Sundance (24 page)

SFS has been traveling back and forth across the ocean and I'm starting to wonder if it has something to do
with

E
very spare moment was spent reliving the last two years through her letters as he read and reread them—at meals, before sleep, while traveling on trolleys and trains. He started at the beginning, first letters first, and read in order to own the context. He initially read through them quickly to make sure she was all right, then started again and read slowly for clues or codes. The second year of letters brought to his attention one particular man, an anarchist, and as he read, he thought there was a chance this man might know of her whereabouts. He was supposedly well hidden, yet ironically, from her description of his habits and manner, he might not be difficult to find.

Longbaugh rode out to Paterson, New Jersey, Silk City, to visit the hall where the Industrial Workers of the World, “the Wobblies,” made their offices in support of the silk workers' strike. He carried the pertinent letters and reread them on the train. This particular man had come to Etta through the female anarchist, Mabel. Mabel the anarchist had looked down on Etta, and it amused her to put Etta together with one of her anarchist compatriots, identified in the letters only as Prophet. The origin of this moniker was unclear, and if Etta knew his name, she had neglected to mention it. He held out hope that the SFS in the
dangling sentence of her final letter was him. Mabel the anarchist's idea of a joke was to play Cupid for Prophet. Mabel the anarchist believed in free love and sneered at “bourgeois” progressives like Etta. Mabel the anarchist seemed to have more patience for the posh class she so deeply opposed than for progressives who were closer to her political philosophy.

He jumped to a recent letter. Etta had written that Prophet was energized by the strike and had spent significant time in Silk City with the Wobblies. Prophet's early enthusiasm was akin to the ecstasy of a first love or a religious conversion. Longbaugh flipped to a letter dated three months later, where, as she had expected, she recounted Prophet's profound disappointment in the Wobblies and the strikers, his vitriol and disappointment as predictable as his initial infatuation. Prophet now saw the strikers as docile and ineffectual. But he still on occasion visited their offices. Apparently, he was lonely.

Longbaugh walked along the Passaic River through Paterson, passing a series of silent silk factories that lined the riverbank. He crossed the bridge over the Great Falls and found his way to the IWW hall on Main Street.

He entered the hall. A harried young woman crossed his path, with an armload of papers and no time for him. He stood in her way. She looked at him in the way that those who are chosen look at the ignorant and misinformed, over glasses perched precariously low on her nose, through hair strands falling in her face.

“Can you help me?” said Longbaugh.

“Apparently, I can't help anyone.”

“Oh.”

“No, I mean I can't help anyone, according to my boss.”

“Is he some sort of idiot?”

She thawed slightly. “And you're not one of us.”

“How can you tell?”

“No one calls him an idiot. Out loud.”

“I'm looking for a man named Prophet?” It came out as a question, as he had never spoken the name aloud, and it sounded false and careless in his mouth.

“What could you possibly want from him?”

“Nothing good.”

His answer bought him another moment of her time. “Well, you're not the law.” That was not a question, merely the opening salvo of her critical assessment.

“No.”

“And you're no Pinkerton. No rabid foam.”

“I washed my chin just this morning.”

“A reporter would ask leading questions.”

“Do you think your strike is the only reason America is dying?”

She was enjoying this. She looked at his clothes. “Not an anarchist recruit. Can't see you joining Prophet's cause. You'd be better off with us.”

“Not political.”

“Right. But you've heard about us, the enemy of capitalism out to destroy life as you know it.”

“That's what comes of better conditions and higher wages?”

“Apparently so. If we're not starving, we're not doing our part.”

“A progressive with a sense of humor.”

“One more thing I can't get right. Not serious enough.”

“So which one is your boss?”

“See those men over there?” She indicated a line that had formed in front of a desk on the far side of the room. Each man in turn was handed an envelope. “He's the one giving out the money.”

“Awfully young to be an idiot.” She laughed out loud and he caught her glasses as they fell off her nose.

Longbaugh watched her boss and the line of men. “The union hiring picketers?”

“No, they're ours, broad-silk weavers. I visited the picket line and found out they're broke, although not quite starving. I thought maybe the union might help, from the fund.”

“Your boss took credit for your idea.”

“Girls don't have ideas. This strike is about boys, men, virility, and please don't mind me. At least our people aren't groveling and their
children eat. Those men had been running two looms at a time until the company decided they should run four. For the same money.”

“Making half of them out of work already.”

“So you're not a cop, a Pinkerton, or a reporter.”

“From out west.”

“Riding horses, mending fences.”

“Robbing railroads.”

“No need for a union when you make your own hours.” He nodded at her quick wit. “But wait, I see it now. You're a cattle baron. Should have known all along, the way you carry yourself.”

He smiled a little. “Confidence?”

“Arrogance.”

“I must be hiding my affable nature.”

“You buy up land the railroad wants and sell it to them for a profit.”

“And apparently I'm rather cynical.”

“It's your lack of affection for the workers.”

Longbaugh shrugged. “My wife supports you.”

“Send her along, I'll give her a picket sign.”

Before he spoke, Longbaugh hadn't given much thought to Etta's politics. But from everything he'd learned in her letters and from those who had interacted with her, he was confident that he knew exactly what she believed. His own convictions may have been unresolved, but hers were not.

“What does a cattle baron want with Prophet? Wait, don't tell me, secretly he's the son of a wealthy landowner and you need him to help you buy Indian land.”

