The Coal War (44 page)

Hal exchanged guns with his victim, because the latter's gun had a bayonet, and he thought he might be needing one before long. Then he made another advance, and reached a position from which he could fire into the arroyo. He saw the militiamen moving back, and with another quick shot he caught one of them as he went over the ridge. It was as exciting as hunting mountain-goats—when once you got started at it!

[30]

That day the strikers drove their enemies back into the tent-colony. When they entrenched that evening, they had the colony surrounded; also they cut the telegraph and telephone wires, to keep Major Curran's forces from getting reinforcements and supplies.

Hal put trustworthy men in command for the night, and with Billy drove in an automobile to Pedro. He went into the town quite openly, carrying the militiaman's gun and cartridges, and wearing the hat with the bullet-hole through the band. There was nothing to be afraid of, for the strikers had taken possession of Pedro, and were patrolling the streets with arms in their hands. For fifty miles up and down the railroad the same thing had happened; the mouths of the canyons leading to the coal-camps were in the hands of the “rebels”. They had taken possession of the railroads, and were not permitting trains to move with militiamen on board. In Pedro they raided the American Hotel, in which twenty militiamen were quartered, and turned the tables upon these gentry by searching the place for arms!

Billy Keating turned into a reporter again, and sent off a story for the “Gazette”, and long telegrams to other papers over the country which might be willing to publish the news. As for Hal, having taken charge of a military campaign at a few hours' notice, he had no end of business to transact. Not half his men were armed, and some of them had no more than a dozen cartridges. Also food must be ordered and sent to them. Hal got Adelaide Wyatt on the telephone, and learning that the “pianos” had arrived, he ordered them delivered by an automobile truck. Also he sent telegrams to Lucy May and Will Wilmerding, to Governor Barstow, even to Peter Harrigan again. In the course of the evening there came a pathetic message for him: “I implore you to come up here. Must see you. Jessie.” He smiled a grim smile, and wrote a grim answer: “Sorry. Am busy.”

While he was at union headquarters, arranging for the forwarding of supplies, Mary Burke and Mrs. David came in; they had brought by train a party of fifty women and children for whom no shelter could be found in Horton. They told of the distress of the refugees, and of fresh horror in the blackened and smoking tent-colony. Through the day the militiamen had been acting like maniacs—not being content with fighting the strikers in the hills, but keeping their machine-guns playing upon the ruins of the tents, making targets even of chickens and cats. The union had sent wagons from Pedro to get the bodies of those who had been killed, but the wagons were fired upon and forced to turn back. On the county road which passed along the ridge came an automobile with some tourists from California, who did not even know there was a strike. The machine-gun was turned upon them, and for two miles the people rode through a rain of bullets.

It would be only fair to mention the excuse which is given for the conduct of the militia through this mad time. In the course of the first day's fighting, one of the troopers had been shot in the neck, and his comrades had plugged up the wound; afterwards, being obliged to retreat from the position, they had left him lying under shelter. When they came back, some hours later, they found the man's face beaten in with the stock of a gun, and the top of his head shot off. They were naturally made furious by this deed, and their defenders did not fail to make the most of the circumstance. But in all the various inquiries which were conducted, no one was interested to find out what this trooper might have done, to awaken such a frenzy of hatred in the minds of South European peasants!

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Hal went back to his command after midnight, in an automobile piled up with bread and canned provisions, and some boxes, very heavy, labeled “foundry-type”. He brought also the assurance that reinforcements were coming; the union was preparing a call to arms to workingmen all over the state.

One of the first persons Hal met when he reached the hills was Jerry Minetti, who had been up cutting telephone wires in the canyons, and had only just heard the news about his family. He wanted to know about Rosa, if there was any chance of her living—but Hal could not tell him. There was no way to get news; the militia would not even give up the dead bodies. Hal put his arms about his friend, who broke down and wept like a child. There was hardly a dry eye among the men who stood round.

Then suddenly Jerry looked up; he was haggard and grim of aspect. “We get them bodies maybe!” he said.

“Yes,” agreed Hal; “we'll get the bodies, I think!”

