In Dubious Battle (9 page)

Al rubbed his soft chin. “Well, there’s two bunches I know of. One’s out on Palo Road, alongside the county highway, and then there’s a bunch jungled up by the river. There’s a regular old jungle down there in the willows.”

“That’s the stuff. How do we get there?”

Al pointed a thick finger. “You take that cross street and stay on it till you get to the edge of town, and there’s the river and the bridge. Then you’ll find a path through the willows, off to the left. Follow that about a quarter mile, and there you are. I don’t know how many guys is there.”

Mac stood up and put on his hat. “You’re a good guy, Al. We’ll get along now. Thanks for the feed.”

Al said, “My old man’s got a shed with a cot in it, if you’d like to stay out there.”

“Can’t do it, Al. If we’re going to work, we got to get out among them.”

“Well, if you want a bite now and then, come on in,” said Al. “Only pick it like tonight when there’s nobody here, won’t you?”

“Sure, Al. We get you. Thanks again.”

Mac let Jim precede him through the door and then slid it closed behind him. They walked down the steps and took the street Al had pointed out. At the corner the policeman stepped out of a doorway. “What’s on your mind?” he asked harshly.

Jim jumped back at the sudden appearance, but Mac stood quietly. “Couple of workin’ stiffs, mister,” he said. “We figure to pick a few apples.”

“What you doing on the street this time of night?”

“Hell, we just got off that freight that went through an hour ago!”

“Where you going now?”

“Thought we’d jungle up with the boys down by the river.”

The policeman maintained his position in front of them. “Got any money?”

“You saw us buy a meal, didn’t you? We got enough to keep out of jail on a vag charge.”

The policeman stood aside then. “Well, get going, and keep off the streets at night.”

“O.K., mister.”

They walked quickly on. Jim said, “You sure talked to him pretty, Mac.”

“Why not? That’s the first lesson. Never argue with a cop, particularly at night. It’d be swell if we got thirty days for vagrancy right now, wouldn’t it?”

They hugged their denim clothes against their chests and hurried along the street, and the lights grew more infrequent.

“How are you going to go about getting started?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know. We’ve got to use everything. Look, we
start out with a general plan, but the details have to be worked out with any materials we can find. We use everything we can get hold of. That’s the only thing we can do. We’ll just look over the situation.”

Jim lengthened his stride with a drive of energy. “Well, let me do things, won’t you, Mac? I don’t want to be a stooge all my life.”

Mac laughed. “You’ll get used, all right. You’ll get used till you’ll wish you was back in town with an eight-hour job.”

“No, I don’t think I will, Mac. I never felt so good before. I’m all swelled up with a good feeling. Do you feel that way?”

“Sometimes,” said Mac. “Mostly I’m too damn busy to know how I feel.”

The buildings along the street were more dilapidated as they went. Welding works and used car lots and the great trash piles of auto-wrecking yards. The street lights shone on the blank, dead windows of old and neglected houses, and made shadows under shrubs that had gone to brush. The men walked quickly in the cool night air. “I think I see the bridge lights now,” Jim said. “See those three lights on each side?”

“I see ’em. Didn’t he say turn left?”

“Yeah, left.”

It was a two-span concrete bridge over a narrow river that was reduced at this season to a sluggish little creek in the middle of a sandy bed. Jim and Mac went to the left of the bridge ramp, and near the edge of the river bed they found the opening of a trail into the willows. Mac took the lead. In a moment they were out of range of the bridge lights, and the thick willow scrub was all
about them. They could see the branches against the lighter sky, and, to the right, on the edge of the river bed, a dark wall of large cottonwoods.

“I can’t see this path,” Mac said. “I’ll just have to feel it with my feet.” He moved carefully, slowly. “Hold up your arms to protect your face, Jim.”

“I am. I got switched right across the mouth a minute ago.” For a while they felt their way along the hard, used trail. “I smell smoke,” Jim said. “It can’t be far now.”

Suddenly Mac stopped. “There’s lights ahead. Listen, Jim, the same thing goes as back there. Let me do the talking.”

“O.K.”

The trail came abruptly into a large clearing, flickeringly lighted by a little bonfire. Along the farther side were three dirty white tents; and in one of them a light burned and huge black figures moved on the canvas. In the clearing itself there were perhaps fifty men, some sleeping on the ground in sausage rolls of blankets, while a number sat around the little fire in the middle of the flat cleared place. As Jim and Mac stepped clear of the willows they heard a short, sharp cry, quickly checked, which came from the lighted tent. Immediately the great shadows moved nervously on the canvas.

