The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 50
Wallace also had the most famous tenderloin this side of San Francisco, a block of brothels and cribs just north of Cedar and Sixth, along the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. Temperance and clergy were cleaning up other red-light districts, but in Wallace, the brothels were seen as a necessity by the town fathers to keep the miners mining and the loggers logging. The city legislated and regulated the houses, and it wasn’t uncommon to open the newspaper and see the mayor presenting flowers to the madam who’d donated money for a new streetlight.
“That’s Block Twenty-three, where our whores is kept,” Al Bolin said as they walked past a cluster of brick-and-stone buildings along the river.
Gurley had already given a speech in Coeur d’Alene and one in Smelterville. This last speech was to be here in Wallace, at dusk on the street from the back of a buggy up against that wall of mountains. The national IWW office had advertised the event as Gurley and Big Bill Haywood, the hero of the old mining wars, acquitted of assassinating the Idaho governor in 1907, but Big Bill never made it out of Chicago, so it was just Gurley and Rye.
A small crowd of lumberjacks and miners, socialists and suffragists had gathered, maybe sixty people. Rye’s job was the same as always, matter-of-factly tell his story when she called on him, after she’d riled up the crowd with her socialist talk, when she got to the part about “the criminal mistreatment of workingmen by the thugs in the Spokane Police Department. And here with me is a victim of that abuse, a young orphan recently turned seventeen . . .”
“We woke in a ball field,” Rye said each time, and then he stood and removed Mr. Moore’s bowler and told his story as plainly as he could. He was careful not to exaggerate, to stick to real details, and not to make sweeping political statements. He always ended with the death of his friend Jules and the Salvation Army man asking his age. This last bit got gasps and angry tuts from folks, although Rye couldn’t see why it was so much more barbarous to beat on a sixteen-year-old. Or why it was worse than them killing poor Jules.
As he spoke, Rye noticed Early leaning against a wagon at the edge of the square. He wore a smirk that stung Rye.
When it was done, most of the crowd scattered, and Rye, Early, and Al Bolin met Gurley behind the wagon where she’d spoken. She was plainly discouraged. They’d collected only about fifty dollars, barely two hundred total from three speeches in Idaho, less than they’d gotten at one event in Seattle. And only a handful of volunteers had said they might come to Spokane.
“We’re speaking to the wrong people,” she said. “Socialists and retired men, women’s clubbers. I’m not getting through to the actual workers. This is not some dry Sunday lecture. It’s a fight with dirt under its nails.”
“That’s why I want to take you where the workers are,” said Al Bolin. He said he’d added one stop to their tour. Instead of going around the mountains, they were taking the Great Northern through the mountain pass for a noontime talk in the border town of Taft.
“Taft?” Early looked up sharply. “Wait, we’re going to Taft?”
“Sure,” Al Bolin said. “You don’t have to be in Missoula until five, and Taft is where the workers are. Probably two hundred of them just sitting up there. Timber work’s shut down for winter, and the rail jobs are winding down. You want workingmen, they’re in Taft.”
“What’s Taft?” Rye asked.
“I like this,” Gurley said. “Let’s do it, Al.”
“Jesus,” Early said, and he turned and walked away.
“Wait, what’s Taft?” Rye asked again.
But an old miner with a sideways foot had just limped around the wagon to talk to Gurley. He began telling her about the day in 1899 when troops marched down Sixth Street. Gurley nodded politely. He went on, “They built a bullpen down on the river, rounded up every man in town, and locked us up there. No trials. Nothing. You remember them days, Al?”
“If I didn’t recall it, my body would,” Bolin said, “just like yours, Jeff.”
Rye backed away from this conversation to go find Early Reston. That look on his face earlier while Rye spoke: It was eating at him.
The sun had gone down and there seemed to be twice as many people on the street now. The mountains were pine-blanketed walls on every side of him. Rye followed some men through the brick downtown to Sixth Street, where a block of saloons was broken by a single café.
He stuck his head in each saloon, and he finally found Early in the fourth, leaning on the rail with a half glass of beer. He turned and saw Rye. “Why, look, it’s Eugene goddamn Debs!”
Rye could feel his face redden again. “Were you laughing at me out there, Early?”
“No!” Early straightened.
“It’s not easy, getting up there talking.”
“Of course not. Rye, I was not laughing at you.” Early looked around for the bartender. He clicked his teeth like he was