Hardcastle (25 page)

Against the grumbling and disagreement in the room, the young man raised his hands. “The system does not work. Not for you and not for them. If Hardcastle shut down tomorrow, he would lose his capital investment very quickly. There would be water in the mine without labor to pump it out. There would be cave-ins. The equipment would be ruined and stolen, and soon he would have lost it all. It is cheaper for such a man to sell his coal at a loss than shut down. If he shuts down, and things get better, he can take no advantage.”

“For money the swine have cut your throats, and now when there is no money, they cut their own,” the heavyset man said with satisfaction. “That is what you must learn and what you must teach them.”

“The operators have done this to you and to themselves because you have had no voice,” the young man said. “Of course it didn’t work,” he said, “of course not. It’s backwards. It’s upside down.” The young man smiled, laughed aloud. “The solution is simple. All of you must be paid a living wage for your labor. Enough to have the things you need, to raise your families, to live with dignity. You must set this wage, which cannot be traded upon or taken away. If all of you together say it must be so, then it must be so. The nation must have coal; you are the men who produce it. The controlling voice must come from the workers and no one else. You see that the other way does not work. The system can only be ordered from the bottom, from the worker. All you have to do is say that it will be done this way, and it will be.”

“Great God, bud, where have you been?” Enloe said. “Sayin a thing is gonna be one way or the tuther don’t make it happen. Not in this neck of the woods. I ken what yer a-sayin about bringin order from the bottom. It makes sense, but if ye think fer a minute that every poor sucker here won’t be lookin at scabs and strikebreakers and gun thugs and all manner of things before we’re all settin pretty like you say, why … why, boy … yer as dumb as a post.”

The young man smiled his beatific smile. “Perhaps,” he said, “but your children will thank you for your struggle when they have shoes to wear and food to eat and a house to live in instead of a sty; and if we all stand together—and we’re organizing every mining operation we can find—perhaps not.”

“But you are correct; the fight will not be easily won,” the heavyset man said, looking, Music supposed, at Worth Enloe.

“Young man,” another voice said, “I’ve listened to ye for three nights now, and I am willin to follow what ye tell us.” Music recognized the voice at once. It was the preacher. The Holy Roller. “What do ye want me to do?”

Other voices agreed.

“I want you to bring us everybody you can trust, whether they are white or colored,” the young man said. “And I want you and two others to travel to Chicago for two weeks of training. I’ll give you each ten dollars to keep your families in food while you’re gone. You,” the young man said, pointing to someone Music couldn’t see, “I want you to go too.”

“Hellfire,” someone said, “he’s been talkin agin you! Send me! My wife and chillun ain’t seen ten dollar in better than a year.”

“All right,” the young man said, “you are the third. You three will meet me here in the morning, and Art will drive you to Cincinnati, where you will meet with other miners from across the state and be taken on to Chicago. There is a National Miners Union headquarters there, and after two weeks you will know much more about what the National Miners Union intends to do, and how it intends to do it.”

“Do not forget the black man. He must be sought out,” the heavyset man said. “We must all stand together as brothers and fight. Do you have questions?”

There was some muttering and comment, but no voice rose until the preacher’s said, “I would like to pray.”

“This is a time for men of strength to stand together,” the heavyset man said. “It is not a time to pray.”

“I would as lief ask the Lord’s blessing,” the preacher said.

Regus touched Music on the shoulder and motioned with his head that they should move around the corner, and Music could not hear how the unionizers responded. Whatever, when they were squatting at the end of the house, he could hear the little preacher’s voice strike its praying cadence.

“Let them miners get all the way gone fore we make our move,” Regus said. “There’s a pistol or three in that bunch fer certain, and I don’t want to be collectin them two in yonder with a couple of hotheads comin up on our blind side.”

“What if the unionizers strike out too?” Music said.

“Hell, leave em go. We’ll collect them in the mornin if they git gone and we cain’t get no handle on them tonight.”

After a while there was shuffling in the house, and finally the back door, which sounded as though it had stuck in the wet weather, shivered open. Footsteps and the sound of subdued voices spilled out into the night.

