Blood on the Forge

by William Attaway

  Still he was glad when his half day was through.

  He would get more than his fill of action before it was over, the sheriff had told him. As yet there had been no serious trouble. A little fight at the mill gates—nothing to speak of. But things were bound to break open to hell and back. Big Mat’s only instructions were to keep the streets clear of mobs. One man standing still on the street was a mob. No telling what a man might do if he were given a chance to stand and think.

  At the mill gates Big Mat saw the signs of bloodshed. There had been a fight. Placards were broken, and there was splintered wood lying in dried blood. Those stains, now turning black, trailed away, drop by drop, as though men with bloody heads had risen off the ground and run a distance.

  A man told Big Mat what had happened.

  “Wasn’t more ’n two, three hour ago. I was jest about to git down off the trolley. I seen some guys walkin’ up and down in front of the mill gate. They was carryin’ them signs.” He pointed around the ground. “You see the way they’re broken now. Well, them mounted troopers did that. Man, it was awful! I tell you I run back in the trolley car and stayed there. Wouldn’t ’a’ been so bad, only them strikers tried to stay and talk. Called them police ‘cossacks.’ Said somethin’ ’bout havin’ the right to picket. Kept talkin’ ’bout their rights. Heads was busted like ripe cantalopes. I jest now git up nerve to come to work. Ascared them troopers might come back and think I was one o’ the union.”

  Big Mat had a chance to see some of those mounted state troopers. He was at his post along the river-front road when they came riding: two men on fine horses. They carried themselves well—straight backs and a firm seat in the saddle. In their hands were the familiar short clubs. They passed Big Mat. He saw their faces. They were hard, lean faces. These troopers were boys. They did not look as if they knew anything but pride in a uniform and a strong horse.

  An hour later those two came riding back. This time they were swinging the short clubs. Before them ran a group of strikers and their women. The mounted troopers wielded the clubs like men with scythes, felling grain. There was a fierce, almost religious ecstasy in them as they landed blow after blow. Their horses were a part of them. These beasts were trained to run down human beings. A woman who had fallen escaped the deadly hoofs, but the trooper wheeled his mount and made good at the second try. She lay on the ground grinding her hands in the dust, the better to take the pain of a broken hip.

  Big Mat found himself maneuvering with the other deputies to trap the terrified strikers. Taking his place in a half circle of men, he helped drive the bloody group into a blind alley. It was in this drive that Big Mat made complete kinship with the brutal troopers.

  It was the terror in the strikers that brought him to that final kinship. A man had tried to break through the half circle and had run full tilt into Big Mat. With one sweep of his arm he had sent the man flying back at his fellows. The man’s body had shouted its terror. People had cried out at the look on Big Mat’s face. He had always been the man to slaughter animals, and now these people became merely frightened animals. They might have been chickens. He might have gathered a bunch of them under his arm, pulled off their heads and watched them flop about the road. The absolute terror in these people made him feel like flinging himself on their backs and dragging them to the ground with his teeth.

  With the strikers huddled, sheeplike, at one end of the blind alley, the deputies had to stop fighting. Standing glaring at their victims, they were like men regretful at the finish of an orgasm. They released the women but they held the men and gave them a last word: “Go to the mill or go to jail.” Most of the strikers chose the jail, but some of the foreigners were frightened into returning to the job.

  And throughout the evening it was the same—Big Mat going from place to place, spreading terror among the passive people, giving them the ultimatum: “To work or to jail.” He was with the troopers when they rode their horses into the houses of the Slavs. He was there when a union organizer was caught and beaten. After the beating they had to look at the man’s feet to know which way the face turned. The back and front of the head had become bloody twins. Big Mat had held men and knocked their heads together. He had attacked those people who wanted nothing more than to reach their homes in safety. He had drunk out of the deputies’ bottles until he was blind with whisky and power. Like the deputies and troopers, he no longer needed reasons for aggression. Cruelty was a thing desirable in itself.

