by S. L. Stoner
“I expect that after that strike, they are glad to be making the extra money, no matter what the weather or the hours. Probably ran up a passel of debt. Delayed buying their kids winter coats and boots,” Eich said. “I expect their families are knowing joy and contentment for the first time in months. And just in time for the holidays.”
“Leo hardly has time to see his wife and kids, he’s so busy. You are right, though. There’s laughter again in their homes, I’m sure.” Sage swallowed more tea, finding it cool.
“So, the city’s contracted Mackey to repair the bridges he supposedly already repaired?” Eich asked.
“Yes, another one of those hush-hush agreements. He’s footing the cost of the lumber and almost all of the labor. The city isn’t going to lose any money on the deal. Just because Mackey might be guilty doesn’t mean he’s stupid. His lawyer served him well. He’s also buying the city a brand new fire wagon. That purchase will, in all likelihood, cause The Gazette to heap fulsome praise on his head for his charitable beneficence. He’ll come out of this smelling like one of the city’s proverbial roses. What a surprise.”
“His own greedy actions cost him his beloved father, that may be punishment enough,” Eich mused. “And, redoing all the bridges will lighten his pockets considerably. So, what about the crooked city engineer? Any word on him?”
“Bittler? His house is up for sale. He departed Brother Jonas’s farm as soon as the furor died down. He and his family caught the train in Salem, heading south. Never even came back to Portland. Mackey probably found Bittler a job down there in California just to insure Bittler stays away permanently.” Sage sighed. “Feels like a lot of injustice remains securely in place.”
“Well, winning the strike is economic justice, not just for the strikers but for every other man who works construction in this city. Besides, another thing you’ve accomplished is to find yourself a metaphor for your ongoing battle.” Eich observed.
“A metaphor?” Sage asked.
“Dry rot,” Eich said, gesturing toward the window.“We humans look around and we think what we see is exactly as we see it. That it is, as it is. We think we see life’s essential characteristics, no real secrets are hidden from us. Given the ugliness of what you fight, where you travel, you know different, don’t you? You, Sage. You and your mother and Mr. Fong. The three of you dig beneath the surface. You confront the ugliness that taints the lives of both the bad and the good. You expose corruption, injustice, greed to the light and air, so society has the opportunity to cut it out. And, that is exactly what needs be done to stop dry rot, isn’t it, in both wood and in society?”
“What about the hatred, the need for revenge that I feel sometimes? Aren’t those feelings part of that ugliness, part of the rot?” Sage asked, “Seems like they tend to undercut whatever noble inclinations underlie my goal.” He looked into his cup and realized how afraid he was of hearing the answer and yet, of how much he needed to hear it.
“Revenge, hatred, jealously, anger, hmm.” Eich swallowed some tea, before saying, “I’d say that no man’s motivation can be pure all the time. We are, after all, only imperfect human beings striving for perfection. Not a single one of us ever achieves it. That’s our lot on this earth. So, yes, those emotions will always be there. Sometimes, they work to good effect. They keep our heads above the water long enough for our feet to find the bottom.”
The ragpicker’s brown eyes seemed penetrating as they searched Sage’s face and he said, “Our feet, though, must find that bottom. To continue striving for justice and humanity over the long term, our feet must rest on beliefs that are more solid, more life-affirming than either hate or revenge.” A wide smile eased Eich’s craggy face and loosened the tension. “It’s like finding a thing of beauty inside a dustbin. The discovery makes digging through the muck worthwhile.”
Sage stood, setting his mug down on the workbench, allowing his fingers to trail across a porcelain plate, the nick in its edge already filled, smoothed and ready for paint.
“I feel bad about Daniel,” he said, giving voice to painful thoughts that had been nagging at him. “I should have realized sooner what that poor man was going through.”
“That sorrow is mine also, “ Eich said, leaving the words hanging in the air for a beat before continuing, “We’ll never know if we didn’t missed saying a word or performing a deed sufficient to pull him back from the edge of that precipice. That unanswered question is a pebble we will carry in our shoe until the day we are through. At times, each of us who knew him will likely take that pebble out to sorrow over.”
