Sweet Thunder Page 22

  As Armbrister bleakly forecast, Butte did slow to a crawl without the rhythm of the mines in its daily life. Men whose hands knew nothing but work had to find time-killing pursuits. The public library was jammed daylong, I reported to Sandison, and I would have bet good money that Smitty and crew were telling the Highliner the same about speakeasies. Nor did it escape me that with everything shut down, a certain Neversweat powderman with a Roman profile now had nothing to do but idle around under the same boardinghouse roof as the attractive woman who was very much my wife, still. The animal.

  Even in those first days, a widespread unease, something like the brink of fever before some terrible illness, could be sensed in the conversations in the streets and the way people glanced up at the stock-still equipment of the mines and quickly down again. The pinch of lost wages had been endured before by the families of the Hill during strikes, but, according to the oldest hands on the Thunder, Armbrister profanely included, there was a feeling in the air that this time was nothing like anything before. A strike was one thing, workers withholding their labor, the only real weapon they possessed. A lockout was chillingly different. The contrast, say, between a queue waiting at the doorstep for the right invitation to come in, and a slammed and barred door. Between negotiation and coercion; between callused hand and merciless fist.

  The one bright spot on the horizon remained Miners Day, and as vowed, in my editorials I drummed away at reminding our readership that, more than ever, Butte’s own holiday must serve as the occasion to celebrate the unity of the house of labor and show the copper bosses that the spirit of ten thousand mineworkers was not broken. Take that, Cutlass. I did my best to have my typewriter keys echo the sound of a mile of men on the march, Jared’s confident goal for turnout on the great day.

  This was the hard going for my fingers, every mention of that midsummer high point of life in the proud mining community bringing such a surge of emotions in me. Two years before, watching the parade together from a private aerie and then a trolley ride to the attractions of the amusement park called Columbia Gardens had been Grace’s and my first “date,” to use that modern term for the onset of courtship, those first breathless hours of shy glances and modestly exchanged confidences.

  What a picture we made, I in my best suit and checked vest the least of it, Grace resplendently filling out an aquamarine dress with a sea shimmer to it, her hair done up in a circlet braid with a swooping ribbon-sprigged summer hat topping even the gold of that crown upon a crown—an enchanting vision time could not dim. Although it flickered the following day, when my newfound darling suffered an outbreak of second thoughts and hives. I tossed and turned all night trying to figure out who am I with when I’m with you, she’d wailed through her mask of calamine lotion while trying not to scratch. Take yesterday. One minute I’m on the arm of someone I enjoy thoroughly, and the next, you’re gambling away money like you’re feeding the chickens. Actually only a bet on Russian Famine in a footrace, which I pointed out in vain was a sure thing. Thank heavens, hives and much else had been overcome in the subsequent course of our romance, leading to matrimony and our year of wonder, of traveling the world on a cloud.

  Descending from a cloud brings an awful jolt, however, and I already was not at my best while trying to compose yet another Miners Day piece, several days into the lockout, when Armbrister came by my typewriter stand and dropped a freshly inked Post with a plop. “Take a look at this, and then slit my wrists for me.”

  I stared down at the headline shrieking across the top of the front page.

  Anaconda Takes Steps Against Miners Day Threats

  And below was worse.

  The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, citing grave threats against life and property, today announced the hiring of extra guards to be deployed around company headquarters and other properties during the forthcoming Miners Day observance. “We have reason to believe radical elements may use the parade as an occasion to incite violence,” a company spokesman declared, “making necessary certain protective steps.”

  Questioned whether the guards would be armed, the company spokesman said: “All necessary measures will be taken.”

  It went on in the same sickening way. The mayor was quoted as calling on the miners to forgo the traditional parade in this time of tension. The chief of police was quoted as warning the public at large that he did not have enough men on the force to quell major trouble if it erupted. Anaconda and its Post lackeys had not missed a trick.

