulie Pelkow, who managed a small boardinghouse in town, stood on the side of the street, watching. “You fellas gonna help them boys?” he asked Bapcat, who felt no need to answer. He had already decided the two men were not in any real danger and were on their own.

The victims missed their trolley and fled north on foot, their distaff assailants breaking off the chase. When the women marched triumphantly back, Bapcat realized the buckets they carried contained shit.

Zakov asked one of the women where she had acquired her ammunition, and she laughed at him. “The one thing we got plenty of hereabouts is privy holes.”

“What is this tactic supposed to accomplish?” Zakov pressed.

“We like to see scabs run with tails betwixt their legs. Some men
they
are,” she said. Zakov thanked her and stepped back to Bapcat. “Pyrrhic,” the Russian said. “A tactic without value, an outcome without significance.”

Bapcat had a different view. “You think the other scabs will let those men into the dry house, much less into the cage to go down into the mine? Those men will have to clean up and get other clothes. Once shifts start they don't take late arrivals underground.”

Zakov said, “You loathe everything mining. I hear it in your voice.”

“I have nothing against miners; it's the black holes in the ground and the operators I have little use for.”

Harju was making coffee when Bapcat and Zakov got back up the hill.

“Anything last night?” Bapcat asked.

Harju shook his head. “Nope, cold ground.”

Sandheim came in from outside and yawned.

“Hannula's dead,” Bapcat told his companions.

“How—when?” Harju asked.

“I know only that he's dead.”

The four men stood silently until Bapcat said, “I've been thinking.”

Harju swigged coffee. “We're listening.”

“I want to spread the word among the miners that they won't need a license to hunt deer this year, and that we won't enforce the shortened season. In fact, I want us to encourage them to go out and hunt, starting immediately.”

“You have no authority,” Harju said. “We can't do that.”

“I don't want to change the law, Horri. I just want to ignore it this year. How will Jones and Oates react if we ask them?”

“Easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” Harju said. “Oates and Jones are dedicated but practical men. They'll understand, but they shouldn't concern us. The mine operators' reaction is what concerns me. Have you considered that?”

“I
want
them to pay attention to us,” Bapcat said. “They want to starve people this winter. This can help prevent that.”

“You're taking sides,” Harju said.

“I'm for the things we protect. The operators think they can do whatever they want, and I want them to stop and wonder what we're doing, and what we might do next about their plans.”

“This could be putting targets on our backs,” Sandheim said.

Zakov grinned. “In war, the combatant who can do what the other side doesn't expect is likely to shift the fortunes and outcomes of the conflict. Even better is to do something the other side cannot conceive of.”

“Such as lawmen encouraging people to act unlawfully?” Harju said.

“It's sure not something I'd think of,” Sandheim said.

The Russian looked at Bapcat and bowed. “Unexpected, sneaky, underhanded, brilliant.”

“How do we spread the word?” Harju asked.

“I have some ideas along those lines,” Bapcat said.

“Why ain't I surprised to hear that?” Harju asked.

Bapcat looked at them. “We may all lose our badges over this.”

Zakov said, “Not our badges as human beings.

63

Red Jacket

MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1913

Bapcat waited in the Model T down the street from where Cornelius Nayback rented a room. When the man came hurrying past, Bapcat jumped out and steered him by the arm behind a nearby lilac hedge. The blood immediately drained from Nayback's face.

“I told you we can't be seen together,” Nayback whined. “It's not safe.”

“It's almost dark.”

“What do you want?”

“Seen Cap'n Hedyn lately?”

“We don't grace the same social circles,” Nayback said.

“Not even wrestling?”

“There are exceptions. Don't make more of that than what it was.”

“Tell me what it was.”

“There's a wrestler at the high school. Hedyn's interested in seeing an exhibition, schoolboy against a Cousin Jack. I told him the boy's too young to wrestle grown men.”

“He accepted this?”

“Not happily.”

“We need your help.”

“I can't imagine what I could do.”

“If we have certain handbills printed, could you see to their distribution?”

“Handbills about what?”

“Hunting,” Bapcat said. “There's information we need to get out to people as fast as possible.”

“When?”

“Get them to you next week, before the last day of August, put them out Labor Day?”

“You can't bring them here—not to my place.”

“Where, then?”

Nayback pointed at the truck. “Spiro's Blacksmithy in Tamarack, west side of Tamarack Hills, right after dark, August thirtieth, I'll open the door. Pull your Ford inside, unload it, and get out.”

“Right after dark isn't specific enough,” Bapcat said. “Let's make it ten. It will be dark by then.”

