Authors: Donis Casey
All Men Fear Me (23 page)
“A wise son maketh a glad father,
but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”
âProverbs 10:1
Since Charlie slept by himself on a cot in the parlor, he thought that it would be easy for him to sneak out of the house after everyone went to bed. He and Henry had arranged to meet near the plant as soon as Charlie could get away after it became full dark. Which since it was late summer, full dark didn't happen until nearly nine o'clock. Henry lived in town and didn't have to account for himself to his uncle, so he volunteered to begin the stakeout earlier. If all went as planned, Charlie could expect everyone in the house to be asleep in time for him to get away by nine-thirty or so. If he had the roan saddled and ready when he snuck out, he could join Henry at the stakeout by ten.
Things did not go as planned.
Charlie got home from the brick plant a little after two in the afternoon, ate a mashed bean sandwich, caught a twenty-minute nap, and reported to his father in the corral for his afternoon work assignment.
One of Shaw's hands, Tommy Cloud, was working with a newly saddle-broken mule and Shaw was standing outside the fence, watching, when Charlie walked up.
“Ah, there you are, son. I've been waiting for you. Kurt has a load of finisher hogs ready to ship out to the co-op in Tulsa. He's made arrangements to put them on the eleven-fifteen to Muskogee tonight and travel with them all the way to Tulsa. After their troubles, we figured it'd be better for Kurt to start the trip from Boynton late while nobody much is around. Mary and Judy are staying here with Mama until he gets back. Coleman Welsh is going to watch over their place for a spell.”
Charlie's heart fell into his boots. Under any other circumstance he'd be champing at the bit to take a train trip, even if it was only to look after a stock car full of pigs. As it was, he envisioned Henry Blackwood sitting outside the brick plant at midnight, wondering where he was. Or worse, Henry catching Dutch Leonard in the act of sabotage and becoming the town heroâwithout Charlie. He schooled his face to remain impassive. He'd have to figure out some way to get to Henry and call it off. “What do you need me to do, Daddy?”
“Well, right now we need to get over there to Kurt's and help him separate out the hogs and get them fed and watered and loaded on the wagons. Me and Gee Dub are going to Tulsa with Kurt. We won't be leaving for town until maybe eight o'clock, but as soon as it gets dark, I want you to come back here and stay with Mama and them. I reckon you can go on in to work at the plant tomorrow, but stay around close otherwise.”
Charlie didn't say anything, but his face must have registered surprise, for Shaw said, “Now, I know you want to go with us, but you're the one who wanted a war job and you can't just take the day off when there's something else you'd rather be doing. Besides, I'm going to feel better about the gals if you're here to keep an eye out for trouble.”
Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't have to abandon his plans after all. He just had to get around his mother, which was always going to be a task. She had ears like a bat.
***
Readying two wagonloads of hogs for transport was hard work. The men had to convince the animals to go through the makeshift chutes, up the ramps, and into the wagons, and if a two-hundred-fifty-pound animal had other plans, then a great deal of persuasion was called for. The sun had already sunk below the horizon before Shaw released Charlie to go home.
Rather than put the white-maned roan into his stall when he got home, Charlie tied him to a post in the barn, fed and watered him and rubbed him down. When he put the saddle back on, the horse was not happy.
“Don't give me no trouble, now, Hero,” Charlie admonished. “You and me got important spy work to do tonight.”
The roan laid his ears back and blew snot all over Charlie's shoulder. Undeterred by the horse's reluctance, the boy walked back up to the house, changed his shirt, and had a light supper with his family as though this night were the same as all the nights that had come before in his unexciting life.
“Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.”
â
Leaders of Men
by Woodrow Wilson, 1890
Sasakwa was about sixty miles southwest of Boynton, as the crow flies. But a crow would have gotten thoroughly lost if he took the circuitous route that Miller followed as he drove Rob Gunn to the rebel camp. At first the roads were wide enough, but dusty and pitted from the long dry spell, so the going was slow from the beginning. But when they turned off the main thoroughfare onto the farm trails and wagon ruts that led into the interior of Seminole County, Rob found himself profoundly wishing that they had just travelled on horseback in the first place. As they drew nearer their destination, they were stopped a couple of times and questioned at roadblocks that had been set up by the resistance faction. What would normally have been a three-hour trip took twice that, and by the time they reached a bluff on a hill near a remote farm, it was late in the day.
