Blood on the Forge

by William Attaway

  “For drink coffee,” said the old hunky. “Boss throw Rosie out for waste coffee. You drink, eh?”

  “Can’t!” he snapped. “Got some business.”

  “You go git brother?” said the old man.

  “Naw, he kin rot,” Melody cried.

  “Where you go?”

  “Same as I told you. Got to see a fella ’bout some business.”

  But he started out to do what he had known he must do. It would be a long trip to that place near Pittsburgh. He would have to start right away if Big Mat was to be free by morning.

  Zanski watched him go. Rosie came and stood by the chair.

  “Colored fella ain’t have woman keep white curtains in a man’s house. No kids. Fella ain’t got kids move no place. He stop at grave.” He leaned back and patted one of her broad hips. “Pretty soon Rosie get married, eh? I move some more quick.”

  Chinatown should have been feeling good that morning. The world had swung back to a familiar pattern. Melody was on his way to get Big Mat out of the jailhouse. He was going to hold down a job at the blast furnaces until Melody was ready to take over. It was like old times—the Moss boys working like a family should work. But there was something wrong that morning. The wrong was not in him—it was in the air about him.

  Smothers hobbled at his heels on the way to the mills. He didn’t say why he wanted Chinatown’s company. Neither of them had anything to say. Both men marked the strangeness of that. They were two whose mouths had always been full of talk.

  Once or twice, from the corners of his slant eyes, Chinatown caught Smothers’ face. It was a face full of random movement. The corners of the lips were hard and soft in turn; the eyes were big, to show white around the balls, looking inward; the thin nose flared wide at its base, searching the wind.

  But Chinatown was glad for Smothers to keep shut. There was his own self to search. He was walking along, feeling like a spring coiled on a hair trigger. He didn’t exactly know—his body just felt as if something were going to happen. His body was getting ready for something.

  Only once before could he remember feeling like that. A long time ago, down in Kentucky. To get away from what looked like a cottonmouth snake he had dived through a thick bush. He had not known what was on the other side. It seemed a year to think in while he was sailing through that bush. But his mind couldn’t tell him anything. It was his body that had talked, had warned him that he was going to land hard. And, sure enough, he had landed in a trap of broken slate. He had broken a leg that time.

  Now his body was flashing that same warning, telling him that he was going to land hard.

  An icy shiver passed through him when Smothers spoke.

  “Keep a sharp lookout! Look sharp, ever’body!”

  “How come? How come?” he asked, but he knew.

  “I got grief in my bones.”

  Smothers was in dead earnest. The quake in his voice sent another shiver through Chinatown.

  A distance from the mills all sounds softened into one another; up close every sound had its own history. Through the roar of the Bessemers the ear-splitting cries from the plate mills began with a whine and ended in a strangled rasp. Engines panted and struggled with the rails. The ore boats along the river kept up their own noises. Each tin house had its own pulse. And above everything an organ of whistles sighed and bellowed.

  These things had not come to be commonplace to Chinatown. The mills would never be his home. His gold tooth was still a token, keeping his mind south of the Mason-Dixon line.

  They checked in together. On all sides men were headed for their jobs—not running but, to Chinatown’s eyes, making great speed. He had that same feeling of haste when he started for the blast furnaces. To him life in the mills was stepped up. Inside he ran more slowly.

  When he passed the open hearth he kept his eyes open for old friends. He could see one of the gangs working like crazy men to draw the heat before turning the furnaces over to the new crew. Now and again, through openings underneath the hearth, he glimpsed the pit men, swinging to get the last cleanup over and done with. A man called out to him from a tin shack. The voice sounded high and off key. But things were different that morning. He was hearing and seeing in fine detail, as a man does in the awareness of danger.

  Smothers had separated himself from Chinatown but now he came hobbling back. He pointed toward the blast furnaces.

  “Trouble,” was what he said.

  A little knot of men stood in the yard around one of the blast furnaces. They were hand-rolling cigarettes and chewing cut plug as though this were quitting time instead of the starting hour for the long shift.

  Chinatown saw Bo at the water trough. He trotted toward him. Smothers swung along on his sticks.

