by Denise Dietz
Aunt Elizabeth responded with a food donation, transported by rail. Her father sent a telegram, insisting she return home at once.
Kate’s red shawl became a camp banner. She found she had an instinct for nursing. She lost count of the number of babies she had delivered. “Do you hear the children groaning, Colorado?” she’d cry, slapping the backside of a newborn.
* * * * *
February fourteenth. Kate took the train to Denver and arranged a secret meeting with Alan Tassler at a Market Street coffeehouse.
He almost didn’t recognize her.
She had always been slender, but now her body was as thin as six o’clock. Dark bruises of exhaustion above her sharply etched cheekbones emphasized the blue of her eyes. She had cut, no, chopped her hair, and the uneven strands curled above her collar. She drank three cups of nutmeg-flavored coffee, and gave him a blissful smile.
Alan had meant to hand over the contributions and leave straightaway. Instead, he found himself ordering more coffee, a wedge of pungent cheese, and a loaf of fresh-baked pumpernickel.
“Your father,” he said, “is in a rage.”
“I expect that’s true,” she replied as though commenting on the weather. “I’m surprised he didn’t barge into the camp and kidnap me.”
“Are you serious, Katie? We’ve heard you’re well armed, especially the Greeks. Don McGregor writes that most Greeks are veterans of the Balkan Wars, young and tough and itching for a fight. My father wouldn’t step foot in Ludlow, and neither would yours. Ned wavers between damning you and insisting you were coerced.”
“I volunteered freely.”
“Honey, it’s not too late. Ned would take you back with open arms.”
“It’s much too late. Mike and I were married on Christmas day.” Her eyes brightened then dimmed. “The camp needs food and clothing.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you. Babies are starving.” Her expression changed again, but this time her eyes were unfathomable, as if they hid behind a theater’s scrim. “The miners’ wives,” she said, “used to scrub floors in the superintendents’ homes so their husbands would get a good room to mine. Women would scrub, bent over like dogs, while their own floors were carpeted with coal dust.”
“Maybe if you talked to your father, Katie. You’ve always been able to influence him.”
Her lips turned up in a tight smile. “I went to the house this morning, but Father wouldn’t let me in. Dorothy said she’d gather some clothes and leave them outside, especially underwear. God, I need underwear. Cook promised she’d put together a sack of barbecued spareribs and artichokes stuffed with peas and ham. Artichokes, Alan, when hungry children with runny noses choke on their own phlegm.” She sighed. “We need medical supplies very badly.”
“I’ll collect food and medicine and leave the baskets inside the gazebo.”
“Thank you.” She wove slender fingers through her cropped hair then smiled wistfully. “May I have another piece of bread?”
Once I believed myself in love with Katie, thought Alan, and I suppose I still am. Hot damn! She’s married to Mike. We’re related. Wait till I tell Rosalind. She’ll pee her drawers.
* * * * *
On Thursday evening, March thirty-first, Ned Lytton lit a cigar. Then he belatedly offered one to his guest, Randolph Tassler.
“Are you aware that Alan’s providing the insurgents with food and clothing, Tassler?”
“Of course. It’s a small rebellion, Lytton, and can’t compare to your daughter living at the camp. She even married Mike Loutra, a union leader.”
“Isn’t Loutra your cousin?” Ned replenished his drink from a decanter atop the music room’s sideboard. “They probably had a Greek wedding ceremony. I can’t believe it’s legal. Loutra poisoned Katie’s mind against her family, pulled the wool over her eyes. They share a tent. My daughter’s a decent girl, so he had to marry her.”
“Look, I didn’t request this meeting to discuss Alan or Kate. I came to enlist your aid in a noble cause.”
“Johanna handles our charitable contributions.”
“I didn’t say charity. I said noble cause. Last month Governor Ammons withdrew all but two hundred troops from the strike zone. General Chase, Pat Hamrock, and Karl Linderfelt still remain, thank God. Chase lives like a warlord, so he’s loyal to management.”
