Hardcastle (34 page)

Even though it was not yet dark, the dogtrot was already littered with people who had chosen a spot for the night; and he entered the kitchen to the thin, tired weeping of an infant. The mother was sitting at the table, holding the child against her shoulder and jiggling it, while it cried, somehow mechanically, as though it were saying a psalm or reciting the alphabet.

“Bill,” Ella said, “have ye seen Regus?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, “I just got back.”

“Well,” she said, “you boys is gonna be on short rations tonight, but I saved a little somethin out.” She handed him a small, brown paper bag, folded around itself and spotted with grease. “This will have to do ye both, and mighty sorry grub it is too; but if I don’t give hit to ye now, Lord knows, hit might not be here the next time I see you.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Music said. “When we get back from Tennessee tomorrow, there ought to be enough to go around for a while.”

“Sure,” Ella said. She shook her head wearily and wiped a strand of hair away from her face with one of her broad, mannish hands. “They’s so many little tykes here that ain’t et good in an age. You can see it in their eyes, don’t ye know. I’ll give em a cup of milk to drink, and some cain’t even finish hit, like as if their stomachs had drawed up to nearly nothin. Lord help us,” she said. “Lord help us. Stick that paper poke in yer pocket and milk that cow fer me, if you will.”

“Sure,” Music said and got his buckets and went off to the barn.

Regus wasn’t out there either, but others were. Blankets were hung here and there, and women and young girls fussed about with bedding. The barn, he decided, must have been declared women’s quarters, at least except for a very few small boys.

The cow was not happy with the company and rolled her eyes and ears and stepped about and lowed, and although he crooned to her constantly and rested his forehead against her belly, she wouldn’t quite settle down to eat from her trough or stand for long. Still, at last he got her milked. But when he carried the buckets into Ella’s kitchen, there were a dozen children waiting on him, and Ella rounded up others soon after; so finally there was little more than a quart left to carry down to the spring-house.

Just as he dropped the latch on the springhouse door behind him, he saw Regus standing before one of the fires shaking his head, while a young, broad-shouldered man just on Regus’s right threw up a hand in an exasperated gesture. “Goddam! If the mine guards didn’t get outten the way, I’d be happy to shoot em!” the young man was saying.

Regus pursed his lips and looked at the young miner. “Ye’d be happy too, I reckon, to get hung for murder,” he said, just as Music came up beside him.

“Shit,” the young man said and looked away into the darkness.

“Well,” Regus said, “when you hot bloods decide to walk into the commissary and take what you want, you be a-lookin for the state militia and the army, too, for them’s the fellers ye’ll see next.”

The young man did not reply; he merely looked away, sullenly, into the night. The other miners standing about the fire, their faces brooding, didn’t speak either, as though their earlier false cheer had faded with the light of day, as though they had begun to see themselves as survivors of some great natural disaster such as a flood or an earthquake.

“If yer wife and babies were starvin now,” Regus said, looking into the fire as though he, too, were adream, “maybe you wouldn’t care to consider what some judge, or governor, or president would decide to do. Sure,” he said, “sure, I reckon I’d be treadin on yer heels when you was breakin down the door in such a case as that.” He looked at Music without any sign of recognition, but then, all at once, his face seemed to brighten and his vision to snap clear. “But me and Bill is supposed to bring back a whole truckload of grub and tucker tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe we ort to save the commissary till times get rough.”

“Ha,” one of the miners said.

“Sure,” said another and guffawed, “we got no houses, ner jobs, ner money; but hit might not always be the easy life hit is now. Hell, times might git hard.”

“Fools,” the young miner said and stamped away into the darkness. The others looked after him, somehow disappointed in him, somehow chagrined.

“Well,” Regus said and spat thoughtfully, “I reckon he’s got us there.”

Music caught Regus’s eye and made a motion with his head that Regus should follow him, and, nodding to the men around the fire, the two of them went off toward the springhouse.

“I was just thinking,” Music said, “if you really suspect Hardcastle might send some night riders to visit us, maybe we ought to post a guard.”

“I thought of that,” Regus said, “but three or four of these fellers is fixin to camp down by the pike. They think somebody might run off with their stuff, I reckon. But they’re so poorly set up fer sleepin, I’d be surprised if anybody could show up when it wadn’t at least two of them awake and shiverin.”

