In Dubious Battle (35 page)

“No, I guess they got him. What a nice guy he was.”

“Was?”

“No. I hope not. Maybe they’d only beat hell out of him. But so many of our guys just disappear and never show up again.”

“You’re a fine, happy influence,” said Jim.

“I know. If I wasn’t sure you could take it, I’d shut up. Makes me feel better to get it off my chest. I want a cup of coffee so bad I could bust into tears. Just think of all the coffee we used to have in town. Three cups if we wanted. All we wanted.”

Jim said sternly, “Maybe a little bit of that might be good for you. You better pull up now. You’ll get feeling sorry for yourself.”

Mac tightened his loose face. “O.K., kid. I’m all right now. You want to go outside? Can you walk all right?”

“Sure I can.”

“Well, blow out that lantern. We’ll go see about some beef and beans.”

The shade screeched when Jim raised it. The dawn grey leapt into the tent, grey like a wash of ink. Jim lifted the tent-flaps and tied them back. “Let’s air this place out,” he said. “It’s getting strong. The whole damn bunch of us could do with a bath.”

Mac agreed. “I’ll try to get a bucket of warm water, and we’ll sponge off after we eat.”

The dawn had come into the sky. The trees were still black against the light east, and a colony of crows, flapping eastward, were etched heavily against it. Under the trees a dusk still held, and the earth was dark, as though the light had to be sucked in slowly. Now that they could see, the guards had given up their pacing. They stood in tired groups, hands in pockets, coats turned up and buttoned over their throats. And they talked in the soft monotone of men who only talk to stay awake.

Mac and Jim approached a group of them on their way to the stove. “Anything happen last night?” Mac asked.

Talk stopped. The men looked at him with weary, blood-shot eyes. “Not a thing, buddy. Frank was just sayin’—sayin’ he had a feelin’ there was people movin’ around all night. I had that feelin’ too, just creepin’ around; but we didn’t hear nothing. We went around two together.”

Mac laughed, and his voice seemed to penetrate deep into the air. “I was in the army,” he said, “trained in Texas. By Christ, when I’d go on guard duty I could hear
Germans all around me, could hear ’em whispering in German.” The men chuckled softly, without amusement.

One said, “London told us we could sleep today. Soon’s I get somethin’ in my stomach, I’m goin’ to roll in.”

“Me too. Roll right in. I got gravel in my skin, like a hop-head. Ever seen a hop-head when he’s got bugs in his skin? Make you laugh to watch him.”

Mac asked, “Why’n’t you come over to the stoves an’ warm up?”

“Well, we was just talkin’ about doin’ that.”

Jim said, “I’m going down to the can, Mac. See you over at the stove.” He walked down the line of tents, and each tent was a little cave of darkness. Snores came from some, and in the entrances of others men lay on their stomachs and looked out at the morning, and their eyes were full of the inwardness of sleep. As he walked along, some men came into the air and hunched their shoulders and drew down their necks against the cold. He heard an irritable, sleepy voice of a woman detailing how she felt. “I want to get out o’ this dump. What good we doin’ here? An’ I got a lump in my stomach big’s your fist. It’s a cancer, that’s what it is. Card-reader tol’ me two years ago I’d get a cancer if I din’ watch out. Said I was the cancer type. Sleepin’ on the ground, eatin’ garbage.” An inaudible grumble answered.

As Jim passed another tent, a tousled head stuck out. “Come on in quick, kid. He’s gone.”

“Can’t,” said Jim.

Two tents down a man kneeling on his blankets said, “Got the time, buddy?”

“No. Must be after six, I guess, though.”

“I heard her give you the come-on. God damn lucky
you didn’ go. She’s caused more trouble in this camp’n the scabs. They ought to run her out. Gets ever’body fightin’. They got a fire goin’ over there?”

“Yes,” said Jim. He passed out from between the row of tents. Fifteen yards away, in the open, stood the square canvas screen. Inside there was a two-by-four supported at each end, over a hole. There was room on board for three men. Jim picked up a box of chloride of lime and shook it, but it was empty. One man sat hunched up on the board. “Sompin’ ought to be done about it,” he said. “Where in hell is ’at doctor? He ain’t done nothing about it since yesterday.”

“Maybe we could shovel in a little dirt,” said Jim. “That’d help.”

“It ain’t my business. That doctor ought to do sompin’ about it. The guys are liable t’get sick.”

Jim’s voice was angry. “Guys like you that won’t do anything damn well deserve to get sick.” He kicked dirt into the hole with the side of his foot.

