I feel bad about seeing their feet all cut to hamburger meat, but just the same I take hold of Frankie’s thin shoulder and pull him over close to me.
I cup a whisper in his ear. “Frankie,” I tell him. “No matter what happens in this here camp, ya make sure to keep a good eye on yer brogans.”
The head union man for the camp is Lefty Jankowsky’s brother Stiney, but one of them sad fellas loafing round the cook fire says he ain’t due to come back till later tonight, so me and Frankie drop down onto one of them logs to wait.
Setting there round the fire with Frankie, I give them Tent City folks a second look and I recognize more and more of them. The Stankevichs what used to live over Third Street and the Kietas from the top of Ash Alley and maybe half them Marcinkos from down Third Street, they’re all camped out in the couple of wartime tents with one cow and probably two dozen thin kids between ’em. When I’m scouring faces back away from the side of the fire, looking for some of the trapper boys I used to know from 40 mine, I spy out one of the girls I seen down at the platform during the 40 station riot.
She’s stomping outta one of the lean-to’s wearing a house dress that must be her ma’s, cause it hangs off her like a pair of curtains. Her hair’s white blond and straight as a ruler. She’s maybe an inch taller than me with full lips. Her eyes are ice water blue, set in a hard kind of way like Buzzy’s. She’s carrying a coffee pot full of water, and she pushes folks outta her way to get up close to the cook fire.
“Hey there,” I says to her. “I’m Chet and this here is my brother Frankie. We just got here today.”
“Hey yerself, trapper boy” she scowls. “I know who ya are.”
Even scowling like a pit boss, she’s the prettiest girl I ever seen. I watch her rake a bed of coals level and set her coffee pot down in the corner of the cook fire. When she gets it fixed in there pretty good, she backs up and sets down on the log across the fire from Frankie. She crosses her legs under that big ol dress and looks off into the trees.
“It was yer brother got shot out in front of the Polish church by the Pinkerton boss,” she says to me.
“McMullen,” I says. “That was the bastard shot him down.”
“Fella like yer brother,” she says. “Wuz only a matter a time ’fore somebody did.”
I spring up off of my log, and pretty girl or no, I’m getting ready to take a poke and set her straight. But her pa comes hoofing it over from the other side of the fire. He’s big as a draft horse with a voice to match. He yells at her to apologize for saying that to me.
“He can go to hell,” she tells her pa. “You can slide along right behind him if ya think that any Pistakowski’s gonna be getting an apology off the likes of me.”
I can’t believe that this girl is talking to her pa like that. Then I watch her snatch up the coffee pot quick as lightning and for a second, I think I’m gonna get a face full. But she just makes a show of dropping it straight onto the ground, then stomps off back to the lean-to she come outta before.
“I’m sorry ’bout what happened to yer brother,” her pa says to me after we set there for a minute.
He picks the coffee pot up outta the dirt and gives it a little dustoff.
I grab Frankie by the hand to start back to where our ma’s unloading the wagon, but this girl’s pa is an awful big fella. He takes a steady grip on my shoulder, holding me so I can’t go nowhere.
“Pauline’s Aunt Sis was one of them got trampled down the 40 station rushing to get clear of the Pinkertons. Pauline watched her get both her arms broke,” he says. “I believe Pauline holds Buzzy some at fault.”
“My brother’s dead.”
“I know he is,” he says to me. “And that ain’t right either.”
Pauline’s pa stands there for a long minute before he goes on, like he’s figuring whether to say any more. Finally, he says, “I know it’s hard, but you gotta understand a lotta people knew what yer brother was like. The things he done. It ain’t easy to let go of that. For a lot of folks, the trouble-makers on our side ain’t much less to blame for what’s happening than the guards theirselves.”
When he’s done talking, he eases up on me so I can walk off if I like. But I stand my ground. I let go of Frankie’s hand and turn and look up his thick chest and broad shoulders and heavy neck, straight up into in his eye. I look at him close and serious and trying to make it sound as much man to man as I can, I tell him that it’s a pity what happened to folks down the station.
