Fuck you, Sean, Sol says to himself, those days after the fight, as he scans the crowd that’s gathered at the picket around the Neversweat. He knows Sean Harrity will be here, and is trying to plan accordingly. Accidents goddamn happen, so fuck you. For a moment he thinks he sees Mickey Doyle, but on closer inspection it proves to be just some other fat Irishman. Regardless, he ducks a little farther behind Nancy and Flynn. From where they are, to the left of the flatbed truck that the speakers will stand on, Sol can see a good portion of the men gathered on the road, without most of them able to see him.
He hopes.
“You boys spot anyone?” Michael is keyed up, shuffling from foot to foot as a cheap substitute for actual pacing. From time to time he pops a fist into the palm of his other hand, nervously cracking his knuckles.
“Yeah, Michael, there’s a whole host of them right in front of us, with bats and fuckin axes,” Flynn says, “but we just thought to keep it quiet, like. You know, as a surprise for you. You fuckin eejit.”
“Well excuse me, Johnathan, you and your keen fuckin eyes–”
“Goddamn it, you two, shut up,” Sol says. “Just shut the goddamn hell up for a minute and keep an eye out.”
It’s been like this for days, since the fight and Nancy’s looping, misplaced fist. He can’t hold that errant punch against the boy, not really. Accidents happen, after all, and the likely concussion Nancy’s wearing, on top of an enormous helping of guilt, is more than the boy deserves.
It was supposed to have been easy, but now everything is fucked and Sol’s hiding out, doing his best to avoid Sean Harrity. Shuffled to and from the mine every day, surrounded by his crew as de facto guards. Moving from room to room at night, never sleeping in the same place twice. It’s embarrassing and emasculating, is what it is. Old Sol Parker, the welcher, idiot, and coward. The boys try to press a pistol on him, but he and pistols don’t agree with one another.
Besides, it doesn’t matter. There are two ways this thing will go: he’ll find some way to square things with Sean or, more likely, Sean will merely wait him out and exact whatever punishment he sees fit when the chance finally presents itself. The boys – and Sol himself – can’t keep this up forever. It’s only been a few days and already they’re damn near ready to kill one another from too much nervous proximity.
There’s one other thing he can do, though, and that’s leave. He’d left his problems behind more than once in his life, after all. So maybe best to not take the high road now, either.
The miners mill around the picket blocking the Anaconda road to the Neversweat which, along with several other mines, is shut down by the Union on the urging of Frank Little. The Company isn’t happy. No one is happy. The mood is ugly and it won’t take much for things to spill over. Already some fights have broken out, for no good reason. When the scabs and the police and the Pinkertons show up – and they will, for sure – Sol doesn’t know just what will happen. The mine guards on the other side of the picket line are armed with rifles, the Pinkertons aren’t shy to use their own guns, and the police are in the Company’s fucking pocket. It doesn’t look great, as situations are measured.
It’s a year, to the day, from the Pennsylvania fire. All Sol wants to do is go find a bottle and not think for a while, but here he is. He’s tired; he can’t remember the last time he’s had a good night’s sleep, what with all the moving around and the terrible dreams he keeps having. If anything, the dreams are getting worse. They’re full of fire, big black birds, a field of cut-up bones.
He’d been surprised to discover how much he liked Frank Little when the man showed up in Butte. Somehow Sol had been drawn into Frank’s orbit, grudgingly at first through Rob Quinn but, later, he was unable to resist the appeal of the man and his message. At some point, an honest wage for an honest job seemed not just desirable, but a right. Something that could actually be accomplished, maybe. Or maybe all this is just something Sol is using to take his mind off of other things. He doesn’t really know, when he looks closer at it.
A murmur in the crowd heralds Frank’s arrival, surrounded by an honor guard of the miners who are looking out for his safety. Quinn’s at the head of the procession, gaze swiveling through the crowd. There are hundreds of men at the picket, and no doubt some undercover Pinkertons salted throughout. Quinn and Frank and some of the other organizers have taken care to station levelheaded, trusted men at strategic points throughout the mob, in an effort to maintain a modicum of control if things go south. The Company guards on the other side of the picket look restless, passing their rifles from hand to hand as Frank and the others make their way to the flatbed. Before he steps onto the back of the truck, Frank gives Sol a wink and then, with a light hop, he jumps up. He raises his hand for a moment to acknowledge the cheers and whistles of the crowd, before making pressing motions downward, to silence the commotion.
Lining the truck’s bed, facing the miners, are twenty-one helmets. One for each man that died a year ago in the Penn. For a long moment, Frank is silent, looking out at the now-quiet crowd.