  Topping it off was a front-page editorial—front-page!—by Cutlass piously expressing the hope that cooler heads would prevail on the union side, but if not, the consequences clearly would fall on those who instigated trouble. “Those who mistake the temple of prosperity for the Bastille,” the fiend wrote.

  “Cute, isn’t it,” Armbrister said dolefully over my shoulder. “Just nicely letting everybody know there’ll be goons with guns if the union doesn’t scrap the Miners Day parade.”

  The threat sent a chill cold as ice through me. “Has Jared seen—?”

  “I called him at union headquarters. He’ll be here as soon as he picks himself up off the floor.”

  It wasn’t long before we were joined by our Sisyphus of a publisher, who indeed looked as if the rock had rolled down the hill on him. Alert to trouble, the newsroom watched the three of us huddle over the flagrant Post front page spread on the desk in Armbrister’s goldfish bowl of an office.

  His voice tight, Jared began, “I’m afraid”—the first time I had ever heard that word from him, even in such a context—“they’ve got us. I can’t put our people in a fix like that, where a hothead on either side can set off a shooting war.” He looked ready to spit out something bitter, and did. “Anaconda doesn’t mind that, it would just as soon live on blood as copper.”

  “What about troops,” I reluctantly came up with, “to keep the peace?”

  Jared shook his head. “This governor won’t want to do that. He’s too new in office, and while he’s mostly with us against Anaconda, he won’t stick his neck out farther than he already has on the tax vote.” The other two of us followed his dispirited gaze back down to the threatening headline. “This raises absolute hell with us in trying to hold on against the lockout, but we’ve got to scrap the parade, I don’t see any way around it.”

  “Conniving bastards,” said Armbrister. “Bastard,” he corrected himself, for this had Cutlass written all over it in more ways than one. Dread in his every feature, he shook his head at the retreat the Thunder now had to lead. “Better get started putting the best face on it you can, Morgie, so—”

  The editor broke off, scowling as he always did at unfamiliar faces in his newsroom. “Who the hell are these, the oldest living candidates for the Lonely Hearts Club?”

  No, they were not lovelorn ancients come to place matrimonial ads, they were Hoop and Griff. Each wearing a suit and tie, like themselves a bit threadbare but serviceable, and clutching in both hands nice hats, homburgs I never would have suspected they possessed. Behaving as though they were in church, they gazed around the newsroom meekly as they padded past surprised reporters.

  Coming up to us in the editor’s office, they nodded a little greeting as if we were all in the same pew, and paused to consider, one to another.

  “You better tell them. It’s pretty much your idea.”

  “It’s just as much yours. You go ahead.”

  “No, no, be my guest.”

  “Righto. What this is”—Griff addressing the blinking trio of us—“we couldn’t help but hear the Post newsboys yelling their tonsils out about what the snakes are up to now.” He shook his head at Anaconda’s latest injustice, Hoop following suit. “We’d miss the Miners Day parade, something awful. Marching in that is the last thing we’ve got of our life on the Hill, if you know what I mean.” The seamed old face, duplicated by the work-worn one next to it, spoke memorably to that. “So Hoop and me
got to thinking, how about the Fourth of July?”

  While I was a moment behind on that, Jared looked like he’d been hit by the Book of Revelation. “The American Legion parade? Pull a fast one on Anaconda and the mayor?”

  Armbrister’s face lit up all the way to the green of his eyeshade. “Hell yes, that’s it! The Legion is always scrambling for bunches to march with them besides the DAR and the GAR and kiddies with sparklers.”

  He had scarcely finished before Jared let out a whoop that brought up heads all around the newsroom. “Not even Anaconda can let itself be known for a Fourth of July massacre,” our tactician said with a smack of his fist in his palm. “I’ll bet my bottom dollar they have to rein in any bloodthirsty goons if we’re out there strutting our stuff like true Americans.”