So at dawn the amateur army got in motion; “General” Jack David commanding the center, Billy Keating the left wing, and Hal Warner the right. They drove the militiamen out of their positions by the steel bridge, and got sharpshooters around on the flank, where they could make trouble for Stangholz and his “babies” on Water-tank Hill. By noon-time Major Curran was desperately hard-pressed, and sent a courier up to North Valley, asking that the mine-guards there should create a diversion, in order to weaken the pressure upon his forces. So a crowd of some fifty guards and strike-breakers came out from the mining-village, and crossing over the ridge, opened fire upon the tents in the next colony, that of Greenough.

The result was such as to bring relief to Major Curran—but at a higher cost than the North Valley crowd would have wished to pay. It was another wanton attack upon women and children, and it set the strikers wild. The men in Greenough on one side, and Hal's forces on the other, charged as one body upon their assailants. The rain of bullets did not stop them, they left their dead and wounded on the way, and rushed and carried the ridges, driving their assailants back in confusion upon the North Valley camp. Nor did they stop with that, but rushed the mine village itself, storming the stockade, breaking down the gates and going through the place like a cyclone. The guards fled up the canyon; the strike-breakers took refuge in cellars or under their beds; while Cartwright, Alec Stone and Bud Adams, who had led the attack on Greenough, sought shelter in the mine-shaft, with their families and the office-force, some thirty-five people in all.

Nearly two years ago, when Hal was driven out of North Valley, he had told the men that he would return; and here he was keeping his pledge—making a tumultuous entry, with crack of rifles and shouts of fighting men. At his side was Jerry Minetti, who had been a “shot-firer” in former days, and had returned to his old occupation—with a repeating rifle and an automatic revolver!

They went through the camp and up the canyon—for their business was with the mine-guards. They came upon a group entrenched behind a barrier of rocks, and as they were charging, Jerry suddenly gave a grunt, dropped his rifle and clutched at his body, and went down in a heap. Hal had time for only one glance—then he took shelter in a depression of the ground, and began working his way around to the side; he got to where he could outflank the hidden enemy, and when he had got back his breath and steadied his hand, he put a bullet through the leg of one of them. The rest sprang up and fled again, pursued by a dozen strikers, firing and yelling.

Hal went back to where Minetti lay, with a couple of his fellow Italians bending over him. There was blood upon his lips, and upon his face a look of anguish which wrung Hal's heart. Jerry could not lift himself, and Hal bent down and caught his gasping words, “Rosa! Rosa!” Hal pressed his hand and gave a promise—he would find Jerry's girl-wife, if she were still alive, and would see that she did not suffer want. A minute or two later poor Jerry passed away.

Tears ran down Hal's cheeks; for he had truly loved this Dago family. He carried a thousand memories of them, beginning with the first meeting—Big Jerry striding down the street with Little Jerry at his heels, trying desperately to keep step, unaware of the smiles of observers. So proud and eager these Dagos had been, so full of the joy of life; and now they were utterly wiped out!

There was little time for tender memories, however. Down the canyon, in the direction of the mine, Hal heard the sound of heavy detonations, and saw a vast cloud of smoke rolling up to the sky. He ran down, and found that the infuriated strikers, of whom there were now a hundred in the village, had set to work to level it with the ground. They had blown up the jail in which Hal had been imprisoned; they had blown up the company-store and the breaker-buildings; they had set fire to Reminitsky's and the other boarding-houses, which were roaring furnaces; they were getting ready to blow up the mine-shaft and everybody inside. Some fifty strike-breakers had been captured, and the hot-heads wanted to treat them as Louie the Greek, Kowalewsky and John Edstrom had been treated two days before.

So Hal had to make a test of his authority as a military leader. He rushed here and there, commanding, exhorting. He set others to work, shouting his orders in half a dozen languages. They would take the lives of no strike-breakers—strike-breakers were workingmen, and had a right to be taken into the union. They would not wreck the stope of the mine-shaft, because they might need it before long—they might decide to run the mine! They would mount a guard about the shaft, and when those inside got ready to surrender, they would be treated as prisoners of war. Before long Hal found “General” Jack and put him in charge. It was too late to save the village of North Valley, but Hal did not particularly care about that; in truth, he rather shared the feelings of the strikers about it. Let it burn!

