Chapter 19
"Of course," she said quickly. "Let me do it."
"Thank you. Miss Andrews," he said, still in the same empty voice. Then, abruptly, he was gone through the open door.
"Daniel!" she called, starting after him.
The stranger's outstretched arm stopped her. "Leave him be, ma'am," he said quietly. "He'll be back."
She stared at him in bewilderment. "What happened?"
'*His whole family is dead, ma'am,'' Roscoe answered in his quiet voice. *'Murdered!"
It had been past midnight when Roscoe, sleeping in the bam, heard the voices. He slowly raised his head and listened. He heard the harsh sibilants of men more used to shouting than to speaking. He pulled on his shoes and got to his feet. In an unconscious movement, his hand searched his belt for his gun. He swore to himself when he realized he had left it inside on the Hugginses' kitchen table.
The voices were coming nearer now. Frantically, he looked for a place to hide. The only thing he could find was a pile of hay behind the mule in the stall. Quickly he slithered under it. Annoyed, the mule nudged the hay with his nose.
*'d.a.m.n mule!" he swore, crawling even deeper into the hay. Footsteps entered the bam. Peeking out, he saw the shoes of several men. He held his breath.
The men stood there for a moment; then a pair of shoes walked toward him. He froze. The man stopped just short of the mule, then went back to the others. He could hear the man's hoa.r.s.e whisper. *'Nothin' there but the mule."
'*Go tell Fitch," another voice said. "We'll go up on the little hill in back of the house like he said."
The men left the bam. Roscoe let his breath out slowly and crawled out from under the hay. He crawled along the dirt floor until he was in a position to see out of the bam.
There were two men standing there-Pinkertons, with their hard derby hats sitting squarely on their heads. Each man had a rifle in his hands. Roscoe looked beyond them toward the house.
More men were there-at least nine that he counted, and maybe more on the other side of the house. While he watched, the men seemed to be taking up positions. After a few minutes, one of them raised his hand in a signal.
Sam Fitch came out of the shadows, moving silently for all his big girth. ''All the men in position?" His hoa.r.s.e whisper carried back to the bam.
One of the Pinkertons, the one who had signaled, nodded.
"Get the torches up near the porch steps and light 'em," Fitch said.
Two men ran silently up to the house and jammed the wooden torches into the ground next to the steps. Then he set a match to the oil-soaked rags and ran back just as they roared into a bright yellow flame.
Sam Fitch turned to the house. "Jeb!" he shouted. "You 'n' Roscoe got jes' one minute to come out of the house with your han's up or we're comin' in after you!"
There was a moment's silence. Then the door opened a crack.
"Roscoe ain't here," Jeb yelled back. "I'll come out, but I don' want no shootin'. I got Miz Huggins an' the children in the house."
"Jes' come out slow with your han's high an' there won't be no shootin'." Fitch said.
Slowly the door swung open, revealing Jeb standing with nothing but his pants on, his pale body gleaming in the flickering yellow torchlight. His hands were over his head. He blinked, trying to see past the torches in front of him. Slowly, he walked onto the porch and started down the steps.
Roscoe saw Sam Fitch bring his arm down, giving the signal. "Now!"
"Go back, Jeb!" he began to yell. But his voice was lost in roaring of the rifle fire.
The bullets spun Jeb around, and he tumbled from the top step sideways onto one of the torches, knocking it to the ground beneath the wooden porch. A second later, the dry wood was ablaze, the fire racing up the walls of the house.
The fire leaped througK the open doorway into the house and became a searing wall of flame.
The mule, frightened by the smell of smoke, broke from his stall and ran past Roscoe into the yard. He charged into the middle of the Pinkertons, who scattered in front of him, then galloped crazily down the road.
The Pinkertons regathered in a cl.u.s.ter. "We gotta try to get 'em out!'' one of them said.
"Don't be a d.a.m.n fool!" another replied. "Ain't n.o.body left alive in there no more!"
"Then what are we goin' to do?" the first asked.
"We're gettin' outta here," the second man said. "I don't want to be in this neighborhood when they find out what happened." He walked over to Sam Fitch, who seemed to be transfixed by the fire. "Mr. Fitch."
''Yes?" Fitch's voice was dull. He didn't take his eyes from the fire.
"I think we better go, Mr. Fitch," the Pinkerton said.
Fitch turned to him. "It was an accident. You saw it. It was an accident."
"Ain't n.o.body
Suddenly Fitch seemed to regain his strength. "We'll fix that. You men come help me. We'll throw his body into the fire."
The Pinkertons didn't move.
Fitch looked at them. "You're all as guilty as I am. Do you want to leave the evidence around to hang you?"
Silently, several of the men went with him. They picked up Jeb's body by the hands and feet and threw it into the center of the burning building.
Fitch looked after it for a moment, then turned away. "Now let's git outta here."
A few minutes later they were gone, and Roscoe climbed wearily to his feet. He walked toward the still-burning ruin that had once been the Hugginses' home. After a moment, he fell to his knees and, tears streaming down his cheeks, began to pray. ''Oh, G.o.d," he wept. ''Why did you have to let it happen to all those beautiful children?"
got kinfolk who'll take me in. Soon's I git a job FU sen' fer the fam'ly."
Daniel was silent.
"I don' see there's anthin' more I kin do aroun' home," Roscoe said. '^Ever'thin's gone now since the courts went against us an' give the mill our Ian'."
'Tm not blamin' you, Mr. Craig," Daniel said. "You done the bes' you could, an' that's all a man could do. I was jes' thinkin' it's a mighty long way."
*'ril git there," Roscoe said.
"Do you have any money?" Daniel asked.
