The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 53
“This money belongs to the Industrial Workers of the World,” Gurley said, “and I would ask—”
The man was faster than Rye would have thought—and in what felt like a single move, he swept Rye aside, into the burning old boiler stove, and grabbed at the bag. But Gurley wouldn’t let go and they tussled over it.
Rye pushed off the burning stove. He saw Gurley gripping the bag’s handle, started toward her, but felt his arm yanked and twisted behind his back, and then something sharp pressed against his cheek. The man with the bloody shirt was holding a big deer skinner against his face, the knife scratching Rye’s cheekbone.
“Not in here,” the gray-blond man said.
Gurley still wouldn’t let go of the bag’s handle. “Listen—” And that was when the man hit her, open-handed but full, not a child’s slap but a shoulder-rotating heel-of-his-hand swing that knocked her off her feet and slid her into the legs of some of those other men. And now the man held the bag alone.
Gurley looked up from the wood floor like a cornered badger, like she might leap up and rip that man’s head from his neck. “You would steal from people who come to help you?”
“I don’t recall asking for your help,” he said. “Any of you men ask for this bitch’s help?” He opened the bag and flipped through the clothing and held up some underthings for the others to see. “What have we got here?”
Then the gray-blond man pulled the money from the bag, held up the cash for the others to see, and threw the bag to the floor in front of Gurley. The money disappeared into his lumber coat. “Best get on, you two,” he said with a vicious half-smile, “before it gets any colder out there.”
Rye knew then what he meant by “Not in here.” The minute they stepped out that door, the knives would come. They’d been robbed, and now these hounds would make sure there were no witnesses. They would rifle his pockets and try on his boots as the last of his squirming life spilled out in a snowbank. As for Gurley, Rye didn’t want to think about it.
He looked helplessly at the door, wishing he’d never agreed to this, wishing he and Gig were sleeping in Mrs. Ricci’s house, wishing Early Reston could come back in with a gun and save them, wishing he could overpower the man, take his knife, protect her.
From the floor, Gurley carefully pulled herself up and gathered her clothes. In the midst of those wolves, she carefully folded her things and put them back in the travel bag. She appeared to be in no rush. She patted at her red-black hair and at the rising mark around her eye. If she was feeling Rye’s panic, she didn’t let on. Her hands were steady. She wasn’t crying, nor did she look particularly frightened.
She took a deep breath, reached back, and pulled the ribbon tighter around her hair. She took in the faces around her. And then she spoke, her voice changed. Lower, steadier. She wasn’t jawsmithing or high-handing—she was just talking.
“You think I’m a fool.” She slowly buttoned the travel bag. “Some Sunday temperance lady with no idea where she’s landed.” She looked directly at the man with the knife against Rye’s face. “I know where I am. And listen: I’ve been to worse. Iron camps in Minnesota, Pennsylvania coal towns, Butte copper mine so deep I could smell the earth’s mantle.” She looked around again. “And I know you. I know you don’t give one shit for the brotherhood of men some stupid union cadge comes up here selling. Fine.”
Rye couldn’t say what it was—her language, her posture—but he felt a shift and the men stayed quiet. “But whether you want me to or not, I am here to fight for you stupid sons of bitches. For your jobs and your booze and your right to be as stupid and poor a son of a bitch as any rich, stupid son of a bitch. I’m here to fight for your backs and for your arms, and for the freedoms you’re too goddamn stupid to use. To come and go as free men, as goddamn Americans no matter where you were born, to make your way in this world without some robber baron owning you.
“But I will be damned if I’ll let you end it all here”—she choked up and cleared it away—“in this place,” and Rye felt the hum of her anger in his throat, in the whole room.
Gurley’s lips hardened and she took on a mocking tone. “ ‘I didn’t ask for your help, Gurley.’ Fuck you!” She said it right into the gray man’s face. “I fight for any man who labors, and I will fight against anyone who gets in my way, and that includes you! All of you! You want the money? Fine! It’s yours.”
She stared at the gray-blond man as if daring him to say something. Then her eyes swept the room, landing on every eye that would meet hers. “Now maybe you think you still have business with us. Maybe you think you can do what you want, that no one cares what happens to some Montana tramp and a pregnant Irish girl—”
All eyes went to her heavy dress and coat.
“But I will tell you this: If I’m not in Spokane leading this second free speech action five days from now, it will not happen! And then, make no mistake, you will have chosen sides. You’ll have chosen the side that lives off your blood and tosses you aside like trash.
“But if you want to give those bosses a poke in the fuckin’ eye?” She grinned. “Let us go. Let us go finish our thing and fight for you, and next week I promise to make those rich bastards feel every bit as terrified as