“He should be. He gets four hundred a month, plus one hundred seventy-five dollars per week for ‘expenses.’ ”
Tassler relit his cigar. “Chase told the governor that his soldiers would welcome an opportunity to demonstrate their efficiency.”
“Bull! I’ve heard the men play baseball with the strikers, and some helped shovel snow after December’s blizzard.”
“That was then. This is now. The ‘college boys’ have completed their tour of duty and Ammons turned the strike over to local authorities.”
Ned drained his drink. “I’m pleased Major Hamrock’s still involved. He’s experienced, fought wars for the suppression of lesser breeds. He fought at Wounded Knee and—”
“That’s my point. We’re in a war and we have to fight fire with fire. I’ve talked to the other Mine Owners Association members and they agree.”
“Agree to what?”
“The formation of a new company, armed and drilled by military officials who will be subject to the orders of the county sheriff.”
“Who is subject to our orders.”
“Exactly. Since these selfless volunteers will draw no pay from the state, I’ve been authorized to tap the resources of other men in authority.” Tassler reached for a crystal ashtray and snuffed out his cigar. “How much will you contribute?”
“How much do you need?”
Tassler named an amount.
Ned felt his face flush, but he attempted to hide his agitation by refilling his glass. “My funds are spread a bit thin right now. Recent business slumps and stock market panics. You know how it is. Edward’s in New York getting our business affairs in order, but I expect him back shortly. Will you stay for dinner, Randolph?”
“No. I have other appointments. With men of influence. Thank you for your time.”
I can ask Johanna to dip into her trust fund, thought Ned. If the strikers are defeated and that damn tent colony destroyed, Katie will have to come back home.
After his initial anger, Ned found that he missed his daughter. He regretted his hasty decision during her one visit. He should have let her enter, convinced her to stay, on hands and knees if necessary. His beautiful Katie, living in a tent, consorting with immigrant scum. The battle against the union had become very personal. How could he not contribute to Tassler’s noble cause? Furthermore, Randolph’s tone of voice had been condescending. As though he, Ned Lytton, had no more importance than one of Johanna’s damned poodles.
“I’ll deliver the money in three days. Is that soon enough?” Ned gestured toward the sideboard. “Would you care to join me in a toast? Celebrate our victory?”
“I don’t imbibe spirits, Lytton. Drink is the devil’s brew.”
Twenty-Two
The long winter finally ended. April arrived and a bright sun melted the tent colony’s few remaining patches of snow. Freshly washed clothes swayed in the breeze, a chorus line of headless dancers on an outdoor stage.
Saturday, April eighteenth. John D. Rockefeller was at Pocantico Hills, perfecting his golf swing, putting and driving balls for the amusement of his grandchildren.
In Denver, Ned Lytton hosted a birthday party for his eight-year-old son, Edward Steven. There were pony rides and performing clowns and a layered cake that Cook vowed was as high and fussy as the Majestic building on Sixteenth Street.
Sunday, April nineteenth. The Ludlow Greeks celebrated Easter. Determined to have a finer holiday than the American Catholics, they put a lamb on the fire and purchased two barrels of beer. They even gave some of their women outlandishly American sports bloomers.
Garbed in his native Cret
an vrakes, Mike basted the lamb while Kate and other newly bloomered women played a baseball game on the diamond across the road. Four militiamen arrived, one mounted on a black horse. They had rifles. Soldiers often came to watch the ball games, but they’d never brought guns before.
Trouble, thought Kate.
Her friend, Pearl Jolly, turned to the soldiers and said, “If we women would start after you with BB guns, you’d drop your rifles and run.”
“Never mind, girlie,” said the man on the horse. “You have your big Sunday today, and tomorrow we’ll get the roast.” He beckoned to the other soldiers and they left the field, heading toward their own campsite.
Kate felt her tense muscles loosen. Threats on both sides were so common. She determined to enjoy the celebration.
Following the singing and dancing, she and Mike shared a warm glass of beer in the privacy of their tent.
“As a child I stood under the dome of a Byzantine church,” Mike said. “I held an unlit candle in my hand and stared at the face of Christ, painted in the dome. Soon the candles were lit, one after another. I lit mine. People lifted the empty winding-sheet above them and carried it round the church.”