“Brothers!” He pauses, looking up, and collects his thoughts.
“Brothers. Today we remember those men lost, one year ago, in the Pennsylvania.” Silence, head down now. He lifts his hat, runs his hand through his hair. Sol turns his eyes from Frank to the crowd of miners, who stand there motionless.
“We hope,” Frank continues, raising his chin again, “that our brothers are at peace, wherever they are. But you know they’re watching us now, that they’re full of hope for us. They hope that we will stay strong, stay organized. They hope that we never give up our struggle for the things that are our due.”
“Hope ain’t gonna cut it, Frank!” someone calls out from the crowd. Sol sees heads swivel, trying to find the source of the outcry. That will be the Pinkertons.
“No, brother, you’re right,” Frank replies, spreading his hands out. “You’re right: hope won’t cut it, not by itself. Listen, men, I won’t lie to you: I’m frustrated. I’m angry, just like you. But we’re here now, together. It’s that simple. The Neversweat, these other mines, they aren’t pulling ore out of the ground, so the Company is sweating, if you’ll excuse a bad joke. The Company without production is like a hophead without his drug, and when you threaten to take that production away, they get sweaty. They get nervous.
“Listen: the Company wants an excuse to break this strike, to shut us down. Those scabs are coming. They’re coming, sure as anything. I want you men to hold your ground, when they show up. Keep your anger in. Hold it inside, where you can use it. These scabs are men, workers like all of us. Maybe they’re scared, yeah, maybe they’ve got babies and wives – like we all do – but maybe they’re just scared because they can’t feed them. Fear makes men do stupid things, weak things. Not every man can be brave. Not every man can be strong. But we can. Those men are going to make you mad, I know.” He pauses, nodding.
“You see those men, though,” he says, louder and with more grit to his voice, “you see them, with the goons the Company will have with them, and you’re going to block their path, calmly and without violence. Don’t give the Company any excuse. Don’t even call those men names, if you can. You just say not today, brother. Repeat that now.”
“Not today, brother!” several hundred miners yell, together. It’s stirring, but Sol wonders just how easy it’s going to be when the Company men show up, with their truncheons and rifle butts swinging, to escort the scabs in. A polite no is only going to go so far. Sol tries to put his trust in Frank, a veteran of plenty of strikes, but it’s hard.
“I want you to think about the men we lost,” Frank continues, gesturing at the helmets. “Our brothers, our friends. Twenty-one of them. Twenty-one lost to a fire that never should have happened. Think about that, and think about what we’re trying to do here. I wasn’t here a year ago; I didn’t know those men, not personally, so I’ve asked some of our brother workers, men I’m proud to call my friends, to come up and say some words about the departed. So I’ll stand aside for now.” Frank looks down at Sol, waving him over. “Come on, Sol, why don’t you come on up here first.” He leans over, extending a hand down and helping Sol up to the back of the truck.
Sol takes his place at the center of the makeshift stage. He’s nervous; he pauses for a moment, looking out over the silent crowd, looking past them to the headframes of the nearby mines. It makes him think again about how the ground they all stand on is hollow inside, decaying, and yet this hill is the reason why they’re all here, in one way or another, damn near every last person in this town. It’s a hell of a thing when you think about it.
A raven is perched atop a stack of timbers. It cocks a bright eye at him, head atilt as if it’s listening.
“I ain’t really much for speeches,” he says now, looking away from the bird. Something about it makes him uneasy. “That’s Frank’s line and we’re lucky to have him, lucky that a sharp fellow like him is on our side.” A shrug. “Some of y’all know me but, for those that don’t, I’m just a mucker crew boss. I do my job and help the man at my side and he helps me. We all help each other. That’s how we get the job done and stay as safe as we can. It’s that unity that Frank is always talking about; it ain’t nothing more or less than that. You men are my friends and there ain’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for you. That’s unity right there.”
He points at the helmets in front of him, pausing at the one he’d set out for Owen, feeling his eyes tighten. “We do dangerous work. Things happen and sometimes that’s just the way it is. Sometimes we can’t stay safe.” There’s a shout, and Sol looks down, distracted by the sight of Nancy and Flynn, waving, trying to push their way through the crowd that has pressed close to the flatbed.
Raising his head again, Sol sees Sean Harrity who, along with Mickey Doyle, has stepped out from behind the stack of timbers the bird sits on. Sean nods at Sol and then shrugs, apologetically, almost. He raises a pistol Sol’s way and whatever Sol is going to say next is lost in the sound of it firing.