  That night the sheriff himself came and slapped Big Mat on the back. This new deputy had done well—the sheriff made that clear.

  “Gonna put you on full time,” he said. “You got talents for this here business.”

  Big Mat had learned something else from the troopers—he made a clumsy salute.

  The sheriff laughed.

  From someplace in the night came the call: “Riot! . . . Ho-o-o! Riot!”

  Big Mat started forward. His eyes were shining and eager. He pulled the sheriff several feet before he felt the detaining hand on his arm.

  “Damn!” cried the sheriff. This big black man made him a little nervous. The muscles under his touch were electric. “Let them guys handle their own trouble. I got somethin’ else for you.”

  And Big Mat had his head turned regretfully toward the sounds of struggle and flight.

  “What you want me to do?”

  “First you better git a bite to eat,” said the sheriff. “You been on all day.”

  “Ain’t hungry,” said Big Mat.

  “All the same, you eat,” commanded the sheriff. “I’m the guy in charge here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You come right back though.” He poked Big Mat in the ribs and spoke in a whisper. “Tonight we goin’ to raid the union headquarters.”

  Big Mat started for home but he was not going to eat. This night he would have it out with Anna. He had handled people, and they feared him. Their fear had made him whole. Now he would go to Anna a whole man. She would fear him too. Now all of the doubt and indecision of the past seemed a ridiculous thing. Now he had a new slant on life. At one time he had wondered why men were violent against him. Now he knew that in this world it was kick or be kicked. From this moment on he would be the kicker. Anna should know that he was a new man. She should know that he was a boss.

  A memory came to him of Kentucky and old Mr Johnston. If there had been humor in Big Mat he might have laughed out loud. What would Mr Johnston, the master of plantations, say about all this? What would he think of his former debt slave now? And the riding boss—he should stand for a moment here in Big Mat’s path. It would be the same as their last meeting. And Big Mat would not run in fear this time.

  But there was no Mr Johnston now, and the riding boss was far away. He felt a keen regret.

  Melody sat very still at the bottom of the ash pile and watched Big Mat go to the house. There would be no opportunity to see Anna alone now, he thought. He got to his feet and dusted the ashes out of his clothes. He wiped his sweat-and-dust-caked face on the tail of his shirt. Then he walked to the door. It would only take a minute to say what he had to say. Perhaps that minute would come if he waited.

  Big Mat was washing his hands in kerosene. Already he had dipped them five times in the kerosene. It seemed to him that they needed no more of that washing, but yet he was not satisfied. From under heavy brows he looked up at Melody. He was annoyed that his brother had come in.

  “Hallo,” mumbled Melody.

  “’Lo,” he answered.

  Melody’s eyes steadied. There was Anna at the stove, dressed as though she were figuring on going someplace. A ribbon held her hair straight down her back. She had on a pink beaded dress and new rhinestone shoes. When she moved in front of the stove the beads glittered and clicked and light struck, matchlike, on the rhinestones. It would have been good to see if he hadn’t been so full of what he wanted to say.

  When he spoke to her she did not bother to answer or turn.

  “T
hought China was with you,” said Big Mat.

  “Left him at the place,” he told him. “China all right.”

  He sat down on the cot to wait, keeping Anna in his eye. There was the sound of Big Mat scrubbing at his hands. The splashing of the kerosene sounded loud in the room. Then Melody began to feel the pain of the cut across his ankle. But he fixed his mind in a vise and did not look down.

  Years passed before Big Mat washed his hands in water and rubbed them dry on the seat of his pants. Then he started out the back door, unbuttoning his overalls.

  Melody held himself tense, straining to hear the creak of the outhouse door. When it came he sprang to his feet. The cot bounced off the floor.

  Anna whirled around. There was a strained look about her. Fright was in her eyes.

  “What—?” she began.

  “Rosie told me,” he whispered. “Rosie told me.”

  She edged sidewise until the table was between them.

  “Rosie told me,” he whispered again.

  “You are sick?” Her nervous eyes kept flickering at something underneath the cot. “It is the heat.”