“A damn shame,” I says. “I’m sorry for any part Buzzy had to do with it.”
Pauline’s pa yanks the lid off the coffee pot and gives it a little sniff. For a second, he looks off into the thinned out stand of trees, staring like maybe he’s seeing something I can’t, something that ain’t even there. He shakes his head and says to me that he knows who’s liable for what went on down the station.
“Them Pinkertons,” he says, “they planned to give it to us whether or not Buzzy was even there.”
There’s a funny little moment of quiet and then Pauline’s pa sticks out his big hand. He tells me that his name is Mr. Paul Obanek and asks me if I wanna have some of his coffee. I let him give my hand a pump with that big calloused mitt of his and say okay. He gets me a blue tinwork miner’s cup outta his lean-to. He pours me a dose and we set down on the log on the other side of the fire to get outta the smoke cause the wind’s changed and now it’s blowing in from the other way.
I ask Mr. Paul how long he been in this Tent City and he says they been camped since right after the strike got started up. He spins it out for me how he used to be fire boss out Eureka 35, but when the union started coming around signing fellas up, he didn’t call them out and so the seam boss kicked him back down to loader. When the strike come down he was one of the first to get served up his papers. Him and Pauline camped out in the 35 copses for a bit with some other fellas, but couldn’t find no place down there them Pinkertons wouldn’t come riding through at night looking to pull down their tents and threaten to cart them off to the jailhouse.
Hearing all this, I’m fair impressed, cause being fire boss is a big-time job. A man gotta know a damn lot to be fire boss anywhere and Eureka 35 ain’t no penny ante mine. I’m real curious to listen to what Mr. Paul’s got to say about making it as a miner.
We set there jawing for a good while, Mr. Paul and me. I like the way he talks to me like I’m a grown man and not some aged-up trapper boy. We talk about how to judge the right amount of powder for blasting the coal chucks off the rock face and not blowing the coal into dust.
“Even we get this new contract,” he says. “Loading’s always gonna put more silver in a fella’s pocket than mucking around with that deadwork.”
He also jokes with me about keeping a close eye on the tippleman, so he don’t shave no weight on my coal. We keep on like this, till we get to trying to figure what suffering this strike is gonna get us from these damn operators. That’s when people start yelling that Stiney Jankowsky’s making his way back to the Tent City.
Stiney comes galloping quick through the dim woods into the tent camp on a big sorrel mare, leaping over downed trees and rocks. All wound up, he flops himself down off that horse and goes sprinting round the whole camp whispering something to each of the miners, rousting ’em outta their tents and yanking ’em outta their coops.
I trail round after Stiney trying to get his attention, but he’s got a list of names he’s reading from and won’t gimme the time of day. Finally, I grab onto the sleeve of his coat. I says to him that I’m a miner too and anything he got to say to these other fellas he can damn well say to me.
At first he don’t know who I am, but when Mr. Paul tells him that I’m Buzzy Pistakowski’s brother, Stiney Jankowsky shakes my hand. He gives a long look at the yellowing round my eye and waggles his head.
“I’m sorry,” Stiney says, “ ’bout the way them Cossacks done Buzzy.”
Then he pulls me off to the side of one of them pine board
chicken coops. He looks around a second to see if anybody’s listening before he lets me in on what he’s telling. Charlie Dugan’s on his way back from Cresson tonight and the union’s declared an emergency meeting. All the union miners are getting together out Gerula’s farm at nine o’clock.
I run back over to the cook fire and find Frankie. I tell him to let our ma know that her and Lottie’s gonna need to take the wagon back up to McKluskey’s when it’s unloaded cause I gotta head up Ashtola tonight on important union business.
Twelve
Hoofing it over the narrow dirt path that winds up through the high brown weeds of Meckley’s Field, my eyes are fixed to the bouncing yellow glow from Mr. Paul’s carbide, but my mind is running circles round itself trying to take in all that’s happened today.