Sage sighed. Maybe, if he’d lied about Abner Mackey’s innocence in the bridge rot scheme, Daniel wouldn’t have jumped. Sage sighed again. That unanswered question was more like one damn sharp rock that he’d be carrying in his shoe.
He looked at the older man and felt his guilt give way to gratitude. Eich’s acknowledgment of their shared burden somehow comforted Sage. He felt his heart edge toward making peace with the loss of that talented, devastated, young man.
Sage slapped his hat on his head. “I guess I best be going. Mother won’t be too happy if I, yet again, abandon her to handle the dinner crowd by herself.” Sage moved toward the door and Eich rose from the cot to show him out. When Sage pulled the door open, a sun break momentarily dazzled both men. The bright light magnified myriads of water droplets clinging to every blade of grass, every fir needle, every exposed limb. Sage paused, transfixed by the unexpected beauty.
Eich reached out to touch Sage’s arm, saying, “And so, we shall both continue to toil, my boy. You exposing the dry rot. Me converting bits of refuse into small pleasures for those whose lives need them most.”
Sage clasped the older man around the shoulders and squeezed before he realized he’d formed the intention. He released Eich saying, “All of which means never-ending work for both of us. Fine, impossible tasks we’ve chosen for ourselves. How long before we are both able to take a rest from confronting the infernal ugliness in human beings?” he asked, not expecting an answer.
Eich gazed out into the sparkling day and quietly recited, “Deep in the caves of the heart, far down, running underneath the outward shows of people, dwells the organic growth of God, Himself, in time.”
Sage said nothing, though his immediate rueful reaction to that optimistic view of human evolution was one of grudging acceptance. It was going to take a very long time, then. He gazed at the slanting sunbeams coaxing twists of silver mist skyward. “The organic growth of God,” he muttered. He wasn’t sure if he really understood that idea or even accepted it. Still, the words felt gentle, promising—almost a blessing. His spirits rising like the mist, Sage stepped across the threshold and into sunlight.
THE END
Historical Notes
In October 1902, a number of bridges across Portland’s ravines and swamp land began collapsing, one of them taking a fire wood wagon down with it. The city engineer, who had been also implicated in a sewer pipe fraud, was thereafter fired by the new “clean sweep” mayor. The replacement city engineer’s inspection revealed that many of the city’s bridges were unsound. The list of bridge flaws in this story is an amalgamation of that city engineer’s actual findings.
Like so many public services needing continued support, the monied interests lobbied against the taxes needed to keep them sound. In Portland, public taxes built many trestles over swamps and ravines to aid Portland’s developers as they busily extended the city’s borders by selling land and houses on the outskirts of the settlement. These bridges ended up in a deplorable state. This was because, once they’d sold all their property, those same developers successfully fought to repeal the taxes needed to maintain
the bridges. Lastly, the scam of covering over rotted bridge timbers existed but it was not necessarily the practice responsible for Portland’s October 1902 bridge collapses.
Fred T. Merrill is loosely based on the real Fred T. Merrill who made his fortune selling bicycles. He serv
ed as a city commissioner from 1900 to 1905 and was known for representing the interests of common people and for taking stands against corruption and big money interests. He did, indeed, put the “kibosh” on Standard Oil’s plans to site oil tanks on the eastside river bank across from the city’s downtown. In 1898, Merrill challenged sixteen horses to race against his bicycle, a contest that he subsequently was considered to have won. All other facts and personally traits attributed to Fred T. Merrill are fictitious.
The scene of horse riders bursting from a building and riding down strikers was taken from a real incident that took place on a date later than in this story. In July 1913, six policemen on horses rode down on women cannery workers who were striking for $1.00 per day wages. At least two of the women were sent to the hospital.
The character of Herman Eich is based on a real Herman Eich who was lovingly called the “Ragpicker Poet of Portland.” The real Herman Eich was an anarchist, ragpicker and poet who died in 1896, at a young age, while riding the rails in Idaho as a hobo.
