Dry Rot

by S. L. Stoner

  “It’s the police,” Sage said, dread in his voice. The police, after all, had been suspiciously absent when the thugs attackedthe strikers. The police presence now likely meant they intended to finish the thugs’ job. He’d seen police turn on striking workers before. Given the policemen’s low wages, bribes proved quite effective in getting the police to act on the boss’s behalf. Sage climbed to his feet but stayed close to the gully’s edge until he recognized the big man leading the small phalanx of helmeted policemen down the cul de sac.

  TWO

  Sergeant Hanke, a friend and sometimes collaborator in Sage’s various escapades, was striding toward them, the churned mud sucking at his boots, a fierce scowl on his face.

  The big sergeant’s blue eyes widened momentarily when he recognized Sage. He knew John Sagacity Adair didn’t belong in this part of town, wearing muddy workingman’s clothes. Adair was, after all, the proprietor of one of Portland’s most elegant eateries, Mozart’s Table. The surprise vanished immediately from the policeman’s features. It wasn’t the first time he’d found the restaurateur in strange garb and circumstances.

  Hanke addressed Sage’s companion. “What’s happened here?” he asked. “Why are you both soaked to the bone? Tain’t raining all that hard for a change.”

  The other man struggled to push words out between chattering teeth and stiff lips. “One of Mackey’s goons riding a damn big horse knocked me into that hellish stream down there. Sam here saved my life. Otherwise, I’d be halfway to the ocean by now. Where in hell’s acres were you coppers when they rode down on us?”

  Hanke’s face reddened as he struggled for a response. Finally, he said, “Matter of fact, mister, we’re the new shift. Probably the other shift misunderstood the time we planned to report and they quit early by mistake.” The glance he sent toward Sage suggested, once they were alone, he’d voice another explanation.

  “Ha!” the wet man snorted, “You coppers are in league with the Mackeys. You cleared out deliberate. Don’t try to tell me different.”

  Good thing my friend here is mouthing off to Hanke and not to some other copper, Sage thought. Lip like that usually brought a club smack against the ear.

  A commotion at the top of the cul de sac saved Hanke from formulating a response. A band of shabbily dressed men rounded the corner at a shuffling run, most clutching two-by-four boards with six-inch spikes driven through one end—serious threats to any horse and rider.

  Hanke and his men spun to face them, their billy clubs rising up in two-handed readiness. Hanke quickly stepped to the forefront, raising his hand to halt the approaching group. “Whoa, men. Nothing is happening here. Lay down those boards. Everything’s all over.”

  The group was mostly strikers, with a few regular customers from the nearby saloon mixed in. Its apparent leader, a striker named Chester Garrett, halted the group when he saw Sage. He lowered his augmented two-by-four, saying, “It’s all right, men. That there is Leo’s nephew, Sam. He’s the one we came for—him and Jimmy there.”

  “It’s a rescue party you’ve mounted then?” Hanke asked. When Garrett nodded, Hanke relaxed, lowering his billy club and motioning for the men behind him to do the same. “You acted right and proper, men. Now that you’ve found them, you need to take them someplace warm. They ended up in the creek and both are soaked through. Pneumonia’s a danger unless they dry out fast.” He gestured around at the empty cul de sac. “No point in hanging around here now, everything’s over. The riders are gone.”

  Minutes later, the entire strike line was in the saloon, glasses of belly-warming whiskey in the shaking hands of the two creek battlers. Sage swallowed one shot before borrowing a dry coat from the bartender. He set out for the hospital, leaving Jimmy

  behind to regale the others with a blow-by-blow story of his rescue from the creek. Sage needed to talk to Leo. The union president was at the hospital, they told him, standing vigil for Rufus, the man trampled by the horse.

  s s s

  Sage saw immediately that the news wasn’t good. Anguish etched deep lines in Leo’s face. He said, “Rufus doesn’t feel anything in his legs and he’s busted up inside. The doctor thinks that the horse broke Rufus’s spine. They don’t think he’ll live through the night.”

