A Tender Victory

by Taylor Caldwell

  Then he turned quickly to Johnny, before anyone could answer him. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Think I’m getting an idea about Mr. Swensen here, who knows Mac Summerfield, he says, ‘slightly.’ Johnny, you got tonight’s paper here? Get it. Always did think I could qualify as a private eye.”

  Johnny hesitated, blinking with his bafflement, looking at the other three men for enlightenment. Then, as no one spoke, he went to his desk and lifted the current issue of the Press and gave it mutely to Dr. McManus. The doctor stood up, balancing himself on his broad, short legs, the newspaper concealing the upper part of his body. “Johnny, here’s your last sermon. Mac’s commented on it tonight. That’s why I came over. I’ll read the editorial, and then we’ll begin to understand things, I think. All right, listen. Mac speaking:

  “A certain breed of so-called liberals are the real despots,’ Mr. Fletcher said last Sunday, in the ranting voice of the demagogue.

  “‘Because the peoples everywhere in the world have demanded decent housing at the expense of the wealthy, a fair share of the profits of capitalism, social security, socialized medicine, and some of the fruits and pleasures of the earth, Mr. Fletcher has denounced them as materialistic parasites.’”

  “Why, the damned liar!” cried Johnny with rage. “I spoke of liberty, of the right of a man to choose.”

  The doctor said mournfully, “Son, you’re losing your Christian temper. I heard your sermon. You said that a man has the right to be a real liberal; that is, a man who don’t want any government interfering in his affairs so long as he is behaving himself like a decent human being, and don’t want any government brooding over him like a cannibal hen, waiting to peck out his eyes if he resents being a helpless chick all his life. You said a real liberal stands for liberty, for the dignity of man, and let the government keep its damn sticky hands off. I remember. But Mac didn’t like your sermon. Shut up, and let me go on.

  “‘The peoples’—get that, Johnny? We’re not people in the world any longer, we’re ‘peoples!’—aren’t interested in some mystical reward for their planned suffering on this earth, so, according to Mr. Fletcher, they deserve the wrath of whatever gods have been invented by their oppressors. Is it liberty for a man to starve, to be homeless, to die in absolute poverty, to see his children hungry? Mr. Fletcher implies that is so. If that is free enterprise, we want none of it, and let Mr. Fletcher take notice of that fact. The function of government in the modern world is to care for the welfare of its peoples, to provide food and shelter, free medical attention from physicians who have been taught to serve rather than to earn, and security from the cradle to the grave. Mr. Fletcher, as one of the hired men of the forces of reactionary wealth, denies that this is the function of government. By implication, too, he denounces all unions, for unions are among those modern organizations set up to protect the peoples from starvation and misery.’”

  Johnny said, trying to control himself, “The man’s not only a liar, but he sounds like a Communist. I wonder how many of his millions he’s willing to turn over to the government for all those things?”

  “Why,” said the doctor calmly, putting down the paper, “none at all. He just wants to be a rich commissar, with thousands of meek slaves. The giving up is going to be done by people who are obstinate enough to believe in liberty, and the right to order their own lives. People like you. You’re on the liquidation list, son. And so am I. Too bad. We’re just Americans, like most people in this country.”

  Mr. Swensen was silently amused. His eyes sparkled on Dr. McManus. Now why would this rich old fool of a doctor care what happened to the stinking masses in America? It wasn’t in character.

  “Nobody,” said Dan McGee, “with half a brain listens to what Mac Summerfield says.”

  “Well, who said the populace ever had more than half a brain, anyway?” asked the doctor.

  Mr. Dowdy sighed. “Mac Summerfield’s caused more trouble in this town than almost anyone else. He wants to set every man against his neighbor.” He smiled faintly at Johnny. “He never had much opposition until you came.”

  “Damn right!” said the doctor. “Let Mac hire goons to stir up strikes, and cuddle up with the Communists, and no one dares to whimper. Except Johnny. He says it’s because he’s got God. And maybe he has, Mr. Swensen. And that brings us back to you. What have you got to do with all this? With Mac Summerfield and this stinking editorial? Why are you here?”

  Mr. Swensen smiled. He had excellent teeth, the doctor noted. And that smile had long practice behind it. “I came to bring peace to Barryfield,” he said. “But nobody’s asked me to show what Mr. McGee calls my credentials. Would you like to see them?”

