Work Song - Ivan Doig [90]
WHEN I CLOSED UP THE LIBRARY, Rab and Jared were waiting for me down on the steps. “Come with us to the Purity for pie,” he invited, direct even when he was being pleasant. “I’ll even buy.”
I joined them, and the sound of our footsteps was our only company on the lamplit streets. Of course Rab had a dozen enthusiasms about what the sought-after song should be like, and Jared winnowed those in his wry fashion. I contributed what I could, although my head was a swirl. A crowd of a couple hundred, to get past the police, the goons, and, perhaps most consequential, Samuel Sandison, without attracting attention? My mind went back and forth over this, which simply dug the problem in deeper. My mood was not helped when we passed the Daily Post building and I saw that even the so-called autumn classic, the World Series, was jinxed this wayward year; the scoreboard being set up for the forthcoming games announced the Chicago White Sox—Skinner would crow to me unmercifully—versus the Cincinnati Red Stockings, as purists knew the team that sports pages habitually shrunk to the Redlegs or Reds. The Anklet Series, I thought of it with disgust. Where were the teams with good sound contentious names, Cubs, Tigers, Pirates? When even baseball starts to go downhill, I grieved, there’s no telling what will follow.
My brooding spell was broken by Jared as we neared the cafeteria. He tugged at his short ear as he did when thinking hard, and Rab attentively shut up. Looking around to make sure we couldn’t be overheard, he said in a voice low but firm:
“Just so you know, Professor. The Hill might have to go on strike, maybe pretty damn quick.”
I hoped his wording was a slip of the tongue. “Another work action, you mean.”
“That’s the farthest thing from what he means, Mr. Morgan,” said Rab.
“She’s right as usual,” Jared acknowledged, giving her a wink. He was all seriousness as he turned to me again. “We’ve negotiated until we’re blue in the face, and Anaconda still won’t meet us halfway on anything that counts. Worse than that, those of us on the council have a hunch the company is getting ready to cut the dollar off the wage again. If that happens,” his tone became even more resolved, “we won’t have any choice. The union will either have to curl up and die or call a strike.” In the streetlight there outside the cafeteria, I saw Jared square his shoulders as he looked up at the lights of the Hill and listened for a moment to the drivewheel sound of the mines at work. In another battle, of another sort, he must have sized up Dead Man’s Hill similarly before the attack up the slope. Now he shifted his gaze to the slumbering city around us. “It’s always tough on the town, to shut everything down,” he said solemnly. “But Butte has been through strikes before. They’re part of life here. Everybody understands it’s our only way to fight back against Anaconda.”
“Jared, I must know,” another apprehension creeping up on me, “how quick is pretty damn quick?”
“After the next payday, more than likely. Doesn’t leave you any too much time, does it.”
I blanched. That soon? To come up with the union song necessary to rally his forces? From an aggregate of miners who didn’t agree on anything musically except the sublime charm of the concertina?
Jared nodded as if reading my mind. “I know it’ll take some doing. But we’ll need all the ammunition we can get when the strike comes.” He touched my shoulder. “The song counts for a lot, Professor. I want it in the head of every miner on the Hill, to hold us together.”
“Inspiration follows perspiration, you did say, Mr. Morgan,” Rab contributed all too helpfully.
At least one thing stayed the same in the Butte night: the owner of the Purity with a glad cry ushered us in to serve ourselves.
THUS, there was everything but library business on my mind during business hours at the library the following day. Which may explain the next thing to happen. My thoughts elsewhere,