  Leo sat on a wooden bench, his back against an outside wall. High in that wall, small-paned windows provided a faint light that only emphasized the gray pallor of Leo’s face. Still, fiery anger smoldered inside the strike leader because Leo’s next words rang throughout the room.“Those sons-of-bitches meant this to happen all along. They didn’t want any settlement today. Mackey just played with me, taking his time, gabbing, keeping me distracted, until his worthless son maneuvered his murderers into position. I’ll see that old man in hell, see if I don’t!”

  Leo’s threat grabbed the attention of the black-garbed nun who was working at a desk situated near the entrance of the waiting room. The nun bustled over. Alarm creased her forehead below the white band of her wimple though she kept her voice gentle, “Now, sir, I know you are upset about your friend, but we do not allow such talk here. St. Vincent’s is a Christian hospital.” Leo looked down at his clenched hands and nodded meekly. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. Her eyes gleamed sympathetically and she patted his shoulder before gliding back to her desk. He leaned toward Sage, “All my men want is an eight-hour day, a six-day workweek and enough wages to feed, clothe and house their wives and kids. Why must they suffer and die for such a righteous cause? What kind of God allows this? Christian or oth-

  erwise?” Leo’s questions hissed with anger.

  Sage said nothing. It was one thing to come up with theological answers after leisure contemplation. Another thing altogether when a good man lay dying for no moral reason. He wasn’t the first to die either. Legions had already died for shorter work hours and better wages. He knew that, before they won the battle, many more would die. Why indeed? Thinking too deeply about the heartless, senseless greed behind those deaths felt like a descent into hell’s inner workings. Sage stepped back from that abyss. He’d made promises to people, to St. Alban and, more immediately, to his mother and Fong. Promises that relied on an enduring belief in greed’s eventual defeat at the hands of justice. Now, more than ever, he clung to that belief because if he let it go, Rufus’s suffering would become meaningless.

  Sage laid a hand on Leo’s shoulder, “I don’t know, Leo. It seems that’s the way of life. We make the choice—we either permit wrong to continue or we make an effort to stop it—two diverging trails. No one forced Rufus to make the choice he did. It was always up to him whether he stayed or abandoned the fight. He chose to stay. And, Leo, I believe that some day the humanity of brave men like Rufus will prevail.”

  “You tell that to him, lying in that hospital bed with his back broke. You tell it to his children, to his wife who is going to lose her husband and be left to raise their little kids all on her own. I’d like to see you try,” Leo said bitterly. “I can’t. I’d choke on those castles-in-the-air words right now.”

  s s s

  Later that day, Sage sat at the small table near the kitchen door, fingering the waxed ends of his carefully groomed mustache. Sam Graham no longer existed. Two stories overhead, the rough clothes worn by Leo’s “nephew” lay discarded on the floor. He looked down at the spotless white shirt and fine broadcloth suit. His clean fingers touched the white blaze above his right temple, the concealing lamp black once again scrubbed out.

  He stared into the middle distance, thinking that transforming his looks did nothing to stop Leo’s bitter words from repeating inside his head, again and again. Sage wondered, exactly what do you tell a woman whose husband is dead and whose children now face a life of poverty? How could he— sitting in his fully-stocked kitchen, in his expensive restaurant,

  in his wholly-owned building, really know what she was facing or how she felt? He was in a position to make the choice between a comfortable life and one of struggle. Most working folk never had th
at choice. As if on cue, Fong’s voice sounded in his head, “Choice always good, especially if you make right choice.”

  So, he, Mae and Fong made the choice to follow St. Alban, who was a hero to many. Originally in the mine workers union, St. Alban had seared his lungs in a Colorado mine fire he’d entered to save trapped miners. For that, miners and others in the labor movement fondly called him “the Saint.” In the years since his heroic deed, the raspy-voiced St. Alban continued to earn workers’ respect, making them willing to follow him wherever he believed the labor movement needed to go. His goals were simple: Decent lives for working people, job security and an end to rampant greed.

