Castle Garden

by Bill Albert

  I finally made Benny understand that I wanted to know why we never went to rich people’s houses. I reckoned they’d have more to give us.

  “Where ya been livin at, Mouse? Rich folk is rich ‘cause they ain’t so stupid as to be givin their stuff away to no tramps like us. Shit yes! That’s what I’d do if I were rich. Likely as not they’d be after callin old John Law down on us too. No, it’s them poor people whose back doors ya want to be batterin at. Dumb bastards don’t know no better, believe just about anythin you tell ‘em, they does. Why ya think they’s so damn piss poor?”

  After what he had done to me at the Wild West maybe I should have seen it clearly, but at the time I couldn’t figure out why Benny was thinking like that. What I saw were used-up, worn-down women who didn’t have enough to feed their own, feeding us without even thinking to say no and he was telling me how dumb they were and having nothing but admiration for the stingy plutes living in their piles up on the hills who wouldn’t have given him or me a dull penny to save us from eating dirt for breakfast.

  I was too busy being scared, especially after what happened outside of Ottumwa, to worry all that hard about the whys and wherefores and such-like of Benny’s thinking. What was more important was that he kept us clear of trouble.

  The only time he slipped up badly was on our third day. We were somewhere on the other side of Des Moines. A friendly man pointed us to a freight that had been made up and was just starting to roll, heading out for Omaha.

  “See you straight through,” he assured us. “No stops, no sidetracks.”

  “Come on, Mouse! We gotta run for it!”

  It was the first time I had tried boarding a moving freight, “catching it on the fly” as the tramps say. Although I was faster, Benny knew what he was doing. He grabbed hold of a flat iron bar on the side of a boxcar and swung himself easily into the open door while I was still running along not knowing what to do.

  “Reach up, Mouse! Reach up here!” Benny shouted, lying on the boxcar floor and holding out both hands towards me.

  My arms weren’t long enough and the train was picking up speed. I ran faster. Just when the train was pulling away from me an enormous man wearing a ragged coat appeared behind Benny, pushed him aside, leaned over, and with a single movement grabbed me by the arms and swept me up into the boxcar.

  “Obliged, Mister,” Benny said, backing slowly away towards the door.

  The man laughed and lifted me about two feet off the floor so my face was level with his. He was almost all over black with soot. He shook me curiously like he was trying to see if I rattled.

  “Puppies now? We got us puppies, not full-grown dogs. When I were a boy we used to dump puppies in a weighted gunny and throw her in the river. Do y’all follow me, boy?”

  I did, then again I didn’t. I was too frightened. Benny was as well, with more white to his eyes than I’d seen before.

  “Come on, Mister,” he said coaxing, “let my brother go, will ya? We ain’t done nothin wrong.”

  “Ain’t y’all for sure? Blow me over, sonny, if y’all ain’t. Nothin? That’s right, is it?”

  He set me down gently.

  “Get back away from that door,” he said to Benny. “Y’all jump now, likely to break yer fool gaycat puppy necks. Besides, P. K. D. Swibble ain’t gonna hurt ya puppies none, is he?”

  I didn’t believe him for a single second. P. K. D. Swibble looked like if he were of a mind to he could eat you for breakfast and spit out the buttons. He was well over six and a half feet tall and his shoulders were an oxbow riding underneath his coat. His nose had been broken one way, then another and then back, and a full beard with long matted hair streaked with gray made him look like he had leapt right out of the Bible. But it was the eyes that did the real frightening for me. They were big, bloodshot, and rolled changes, dull and inside one minute, burning wild and coming after you the next.

  “Sure, Mister, I can see that,” Benny said, circling well out of reach of the man’s long arms.

  “Where’s yer bindles at?” he asked.

  “Lost ‘em,” Benny lied. “Last freight we caught, bulls ditched us and had to leg it without ‘em.”

  “Can’t tramp without a bindle. Don’t ya puppies know nothin? What happened to yer throat, boy?” he asked me sharply.

  “Accident,” replied Benny, “George can’t talk, mister. Not a word he can’t.”