  He opened a gold-tooled leather wallet and handed the doctor a card. The doctor frowned at it a moment, then read aloud, “Industrial Relations Foundation, New York, N.Y. Director, Lars Swensen.” He rumpled the card in his hand and looked at Mr. Swensen. “I’ve heard of your organization. Nonprofit. Supported by the fortunes of dead old tycoons they used to call robber barons. Yes, I’ve heard. Supposed to be a mediation and conciliation outfit between capital and labor during disputes. Funny.” The doctor’s small stony eyes smiled grimly into space. “Foundation created by tough old rascals who never asked for quarter, or gave any, and were responsible for massacres whenever the poor workingmen tried to organize, or rebelled, or dared to ask for a living wage! Fine old days of exploitation and suffering! I remember something of them myself. Now the old devils leave foundations! Is it conscience? Trying to buy themselves out of hell?”

  Mr. Swensen seemed a little surprised. He studied the doctor more closely. The doctor continued, “Well, there’s retribution. Seen it work myself. Here’s a foundation set up by robbers and murderers to help the sons and grandsons of their own victims. That’s irony for you. Like foundations myself, though, when they go in for subsidizing research in medicine and science, and giving scholarships, and advancing money for decent housing, and promoting tolerance and such. Wonderful.”

  Mr. Swensen was all superior urbanity. “Glad you approve of us, doctor,” he said, smiling.

  “Don’t put words in my mouth!” exclaimed McManus sharply. “I didn’t say I approved of you. I was talking about legitimate foundations. All right, so you call yourself a foundation, but all I know about your outfit is what I’ve just said. So who are you, anyhow? And what are you up to here in Barryfield? Just tell us that. I got a pretty shrewd notion, but I ain’t tipping my hand. So come on now, Swensen. Tell us.”

  Mr. Swensen retained his air of general affability, but there was a distinct hardening of his eyes as he looked at the doctor. “Well, doctor,” he said amiably, “if that’s what you want I’ll gladly tell you. We’re what we call trouble shooters. That’s why I’m here. We’ve heard there is a pending strike. We’ve considered all the facts, and we feel that the miners in this city need help. I’m here to help them.”

  The doctor stood up, and like a fat and massive old terrier he walked slowly around Mr. Swensen, elaborately considering him. Mr. Swensen preserved an expression of gentle amusement. Now the doctor stood before him. “Swensen, you’re a liar. You’re not interested in the miners of Barryfield. Who’s your real target?”

  Mr. Swensen was patient. “Doctor, our motives are purely humanitarian.”

  “All right. Lie, if you want to,” said the doctor, and sat down again. “We’ll never get the truth out of you. Dowdy, let’s get down to business.”

  Mr. Dowdy spoke with sick apprehension. “We need to shoal up some of the mine walls. We don’t have the money. And now Mac Summerfield’s trying to stir up the miners to strike for higher pay. We don’t have the money for that either. As things stand, we’re lucky if we break even.” The mine owner shook his head dismally. “Maybe I’m not very smart; I just don’t understand what’s happening. Mine Seven’s in a bad way, and so is Mine Five, and we got to make them safer if we’re to let the men work in there. They’re our richest veins. But if we haven’t got the mo
ney to exploit our best assets, how in the world are we going to pay higher wages? Summerfield knows this, so I just can’t figure out what he’s up to.”

  “I can,” said Dr. McManus heartily.

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” said Johnny. “If Summerfield knows all this, why in God’s name would he choose this time to incite the miners to strike for higher wages?”

  The doctor sighed patiently. “That’s just the point,” he said. “His timing is perfect. Get one thing in your head once and for all. Summerfield ain’t interested in the welfare of the miners. That’s camouflage. All he wants is trouble.”

  At last Johnny began to understand, and he turned all his attention to Mr. Swensen. His face became grim and alert. Mr. Swensen returned his scruitny with calm indifference. Johnny was not deceived. He said to himself, with alarm, Why, his eyes look like the eyes of some of the Nazis I saw in Europe! Glass—no emotion, nothing, nothing behind them. Nothing except hate.