  “What the hell!” hollered Chinatown. “You guys ain’t gittin’ ready?”

  “How many is dead ones?” panted Smothers.

  Bo did not glance up. He bit off some rope tobacco. He spoke through the juice when they were close enough for him not to have to raise his voice.

  “They jest got a special crew. Tryin’ to git that Goddamn number four ready.”

  One of the Irishmen in Bo’s gang came toward them.

  “This here rest don’t make me mad.” He grinned.

  “Startin’ in is always bad,” said the other Irishman. “I can do a shift one handed after I get heated up.”

  “This here number four a jinx,” growled Bo. “I tell you it’s a jinx. Yesterday Melody gits hurt. They work all night on it, and now the water cooler burn out. No sooner they git that fixed than the damn thing begin to freeze up. Look like for a while she’s goin’ up. Took a lots of guys off the other crews. Put everybody behind.”

  Another of the gang heard what was being said— the Italian stove tender.

  “Sure as my name John—sure as pope—sure as anything—furnace gotta devil in him.”

  “It don’t do no good to jest line and half ass fix around a cold blast,” argued Bo. “I tell you that a long time ago.”

  “You sure said so.” The hayseed nodded.

  Smothers had been trying to get in a word, but the men didn’t want to hear his raving. They kept shifting to keep him from latching onto a group. Finally he stopped and cast his eye around to catch every man within hearing distance.

  “Ever’body better be on the lookout. Steel liable to git somebody today. I got a deep feelin’ in my bones.”

  Bo hollered, “Maybe steel gonna git you, Smothers.”

  Smothers was glad of someone to take notice. He hobbled up to Bo.

  “It gonna git somebody. I know it’s got to git somebody.”

  Bo laughed. “Well, if it’s you, Smothers, we make you up into watch fobs. The boys round the bunk-house’ll wear you across their vests for luck.”

  Chinatown knew what Smothers was feeling. His body was flashing that same warning right along.

  He said, “You say yourself there a jinx, Bo. Could be, ’cause I been feelin’ somethin’ ever since I started out this mornin’.”

  John, the stove tender, crossed himself and muttered in his own tongue.

  One of the Irishmen laughed. “You ain’t superstitious, eh, John?”

  “Not me,” said John. “I ain’t believe nothin’.”

  “Then what was you sayin’ to yourself?”

  “Oh, that ain’t nothin’.” John grinned. “Just old prayer. Lotsa times fella wrong. Better be on safe side.”

  Smothers broke in, “There ain’t no safe side.”

  The Irishmen laughed.

  Smothers grabbed Chinatown by the arm.

  “You ain’t a bad guy, Chinatown. You know old Smothers talkin’ sense.”

  “Sure, sure.” Chinatown tried to pull away.

  “Ever’body laugh when I tell ’em what I know,” said Smothers.

  Chinatown was embarrassed. He pulled away.

  “They jest laugh ’cause they scared, I bet.” And he laughed.

  Smothers grabbed again. He ca
ught the hayseed. The man shoved his shirt back into his pants.

  “I know steel and ever’thin’ talk to you,” he said, “but it’s tellin’ you wrong when it tells you to tear up my clothes.”

  Smothers clawed at him.

  “Somebody got to believe me. Steel gonna git somebody.”

  “Shut up, you crazy fool!” hollered the hayseed. The freckles grew dead white against his flushed face. He whirled on the other men. “Whyn’t somebody make this Goddamned nut keep quiet?”

  He barely managed to duck from the path of the stick Smothers swung at him. The men laughed. For an instant the hayseed wavered between anger and the laughter of the men. Then he grinned. Before Smothers could move the hayseed had snatched both of his sticks. Laughing, he held the sticks up for everyone to see.

  Smothers started forward. But his legs could not hold up. Spitting curses, he fell to the ground. That made the young hayseed almost split with laughing. Then he stopped his noise. With an innocent gesture he made as though to stop the game. He held the sticks out to the crippled man. Smothers grabbed. The sticks were again drawn out of reach.

  That kept up—Smothers dragging himself over the ground toward the sticks, every few feet falling forward on his elbows when he tried to grab.

