All Men Fear Me (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

“Sabotage is preached to and by the I.W.W at all times, and every member is fully aware of subtle methods of destroying property with a minimum risk to his liberties.”

—
The New York Times
, August 19,1917

The family was just sitting for dinner when Charlie came in from work by the back door. He was not alone. A tall, blond young man with a tattered shirt, bandaged arms, and the remnants of a black eye walked in with him. Alafair came over to meet them.

“Mama, this is my friend from work, Henry Blackwood,” Charlie said. “Henry, meet my ma. Henry had a mishap at work and Mr. Cooper let him have the rest of the day off. I figured I'd invite him for dinner, if that's all right. It's just him and his uncle in that little house of theirs. I reckon he'd admire a real meal.”

Henry snatched off his hat, and Alafair took it from him and patted him on the shoulder. “Sure, sugar. There're plenty of eats to go around.” She turned to Gee Dub, who was leaning back on the cabinet with his ankles crossed, looking intrigued. “Gee, pull up another chair.”

Gee Dub fetched a chair off the porch and squeezed it in between Rob and Blanche while Charlie and Henry washed up. Alafair had covered the table with platters and bowls of fried okra, yellow squash, biscuits and milk gravy, grits, corn on the cob, brown beans, fried sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes as well. As always in summer, there were fresh-sliced tomatoes, green onions, and radishes to garnish one's plate. It was a meatless meal, but no one noticed. Only the immediate family was at dinner today. Two parents, two sons, three young daughters, and the uncle. Henry knew he was not going to be able to keep everyone straight—except for the bearded man he was seated next to.

Rob slapped him on the back. He hadn't seen Henry since they had parted ways at the train station. “Well, I'll declare. Fancy meeting you here, sport.”

Henry was equally surprised to see his sometime champion. “Howdy, Mister. I didn't know you were kin to Charlie, here.”

Shaw reached across Rob to shake Henry's hand. “You two know each other?”

“Yessir. We traveled out on the train from Muskogee together last week. Mr. Gunn helped me…”

Rob interrupted. “That's a tale for another time. So you're working at the brick factory with Charlie. Looks like you've added to your collection of bruises since the last time I saw you, slick.”

“It was the strangest thing, Uncle Robin,” Charlie said. “Henry's lucky he didn't get killed.” He paused in case Henry wanted to tell the story, but his friend seemed more interested in buttering the fluffy biscuit in his hand.

“What happened?” Sophronia urged.

Charlie was only too happy to carry on. “You see, after the clay gets dug out of the hill, it's put it in this dump car that gets pushed up on top of these big old trap doors over a conveyor belt that takes the clay to the plant. That's what me and Henry were doing today, dumping the dirt out of the car onto the doors. When the car's empty we're supposed to push it down the ramp and then Dutch Leonard pulls a lever and the dirt drops down onto the belt. Well, today the lever let loose too soon and dumped poor old Henry, dump car, clay, and all into the pit. If the car hadn't jammed the jaw crushers, Henry would have been chewed up into little bits. As it was, it was lucky he didn't bust his legs in the fall.”

Alafair's hand went to her throat. “Oh, honey, that's terrible!”

Henry looked up from his biscuit. Her concern made him uncomfortable. “Well, I wasn't hurt bad, Miz Tucker. Just skint up a little. I'll be back at work tomorrow. I can't afford to lay off, anyway.”

“It sure stopped work for most of the morning,” Charlie said. “Dutch swears up and down he didn't pull the lever before time, and Mr. Cooper believes him because it looks like one of the bolts had come out and the lever failed. Mr. Cooper took Henry up to the office and bandaged him up. He put me to stacking bricks for a shipment that's supposed to go out next week. Mr. Cooper figures that it'll take a couple of days to fix the lever and test it out.”

“Poor Henry,” Blanche exclaimed.

