Lining the truck’s bed, facing the miners, are twenty-one helmets. One for each man that died a year ago in the Penn. For a long moment, Frank is silent, looking out at the now-quiet crowd.
“Brothers!” He pauses, looking up, and collects his thoughts.
“Brothers. Today we remember those men lost, one year ago, in the Pennsylvania.” Silence, head down now. He lifts his hat, runs his hand through his hair. Sol turns his eyes from Frank to the crowd of miners, who stand there motionless.
“We hope,” Frank continues, raising his chin again, “that our brothers are at peace, wherever they are. But you know they’re watching us now, that they’re full of hope for us. They hope that we will stay strong, stay organized. They hope that we never give up our struggle for the things that are our due.”
“Hope ain’t gonna cut it, Frank!” someone calls out from the crowd. Sol sees heads swivel, trying to find the source of the outcry. That will be the Pinkertons.
“No, brother, you’re right,” Frank replies, spreading his hands out. “You’re right: hope won’t cut it, not by itself. Listen, men, I won’t lie to you: I’m frustrated. I’m angry, just like you. But we’re here now, together. It’s that simple. The Neversweat, these other mines, they aren’t pulling ore out of the ground, so the Company is sweating, if you’ll excuse a bad joke. The Company without production is like a hophead without his drug, and when you threaten to take that production away, they get sweaty. They get nervous.
“Listen: the Company wants an excuse to break this strike, to shut us down. Those scabs are coming. They’re coming, sure as anything. I want you men to hold your ground, when they show up. Keep your anger in. Hold it inside, where you can use it. These scabs are men, workers like all of us. Maybe they’re scared, yeah, maybe they’ve got babies and wives – like we all do – but maybe they’re just scared because they can’t feed them. Fear makes men do stupid things, weak things. Not every man can be brave. Not every man can be strong. But we can. Those men are going to make you mad, I know.” He pauses, nodding.
“You see those men, though,” he says, louder and with more grit to his voice, “you see them, with the goons the Company will have with them, and you’re going to block their path, calmly and without violence. Don’t give the Company any excuse. Don’t even call those men names, if you can. You just say not today, brother. Repeat that now.”
“Not today, brother!” several hundred miners yell, together. It’s stirring, but Sol wonders just how easy it’s going to be when the Company men show up, with their truncheons and rifle butts swinging, to escort the scabs in. A polite no is only going to go so far. Sol tries to put his trust in Frank, a veteran of plenty of strikes, but it’s hard.
“I want you to think about the men we lost,” Frank continues, gesturing at the helmets. “Our brothers, our friends. Twenty-one of them. Twenty-one lost to a fire that never should have happened. Think about that, and think about what we’re trying to do here. I wasn’t here a year ago; I didn’t know those men, not personally, so I’ve asked some of our brother workers, men I’m proud to call my friends, to come up and say some words about the departed. So I’ll stand aside for now.” Frank looks down at Sol, waving him over. “Come on, Sol, why don’t you come on up here first.” He leans over, extending a hand down and helping Sol up to the back of the truck.
Sol takes his place at the center of the makeshift stage. He’s nervous; he pauses for a moment, looking out over the silent crowd, looking past them to the headframes of the nearby mines. It makes him think again about how the ground they all stand on is hollow inside, decaying, and yet this hill is the reason why they’re all here, in one way or another, damn near every last person in this town. It’s a hell of a thing when you think about it.
A raven is perched atop a stack of timbers. It cocks a bright eye at him, head atilt as if it’s listening.
“I ain’t really much for speeches,” he says now, looking away from the bird. Something about it makes him uneasy. “That’s Frank’s line and we’re lucky to have him, lucky that a sharp fellow like him is on our side.” A shrug. “Some of y’all know me but, for those that don’t, I’m just a mucker crew boss. I do my job and help the man at my side and he helps me. We all help each other. That’s how we get the job done and stay as safe as we can. It’s that unity that Frank is always talking about; it ain’t nothing more or less than that. You men are my friends and there ain’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for you. That’s unity right there.”