Rob was surprised at the size of the crowd that awaited them. Tents lined the edge of the woods and a red flag had been hoisted up a makeshift flag pole in the center of the camp. How long had this rebellion been brewing, he wondered? A haunch of beef was roasting on a spit, and a group of women sitting near the fire, shucked ears of corn. Children chased each other through the crowd, their shrill laughter adding to the general chaos. It reminded Rob of a camp meeting, an old-fashioned revival like the ones his father had conducted. He could even feel the fervor of the holy spirit of socialism upon the crowd. He stepped out of the automobile and followed Miller as he walked toward the group. People were turning to look at them, moving toward them, colored and white and Indian, all happy to see him.
So many hands slapped his back as Miller led him through the crowd that he figured he would be bruised in the morning. He mounted a planed-off stump that doubled as a podium and surveyed the eager faces in front of him as Miller made the introductions, judging his audience before deciding the approach he was going to take.
He had seen them all before. They were the same impoverished, uneducated, ill-used working men and women he had come to know all over the United States. These were mostly tenant farmers and sharecroppers, so far in debt to banks and landlords that they had no hope of ever being free of it. His heart swelled with compassion. Rob turned his attention back to Miller when he heard his name spoken.
Miller was looking at him. “Mr. Gunn,” he said, “this here is our army, and we intend to march on Washington, gathering up the thousands of citizens who oppose this banker's war on the way. We will live off the land, and if anybody can, it's us folks who turn the soil with our own hands. Mr. Gunn, we aim to sustain ourselves on the crops of this green land all the way to Washington.”
He moved aside to allow Rob to step forward, and the audience erupted into applause and excited whoops. He stood eyeing the crowd for a long minute after silence fell, until he could feel every eye on him.
“I hope y'all will call me Rob, and not âMr. Gunn,' because I'm just a plain working man, just like every one of you.” His voice was pitched high and loud enough to be heard at the farthest reaches of the clearing. “Dick told me your plan. I consulted the governing board of the International Workers of the World about it, and they put their heads together with the leaders of the American Socialist Party. I'm telling y'all this so you'll know that I ain't just blowing hot air.” He waited while the crowd cheered it's approval. Miller slapped Rob on the back so hard that he staggered.
As he readjusted his hat, his eye fell on an old man escorting two figures into the clearing at the point of a shotgun. He tried not to fall off the stump when he recognized the prisoners. He recovered himself quickly. “Yes, well. Both them organizations had a thing or two they want me to relay to y'all before you get your revolution to going. The leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World have conveyed to me that the union cannot back your plan. They advocate resistance, but not open rebellion during time of war. Y'all are on your own.”
A strange surge of noise rose on the air, like a moan, that seemed to have no source. Rob was suddenly reminded of a lynching. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He glanced toward Trent and Scott, now both tied to the bole of a persimmon tree at the edge of his line of sight. They had both fixed him with a grim stare. He took a breath and sternly returned his thoughts to the matter at hand. “I've been recruiting and organizing for the I.W.W. for a decade. I'm a union man to my bones, and I'll not change my stripes now. But I'm telling you that hanging by your principals is not going to be easy. In fact it will be downright dangerous. Your march will not succeed. Most Americans are not on your side. Don't think for a minute that the powers-that-be don't know your plans. There are spies in your midst right now.” He glanced toward the prisoners again. “We may lose the fight this time. We may lose the fight next time, and the next. They will try to beat us down again and again. But if we persevere in the right, we cannot help but win over the powers of evil.”
Scott Tucker figured that he and Trent would be lucky if they didn't get shot in the melee that would break out when Duncan and his band finally showed up. Until that happened there wasn't much either of them could do, trussed up hand and foot as they were, so Scott tried to find a comfortable seat against the tree trunk and set himself to listen to what Rob was saying to the insurgents.
Scott had attended many of Elder Robert Gunn's tent revivals when he was boy, and though the Elder Gunn's son did not physically resemble him in the least, Scott was overcome with an eerie feeling of being transported back in time as he listened to Rob speak. The voice was the same; the tone, the pitch, the passion. The pure and untainted belief in the truth of his words.
The crowd had sunken into silence when Rob delivered the I.W.W.'s decision, but enthusiasm was building again as he continued. “This war was started by the capitalists and industrialists as a way to line their pockets. If you want to win you've got to hit them where it hurts. In the pocketbook. They live by your toil, so quit working for the bankers and the landlords. Work for each other. Form a commune. As for the draft, no force on earth can make a man fight if he don't want to. If they come for you, refuse to fight. If they throw your brother into prison for resisting, spread the word. See that the world knows how a real man stands up for his principles.”