"I have enough," Roscoe said. "I kin manage."
"How much?" Daniel was persistent.
Roscoe didn't look at him. " 'Bout a dollar 'n' six bits."
"You'll need more'n that," Daniel said "I have twenty dollars I won't be needin'. I'd been plannin' to send it up to my folks. I think my paw would be right pleased ifn you'd let me lend it to you."
"I couldn't do that," Roscoe said quickly.
Sarah kept silent. The pride of the mountain people was sometimes beyond her understanding. If it seemed like charity, they would not accept it.
"You could pay me back when you git a job," Daniel said.
Roscoe thought for a moment, then nodded. "Put that way, Dan'l," he said. "I don' see how I kin rightly refuse."
"When do you plan to leave, Mr. Craig?" she asked.
He looked at her. "I'd like to git back on the road by nightfall, ma'am," he replied.
"Then let me fix a hot bath for you," she said quickly. "Then you rest a bit, and while you're sleeping I'll brush and clean your clothes."
"That's right kind of you, ma'am," Roscoe said. His eyes followed her as she left the room. He turned back to Daniel. "She's a right fine woman. One would never think she was a schoolmarm. She's like folks."
Daniel nodded. His thoughts were somewhere else. He pulled himself back to the present. 'There's a coal train leavin' the mine at midnight," he said. *'It goes to Detroit, an' the trainman's a friend of mine. Maybe he'll let you ride back there in the caboose."
"That would be mighty he'pful," Roscoe said.
"We'll go down there about eleven, when the train gits in," Daniel said.
Roscoe looked at him. "An' you, Dan'l-what are you gonna do?"
Daniel met his gaze steadily. "I don' know, Mr. Craig," he said slowly. "First thing, I'm goin' home to tend to the graves an' pay my respec's. After that -I jes' don' know."
But Roscoe, looking into the boy's eyes, knew better. They were the same eyes he had seen in Jeb's face just a few days ago.
Daniel spent the rest of the afternoon at the woodpile, the axe ringing rhythmically as it rose and fell. After a while he began to stack the cut cordwood against the side of the schoolhouse. When he had finished, almost the entire side of the building was hidden. Dark was approaching when he came in.
"Hungry?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"You have to eat something," she said. "You didn't have your supper."
"I'm not hungry," he said. Then he saw the expression on her face. "I'm sorry. Miss Andrews. I don't mean to cause you any upset."
"It's all right," she said. "Join me in a cup of coffee?"
He nodded.
She came back into the room with the coffee. He put three spoonftils of sugar in his cup and stirred it slowly. "He's still asleep," she said.
He sipped at the coffee. "He walked more'n seventy miles to git here."
"Have you known him a long time?" she asked.
"Since I was little. Him an' my paw knowed each other real good when they was boys, but we didn' see much of each other. They had a farm along the river outside Fitchville, an' we lived in the hills. Before the mills came, it seemed like ever'body knowed every'body else. Then things changed. Farmin' went bad along with land, an' the mills started takin' over. People began leavin'. Like he's plannin' to do."
''What happened to his farm?" she asked.
''They foreclosed on him, an' they built a mill on the land. They was seven acres of riverfront that belonged to his pappy an' they got into a dispute over it. The mill an'him."
"Then what happened?''
There was coldness in his eyes as he looked at her. "They kilt his pappy an' his eldest son an' had the courts take the land away from 'em. Now he's got no place to go. Except D^etroit."
"You're fortunate," she said. "You have a place to go.
"I have?" he questioned.
"Yes," she said. "You have a good job here. And a future. You can take care of yourself."
His voice was expressionless. "A good job? Forty a month. Is that a good job?"
"There are men who don't make that much," she said.
"That's right," he said. "It all comes down to a question of how much hunger a person kin tolerate. The miner 'n' the farmer 'n' the mill hand is all in the same boat. The on'y choice they got is how hungry they want to be."
She was silent.
He looked at her. "I don' rightly understand it. Miss Andrews. I seen my paw sweatin' because Mr. Fitch wouldn' give 'im a few pennies more fer a jug o' com. I seen miners dyin' in the shafts fer a dollar 'n' a half a day. I heered stories 'bout girls in the mills gettin' their arms tore out in the machinery fer a nickel 'n' hour 'n' breaker boys manglin' their ban's fer the same wages. I don' unnerstan' why the people who decide these things cain't jes' give a little more so that them as works fer 'em kin git along."
It was the longest speech she ever heard him make and the first time she had ever been allowed into his thoughts. She had no answer for him. For the first time she felt her own inadequacy. ''It's always been like that," she said.
"It doesn' have to be," he said quietly. ''And someday it won't be."
She said nothing.
"I been thinkin'," he said. "There had to be a reason. A reason fer all o' this. What happened to my folks. Jinmiy understood it. I didn't. There's jes' two kinds of people in this world. Them that owns it 'n' them that works fer it. Now I know where I am."
She looked at him. "Daniel, have you ever thought of continuing with school? Going to college, making something of yourself?''
"When I figgered out how little I knew, I thought about it," he said. "But that takes money."
"Maybe not as much as you think," she said quickly. "I have friends at the university. I'm sure you can get a partial scholars.h.i.+p at the very least."
"It still takes money," he repeated.
"Maybe you can sell your father's farm?" she suggested.
"There'll be n.o.body to buy it," he said flatly. "The land's used up, wu'thless. The on'y reason my paw was able to live on it was because Molly Ann 'n' me went to work 'n' sent our money home, tf we didn' do that, we'd all of starved."
Her hand reached across the table and touched his. "Daniel," she said softly. "I know how you must feel. I'm sorry."