  The men were laughing.

  Chinatown recalled Smothers’ strange dignity. He did not like to see him in the dirt.

  “Sure is a shame to plague a cripple that-a-way,” he said to Bo.

  “Heard somethin’ today,” said Bo.

  “Aw, make them cut it out!” insisted Chinatown.

  “Fella was tellin’ me ’bout what happen to a gold tooth in the war.”

  “Somebody ought to stop it.”

  “Fella said that after a fight some guys would go over the stiffs with pliers and pull all the gold out’n their heads.”

  “Damn!” said Chinatown.

  “Yeah,” said Bo. “Get so the colored boys would pull out their gold ones and throw them away. Ascared of bein’ shot in the back.”

  “Damn!”

  Bo’s eyes wandered to Smothers.

  “If I said anything they think I stickin’ up for Smothers jest ’cause he’s colored.”

  “Glad I wasn’t in the war,” breathed Chinatown.

  Bo said, “Naw, I can’t mix in. Only one in the mill with micks under him.”

  The hayseed had gotten tired of pestering. He tossed the sticks into the water trough. Cursing, Smothers began a slow journey toward the trough.

  One Irishman said, “Maybe that’ll learn that Smothers not to be a wild man.”

  The words spurred Smothers. In a convulsion of movement he reached his goal and got his sticks under his armpits. Then he turned toward the men, and his voice went into a scream.

  “None of you fellas knows why you’s runnin’ wild when before you come here you was tame. Ain’t none of you got no idea. But I know.”

  A few men came out of the furnace house to see what was going on. They stood grinning with the rest. The Irishmen laughed outright.

  “Listen, and I tell you so You’ll know somethin’,” screamed Smothers. “I tell you ’bout a fella who been around here a long time. Once he’s one of the best catchers they ever put on a roll table. But that’s once upon a time. Now he ain’t nothin’ but a old cripple-leg timekeeper. The boss men jest job him around ’cause they kind of sorry for him. Don’t think he don’t know that.

  “He work a farm down in Texas for a hell of a time before he ever see a rollin’ mill. Then he don’t really know how he ever got in this here valley. It’s jest that one day he find hisself the best catcher along the river. There plenty of frogskins in his pocket, and them greenbacks buy more corn whisky than he kin drink. He kin sleep with women that he git lynched for jest lookin’ at back in Texas. So what he do then? He go crazy. He try to make all the money, screw all the gals and drink all the corn whisky in the valley. And one day that same corn tell him he’s big as God A-mighty. It’s the heat of the steel makin’ that corn boil inside him, and he vow to walk the roll tables from one end of the mill to the other. And half the rollers bet he kin, and half bet he can’t. There’s two thousand dollars say he will and he won’t.

  “Them roll tables takin’ steel full speed, and his corn whisky walks him halfway down the line and leaves him there on his own.”

  No man was laughing now. They all leaned forward. With this madman they were walking half the length of a big roll table, dodging white-hot steel shuttling full speed across and between the crushing rollers. Men forgot to spit their tobacco, and spit-rolled smokes burned right down to cracked lips.

  Smothers was still talking. “I said his corn whisky leave him there, and he ain’t able to go on under his own steam. The heat saps him all of a sudden, and his legs give out. Some fellas run to shut off the power, but he’s crawlin’ on his hands and knees, tryin’ like hell to git over the side of that table. He almost make it, too—woulda made it if the fella who was s’posed to stop the table hadn’t got fussed and, instead of stoppin’ the table, reversed it—reversed it and sent a hot bar ’cross that table-walker’s legs.”

  One of the listeners started a soft chant that was like little explosions in among Smothers’ words.

  “Goddamn . . . Goddamn . . . Goddamn . . .” went the chant.

  “There wasn’t no pain,” screamed Smothers. “There wasn’t nothin’ but the steel all over the mill, yellin’ an’ laughin’ fit to kill. Roll steel git him . . . roll steel git him. . . . Yellin’ an’ laughin’.”