  “I’ve gone over Glenn’s books, and the books of the other mine owners too,” said Mr. McGee in an anxious voice. He pulled his plump torso to the edge of his chair. “They’re just barely breaking even. They need more money to make the mines safer, and they don’t have it. They can’t pay our men more, and that’s what I’ve been telling Mr. Swensen here. And then, tonight, I thought about Mr. Fletcher. I thought we’d all come here, and maybe Mr. Fletcher could sort of take a hand in this, and show Mr. Swensen there wasn’t really any trouble between the miners and the mine owners, except that some of the miners get leaflets from strangers near the shafts.”

  Mr. Swensen seemed interested. His expression was most friendly.

  Mr. McGee went on. “But Mr. Swensen says the men’ve got to have uniform union wages, like in the big mines, and bigger and better benefits, and a big medical plan, and a big pension plan. Believe me, I’d sure like to see them have all that! Mining’s hell. If a man got a hundred dollars a day it wouldn’t be enough. I know; I was a miner. Well, anyway, what Mr. Swensen says the miners should have in Barryfield just ain’t possible. If Glen and the other mine owners had just made enough money these past twenty years, well, they could’ve opened new mines, or shored up the best veins they’ve already got. But they didn’t have the money, and these mines they have are pretty well worked out, and now they’ve begun to operate at a loss. But they keep going, hoping for the best, and things just get worse. And they’ve always got lawsuits from people who get cracks in their houses when blasting goes on, and so there’s another drain on their funds.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Swensen pleasantly. “The owners must be responsible for the damage they do. But that has no bearing on their other responsibility—to give their miners a decent wage.”

  Johnny, who could not forget Swensen’s eyes, said angrily, “Don’t be an idiot. The mine owners invested all they had in the mines; they take the risks, they opened the mines. The miners get their wages; they don’t suffer losses like the owners. Do they work for nothing, as Mr. Dowdy seems to be doing? Mr. Dowdy and his friends don’t have pension plans for themselves, or sick plans, or unemployment insurance. They just have the anxiety, the straining to keep up with all those plans, the taxes, the worry. And people like you come in here just to make trouble.”

  He regarded Swensen with open and fiery disgust. “Equal rights do not mean equal rewards. Yet you seem to believe that if Mr. Dowdy practically works for nothing just to keep the mines running, his employees are entitled to a raise. That isn’t even Communism. In Russia the miners work as slave labor, with a whip at their backs, and the bureaucrats take all the profits. Is that what you want, under all your philanthropy?”

  “Sure,” said Dr. McManus, cackling.

  “Let’s not be childish,” said Mr. Swensen. “We are here to discuss matters, not to make foolish accusations. I’m not a Communist, Mr. Fletcher.”

  The very ill Mr. Dowdy turned to Mr. Swensen. He said imploringly, “You know the truth. You’ve seen my books yourself. Look, we want to keep the men employed. Haven’t you any heart at all? Don’t you care about our poor miners? Don’t you know what it’ll mean to them if they go out on strike? They can’t get blood out of a stone, and most of them know it; and Dan here knows it, and he’s told them. They’re good fellows, our miners, and decent. But a strike’ll just mean they’ll be out of work, maybe permanent. I don’t want to shut down the mines. But if you push me I’ll have to, and so will the other owners. What will the miners do then?”

  “Oh, they have unemployment insurance,” said Mr. Swensen with a slight smile. “They can wait.” He gave them all the bright sunshine of his happy smile.

  “John L. didn’t send you, that’s for sure,” said Dr. McManus thoughtfully. “He wouldn’t. He knows about the mines in Barryfield. There’s something or somebody you’re after, Swensen.”

  Mr. Swensen ignored him. He waited for Mr. Dowdy to continue.

  “Well,” said Mr. Dowdy, “if the men wait—and how long does the insurance last?—they’ll just have to wait forever, or get themselves other jobs. I wouldn’t blame them if they did. I wouldn’t be a miner again for ten thousand a year, something I never made in all my life. I’m going to die soon. Al here has told me. I’ve got a little insurance for my wife to live on, if she’s careful, and I’ve got a boy in college who’ll be a doctor soon. So I’m not worrying much about anything, except the miners. It’s getting awful hard for me, now, to work and try to keep things straight and even.”

  Mr. Swensen remained remote and amused. “Nevertheless, I can’t accept all this. The miners in Barryfield must have justice, must receive the same wages as others get in the general mining field. I had hoped,” he added regretfully, “that Mr. Fletcher would agree with me, and persuade you to raise the men’s wages. It seems that this informal discussion has been just a waste of time.”