Kate smiled. “I once said you painted pictures with words. I hope our children will do the same.”
“Children? Katie, are you—”
“No, Mike. I’m not pregnant. But if I were, it wouldn’t change anything. Someday we’ll buy a house with trees in the front and backyard. We’ll have a Saint Bernard puppy, like Mrs. Bebout’s dog. Our children will be well-fed and they’ll sing ‘Ring-a-Rosy’ rather than ‘The Union Forever.’ ”
“Is that all you want, my darling?”
“I want you to love me—now, tomorrow, forever. Aren’t you going to kiss me? Or do I have to throw myself into your arms?”
Mike took off her bloomers and shed his vrakes. “I wish I were a little bar of soap,” he sang, as Kate urged his entry, meeting his thrusts with a savage, almost tempestuous response. Behind her closed eyelids, she saw Mike’s childhood vision—hundreds of lit candles. She heard the swelling anthem of resurrection and added her voice.
The next morning Mike was gone, having penciled a note about joining John Lawson in the nearby town of Trinidad. New strategies to end the never-ending strike, thought Kate.
She really should visit Denver again. Fight her way into the house. Kneel at her father’s feet and—he’d never listen. Father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and Klan constituents wouldn’t embrace the plight of immigrant strikers. They’d just as soon see the colony go up in smoke.
What about Grandfather? Although no longer religiously affiliated, his Quaker roots were planted deep. He had spent the last few months in New York but he could have returned by now.
She shrugged her body into a white dress from Dorothy’s February bundle then brushed her cropped hair, which she had cut with a blunt pair of scissors. Short, it took less time to neaten and stayed a lot cleaner. “Do I look like a boy?” she’d asked Mike, after the deed was done.
“My darling,” he had replied, “nothing on earth could make you look like a boy.”
Just the same, her breasts had flattened to pancakes.
Since it was Monday, she decided to add her few dirty clothes to Maggie Dominiske’s. Maggie washed clothes on Monday, probably had water heating atop the cookstove this very minute.
Stepping outside her tent, Kate saw Maggie standing next to Pearl Jolly and Louis Tikas. Tikas was Greek, a friend of Mike’s, and one of the camp leaders.
In front of Tikas stood a soldier named Patton—Corporal Patton, Kate remembered—and three of the men who had witnessed yesterday’s ball game.
“All right,” said Patton. “We’ll be back.” The soldiers turned toward the militia tents.
Tikas walked away, his puttee trousers and knee-length boots retreating down the row. A pair of field glasses, strapped to his left shoulder, bounced with his hurried movements. A slouch-brimmed hat fell to the dirt but he never broke stride.
“What’s happening?” Tossing her laundry back inside the tent, Kate walked toward Pearl and Maggie.
“It’s crazy.” Pearl wrung her hands. “An old Italian woman says her husband is being held by strikers against his will. Patton insists we release him or the soldiers will inspect our tents.”
“Oh, no! It has to be an excuse to tear up the camp and search for weapons. Is that why Louis looked so nervous?”
“He’s afraid he won’t be able to hold his Greeks back this time. Where’s Mike?”
Kate inhaled her reply with a gasp. She had noticed sudden motion on the Colorado and Southeastern railroad tracks. All down the tracks stood militiamen with rifles. Trouble, she thought. I had a feeling yesterday, a sense of inevitability.
Aloud she said, “Mike’s with Lawson. Where did Louis go?” She gestured toward the tracks. “Shouldn’t we find him?”
Mary Petrucci, who had joined them, said that Tikas was heading for the depot to meet with Major Pat Hamrock.
Kate heard music. A few of the Greeks were still celebrating Easter with a mandolin, flute, and some kind of violin. Shading her eyes from the sun, she walked to the front of the colony and looked toward Water Tank Hill, where soldiers were fixing breastworks around two machine guns.
The camp’s background music abruptly ceased; the Greeks had seen the machine guns, too. Quickly they gathered their weapons and set out for the railroad cut east of the colony, where there was good cover in a field of weeds growing out of sand banks.