  When Sage felt optimistic, he saw the gains, the small steps toward simple things like more healthy working conditions and wages high enough to keep food on the table. The advance was slow, carried on the shoulders of people like Rufus who risked everything—families, homes and their lives. When their efforts paid off, their families, coworkers, neighbors and the entire city, benefitted. Healthy workplaces, decent livelihoods and the time to enjoy being part of a family and community “raised everybody’s boat,” as his mother would say.

  Gradually the kitchen din increased as Mozart’s cook, Ida, and her helpers, efficiently prepared the evening supper. At the other end of the room, a linoleum counter containing a big enamel sink stretched the length of the wall. A new girl, apron cinched around her waist, was vigorously scrubbing bowls and utensils, her cheeks rosy from the effort and the heat of the kitchen. Nearer to hand, a coal-fired cookstove sat in the middle of the room next to an equally large linoleum-covered preparation table. Ida herself stood at the stove, stirring pots and issuing instructions over her shoulder to the two waiters as they grabbed full plates from the warming oven and bustled out the swinging door into the dining room. A single electric light shone on the scene, its dim glow wavering whenever a draft touched its hanging wire. This dim globe was the only electricity in the building. Though if Mae Clemens got her way and, eventually she would, the ugly dangling wires would festoon the kitchen’s ceiling.

  Sage filled his coffee cup, sat again and returned to brooding, waiting for his mother to return to the kitchen. Leo was right, he concluded. Sometimes, words gave no comfort. Sometimes comforting platitudes choked like dust in the throat.

  Sage looked toward his mother, Mae Clemens. She stood in the alley just outside the kitchen door. The lack of curtains on the back door and adjacent glass side panels allowed him to see her clearly. The sight could still make his heart twinge because of all the years he hadn’t seen her. Ramrod straight, her head erect beneath a twisted crown of slightly silvered raven hair, she was conversing with a ragpicker. The stranger wore a heavy, serviceable brown overcoat. He’d stuffed his baggy canvas pants into scuffed boots that laced up nearly to his knees. Layered flannel plaid shirts flashed color from beneath his drab, unbuttoned coat. Nearby, his two-wheeled handcart waited, bulky burlap bags filling its bed, parallel wooden shafts resting on the ground. Taking advantage of a rain break, the man pushed his tattered black hat back, exposing a broad, lined forehead. The weak sunlight traced the arching ridge of his long nose. With his untrimmed beard and deep-set brown eyes, the man resembled those East European Jews who intently conducted business on New York City’s crowded streets. The ragpicker’s age was hard to figure. Outdoor living aged a face well before its time. He looked maybe about ten years older than Mae Clemens. Around sixty-five. Too old for street living in this dismal weather. Sage hoped the ragpicker had a warm place to sleep.

  The man spoke and Mae Clemens nodded emphatically and stood listening as he talked on at length. When the ragpicker finished speaking, she clapped softly, spoke a few words and patted the man’s sleeve. Glancing toward the kitchen, she caught Sage’s gaze upon her and smiled. Turning back to the man, she again touched his forearm and said something that made the ragpicker shake his head. She whirled and hurried up the stairs to enter the kitchen.

  Sage started speaking only to stop when she raised a hand, saying “Just a moment, Mr. Adair, I need to collect food for Mr. Eich. He’s likely to roll off before I get back out there.” Sure enough, the man outside was pulling on knitted gloves that covered all except the tips of his long boney fingers. He bent down, hefted the shafts and the cart began to roll.

  Meanwhile, Sage’s mother swiftly sliced and wrapped slabs of roast beef and bread in waxed paper and headed out the open door. By that time, the ragpicker’s cart was already out of Sage’s sight, its departure marked by the sound of its iron-clad wheels rattling over the alley’s potholes. The cart sounds paused, only to begin again before disappearing beneath the distant rattle of trolley and dray.