He points at the helmets in front of him, pausing at the one he’d set out for Owen, feeling his eyes tighten. “We do dangerous work. Things happen and sometimes that’s just the way it is. Sometimes we can’t stay safe.” There’s a shout, and Sol looks down, distracted by the sight of Nancy and Flynn, waving, trying to push their way through the crowd that has pressed close to the flatbed.
Raising his head again, Sol sees Sean Harrity who, along with Mickey Doyle, has stepped out from behind the stack of timbers the bird sits on. Sean nods at Sol and then shrugs, apologetically, almost. He raises a pistol Sol’s way and whatever Sol is going to say next is lost in the sound of it firing.
6.
Later, Company men will say that Bloody Tuesday had started when unruly miners, incited to an illegal work stoppage by IWW anarchists, rushed the headframe of the Neversweat mine, bent on destruction of ACM property and intending to cause bodily harm to Company employees. The police and Pinkertons will say that the riot started when they’d been suddenly attacked by those same men, no doubt urged on by the hidden Bolsheviks in their ranks, and that they’d opened fire and raised their truncheons purely out of self-defense. The miners themselves know that it had all kicked off when Company men – or their Pinkerton thugs – attempted the cowardly assassination of Labor leader Frank Little, while they, the workers and union brothers, were gathered in peaceable, legal assembly.
Sol Parker knows the real reason: that, by the end, fifteen good men are seriously wounded, two are dead, along with who knows how many lesser injuries, simply because he can’t control his gambling, because he made a series of bad bets and is in debt to the wrong sort of man. Sean had simply chosen a public setting to make an example of Sol. To restate the case that he, Sean Harrity, collects his debts, always, that he’ll have his money or the proverbial pound of flesh.
It’s also possible, likely even, that the Company hired Sean to start up trouble at the picket so that they can once again crack down on uppity workers, that Sean used the opportunity of that happy confluence of circumstances to deal with the chronically delinquent Sol Parker.
See, the Company will say, these men are anarchists, animals. We, the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, must keep a firm hand to ensure production remains steady and the Company profitable.
Whatever the reason, a year to the day after killing Owen, down in the Penn, Sol knows yet more deaths are laid at his feet.
7.
Sean Harrity raises the pistol and fires. Once, twice, again.
A well-honed instinct of self-preservation flares up inside of Sol and he hunches and leaps to the side, barreling into Frank and knocking both of them from the flatbed stage. Either it’s too long of a shot for a pistol or Sean has simply missed due to poor marksmanship because, when he moves, Sol hears the distinct metallic ping of a bullet hitting one of the helmets lining the front of the bed. The echo of the shots rings out and, for one long, stretched second, nothing happens. Then the moment caves inward upon itself, the mass of miners bursting in several directions at once like a startled flock of starlings, that same self-preservative instinct scattering them across the road in one frantic motion. At the same time, the line of mine guards on the other side of the picket, most of whom are no doubt as frightened of what is unfolding as the miners are, raise their rifles uncertainly. A supervisor hollers at them to hold their fire. At least one jittery guard hears only the word fire and then, once one or two have started shooting, the rest follow suit, rifles cracking o
ff like fireworks at a Chinatown parade. Pinkertons in the crowd, along with the police already on site to await their brother officers escorting the scabs, draw their own pistols in the mayhem, ready to shoot, certain that the strikers are firing on them. It’s a terrible, comical mess.
Those miners that run laterally, away from the road, downhill, come off the best. Some of the men, disoriented in the scrambling crowds, wind up running towards the firing rifles but it’s those that attempt to flee directly away down the Anaconda road who wind up taking the brunt of the bullets. Shot in the back for the temerity of trying to run away from gunfire. The Pinkertons are everywhere, dozens of them, maybe, firing in all directions, including inadvertently towards the police, who respond with shots of their own, then wade into the mass of men with batons raised. Men are tripping over the fallen, or locked in fistfights or wrestling, some with their own side. There’s no reason to it, no order. This is a mob in the truest sense of the word: men reduced to an animal state, fighting with whatever comes to hand.
