In Dubious Battle (28 page)

At first the men tried to keep step, saying, “Hep, hep,” but they tired of it soon. Their feet scuffed and dragged on the gravel road. A little hum of talk came from them, but each man was constrained to speak softly, in honor to the coffin. At the concrete state highway the speed cops were waiting, a dozen of them on motorcycles. Their captain, in a roadster, shouted, “We’re not interfering with you men. We always conduct parades.”

The feet sounded sharply on the concrete. The ranks straggled along in disorder. Only when they reached the outskirts of the town did the men straighten up. In the yards and on the sidewalks the people stood and watched the procession go by. Many took off their hats to the casket. But Mac’s wish was denied. At each corner of the line of march the police stood, re-routing the traffic, turning it aside, and opening the way for the funeral. As they entered the business district of Torgas the sun broke
through and glittered on the wet streets. The damp clothes of the marching men steamed under the sudden warmth. Now the sidewalks were dense with curious people, staring at the coffin; and the marchers straightened up. The squads drew close together. The men fell into step, while their faces took on expressions of importance. No one interfered, and the road was kept clear of vehicles.

Behind the truck, they marched through the town, through the thinning town again, and out into the country, toward the county cemetery. About a mile out they came to it, weed-grown and small. Over the new graves were little galvanized posts, stamped with names and dates. At the back of the lot a pile of new, wet dirt was heaped. The truck stopped at the gate. The bearers climbed down and took the casket on their forearms again. In the road the traffic cops rested their machines and stood waiting.

Albert Johnson took two lengths of tow-rope from under his seat and followed the bearers. The crowd broke ranks and followed. Jim jumped down from the truck and started to join the crowd, but Mac caught him. “Let them do it now; the main thing was the march. We’ll wait here.”

A young man with red hair strolled through the cemetery gate and approached. “Know a guy they call Mac?” he asked.

“They call me Mac.”

“Well, do you know a guy they call Dick?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah? What’s his other name?”

“Halsing. What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing, but he sent you this note.”

Mac opened the folded paper and read it. “Hot damn,” he said. “Look, Jim!”

Jim took the note. It said:

“The lady wins. She has got a ranch, R.F.D. Box 221, Gallinas Road. Send out a truck there right away. They have got two cows, old, and one bull calf and ten sks. lima beans. Send some guys to kill the cows.                                          Dick.

P. S. I nearly got picked up last night.

P.P.S. Only twelve axe-handles.”

Mac was laughing. “Oh, Jesus! Oh, Christ! Two cows and a calf and beans. That gives us time. Jim, run over and find London. Tell him to come here as quick as he can.”

Jim plunged off, and walked through the crowd. In a moment he came back, with London hurrying beside him.

Mac cried, “Did he tell you, London? Did he?”

“He says you got food.”

“Hell yes. Two cows and a calf. Ten sacks of beans! Why the guys can go right out in this truck now.”

From the crowded side of the cemetery came the beating of mud thrown down on the pine casket. “Y’see,” Mac said. “The guys’ll feel fine when they get their stomachs full of meat and beans.”

London said, “I could do with a piece of meat myself.”

“Look, London, I’ll go on the truck. Give me about ten men to guard it. Jim, you can come with me.” He hesitated. “Where we going to get wood? We’re about out of wood. Look, London, let every guy pick up a piece or two of wood, fence picket, piece of culvert, anything. Tell ’em what it’s for. When you get back, dig a hole and
start a fire in it. You’ll find enough junk in those damned old cars to piece out a screen. Get your fire going.” He turned back to the red-haired young man. “Where is this Gallinas Road?”

“ ’Bout a mile from here. You can drop me off on the way.”

London said, “I’ll get Albert Johnson and some men.” He hurried over and disappeared in the crowd.

Mac still laughed softly to himself. “What a break!” he said. “New lease on life. Oh, Dick’s a great guy. He’s a great guy.”

Jim, looking at the crowd, saw it stir to life, it swirled. An excited commotion overcame it. The mob eddied, broke and started back to the truck. London, in the lead, was pointing out men with his finger. The crowd surrounded the truck, laughing, shouting. Albert Johnson put his muddy ropes under the seat and climbed in. Mac got in beside him, and helped Jim in. “Keep the guys together, London,” he shouted. “Don’t let ’em straggle.” The ten chosen men leaped on the bed of the truck.

