The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 7

Rye made eye contact with Jules, and they both looked over their shoulder. The river, then? But the Spokane was no bath, no gentle dip or quaint Montana fish stream. This was a Pacific-bound rager, a drowner, a freezer, a cold, rocky white-water deluge draining the whole of the Coeur d’Alenes from the big lake to the massive Columbia.

Gig was still playing lawyer. “Why don’t you tell us first what law we’ve broke.”

“The anti-agitating law,” Slate Hair said. “No more than three men can gather for public speaking or organizing.”

“And what were we organizing?” Gig asked. “A union of sleepy ballplayers?”

Even the civilians grinned at this, and Jules gave one of his big-throated laughs. Their fourth, the thin man in the worn suit, stayed quiet, hands in his pockets, head forward, Sunday slant to his hat.

“A policeman got shot two nights ago,” said Slate Hair.

This quieted even Gig, who cleared his throat. “You don’t think one of us had something to do with that.”

“No,” Slate Hair admitted. “I don’t. But if it gives me reason to roust a hobo camp, I’ll take it.” He took another step forward with his nightstick.

That was when the fourth man did the strangest thing. Without a word, he walked to the other side like he’d just remembered an appointment. Maybe it was his thin, hunched shoulders or his sad-sack face, but the civilians didn’t seem concerned in the least when he strolled up, calm as a man approaching a bank window, toward a young man to the right of Old Slate Hair, standing with his own smaller blackjack, a junior version of the mob leader’s club.

The thin tramp was relaxed, smiling, leaning forward, hands in his trouser pockets, so the civilian didn’t even flinch when he reached out and yanked the man’s club away—like a parent taking a stick from a child. He must have planned the move while Gig talked, because he didn’t hit the smaller man; instead, he stepped once to his left and swung the club matter-of-factly at the pumpkin head of Slate Hair, as if he were still at that bank window—I would like to deposit . . . your skull.

The blow caught the big man with a sideways stroke across his thick jowl, Slate Hair’s jaw cracking like dry sticks under boots, Rye nearly retching at the sound, almost sorry for the big man. Men on both sides took a step back, as natural as a shotgun’s recoil, Slate Hair staggering, the thin man swinging again.

And down went Slate Hair.

One of the civilians ran at the thin man, but Gig caught him square in the chest with a thick shoulder and the man went sprawling onto the dirt, scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran. Seeing one man flee was contagious, and the other four ran up the hill for help as Slate Hair scratched at the ground for his teeth.

Gig, Rye, and the other two turned and ran the opposite direction down the trail, and were a quarter mile away before Gig paused to ask the thin man his name.

“Early Reston,” he said.

“Well, Early Reston, I’m Gregory Dolan, and while I appreciate what you did back there, as long as you’re traveling with us, I’d ask that you abide the IWW’s code of nonviolence.”

“Nonviolence?” Reston stopped and gave a winking half-smile. “When a mob intends to throw you in a river?”

“Especially then,” Gig said.

Reston laughed—a rusty sound like an old gate swinging open. “Good God,” he said, and tossed the club he’d been carrying. “I’ve fallen in with idealists.”