  P. K. D. Swibble grunted and then sat down on the floor with his back to the wall. He wasn’t wearing a shirt under his dirty coat, his pants were held up with a piece of old rope. His worn-down boots didn’t match.

  After a minute or two he glared angrily across at me and lifted his long hair on one side, showing off a raised pink scar that went up from the back of his ear and disappeared somewhere in his greasy mat.

  “See that? Do you? Look real good at her.”

  I looked real good and so did Benny.

  “Weren’t no accident did that, no sir it weren’t. Washington D.C. police did that for me. And y’all know why?”

  When we didn’t answer he went quiet and began mumbling to himself. Benny motioned me to come over by the door and I crossed the swaying floor to where he was.

  “Guy’s bughouse,” he whispered softly. “Wait for an incline.”

  “What’s that you sayin?” the man barked, eyes rushing out at us. “Cupboard things? Dark secret things? Ain’t no secrets from P. K. D. Swibble, not in his boxcar there ain’t. Ya puppies runnin away West, are ya? Are ya sure? Runnin?”

  Then the fires dampened and he stared dully out the door at the moving countryside.

  “But it ain’t there. I know that for a certain fact. I looked high and I looked low for it but it weren’t there. Most likely never was there at all.”

  He started to weep, not sobs or anything like that, just the tears running down his face leaving trails through the soot. Then, like turning off a faucet, the tears stopped.

  “Wasn’t only me, ‘course not. How could that be? Lots more there was, but it didn’t do none of us no good in the end. Rode us down like the damn dogs we were. Weren’t no different than had happened before. No, it sure weren’t. And it’ll be happenin again. Y’all wait and see if it don’t.”

  He pointed to his broken nose.

  “Burlington in ‘88 that were. First time it were busted. Scab brick.”

  He leaned forward and rolled up the sleeve of his coat to show his thick arm. There were three puckered red marks each about the size of a dime on the forearm, like the skin had been pushed in with a hot iron.

  “Homestead back in ‘92. Pinkerton bullets it were did that.”

  Everywhere I’ve turned in my life I’ve come up against Pinkertons. The burly man and Fred following me all the way from the scene of my terrible crime on the Upper West Side to the Wild West, other Pinkertons shooting holes in P. K. D. Swibble, and there was going to be more of them down the line, never giving up chasing after me for what I did, before the very worst Pinkerton of them all, Old Man McParland, caught up with me here in Boise and then it was for something I didn’t do.

  “Maybe as how ya puppies never heard tell of Homestead?”

  He started to hum and tunelessly, in a loud croak, he sang:

  “When they locked out men at Homestead so they were face to face

  With a lot of bum detectives and they knew it was their place

  To protect their homes and families, and this was neatly done,

  And the public will reward them for the victories they won.

  “Course there never was no re-ward, was there? Not in this life. Sure, why should y’all have heard of Homestead. Disappeared it has. Like it never happened, all but for my arm here.”

  He pulled up one side of his coat.

  “See that?”

  Another scar was displayed. This one, on the fish-belly white
skin of his side, was jagged with little blue dents in it.

  “Ridin them rods got me that. Ya boys want to take care never to ride on them rods. The blinds, ride the blinds or the side door Pullmans or up on the decks, but not them rods. Y’all hear me!” he shouted, suddenly angry again.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Benny. “We hear ya. No ridin on the rods.”

  “Right. Know why, do ya? No? Tell ya for nothin. Say y’all gets a shack wants to do some fishin. No bait with that kind of fishin, just a couplin pin on the end of a long rope. See what I means? Big hard pin bouncin up off the bed up under the cars lookin for somethin soft to bite into. Bouncin along on that ballast, bouncin, bouncin and then BANG! up against some poor stiff lyin back down on a rod. Ain’t strong enough, quick enough or lucky enough, like me, then he’s just so much ground-up railroad meat picked up and shoveled off by some poor track walker.”

  I guess you could say history had left its marks all over P. K. D. Swibble, but it was inside where he was cut worst.

  “Souls thrown into a big cauldron, Old Greasy used to say. Comin back, everyone gettin a little scrap of this one or that one, a little scrap of the one Big Soul.”