Music and Regus stayed where they were. The snow had turned again to a light, cold rain, and for the first time Music realized he was shivering steadily; that across the shoulders and down the center of his back, he was soaked through; that his thigh, perhaps from squatting so long, was getting sore again. He wondered how many cylinders of the Colt would fire—if the threads of the nipples weren’t worn, if the caps were firmly seated, all of them should—but he also wondered if it would matter.

After the miners had had more than enough time to reach the woods, they could still hear talking inside the shack. Finally Regus whispered, “Let’s take a look-see,” and cautiously they crept to the corner of the house and then beneath the window again. From his side, Music could see no one, but Regus was nodding and holding up two fingers.

The unionizers seemed to be arguing.

“The young one, yes, for he is angry. The man with one eye, maybe. But the preacher should not be sent.”

“I studied for the ministry once myself,” said the young man’s voice with something close to laughter in it.

“I do not forget,” said the other. “You think the struggle will be won with the head, but if it is won, it will be with passion and anger.”

Regus tapped Music on the shoulder, held up his drawn pistol, and nodded toward the rear door.

“And I do not like the deception,” the heavyset man was saying.

Music drew his pistol and stood up, and after Regus had duck walked beneath the window, he stood up too and went around Music to the door.

“And I do not like—” Music heard the heavyset man say, but Regus had opened the door. He had opened it gently, almost humbly, as though he were one of the miners returning. “Rest easy, cousins,” he said.

Music went in behind him in time to see the change in their faces, in time to see realization drain their blood away. He himself, he realized, was not made for this sort of thing, for he would have yanked the door open wildly, and God only knew what would have happened.

Regus pulled his jumper aside and tapped his badge with one finger. “We goan take you boys to see the sheriff,” he was saying.

The young man stiffened. The heavyset one seemed to sag. “And which one of them ran to you?” he said.

“None of those suckers told on ya, bud,” Regus said. “You two just come to the end of yer string.” Regus ran his finger back and forth under his nose. His face was red, Music noticed. So were his neck and ears. Well, anyway, Music thought, he’s embarrassed, and he doesn’t like it. “You fellers wouldn’t have any guns on ya, would ya?” Regus said. “I don’t want anybody to get shot.”

“I don’t,” the young man said.

“Why is it the police are always on the side of the rich man?” the older one said.

“I’ve noticed that myself,” Regus said. “Why don’t you fellers turn around and face the wall and hold yer hands out behind you?”

When they had done as they had been told, Regus slipped off his belt and held it out to Music. “See if them birds are carryin anything to shoot with and tie two of their hands together. I’d feel better if they were yoked up, since we’ve got a ways to walk.”

“And you,” the heavyset one said while Music was patting his partner around the chest and pockets, “are you happy to be an oppressor of starving coal miners?”

“No,” Music said.

“Then why do you do it?”

“Shut up, willya?” Music said. He began to search him and found a large automatic in his coat pocket. “Jesus,” Music said and passed the pistol back to Regus.

“A feller told me once that guineas liked these big ole automatics,” Regus said.

“My name is Arturo Zigerelli, and I am an Italian,” said the unionizer.

“I thought you sounded like a foreigner,” Regus said.

“I speak English better than you,” Arturo Zigerelli said.

“Yeah,” Regus said, “but this here’s Kentucky.”

Music had holstered the enormous Walker Colt and tied the inside wrists of the two men together. When he stepped back, Regus offered him the automatic. “You want this’un?”

“No,” Music said, “I’m use to the Colt.”

“Well, I’d feel better, Bill Music, if ye’d keep the damned thing out where you can wave it around.”

Music drew the pistol again.

“Boys,” Regus said, “if ye’d just go ahead of us out the door and walk kindly nice and easy, we’ll all get along fine.”

But when the young one realized they were being taken south, he stopped short. “There isn’t any town for miles in this direction. What are you going to do with us?”

“Like I said, you boys are going to see the sheriff,” Regus said. “Get along.”

“Perhaps they will beat us, and perhaps they will shoot us,” Arturo Zigerelli said.

“No, we won’t,” Music said. “We have a truck parked down the road, that’s all.” He took hold of Regus’s arm so that the two of them fell back a pace or two. “Goddammit,” he whispered, “let’s turn the poor bastards loose.”

