In Dubious Battle (22 page)

“Al’s got a good head,” Mac said. “Al sees the whole thing. You would of been out on your can anyway. Now, if you get bounced, you got a big bunch of men in back of you. These men aren’t going to forget what you’re doing for ’em. And we’ll put a guard around your house tonight. I’ll have the doctor come over pretty soon and look at Al.”

The old man turned tiredly, and walked away.

Smoke from the rusty stoves hung low over the camp. The men had begun to move in toward the smell of frying pork. Mac looked after the retreating figure of Anderson. “How’s it feel to be a Party man now, Jim? It’s swell when you read about it—romantic. Ladies like to get up and squawk about the ’boss class’ and the ’downtrodden
working man.’ It’s a heavy weight, Jim. That poor guy. The lunch wagon looks bigger than the world to him. I feel responsible for that. Hell,” Mac continued. “I thought I brought you out here to teach you, to give you confidence; and here I spend my time belly-aching. I thought I was going to bolster you up, and instead—oh, what the hell! It’s awful hard to keep your eyes on the big issue. Why the devil don’t you say something?”

“You don’t give me a chance.”

“I guess I don’t. Say something now! All I can think of is that poor little Joy shot up. He didn’t have much sense, but he wasn’t afraid of anything.”

“He was a nice little guy,” Jim said.

“’Member what he said? Nobody was going to make him stop calling sons-of-bitches, ‘sons-of-bitches.’ I wish I didn’t get this lost feeling sometimes, Jim.”

“A little fried pork might help.”

“By God, that’s right. I didn’t have much this morning. Let’s go over.”

A long delivery wagon drove up the road and stopped in front of the line of cars. From the seat a fussy little man stepped down and walked into the camp. “Who’s in charge here?” he demanded of Mac.

“Dakin. He’s over in that big tent.”

“Well, I’m the coroner. I want that corpse.”

“Where’s your bodyguard?” Mac asked.

The little man puffed at him. “What do I want with a bodyguard? I’m the coroner. Where’s that corpse?”

“In the big tent over there. It’s all ready for you.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He went puffing away like a small engine.

Mac sighed. “Thank God we don’t have many like him
to fight,” he said. “That little guy’s got guts. Came out all alone. He’s kind of like Joy, himself.” They walked on toward the stoves. Two men passed, carrying the body of Joy between them, and the coroner walked fussily along behind.

Men were walking away from the stoves with pieces of greasy fried pork in their hands. They wiped their lips with their sleeves. The tops of the stoves were covered with little slabs of hissing meat. “God, that smells good,” said Mac. “Let’s get some. I’m hungry as hell.” The cooks handed out ill-cut, half-cooked pieces of pork to them, and they strolled away, gnawing at the soft meat. “Only eat the outside,” Mac said. “Doc shouldn’t let the men eat raw pork. They’ll all be sick.”

“They got too hungry to wait,” said Jim.

AN apathy had fallen on the men. They sat staring in front of them. They seemed not to have the energy to talk, and among them the bedraggled, discontented women sat. They were listless and stale. They gnawed thoughtfully at their meat, and when it was finished, wiped their hands on their clothes. The air was full of their apathy, and full of their discontent.

Mac, walking through the camp with Jim, grew discontented, too. “They ought to be doing something,” Mac complained. “I don’t care what it is. We can’t let ’em sit around like this. Our strike’ll go right out from under us. Christ, what’s the matter with ’em? They had a man killed this morning; that ought to keep ’em going. Now it’s just after noon, and they’re slumped already. We got to get them working at something. Look at their eyes, Jim.”

“They’re not looking at anything—they’re just staring.”

“Yeah, they’re thinking of themselves. Every man there is thinkin’ how hurt he is, or how much money he made during the war. Just like Anderson. They’re falling apart.”

“Well, let’s do something. Let’s make them move. What is there to do?”

“I don’t know. If we could make ’em dig a hole, it’d be as good as anything else. If we can just get ’em all pushing on something, or lifting something, or all walking
in one direction—doesn’t matter a hell of a lot. They’ll start fighting each other if we don’t move ’em. They’ll begin to get mean, pretty soon.”

London, hurrying past, caught the last words. “Who’s goin’ to get mean?”

Mac turned around. “Hello, London. We been talkin’ about these here guys. They’re all fallin’ to pieces.”

“I know it. I been around with these stiffs long enough to tell.”

