In Dubious Battle (15 page)

“Sure,” said Mac hurriedly. “A guy with brains don’t have to be taught. He sees things for himself.”

Al turned away to hide his pleasure. He flipped the steaks and pressed them down with his spatula and gathered up the wilting onions and forced them into the meat. He scraped the grease into the little trough on the side of the stove-top. When he had forced his face back to a proper gravity, he turned around again. “Sure you guys can trust me,” he said. “You ought to know it. What you got on?” He filled two cups with coffee and slid them along the counter.

Mac tapped delicately on the counter with a knife-blade. “There may be bulls askin’ about me and Jim.”

“Sure. I don’t know nothin’ about you,” said Al.

“That’s right. Now here’s the dope, Al. This valley’s about to bust wide open. Already has over on the place where we been working. The others’ll probably crack tonight.”

Al said softly, “You know, the way the guys was talkin’ in here, I thought it wasn’t far off. What d’you want me to do?”

“Better take up that meat.” Al held two plates fan-wise in one hand, put a steak on each, mashed potatoes, carrots and turnips, loaded the plates.

“Gravy, gents?”

“Smear it,” said Mac.

Al ladled gravy over the whole pile of food and set the plates before them. “Now go on,” he said.

Mac filled his mouth. His speech was muffled and
spaced with chewing. “You said your old man had a little ranch.”

“He has. Want to hide out there?”

“No.” Mac pointed his fork at Al. “There won’t be an apple picked in this valley.”

“Well, say—mister——”

“Wait. Listen. Any plow land on your old man’s place?”

“Yeah, about five acres. Had it in hay. Hay’s all out now.”

“Here it is,” said Mac. “We’re goin’ to have a thousand or two men with no place to go. They’ll kick ’em off the ranches and won’t let ’em on the road. Now if they could camp on that five acres, they’d be safe.”

Al’s face sagged with fear and doubt. “Aw, no, mister. I don’t think my old man’d do it.”

Mac broke in, “He’d get his apples picked, picked quick, and picked for nothing. Price’ll be high with the rest of ’em shut off.”

“Well, wouldn’t the town guys raise hell with him afterwards?”

“Who?” Mac asked.

“Why, the Legion, and guys like that. They’d sneak out and beat him up.”

“No, I don’t think they would. He’s got a right to have men on his place. I’ll have a doctor lay out the camp and see it’s kept clean, and your old man’ll get his crop picked for nothing.”

Al shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, we can easy find out,” said Mac. “Let’s go talk to your old man.”

“I got to keep this place open. I can’t go away.”

Jim suddenly saw his neglected food and began to eat. Mac’s squinted eyes never left Al’s face. He sat and chewed and looked. Al began to get nervous. “You think I’m scared,” he began.

“I don’t think anything before I see it,” said Mac. “I just wondered why a guy can’t close up his own joint for an hour, if he wants to.”

“Well, the guys that eat early"ll be here in an hour.”

“You could get back in an hour.”

Al fidgeted. “I don’t think my old man’ll do it. He’s got to look out for himself, don’t he?”

“Well, he ain’t been jumped yet. How do you know what’ll happen?” A chill was creeping into Mac’s voice, a vague hostility.

Al picked up a rag and mopped around on the counter. His nervous eyes came to Mac’s and darted away and came back. At last he stepped close. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll just pin a little card to the door. I don’t think my old man’ll do it, but I’ll take you out there.”

Mac smiled broadly. “Good guy. We won’t forget it. Next time I see any stiff with a quarter, I’ll send him in to get one of your steaks.”

“I give a nice dinner for the money,” said Al. He took off his tall cook’s hat and rolled down his shirt sleeves, and turned the gas off under the cooking plate.

Mac finished his food. “That was good.”

Jim had to bolt his dinner not to be late.

“I got a little car in the lot behind here,” said Al. “Maybe you guys could just follow me; then I don’t get into no trouble and I’m still some good to you.”

Mac drained his cup. “That’s right, Al. Don’t you get into no bad company.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure, I know. Come on, Jim, let’s go.”

Al wrote a sign and pinned it inside the door, facing out through the glass. He struggled his chubby arms into his coat and held the door open for Mac and Jim.

Mac cranked the Ford and jumped in, and Jim idled the motor until Al came bumping out of the lot in an old Dodge roadster. Jim followed him down the street to the east, across the concrete bridge over the river and out into the pleasant country. The sun was nearly down by now, red and warm with autumn dust. The massed apple trees along the road were grey with dust.