Regus snatched his arm away. “After we gone to all the trouble to catch em? If we let em sell that snake oil, they’ll raise more hell in a day than a mine guard can beat down in a week.”

“Come daylight, I ain’t gonna be a mine guard,” Music said, “and, shit, you ain’t never been, if you’d stopped once to notice.”

But Regus merely spat and caught up with the unionizers. A moment later, in a bitter, sarcastic voice he asked, “What I’d like to know, Mr. Zigerelli, is how come you to travel all the way from Italy to Switch County, just to make trouble?”

“I come to this country more than ten years ago, Mr. Officer of the Law; and I did not come to make trouble but to pick up gold from the streets,” Arturo Zigerelli said. “I did not find it.”

“I expect not,” Regus said.

“I pick garbage from the streets in Philadelphia and I pick fruit in California and I eat them both to line my stomach, and I am a citizen of this country like you. But I do not sell my honor to the capitalist like you, or make the poor miner carry me upon his back.”

“Be quiet,” the slender one said and jerked their bound wrists.

“It will not matter,” the Italian said.

“What’s yore tale?” Regus said to the other one. “Ye sound a little closer to home.”

“I was raised in Memphis,” the young one said. His voice was shaky, but he seemed to struggle to put some iron in it. “I went to Vanderbilt Divinity School because I wanted to be a minister and save men’s souls.”

The Italian laughed.

“But …” the young man continued, “but when I got a little smarter, I thought I’d better try to save something I could see.”

“Sure,” Regus said. “Cut down the hill toward the road; hit’s easier walkin.”

“They sent me here because, like you say, I sound closer to home,” the young man said.

Suddenly the Italian laughed again. “And I do not speak Kentucky,” he said.

They were perhaps a hundred yards below the Bear Paw camp on ground that had once been cleared, although Music could not think for what purpose. Perhaps, he thought, to build more shacks. But it had long since grown up in scrub and briars, and the walking was very difficult. The slushy snow that lay upon the slash was falling off of its own weight in the rain, and what remained fell when they brushed against it. He was soaked to the skin, even through the bandage around his thigh. He holstered the Colt in spite of Regus. He was tired of pointing it at the unionizers’ backs.

At last they floundered down a slick, steep cut into the roadbed, and, all four of them steaming like horses in the cold rain, they went on south.

Presently, the sarcastic edge still in his voice, Regus said, “Why don’t you boys own up and tell me just what in the hell you git outten this?”

“Satisfaction,” the young man answered in his tremulous voice, “and we get peace and hope for the future.”

“Ha,” Arturo Zigerelli said, “hope, maybe; but mostly we get only the harsh treatment we have in this moment, or worse.”

When they had walked another fifty yards, Regus’s pace began to falter. “Shitfire and damnation,” he mumbled and shot Music an accusing and confused glance before he stopped dead in the road. “Hold it right there!” he shouted in so loud a voice the backs of both unionizers stiffened as if they’d been struck.

“Ahh,” the Italian said, “now it comes.”

“Just gimme my goddamned belt,” Regus said.

“So,” Arturo Zigerelli said, “will you shoot us now after all?” and he turned to face Regus and Music, pulling the younger man around too, who stumbled and tried to raise his hands.

“Goddammit,” Regus said, “gimme my goddamned belt and get the hell away from me.”

Hellkatoot, Music thought, and in the next moment the young man came to life and began to fumble and claw at the belt with his free hand until, at last, he untied it and extended it toward Regus.

Arturo Zigerelli had made no move to help him. “You are letting us free?” he said.

“Walk, goddammit,” Regus said.

Arturo Zigerelli hesitated. “Can I have first my weapon?” he asked.

“What, so you can shoot me and Bill with it?”

The Italian made a curious little bow. “But you did not shoot us.”

Regus jammed his hand in his jumper pocket and thrust the automatic at the Italian, who took it.

“You will not give us away?” he asked.

“If I meant to give you away,” Regus said, “I’d still be marchin ye down the road.”

“We will continue in our purpose,” Arturo Zigerelli said.