the Desert Of Wheat (2001)

by Grey, Zane

  He was to learn from Morgan, at the stables, that the old man had discharged both Andrew and Jansen. And Jansen, liberating some newly assimilated poison, had threatened revenge. He would see that any hired men would learn a thing or two, so that they would not sign up with Chris Dorn. In a fury the old man had driven Jansen out into the road.

  Sober and moody, Kurt put the horses away, and, washing the dust grime from sunburnt face and hands, he went to his little attic room, where he changed his damp and sweaty clothes. Then he went down to supper with mind made up to be lenient and silent with his old and sorely tried father.

  Chris Dorn sat in the light of the kitchen lamps. He was a huge man with a great, round, bullet-shaped head and a shock of gray hair and bristling, grizzled beard. His face was broad, heavy, and seemed sodden with dark, brooding thought. His eyes, under bushy brows, were pale gleams of fire. He looked immovable as to both bulk and will.

  Never before had Kurt Dorn so acutely felt the fixed, contrary, ruthless nature of his parent. Never had the distance between them seemed so great. Kurt shivered and sighed at once. Then, being hungry, he fell to eating in silence. Presently the old man shoved his plate back, and, wiping his face, he growled, in German:

  "I discharged Andrew and Jansen."

  "Yes, I know," replied Kurt. "It wasn't good judgment. What'll we do for hands?"

  "I'll hire more. Men are coming for the harvest."

  "But they all belong to the I. W. W.," protested Kurt.

  "And what's that?"

  In scarcely subdued wrath Kurt described in detail, and to the best of his knowledge, what the I. W. W. was, and he ended by declaring the organization treacherous to the United States.

  "How's that?" asked old Dorn, gruffly.

  Kurt was actually afraid to tell his father, who never read newspapers, who knew little of what was going on, that if the Allies were to win the war it was wheat that would be the greatest factor. Instead of that he said if the I. W. W. inaugurated strikes and disorder in the Northwest it would embarrass the government.

  "Then I'll hire I. W. W. men," said old Dorn.

  Kurt battled against a rising temper. This blind old man was his father.

  "But I'll not have I. W. W. men on the farm," retorted Kurt. "I just punched one I. W. W. solicitor."

  "I'll run this farm. If you don't like my way you can leave," darkly asserted the father.

  Kurt fell back in his chair and stared at the turgid, bulging forehead and hard eyes before him. What could be behind them? Had the war brought out a twist in his father's brain? Why were Germans so impossible?

  "My Heavens! father, would you turn me out of my home because we disagree?" he asked, desperately.

  "In my country sons obey their fathers or they go out for themselves."

  "I've not been a disobedient son," declared Kurt. "And here in America sons have more freedom--more say."

  "America has no sense of family life--no honest government. I hate the country."

  A ball of fire seemed to burst in Kurt.

  "That kind of talk infuriates me," he blazed. "I don't care if you are my father. Why in the hell did you come to America? Why did you stay?

  Why did you marry my mother--an American woman?... That's rot--just spiteful rot! I've heard you tell what life was in Europe when you were a boy. You ran off. You stayed in this country because it was a better country than yours.... Fifty years you've been in America--many years on this farm. And you love this land.... My God! father, can't you and men like you see the truth?"

  "Aye, I can," gloomily replied the old man. "The truth is we'll lose the land. That greedy Anderson will drive me off."

  "He will not. He's fine--generous," asserted Kurt, earnestly. "All he wanted was to see the prospects of the harvest and perhaps to help you.

  Anderson has not had interest on his money for three years. I'll bet he's paid interest demanded by the other stockholders in that bank you borrowed from. Why, he's our friend!"

  "Aye, and I see more," boomed the father. "He fetched his lass up here to make eyes at my son. I saw her--the sly wench!... Boy, you'll not marry her!"

  Kurt choked back his mounting rage.

  "Certainly I never will," he said, bitterly. "But I would if she'd have me."

  "What!" thundered Dorn, his white locks standing up and shaking like the mane of a lion. "That wheat banker's daughter! Never! I forbid it. You shall not marry any American girl."

  "Father, this is idle, foolish rant," cried Kurt, with a high warning note in his voice. "I've no idea of marrying.... But if I had one--whom else could I marry except an American girl?"

  "I'll sell the wheat--the land. We'll go back to Germany!"

  That was maddening to Kurt. He sprang up, sending dishes to the floor with a crash. He bent over to pound the table with a fist. Violent speech choked him and he felt a cold, tight blanching of his face.

  "Listen!" he rang out. "If I go to Germany it'll be as a soldier--to kill Germans!... I'm done--I'm through with the very name.... Listen to the last words I'll ever speak to you in German--the last! _To hell with Germany_!"

  Then Kurt plunged, blind in his passion, out of the door into the night.

  And as he went he heard his father cry out, brokenly:

  "My son! Oh, my son!"

  The night was dark and cool. A faint wind blew across the hills, and it was dry, redolent, sweet. The sky seemed an endless curving canopy of dark blue blazing with myriads of stars.

  Kurt staggered out of the yard, down along the edge of a wheat-field, to one of the straw-stacks, and there he flung himself down in an agony.