And then the crowd played. They held the tailboard until the wheels churned. They made mud-balls and threw them at the men sitting on the truck. Outside, in the road, the police stood quietly and waited.

Albert Johnson jerked his clutch in and tore loose from the grip of the crowd. The motor panted heavily as he struck the road. Two of the cops kicked over their motors and fell in beside the truck. Mac turned and looked out through the rear window of the cab at the crowd. They came boiling out of the cemetery in a wave. They broke on the road, hurrying along, filling the road, while the cops vainly tried to keep a passage clear for automobiles. The
jubilant men mocked them and pushed them and surged around them, laughing like children. The truck, with its escorts, turned a corner and moved quickly away.

Albert watched his speedometer warily. “I guess these babies’d like to pick me up for speeding.”

“Damn right,” said Mac. He turned to Jim. “Keep your head down if we pass anybody, Jim.” And then to Albert, “If anybody tries to stop us, drive right over ’em. Remember what happened to Dakin’s truck.”

Albert nodded and dropped his speed to forty. “Nobody ain’t goin’ to stop me,” he said. “I’ve drove a truck all my life when I could get it.”

They did not go through the town, but cut around one end of it, crossed a wooden bridge over the river and turned into Gallinas Road. Albert slowed up to let the red-haired youth drop off. He waved his hand airily as they drove away. The road lay between the interminable apple trees. They drove three miles to the foothills before the orchards began to fall off, giving place to stubble fields. Jim watched the galvanized postboxes at the side of the road. “There’s two-eighteen,” he said. “Not very far now.”

One of the cops turned back and went toward the town, but the other hung on.

“There it is,” Jim said. “That big white gate there.”

Albert headed in, and stopped while one of the men jumped down and opened the gate. The cop cut off his motor and leaned it against its stand.

“Private property,” Mac called to him.

“I’ll stick around, buddy,” he said. “I’ll just stick around.”

A hundred yards ahead a little white house stood under a huge, spreading pepper tree, and behind it a big white
barn reared. A stocky ranchman with a straw-colored mustache slouched out of the house and stood waiting for them. Albert pulled up. Mac said, “Hello, mister. The lady told us to come for some stuff.”

“Yah,” said the man. “She told me. Two old milk cow, little bully calf.”

“Well, can we slaughter ’em here, mister?”

“Yah. You do it yourself. Clean up after. Don’t make mess.”

“Where are they, mister?”

“I got them in barn. You don’t kill them there. Makes mess in the barn.”

“Sure, mister. Pull around by the barn, Albert.”

When the truck was stopped, Mac walked around it. “Any of you guys ever slaughter a cow?”

Jim broke in, “My old man was a slaughterhouse man. I can show ’em. My arm’s too sore to hit ’em myself.”

“O.K.,” said Mac.

The farmer had walked around the house toward them. Jim asked, “You got a sledge-hammer?”

He pointed a thumb at a little shed that sloped off the barn.

“And a knife?”

“Yah. I got goot knife. You give him back.” He walked away toward the house.

Jim turned toward the men. “Couple of you guys go into the barn and bring out the calf first. He’s probably the liveliest.”

The farmer hurried back carrying a short-handled, heavy-headed hammer in one hand and a knife in the other. Jim took the knife from him and looked at it. The blade was ground away until it was slender and bright,
and the point was needle-like. He felt the edge with his thumb. “Sharp,” the farmer said. “He’s always sharp.” He took the knife back, wiped it on his sleeve and reflected the light from it. “Cherman steel. Goot steel.”

Four men came running out of the barn with a red yearling bull calf between them. They clung to a rope around its neck and steered it by butting it with their shoulders. They dug their heels into the ground to stop it, and held it, plunging, between them.

“Over here,” the farmer said. “Here the blood could go into the ground.”

Mac said, “We ought to save the blood. It’s good strong food. If only we had something to carry it in.”

“My old man used to drink it,” said Jim. “I can’t drink it: makes me sick. Here, Mac, you take the hammer. Now, you hit him right here on the head, good and hard.” He handed the knife to Albert Johnson. “Look. See where my hand is? Now that’s the place to stick him, just as soon as Mac hits him. There’s a big artery there. Get it open.”

“How’s a guy to know?”

