Forty Days at Kamas (22 page)

"No man wants to die for nothing. Rest assured, no matter how many days you have left in Kamas or on this earth, there is a meaning and purpose to the sacrifices that you make here every day."

We had no dinner that night. But no more complaints were heard.

C
HAPTER
19

"In Germany, they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller

SATURDAY, MARCH 30

My first day in the brickyard after returning from the isolator was probably the most miserable I had faced at Kamas. I was still shivering when I rose from bed and the shivering didn't stop until I had finished my oatmeal and three or four mugs of tea. After breakfast, we marched out to the recycling site under dark skies through driving sleet that changed to freezing rain and then to snow as a cold front blew in from the northwest. By the time we arrived for work my coveralls were sodden inside and out. I prayed for the snow to stop long enough for my body temperature to overcome the chill of the wet coveralls.

Adding to my misery was the prospect that we would receive no ration bar for our midday meal to make up for the meals we took during the strike. I did my best to disconnect my conscious mind and let my body work on autopilot. But when I did, instead of slipping into a meditative trance that made time go faster, by some paradox I found my mind focusing in minute detail on every action I took: selecting good bricks from the pile, placing them in the hod, carrying the hod to the pallet, and stacking them properly onto the pallet.

Then disturbing images that had plagued my mind in the isolator returned to haunt me. The benign visions of my wife and children returned as well, not as vividly, but close enough to shake my grasp on reality. I decided once again to drive all thoughts of my pre–arrest life out of my mind, at least for the present.

Then I remembered Gallucci's speech and resolved to find the meaning in my current situation. What was the meaning to be grasped from declaring the old Paul Wagner dead and renouncing attachments to family, place, and profession? My original grounds for such detachment had been to boost my chances for survival. But why was it necessary to detach from my life in order to save it? If, to live, it was necessary not to live, what was the meaning in that kind of life?

Once more I considered Ben Jackson's prediction that I would be out of Kamas by June and Reineke's challenge for me to escape. If there were any purpose behind my being at Kamas, this was the only one I could think of. I dropped my hod before the brick pile and prayed for the strength to make it through the day. Tomorrow was Sunday. If somehow I could only hold out until then I could spend the entire next day in my bunk getting warm again and regaining my strength. And on Monday, we would be back on full rations.

I felt someone come beside me and lay his hod on the ground alongside mine. It was D.J. Schultz. I had not seen him since leaving the isolator. It took a moment for him to recognize me.

"Hey, Paul, you don't look so hot."

"You don't look so great, either, pal."

D.J. appeared to have lost another five pounds in the week or so since we had last met. His eyes were dark and sunken, and his breath had the foul odor of decay. No trace remained of the careless, easygoing attitude that I had noticed about him on our first day in camp.

"Gary told me about your week in the isolator," he said.

I said nothing.

"Gary’s with the vigilantes, you know," D.J. continued. "He's looking for some new men to replace the ones they lost in the transfer."

"And you're thinking of joining up?" I asked.

"I don't know. A couple of weeks ago I would have said no for sure. But after talking to Gary, I'm starting to see things differently. Listen, I'm only twenty–three and, at the rate I'm going, I'm lucky if I'll last another year. I don't deserve this! Who the hell are these people that they can do this to us?"

D.J.'s eyes began to glisten.

"D.J., don't do it. No matter what the bastards have done to you, it’s not worth sinking to their level."

"Thanks for the sermon," he snapped, "but I don't feel like turning the other cheek anymore. Somebody has to stand up to these sons of bitches."

"How about Jerry Lee? Have you talked to him about it?"

"Jerry Lee says there's not a dime's worth of difference between Gary Toth and a serial killer. He won't have anything to do with the vigilantes."

D.J. looked at me with tired and angry eyes and said no more. We each filled our hods with bricks and carried them off to separate pallets.