  "Oh, I'm ruined--ruined!" he moaned. "The break--has come!... Poor old dad!"

  He leaned there against the straw, shaking and throbbing, with a cold perspiration bathing face and body. Even the palms of his hands were wet. A terrible fit of anger was beginning to loose its hold upon him.

  His breathing was labored in gasps and sobs. Unutterable stupidity of his father--horrible cruelty of his position! What had he ever done in all his life to suffer under such a curse? Yet almost he clung to his wrath, for it had been righteous. That thing, that infernal twist in the brain, that was what was wrong with his father. His father who had been fifty years in the United States! How simple, then, to understand what was wrong with Germany.

  "By God! I am--American!" he panted, and it was as if he called to the grave of his mother, over there on the dark, windy hill.

  That tremendous uprising of his passion had been a vortex, an end, a decision. And he realized that even to that hour there had been a drag in his blood. It was over now. The hell was done with. His soul was free. This weak, quaking body of his housed his tainted blood and the emotions of his heart, but it could not control his mind, his will. Beat by beat the helpless fury in him subsided, and then he fell back and lay still for a long time, eyes shut, relaxed and still.

  A hound bayed mournfully; the insects chirped low, incessantly; the night wind rustled the silken heads of wheat.

  After a while the young man sat up and looked at the heavens, at the twinkling white stars, and then away across the shadows of round hills in the dusk. How lonely, sad, intelligible, and yet mystic the night and the scene!

  What came to him then was revealing, uplifting--a source of strength to go on. He was not to blame for what had happened; he could not change the future. He had a choice between playing the part of a man or that of a coward, and he had to choose the former. There seemed to be a spirit beside him--the spirit of his mother or of some one who loved him and who would have him be true to an ideal, and, if needful, die for it. No night in all his life before had been like this one. The dreaming hills with their precious rustling wheat meant more than even a spirit could tell. Where had the wheat come from that had seeded these fields? Whence the first and original seeds, and where were the sowers? Back in the ages! The stars, the night, the dark blue of heaven hid the secret in their impenetrableness. Beyond them surely was the answer, and p
erhaps peace.

  Material things--life, success--such as had inspired Kurt Dorn, on this calm night lost their significance and were seen clearly. They could not last. But the wheat there, the hills, the stars--they would go on with their task. Passion was the dominant side of a man declaring itself, and that was a matter of inheritance. But self-sacrifice, with its mercy, its succor, its seed like the wheat, was as infinite as the stars. He had long made up his mind, yet that had not given him absolute restraint. The world was full of little men, but he refused to stay little. This war that had come between him and his father had been bred of the fumes of self-centered minds, turned with an infantile fatality to greedy desires. His poor old blinded father could be excused and forgiven. There were other old men, sick, crippled, idle, who must suffer pain, but whose pain could be lightened. There were babies, children, women, who must suffer for the sins of men, but that suffering need no longer be, if men became honest and true.

  His sudden up-flashing love had a few hours back seemed a calamity. But out there beside the whispering wheat, under the passionless stars, in the dreaming night, it had turned into a blessing. He asked nothing but to serve. To serve her, his country, his future! All at once he who had always yearned for something unattainable had greatness thrust upon him.

  His tragical situation had evoked a spirit from the gods.

  To kiss that blue-eyed girl's sweet lips would be a sum of joy, earthly, all-satisfying, precious. The man in him trembled all over at the daring thought. He might revel in such dreams, and surrender to them, since she would never know, but the divinity he sensed there in the presence of those stars did not dwell on a woman's lips. Kisses were for the present, the all too fleeting present; and he had to concern himself with what he might do for one girl's future. It was exquisitely sad and sweet to put it that way, though Kurt knew that if he had never seen Lenore Anderson he would have gone to war just the same. He was not making an abstract sacrifice.

  The wheat-fields rolling before him, every clod of which had been pressed by his bare feet as a boy; the father whose changeless blood had sickened at the son of his loins; the life of hope, freedom, of action, of achievement, of wonderful possibility--these seemed lost to Kurt Dorn, a necessary renunciation when he yielded to the call of war.

  But no loss, no sting of bullet or bayonet, no torturing victory of approaching death, could balance in the scale against the thought of a picture of one American girl--blue-eyed, red-lipped, golden-haired--as she stepped somewhere in the future, down a summer lane or through a blossoming orchard, on soil that was free.

  Chapter IV

  Toward the end of July eastern Washington sweltered under the most torrid spell of heat on record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an equable climate, with cool summers and mild winters. And this unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere been free from humidity.

  The haze of heat seemed like a pall of thin smoke from distant forest fires. The sun rose, a great, pale-red ball, hot at sunrise, and it soared blazing-white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a cloudless, coppery sky, at last to set sullen and crimson over the ranges.

  Spokane, being the only center of iron, steel, brick, and masonry in this area, resembled a city of furnaces. Business was slack. The asphalt of the streets left clean imprints of a pedestrian's feet; bits of newspaper stuck fast to the hot tar. Down by the gorge, where the great green river made its magnificent plunges over the falls, people congregated, tarried, and were loath to leave, for here the blowing mist and the air set into motion by the falling water created a temperature that was relief.