“Somebody’s sick,” Mac said softly. “We didn’t hear it yet. It pays to appear to mind your own business.”

They moved toward the fire, where a ring of men sat clasping their knees. “Can a guy join this club?” Mac asked, “or does he got to be elected?”

The faces of the men were turned up at him, unshaven faces with eyes in which the firelight glowed. One of the
men moved sideways to make room. “Ground’s free, mister.”

Mac chuckled. “Not where I come from.”

A lean, lighted face across the fire spoke. “You come to a good place, fella. Everything’s free here, food, liquor, automobiles, houses. Just move in and set down to a turkey dinner.”

Mac squatted and motioned Jim to sit beside him. He pulled out his sack of tobacco and made a careful, excellent cigarette; then, as an afterthought, “Would any of you capitalists like a smoke?”

Several hands thrust out. The bag went from man to man. “Just get in?” the lean face asked.

“Just. Figure to pick a few apples and retire on my income.”

Lean-face burst out angrily. “Know what they’re payin’, fella? Fifteen cents,
fifteen lousy cents!"

“Well, what do you want?” Mac demanded. “Jesus Christ, man! You ain’t got the nerve to say you want to eat? You can eat an apple while you’re workin’. All them nice apples!” His tone grew hard. “S’pose we don’t pick them apples?”

Lean-face cried, “We got to pick ’em. Spent every Goddamn cent gettin’ here.”

Mac repeated softly, “All them nice apples. If we don’t pick ’em, they’ll rot.”

“If we don’t pick ’em, somebody else will.”

“S’pose we didn’t let nobody else pick?” Mac said.

The men about the fire grew tense. “You mean—strike?” Lean-face asked.

Mac laughed. “I don’t mean nothin’.”

A short man who rested his chin between his knees said,
“When London found out what they was payin’ he damn near had a stroke.” He turned to the man next to him. “You seen him, Joe. Didn’t he damn near have a stroke?”

“Turned green,” said Joe. “Just stood there and turned green. Picked up a stick and bust it to splinters in his hands.”

The bag of tobacco came back to its starting place, but there was not much left in it. Mac felt it with his fingers and then put it in his pocket. “Who’s London?” he asked.

Lean-face answered him. “London’s a good guy—a big guy. We travel with him. He’s a big guy.”

“The boss, huh?”

“Well, no, he ain’t a boss, but he’s a good guy. We kind of travel with him. You ought to hear him talk to a cop. He——

The cry came from the tent again, more prolonged this time. The men turned their heads toward it, and then looked apathetically back at the fire.

“Somebody sick?” Mac asked.

“London’s daughter’n-law. She’s havin’ a kid.”

Mac said, “This ain’t no place t’have a kid. They got a doctor?”

“Hell no! Where’d they get a doctor?”

“Why’n’t they take her to the county, hospital?”

Lean-face scoffed. “They won’t have no crop tramps in the county hospital. Don’t you know that? They got no room. Always full-up.”

“I know it,” said Mac. “I just wondered if you did.”

Jim shivered and picked up a little willow stick and thrust the end into the coals until it flared into flame. Mac’s hand came stealing out of the darkness and took his arm for a moment, and gripped it.

Mac asked, “They got anybody that knows anything about it?”

“Got an old woman,” Lean-face said. His eyes turned suspicious under the questioning. “Say, what’s it to you?”

“I had some training,” Mac explained casually. “I know something about it. Thought I might help out.”

“Well, go see London.” Lean-face shucked off responsibility. “It ain’t none of our business to answer questions about him.”

Mac ignored the suspicion. “Guess I will.” He stood up. “Come on, Jim. Is London in that tent with the light?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

A circle of lighted faces watched Jim and Mac walk away, and then the heads swung back to the fire again. The two men picked their way across the clearing, avoiding the bundles of cloth that were sleeping men.

Mac whispered, “What a break! If I can pull it off, we’re started.”

“What do you mean? Mac, I didn’t know you had medical training.”

“A whole slough of people don’t know it,” said Mac. They approached the tent, where dark figures moved about on the canvas. Mac stepped close and called, “London.”

Almost instantly the tent-flap bellied and a large man stepped out. His shoulders were immense. Stiff dark hair grew in a tonsure, leaving the top of the head perfectly bald. His face was corded with muscular wrinkles and his dark eyes were as fierce and red as those of a gorilla. A power of authority was about the man. It could be felt that he led men as naturally as he breathed. With one big
hand he held the tent-flap closed behind him. “What you want?” he demanded.

