Blood on the Forge Page 9

  Zanski pushed his beard away from his lips and gestured at the two men.

  “Colored feller alike. Work in mill but ain’t feel happy.”

  Chinatown raised himself on one elbow. He looked at Zanski and scowled.

  “Heat liable to git anybody,” he broke in defensively.

  “Not heat.”

  “Well, what then?”

  “You fellers don’t move out of bunkhouse. You got no kids.”

  “Jest don’t want none,” said Melody.

  “You got no woman. Feller ain’t be happy like that.”

  A thought of Anna flashed into Melody’s head. He said nothing.

  Chinatown said, “That’s where you wrong. You ought to see them boys headed for the cat house of a Saturday.”

  “That ain’t woman.”

  “You got to git in line for them whores.”

  “That ain’t woman.”

  “Line reach clear round the mill, I betcha.”

  “That ain’t woman who keep white curtains in a feller’s house. Whore girl ain’t wash curtains.”

  Chinatown was puzzled. He did not know what Zanski was talking about. To cover up he said, “Yeah, and they’ll roll you if you ain’t slick.” He settled back to doze again.

  The old man went on, “Feller from Ukraine workin’. His woman wash the curtains, and the kids growin’ in the yard.”

  “Hundred o’ them,” said Melody, because that was the way it looked on washdays.

  “Them kids work in the mill sometime. Their kids grow in the yard.”

  “That makes you feel happy?” mused Melody.

  “I think about that when the heat comes,” explained Zanski.

  “That wouldn’t help me none,” said Melody.

  The old man was silent for a time. Then he spoke as though he knew more than was in a barrelful of books.

  “Feller from long way off die like plant put on rock. Plant grow if it get ground like place it come from.”

  Melody felt the words. But talk faded into nothing in the face of the heat. Under the Bessemers he sweated and gulped the thin air. In his body played the noiseless rhythms of the mill. Before morning he was so worked up that his voice was high and thin, like a knife running over an E string in his throat.

  It was seven o’clock when the Moss boys got to the bunkhouse. There was a letter waiting for Big Mat. He stayed awake to read it. But Melody and Chinatown were like dead men. They were so full of little needles that they had trouble remembering their own bunks.

  Almost before they closed their eyes it was time to go back to the mills. Every Monday after the long shift it was the same. They had to drink almost a pint of corn whisky to give them heart for another shift. Chinatown and Melody shared a bottle, but Big Mat did not need the stuff. He was ready to go, so they took a last drink and followed him toward the mills.

  Chinatown’s eyes were red rimmed. The whisky was burning in his eyes. Melody, too, was shot through with the stuff. Yet they were sober. Sometimes steel workers were sobered by the foggy evening. Away somewhere in the fog was the clank and pounding of the plate and sheet mills. Chinatown gave a quick shudder, like a mule shaking off flies. Melody remembered the time he had pulled a mole out of the black, cool ground into the bright light. Chinatown’s shudder brought back that mole and the way its dead eyes feared the sun.

  “Don’t like it,” muttered Chinatown.

  Melody did not answer. He felt what Chinatown meant.

  “All the time my body jumpin’ like hell,” cried Chinatown.

  “Keep shut!” rumbled Big Mat.

  “Down home I be catchin’ the last sun round ’bout now. Onliest time I move be when the shade move.”

  “Mill your home now,” Melody told him.

  “Mill never be my home,” he said.

  Melody turned that over in his mind. Someday the mills would be his and Big Mat’s home. Mat had faced a mick who said the word that passed only between black men. Back in Kentucky everybody had called them “nigger.” It was something for Mat to have so soon unlearned that. He himself had unlearned a lot of things. The old music was going. Now when he took down his guitar he felt the awe of a night—white with leaping flames. Sure the mills would be their home. But the mills couldn’t look at China’s gold tooth and smile. In the South he had worn that tooth like a badge.

  If China had a chance to work a hot job it would be better for him. That would be something important. He could wear a scorched, spark-pitted face. He could wear that face like all hot-metal men wore it—that face was a badge. The hot-metal men had to wash in kerosene, come Saturday. The smell of that kerosene stayed with them all week. That was a badge too.