“All right, ten. I have to go. You don't know what you're asking me to do.”

•••

Zakov went up to the front door of Circuit Judge Patrick H. O'Brien's house. The judge himself answered, his red hair mussed, sleep in rheumy eyes, his gigantic ears sticking out like wings.

“Your Grace,” the Russian greeted him.

“I know you not, sir,” O'Brien said, not bothering to mask his irritation. “State your business. It's nighttime, and my court's business hours coincide with the sun's passage.”

Bapcat stepped out of the shadows. “Your Honor, I thought we'd return the favor of a visit.”

O'Brien shook his head. “Inside, you damn fools.”

The house was massive and handsome, paneled in masculine, dark wood. The judge's office had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all full, more books than Bapcat had ever seen in one place. It was intimidating. The judge also had a nickel-plated revolver on his desk.

O'Brien grinned. “It seems sometimes that all a judge really does is read. Libation, lads?” he asked, lifting a decanter. “Genuine Oyrish, right from the auld sod—puts hair on a man's jewels, it does indeed.”

Bapcat smiled.

Drinks poured, the three men sat down. “Neither hear nor see much of you, Deputy.”

“That's probably about to change, Your Honor.”

“Give it air, son.”

By the time Bapcat finished explaining, the judge's mood had shifted from almost amused to something heavy and dark. “Two comments, Deputy. First, the scheme is so bloody damn crazy, I'm certain nobody will have predicted it. Second, because they won't have predicted it, the mine operators won't react well. That, I am absolutely certain of.” Judge O'Brien looked up at a bookshelf. “I doubt I could find a precedent for what you propose; in fact, I am almost certain that what you intend to do is entirely illegal on several levels. Will your names be on the handbills?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Good, leave it anonymous. Printing to be done hereabouts?”

Before Bapcat could answer, the judge said, “Make sure it's not. Pretty hard to track game that leaves no tracks, eh?”

Bapcat nodded.

O'Brien drained his glass. “All right, I never saw the two of you, so get the hell on out of here and disappear into the night like the scallywags you are.”

“You sympathize with the strikers,” Zakov said, his first words.

“I am not so much for the strikers as I am against the operators. I know it's a fine distinction, and no doubt un-judgelike, but there it is. The operators are a pack of greedy, foul bastards, no matter how pressed their white shirts and polished their leather shoes. Good luck to you fellas, whoever you are. Let me give you one wee piece of advice an Irishman always passes along to those who would fight the powers that be: Don't get caught, lads; don't get caught.”

Back in the Ford, Zakov said, “Judges in Russia are extensions of the czar. Here, they are—.”

“Their own men,” Bapcat said.

64

Red Jacket

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 1913

It was the day before Labor Day, and the Palestra was festooned with red, white, and blue ribbons and multitudes of American flags, but there was no sense of celebration, or hope. The whippet-like, sad-countenanced Charles Moyer, national WFM president, had come to town from Denver to address the local brotherhood.

The union gate-guards hesitated when Zakov flashed their shared badge for admission, but relented when the two state deputies glared at them and went on inside, where they stood watching the crowd and listened to warm-up speakers, waiting for Moyer to take the podium. It appeared to Bapcat that the women in the hall were more agitated than the men, and he was again surprised by how many women were present. Everyone in the Palestra knew the mines were open and again producing—not at the output level they were at before the strike, but operating nonetheless, despite the walkout, using supervisors as workers and bringing in scabs from other places. Not a lot of ore so far, but definitely on the increase, rumors contended. The strike was losing force.

The handbills had been hurriedly printed for free by a union man in the village of Diorite, between Champion and Marquette, and Harju had taken a train east to fetch them, returning last Thursday with three thousand copies. Most of these had been left for Nayback at Spiro's Blacksmithy the night before, in Tamarack. This morning the game wardens had seen handbills tacked up around town, and now there were stacks of them in the Palestra. People were picking them up and reading them, paying little attention to the speakers on the stage.

The crowd applauded politely when a dog-faced man with a droopy mustache made his way to the podium. He had a high, shiny forehead, mournfully lidded eyes, and he wore a baggy dark suit that hung on his spare frame.

“Gentlemen,” Moyer began, but a stentorian female voice quickly rang out, “It ain't just men in this brotherhood, Charlie-boy!”

“Gentlemen
and
ladies,” Moyer said, beginning again. “I assure you it is with a great deal of satisfaction that I have come here to the front lines to report to you that despite all efforts by mine operators and the state and federal governments to destroy us, we remain not only afloat, but steaming full speed ahead in our righteous battle to ensure a living wage for all workers, and conditions that nurture rather than main and kill. You are not alone, brothers and sisters; you are not alone.”