“We just got in,” Mac explained. “Some guys over by the fire says there was a girl havin’ a baby.”

“Well, what of it?”

“I thought I might help out as long as you got no doctor.”

London opened the flap and let a streak of light fall on Mac’s face. “What you think you can do?”

“I worked in hospitals,” Mac said. “I done this before. It don’t pay to take no chances, London.”

The big man’s voice dropped. “Come on in,” he said. “We got an old woman here, but I think she’s nuts. Come in and take a look.” He held up the tent-flap for them to enter.

Inside it was crowded and very hot. A candle burned in a saucer. In the middle of the tent stood a stove made of a kerosene can, and beside it sat an old and wrinkled woman. A white-faced boy stood in one corner of the tent. Along the rear wall an old mattress was laid on the ground, and on this lay a young girl, her face pale and streaked with brown dirt, her hair matted. The eyes of all three turned to Mac and Jim. The old woman looked up for a moment and then dropped her eyes to the red-hot stove. She scratched the back of one hand with the nails of the other.

London walked over to the mattress and kneeled down beside it. The girl pulled her frightened eyes from Mac and looked at London. He said, “We got a doctor here now. You don’t need to be scared no more.”

Mac looked down at her and winked. Her face was
stiff with fright. The boy came over from his corner and pawed Mac’s shoulder. “She gonna be all right, Doc?”

“Sure, she’s O.K.”

Mac turned to the old woman. “You a midwife?”

She scratched the backs of her wrinkled hands and looked vacantly up at him, but she didn’t answer. “I asked if you was a midwife?” he cried.

“No—but I’ve took one or two babies in my life.”

Mac reached down and picked up one of her hands and held the lighted candle close to it. The nails were long and broken and dirty, and the hands were bluish-grey. “You’ve took some dead ones, then,” he said. “What was you goin’ to use for cloths?”

The old woman pointed to a pile of newspapers. “Lisa ain’t had but two pains,” she whined. “We got papers to catch the mess.”

London leaned forward, his mouth slightly open with attention, his eyes searching Mac’s eyes. The tonsure shone in the candle-light. He corroborated the old woman. “Lisa had two pains, just finished one.”

Mac made a little gesture toward the outside with his head. He went out through the tent-flap and London and Jim followed him. “Listen,” he said to London, “you seen them hands. The kid might live if he’s grabbed with hands like that, but the girl don’t stand a hell of a chance. You better kick that old girl out.”

“You do the job then?” London demanded.

Mac was silent for a moment. “Sure I’ll do it. Jim, here’ll help me some; but I got to have more help, a whole hell of a lot more help.”

“Well, I’ll give you a hand,” London said.

“That ain’t enough. Will any of the guys out there give a hand?”

London laughed shortly. “You damn right they will if I tell ’em.”

“Well, you tell ’em, then,” Mac said. “Tell ’em now.” He led the way to the little fire, around which the circle of men still sat. They looked up as the three approached.

Lean-face said, “Hello, London.”

London spoke loudly. “I want you guys should listen to Doc, here.” A few other men strolled up and stood waiting. They were listless and apathetic, but they came to the voice of authority.

Mac cleared his throat. “London’s got a daughter’n-law, and she’s goin’ to have a baby. He tried to get her in the county hospital, but they wouldn’t take her. They’re full up, and besides we’re a bunch of lousy crop tramps. O.K. They won’t help us. We got to do it ourselves.”

The men seemed to stiffen a little, to draw together. The apathy began to drop from them. They hunched closer to the fire. Mac went on, “Now I worked in hospitals, so I can help, but I need you guys to help too. Christ, we got to stand by our own people. Nobody else will.”

Lean-face boosted himself up. “All right, fella,” he said. “What do you want us to do?”

In the firelight Mac’s face broke into a smile of pleasure and of triumph. “Swell!” he said. “You guys know how to work together. Now first we got to have water boiling. When it’s boiling, we got to get white cloth into it, and boil the cloth. I don’t care where you get the cloth, or how you get it.” He pointed out three men. “Now you, and you and you get a big fire going. And you get a couple
of big kettles. There ought to be some five-gallon cans around. The rest of you gather up cloth; get anything, handkerchiefs, old shirts—anything, as long as it’s white. When you get the water boiling, put the cloth in and keep it boiling for half an hour. I want a little pot of hot water as quick as I can get it.” The men were beginning to get restive. Mac said, “Wait. One more thing. I want a lamp, a good one. Some of you guys get me one. If nobody’ll give you one, steal it. I got to have light.”