“Well, I just said they’d start fightin’, if we didn’t put ’em to work.”

“They already did. That bunch we left in camp this morning had a fuss. One of the guys tried to make another guy’s woman. An’ the first guy come in an’ stuck him with a pair of scissors. Doc fixed him up. He like to bled to death, I guess.”

“You see, Jim? I told you. Listen, London, Dakin’s sore at me. He don’t want to listen to nothing I tell him, but he’ll listen to you. We got to move these guys before they get into trouble. Make ’em march in a circle—make ’em dig a hole and then fill it up. It don’t make no difference.”

“I know it. Well, how about picketin’?”

“Swell, but I don’t think there’s much work goin’ on yet.”

“What do we care, if it moves the guys off their ass.”

“You got a head, London. See if you can get Dakin to send ’em out, about fifty in a bunch, out in different directions. Let ’em keep to the roads, and if they see any apple pickin’, let ’em break it up.”

“Sure I will,” London said, and he turned and walked toward Dakin’s brown tent.

Jim began, “Mac, you said I could go out with the pickets.”

“Well, I’d rather have you with me.”

“I want to get into it, Mac.”

“O.K., go with one of the bunches, then. But stick close to them, Jim. They got our number here. You know that. Don’t let ’em pick you off.”

They saw Dakin and London come out of the tent. London talked rapidly. Mac said, “You know, I think we made a mistake about putting Dakin in. He’s too tied up with his truck, and his tent, and his kids. He’s too careful. London’ud have been the best man. London hasn’t got anything to lose. I wonder if we could get the guys to kick Dakin out and put London in. I think the guys like London better. Dakin’s got too much property. Did you see that folding stove of his? He don’t even eat with the guys. Maybe we better start working and see if we can’t get London in. I thought Dakin was cool, but he’s too damn cool. We need somebody that can work the guys up a little.”

Jim said, “Come on, Dakin’s making up the pickets now.”

Jim joined a picket group of about fifty men. They moved off along the road in a direction away from town. Almost as soon as they started the apathy dropped away. The straggling band walked quickly along.

The lean-faced Sam was in charge of it, and he instructed the men as he walked along. “Pick up rocks,” he said. “Get a lot of good rocks in your pocket. And keep lookin’ down the rows.”

For a distance the orchards were deserted. The men began to sing tunelessly,

“It was Christmas on the Island,
“All the convicts they were there——”

They scuffed their feet in time. Across the intersecting road they marched, and a cloud of grey dust followed them. “Like France,” a man said. “If it was all mud, it’s just like France.”

“Hell, you wasn’t in France.”

“I was so. I was five months in France.”

“You don’t walk like no soldier.”

“I don’t want to walk like no soldier. I walked like a soldier enough. I got schrap’ in me, that’s what I got.”

“Where’s them scabs?”

“Looks like we got ’em tied up. I don’t see nobody workin’. We got this strike tied up already.”

Sam said, “Sure, you got it win, fella. Just set on your can and win it, didn’t you? Don’t be a damn fool.”

“Well, we sure scared hell out of the cops this mornin’. You don’t see no cops around, do you?”

Sam said, “You’ll see plenty before you get out of this, fella. You’re just like all the stiffs in the world. You’re king of hell, now. In a minute you’ll start belly-achin’, an’ the
next
thing, you’ll sneak out.” An angry chorus broke on him.

“You think so, smart guy? Well, just show us some-thin’ to do.”

“You got no call to be talkin’ like that. What the hell’d you ever do?”

Sam spat in the road. “I’ll tell you what I done. I was in ’Frisco on Bloody Thursday. I smacked a cop right off a horse. I was one of the guys that went in and got them night sticks from a carpenters’ shop that the cops
was gettin’ made. Got one of ’em right now, for a souvenir.”

“Tha’s a damn lie. You ain’t no longshoreman; you’re a lousy fruit tramp.”

“Sure I’m a fruit tramp. Know why? ’Cause I’m blacklisted with every shippin’ company in the whole damn country, that’s why.” He spoke with pride. A silence met his assertion. He went on, “I seen more trouble than you can-heat bindle-stiffs ever seen.” His contempt subjugated them. “Now keep your eyes down them rows, and cut out all this talk.” They marched along a while.

“Look. There’s boxes.”

“Where?”

“Way to hell an’ gone down that row.”

Jim looked in the pointed direction. “There’s guys down there,” he cried.

A man said, “Come on, longshoreman, let’s see you go.”