“Something like that.”

“No, seriously.”

“He's one of yours, why let him hang around?”

“He is definitely not one of ours. You can shoo a fly, but as long as you smell sweet, he keeps coming back. Big Bill got sick of his face and sent him packing day before yesterday.”

“So maybe he's not coming back?”

“I'll believe that when I see it.”

“Know where he lives?”

“Nobody knows. But if he's not here, he's probably spreading cheer in the big city. I'd check the newspapers and magazines.”

“Anarchist press?”

“Heavens no, they washed their hands of him long ago. Try
The Masses
, they're the biggest socialist magazine. Socialists are more tolerant, and he's always looking for someone to convert.”

“Thus the name Prophet.”

“And the fact that so far I think he's been spectacularly unsuccessful.”

“Thus the ironic name Prophet. You know his real name?”

“The odd thing is, I do. He took a liking to me, but I'm one of those females who happens to have arms, legs, feet, hands, and hair. He had a moment of weakness when he said he was Jonah Calvin.”

“Jonah the Prophet.”

“Oh. That's right. Missed that entirely. My boss also thinks I'm too dense. Could be right.” She thought for a moment. “I was also a little dense, since I guess I found Prophet attractive for about a minute and a half.”

“Not bad looking?”

“Actually, he looks like a squirrel, but looks don't matter if you have a brilliant mind. Or I thought he had a brilliant mind. He would say profound things that I'm ashamed to say I thought were original.” She covered her face with her hand, still embarrassed at having been fooled. “Until one day he said something I recognized and realized he was passing off other people's ideas as his own.”

Longbaugh was fascinated. “Like what, for instance?”

“Oh, let's see: ‘Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.' I liked that, that was pretty good.”

“But you caught him—”

“—when he said something I recognized, yes. ‘Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of shoes'—
wait, no—‘In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot maker.' I always liked that quote, we all have contradictions, even when we believe in something, and I just so happened to know it was Mikhail Bakunin, and not Jonah Calvin. I looked through my Bakunin and found out Prophet had shamelessly lifted every smart thing he said.”

Longbaugh had never thought about men seducing women with ideas and words, particularly political words.

“So, who's Bakunin?”

“Once a cattle baron, always a cattle baron. Bakunin was one of the early anarchists.”

Here was a world as different to him as the city had been on that first day when he had stepped off the train. “Well, miss, that's very enlightening, thank you. I must admit, I enjoyed talking to you.”

“You never said why you wanted him.”

“Indian land.”

A commotion by the door caused him to turn, and a man came in who could only have been Big Bill Haywood, wearing his Big Bill Stetson and offering his Big Bill handshake to men who buzzed to him like bees to pollen, tripping over boxes and chairs to grasp that hand. Longbaugh backed up to look him over.
He is large and impressive
, thought Longbaugh,
very impressive, but I'm faster
, and then he thought,
Damn you, Butch! I do have pride.

He sat back to consider the man. After a few minutes, he had a sense of him. Men and women were drawn to his bigger-than-life qualities, his size, his voice. Haywood knew that, and humbled himself, understanding that people could be overwhelmed. He was a born storyteller. His everyday conversation had a natural flow, a beginning, a middle, and an end, which drew people to him and made them want to listen. Longbaugh realized he was drawn to him as well, but reminded himself that he was not here for Big Bill Haywood, he was here to find a squirrelly anarchist that even his brethren disliked.

He may not have known how he felt about the silk workers' strike or
the Wobblies, but he was beginning to know why so many workers bought into it.

On the way back into the city, he reread the letter where Mabel the anarchist had thought Prophet would make a darling companion for Etta. Mabel was amused that the self-professed extremist radical Prophet had lost his heart to a woman who was so conventional. Longbaugh was amused as well, to think of Etta as conventional. While Etta did not trust Mabel the anarchist, she knew Prophet offered an option if she got into trouble, as he inhabited sketchier neighborhoods, hiding out and moving often. She knew she could handle him, and if she needed to disappear in a hurry, here was a quick way out of Moretti's reach. Prophet's instability could work to Etta's advantage, as his movements appeared random, unpredictable.

A cab let Longbaugh off on Nassau Street, at the offices of the magazine
The Masses
. He was surprised to find himself standing in front of a closed and empty office. He stood at the window, trying to peer in, when a fellow pushing a knife-sharpening cart stopped.

“They moved a couple days ago,” said the knife sharpener.

“What, the whole magazine?”

“Few blocks. Other side of Trinity Church, Greenwich Street. Ninety-one.”

He walked.

While walking, he skimmed one of her letters, slowing on a paragraph about Hightower. She had met him through Moretti, and knew he had been searching for her. She disliked him and found that in his case, she was unable to disguise it. He remembered Hightower saying he wished she could at least have pretended to charm him. Something about seeing the same moment from both sides made Longbaugh smile. He put the letters in his pocket as he came to the address.

The new offices of
The Masses
were light and bright, full of energy and conviction, as well as the mess and general confusion caused by the move. Crates were stacked, waiting to be unpacked, but the staff worked around them, apparently determined to publish their magazine on time.
Longbaugh was able to stand in the midst of the disorganization without being questioned as to his intentions or identity. One floppy fellow, an editor of some sort with a rag doll mop of hair and one shirttail out, was attempting to exhort his troops. He was not doing well.