Scott could tell that Trent was outraged by the speech. The young man's face was beet red. But almost against his will, Scott was fascinated. Rob was transported, lit from within. “Violence begets violence, brothers and sisters. If you return blow for blow, you're no better than them who would crush you. There ain't nothing stronger than the power of folded arms.
“It was you who plowed this prairie, dug mines, laid the railroad. You build their buildings and grow the crops that feed them. You are not helpless. They can't do without you. But you can't do it alone, neither. Stand together.” He raised a fist into the air. “Solidarity! Unite! Unite! Unite!”
The crowd was electrified. They began chanting with him, “Unite! Unite! Unite!”
It took a minute for Scott to realize that the chant was turning to screams. Gunfire punctuated the yelling, and all at once there was chaos, people running for their lives, scattered by dozens of armed men on horseback, charging up the hill.
Trent tried to struggle to his feet. “We're rescued!”
“Sit down, boy,” Scott hissed, “before a stray bullet gets you.”
The prisoners huddled close under the tree, trying not to get trampled or shot in the confusion, yelling to be released at any likely looking posse member who dashed by, but nobody cast a glance in their direction. It occurred to Scott that the two of them would make good hostages for the rebels. He was getting nervous. It didn't help when he felt someone sawing at the rope that bound them to the tree.
A ferocious whisper cautioned them to be still.
“Robin?” Scott said.
“Dang it, I said hold still.” Rob was just out of Scott's line of sight, behind Trent, whose hands had been miraculously freed from their bonds. Trent scrambled up and Rob appeared around the tree trunk in a crouch, a wicked-looking buck knife in his hand, and went to work on Scott's fetters. “We've got to get out of here,” he said, as he sawed, “before some yahoo figures out y'all would be good bargaining chips.”
Trent and Rob helped Scott to stand and the three of them made for the woods as anarchy reigned around them. Rob led them to the area where the horses were picketed. They were lucky to find their own horses still there. Fugitives were mounting up and fleeing right and left.
“Looks like the cowards cut and run,” Trent crowed. Rob didn't respond. The unnatural glow was gone from his face. He looked diminished.
Scott grabbed the reins of Rob's mule as he mounted. “I thank you for rescuing us, Robin, but I'm going to have to arrest you on suspicion of sabotage and maybe the murder of Win Avey and Billy Claude Walker.”
Rob's eyes widened. “I didn't kill nobody⦔
Scott spoke over him. “I ain't got time to argue with you. Let's get out of here before Duncan and his gang decide to haul you in for inciting a riot and being a traitor.”
“Our firearms,” Trent attempted.
Scott ignored him. “Let's go, boys. No time to debate the finer points of the law.”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
âAlexander Pope
It took forever for Alafair and Mary to put the children to bed. On top of everything, Chase wanted to sleep in the parlor with Charlie, so Alafair fixed up a pallet beside Charlie's cot before she even began to get ready for bed herself. Mary and Judy bunked in one of the two double beds in the girls' room, and Grace happily went to sleep with her mother.
Charlie lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, for what seemed to him to be hours and hours, trying to wait long enough for everyone to be well asleep before he made his move. Chase fell asleep instantly and deeply, in the way of seven-year-old boys, so Charlie slipped out of bed and stepped over him without worry. He retrieved his shirt and trousers from the end of his bed and went into the kitchen to pull on his boots and creep out the back door. The screen creaked when he opened it, giving him pause, but he didn't hear anyone stir and made his way carefully down the steps before running for the barn.
He was horrified to see the roan in the barnyard, still saddled, his reins dragging the ground as he grazed. The horse had gotten loose, untied himself somehow from the post in the barn. The animal raised his head when he saw Charlie approaching, and began to trot off toward the grassy field behind the tool shed. Apparently the roan was not convinced that this trip was necessary, for Charlie chased him, begged him, pleaded with him, for a quarter of an hour. The roan never let him get within arm's length.
Charlie was nearly in tears and had exhausted his supply of profanity when he gave up and ran back to the barn to saddle Pork Chop, a much more obliging horse even if he was built like a barrel. If he had had the time, Charlie would have picked out a likelier mount, but the stables were a far piece from the barn, and he was desperate not to keep Henry waiting any longer than he had to. Since he had to pass the house before he reached the road to town, he headed out at a walk. His plan to slip silently past the house didn't pan out.
His mother was standing on the front porch in her nightgown.
He couldn't see her expression in the dark, but it didn't matter. The tone of her voice told him all he needed to know.
“Charlie, where are you going?”
