Dry Rot

by S. L. Stoner

  him word of this meeting.”

  Sage paused, letting silence underscore the importance of what was coming. “And I know, sure as I know that rain will fall tomorrow,” Sage’s next words rolled out slowly and distinctly, “that he does not want you acting like O’Reilly here is trying to convince you to act.”

  The men shifted uneasily on their feet while Sage let those words hang in the air for a beat. When he spoke again, his voice was even softer, “A humble man, a fine human being I’ve just met, told me something that I believe speaks to this situation tonight. That humble man told me that your yearning for justice is like a song in the world. You are good men. The song that you sing is not the roar of anger or the scream of hate. Your song soars, lifted up by what you know to be right, good and just.”

  As he continued, Sage felt the words flow upward from somewhere in his solar plexus, seemingly bypassing his brain so that his ears heard them as if they were being spoken by someone other than himself.

  “Each of you began this strike with that song in your soul. You’ve lost that song. This man,” Sage jabbed a thumb toward O’Reilly, “just who is he? We barely know him. What song is he singing? I know the answer to that. You know it too, if you stop to think about the feelings his words are stirring up in your heart. It’s the screech of hate, anger and bloodlust. That’s the song O’Reilly’s singing tonight.”

  Sage glanced down at the Irishman. O’Reilly’s face blazed red and his blue eyes glared up at Sage, chilly as a snowy arctic sky. Sage looked beyond him into the strikers’ faces. “The last thing Uncle Leo wants to see through those iron bars is the sorry sight of you men being herded into the cells next to him. The last thing Leo wants is to know that your families are alone and fearing the future like his own wife and children are tonight. If that happens, he will believe that he failed, that his sacrifice and Rufus’s sacrifice, yielded only failure, destitution, and despair.”

  Sage paused before adding one more thing, a fillip of an argument calculated to dissuade any of those still inclined to raise a ruckus, “And, don’t kid yourselves. If you men turn violent like O’Reilly here wants, you might as well throw the noose around my uncle’s neck yourselves. You take to violence and the public will buy the lie that the rich folk sell—that union men are ignorant, brutal and uncivilized. And they will conclude, therefore, that my uncle is an ignorant brutal, and uncivilized man. Is his death something you want to carry on your conscience for the rest of your life?”

  He paused again to look into each man’s eyes, gratified to see realization dawning and the fevered hatred dying down. He finally looked directly at O’Reilly. Without looking away from that man’s glowering hostility, Sage said to the others with quiet firmness, “Go home, men. Go home to your families now.”

  He stepped off the chair but his eyes remained locked on O’Reilly’s even as the men shuffled out, subdued as mourners leaving a funeral. Within minutes, only he and O’Reilly remained, their eyes still locked, the only sound a distant clink as the bartender quietly stacked glasses behind his counter.

  O’Reilly’s mouth compressed into a narrow, thin-lipped, gash. “You son-of-a-bitch,” he spat out. Despite the venom in the other man’s words, Sage also detected a hint of admiration in the curse. O’Reilly paused, as if speechless in his anger, before he slapped on his hat, jerked his coat off a chair back and strode from the saloon, letting the door slam shut behind him.

  When Sage departed seconds later, a sharp, short whistle sounded from the darkness alongside the building. He moved tentatively in that direction. His Chinese protector stepped into sight and immediately back into the shadows. Sage moved to the building’s corner and listened.

  “Man staying at Mr. Fong’s provision shop is asking for you,” informed the soft, accented voice issuing from the darkness. “He say he remember something that might help.”

  s s s

  Herman Eich lay propped up on large pillows atop his cot. Spots of red stained his cheekbones, beneath eyes aglitter with fever.

  “You are not looking so good, Mr. Eich,” Sage observed.

  “It is comforting to know that what I feel happening internally is congruent with what is happening externally,” Eich responded, his voice bemused and slightly dreamy.“But before the charming Mrs. Fong’s medicine drops me back into that black nothingness, I need to tell you something.”

  Sage leaned forward, fearful that unconsciousness might claim Eich before he’d passed on his information.

  “I remember,” Eich said and closed his eyes.

  “Remember?” Sage nudged when the silence continued.

  Eich stirred, and his eyes opened. “Yes, I remember where I saw that other man, the leader at the cooperage. I first saw him the day after old man Mackey died. He looked like a man of means, not like a workingman. That is what fooled me—he was dressed different and in a totally different locale.”

  “Where? Where was it that you encountered him?” “Outside Mackey’s mansion. He stormed out the rear gate

  of Abner Mackey’s mansion. Almost knocked me over.”

  “You’re talking about that third man, the third one involved in kidnapping me?” Sage pushed.

  Eich’s eyes closed and he nodded tiredly. “Daniel, we need to . . . ,” he started to say, only to have oblivion slacken his mouth before he finished speaking his thought.

  Sage touched the rough hand of the sleeping man, “Don’t worry, Herman, we’ll look after Daniel,” he murmured.

  There was a rustle of silk and a whiff of jasmine at his side. “Please, Mr. Adair, Mr. Herman needs sleep now. He terrible sick. No getting better.”