  By then I could see it as plainly as reveille in some grand dream, the men of the Hill stepping forth as if from some monumental shift change to form the tighter ranks of comrades in arms. Montana always rallied to the colors, famously so, contributing more than its share of manpower in time of war—there was no doubt about it, every mining neighborhood of every nationality would have veterans who were in the Great War or served in the Philippines insurrection or in Mexico against Villa. What a sight it would be, the army of the Hill stretching behind the Legionnaires in their service caps and the Grand Army of the Republic aged remnant in their Union blue and the Daughters of the American Revolution costumed as Betsy Ross in multiple. Carried away, I whapped Jared on the back hard enough to startle him. “And you, Sergeant Evans, must wear your uniform and be out front, like a good soldier.”

  Laughing, he said Rab might have to let it out a little for him, but by God, he would wear it to the fullest. Exuberance then got the best of him. “You old devils,” he seized Griff and Hoop each by a shoulder, “are going to be right there in the front rank of the honor guard.” Modest as church mice, they shuffled their feet and declared in duet that would sure take care of their wanting to march, all right.

  As publisher and editor feverishly began trading further ideas about how to turn the Fourth of July into Miners Day come early—Armbrister already was envisioning a Thunder special section headlined Butte Marches for Loyalty and Country; “Let the readers catch on, loyalty to what,” he chortled—Griff and Hoop edged toward the door, turning their hats in their hands. Before they could make their exit, I caught up with them to rid myself of the question tickling at the back of my mind. “Why are you dressed to the teeth?”

  “Oh, this.” Hoop looked down as if just noticing his suit and tie. “You explain, Griff.”

  “Sure thing. Giorgio is taking us to the matinee of the Eyetalian opera company that’s in town.”

  I had an awful premonition. “Grace—Mrs. Morgan as well?”

  “Well, yeah, sure. He’s got to invite one and all, don’t he, that’s only manners.”

  “Polly-atchy, they’re doing,” Hoop chimed in. “Something about a clown who bawls a lot. Should be better than it sounds.”

  The despicable creature Mazzini, copying me culturally as the way to the heart of my wife? What next? With an effort I got hold of myself. “Please tell her for me I love—” Sudden emotion choked me. “Just say I miss her.”

  “We’ll pass that along,” they chorused heartily. Their expressions adding, for all the good it would do.

  • • •

  At the end of that day when so much was happening, perhaps it was ordained that I would coincide at the front steps of the manse with O’Malley the postman, who’d had an abjectly apologetic air ever since the intrusion of his gun-wielding impostor. “I hope himself is on the mend,” he said anxiously while handing over a package somewhat larger and lighter than the usual book box, and I assured him Sandison’s recuperation was taking its course as well as its time.

  When I duly took the parcel in to Sandison, he lifted it with a frown. “What the blazes is this, cotton batting? I was expecting the collected Burns with Rowlandson engravings.”

  After dubiously hoisting the package a few more times and giving it another grumble or two, he got around to slitting it open. Inside was a slouch hat, the kind with the brim rakishly turned all the way up on one side. I recognized the style at once, which was not the same as grasping its significance.

  “Sandy,” I exclaimed, “you mean to tell me you were a Rough Rider?”

  “Don’t I wish,” he intoned distantly, turning the hat over in his hands. “Dora wouldn’t let me. ‘Who’s going to run the ranch if you trot off like a patriotic fool?’ she said. Good enough question. But I gave some horses, and three of my top hands signed on with Roosevelt after he begged me for some good men to take to Cuba. That damned Teddy. Hard to say no to.” Wincing, he managed to lift an arm enough to try the hat on. “Well? How’s it look?”

  “Dashing enough to conquer Cuba by itself,” I replied, not terribly far off the truth. Indeed, with it on, Montana’s Earl of Hell looked like the very manifestation of wild and woolly triumph in the Spanish-American War, the grizzled rider of the range who might have led the famous charge up San Juan Hill if Teddy Roosevelt had gotten out of the way.