  Sage’s mother appeared and mounted the steps at a slower pace, the food parcel gone. “Coffee, Mr. Adair?” she asked on her way to the large pot keeping warm in the back corner of the stove.

  “Yes, Mrs. Clemens,” Sage responded using her maiden name. They’d promised Vincent St. Alban to keep their relationship secret while working for him. Initially, that precaution felt unnecessarily theatrical. After all, their previous work for St. Alban had taken place in the mountain hollows of Appalachia where people knew them. Here in Oregon, though, they knew no one. An incident the previous June, however, forced them to acknowledge the wisdom of St. Alban’s insistence on secrecy. An adversary, desperate to forestall exposure of a land fraud, had set alarm bells clanging when he pressured Sage for details about Mae Clemens. That unsuccessful attempt to warn Sage off reinforced the idea that their relationship made them vulnerable.

  She slid into the chair opposite him and leaned forward across the table. “That was Mr. Eich I was talking to,” she explained in a low voice.

  “Mr. Eich, huh?” Sage repeated in an equally low voice. “What did Mr. Eich, the ragpicker, say to turn you all agog?”

  She tightened her lips and lifted her chin.“I am never agog. If you must know, not that it is any of your business, he recited a poem and I listened. That’s all.”

  “A ragpicker poet, that’s a new one on me. Where does his inspiration come from? The bottom of the dustbins, the holes in his shoes?”

  Her shoulders twitched in irritation and her tone was snappish as she said,“Neither one, Sage. I am sure that his ideas come from his own experience just like yours do. And, he cares about justice, right and wrong just as much as we do.”

  “Sounds lofty. Is he any good as a poet?”

  “Sometimes. Today, though, he recited a poem by a woman named ‘Sarah’ somebody. About children watching from their factory window as the rich men golfed.” She flapped her hand dismissively. “Enough of Mr. Eich. What happened today at the strike?”

  He told her, downplaying the danger to himself as he related Jimmy’s near drowning. He also described the deadly assault on Rufus and the man’s poor prognosis.

  “Humph. Just plain lucky they didn’t knock you into the crick too. As I recall, your swimming ain’t worth a darn.” She stared into her mug of coffee. “Riding unarmed men down doesn’t exactly fit the character of the Abner Mackey that The Gazette praises in its society pages,” she mused.“From what they print, you’d think him a kindly, benevolent old coot.”

  He said nothing and they sat in silent, gloomy contemplation until she shook it off. “Sitting here wallowing in bad happenings won’t change a one of them. Best we both keep moving forward,” she said and stood, radiating vigor as she snugged tight her apron strings and waded into the kitchen bustle. Her departure left Sage with the task of figuring out how to move the strike effort “forward” after such a serious setback. No question—he held the dirty end of the stick when it came to assigned tasks. Still, her words suggested an idea.

  s s s

  An hour later, Sage was mounting the steps into the Daily Journal newspaper offices. Once inside, he navigated between tightly packed desks where reporters clacked away on their typing machines. When Sage finally reached the relative peace of the publisher’s office, he found Ben Johnston
bent over his desk, fountain pen feverishly scratching corrections across typed copy.

  Johnston gave an irritated growl when the door opened only to grin when he saw Sage. “Sorry, to sound so unfriendly, Adair. Those yahoos in the other room stick their head in here every couple minutes to interrupt me with one question or another. I am trying to work this article into shape before it has to hit the presses. Seems like there’s been an interruption in the middle of every sentence.” Johnston gestured to the empty chair before the desk. “John, mighty good to see you! Sit, sit. What brings you out?”

  Johnston’s warm welcome was typical. First and foremost, Sage was a big investor in Johnston’s feisty newcomer of a newspaper, The Daily Journal. They planned to break the fifty-year monopoly of the establishment newspaper, The Portland Gazette. Secondly, more than once, Sage had demonstrated an uncanny knack for churning up stories that increased The Journal’s circulation. So, there was good reason for Johnston’s pleasure at seeing Sage.