Music nodded and after a moment took the paper bag Ella had given him from his coat pocket and handed it to Regus.

“What’s this?” Regus said.

Music found himself a hummock of broomstraw and sat down. “It’s our supper,” he said.

Regus sat down beside him, opened the bag, and looked in. He seemed to stare at the contents incredulously for an instant; then, giving his head a shake and sucking his teeth, he got out one of the biscuits and passed the bag to Music. “Well,” Regus said, “I don’t reckon I’m all that goddamned hungry noway.” He turned the biscuit this way and that as though he had never before seen one, sighed, and took a bite. “She run through all the grub on the place in just one day?” he asked.

“I guess she did,” Music said.

For a long time they sat with their arms propped on their knees and considered the fires, the dim piles of belongings, and the shadowy figures of the evicted miners strung out along the edge of the highway. They ate slowly, for the biscuits were very dry and the side meat in them was tough.

“What was that young fellow so worked up about?” Music asked at last.

“Aww,” Regus said, “he wanted to save you and me the trouble of going down to Tennessee. Thought it would be better all around just to walk into the Hardcastle commissary and unload the place.”

Music nodded.

“Sure,” Regus said, “he’s a little crazy. But I seen his wife this afternoon: pale as milk, except for little spots of red up on her cheekbones; got them dark, shiny, kinda slick-lookin eyes. She’s got consumption, that woman, and I guess he fears she ain’t gonna last.” Regus plucked a piece of broomstraw and stuck it in his mouth. When he talked, the broomstraw flipped up and down. “Nawh,” Regus said, “he just didn’t take to being throwed out of his job and having his wife and babies throwed out on the side of the road.” He cocked an eyebrow at Music and shrugged sadly. “Sure,” he said, “the man’s mad as hell, and he wants some satisfaction.”

Music merely shook his head, wondering whatever made him think he had any right to argue about unions with Regus Bone. Wondering whatever made him think he had a right to an opinion, even if he kept it the hell to himself. His mouth was dry.

Regus spat out his broomstraw. “You reckon that guinea’s gonna show up fore we go to Tennessee?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Music said and got up to get himself a drink of water from the springhouse branch. He got down on hands and knees and drank from the branch like a horse. The water was so cold his teeth were aching before he rocked back on his haunches and wiped his face on his sleeve. “When do you think we ought to leave in the morning?” he asked.

“Early,” Regus said. “Hit’ll take most of the day, I’d guess.”

Music drew the cap-and-ball pistol and looked at it doubtfully. “It’s just that I ain’t sure this thing will fire since it got so wet down at the Bear Paw. I don’t want to try to shoot it around all these folks tonight though; God knows what they’d think was happening. But this sucker ought to have fresh loads before we go off to Tennessee.”

“We shouldn’t have no trouble on the way over,” Regus said. “Bring yer powder, ball, and caps, and we’ll stop and empty it beside the road somewhere.” Regus watched Music holster the pistol and shook his head. “I wish I thought that goddamned thing was half as dangerous as it looks,” he said. “We ort to have got you a real gun. Hit ain’t too late yet, I reckon.”

“I don’t know,” Music said; “it’s as good as any other pistol, long as it goes off, and money’s gonna get a lot more scarce than guns around here.”

“Well …” Regus said, but the sound of a vehicle coming down the highway from Valle Crucis stopped him, and a moment later headlights probed around the curve and a car appeared, slowed, and swung into the washed-out wagon road below them. “Ha,” Regus said, “if ye speak the devil’s name, he’ll show up, they say.” He looked at Music and raised his eyebrows. “We might not have faired so well on supper, but I’d bet we’ll not run short of bullshit and promises.”

Yet, when they descended the hill, they found the Italian standing with his hands in his pockets while the ragged men, gathering around, harangued him, interrupting each other to tell him what he knew already: that they had lost their jobs and been evicted, that Hardcastle had promised to blackball them, that it was the middle of the goddamned winter, that they hadn’t been able to voice a single grievance or make one solitary demand before they were turned out like dogs. And all because, by God, they had listened to him. But if the Italian’s hands were in his pockets, it was because they were cold or because it was his habit to keep them there, Music thought, for he wasn’t shuffling his feet in the dust and his head wasn’t bowed. There was nothing hangdog about him. He looked each man who spoke in the eyes. And at last, perhaps because the Italian had said nothing, perhaps because his black eyes had about them something not merely unyielding but fierce, the miners grew quiet and sullen.