  For the first time since arriving, Sage really looked at Fong’s wife. Deep shadows lay beneath her eyes and her ivory skin was too pale

  “You are tired, Kum Ho. You need to rest.”

  She smiled, an ironic twist to her lips.

  He interpreted the look. “My mother will come here to lend a hand as soon as possible,” he said, patting the tiny woman’s forearm.

  TWENTY THREE

  Eich’s incoherent worry about Daniel still lingered in Sage’s mind when he stepped into Mozart’s foyer shortly after the restaurant’s closure and just ahead of a heavy rainstorm. Overhead, a fresh coat of pale green paint gleamed atop the foyer’s embossed tin ceiling.

  “Wonder what he’ll be painting next?” Sage muttered to himself.

  He heard voices in the kitchen and moved toward them, hoping Fong was there with a rescued Chester in tow. No such luck.

  Fong was there, noisily slurping up a bowl of soup. Mae Clemens sat across the table from him, her work-reddened hands cupping a mug of tea, her face weary.

  “Didn’t find Chester, I take it,” Sage said as he took a chair at the table.

  “My men followed dust trail through underground until the boots go above ground, close to Mackey lumber mill.”

  “You think they’re holding him in the cooperage?”

  “No, we broke cooperage window, crawled in and looked. He not there. We think maybe they are holding him somewhere in lumber mill. My men now watch from river. Cousins tie small boats to pilings under lumber mill dock. Hard to stay in one place because water travel high and fast. One cousin is good swimmer. They throw Chester in water, cousins will fish him out.”

  Sage pictured the poor “cousins” hunkered down in their small wooden row boats, bailing with numb fingers as rain streamed down between the wharf planks. Not the safest place from which to launch a rescue. “Those are good men you have helping us out, Mr. Fong,” he said. “Please let them know of my gratitude.” Fong uncharacteristically dipped his head and pride gleamed in his dark eyes.

  Sage raked his fingers through his hair, “We better find Chester quick before those two kill him. How the heck are we going to search for him inside the lumber mill? It’s been guarded 24 hours a day since the fire.”

  “How about we make distraction for guards? Give us time to sneak inside, look around?” Fong as
ked.

  Before Sage could respond, the back door into the kitchen rattled beneath the pounding of a fist. Sage jumped up, pulled the door curtain aside and opened the door. “What’s the matter?” he asked Leo’s son who stood there, hatless and dripping wet, his dark hair plastered against his scalp.

  Sage pulled the boy inside the kitchen, where his clothes dripped water onto the linoleum. Mae silently handed the boy a clean dish towel. He took it yet failed to use it. Instead, he held it in his chilled white hand, looking at it as if he had no idea how it got there. Mae took the towel back and gently dried the boy’s face.

  Sage cleared his throat and the boy’s fearful eyes met his, “Has something happened to Leo, to your mother?” Sage asked. The boy shook his head, his eyes wide and fearful, his chest heaving from exertion or fear. “Ma said to come tell you the police raided our house. They took away something from our backyard.”

  “What was it they took away? Did you see what it was?” Sage asked, feeling apprehension scrabble up his spine like a startled squirrel up a tree.

  “I did. Some kind of can, a big one. Like a man carries kerosene in.”

  “Was it your family’s kerosene can?” Sage asked.

  “Nah. Ours is green and we keep it in the shed. This one was silver and I never seen it before.”

  “Where’d they find it in your backyard?”

  “By our back gate. I think somebody dropped it there a few hours ago because it wasn’t there when Ma sent me out to feed the chickens tonight.”

  Sage exchanged looks with Fong and Mae Clemens. Their faces showed that they also understood the implications of a strange kerosene can in Leo Lockwood’s backyard.

  “Did you hear or see anyone out back of your place tonight?” Sage asked as the shivering boy accepted a cup of hot sugared tea from Mae Clemens.

  “No. None of us heard a thing,” he said. Voice turning mournful, he asked, “This is bad for Pa, isn’t it?”

  Sage sighed. “Someone is surely doing their best to make it bad for him, Bobby. Tell you what, I may know the men who are making these bad things happen to your father.” The boy’s face brightened.

  “Tell your mother to talk with all your neighbors first thing tomorrow. See if any of them noticed someone prowling around back of your house. If someone did, ask your mother to send word to me and to your father’s lawyer, Mr. Gray. You promise me you’ll do exactly that?”

  “Maybe tomorrow, I’ll stay home from school and help her,” the boy said.

  Sage shook his head.“No, you keep up with your schooling. That’s what your father wants. Your mother is the one who needs to be asking around. She’s more likely to get people to cooperate.”

  Minutes later, the boy headed back out into the weather, a large paper-wrapped ham tucked underneath his arm.

  “Looks like Mozart’s menu’ll be a little short on ham tomorrow,” Sage teased his mother.

  She shrugged. “Let ’em eat bacon,” she said, twisting the knob on the only electric light fixture, plunging the room into darkness and forcing Fong and Sage to vacate the kitchen.

  s s s

  Sleep’s oblivion spanned only a few hours before Sage was up and dressing hurriedly. The plan was to arrive at the lumber mill just before daybreak. Sage and Fong headed for the stairs intending to slip out the restaurant’s front door until Mae stopped them. “No, you can’t go out that way. Daniel’s already down there painting and he’s going to wonder why the two of you are creeping around wearing matching black getups.”