  Before they got near the office, to check in, the fog parted and was whipped by the sun’s last long lashes. Those same lashes fought the fire in the mill chimneys. The fire was driven back into its sooty holes. The fading lashes hurt their eyeballs. They walked along, squinting under their hands.

  Suddenly Big Mat reached into his pocket and drew out a crumpled letter. He thrust it at Melody. There was enough light in the leaden day to read by, but Melody had to strain for the crabbed print. Chinatown started to look over Melody’s shoulder but he was not seeing the letter. His eyes were trying to focus the shadows underneath the dresses of two Slav girls caught against the sun. Melody poked his ribs.

  “Don’t want to read it,” said Chinatown. “Jest tell me what it say.”

  Melody looked at Big Mat. His face was heavy as always. The heavy skin on his forehead was bunched with the effort of thinking. He was not going to speak.

  “It tell about Hattie,” Melody said.

  “I never knowed Hattie could write,” said Chinatown. “She musta studied up fast.”

  “She git this writ for her,” growled Big Mat.

  “What the writin’ tell?”

  “She fall and lose the baby,” said Melody.

  “Whose baby?”

  “My baby,” said Big Mat simply.

  “Oh, she was gittin’ ripe afore us go away then,” said Chinatown.

  “I knowed it happen,” said Big Mat.

  “Maybe it ain’t certain,” said Melody.

  “Naw,” grunted Big Mat, “she only carry it this long so the curse be harder to stand.”

  “The curse oughtn’t work in this new place,” said Melody.

  “They all git dropped dead.”

  “Make me crave more corn to hear a man talk that-a-way,” said Chinatown.

  “Mat, there ain’t been no curse here, fer as I kin see,” said Melody.

  Big Mat stopped and looked up at the towers of a mill in their path, the dirty orange of the hearths, the violet gas flames ghosting the air above a bunch of tall chimneys. There was a hot-wool-on-his-chest feeling as foundrys breathed around him. He jerked his thumb to take in all those things.

  “Got so this seem better ’n farming to me.”

  “Yeah,” said Melody, to keep him talking.

  “I kin stand up to a man and outwork him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I forgit all ’bout the curse.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now another time my woman slipped her baby.”

  “Here’s corn ready to make you forgit it,” said Chinatown. And he pulled out his bottle and took a long pull.

  “All this time I ain’t got drunk once,” said Big Mat.

  “You wrong, ’cause corn and fast gals change your mind,” said Chinatown between gulps.

  “Ain’t had no woman.”

  “Them gals in Mex Town change your mind quick,” said Chinatown.

  Melody said, “Keep shut, China!”

  “I oughta preach the word, but the word ain’t in me to preach.”

  Melody tried to comfort him. “The word in you, Mat.”

  “I think maybe if I be a good man I lose the curse, even if the word ain’t in me.”

  Melody could see the hurt in the boot-leather face. He could sense the big fear that the lon
g, tough muscles couldn’t fight. Maybe Chinatown was right. Sometimes corn whisky could wash the lump out a guy’s throat and make his fears things to be handled with his fists.

  “A little corn won’t hurt one way or the other,” he told Big Mat.

  “Now you talkin’ business,” cried Chinatown.

  “Hot-metal man ain’t due to be sober,” said Melody.

  “C’mon, Mat,” begged Chinatown.

  Big Mat shook his head.

  “Well, they pittin’ dogs again,” said Chinatown. “Let’s go after we do this shift.”

  It occurred to Melody that Anna would be at the dogfight. He became enthusiastic. “Jest to the dog-fights, Mat. It do you good—keep you from thinkin’.”

  “It ain’t nothin’ bad,” said Chinatown.

  When Big Mat nodded his head Chinatown grinned in delight.

  “When I die don’t bury me,” he sang. “Jest pour me back in the jug.”

  A couple of helpers had failed to show up on the open hearth. The boss melter on number six told Big Mat and Melody to work the hearth until the regular men were sober enough to come back to work. Melody didn’t like the idea but he kept his mouth shut. A boss melter was not the man to take any back talk on Monday.