“You’ll know, all right. It’ll shoot blood like a half-inch pipe. Stand back out of the way, you guys.”

Two men on the sides held the plunging calf. Mac slugged it to its knees. Albert drove in the knife and cut the artery open and jumped back from the spurting blood. The calf leaped, and then settled slowly down. Its chin rented flat on the ground, and its legs folded up. The thick, carmine blood pool spread out on the wet ground.

“It’s a damn shame we can’t save it,” Mac said. “If we only had a little keg we could.”

Jim cried, “O.K. Bring out another. Bring her over here.” The men had been curious at the first slaughter,
but when the two old cows were killed, they did not press in so close to see. When all the animals were down and the blood oozed slowly from their throats, Albert wiped the sticky knife on a piece of sack and handed it back to the farmer. He backed his truck to the animals and the men lifted the limp, heavy creatures up on the bed, and let the heads hang loosely over so that they might bleed on the ground. Last, they piled the ten sacks of lima beans on the front of the truck bed and took their places on the sacks.

Mac turned to the farmer. “Thanks, mister.”

“Not my place,” he said. “Not my cow. I farm shares.”

“Well, thanks for the loan of your knife.” Mac helped Jim a little as he got into the truck and moved over against Albert Johnson. The shirt sleeve on Albert’s right arm was red to the shoulder with blood. Albert started his slow, chugging motor and moved carefully over the rough road. At the gate the traffic cop waited for them, and when they got out on the county road he followed a little way behind.

The men on the sacks started to sing.

“Soup, soup, give us some soup—

We don’t want nothing but just some soup.”

The cop grinned at them. One of the men chanted at him,

“Whoops my dear, whoops my dear,

Even the chief of police is queer.”

In the cab, Mac leaned forward and spoke across Jim. “Albert, we want to dodge the town. We got to get this stuff to the camp. See if you can sort of edge around it, will you, even if it’s longer?”

Albert nodded morosely.

The sun shone now, but it was high, and there was no warmth in it. Jim said, “This ought to make the guys feel fine.”

Albert nodded again. “Let ’em get their guts full of meat, and they’ll go to sleep.”

Mac laughed. “I’m surprised at you, Albert. Haven’t you got no idears about the nobility of labor?”

“I got nothing,” Albert said. “No idears, no money, no nothing.”

“Nothing to lose but your chains,” Jim put in softly.

“Bull,” said Albert, “nothing to lose but my hair.”

“You got this truck,” Mac said. “How’d we get this stuff back without a truck?”

“This truck’s got me,” Albert complained. “The God-damned truck’s just about two-bitted me to death.” He looked sadly ahead. His lips scarcely moved when he talked. “When I’m workin’ and I get three dollars to the good and I get set to look me up a floozy, somethin’ on this buggy busts and costs three dollars. Never fails. God damn truck’s worse’n a wife.”

Jim said earnestly, “In any good system, you’d have a good truck.”

“Yeah? In any good system I’d have a floozy. I ain’t Dakin. If Dakin’s truck could of cooked, he wouldn’t of wanted nothing else.”

Mac said to Jim, “You’re talkin’ to a man that knows what he wants, and it ain’t an automobile.”

“That’s the idear,” said Albert. “I guess it was stickin’ them cows done it. I felt all right before.”

They were back in the endless orchards now, and the leaves were dark and the earth was dark with the rain.
In the ditches beside the road a little muddy storm water ran. The traffic cop rode behind them as Albert turned from road to road, making an angular circuit of the town. They could see among the trees the houses where the owners or the resident share-croppers lived.

Mac said, “If it didn’t make our guys so miserable, I wish the rain’d go on. It isn’t doin’ those apples no good.”

“It isn’t doin’ my blankets no good, neither,” Albert said sullenly.

The men on the back were singing in chorus,

“Oh, we sing, we sing, we sing

Of Lydia Pinkham

And her gift to the human race——”

Albert turned a corner and came into the road to Anderson’s place. “Nice work,” said Mac. “You didn’t go near the town. It would of been hell if we’d got held up and lost our load.”

Jim said, “Look at the smoke, Mac. They’ve got a fire going, all right.” The blue smoke rolled among the trees, hardly rising above their tops.

“Better drive along the camp, near the trees,” Mac advised. “They’re going to have to cut up these animals, and there’s nothing to hang them on but the apple trees.”