The snow stopped and the clouds began to thin out and break up. By midday, the sun had penetrated through the cloud cover and I could feel my coveralls begin to dry. I sat alone during the lunch break, thinking about D.J. and the vigilantes. By any moral or ethical standard I knew their execution of stoolies was wrong. But from a practical viewpoint, the vigilantes were the only effective opposition that we prisoners had. Was it wrong to side with the lesser of the two evils? No, I reasoned, so long as I didn't take a hand in the bloodshed.

For the rest of the afternoon I moved slowly between brick pile and pallet with my mind far away. From time to time I looked up at the fleets of fluffy white clouds and felt deeply grateful that I had the energy to continue and that the sunshine was making me warm and dry again. When the siren blew at quitting time, I realized that no prayer had ever been answered more directly or clearly than the one I had offered at the shift's start.

That night in the dining hall the soup, bread, and weak tea were no better or worse than any other night. Yet I savored each mouthful, confident that a day of rest lay ahead of me and that I was growing stronger.

After dinner, I settled into my bunk, as weary as I had ever been at Kamas, ready to sleep all the way through until Monday. I had barely closed my eyes when I felt someone shake my shoulder. It was Ralph Knopfler.

"I saw Glenn at dinner. He'd like to see you, if you're well enough to talk."

"I'll go," I said, despite being unsure that I had the strength.

I rose and crossed the yard as the last glow of sunset faded behind the hills. When I reached Reineke's barracks he was alone in his bunk.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Paul," Reineke began, examining me closely to assess how much damage the isolator had done. "Tell me, was there ever a time in there when you thought you wouldn't make it?"

"Actually, no," I said. "I was at the end of my rope the whole time, but never quite willing to let go."

"Good for you. Some old–timers say that a man with a clear conscience has nothing to fear from the isolator. I guess that means you're an honest man."

"I had my share of nightmares," I replied.

"Knopfler told me you were pretty wobbly at work today," Reineke continued. "He said he offered you an easier job but you wouldn't take it. Listen, Paul, why don't you take Sigler's old job for a few days until you're stronger?"

"Counting pallets and spotting defects?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "You'd still have to hump bricks half the time but the rest of the day you'd just walk around with a clipboard. How about it?"

"I'll pass. I don't want to be the one to decide if somebody missed his quota. Besides, with a cushy job like that some people might think I cut a deal with the bosses."

"Not this job. Knopfler controls work team assignments, not the Wart."

"All the same, I'll take a rain check," I told him.

"If that's what you want. Anyway, I still owe you one."

I asked Reineke about the final terms on which the strike had been settled and how he thought the camp authorities might treat us in the coming weeks.

"No matter what anybody says, having two strikes within a week was a black eye for Rocco. He bet wrong when he tried to sweep the first strike under the rug. Calling for outside help with the second one must have made him look even worse. My guess is that we'll see a quiet period while he plans his next move, then he'll be back to hammer us hard."

"How about the prisoner transfer? Was it what you expected?"

"Not at all," Reineke replied. "Whiting's intelligence was terrible. He had very little idea who the hard–liners were, so he selected his transferees on the basis of who opted for jail and who didn't. The problem was that many of the guys who chose jail were actually stoolies or closet Unionists–guys who feared spending another night in the barracks. And many of the men who went back to work were actually hard–liners who would have opted for jail except that it was already full. So, in the end, we didn't lose nearly as many of our people as I expected."

"When do you expect replacements to arrive?" I asked.

"A couple hundred have already rolled in from Denver. But it may be weeks before we're back up to full strength. What we need now is more ex–military types. Men who have been trained and tested and will fight till their last breath.

"At the moment there's a Marine colonel in the camp jail who may be the kind of man we need. Until a few months ago he commanded a regiment in Texas. They arrested him along with several of his unit commanders when a squad of his men scooted across the DMZ to the Mexicans. If he's half the leader he's said to be, he could be a great asset to us. But if he's pro–Unionist underneath, he could be poison. When he gets out of the can in another week, I'd like you to get to know him and tell me what you think."