  He paused, not really talking to us anymore, just talking, eyes casting around urgently.

  “Redemption in Christ, he said, throw the usurers out of the Temple he said, down with the Jew bankers he said. ‘He hath risen, but death to interest on bonds.’ We were the Commonweal of Christ, is what we were, marchin from Massillon all the way to the Capital behind the General to get our rights. And me, P. K. D. Swibble, I marched every damn step of the way, I did. Some of them joined after we crossed the Cumberlands, but not me, all the way I went. One two, one two. Everybody knows that. All the way!”

  He turned to glare at Benny and his voice got tight and angry.

  “All the way, yes sir! Even that damn stupid Dogs and Fleas didn’t do that! No. And Coxey and Browne and some others stayin in hotels at night while we had to make do. Was that right?”

  He got up and paced quickly, rolling with the movement of the boxcar, slapping at his thigh.

  “All the way! Coxey ridin in that two-horse carriage, what did he care? And Old Greasy, fancy-dressed faker he was, thought he was Buffalo Bill and Jesus Christ all wrapped into one, up there on his horse, always preachin at us about what we were going to get. And what did we get? Ya puppies want to know what we poor out-of-work workin men got up there in that fine Capital City, that fine Washington D.C.?”

  Grinning like the Devil, once again he lifted his hair.

  “Yes!” he said fiercely. “That’s what we got! And they give it out even to puppies. Y’all make me out? Even to puppies is what I’m tellin y’all!”

  He threw back his head and shouted at the boxcar ceiling.

  “One day, one day it’s gonna come! You mark my words. The country, groanin and writhin in the agony of Revolution. Streets of those haughty cities slippery with blood—a hundred drops of blood for each gem that flashes on the neck of rich and pampered women, ten drops of blood for every tear that has washed the faces of the poor! Is that it?” he asked, suddenly unsure, “Is it?”

  P. K. D. Swibble talked, ranted, wept, and showed us more scars of battles until we finally parted outside of Omaha.

  “You puppies, you gaycats, you take care now,” he cautioned in a cracked but still booming voice, as we jumped down from the boxcar. “They is waitin for y’all, just like they did for me. Ain’t nobody escapes ‘em, nobody, and ain’t no place to run to neither. East or West. North or South. Eatin up the country they is, eatin up the people with it. When they finally comes for ya then y’all remember old P. K. D. Swibble. No one, no one . . .”

  He was still shouting at us as the train pulled away. I was glad to see him disappearing off down the track. His scarred body and crazy talk frightened me something fearsome.

  “Pugs, mugs and bughouse rummies,” Benny explained, which wasn’t much of an explanation. “It don’t mean nothin. Not a damn thing, Mouse. Don’t be after botherin yerself to think on it now.”

  I couldn’t not think on it. Even though I didn’t understand most of what P. K. D. Swibble said, it was his pain in the telling that left a mark on me, just like some of Charlie Pinto Face’s stories had. Their stories were not Buffalo Bill’s bold, wide-open adventures that you listened to easy like and that made you feel good; they were darker stories, sad and angry ones that left you confused and looking over your shoulder.

  Later, of course, I learned about Coxey’s Army and all the other armies that came out of the West, full of hungry men demanding that something be done. Hogan’s Army, which was mainly out-of-work miners from Butte, Dolphin’s Army from Tacoma, Jumbo Cantwell’s from Seattle, and Carter’s from Salt Lake City. Fry’s Army of six hundred men marched and “borrowed” trains for three months right across the country from Los Angeles to Washington, and Kelly’s Industrial Army, which formed up in San Francisco, had a pitched battle with Pinkertons sent to guard the Rock Island Railroad from being “borrowed” near that damned town of Ottumwa. Only General Kelly and a few of his men made it as far as the Capital. Even Big Bill, who joined up with Kelly in Reno, only stayed with him as far as Wadsworth, some thirty miles down the line. Told me the fishing on the Truckee looked too good to pass up. I guess that was before he had found his true calling in the Revolution.