Arturo Zigerelli looked from one of them to the other. “Yes?” he said. “Yes, yes, go on. What you say is true. But haven’t you forgotten the black man who has already been killed, and my comrade too, in your filthy Mink Slide? Haven’t you forgotten they were betrayed by one of you? If you wish to tell me your troubles, why do you not tell me all?” he asked and thumped himself violently on the chest. “I should not have to tell you how many are your enemies and how few your friends, but maybe you have forgotten. Maybe I should remind you that it is not only Hardcastle and mine guards and the sheriff but your own weak comrades, who will not stand firm, that you must fight against. I come here and you show me your anger,” he said, “but I did not betray you.” He folded his arms and looked into the faces of the men standing around him. “Yes,” he said, “I see that you must be reminded of your troubles before we can go forward, for I think they have grown dim in your memory. You must be reminded that there is no one to help you but yourselves. You!” Zigerelli said and pointed at the young miner who had been so angry with Regus. “Where would you go to seek help if you were starving and your children had no clothes to wear?”

The young man did not answer.

“Well?” Zigerelli said impatiently. “Do you have a Red Cross in the place you call Valle Crucis?”

“They’s a county relief office down by the depot,” another man said.

“Ahh,” Zigerelli said, “places where the poor, the hungry, can go and receive help, mercy, a little bread. Yes? Is it not so?” he asked them.

No one made him an answer. Sullenly they looked at the fire, or off into the darkness, or at nothing at all. Here and there a man turned his head and spat upon the ground or rolled his shoulders uncomfortably as though to loosen the grip of anger.

“Ha,” Zigerelli said scornfully, “if there is one among you who thinks there will be mercy, let him go to the county relief office tomorrow. Tell them that your children cry with hunger. Ask for a sack of flour. You will get nothing! The sheriff will have given them a list of the outlaws he has evicted, or your fine Mr. Hardcastle will have done so. They will have no charity for striking miners or those who have been fired for joining a union. You are outlaws. Yes? Yes? You are criminals because you fight the coal operator, who is the first citizen of Switch County. You are prisoners of the industrialist and the government. You know these things, and I should not have to remind you. I know them too,” he said and smacked himself upon the chest. “We know because they have happened already many times in Kentucky. Yes, and they have happened in California, where I fought beside the men who pick the fruit. There is no charity for those who reject a starving wage. Charity is saved for the meek, for the good ones who have no job but would gladly accept slavery to get one!”

Music leaned toward Regus’s ear. “Is this the bullshit or the promise part?” he asked.

“Damned if I know,” Regus said. He cut himself a chew of tobacco and bit it off the blade of his knife.

Bleakly Arturo Zigerelli looked into the fire, sighed, and shook his head. The firelight played on the bones and planes of his face. “Does the slave love the master?” he asked, as though he were speaking to the fire itself. “Perhaps,” he said. “It is a thing the master always tells us, as he will tell us the slave loves his condition and will be happy in no other.” He looked into the fire and wagged his head from side to side. “Perhaps it is true after all. It is impossible for Arturo Guido Zigerelli to understand this world without such madness.”

“I ain’t right goddam sure I understand you,” the angry young miner said. “Maybe ye ort to trot all that by again, right slow, so I kin see do I like it any better.”

Arturo Zigerelli looked at the young man, his head to one side, his voice calm, reasonable. “Your Mr. Hardcastle has thrown you out like unwanted children. He does not love you,” the Italian said. “Yet you, all of you, are angry with me. Why is this? It is a puzzle, no?” he asked and shrugged his shoulders.

“Just don’t ye call me no slave,” the young man said. “And don’t tell me I love that son of a bitch Hardcastle! I’d kill him quicker than you could spit!”

“Are you a married man?” Zigerelli asked.

“I don’t ken what my wife has to do with this,” the young man said, his face pale, his lips blue, even in the firelight.