“You’re a smart punk, ain’t you?” the man said. “Wait till you been around a little and got dry behind the ears, ’n’en maybe you’ll know sompin’.”

“I know enough right now to know you’re a lazy bastard.”

“You wait till I get my pants up; I’ll show you who’s a lazy bastard.” But he made no move.

Jim looked down at the ground. “I can’t take you on. I’m shot in the shoulder.”

“Sure, an’ when you know you’re safe from a sportin’ man, you miscall a man. You lousy punks got sompin’ comin’ to you.”

Jim controlled his voice. “I didn’t mean to miscall you,
mister. I wouldn’t fight you. We got all the fighting to do we can take care of, without fighting each other.”

“Well, now, that’s better,” said the man. “I’ll he’p you kick some dirt in when I get through. What’s goin’ on today? You know?”

Jim began, “We’re——” and then he remembered. “Damn’ if I know. I guess London’ll tell us when he gets ready.”

“London ain’t done nothing yet,” said the man. “Hey, don’t sit so near the middle. You’re liable to break that two-by-four. Get over near the edge. London ain’t done nothing. Just walks around lookin’ big. Know what a guy told me? London’s got cases an’ cases of can’ goods in his tent—ever’thing. Corn-beef, an’ sardines, an’ can’ peaches. He won’t eat what us poor stiffs got to eat, not him. He’s too God damn good.”

“And that’s a God damn lie,” said Jim.

“Got smart again, have you? There’s plenty guys seen them can’ goods. How do you know it’s a lie?”

“Because I’ve been in that tent. He let me sleep in there last night because I was hurt. There’s an old mattress and two empty boxes in that tent, and not another damn thing.”

“Well, a whole slough o’ guys says there’s can’ peaches an’ sardines in there. Some of the boys was goin’ to bust in an’ get some last night.”

Jim laughed hopelessly. “Oh, Jesus, what a bunch of swine! You get a good man, and you start picking him to pieces.”

“There you go, miscalling guys again. Wait’ll you get well an’ somebody’s goin’ slap that smart puss right off you.”

Jim got up from the plank and buttoned his jeans and went outside. The short stove-pipes of the cook stoves puffed grey smoke into the air, still, straight columns that went up fifty feet before they mushroomed at the top and spread out evenly. The eastern sky was yellow now, and the sky overhead had turned eggshell blue. From the tents men came rapidly. The awakening silence of the camp was replaced with the rustling footsteps, the voices, the movement of people.

A dark-haired woman stood in front of a tent, her head thrown back; and her throat was white. She combed her hair with long, beautiful sweeps of her arm. When Jim walked by she smiled wisely and said, “Good morning,” and the combing didn’t pause. Jim stopped. “No,” she said. “Only good morning.”

“You make me feel good,” he said. For a moment he looked at the long white throat and the sharply defined jaws. “Good morning again,” he said, and he saw her lips form to a line of deep and delicious understanding. And when he passed along, and the tousled head darted out and the husky voice whispered, “Come on in, quick, he’s gone now,” Jim only glanced, and went quickly on without responding.

Men were gathering about the old stoves, stretching their hands to the warmth, waiting patiently until the beef and beans in the big wash-boilers should be hot. Jim stepped to a water-barrel and dipped some water into a tin basin. He threw the cold water into his face, and into his hair, and he rubbed his hands together without soap. He let the water cling in drops to his face.

Mac saw him and walked over, holding out a food can.
“I rinsed it out,” he said. “What’s the matter, Jim? You look tickled to death.”

“I saw a woman——”

“You couldn’t. Didn’t have time.”

“I just
saw
her,” said Jim. “She was combing her hair. It’s a funny thing—sometimes a person gets into an ordinary position, and it seems wonderful, it just stays in your mind all your life.”

“If I saw a decent looking woman, I’d go nuts,” said Mac.

Jim looked down into the empty can. “She had her head back. She was combing her hair—she had a funny kind of a smile on her face. You know, Mac, my mother was a Catholic. She didn’t go to church Sundays because my old man hated churches as bad as we do. But in the middle of the week, sometimes, she’d go into the church when my old man was working. When I was a little kid she took me in sometimes, too. The smile on that woman—that’s why I’m telling you this——Well, there was a Mary in there, and she had the same kind of a smile, wise and cool and sure. One time I asked my mother why she smiled like that. My mother said, ‘She can smile because she’s in Heaven.’ I think she was jealous, a little.” His voice tumbled on, “And one time I was there, looking at that Mary, and I saw a ring of little stars in the air, over her head, going around and around, like little birds. Really saw them, I mean. It’s not funny, Mac. This isn’t religion—it’s kind of what the books I’ve read call wish-fulfillment, I guess. I saw them, all right. They made me feel happy, too. My old man would have been sore if he knew. He never took any position that lasted. Everything was wasted in him.”