  This Monday had done something to every man in the mills. There was trouble starting. Men were strung high, like the strings on Melody’s music box. These Monday mills hit bad chords, and every man was ready to lay his buddy out at the wink of an eye. One of the Slavs let a hot test block fall. It crushed the toe of the Italian working next to him. The Italian was screaming as they took him away to the hospital. He was screaming that the Slav had done it purposely.

  The accident cleared the air of tension for a while. Everybody but Big Mat talked and laughed as though it were a joke that a man got a toe mashed. Chinatown and Smothers came to the hearth.

  “I don’t suppose it make you mad if you smashes a toe or something and has to lie up between sheets for a couple of weeks,” Melody said to Chinatown.

  “I hear they gives you a big dose of croton oil every day you in the hospital,” said Chinatown.

  “That the truth,” said Smothers.

  “How you know?” asked Melody.

  “Fella name of Jones was up there,” said Smothers.

  “When he leave his guts hang out clean to the ground.”

  “How come they do that to him?”

  “Nobody likes that,” said Smothers. “So whether you is well or not you come on back to work—which is what they want you to do.”

  Chinatown opened his mouth and let out a guffaw. It exploded from so deep in his throat that he had to feel to know if it loosened his gold tooth.

  “What’s funny?” asked a young Irishman who was knocking off a little time from his control levers.

  “Jest thinkin’ ’bout a guy I hear went to the hospital once. They give him croton oil every day for a month. When he come out he so cleaned out that when he open his mouth the wind whistle right through him an’ make a noise like a bugle.”

  They all laughed like madmen. All the hearth crews began to laugh. There was laughter in them that might turn into screams as wild as if they had smashed toes. Smothers was the only one not laughing.

  “Who was that guy?” he asked.

  “It don’t matter—he dead now.” Chinatown laughed.

  “What he die of?”

  “Hurricane came along and blew him inside out,” howled Chinatown.

  The hearth rocked, but Smothers did not crack a smile.

  “That too bad,” said Smothers. And the hearth was wild with laughter.

  The boss melter was letting them carry on as much as they pleased. The laughter was loosening up the men. Men who were ready to hop at each other’s throats a moment ago were slapping each other on the back.

  At last the boss melter had to send them back to work.

  “Get the hell off the hearth!” he told Chinatown and Smothers. “Beat it before I lay you both out.”

  He gave them a friendly shove, and they went down the iron steps to the yard.

  “C’mon, boys, C’mon. You number-six crew—back wall.”

  They hopped to the job.

  There was rebuilding of the furnaces—back wall and front wall. Test the metal and get a jigger of steel to thin it out. There was tapping all along the hearth and remudding of burned spouts. There was fine hard coal in bags to be flung to the full ladles—also magnesium. There was the fearful heat and men with quivering muscles, trying to live through another Monday on the hearth.

  O’Casey came within a hairsbreadth of not living through this Monday. The men were brittle again, and O’Casey slapped one of the hayseeds in the face. They called all the young white fellows who were Americans and new to the mills “hayseeds.” And this hayseed had it coming to him. He had missed a test block with a sledge, and the hammer had come down on the concrete. O’Casey, on his way to the pit, had gotten the flying concrete in the face. Any worker might have hit the hayseed for something like that, but the hayseed held anger in himself until the heat brought it to the surface. Later, when everybody had forgotten about the slapping, the hayseed grabbed a shovel and tried to use it on O’Casey. Big Mat saved O’Casey’s life. Before the shovel could come down through a short arc he had laid out the young hayseed. They were taking his limp body away when the men got the call to lunch.

  Chinatown, Melody and Smothers ate their lunch together. Zanski came and told them what “fella do” Monday night after a long shift has left them like walking dead men.

  “Steel lay off, and fella lay on,” said Zanski. “Always like that.”

  “I ain’t layin’ on nothin’,” said Chinatown. “My back broken from the pull of that damn barrow.”

  “Steel do seem like it tired, of a Monday,” said Smothers, “tired of yowling. Guess men got to yowl then, got to run right at each other’s throats.”

  “Whisky, whores and wheelbarrows,” chanted Chinatown.