He was caught, but it was too late. He wasn't about to come this far with his plan only to be thwarted by his mother. He reined in by the picket fence. “Me and Henry Blackwood got it figured out who the brick plant saboteur is, Ma. We think he's going to try to pull something tonight, and we're going to hide and catch him in the act. We made our plans before I knew Daddy and Gee Dub would be gone, but it's got to be tonight. Y'all will be all right.”
His reasoning didn't sway Alafair. “Charlie, get back in the house, now. You can't go gallivanting off in the middle of the night on some harebrained scheme and leave us all on our own out here.”
It was hard for Charlie to concentrate on what Alafair was saying. Pork Chop was eager to get on with his nighttime ride, and so was the boy. “Faugh, Mama, they ain't a helpless female among you. Nobody is going to bother y'all and even if they do, Mary's twice as better a shot than me.”
“Charlie, your daddy said⦔
Charlie cut her off. “You don't understand, Ma! You don't go to town enough to hear how folks are talking about us. You don't know what it's like to have everybody look at you funny because your sister's husband is a German and your uncle is a socialist. I got to prove we're one hundred percent with the president, and then maybe they'll leave us alone.” He dug heels into Pork Chop's flanks and took off.
“Charlie Boy!” He was halfway down the drive when she cried his name.
She barely heard his reply when he called back over his shoulder. “I ain't a child, Ma.”
Alafair watched openmouthed as he galloped off. She was not used to outright mutiny from her children. She could feel the blood pumping in her temples.
Gee Dub was going off to war, as was her soon-to-be son-in-law Trent. Kurt and Mary were being threatened and harassed. Robin had been accused of fomenting revolution and maybe of murder. Innocent people were being hounded and run out of town. And there was nothing she could do about any of it. And now her wild-hearted boy was rushing headlong to confront the devil.
She was not going to have it.
Sophronia, Grace, Mary, and Chase were standing at the screen in their nightclothes, watching aghast as Charlie staged his getaway. Sophronia crashed out the door and down the steps as Charlie rode away. “Charlie, come back! Come back before you can't come back no more!”
Alafair strode back up the porch steps. “Mary, do you figure you and the children will be all right for a spell while I go to fetch him back?”
Mary was generally a cheerful woman, but the times had blunted her sense of humor. Her expression was grim as she nodded at Alafair. “Don't worry about us, Ma. I'm just in the mood to shoot somebody. Maybe you should stop by Martha's and take Streeter with you, or maybe Walter.”
Mary was following her mother through the house as Alafair threw on a dress, retrieved a key from the top shelf of the armoire in her bedroom, and unlocked the gun cabinet in the corner of the parlor. She took down a rifle and a box of shells before heading for the back door. “I'm too far behind the lunkheaded youngster as it is, honey. No, Grace, I ain't going to shoot Charlie, howsoever much I feel like it. I have to saddle up Missy and that'll take me a fair spell to get out to the stable and all. No, Fronie, you can't help and you can't come. You neither, Chase. Y'all stay in the house. I mean it, now. Blanche, you help Mary with Judy. I'll be back as soon as I can.”
And with that she was out the back door and striding toward the barn, shaking with anger and outrage and fear that her hotheaded boy was riding into far more trouble than he knew. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a large, dark shape in the barnyard. A saddled horse, judging by the jingle of its tack. She slowed and walked toward it carefully, trying not to spook it. The animal stood where it was, its head turned in her direction, until she was close enough to see that it was Charlie's beloved white-maned roan gelding.
“Well, I'll be,” she said aloud. She knew that Charlie and the horse had their differences, so she sized up the situation quickly. “So you decided not to go along with this idiot scheme.”
The horse snorted an acknowledgement.
Alafair could have passed by the obstreperous horse and gone to the stable to saddle her own mare as she had planned. But here before her stood a fast beast all ready to go. She made up her mind in an instant and strode toward him. He shied and backed away.
“Hold still, Sweet Honey Baby,” she barked.
The roan knew better than to argue.
Alafair was too far behind Charlie to follow him by sight, and it was too dark to track him. All she knew was what he had told her. He and Henry Blackwood intended to catch the saboteur in the act, which meant he was headed for the brick plant. The plant covered eighty acres, and she had no idea where the boys planned to set up surveillance. The best she could hope for was to be able to get there before they went into hiding, or perhaps she could rouse the night watchman and alert him to what the boys were up to. If all else failed, she'd wake up Mr. Ober at his house and have Charlie and Henry arrested for trespassing.