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Returning to Pedro that night, Hal learned that the union had issued its call to workingmen to rise and defend their homes and families. The answer was prompt and wonderful. Five hundred miners were starting from the metal-mining district over the mountains; hundreds were coming from the coal-mines of other parts of the state, and even from states adjoining; the whole country was up. Meantime, however, there must be more food, more guns and ammunition. Johann Hartman and Tim Rafferty were at the telephone all day, buying supplies and making arrangements for their delivery.

Mary Burke had been in Horton, gathering refugees and feeding them. A party of two clergymen and some women, under the authority of the Red Cross organization, had at last been admitted into the tent-colony, to bring out the bodies of the dead. So there were new horrors to hear about. The bodies of some of the children had been so burned that they had fallen to pieces when lifted. Mrs. Bojanic had given birth to her baby while on a slab in the undertaker's parlor. Hal exclaimed that such a thing was not possible; but Mary answered that the baby was there. Rosa Minetti had regained consciousness, but was out of her mind. She talked about her little ones, and imagined herself in Italy with them; she “babbled o' green fields”. Her breasts were swollen, and the doctor had brought some kind of cup with a suction-pump; Rosa would lie and caress this in her arms.

There was another piece of news, of interest to Hal. His brother was in Pedro, looking for him. He had called up union headquarters half a dozen times, and had even humbled his pride sufficiently to ask “Red Mary” to help him find Hal. He had not said what he wanted, but Hal knew only too well; there would be more arguments, more frantic appeals, more tales of his father's distress of mind; possibly there might even be some half-insane effort to force him away. No, he had no time for Edward just then! He wrote a note to his brother, bidding him drop the matter and go home; and having sent this to the hotel, he slipped away to the home of his friend MacKellar. The realization had come to him suddenly that he had forgotten sleep for three days and nights on end!

Next morning came the newspapers, and he learned that Cartwright and Alec Stone had succeeded in getting out a message from North Valley, telling of their peril and calling for help. This caused great excitement, of course, and Hal thought of going back to the camp, and persuading the strikers to let their prisoners go. But something happened which called him even more imperatively—an outbreak of desperate fighting in Sheridan. The sheriff-emperor was in control of this town, with a newly-organized “troop” of mine-guards, and he had conceived the idea of “teaching the strikers a lesson”. Early that morning he posted a machine-gun on the porch of the General Fuel Company's store, and opened fire upon a street lined with miners' homes. The bullets went through the frail shacks as if they had been of paper; men and women were struck, and children playing in the street were mown down. It happened that Billy Keating was in Sheridan, and he took command of the strikers, and called for Hal and “General” David, and opened a pitched battle with three hundred militiamen and guards.

Up in Western City, the Governor had ordered more militia to the field, and General Wrightman had been frantically trying to get them together. But one company of eighty-two men mutinied in their armory and refused to go. The General offered them double pay, but they stood by their decision, and he was too much cowed by the popular clamor to attempt to punish them. At this critical moment the newspapers published the fact that during the course of the strike more than fifty officers of the militia had resigned, unwilling to do the work of the coal-companies.

But in spite of this, the General had got some reinforcements in hand, and loaded them onto a train, including several flat-cars with machine-guns and ammunition. He came to Horton, and took charge, and immediately received a visit from the two clergymen and the women who, under the authority of the Red Cross, had gone into the ruins and brought out the bodies. They now pointed out to Wrightman that forty or fifty people were missing, and they asked permission to make a search for more bodies. The permission was granted, and they went in—starting immediately toward one of the places where it was reported some bodies had been covered with quick-lime. Before they had got to the spot they were placed under arrest, and brought back to the General, who cursed them furiously. One of the clergymen was the villain who had been guilty of “besmirching the uniform of the soldier”, by complaining of the misconduct of militiamen on the streets. The commanding officer now shook his fist in this villain's face, declaring that “pimps, preachers and prostitutes all look alike to me!” When Hal heard this story, from the clergyman's lips, he tried to send it in a telegram to Wilmerding, and Billy Keating tried also to send it to the “Gazette”; but the telegraph company refused to transmit the General's language, declaring it “obscene”!