  “Good god, Mother! Why are you telling him to start work so early?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything. He just appeared at the kitchen door. Ida was rolling out her pies and let him in.”

  “Ordinarily, charity is admirable, Mother” Sage said, “but having a stranger hanging about all the time is beginning to irritate. I wish you hadn’t given him so many paint jobs just now. It’s turning out to be more than a little inconvenient.”

  “Me?” Her voice rose with incredulity.“I’m not the one giving him the jobs. I thought you were.”

  “No, I’ve not spoken to Daniel except in greeting,” Sage said and both looked at Fong, who raised his hands and shook his head in the universal gesture of denial.

  “Not me tell him,” he said.

  For a moment, they just stared at each other until Sage shook his head wearily. “There isn’t time to discuss it now. It’s only a little while before daybreak. Let’s be on our way, we’ll figure Daniel out later.”

  He and Fong slipped down the hidden staircase to the cellar and through the tunnel into the alley. Once out and trotting down the street, Sage asked Fong, “Also, whose paying for all that paint?”

  “Maybe Mister Herman,” Fong responded.

  That makes no sense, Sage thought to himself. Anyway, inexplicable as Daniel’s presence was, now was not the time to ponder it. He snugged his collar tight against the drizzle and followed Fong’s dark, swiftly moving figure. Black clouds roiled overhead in a silvering sky. Rain began to crash down, fat cold drops rebounding upward to soak their trouser legs.

  They slipped into the lumber mill yard by climbing up from the gully. The smell of fir pitch was pungent even in the cold, damp air. Bark bits abounded, firming up the mud. Ahead, about twenty feet toward the middle of the yard, debarked logs filled the countless cradles that loomed on either side of the narrow, chip-covered pathways. The rain began to let up, the fat drops falling more and more infrequently.

  Sage jumped when Fong called out the soft “shaak, shaak” of the stellar jay. An answering jay call responded from beyond the log cradles. A rhythmic clank of metal on metal sounded at the far north end of the yard. A low guttural oath came from Sage’s right and a man stepped out of the shadows between two log cradles. Raising a whistle to his lips, he let loose a shrill blast. Two men hurried out the mill door. The three met, talked and quickly moved together toward the far end of the yard, heading away from the gully edge where Sage and Fong crouched.

  As soon as the three guards disappeared into the gloomy canyons between the log cradles, Sage and Fong hastened to the mill door. They slipped into a huge room lit by brightening skylights high above.

  The space was large and wide open. High stacks of cut lumber ranged in rows across its expanse. Apart from the splat of indifferent raindrops on the tin roof, the only other sound was a mechanized whine in the distance. It reminded Sage of a mass of buzzing insects. They stepped cautiously in that direction, each pausing only long enough to snatch up a short length of two-by-four. They moved silently across the plank floor toward a large doorway opening and into an adjoining room.

  About thirty feet away, half-hidden behind a stack of lumber, a steam-driven band saw thrummed at the far end of a moving metal conveyor belt. No log lay upon the belt as it rattled toward the band saw’s teeth. A man’s angry voice sounded over the rattle and huff of the machinery. As Sage and Fong edged closer, Sage discerned words and recognized Chester’s voice. He was cussing someone out with all the vigor of a teamster driving a balky mule.

  “You good for nothing lazy scallywags, you lily-livered spawns of Lucifer . . . ,” A flesh-smacking punch cut off Chester’s shouting.

  Using the stack of lumber as cover, Sage and Fong inched their way forward, one on either side of it. When Sage reached the stacks corner he peered around it, ready to duck out of sight if anyone faced his direction.

  Chester sat on a log round that was likely the band saw operator’s daytime perch while he waited for the next log to arrive. They’d cinched Chester’s arms behind his back and tied his ankles together. Blood trickled from the corner of his tight-lipped mouth.

  As Sage watched, one of the two men standing in front of Chester gave him a clout on the ear, shouting, “You shut your damn mouth, or I’ll feed you to that saw so slow you’ll be able to watch yourself cut in two an inch at a time.” Sage recognized the voice. It was Wheezy, from the cooperage.

  Chester remained defiant.�
��Don’t matter to me none, I’ll be dead sooner or later whether you kill me fast or slow.”

  At that moment, over the gnashing of machinery, a scream sounded that was neither human nor cat, instead falling somewhere in between. It was wild enough to lift a brave man’s hair. Fong, creating a distraction.

  Sage didn’t hesitate. As the two men whirled toward the sound of the unearthly screech, Sage glided forward, swinging his two-by-four, giving each captor a whack on the back of his head. They fell, unconscious, their only sound soft “umphs.” Turning, Sage saw that Chester was wide-eyed, his mouth agape in surprise. Seconds later he grinned and joy lit his eyes. “By golly, my eyes are telling me lies ‘cause I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Boy, am I glad . . .”