  “You was out whorin’.” He came toward her. “Rosie told me.”

  “Oh?” She seemed relieved—as though she had been afraid he was going to say something else.

  “Say it’s a lie,” he pleaded.

  Turning her back, she moved her hands among the pots.

  “I ain’t carin’ what happened,” he said. “I want you to say it’s a lie.”

  Over her shoulder she looked at him queerly.

  She said, “It’s a lie.”

  “Naw, it ain’t! Naw, it ain’t!” he cried.

  “Quiet! Mat will hear,” she cautioned.

  He tried to take hold of her. The things he wanted to say came out in a rush.

  “Look, I know why you done it. You ain’t doin’ no good with Big Mat. It’s made you crazy like him and me.”

  She struggled out of his hands, rocking the lighted lamp on the table.

  “I talk to you tomorrow,” she whispered. “Mat come back now.”

  He stood stock-still, his head inclined toward the back door. No sound but the wind and the mills. Quickly he voiced the thought that had come to him back there in the little room above the dry-goods store.

  “Let’s you and me run off—go someplace where Big Mat won’t never find us. I git me a job and make money. I git you ever’thin’ you want. You won’t need nobody else but me.”

  He would have gone on talking, but she broke in:

  “I see you tomorrow.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “Not now. You wait.”

  “I can’t wait around no more,” he cried. “I got to know now.”

  “Go away,” she said. Then she tried to soften those words. “Tomorrow maybe I say yes.”

  He knew she was just playing along with him. The blood pounded behind his eyes.

  “You got to go. I fix it so you can’t stay here. I tell Big Mat you was out hustlin’.”

  “Pah!” She dry-spit at his feet. “I am sick of you. You talk big but do nothin’. You break wind with your mouth.”

  “I tell Big Mat.”

  “It is like when I first see you. Nothin’ but dreams come out of your head. You are not man.”

  “You lay down with me once,” he told her.

  “I never tell I lay with you,” she said, “because you are nothin’ but sissy feller who like woman.”

  Then he forgot to keep his voice lowered.

  “I tell Big Mat,” he cried out. His own voice froze him.

  In the silence the heavy step at the back door was another loud noise. Big Mat stood there.

  He said, “Tell me what?”

  Melody could not make a sound, could not move away from the table. Big Mat went to Anna and stood over her.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Some girl say——” Her voice broke. “He tell big lie,” she said, pointing at Melody.

  Big Mat motioned for her to keep talking.

  “He say I meet feller in house,” she finished.

  Big Mat turned. What Melody saw in his brother frightened him.

  “Rosie say it. It was Rosie,” he blurted out.

  The flat of Mat’s hand across her face was like a butcher slapping wet meat. She sat down heavily on the floor.

  “That what been the matter,” he said. “I knowed it.”

  She did not try to lie. Drawing her legs under her, she sat there. Her eyes seemed to say, “What has to happen has to happen. I can’t do any more.”

  “That’s how come you don’t lay with me no more,” he said. “Your mind on somebody else.”

  She would not look up at him.

  “Who this other guy?” cried Big Mat.

  Anna did not answer.

  For a second he stood there at a loss. Then he hooked a hand under one of her armpits and jerked her upright. She hung on his hand like a rag doll, one shoulder high, one toe touching the floor. Now he thundered with the full strength of his body:

  “Who he?”

  Her head flopped to one side. It seemed as though she were looking straight at Melody. Again he was frightened for himself.

  “Mat kill any creeper,” his voice pleaded.

  “Who he?” thundered Big Mat. It would have been impossible not to answer him.

  She spoke slowly. “Two, three weeks I go out to house. I lay with any feller got money. I don’t ask no feller no name.”

  Melody sank back across the table.

  Big Mat was unbuckling the heavy leather around his waist. That belt was two inches wide. His name was fixed with brass studs in the leather.

  “Mat, what you fixin’ to do?” But even as he spoke Melody knew.

