The Coal War (14 page)

Hal was willing to accompany Billy, but predicted that they would not get much of a story, because they would not be allowed near the North Valley camp. And sure enough, about half way up the canyon, just above the fork to the Northeastern, they came upon three men in a shelter-tent by the roadside. The men had rifles in their hands, and one of them stepped out and held up his hand. “Got a pass?” he inquired.

“What sort of a pass?”

“Company pass.”

“No.”

“Then you can't go by.”

“Why not?”

“It's orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“Company orders.”

Keating started to argue. “This is a public road! It's a United States mail-route; it leads to a United States post-office.”

“You can't go by,” said the man.

“I have business in North Valley, and I have a right to travel on this road. I'm a reporter from the Western City ‘Gazette'.”

“I don't care if you're God Almighty, you can't pass this place without a permit from the ‘G.F.C.'.”

“And suppose I insist on going?”

The man swung forward his rifle, and laid it in the crook of his arm. The two in the buggy could see the round black eye of the muzzle, looking at them unwinkingly. There was no other reply, and no need of any.

[15]

Hal and Billy consulted, and were about to turn and make their retreat, when there came a diversion from up the canyon. Some figures appeared round a curve in the road—a procession of men and women walking; with the familiar bundles of bedding and other belongings a-top. At the end of the procession came two men on horse-back, wearing ponchos, and carrying rifles. Hal and Billy backed the buggy out of the way; the sentry watching them meantime, never once taking his eyes off them.

It was still pouring rain, and the figures and the bundles were soaked through and dripping. The scene was one for a painter—a painter who, like Hal, had been up to the head of the canyon and knew what was to be found there, and could read the story of each individual face and figure.

There came Charlie Ferris, the big miner whose steam-siren voice had supported Hal on the night of the North Valley uprising. His face was now set and desperate; he looked, and saw Hal, and seemed about to speak, but thought better of it and marched on. There was a bandage about Charlie's forehead, with a splotch of blood showing through. Behind him plodded his wife, a stoutish woman with three children at her mud-draggled skirts; the children slipping and staggering in the mud, which in places was over their knees.

Then came—of all people—“Blinky”, a young fellow whom Hal had come to know as the vaudeville specialist of North Valley; a lad from the East Side of New York, with sandy hair and merry eyes, and a mouth organ always in his trouser-pocket. Nothing ever seemed able to repress his high spirits; he could execute amazing fancy steps, and everybody and everything in sight was the butt of his wit. He was horribly obscene, of course, but Hal had been able to forgive this, for the wonder of seeing laughter upon the faces of the underworld men. The children would gather round “Blinky” like flies about a honey-comb, and even the bosses were not proof against his spell. They would curse, and bid him be off to his work; but they would grin while they said it, and he dared to answer them back, for all the world like a court-jester to a king.

And now, what had happened, that even “Blinky” had fallen from grace? Had he himself revolted, or was he sharing the fate of some other member of his family? There followed him an elderly woman, a bedraggled young girl, and a little stunted man whose back seemed breaking with his load of goods. “Blinky” himself was irrepressible, in spite of his burden; seeing Hal, a grin came on his face, and he stuck his thumb back at the two riders, and proceeded to walk the lock-step.

There came a Slav miner whom Hal did not know, followed by a woman with a baby in her arms, and another baby conspicuous in her body; then a half grown girl, dragging another child, which had evidently fallen flat in the mud, and was whimpering in a pitiful way. There followed two Italians, with their fists clenched, and hate in every feature; one of them Rovetta, a young fellow who had belonged to Hal's check-weighman group.

There came others whom Hal did not know; one bent-backed old hag, a Mexican, with silver grey hair streaming down her back, and a raw cut in her cheek, from which the blood had run down to the mud on her dress. She looked at the guards by the road-side, and Hal thought he had never seen such fury in a human countenance.

And last came the two riders: one of them slight, with a weasel face and sharp black eyes—Jake Predovich, the Galician Jew who acted as store-clerk and general interpreter to the camp, also as member of the local school-board, and “spotter” for the bosses. The other man was tall and lean, with a face that had once been handsome, but now was rotten; he sat his horse straight, his restless eyes fixed on the people ahead, watching every move. With his alert look and rather long neck stretched out, he made one think of a partridge sitting on a bough. Hal waited till he was passing, and then spoke: “Jeff Cotton!”

The camp-marshal started, and stared; then, recognizing Hal: “Well, I'll be damned!”

He checked his horse, and several of the people in the procession looked round, and hesitated. The marshal spoke sharply: “Get along there! Keep them moving, Jake.” So the group moved on, leaving him with the two men in the buggy.

“Well, Cotton!” said Hal. “This is a fine job for an able-bodied American!”

The marshal flushed, but when he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Mr. Warner, we'll not have one of our arguments here. This is business.”

“Well,” replied Hal, “I'm here on business—with you.”

“What is it?”

“There are some men down at Horton who have been turned out without their belongings, and would like to get them.”

“That's what you're here for?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you might as well turn around and go back. There'll no trouble-makers get into North Valley while I'm in charge.”

“It's not a question of trouble-makers, Cotton; it's a question of men with teams to move furniture—”

“I told you I wasn't going to argue the matter with you. We let one team come in to move furniture, and before we knew it the driver was making a union speech. A little later, when we can get teams that we know about, maybe we'll get the stuff out ourselves.”

“And meantime the people are without blankets and clothing!”

“That's their look-out, not mine. If they'd behaved themselves, they'd have had their homes still.” And then, as Hal started to speak again, the marshal's voice became sharper. “That's all I have to say, Mr. Warner—except to warn you. Don't count on your social position, your being known to young Harrigan, or anything like that. We've got our hands full just now, and we'll stand no nonsense. Keep away from North Valley, and from the company's property—at least any part of it I have to do with.”