  Smothers’ voice went up into a song. “It was me the roll steel git! It was me!” Then the high voice slid down the scale to its regular whine, and misery dropped over his face. And that made it as though those steel voices were still yelling and laughing in his ears: Roll steel git him . . . roll steel git him. . . .

  “All the time in the hospital I kin hear that steel talkin’,” said Smothers. “I kin hear that steel laughin’ an’ talkin’ till it fit to bust my head clean open. But I git well. Steel didn’t git me that time like it think. I come on back to the mill on two sticks. They give me a job where I can set down most of the time. But, settin’ or standin’, I kin hear when cold steel whisper all the time and hot roll steel cream like hell. It’s a sin to melt up the ground, is what steel say. It’s a sin. Steel bound to git ever'-body ’cause o’ that sin. They say I crazy, but mills gone crazy ’cause men bringin’ trainloads of ground in here and meltin’ it up.

  “So when I git so I kin hear what steel is sayin’ I know jest why I go wild and git drunk and try to walk the roll table. I know why all you guys runnin’ wild and goin’ crazy of a Monday. It’s that crazy-mad steel whisperin’ and yellin’ all the time, makin’ men crazy-mad too.”

  The men did not say anything. When they went in to work they were still silent. Hours passed before anyone had a word for the shamed hayseed.

  The Italian crossed himself again and was not questioned.

  That night, when a break came in the long shift, Chinatown walked out of the blast house. He saw the pointed stars of fire along the edge of the Monongahela. He looked up in the sky at the points of fire so much like those along the river. He took his last look at all of these. And he remembered Smothers’ words to the green men: “Somethin’ dropped right out the sky, blazin’ down, lightin’ up this old river in the dead of night.” A warning out of the sky. That was strange—iron dropping out of the sky. Maybe it was a sin to melt up the ground. He didn’t know. He felt now as he had felt before—lost and full of great changing fears that he didn’t understand.

  The points of fire along the river marked an endless line ahead of the old Ford. Melody was at the wheel, his bandaged hand resting across the spokes. Big Mat was at his side. It hadn’t been hard to arrange Big Mat’s release: a six-hour trip to the place where he was being held, a payment of twenty-five dollars for his having disturbed the peace. It might have gone harder with him, but the man he had tried to kill had not pressed the
charges.

  Big Mat and Melody had not much to say between them. And now they were nearing home. It was a cool, clear night. The wind from the river blew around their heads. They were not as brothers, but the river wind had blown away all the hot passions in them.

  When they reached the first familiar section of the river front they were ready for talk.

  Mat muttered, “I kill anybody I catches creepin’.”

  Melody gave him a quick look. He had thought Mat a victim of corn whisky and a drunken brawl. He had not even asked the name of the man Mat had tried to kill. He wanted the talk to go on but was afraid to say Anna’s name.

  So he said, “That there’s what you say back in Kentucky.”

  “I say that and I means it,” Mat grunted.

  “Who the man?”

  “Dusty-butt Jones.”

  “You mean old Dusty?”

  “Followed him all the way,” he grunted.

  “What he do?”

  Big Mat shut up and turned his collar against the wind.

  Melody cursed himself. He should have waited for Big Mat to bring it out naturally. He knew his brother. Mat would go into a shell now.

  But he was wrong. When the car rolled into town Mat turned to him.

  “Stop here a little.”

  Melody pulled up in one of the little dirt roads. He made a cigarette, using one hand and his teeth. Slowly he lighted up. The river front was like Christmas time. On Christmas night, back in the red hills, the men had formed a square and tossed lighted kerosene-soaked balls of waste. For the eyes of their women sitting high on the hills they wove a fire pattern. Fire balls were being thrown now when he shifted his vision through the faulty windshield. These remembrances of the past, together with the distance of the mills, gave him a strange detachment. He sank back.

  Big Mat said, “Melody, you and me ought not to be dodgin’ each other.”

  “Naw.”

  “I been thinkin’ my head goin’ to break open if I don’t talk to you.”

  “Maybe I ain’t the guy you ought to talk to.”

  “Ain’t nobody on God’s earth I ever talk to ’sides you. And I got to talk what’s in me.”