“Yeah, if he had busted his leg he wouldn't be able to work for who knows how long. Mr. Cooper told us that there has been a spate of machinery breaking down lately. Last week there was a fire in the steam shovel boiler that held up digging for half a day. The other night, a wheel fell off one of the kiln cars and bricks spilled all over the middle of the oven. It took a whole shift to clean it up and get the cars moving through again. They turned off the furnace, but I'd have hated to be one of the fellows working in that tunnel on a July afternoon.”

Henry's attention was riveted on his plate, his face flushed with embarrassment at the unwanted attention.

Charlie wasn't finished. “You know, Billy Claude Walker thinks somebody is trying to delay production. He said all the accidents started happening after ol' Win Avey got killed. This morning I was wondering to Henry if we've got us a saboteur.”

He immediately wished he hadn't said it when he saw the look on Alafair's face. He'd die of humiliation if his mother forbade him to go back to the plant. His father saved him.

Shaw scoffed. “I doubt it, son. Machinery is always breaking down, especially when it's being put to extra use.”

Gee Dub changed the subject by asking Henry where he was from, but Rob wasn't listening anymore. He was thinking that if the workers at the plant had a compensation plan, Henry wouldn't be facing ruin because of an on-the-job injury. The brick plant was a prime target for unionization. But he bit his lip and said nothing. He'd notify the regional I.W.W. office, but the workers of the Francis Vitric Brick Company would have to rely on someone else to help them organize. He had promised Alafair.

***

“Henry, wait a minute. I want a word with you before you get off home.” Alafair caught Henry as he untied his horse from the post in front of the house. He doffed his hat as she walked down the front steps with a towel-covered wicker basket in her hand.

“What can I do for you, ma'am?”

“Are you sure you don't want to take some of these vittles home for your supper? I've got enough to feed you and your uncle for a couple of meals and still have plenty of leftovers for us.”

Henry hadn't been fussed over so much since he left his mother's house. He quite enjoyed it. “Thank you, ma'am. That is right kind of you. Uncle Eric's cooking keeps us from starving, but that's about all I can say about it.”

“I wish you'd let me have a look at them wounds on your arms. I don't have much faith in Mr. Cooper's doctoring skills.”

“Oh, no, really, ma'am, that's not necessary. They don't even hurt anymore.”

“All right, then.” Alafair nodded, glanced away, then back again. Something was on her mind.

“What is it, Miz Tucker?”

“I'm fretted about what's been going on at the plant. Especially after you near to got killed today. Win Avey worked at the plant, too, and he did get killed. Do you think Charlie's right about a saboteur?”

Henry shrugged. “Well, things like that lever failing happen all the time when you're working with big machinery, like Mr. Tucker said. I worked at the shipyards at Port Isabel near Brownsville for a spell. Something was always breaking down or falling into the Gulf or crashing into something else. I wouldn't worry about it none.”

“Still, I don't like the idea of him working there if there's a killer on the loose.”

She looked so troubled that Henry barely stopped himself from patting her shoulder. “Oh, now, Miz Tucker, I'd bet money that Win Avey's death didn't have anything to do with the brick works. But I hate for you to be worrying about Charlie. I like him. He's a good ol' boy. He's full of vim and vigor. I'll keep an eye on him for you, ma'am. Y'all been so kind to me it's the least I can do.”

Alafair let out a breath. She knew she ought to feel guilty for going behind her son's back, but she didn't. “Thank you, son. You come over any time you want. And don't tell Charlie I talked to you. He'd wouldn't be pleased.”

Henry laughed at that. “No, ma'am, I reckon he wouldn't.”

***

Old Nick took off his bowler hat and began fanning himself with it. It was a hot day, and all the windows were open at Mr. Ober's office at the Francis Vitric Brick Company. “Mr. Ober, I think you need my particular know-how to deal with your recent troubles. I've been keeping the peace at private companies since God was a boy. Union-breaking is my specialty.”

Ober was unconvinced. “I've added on a whole new shift to try and get this blasted order out to Fort Bliss on time and I've put guards on all the machinery to keep another ‘accident' from happening. Why should I need a professional head-buster?”