Linderfelt’s soldiers on Water Tank Hill shouted to their leader, pleading for the order to fire. Tikas raced toward his tents, waving a handkerchief, screaming for his men to return. They ignored him.
Kate was watching Tikas when she heard gunshots.
Who shot first? Does it really matter?
Women and children stood in the open, exposed. Kate ran toward them. “Get inside the tents!” she screamed, when suddenly there was a tremendous explosion. Dear God! The militia had planted sticks of dynamite inside the colony. When? Last night, of course, during the Easter celebration.
The earth rumbled and shook over and over again—more dynamite, detonated from a safe distance behind the militia tents. People scattered in all directions, like pocket gophers flushed from their holes.
“The tents!” Kate yelled. “Everybody crouch down inside the tents, or hide in the pits we dug. Take whatever food and water you can carry, but hurry!”
Howling dogs added to the racket. Bullets shredded canvas and ricocheted off heavy iron stoves.
“Here, Katie, take these.” Pearl handed over two armbands, each embroidered with a red cross.
Kate attached the bands around the sleeves of her white dress, but gunfire dogged her heels as she searched for the wounded.
Reaching her own tent, she found five men, very much alive, stretched out on the floor. The men included Tikas, who was telephoning Trinidad for reinforcements. “Looks like we’re due to be here a while,” he said, “and we haven’t eaten anything since last night. Have you got the fixings for sandwiches, Katie?”
Sandwiches? During an assault by machine guns? Yet people had to eat, she supposed, happy that Louis had directed her to perform such a mundane chore in the midst of all this madness.
“I think we have some leftover lamb.” She suddenly realized the tent flaps were tied back and the militia could see her reflection in the mirror. She dropped to the floor, just as gunfire pierced the tent and the mirror shattered.
Avoiding shards of broken glass, she crawled toward the tiny icebox, stood up, and made sandwiches. While delivering them to the other side of the tent, she was spotted, and again the shooting commenced.
“For God’s sake, stay away!” screamed one man. “You’re a hoodoo!”
“It’s the white dress and red crosses, Katie,” said Maggie’s husband Joe. “Makes you a perfect target.” He tossed her a pair of overalls and one of Mike’s blue work shirts from the pile of
neglected laundry. “Put these over your dress and get rid of those damn crosses.”
* * * * *
John Lawson responded to Louis Tikas’s phone message by ordering his aides to enlist every man available into a relief army. Seated inside the union’s familiar red touring auto, he drove toward Ludlow. Along the way, he dropped Mike Loutra off to recruit volunteers at Suffield, six miles from Trinidad.
“Promise me you’ll keep an eye on Katie,” Mike pleaded. “Sometimes her stubbornness outweighs her fear.”
Lawson ran into gunfire south of Ludlow, forcing a detour east and north across open prairie. He parked and proceeded on foot along the arroyo, unable to move any closer than the steel bridge where Louis Tikas waited.
“It’s not good, John,” said Tikas. “We can’t get medical attention for the wounded. A doctor made it inside the camp and crawled to the well when told that there were badly hurt women and children hiding. Once down there with them, he was trapped by cross fire above the entrance.”
“Can’t we eliminate the damned machine guns?”
“Impossible. Linderfelt marched some of his men north along the tracks to the railroad depot. They hid around buildings or behind lumber piles, attacked the easterly flats, and dislodged strikers from the sand cut. That left machine guns free to rake the camp, practically unopposed. I’m worried about the women and children. Several are in the tent pits, but they can’t climb out to get food or water. We tried a white flag but the soldiers ignored us, just like they ignored the red crosses on Katie Loutra and Pearl Jolly, who simply wanted to help the wounded. It’s chaos, John, utter chaos.”
“We’re bringing reinforcements.”
“So are they. Right now we outnumber them, but they have superior weapons.”
“Tell the men to hold out, Louis. Tell them I’ve gone to notify the governor and bring a relief force. One other thing. Make sure Katie Loutra is out of harm’s way. I promised Mike.”