Work Song - Ivan Doig [93]
Too late. When I got there, everyone had gone in but Rab, who was practically dancing with impatience as I hastened up the steps.
“Mr. Morgan, you came from that direction,” she spoke so fast it was nearly all one word, “did you see it?”
This was not my day, linguistically. “Do you suppose, Rab, you could take a deep breath and define it for me?”
She was as disappointed in me as Hooper and Griffith had been. “Oh, here.” Whisking over to a stack of newly delivered Daily Posts beside the doorway, she handed me one with fresh ink practically oozing from the EXTRA! atop the front page.
Beneath that, the even larger headline:
OUTSIDE AGITATORS WARNED
And below that, a jolting photograph of the railroad overpass where the IWW organizer had been lynched a few years before. From the middle of the trestle girders dangled a hangman’s noose. Attached to the rope was a sign readable even in the grainy newsprint reproduction:
THE MONTANA NECKTIE
YOU ONLY WEAR IT ONCE
WOBS AND OTHER TROUBLEMAKERS—
LEAVE TOWN BEFORE THIS FITS YOU
Digesting this, I had mixed reactions. Plainly the goons, stymied about me after Chicago was no help, had broadened their approach to include any other strangers in the vicinity of the Hill; when you are a target, I have to say, you do appreciate having that kind of attention shared around. On the other hand, a noose just down the street from where you lay your head at night is still too close for comfort.
“Jared says the police are taking their sweet time about removing it,” Rab confided over my shoulder, again as fast as words could follow one another, “so Anaconda gets to scare everybody.”
“We have to let Jared handle that,” I stated, “while we have to get inside and handle books or face the wrath of our employer.”
Her mischievous laugh surprised me. “We wouldn’t want that, heaven knows.”
DISPATCHING RAB TO TAKE OUT her ardor on the book collection, I had to tend to a few office matters before joining her. If I was in luck, Sandison would be out on one of his prowls of the building. But, no. There he sat, stormy as thunder. Before I could utter any excuse for being late, he flapped the Post’s front page at me. “Did you see this damn thing?”
“By this hour of the day, I believe everyone in the city has seen either the newspaper or the actual piece of rope, Sandy.”
“This town,” he said in a tone that it hurt to hear. “It just can’t resist having dirty laundry out in the open. Hell, anyone knows outsiders are asking for it, that’s where rope law comes from.” Saying that, he took another furious look at the front page photograph, his gaze so hot I thought the paper might singe.
“The ‘Montana necktie,’ ” he ground out the words, “what’s the sense of dragging that up?” He started to say something more, but instead crushed the newspaper in the vise of his hands and thrust it into the wastebasket.
I stood there, gaping at the outburst, until his glare shifted to me. “Don’t you have anything to do but stand there with your face hanging out?”
I left in a hurry. The calm ranks of the books on the mezzanine were particularly welcome after that. Was there any way in this world to predict the actions of their combustible collector?
Hearing me come, Rab spun from the shelf where she had been flicking open covers to look for the SSS bookplates. “This is the day, you know.”
From my experience, that could be said about every twenty-four hours in Butte. But I did know what she meant.
“The sixth grade is about to meet its match,” I said with