Mac said, “You’re going to be a great talker some time, Jim. You got a kind of a persuasive tone. Jesus, just now you made me think it’d be nice to sit in church. Nice! That’s good talking. If you can talk guys over to our side, you’ll be good.” He took a little clean tin can that hung on a nail on the side of the water-barrel, and he filled the can and drank from it. “Let’s go over and see if the slum is hot.”

The men were forming in a line, and as they passed the stoves, the cooks ladled lima beans and lumps of boiled beef into the cans. Mac and Jim got on the end of the line and eventually passed the boilers. “Is that all the food?” Mac asked a cook.

“There’s beans and beef enough for one more meal. We’re out of salt, though. We need more salt.”

They drifted along, eating as they went. A lance of sunlight shot over the trees and fell on the ground of the clearing, fell on the tents and made them seem less dingy. At the line of old cars London was talking to a group of men. “Let’s see what’s doing,” Mac suggested. They walked toward the road, where the old cars stood. A light rust was settling on radiators, and some of the worn tires were down, and all of the cars had the appearance of having stood there a long while.

London saluted with a wave of his hand. “Hello, Mac. H’ya, Jim?”

“Fine,” said Jim.

“Me and these guys is lookin’ over the heaps. Tryin’ to see which ones to send out. There ain’t none of ’em worth a hoot in hell.”

“How many’d you figure to send out?”

“ ’Bout five couples. Two together, so if anything went
wrong with one the other’d pick our guys up and go on.” He pointed down the line. “That old Hudson’s all right. There’s five four-cylinder Dodges, and them old babies will go to hell on their bellies after you knock the wheels off. My model T’s all right—runs, anyway. Let’s see, we don’t want no closed cars; y’can’t heave a rock out of a closed car. Here’s a shovel-nose. Think she’ll run?”

A man stepped up. “Damn right she’ll run. I brung her straight through Louisiana in winter. She never even warmed up, even comin’ over the mountains.”

They walked down the row, picking out prospects in the line of wrecks. “These guys is squad leaders,” London explained. “I’m goin’ give one of ’em charge of each bus, an’ let ’em pick their own guys, five or six apiece. Guys they can trust, good fighters, see?”

“Sounds swell,” said Mac. “I don’t see how anybody’s goin’ to stop ’em.”

One of the men turned on him. “And they
ain’t
nobody goin’ to stop us, neither,” he said.

“Feelin’ pretty tough, huh?”

“Just give us a show, an’ see.”

Mac said, “We’ll walk around a little bit, London.”

“Oh, wait a minute, the guys come back from Anderson’s a little while ago. They says Anderson cussed ’em all night. An’ this mornin’ he started in town, still cussin’.”

“Well, I thought he would. How about Al?”

“Al?”

“Yeah, Anderson’s boy, the one that got smacked.”

“Well, the guys went in an’ seen him. He wanted to come over here, but they didn’t want to move him. Couple guys stayed with him.”

London stepped close and lowered his voice so the other
men could not hear. “Where do you think Anderson’s goin’, Mac?”

“I guess he’s goin’ in town to put in a complaint and get us kicked off. He’ll probably claim we burned his barn now. He’s so scared he’ll do anything to get in good with the other side.”

“Uh-huh. Think we ought to fight here?”

“I’ll tell you how I think it’ll be,” said Mac. “I think first they might send out a few guys to try to scare us off. We’ll stand up to ’em. After that, they’ll come out with a mob. We’ll see how our guys feel. If they’re sore and mean, we’ll fight. But if they look yellow, we’ll clear out, if we can.” He tapped London on the shoulder. “If that happens, you and me and Jim have to go quick and far. That mob’s going to want a chicken to kill, and they won’t care much who it is.”

London called to the men, “Drain the gas out of all the tanks, and put it in them cars we picked out. Start up the motors ’n’ see if they’re all right, but don’t waste no gas.” He turned back. “I’ll walk along. I want to talk this out. What you think about our guys? Them babies over by the heaps ’ll fight. How about the others?”

Mac said, “If I could tell in advance what a bunch of guys’d do, I’d be president. Some things I do know, though. A smell of blood seems to steam ’em up. Let ’em kill somethin’, even a cat, an’ they’ll want to go right on killin’. If there’s a fight, an’ our guys get first blood, they’ll put up a hell of a battle. But if we lose a man first, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them hit for the trees.”