  Big Mat spoke to Anna.

  “You ain’t gonna look good to the next guy.” The heavy leather was running through his fingers.

  Melody tried to close his eyes.

  Anna screamed, “Kill me! It is the only way I stay here.” Then she jerked away and ran to the cot. Fishing under it, she pulled out a paper suitcase. “See—tomorrow you would come here, and I am far away.” The lock sprung, and her clothes tumbled out on the floor.

  Big Mat started toward her.

  “You think I lay with lotsa feller because I whore?” she cried.

  The brass-studded belt dangled ready in his hand.

  “You think I like these feller?” Her nervous fingers were working her dress around straight.

  His arm came back until the shoulder muscles bunched.

  “No, I do it for money to go from peon like you!” she screamed. “In Mexico peon on ground. Here peon work in mill.”

  Big Mat’s muscles knotted, and the belt snapped down. A shoulder strap of the beaded dress parted under the leather. Beads fell to the floor like rain on a tin roof.

  “You are a peon,” she kept on. “I will not live with peon.” Her body shook as the belt dragged across it. She was out of her senses, the way she kept talking. “You are not Americano. Americano live in big house back in hills.” The crack of the whip made little stops in among her tumbling words. “Americano have big car.” She went to her knees under the wild lash. “They are not peon like you.”

  The heavy sweat misted off of Big Mat’s face when his head jerked under the force of the blows. His shirt was like black skin.

  Outside, from the road, a high voice began to scream, “Bloody murder!” It sounded like Sugar Mama. Nobody else could scream like that without seeming to pause for breath. The voice outside grew wilder and wilder every minute, but nobody came in to stop Big Mat. Folks in this part of town would go into their houses and close the doors when trouble started.

  Through the noise from outside Melody could barely hear Anna.

  “You are dirt—goat dropping—not Black Irish—black peon.”

  Big Mat went hog wild and laid the belt across her face.

  Back in Kentucky the kids had sung, “Nigger, nigger never die, black fac
e and shiny eye.” Those words turned over and over in Melody’s head.

  Anna had buried her face in her arms, but he brought the belt up from the floor. Still she was trying to keep on talking. Her words turned into blood bubbles.

  There was shadow in that house, but Melody could see the welts grow, the belt falling again to leave them gray, the little ragged lines of red running into the dress bunched at her waist. Blood sickness swam through him. He closed his eyes and used his arms to shut out sound. But a little bile slid between his shut teeth. For a long time he waited. Then at last the bang of the door came to his closed ears. He looked up.

  Big Mat had gone suddenly. Anna was a figure crouched head to knees. She was dead looking. Melody’s mind fastened on little things: the lamplight, the beads on the floor, the rhinestone shoes. In the lamplight the beads and rhinestones were picked with red. Red curls of skin covered her naked back. Except where her hair made a black covering for her face she might have been sprinkled with beads and rhinestones.

  He sat still, not moving when Sugar Mama came like a furtive dog into the house. He watched Sugar Mama lift the girl’s head. There was no passion in the cut face. Sugar Mama worked quickly. She went to the shelf and got the lard can. She began to spread the lard across the whip cuts. All the time she kept her big dog’s eyes rolling toward the door, as though fearful of Big Mat’s return. She did not wait to do much more. A light coat thrown over the larded back, the suitcase and a pair of shoes, and she was taking Anna out through the doorway.

  Melody did not call out or try to follow them. Like a man in a dream, his attention was compelled by two bright objects in the center of the room. They were the rhinestone shoes. Anna had gone away and left the shoes with high heels behind. They held his eyes and mind. In a strange way they were conclusive.

  Big Mat ran from the house, dragging the red-stained belt. He was still in his madness, not daring to relax. Relaxation would have brought the truth to him, and he did not want to know the truth. He did not want to know that Anna had beaten him finally, that all of his new-found power had been useless against her will. So he hurried along the road, keeping his madness red in his mind by repeating a word to himself:

  “Peon . . . peon . . . peon . . .”