Mac turned in the seat and looked down the rows as they passed. “I don’t see anybody working,” he cried to Jim. “I wonder if he took hold already. There’s boxes, but nobody working.”

The paved road gave way to a dirt road. The Ford leaped and shuddered on the rough road. About a mile further Al’s dust-cloud swung off into a yard. Jim followed and came to a stop beside the Dodge. A white tank-house rose into the air, and on its top a windmill thrashed and glittered in the sun, and the pump bonged with a deep, throaty voice. It was a pleasant place. The apple trees grew in close to a small white ranch house. Tame mallards nuzzled the mud in the overflow under the tank. In a wire-bounded kennel against a big barn two rubbery English pointers stood against the screen and yearned out at the men with little yelps. The house itself was surrounded by a low picket fence, behind which geraniums grew big and red, and a Virginia creeper, dropping its red leaves, hung over the porch. Big square
Plymouth Rock chickens strolled about, cawing contentedly and cocking their heads at the newcomers.

Al got out of the car. “Look a’ them dogs,” he said. “Best pointers in the Valley. My old man loves them better’n me.”

Mac asked, “Where’s the five acres, Al?”

“Down that way, behind the trees, on the other road.”

“Good. Let’s find your old man. You say he likes his dogs?”

Al laughed shortly. “Just make a pass at one o’ them dogs an’ see. He’ll eat you.”

Jim stared at the house, and at the newly whitewashed barn. “This is nice,” he said. “Makes a man want to live in a place like this.”

Al shook his head. “Takes an awful lot of work to keep it up. My old man works from dawn till after dark, and then he don’t keep up with the work.”

Mac insisted, “Where is your old man? Let’s find him.”

“Look,” Al said. “That’s him coming in from the orchard.”

Mac glanced up for a moment, and then he moved back to the kennel. The squirming pointers flung themselves at the wire, moaning with love. Mac stuck his fingers through the mesh and rubbed their muzzles.

Jim said, “Do you like dogs, Mac?”

Mac retorted irritably, “I like anything.”

Al’s father came walking up. He was totally unlike Al, small and quick as a terrier. The energy seemed to pour out of some inner reservoir into his arms and legs, and into his fingers so that all of him was on the move all of the time. His white hair was coarse, and his eyebrows and mustache bristled. His brown eyes flitted about as
restlessly as bees. Because his fingers had nothing else to do while he walked, they snapped at his sides with little rhythmic reports. When he spoke, his words were like the rest of him, quick, nervous, sharp. “What’s the matter with your business?” he demanded of Al.

Al went heavily on the defensive. “Well, you see—I thought——”

“You wanted to get off the ranch, wanted to go into town, start a business, town boy, wanted to lounge around. Didn’t like to whitewash, never did. What’s the matter with your business?” His eyes hovered on each of the men, on their shoes and on their faces.

Mac still looked into the kennel and rubbed the dogs’ noses. Al explained, “Well, you see, I brang these guys out, they wanted to see you.”

The old man eliminated Al. “Well, they’re here. You can get back to your business now.”

Al looked at his little father with the hurt eyes of a dog about to be bathed, and then reluctantly he climbed into his car and drove disconsolately away.

Mac said, “I haven’t seen such pointers in a long time.”

Al’s father stepped up beside him. “Man, you never seen such pointers in your life.” A warmth was established.

“Do you shoot over ’em much?”

“Every season. And I get birds, too. Lots of fools use setters. Setter’s a net dog, nobody nets birds any more. Pointer’s a real gun dog.”

“I like the looks of that one with the liver saddle.”

“Sure, he’s good. But he can’t hold up to that sweet little bitch. Name’s Mary, gentle as Jesus in the pen,
but she’s jumping hell in the field. Never seen a dog could cover the ground the way she can.”

Mac gave the noses a rub. “I see they got holes into the barn. You let ’em run in the barn?”

“No, their beds are tight against the wall. Warmer in there.”

“If the bitch ever whelps, I’d like to speak a pup.”

The old man snorted. “She’d have to whelp ever’ day in the year to supply the people that wants her pups.”

Mac turned slowly from the pen and looked into the brown eyes. “My name’s McLeod,” he said, and held out his hand.

“Anderson’s mine. What you want?”

“I want to talk straight to you.”