"There you go again, Glenn, trying to recruit me."

Reineke laughed.

"I'm not looking for a thumbs up or thumbs down on him. I'd just like your help in trying to figure him out. I sincerely hope Colonel Majors will turn out to be our friend."

"And if he doesn't…"

"We can't afford to be soft on Whiting's stooges. This is war."

"I'm not arguing, Glenn, but sometimes I have to wonder how much difference there is between a Gary Toth and a Jack Whiting."

"If you knew Gary better, I don't think you'd be so hard on him."

"It's not my intent to be hard on him," I insisted. "I admire Gary. Still, I find it unnerving to be around anyone who's so utterly implacable."

"Let me tell you a little story about Gary that may help you understand him. About two years ago, Gary was one of several hundred prisoners being transported up the Missouri River on a prison barge. During the night, the barge hit an underwater obstacle and began to sink in the cold water of the spring melt. Many of the prisoners were too weak to swim to shore. Gary, having been a Navy SEAL, is a powerful swimmer and saved scores of prisoners by pulling them to a boat that came to the rescue.

"But when it was his turn to get into the boat, no space was left. An old–timer who had watched Gary save the others quietly climbed overboard to give Gary his place. Before he let go of the rail he made one last request: that Gary dedicate whatever time he had left to destroying Unionism and liberating the camps. Gary gave the old man his word and has been on a holy war ever since."

I rose to leave.

"One last thing," I said. "You wouldn’t have any more writing paper, would you? I'm afraid I lost what you gave me."

"No, you didn’t," Reineke replied with a grin. "We retrieved it for you."

He returned to me the pen and paper that I had left in my bunk the morning I was sent to the isolator.

"Thanks for remembering," he said. "It'll mean a lot to her."

On the way back to the barracks, I thought about what I would say in the letter that I had promised to send to Alec Sigler’s widow. I was tired and wanted only to sleep, but it seemed wrong not to jot down a first draft before the day was over.

I took out a sheet of paper and printed the following message in block letters:

YOUR HUSBAND GAVE INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONTACTING YOU AFTER HIS DEATH. I REGRET HE IS NO LONGER ALIVE. ALL WHO KNEW HIM UNDERSTOOD THAT HE HONORED AND LOVED YOU ALWAYS. MY AIM IN WRITING IS TO GIVE YOU THIS NEWS AND TO OFFER HELP IN CONTINUING THE WORK HE SAID THE TWO OF YOU DID THROUGH YOUR LETTERS.

I WILL NOT MENTION MY NAME OR YOURS. IF YOU DESIRE TO CORRESPOND, WE SHOULD TAKE PRECAUTIONS. FIRST LET US ENCODE OUR MESSAGES USING THE BOOK CODE DESCRIBED ON THE ATTACHED SHEET. OTHER PRECAUTIONS WILL FOLLOW.

MY NEXT MESSAGE CAN BE FOUND ONE WEEK FROM NOW IN THE SAME PLACE. LEAVE YOUR NEXT MESSAGE WHERE YOU LEFT YOUR LAST. UNLESS I RECEIVE WORD FROM YOU WITHIN THREE WEEKS, I WILL ASSUME OUR CORRESPONDENCE HAS ENDED. I AWAIT YOUR DECISION.

C
HAPTER
20

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

TUESDAY, APRIL 30

I remember April in Kamas as an eerily peaceful month. We mounted no strikes. The guards shot no prisoners. And no one was transferred north. The guards and warders even used their nightsticks sparingly. But prisoners who participated in the March strikes still lived under the cloud of further transfers. And my forty–sixth birthday came and went.

As many of us had expected, the promises the camp administration had made during March went largely unfulfilled. There was no joint investigating commission, no suspension of trigger–happy guards, no compensation for victims. Work quotas remained the same despite fewer men on each team. And food rations remained as before. The only promises the Warden kept were to show movies in the yards on Sunday evenings and to permit prisoners to petition for a case review by a three–judge special hearing panel.