  Citizens talked of the protracted hot spell, of the blasted crops, of an almost sure disaster to the wheat-fields, and of the activities of the I. W. W. Even the war, for the time being, gave place to the nearer calamities impending.

  Montana had taken drastic measures against the invading I. W. W. The Governor of Idaho had sent word to the camps of the organization that they had five days to leave that state. Spokane was awakening to the menace of hordes of strange, idle men who came in on the westbound freight-trains. The railroads had been unable to handle the situation.

  They were being hard put to it to run trains at all. The train crews that refused to join the I. W. W. had been threatened, beaten, shot at, and otherwise intimidated.

  The Chamber of Commerce sent an imperative appeal to representative wheat-raisers, ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to Spokane to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport, where luncheon was served in one of the magnificently appointed dining-halls of that most splendid hotel in the West.

  The lion of this group of Spokane capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of German forebears, but all American in his sympathies, with a son already in the army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the Chamber of Commerce. His first words to the large assembly of clean-cut, square-jawed, intent-eyed Westerners were: "Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the most threatening and unfortunate situation the Northwest was ever called upon to meet." His address was not long, but it was stirring. The Chamber of Commerce could provide unlimited means, could influence and control the state government; but it was from the visitors invited to this meeting, the men of the outlying districts which were threatened, that objective proofs must come and the best methods of procedure.

  The first facts to come out were that many crops were ruined already, but, owing to the increased acreage that year, a fair yield was expected; that wheat in the Bend would be a failure, though some farmers here and there would harvest well; that the lumber districts were not operating, on account of the I. W. W.

  Then it was that the organization of men who called themselves the Industrial Workers of the World drew the absorbed attention of the meeting. Depredations already committed stunned the members of the Chamber of Commerce.

  President Riesinberg called upon Beardsley, a prominent and intelligent rancher of the southern wheat-belt. Beardsley said:

  "It is difficult to speak with any moderation of the outrageous eruption of the I. W. W. It is nothing less than rebellion, and the most effective means of suppressing rebellion is to apply a little of that 'direct action' which is the favorite diversion of the I. W. W.'s.

  "The I. W. W. do not intend to accomplish their treacherous aims by anything so feeble as speech; they scorn the ballot-box. They are against the war, and their method of making known their protest is by burning our grain, destroying our lumber, and blowing up freight-trains. They seek to make converts not by argument, but by threats and intimidation.

  "We read that Western towns are seeking to deport these rebels. In the old days we can imagine more drastic measures would have been taken. The Westerners were handy with the rope and the gun in those days. We are not counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is too mild a punishment.

  "We are too 'civilized' to apply the old Roman law, 'Spare the conquered and extirpate the rebels,' but at least we could intern them. The British have found it practicable to put German prisoners to work at useful employment. Why couldn't we do the same with our rebel I. W. W.'s?"

  Jones, a farmer from the Yakima Valley, told that business men, housewives, professional men, and high-school boys and girls would help to save the crop of Washington to the nation in case of labor trouble.

  Steps already had been taken to mobilize workers in stores, offices, and homes for work in the orchards and grain-fields, should the I. W. W. situation seriously threaten harvests.

  Pledges to go into the hay or grain fields or the orchards, with a statement of the number of days they were willing to work, had been signed by virtually all the men in North Yakima.

  Helmar, lumberman from the Blue Mountains, spoke feelingly; he said:

  "My company is the owner of a considerable amount of timbered lands and timber purchased from the state and from individuals. We have been engaged in logging that land until our operations have been stopped and our business paralyzed by an organization w
hich calls itself the Industrial Workers of the World, and by members of that organization, and other lawless persons acting in sympathy with them.

  "Our employees have been threatened with physical violence and death.

  "Our works are picketed by individuals who camp out in the forests and who intimidate and threaten our employees.

  "Open threats have been made that our works, our logs, and our timber will all be burned.

  "Sabotage is publicly preached in the meetings, and in the literature of the organization it is advised and upheld.

  "The open boast is made that the lumbering industry, with all other industry, will be paralyzed by this organization, by the destruction of property used in industry and by the intimidation of laborers who are willing to work.

  "A real and present danger to the property of my company exists.

  Unless protection is given to us it will probably be burned and destroyed. Our lawful operations cannot be conducted because laborers who are willing to work are fearful of their lives and are subject to abuse, threats, and violence. Our camps, when in operation, are visited by individuals belonging to the said organization, and the men peaceably engaged in them threatened with death if they do not cease work. All sorts of injury to property by the driving of spikes in logs, the destruction of logs, and other similar acts are encouraged and recommended.

  "As I pointed out to the sheriff of our county, the season is a very dry one and the woods are and will be, unless rain comes, in danger of disastrous fires. The organization and its members have openly and repeatedly asserted that they will burn the logs in the woods and burn the forests of this company and other timber-holders before they will permit logging operations to continue.

  "Many individuals belonging to the organization are camped in the open in the timbered country, and their very presence is a fire menace. They are engaged in no business except to interfere with the industry and to interfere with the logging of this company and others who engaged in the logging business.