New Odessa did exist as an utopian community in Southern Oregon, although there is no evidence tying the real Herman Eich to that early experiment in communal living. A group of Jewish idealists, originating in Odessa, Russia, traveled on foot across Panama, up the coast by steamer and then down the Willamette Valley by train. They built New Odessa between Roseburg and Grants Pass, near Glendale, Oregon. The real New Odessa lasted from 1882 to 1887 before disbanding.
After Dry Rot was written it was discovered that, in December 1902, the Portland Carpenters Union won a strike that had an eight-hour workday as one of its demands.
The struggle for the eight hour workday lasted decades. It was first achieved in 1836 by striking carpenters in Boston. Before the federal law was passed in 1938, countless workers lost their lives at rallies, strike lines and through ambush, because they were demanding an eight-hour day, forty-hour workweek. Since the early 1980s, there has been a concerted effort made by large corporations to eliminate both the eight-hour day and overtime, since they would rather work people longer than hire additional workers.
Fire and the threat it posed played an important role in Pacific Northwest history. It is rare to find an early settlement that did not experience a serious conflagration. For example, Lakeview, Oregon, lost 75% of its structures to fire in 1900.
As the labor movement grew in strength it became common for the owners to engage the services of management spies and provocateurs whenever there was a labor dispute. The Pinkerton detective agency had its beginnings in 1850. As late as 1969, Pinkerton was planting agents into Portland strike lines. For example, during a roofing company strike, one of the agency’s agents was responsible for the arrest of some strike sympathizers who were caught with Molotov cocktails in their vehicle. The Pinkerton agent walked free, even though some of the accused alleged that he’d been the one most actively promoting violence.
About the Author
S. L. Stoner is a native of the Pacific Northwest who has worked as a citizen change agent and as a labor union and civil rights attorney for many years.
Acknowledgments
I want to start by thanking the readers of this series. Their enthusiasm and support has encouraged Sage to keep adventuring and fighting the good fight.
To the extent this series accurately reflects history, that is due to those who have done their best to preserve the past. In particular, I want to thank the staff of the Oregon Historical Society and the Portland City Archives. These organizations deserve our gratitude and our support.
This book in the series received special assistance from Joel Rosenblit, Sally Frese, Helen Nickum and Denise Collins. Many heartfelt thanks to each of them, particularly Helen and Denise who read every single word with such great care and red pens in their hands. Any remaining errors are solely my own.
Family members, friends and my colleagues in the labor movement, both old and new, remain the loving foundation of this series. Fortunately, they number too many to name here without forgetting someone. It is their beauty, intelligence and humanity that lights these pages.
I visualize Herman Eich as a born teacher. I tried to convey him as possessing that mastery, passion, kindness and humility that enables him to send his teachings straight to the heart. While working on this book, I thought about the born teachers I have been privileged to know. Fortunately for me, there were many but three in particular are in my life right now and I want to acknowledge their gift to myself and to the world: Caroline Miller, Jill Khovy and Jeff Patterson.
Last and most important, the greatest credit continues to go to George Slanina, whose unwavering support, kindness, and pithy observations make this series possible.
Other Mystery Novels in the
Sage Adair Historical Mystery Series
by S. L. Stoner
Timber Beasts
A secret operative in America’s 1902 labor movement, leading a double life that balances precariously on the knife-edge of discovery, finds his mission entangled with the fate of a young man accused of murder.
Land Sharks
Two men have disappeared, sending Sage Adair on a desperate search that leads him into the Stygian blackness of Portland’s underground to confront murderous shanghaiers, a lost friendship and his own dark fears.
Sage Adair Mysteries coming soon . . .
Black Drop
Crisis always arrives in twos. Assassins plan to kill President Theodore Roosevelt and blame the labor movement. Young boys are slated for an appalling fate. If Sage Adair missteps, people will die. Panic becomes the most dangerous enemy of all in this adventure.
Request for Pre-Publication Notice
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