  It was always dead easy, especially in Wallace or Cripple Creek, to find someone with a story to tell about their time with one of the industrial armies of ‘94. I remember the stories, but of the tellers only P. K. D. Swibble sticks so hard I can’t shake him. After all this time he still staggers ragged-coated into my night thoughts, shot-up, beaten-up, touched in the head, and foretelling my hapless future.

  3

  “We’re on our way, Mouse! No more coffee boyin for us two. No more dirty dishes. No more ‘Yes sir, Mr. Joe,’ ‘Yes sir, Mr. Jesse.’ This is the life, ain’t it just?”

  Benny was right. The weather was warm, we slept out under the stars or in boxcar straw, and best of all there were no grown-ups scolding us or telling us what to do. Nothing to worry about except eating, sleeping, keeping one step ahead of trouble, and moving on. Looking back, I reckon those three weeks were the very best time I’ve had in my entire life, even better than being with Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, because not only was it great traveling so free and easy, but I was on my way to see the true West, not the play-acting, tent-show West where General Custer was a fella named Burt who wore a yellow wig and where they used buckshot. No, I was on my way to see how it honestly was. Where there were shootouts in the streets with real bullets, real bad men and sheriffs, where real Indians did whatever real Indians do, where real cowboys cowboyed, and real cavalry soldiers soldiered. No more dime-novel nonsense for me. I was about to have myself a genuine adventure.

  I don’t reckon Benny ever thought in the same way about what we were doing. For him our trip was no adventure; it was only the shortest distance between where he had been and where he was going, and that was to being dumb, crazy rich. He knew his big chance was down the track and just around the corner.

  We were eating corn bread and cold beans waiting beside a steep grade just outside Durango to catch the freight up to Grand Junction. A dozen or so men hanging around by the track showed that it was a good spot, although we kept well clear of them. Between mouthfuls Benny painted our wonderful future in the Land of Opportunity in his real West. Benny had no Swibbley doubts, not a single raggedy one.

  “Just waitin for to be dug out of the ground or maybe panned out of them rivers, like they done it in California. I seen pictures. Gold. Shit yes! You see, Mouse, there in them gold fields ya only needs a washin pan and a touch of luck is all. Them stories you hears about fellas that have made it big, found the mother lode. No better than you and me them fellas was. Just lucky they was. The right spot. That’s all it were. And I feel it in my
bones. Each day more than the last. You and me are goin be findin that spot. It’s like a Destiny, that’s what it is. You see, it’s like everythin fits together when you gets some distance from it. Gettin tossed out of the Wild West when I did, bein robbed, meetin up with you again, even sellin liquor to that damn stupid giant. All of that’s part of somethin bigger, somethin pushin me right to where we’s headed now. Right to the Coeur d’Alenes. One time I thought maybe it were somethin else, but I know now it weren’t, that were just kinda the beginnin of it ya could say. And once we gets our claim settled, then a course we hire some mugs to work it for us. Don’t see them big mine owners gettin their hands dirty does ya? Then it’s livin high off the hog, havin everythin ya wants, Mouse, everythin ya wants doubled. When we gets there all we got to do is stop with my Aunt May and ask her to point us on to where we’ve got to go to, what we’ve got to do to get into the minin, into that easy money. She’ll tell us right enough.”

  We arrived in Wallace towards the end of September, 1898 and Aunt May sure did tell us, loud and clear it was.

  “Gold?” she shook with laughing. “Where’d you hear that sad old story from, Benjamin Shorter? Isn’t this boy a regular greenhorn Kansas caution, Al? You want to be going a mite further north, young man, the Klondike that would be, not Wallace!”

  Standing there with the laughter raining down on him, his big chance and big talk washing away, I almost felt sorry for Benny.

  There had been gold on the other side of Sunset Peak in Murray, but it played out more than ten years before. It was silver and lead now, up in the narrow canyons around Wallace, and that wasn’t any panning or pick and shovel business, that was deep-shaft mining, big capitalist-money mining. No gold in the streets, no easy money, no big chance for Benny in the Coeur d’Alenes. There also weren’t any cowboys either, or Indians, badmen, or cavalry soldiers. Wallace was nothing more than a dusty town crowded in tight between logged-out hills. Neither Benny nor I had found what we came all that hard way to find.