There were lukewarm cheers and applause, and the union man let them peter out. “The WFM is now in productive preliminary discussions with unions across this great country, and I can report to you here today that there is strong support for your brave efforts—for example, from Mr. Gompers, of the venerated American Federation of Labor.”

The audience clapped politely.

“To support our fight, your brothers and sisters in other states have volunteered to be assessed ten dollars a month. The Illinois District of the United Mine Workers has loaned us one . . . hundred . . . thousand . . . dollars, and the United Brewery Workers of America have given us another twenty-five thousand.”

Cheers blended with ragged applause.

“But we still ain't working, by God!” a voice rang out.

“You leading this meeting, or are you some facking bookkeeper?” another voice shouted at the first.

Moyer plowed on. “Yes, brothers and sisters, the mines are trying to operate again, but in a much-diminished capacity, and we—you—must step up all activities. And mark my words, dear friends, the operators will bring in more outside workers—true scabs, some just off the boat from those same countries you left for the promise of America. That the operators have to reach so far to find help tells us that we . . . are . . . winning!”

It seemed to Bapcat the resultant applause was not so enthusiastic.

“Hey, Mr. Big Shot,” someone yelled out. “When are we gonna get that pay you promised us?”

Another person held up one of Bapcat's handbills. “And what about what these here papers say?” a man shouted.

Moyer looked baffled. “I'm sorry, I don't know what that is. Can you please pass it forward?”

The man made his way to the stage and handed it up to a local official who handed it to Moyer, who looked it over and told the crowd, “We'll need time to look this over and study it. It could be a trick by the operators to put you afoul of the law. Let me repeat: We are at a critical juncture in our holy war. To relent now will sink our ship. You must remain strong. Double, triple your efforts. The WFM and our brother unions are in your corner. Strike pay will be distributed; I repeat,
You
will be paid, as promised
.
You will get your strike pay
. That is my promise to you, and as you know, Charlie Moyer always honors his promises.”

A nearby man said loudly to another, “I thought the national WFM had a treasury and a strike fund. Why the hell they gotta borrow money to pay us?”

Others nodded agreement.

Moyer held up his hands. “I know there's been violence here, and that people have died. As in Colorado and Montana years ago, the military and police are but weapons in the mine owners' hands, and it is politics that arms operators against labor. Remember, there once was a time when Russian citizens bowed at the feet of the czar and were shot dead by the czar's Cossacks. If we concede . . . nay, if we bow our heads even a little, they will destroy us!”

The cheers were louder at the end, and Bapcat saw many people reading the handbills.

Zakov looked smug. “This man is of course not exaggerating about the czar and his cavalry. I think so far your militia is well-disciplined and even quietly supportive of the people gathered here, and walking in parades. I suspect this confounds the capitalist owners. I also think our Mr. Nayback has done a commendable job of distribution.”

A parade assembled outside the Palestra and a man came up to Bapcat with a handbill and asked, “Is this for real, or is it a joke?”

“Is what a joke?”

The man waggled the handbill. “This.”

“I haven't seen it.”

“Here,” the man said, handing it to him. “Read.”

Bapcat pretended to scan it.

“True?” the man asked.

“Looks that way to me. Why are you asking me?”

“You two are our game wardens. You gonna arrest or not?”

“No; not until orders change.”

“A lotta people here t'ink dis damn good t'ing,” the man said, moving toward the organizers.

Bapcat felt uneasy. How had the man known who they were? But it also occurred to him that Harju had once told him that locals always knew who the local game warden was, and where he lived. They had shown the one badge between them to get into the building, but the badges were not commonly exposed. “I hope we've done the right thing,” he confided to the Russian.

“The right thing here is not the law, but how to help people not starve. If this works, it is the right thing. Sometimes fate presents no reasonable alternatives.”

“Like walking a general at gunpoint onto a battlefield?”

“I must admit that the event you speak of felt eminently reasonable to me,” Zakov said, holding a hand in the air. “Is it me, or does the air seem prematurely cold? I think I smell snow.”

“You can't
smell
snow.”

“A Russian can.”

“The question is not if snow will come, but how much, and when,” Bapcat said.

“If winter comes early and stays long, many are going to suffer terribly,” Zakov said.

•••

When they stopped at Vairo's saloon, Dominick was reading the
Calumet News
. A large headline proclaimed
guard announces withdrawal plan; counties to take over.

Vairo looked at Bapcat. “Don't mean counties; it means the bloody companies. They always the ones control t'ings.”