Sam stood still in the road. “You guys takin’ orders?” he demanded.

“Sure, we’ll take ’em if they’re any damn good.”

“All right, then. Keep in hand. I don’t want no rush at first, and then you guys runnin’ like hell when anythin’ busts. Come on, stick together.”

They turned off the road and crossed a deep irrigation ditch, and they marched down the row between the big trees. As they approached the pile of boxes men began to drop out of the trees and to gather in a nervous group.

A checker stood by the box pile. As the pickets approached he took a double-barreled shot-gun from a box and advanced toward them a few steps. “Do you men want to go to work?” he shouted.

A chorus of derisive yells answered him. One man put his forefingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly.

“You get off this land,” the checker said. “You’ve got no right on this land at all.”

The strikers marched slowly on. The checker backed up to the box pile, where his pickers shifted nervously, and watched with frightened faces.

Sam said, over his shoulder, “All right. You guys stop here.” He stepped forward alone a few paces. “Listen, you workers,” he said. “Come over to our side. Don’t go knifin’ us guys in the back. Come on and join up with us.”

The checker answered, “You take those men off this land or I’ll have the whole bunch of you run in.”

The derisive yell began again, and the shrill whistling. Sam turned angrily. “Shut up, you crazy bastards. Lay off the music.”

The pickers looked about for a retreat. The checker reassured them. “Don’t let him scare you, men. You’ve got a right to work if you want to.”

Sam called again, “Listen, guys, we’re givin’ you this chance to come along with us.”

“Don’t let him bully you,” the checker cried. His voice was rising. “They can’t tell a man what he’s got to do.”

The pickers stood still. “You comin’?” Sam demanded. They didn’t answer. Sam began to move slowly toward them.

The checker stepped forward. “There’s a buckshot in this gun. I’ll shoot you if you don’t get off.”

Sam spoke softly as he moved. “You ain’t shootin’ nobody, fella. You might get one of us, and the rest’d slaughter you.” His voice was low and passionless. His men moved along, ten feet behind him. He stopped, directly
in front of the checker. The quivering gun pointed at his chest. “We just want to talk,” he said, and with one movement he stooped and dived, like a football tackle, and clipped the feet from under the checker. The gun exploded, and dug a pit in the ground. Sam spun over and drove his knees between the legs of the checker. Then he jumped up, leaving the man, writhing and crying hoarsely, on the ground. For a second both the pickers and the strikers had stood still. Too late the pickers turned to run. Men swarmed on them, cursing in their throats. The pickers fought for a moment, and then went down.

Jim stood a little apart; he saw a picker wriggle free and start to run. He picked up a heavy clod and hurled it at the man, struck him in the small of the back, and brought him down. The group surrounded the fallen man, feet working, kicking and stamping; and the picker screamed from the ground. Jim looked coldly at the checker. His face was white with agony and wet with the perspiration of pain.

Sam broke free and leaped at the kicking, stamping men. “Lay off, God-damn you, lay off,” he yelled at them; and still they kicked, growling in their throats. Their lips were wet with saliva. Sam picked an apple box from the pile and smashed it over a head. “Don’t kill ’em,” he shouted. “Don’t kill ’em.”

The fury departed as quickly as it had come. They stood away from the victims. They panted heavily. Jim looked without emotion at the ten moaning men on the ground, their faces kicked shapeless. Here a lip was torn away, exposing bloody teeth and gums; one man cried like a child because his arm was bent sharply backward, broken at the elbow. Now that the fury was past, the
strikers were sick, poisoned by the flow from their own anger glands. They were weak; one man held his head between his hands as though it ached terribly.

Suddenly a man went spinning around and around, croaking. A rifle-crack sounded from down the row. Five men came running along, stopping to fire now and then. The strikers broke and ran, dodging among the trees to be out of the line of fire.

Jim ran with them. He was crying to himself, “Can’t stand fire. We can’t stand fire.” The tears blinded him. He felt a heavy blow on the shoulder and stumbled a little. The group reached the road and plunged on, looking back over their shoulders.

Sam was behind them, running beside Jim. “O.K.,” he shouted. “They stopped.” Still some of the men ran on in a blind panic, ran on and disappeared at the road intersection. Sam caught the rest. “Settle down,” he shouted. “Settle down. Nobody’s chasin’ you.” They came to a stop. They stood weakly at the side of the road. “How many’d they get?” Sam demanded.