Some of the miners who’ve escaped in the first rush come bravely back, throwing rocks and bricks, flying into the mess wielding pieces of lumber or scrap metal. Sol sees one large man hurl a barrel into the crowd, screaming like a madman. A policeman takes a crowbar to the head, turns, slowly, gracefully even, eyes rolling up, staring vacantly at Sol as he crumples to the ground, and then is buried under kicking boots.
The raven on the stack of timber is squawking, stretching up with wings extended.
“Sol! We got to get Frank out of here! Sol!” Quinn is shaking him, screaming in his ear. “We got to get Frank out! They’re going to be coming for him!”
Sol feels dazed, distant. The cracks of gunfire and the shrilling of whistles, men screaming in pain and fury and fear. The air smells like cordite and dust and something sharp and bitter, over the stink of the mines. Sol shakes his head, tries to cut loose the ringing in his ears.
“Sol!”
He shakes his head again, brings back the focus that’s deserting him. He looks into the wide-eyed faces of Quinn and Frank.
“We got to get Frank out, Sol!” Quinn yells again. “They’ll be coming!”
“Yeah. Yeah.” It’s hard for Sol to concentrate, and then it isn’t, some inner resolve, lost for a moment, taking back over. He turns to Frank. “Yeah. Quinn’s right, we got to get you out, someplace safe. They’re going to pin this shit on you, don’t say they won’t.”
The whistles are getting sharper, closer maybe. Sol sees Nancy and Flynn and the rest of his crew hunkered nearby, behind some pallets. He puts two fingers to his lips and whistles as loudly as he can, over and over, until Flynn turns and sees him. Sol waves a hand, trying to steer the boys his way.
He looks back at Quinn and Frank. “Quinn, my boys are yonder, coming over. They can get Frank somewhere safe. Maybe you best hole up for a bit with him, too. There ain’t nothing more we can do here. We was on that truck, and they’ll come looking for us.” It feels good to be making decisions, doing something rather than just squatting scared in the dirt.
Michael Conroy, looking twitchy, is the first to arrive. For once his mouth is shut. The others follow after, Young Dan ashen-faced and bleeding, carried by Nancy. Sol feels a wash of sick in his belly. “The hell happened to Young?” he says, leans closer.
“I’m OK, Sol,” Dan says, trying manfully to smile. “Got shot’s all.” He angles over and pukes a little, then wipes his mouth, still working on that smile.
“Got his leg, Sol,” Billy says, distractedly, looking at the big, ratty bird cawing over the fight. “Think he’ll be fine. He ain’t bleeding so much.”
“They shot Young Dan, Sol!” Old Dan says, voice quivering. If anything, he looks worse than Young, pale and shaking, eyes shining too white in his face.
Sol reaches over, giving his shoulder a squeeze and trying to will some calm into the boy. “It’s all right, Dan, we’ll see him sorted. Young Dan will be fine, hey? Right, Young?” Young Dan has passed out, though, cradled in Nancy’s arms like a lanky baby.
“Listen, boys,” Sol says. “Flynn, Michael, Billy, I need you to help get Frank and Quinn here somewhere safe. No, I don’t want to know where, just get them the fuck out of here before the Pinkertons come sniffing. Swap coats with them, find them different hats, whatever. Quinn and Frank will figure all that out, so you just do what they tell you, OK? Keep them safe.” He turns to look at Nancy and the Dans. “Nance, you and Old Dan get Young over to the Stope and talk to Antti; he’ll know someone who can get the boy’s leg taken care of, right? It don’t look too bad and it’s probably best to not just stroll up to a doctor with a gunshot hole about now. Antti will steer you right. Got it?”
“What are you going to do, Sol?” Nancy asks.
“You should come with us. So we can keep an eye on you,” Old Dan adds. He nods a bit too fast. Sol knows the boy would feel safer with him around, but he needs to grow the fuck up, and now is as good a time as any. He gives Dan’s shoulder another reassuring squeeze.
“Nah, I’ll be fine, boys. We shouldn’t all be together, just in case. Best if we let Frank and Quinn figure out what to do without everyone clustering around them, at least until this shitstorm dies down some. Besides, old bastards like me have still got a few tricks left. That’s how we live to be old. I’ll come find y’all soon enough.”