His question raised a hint of a smile on Nick's face. “Believe me, I've dealt with unionists enough to know that you ain't going to be able to persuade them with gentle reason.”

“I don't need to be dealing with work slowdowns right now, nor sabotage, which is why I'm talking to you,” Ober admitted. “I'm not adverse to a bit of strong-arm persuasion, but I don't hold with murdering strikers either.”

“You're the boss,” Nick said. “I'll do it however you want.“

Ober leaned his elbows on his desk, folded his hands under his chin, and stared out the window to his left for a long moment. Nick fanned himself with his hat.

Finally the plant manager sat back and dropped his hands into his lap. “When can you start?”

Chapter Thirty-nine

“I Am Public Opinion
All Men Fear Me”

—World War I poster,
U.S. Office of Propaganda

The Boynton Post Office resided in the last building on the west side of Main Street, just at the junction of Main and Third, where downtown Boynton segued into residences, an odd business or two, and a couple of churches before petering out into farmland. The post office consisted of one twenty-by-twenty-foot room divided in two by a counter, behind which was a wall covered with wooden cubbyholes, each neatly labeled with a name. To the right of the front door, a long table sat beneath the window. A bulletin board to the left of the window was covered with wanted posters containing mug shots of some disreputable-looking fellows, along with physical descriptions and a list of their sins. There was no telling what color the walls were painted, for the rest of the available wall space was taken up by a display of war posters.

The propagandizing had begun modestly, with a single poster urging all citizens to be patriotic and not waste resources. But lately the postmistress had made it her mission in life to see that that every propaganda message the government issued found a place on the wall and remained there for the duration: a poster of a slavering ape in a pointed German helmet with the body of a limp child clutched under its arm; exhortations to join the Army, the Navy, the Red Cross; to sign the Food Pledge and the Loyalty Oath; to save sugar, corn, wheat, dairy, meat. A declaration that wasting food was “the greatest crime in Christendom” (which Alafair seriously doubted). It all made for a colorful, rousing, and rather frightening wallpaper effect that gave the viewer a dizzying feeling of doom, and yet diluted each individual message.

Today Nadine had cleared a space over the counter for a new poster. Alafair walked over for a better look, curious, since Nadine had gone to such trouble to be sure the message stood out from the others. A tall, muscular, young woman in a filmy gown strode forward, her outstretched arm pointing at the viewer, her face taut with purpose. Stitched on the brim of the cap covering her blond curls were the words
I Am Public Opinion.
Underneath her feet, the caption read :

ALL MEN FEAR ME

Chase Kemp was fascinated by the cubbyholes behind the counter, but when Alafair and Grace walked over to study the new poster, he asked, “What's it say?”

Grace imitated the icon's stance and scowl. “All men fear me!” she intoned. Alafair looked down at her, surprised. All those endless hours that Grace and Sophronia played school were paying off. Grace danced away and back before she looked up at Alafair, black eyes wide. “Why do all men fear her, Ma?”

Alafair hesitated an instant, composing an answer that would satisfy a four-year-old. “Because she's a tattletale.”

Grace clapped her hands on her hips, her expression disapproving. “That's not very nice.”

“No, it isn't, punkin.”

The door to the sorting room in the back opened and Postmistress Nadine Fluke appeared behind the counter. “Oh, howdy, Alafair. I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Hello, Miss Grace. Chase Kemp! I see you eyeballing my mail slots. Come around here and pull out your auntie's mail.”

Chase practically fell over his own feet running around the counter. While the boy retrieved the mail from the cubbyhole marked “Tucker, Shaw, West of town,” Nadine leaned across the counter on her elbows, eager for news. “How's things, Alafair? Lots going on in town these days. Has Scott arrested any spies or black marketers lately?”

Alafair couldn't help but smile. Nadine was an incorrigible snoop, and never failed to ask her what inside information Scott Tucker might have spilled to his kin. Alafair had assured her many times that Scott was pretty tight-lipped, even with relatives, but Nadine never gave up hope. The likelihood was that Nadine knew more about what Scott was up to than Alafair did.