  Johnny moved to him quickly, but Mr. Swensen merely gazed at him reflectively, and with his automatically friendly smile. He said, “I’m wondering about you, Mr. Fletcher. You aren’t very important, are you? A small city minister, with a very low salary, probably. Yet, you’ve acted as a dangerous catalyst here. The question I ask myself is: Why are you here? Who sent you? How have you managed to bring disparate elements together?”

  Before Johnny could reply, Dr. McManus put his hand on his shoulder. He grinned. “Who sent him? Why, God, he says. Johnny’s what the Bible calls a just man, and that’s why you don’t understand him. Just men can sure play hob with the world. They always have. That’s why they’re always getting crucified, or murdered, or assassinated, or hounded into economic excommunication by politicians or their own people. Uncomfortable kind of life.”

  Mr. Swensen lifted his folded hand to his face, and concealed the lower part of it while he still contemplated Johnny.

  “I’m what you see, a minister,” said Johnny. “That’s all. Never mind me. Do you mean you’re going to incite the miners to strike? Then I’ll fight you. I’ll go to them myself. They’ll listen to me. I was a miner once. I know their language.”

  Mr. Swensen suddenly laughed. “You think they’ll listen, Mr. Fletcher? When did what you’d call reason ever win over a prospect of more money?”

  Mrs. Burnsdale knocked on the door, then opened it a trifle. “The children want to say good night, Mr. Fletcher,” she said. Her gray hair was damp and curling from the heat and moisture of the kitchen. Her small eyes were tense, and she glanced quickly at Dr. McManus and jerked her head in a signal to him.

  “All right, in a minute,” said Johnny.

  Mrs. Burnsdale’s face disappeared, but Dr. McManus got up and casually walked out after her. “I’ll help with Jean’s chair,” he said.

  He found the children standing very still in the kitchen, close together, in a semicircle around Jean, and the doctor saw, with a curious knotting of his heart, that old look on their young faces, the look of frozen terror, hatred, and distrust. They were alien again, lost and stricken, and prepared for flight and stru
ggle. Even Kathy’s smooth yellow hair had risen over her round head like a mane. Worst of all, to the doctor, was the fact that Jean’s left hand was grasping a long sharp knife, and Pietro held a hammer, and Max’s eyes were vacant. Little Emilie had hidden her face against Kathy’s shoulder, and she was trembling violently.

  Dr. McManus stopped. “Well,” he said in a low voice, “now what in the name of God?”

  Mrs. Burnsdale, near the kitchen window, beckoned to him imperatively. Dr. McManus started toward her, then stopped, inches away from Jean, who gazed upward at him with his pale eyes, filled now with primitive ferocity. “Jean,” said the doctor sharply, “put down that knife. Reach over to the table, and put it down. Now.”

  Jean clutched the knife tighter; the children moved in closer to him. Dr. McManus could hardly recognize them. He was terribly dismayed, and he thought, It’s no use, all the work Johnny has done, all the prayers, all the suffering, all the faith. But I knew that, from the beginning. When’ll he learn, himself? His heart, so old, embittered, calloused, suddenly ached for Johnny, and tears came into his eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you kids,” he said, and his voice actually faltered. “But when you look like this, act like this, you aren’t human. You aren’t your father’s children any more.” Jean still held the knife strongly, but someone, one of the girls, suddenly whimpered. “All we’ve done for you is nothing, I see,” said the doctor.

  The wild ferocity subsided in Jean’s eyes, but he held the knife like a bayonet. “The doctor doesn’t understand,” he said. “It’s Papa who is in danger.”

  He pointed the knife at the window. “The doctor will please look?”

  Dr. McManus regarded him in astonishment, then went to the window. The knife brushed against his sleeve, and he heard the hiss of it. Mrs. Burnsdale had drawn the cracked shade; she was crying silently, and now she pulled the shade away from the black glass. The doctor peered out, and could not believe what he saw. The window looked out upon the yard, and the fence that surrounded it, and beyond the fence stood a soundless wall of people, men and women, in motionless and ominous ranks. They passed out of sight, the wall of them, and around the corner, and in front of the house, where scores more must have been staring speechlessly at the front door.