“I’m going with you, Sol,” Billy says. “Flynn and Mike will be fine without me.”
The look in Billy’s eyes tells Sol not to bother arguing. If Billy decided to do something, he would do it, no matter how much you tried to push him different.
“Fair enough,” is all Sol says.
A round of nods and some slapped shoulders, and then his crew takes off, hunkered over, crossways down the road, skirting the edge of the melee as best they can. Sol follows their progress until they’re out of sight, turning back around from time to time to peek over the truck he still hides behind, watching the riot finish tiring itself out. It feels like it’s been going on for hours, hours of noise and stink and pain but, really, Sol knows that it’s only been a few overlong minutes. More police have arrived and are swept around into a kind of U-shape now, corralling an unlucky group of miners who sit on the ground, bloody and dirty, hands in the air. Some of the other cops, along with the Pinkertons, are still fighting small knots of workers but, thankfully, the gunfire seems to have ceased, the fights continuing with truncheons and saps and fists.
“You OK, Sol?”
Sol turns to look over at Billy, crouched down there beside him. “No, I’m nowhere close to OK, Billy.” He pauses. “You saw it, didn’t you? Sean.”
Billy looks down, not wanting to catch Sol’s eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Sol laughs one humorless bark, waving a hand out at the carnage. “You know, I’m getting tired of hearing that, and I damn sure don’t want to fucking see what happens when something is my fault.”
The road is littered with wounded men, some ominously motionless, some being dragged into the Mariahs that are pulling up and disgorging more police. If the men get medical attention at all, Sol knows, they’ll have to wait until the lawmen are satisfied that the riot is well and truly over. Cops queuing up for their pat on the head by their Company masters, like the fucking dogs they are. He wants to scream, maybe more than that.
Billy must see it, because he says, “It’s trouble, Sol, but we’ll get past it. We’ll make it right.”
Sol wants to say that it’s more than that, that it’s not that simple, that it’s more than just fucking trouble, but a whispered curse is what he settles on, before he slinks away with Billy. When he looks back, the raven is gone.
8.
The old women say that, after his troubles, Maatakssi became the father of a great tribe of the People, that he had many sons and daughters. The Above Ones had favored him in this thing. They made Maatakssi’s family strong and their medicine powerful. This was back before the time of the stories, even, but the old
women say they know this.
But first, before that came to pass, the Above Ones gave Maatakssi one boon and one punishment, as they had promised.
“Maatakssi,” they said, “you have done a terrible thing, killing your brother, as you did in your anger. Old Man is our friend, and killing his son was an evil act. For this you will be punished. But you have reverenced your brother, Siinatssi, in the proper way, and released his spirit to find the Other Lands. So, after you have been punished, we will grant you one blessing.”
“I am sorry, Above Ones,” Maatakssi said, sinking to his knees, rubbing dust in his hair. “My anger was upon me and, now, I am filled with shame.”
Two birds, the small ones the People called niimatsoo, upside-down walkers, cried from a tree just then.
The Above Ones – even those people – were great gamblers, and they could not resist the chance for a game, whenever the opportunity arose. The place where the Above Ones lived could be dull at times. The old women say that the outcome of one game or another between those people decided the shapes of many things on this Earth. They say that, many times, the world itself had taken a new face on the turning of a bet, those worlds that had passed before this one.
“Maatakssi,” they said, “do you fancy your luck? Can you see those two birds there on that branch? Let us bet on which bird flies first, you and us. Where is the harm in that? If you call it rightly, you will not be punished for your sin. If you do not want to bet, though, we understand, and will make the punishment you have earned easier for you to bear. For, as we have said, Old Man is a friend of ours and we do not want to trouble him overmuch with the suffering of his remaining son.”
Maatakssi smiled to himself, as he could see that one of the birds had a turned wing and could not fly. Why endure a punishment? For such mighty beings, the Above Ones were fools. And Maatakssi himself was one who would not turn down the chance to gamble although, at times, that habit had caused him grief and the loss of precious things.
The Trials of Solomon Parker Page 7