Not that the eviction ain’t pressing on my mind—it ain’t gonna be no picnic down that tent camp—but mostly I’m thinking ’bout that twitch-faced Coulson and how he run them other Cossacks off of messing with Lottie. Lottie thought he ought to go to hell and just about said as much to him. And it’s true he’s with the Pinkertons, so he can’t be no kinda all right fella. But on the other hand, I know I ain’t wrong that if he wouldn’t a been there, we’d a been worse for it. I just can’t figure it, ’cept I guess that even among folks that mean to do ya harm, some fellas is worse than others.
It’s a pretty good walk up to Gerula’s and nobody’s saying nothing. So, I got plenty of time for thinking—and that Pauline’s on my mind too, specially the way that expression on her face was like to remind me of Buzzy. But not like Buzzy at the same time. I mean Buzzy would give a fella a beating just to see somebody get one. Ol Pauline might need a reason, but she don’t seem to be above turning over a rock or two to find one.
It’s all got me thinking ’bout the riot down the train station and how even though Buzzy was one of the people causing a good bit of the trouble, it didn’t mean nothing to him when it was over, ’cept some guards getting paid out with a slingshot or broom handle. But for folks like Pauline’s aunt, her whole life was caught up in it.
It’s like tossing a rock into the Paint Creek swimming hole. Even if you turn away after you throw the rock and don’t watch, the ripples is still there. Like what Buzzy done helped to make Pauline the way she is. Maybe we all help to make each other the way we are. I don’t know.
When Mr. Paul and me top the rise and start down into Gerula’s orchard, I can see right off there’s a lot fewer fellas at this meeting than at the last one. Mr. Paul tries to tell me it’s cause the union’s afraid that the Berwinds been sending spies to our meetings, but looking at these fellas, it seems to me there’s more to it than that.
Most of the miners who got to the meeting before us is setting on a sloping hill in a big half circle under the trees closest to Gerula’s horse barn. Me and Mr. Paul head over to join them. Up close, I can see they’re all looking skeleton thin, and their eyes got dark circles like they’re still working double shifts. Patched up with shreds of pit vest and rawhide, their shoes don’t look much better than what the boys are using to pad around down the Tent City. Even the men what ain’t been put out look pretty downhearted, grumbling ’bout how long we been on strike and doubting that we’re gonna get anything for all our troubles. To listen to some of the fellas, I get the feeling that they might be getting ready to call it quits. They’re saying that a lotta miners up north already went back to work and with that coal coming outta them mines we ain’t never gonna get Berwind to give us our due. It ain’t that I don’t see their point, but there ain’t no way I’m ready to give it up yet.
When I see Charlie Dugan pull up on the other side of the orchard in his black Ford, I’m about to run over there to say hey to him. But all kinds of fancy fellas that I ain’t never seen before come outta his car. Every one of them got hats and neckties and there’s one big fella that seems to be keeping everybody else pretty good away from Charlie. So I just settle for trading waves.
“You a friend a Charlie D?” Mr. Paul asks me.
I figure he might wanna talk, so we don’t have to listen to the fellas setting in front of us pissing and moaning, so I start telling Mr. Paul how Charlie saved my dupa down the 40 station. I’m only part way through my story ’fore I realize what happened to his sister down that train station massacre ain’t gonna be no kinda topic he wants to hear about. So I switch to telling him ’bout Charlie running the union store up 42. I let it slip that Buzzy didn’t care none for Charlie, but Mr. Paul don’t make nothing of this. He listens good and before I know it, I done told him the whole story ’bout what happened in 42 with Buzzy’s stealing them pears outta the union tent and what come after.
His face creases and his brown eyes go flat sad taking it in, then Mr. Paul nods to me and gives me a little slap across my shoulder. We both turn and see that Charlie Dugan’s started walking over from his car to the front of the crescent of grumbling miners. Some of his boys has come over, and they’re telling everybody to pipe down cause the meeting’s coming to order. But a lotta folks is still talking ’tween their selfs, griping and kicking the union ain’t doing nothing for ’em.
Even when Charlie hisself gets up to the front of the crowd, some of them miners won’t quiet down. Every time he says something, some smart ass starts putting his two cents in, pissing and moaning ’bout how hard things is and how they ain’t making no money. Some fellas are even talking about the organizers getting rich on the union dues.