And Cotton turned to the guard. “You understand, these people don't get by here!”

“Sure thing!” said the man, with a kind of salute. And the marshal started his horse and went down the road with a spattering of mud and resumed his place beside Predovich.

Hal and Billy followed; there was nothing else they could do. And all the way down the canyon they had before their eyes the two poncho-clad figures, swaying to the motion of the horses. Hal's thoughts were the thoughts inspired by that sight; he was suddenly quite willing now to turn Billy loose, to write what he pleased. If it would assist in getting this story before the people of the state, to have it happen to the son of a well-known millionaire—very well, let it happen! The millionaire, the elder son of the millionaire, the future daughter-in-law of the millionaire, the father of the future daughter-in-law—these people would all have to put up with the humiliation. Hal's mind was busy composing a telegram to the Governor of the state—the first of a series of telegrams with which he was to trouble that harrassed official.

Jake Predovich looked round several times at the buggy; but Jeff Cotton not once. “By the way,” remarked Billy, suddenly, “I heard something about that fellow. They say he comes of an old Virginia family. A black sheep!”

“I gathered something of the sort,” said Hal. “But he wouldn't tell me about his past.”

“It seems to be no secret. He was one of a band of train-robbers—the Jesse James gang, that you've heard of. He barely escaped a life sentence, some ten years ago.”

“Fine training for coal-company work!” snorted Hal. “Be sure to mention that when you write about him.”

Billy laughed. “I'm not sure that it would help us. You never can tell how the American public will take things.”

“You mean they'd think he was a hero?”

“I mean,” said Billy, “what the eminent John L. Sullivan said about Grover Cleveland: ‘A big man's a big man, it don't matter if he's a prize-fighter or president!'”

So they came to the foot of the canyon, where suddenly the two riders put their horses about. They went by the buggy without a word or a sign; and Hal and Billy drove up to the people, who seemed to be stuck in the mud. What floods of coal-camp English poured out—rage, denunciation, despair! Men and women shook their fists and cursed the retreating horsemen; while Hal and Billy got out, and loaded up the buggy with babies and children—even putting a couple of the latter on top of the horse! Walking at the horse's head themselves, they came to the Horton tent-colony, where Hal made report to Jim Moylan, and Billy shut himself up to work on his story. “A regular sizzler of a story!” he promised.

[16]

The first of the tents had come, and Hal had now several days' work cut out for him. He worked up to his ankles in mud, but it did him no harm, he was so busy and interested. There were trenches to be dug to drain off the mud, and somebody with camping experience must show people how to drive tent-pegs, and how to keep the fly of the tent from touching the roof. Also there were sanitary provisions to be enforced, among people who had no conception of the importance of such things. Streets must be laid out, and new arrivals must be tactfully dissuaded from setting up their tents in the middle of them. You could not imagine how many things there were to do until you had been there a few hours; and everything that was done had to be done over in nineteen other languages!

Rainy days could not continue forever, not even to oblige Peter Harrigan. The sun came forth, and water-soaked bedding and clothing was hung out to dry, and men, women and children emerged from shelters and holes in the ground, their souls expanding to the joy of the marvellous adventure. These men had worked all their lives under conditions where they almost never saw the sun; and now they were free to bask in it all day long, to gaze at the blue sky and the snow-capped mountains, to breathe the fresh air—even to play baseball in the fields! They made Hal think of the mules he had tended down in the bowels of “Number Two” mine, and had suddenly brought up to the open air!

Under the rule of the United Mine Workers, each striker received a benefit allowance of three dollars a week, with an additional allowance of two dollars for each woman and fifty cents for each child. This might not seem a princely sum on which to live, but the families had their rent free, which was equal to another dollar or two a week, and they had coal, which the union purchased by the carload and distributed in reasonable quantities. They had got more pay, upon paper, in the old days; but counting in the periods of unemployment, the accidents, and the sickness caused by overwork and improper ventilation of the mines, the present arrangement seemed good to them.

Especially when you took account of the spiritual factors, which made this tent-life a thrilling experience! When you took account of hope, which before had been despair; of liberty, where before had been bondage. If you do not know how much difference this makes, you have indeed missed a great lesson of life.

In the first days everything had to be done in a rush, there was no time for discussion. But all had confidence in the union officials who gave the orders; and one of the first things they did was to enroll every worker, giving him a card and a vote in the union's affairs. Then committees were chosen to run things; and so began the discipline of self-government. How proud were men and women, even children, when they were given some responsibility for the welfare of their new tent-city! There were so many things to be done—and all by people who did them for love of a cause!

In the days of their slavery each family had stood alone. They had little time for friendship or social life, their religious life had shrunk to extinction, their civic life was dead and buried and forgotten. But now suddenly a storm swept among them, they were lifted up and borne along by a tremendous force. They learned the meaning of a magical word—solidarity. They had a new interest in one another, a new meaning to one another. They had something to think about, something to talk about!

There was a general committee, and sub-committees for all the principal nationalities. There was a “headquarters tent”, as it was called, and no end of coming and going at this tent. You needed skill in diplomacy to be useful there; you needed also the gift of tongues, and some acquaintance with international law.

There would come Mrs. Towakski, explaining in difficult English that she was entitled to an extra fifty cents a week from now on, because she had had a new baby yesterday. And then would come Mrs. Zamboni, declaring that Stefan Skiline was not entitled to benefits, because he had found work outside for three days in the week, and ought to be ashamed to take the union's money. After the committee had held a pow-wow and decided that men who had more than two days a week employment outside were not entitled to strike-benefits, in would rush Stefan Skiline with an interpreter, pointing out that at the Harvey's Run colony the committee allowed benefits to men who had as much as four days a week of work. He would not keep the work if he was going to lose his benefits!