  “Hah.” Trying to hide his pleasure, Sandison shucked open the envelope that had come with the apparent gift. Reading the accompanying letter, he began to laugh and gasp with pain at the same time. “Get an eyeful of this, Morgan. You never know what’ll come around the corner in this life, ay?”

  With various loops and flourishes of phrase, the missive invited none other than Samuel S. Sandison, valued patron and old pard when mounted patriots were called to the colors, to join their presence on the occasion of the twenty-second annual gathering of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry—better known as the Rough Riders—this year to be held in Butte on the Fourth of July, to serve as an honorary member of their honor guard—a bit redundant, that—and thereby ride at the head of their mounted contingent in the parade.

  “Now I do feel guilty,” I lamented after reading over his shoulder.

  “Why? You been up to something?”

  “Well, I mean, if it had not been for that shooting intended for me, you could ride with them.”

  “Where do you get your logic from, the bughouse?” he said peevishly. “I’m not an invalid, I’m merely laid up.” With a sharp grunt, he took the hat off, admired it, and clapped it back on. “Of course I’m going to ride with them. Heh. Watch and see.”

  • • •

  No amount of argument could budge him from that, and so I did the next best thing. Which was to turn it into news for the Thunder.

  Jared was back in the office the next day plotting out the paper’s parade coverage with Armbrister, Rab along probably because she could not be kept away. When I joined them and reported that, thanks to Sandison, we knew the Rough Riders were coming to town, Armbrister swore mightily before catching himself and asking Rab to excuse him all to hell. “That’s just what Cutlass needs, an excuse to ramble on about his famous dispatch from San Juan Hill and his dear old friend, Teddy Roosevelt. Front-page feature, up top of the parade coverage. That’s where I’d play it, you can damn well bet.”

  Thrown by his reaction, I lamely said, “If it helps any, Sandy was on a first-name basis with him, too. Theodore, that is.”

  Jared’s eyebrows shot up at that, while Rab looked intrigued. “You know that for a fact? How’s he ever chums with Roosevelt?” Armbrister asked doubtfully. “The Earl of Hell has never seemed to me the political type.”

  “They were, ah, lynchers together, back in their cattleman days.”

  “Oh, swell. What a perfect story peg—dishonoring a dead president on the Fourth of July. Got any more bright ideas, Morgie?”

  “Actually, I do. Sandison is going to ride at the head of the Rough Riders color guard, at their invitation—what’s wrong with a story about that?

  “String ’em Up Sam is going to lead the Rough Riders
? That’s more like it.” Armbrister had that look of reading print in the air. “‘Vigilante Rides Again with the Rough Bunch.’ Sensational!”

  I coughed. “That is a word that does not sit well with him. Were that headline to appear, he would promptly be in here chastising you, perhaps physically.”

  “Touchy about the old days of the Montana necktie, is he. All right, then—‘Pioneer Figure Saddles Up with the Rough Riders.’ We’ll run it as a parade sidebar.” The energized editor stopped suddenly. “I’ve got a better idea. Cross your fingers, everybody.” His already were, in that hex sign that signaled a hunch, and the other three of us guardedly waited for this latest brainstorm to strike.

  “Here’s what we’ll do. Stick a reporter right in there with the Rough Riders. Horseback interviews, that’s the ticket.” Again, print in the air that only an editor could see: “‘By Our Mounted Correspondent.’ Can you beat that for a byline? We’ll scoop the sonofabitching Post, right out in plain sight, and Cartwright and his crew won’t be able to do a thing about it.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jared immediately signed off on the idea, Rab clapping in approval.

  “Very enterprising,” I approved heartily. I swept a look around the newsroom for anyone who looked fit for horsemanship. “One of the young ones, I suppose. Sibley, perhaps? Or Cavaretta? He’s the daring type—”

  “Nope. You.”

  My skin prickled. I suppose I was not allergic to horses in the strictly medical sense, but the thought of parading through the city on the back of one had much the same ill effect. I tried to laugh. “Jacob, sorry, but I am not an equestrian.”