Charlie tries to answer all these bullshitters in turn, but I can see that there’s really only two or three that’s egging on the rest. I push myself up off the ground and start toward the front of the meeting. Mr. Paul grabs my coat sleeve, but I shake loose of him and make my way through the crowd up to the front of the miners.
“Listen to me!” I says standing up in front of the whole group of them miners. “We been fightin these Berwinds now for goin on eight damn months. I know it’s hard. My own brother’s been shot. My family been put out. I know I ain’t alone. I know a lot a younz here tonight are livin in the tents and coops, living in sheds. But don’t ya be blamin Charlie. He been a damn good leader to us since he come down here.”
One of them ol bullshitters setting up in front of where me and Mr. Paul was starts up yelling that I’m ain’t even a real miner.
“Sit down, ya trapper boy,” he says. “Come back when ya got some hair on your sack.”
I can feel the crowd is starting to laugh with him and that’s when I realize that I’m standing up here, in front of everybody, me, Chester Pistakowski, trying to tell all the miners of Windber that I know what’s what better than they do. But I also recognize that the fella yelling at me is that same skinny Grubby Koshinsky who was hollering the loudest down the 40 station when them Pinkerton guards was cornered up on the mantrip car.
“You was pretty hot for this coal strike back at the 40 station,” I says to him. “Talkin ’bout how you was gonna be givin scabs the beat down and the Cossacks too. What’s a matter now, Grubby, yer balls only work when the sun shines?”
Everybody laughs at that, and Grubby’s friends are ribbing him pretty good for taking that kinda shit off of some kid. He pushes hisself up off of the ground like to come after me and I figure I’m gonna get a hiding, but before he gets the whole way up, Mr. Paul yanks him back onto the chilly ground by the tail of his coat. He crashes down onto the ground and everybody gets a good laugh outta that, saying he’s been one too many times to the bootleggers.
Lucky for me, Charlie steps back out in front of the meeting with two of them other fellas he brung down from Cresson. He starts in on everybody, asking them if they wanna have a meeting or a brawl. After a little bit more shouting most everybody quiets the hell down so Charlie can talk.
“I know ya boys are gettin frustrated! I know yer tired! Tired a losin to the Berwinds,” Charlie says. “Tired a them shootin ya down in the streets. Tired a them puttin ya outta yer houses. And I damn sure know yer tired a seein yer ki
ds hungry!”
Charlie’s a real good talker, and pretty soon he’s got most everybody setting in that field remembering that it’s the Berwinds we’re actually fighting against. I watch him close and outta the corner of his mouth he seems to be smiling at me for taking his side. But I can also see that Grubby is looking at me too and that he ain’t about to forget no time soon the way I made him out an ass tonight.
When Charlie gets done with his pep talk, he fixes his hat and clears his throat. He says that the head union men up in Cresson has decided it’s time we oughtta try some new strategy on the Berwinds.
“We’re takin the fight right to EJ Berwind’s front door!” he says.
Nobody really says nothing, till Charlie explains that instead of all of us standing on the picket line down here in Windber where nobody can see us, the Mine Workers Union is gonna send a passel of men to picket in Philadelphia. Charlie tells us that old Berwind won’t be able to walk past his own office without seeing ten men decked out in full miners’ clothes right on Broad Street.
“Let him try to hold his head high for his fancy friends with starving men right outside his front door,” Charlie says. “He won’t be pretendin he ain’t got no labor troubles then!”
I’m smirking along with everybody else picturing a pack of miners picketing in front of Berwind’s fancy office tucked into pit vests, carbide lamps topping their heads and toting picks and shovels. Seems to me this is the first time a lotta these men was happy about anything for a damn long time.
“That’ll get the bastard to settle,” some fellas are saying.
We all cheer and raise a ruckus and people start offering to go cross state to do the picketing. In the end there’s so many volunteers to go that Charlie’s gotta pick ’em by lottery.
40 Patchtown Page 8