The sun was gone now, and the chickens had disappeared from the yard. The evening chill settled down among the trees. “Selling something, Mr. McLeod? I don’t want none.”

“Sure, we’re selling something, but it’s a new product.”

His tone seemed to reassure Anderson. “Why’n’t you come into the kitchen and have a cup of coffee?”

“I don’t mind,” said Mac.

The kitchen was like the rest of the place, painted, scrubbed, swept. The nickel trimmings on the stove shone so that it seemed wet.

“You live here alone, Mr. Anderson?”

“My boy Al comes out and sleeps. He’s a pretty good boy.” From a paper bag the old man took out a handful of carefully cut pine splinters and laid them in the stove, and on top he placed a few little scraps of pitchwood, and on top of those, three round pieces of seasoned apple wood. It was so well and deftly done that the fire flared
up when he applied a match. The stove cricked, and a burst of heat came from it. He put on a coffee-pot and measured ground coffee into it. From a bag he took two egg shells and dropped them into the pot.

Mac and Jim sat at a kitchen table covered with new yellow oilcloth. Anderson finished his work at the stove. He came over, sat primly down, put his two hands on the table; they lay still, even as good dogs do when they want to be off. “Now, what is it, McLeod?”

A look of perplexity lay on Mac’s muscular face. “Mr. Anderson,” he said hesitatingly, “I haven’t got a hell of a lot of cards. I ought to play ’em hard and get the value out of ’em. But I don’t seem to want to. I think I’ll lay ’em down. If they take the pot, O.K. If they don’t, there’s no more deal.”

“Well, lay ’em then, McLeod.”

“It’s like this. By tomorrow a couple of thousand men will be on strike, and the apple picking will stop.”

Anderson’s hands seemed to sniff, to stiffen, and then to lie still again.

Mac went on, “The reason for the strike is this pay-cut. Now the owners’ll run in scabs, and there’ll be trouble. But there’s a bunch of men going out, enough to picket the Valley. D’you get the picture?”

“Part of it; but I don’t know what you’re driving at.”

“Well, here’s the rest. Damn soon there’ll be a supervisors’ ordinance against gathering on a road or on any public property. The owners’ll kick the strikers off their land for trespassing.”

“Well, I’m an owner. What do you want of me?”

“Al says you’ve got five acres of plow land.” Anderson’s
hands were still and tense as dogs at point. “Your five acres are private property. You can have men on it.”

Anderson said cautiously, “You’re selling something; you don’t say what it is.”

“If the Torgas Valley apples don’t go on the market, the price’ll go up, won’t it?”

“Sure it will.”

“Well, you’ll get your crop picked free.”

Anderson relaxed slightly in his chair. The coffee-pot began to breathe gently on the stove. “Men like that’d litter the land up,” he said.

“No, they won’t. There’s a committee to keep order. There won’t even be any liquor allowed. A doctor’s coming down to look out for the sanitation. We’ll lay out a nice neat camp, in streets.”

Anderson drew a quick breath. “Look here, young fellow, I own this place. I got to get along with my neighbors. They’d raise hell with me if I did a thing like that.”

“You say you own this place,” Mac said. “Is it clear? Is there any paper on it?”

“Well, no, it ain’t clear.”

“And who are your neighbors?” Mac asked quickly. “I’ll tell you who they are: Hunter, Gillray, Martin. Who holds your paper? Torgas Finance Company. Who owns Torgas Finance Company? Hunter, Gillray, Martin. Have they been squeezing you? You know God damn well they have. How long you going to last? Maybe one year; and then Torgas Finance takes your place. Is that straight? Now suppose you got a crop out with no labor charges; suppose you sold it on a rising market? Could you clear out your paper?”

Anderson’s eyes were bright and beady. Two little
spots of anger were on his cheeks. His hands crept under the edge of the table and hid. For a moment he seemed not to breathe. At last he said softly, “You didn’t lay ’em down, fellow, you played ’em. If I could get clear—if I could get a knife in——”

“We’ll give you two regiments of men to get your knife in.”

“Yeah, but my neighbors’d run me out.”

“Oh no they won’t. If they touch you or your place we won’t leave a barn standing in the Valley.”

Anderson’s lean old jaw was set hard. “What you getting out of it?”

Mac grinned. “I could tell you the other stuff straight. I don’t know whether you’d believe the answer to that one or not. Me an’ Jim here get a sock in the puss now and then. We get sixty days for vagrancy pretty often.”