“If he has, Nadine, I haven't heard about it. I have heard, though, that the government is watching over foreign-born people more than the rest of us. And…and someone told me that back in California, folks with German names are getting beat up and burned out for no other reason! It's an awful thing, scaring people that haven't done anything.”

“I expect folks' blood is just up,” Nadine said, “so you can't really blame them. Only foreigners have had any trouble. You know some night riders trampled Miz Schneberg's truck garden the other night. Left a sign tacked to her front door saying she ought to go home.”

“Poor old Miz Schneberg!”

Nadine shrugged. “Well, she does talk funny.”

Alafair had always liked Nadine, and more than once had found her to be a valuable source of information that she couldn't have discovered any other way. But her attitude sent a shock of anger through Alafair. “I don't think just being born in some other country means you deserve to have your property destroyed and be scared half to death for no reason, Nadine.”

“Most foreigners are probably innocent, you're right.” Nadine was either unaware of or unaffected by Alafair's sharp tone. “But they say that the Germans have been planting spies here in the U.S. since 1914, 'cause they knew we'd eventually get drawn into it. Now, you just know there's somebody, even here in little old Boynton, sending secret messages back to Hindenburg. Maybe the vigilantes are pointing out the enemy for us. Maybe they know something that we don't know.”

Alafair gaped at her. Nadine knew perfectly well that Alafair had a German-born son-in-law, yet she either hadn't made the connection, or she didn't care what effect her words were having.

Grace piped up, eager to join in the conversation. “I don't have to fear her, Miz Fluke!” She pointed at the poster.

Nadine leaned over the counter for a better view of the little girl. “And why is that, young lady?”

“Because only men have to fear and I'm a girl!”

The comment gave Chase a moment's pause. His eyes appeared over the countertop. “Do I have to fear, Aunt Alafair?”

“You don't have to fear anything, honey. Now hand me the mail and let's get going.”

***

“Ma!” Grace shrieked, just as Chase said, “I didn't do nothin'!”

Alafair jerked around in the buggy seat and withered the guilty party with a look. “Chase Kemp, sit down before I pinch your head off. Y'all be quiet.” 

The children shrank into their seats in chastened silence and Alafair turned back around to see that the buggy was just coming up on Kenetick Street. On an impulse that she couldn't explain to herself, she turned west.

Chase made a surprised noise, but was too recently quashed to ask where she was going. 

Alafair couldn't have told him, anyway. A detour. Kenetick was a long street, with some businesses close to town, thinning out into residences and small farms. She drove the buggy nearly to the edge of town, where the dirt street turned back north before it could peter out into a weedy field. 

She knew very well that unless she went out of her way, she would probably never run across Rose Lovelock again. They lived in different worlds. What she couldn't understand was why did she want to run across Rose Lovelock again? Sally's behavior toward the fallen woman had gotten under her skin. The fact that her mother-in-law wanted to interact with Rose as one human being to another was one thing, but Sally had said that she had no agenda for doing so. She wasn't trying to save Rose or change her. She was just trying to be kind.

Sally's attitude had brought Alafair up hard against her own shortcomings. Alafair did judge Rose and her girls. She was afraid to have anything to do with the women, even for charity's sake. She did very much care about what other people thought of her and her family. That was the wise and practical way to look at it, wasn't it?

Then why did she feel vaguely ashamed of herself?

The big house at the end of the street looked deserted. The front door and all the windows were open on such a warm day, but no one was in the yard or on the porch. Alafair slowed Missy to a walk as she drove by, but there was nothing to see. Rose and the girls were probably still asleep.

“Hey, Miz Tucker!”

Alafair nearly leaped off the seat when she heard her name. She jerked her head around to see Henry Blackwood standing at the gate of the cottage directly across the lane from the bawdy house. She hadn't even realized there was a house there. She felt her cheeks burning. “Henry! You live here?”