  “Ever notice how mean the foremans git of a Monday?” said Smothers. “Fella jest can’t do nothin’ right for them.”

  “The mick with my crew say I got to keep up, or he put me with the shovel crew in the coke yard,” said Chinatown.

  “Take the hayseed get himself laid out on job,” said Zanski. “He work side to side of men maybe three week. He ain’t talk to nobody. Then come today. It Monday, and O’Casey get concrete dust when hayseed miss block. If it any day but Monday hayseed still on job. He never go off his nut ’bout little slap. But it is the day it is. So he laid up in company hospital with big pain where Big Mat have to hit him. Maybe tomorrow mornin’ he ain’t know why.”

  It came time for them to go back to work, and they went. The time between spells for the men on the hot jobs seemed to get shorter and shorter as the shift wore on. The twelve hours into Tuesday sunrise were worse than the twenty-four hours of the long shift. Sometimes men went crazy from thinking ahead of the hot work to be done before they could stagger out in the cool morning and bathe their heads in the water trough.

  Now it was six-thirty Tuesday morning. The hell was over, and men gathered around the trough to soak their heads and talk a little. They talked about the trouble at the hearth. Big Mat was the hero of the morning. Everybody agreed that it was a great thing he was quick enough to knock the hayseed out before O’Casey was hit. Because of this praise Big Mat did not come near the trough.

  A big Irishman who was boss melter in charge of five furnaces told Melody:

  “Never had a colored helper work better on the hearth. He’s strong as an ox—do everythin’ the melter tell him to do and take care of the work of a whole crew if he ain’t held back.”

  “He’s got some Irish in him somewhere.” Another red Irishman grinned. “Lots of black fellas have got Irish guts.”

  Still another red face and reddish head blew under water and came out shaking like a setter dog and talking about Mat.

  “That black fella make a whole lot better I
risher than a hunky or a ginny. They been over here twenty years and still eatin’ garlic like it’s as good as stew meat and potatoes.” He glanced sharply around to see if any of the foreigners had heard him. There were none at the trough. They didn’t have much to say to anybody. They had left for their courtyards.

  O’Casey walked up to the trough. Taking up his pail and overall coat, he grinned the length of the yard at Big Mat, who was leaning against a pile of steel plates left to age and rust a bit in the weather.

  “Black Irish—that’s what he is,” said O’Casey.

  Chinatown came up to the trough in time to hear what was being said.

  “That there’s my brother,” he cried proudly, his fixed grin taking them all in.

  O’Casey waved across to Big Mat.

  “So long, Black Irish,” he called.

  Big Mat did not answer. He was full of savage pressure. The thought of the dogs tearing at each other was pleasant.

  The dogfights were held in an old barn away from the town. Sometimes when the weather was good they held the fights in open fields. There were men around here who raised dogs for nothing but fighting, and some who brought their dogs from as far away as Altoona and Harrisburg. A lot of money would change hands. Steel men had saved their money for this moment. Today a man had brought a bull terrier all the way from Akron. That bull terrier was unknown around these parts. His owner had offered to pit him against any dog of near weight and take all bets. Perhaps that man had not heard of Son, the police dog that had beaten every other dog within a hundred miles.

  Son’s owner was old Bob Dank, who knew how to keep a dog savage and ready for blood. Bob Dank kept Son in a dark closet for weeks at a time, feeding him raw meat sprinkled with gunpowder. Sometimes old Bob would let him out and tease him with a sharp stick. Son would tear up anything that came within the radius of his chain.

  Chinatown and Melody were full of corn whisky. Their money was on Bob Dank’s dog. They had seen Son fight and knew that he would let nothing live, once he had tasted its blood. Chinatown had forgotten everything in the excitement of the evening, but Melody kept Big Mat in his eye. Big Mat had not bet anything on the fight. He stood around the pit with the rest of the sweating mob and waited for the dogs to fly at each other. Melody didn’t know whether or not Mat was going to like it. There was nothing to give him a clue. But away in the back of his mind was a memory of Big Mat tearing a mule’s life out with a sharp rock. That was a memory to make him uneasy. He did not know what effect the sight of violence would have upon his brother, to whom violence came as a thunderblast.