He sauntered up to the side of the buggy, his face alight with a grin, and ruffled Grace's hair. “Howdy, children. Yes, ma'am. That is, my uncle Eric lives here and I'm bunking with him for a spell. What are you doing in town, Miz Tucker?”

Alafair pointedly did not look back at the bordello. Henry's little cottage behind the fence seemed like a pleasant place, homey and neat. But because the relationship between the late Mrs. Bent and the working girls, Henry's uncle, and probably Henry, certainly knew what kind of an establishment was operating ten yards from their front door. Of course, Henry probably didn't suspect that Alafair had the slightest inkling, and she wasn't going to tell him otherwise. “A friend of mine lives on this street up near town,” she said. That was true. “I figured I'd go home this way just for a change of scenery.” That was not quite as true, but it satisfied Henry.

He chuckled. “Well, yonder dried up field of buffalo grass and cockleburs isn't much of a view, but I hope you enjoy it. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm running late, so I better be off to work. My regards to your family. Goodbye, children.” He tipped his hat and headed down the road.

Alafair breathed a relieved sigh and felt a bit ridiculous about it. There was no reason to act like she had been caught doing something unsavory. She had every right to drive down this particular lane. She snapped the reins and turned Missy around the corner.

She nearly ran the buggy off the road when she saw the woman sitting on a stump by the side of the house, dressed in a plain shirtwaist, her face shaded by a straw bonnet. Her head was down and she was clutching her middle, rocking back and forth. Rose—the object of Alafair's fascination.

Alafair jerked the reins and Missy halted with a snort of disapproval and a head shake that jingled the harness.

Rose looked up, startled. Her face was ashen. For an instant their eyes locked, the virtuous woman and the whore. She had been pretty once, Alafair could tell. But her expression was hard as obsidian.

“Are you all right?” Alafair said.

Rose shrank from Alafair's gentle inquiry. “What do you want?”

Alafair was startled by her unfriendly tone. “You look like you're feeling poorly and I wondered if I could help.”

“I ain't sick,” Rose said. Alafair didn't take the hint and leave. Rose's brows knit, as though she were trying to figure out what strange foreign language Alafair was speaking.

It was such an odd expression that Alafair couldn't decide whether to be insulted or laugh. “I'm Miz Shaw Tucker,” Alafair said. “I came by here the other day with my mother-in-law, Miz McBride.”

“I remember. Miz Sally has taken to recruiting missionaries from the bosom of her family.” Her tone was filled with sarcasm. “What did y'all think you we're doing, coming by and bearing gifts? Trying to make Christians of us with a couple jars of jam?”

Alafair straightened. “No, I'm just trying to make a good Christian of myself.” Sally's reason was better than her own.

Rose hesitated at this unexpected response. She regrouped quickly and raised a hand to her hip. “I'll tell you what I keep telling her, lady. Leave me and my girls alone. I guarantee you ain't going to save a one of us.”

“Look, Miz Lovelock, I don't reckon either of us is going to convert the other. Now, what is the matter?”

“Nothing that concerns you. Your kin the sheriff come by to ask me questions about the night Win Avey died. I didn't much enjoy the experience.”

“Mr. Avey, the Secret Service man that got murdered? Was he a friend of yours?”

The idea caused Rose to laugh. “A friend? I hated him. He was the bouncer for Star Karsten when I worked there, and he was cruel to us girls just for the fun of it. The world is well shet of him.”

“But…”

Rose didn't give her a chance to continue. “You better get on before somebody sees you talking to me or my evil influence infects them children.”

Almost against her will, Alafair cast a look at the Bent house. Rose was right. It would do her no good to be seen in conversation with a madam. “All right then. Good day.”

There was no reply, just a hard stare. Alafair flicked the reins and moved on. They were a quarter-mile down the road when Chase leaned over the seat back. “Who was that lady, Aunt Alafair?”

“Just somebody I know, sugar. We don't need to tell anybody that we stopped by to talk to her, all right? Now sit down.”