Gilded Mountain, page 39
It was these last paragraphs that later caused the trouble, just a fraction of what I had to say about Desolation and Human Life in the Gilded Range.
All night I printed and addressed the copies for mailing. The others I hauled on my sled through the stunned village. I tossed papers on porches and tucked them in milk boxes, coal bins, behind storm doors. We beat the Booster to the story by twelve hours.
The next day Tommy Phelps, Booster delivery boy, went skiing past me, his own sled piled high with rival papers. He stuck out his tongue. “Your paper is—” He leaned over to perform a fake theatrical vomit.
“Poor Tommy,” I said. “Delivering lies has made you sick.”
True to its name, the Booster reported the disaster through boost-colored glasses.
THE MOONSTONE BOOSTER *EXTRA*
It takes more than a snowslide to put the Company marble operation out of business or even to give our boys a serious setback. What yesterday morning appeared to be a complete disaster is today a temporary inconvenience. Indomitable spirit and loyalty have brought quick results, and the damage proved not nearly so great as was first supposed. Work has resumed in all departments. The outlook is very cheerful. The townspeople and employees have rallied to the Company’s support in splendid fashion.
Only one thing occurred to mar the general cheerfulness, and that was the appearance of a so-called newspaper on our streets, containing an article which in every line expressed satisfaction that the disaster had occurred. This pseudo-newspaper has upon many occasions attacked the Company, but it was thought that the present situation would call for a square deal from even the bitterest enemy. To print a spiteful article when misfortune comes is just about the last straw. The Booster would not be surprised to hear of a summary action being taken against that publication, such is the general feeling of indignation.
“Summary action!” K.T. cried. “If they come at us—” But she stopped with a strange look of panic and did not finish her sentence.
We locked the doors now, even in daylight. On Friday, two days after the slide, a handbill appeared, plastered to the window of the Mercantile. Others like it were tacked up all over town.
MARCH 15
TONIGHT 8 O’CLOCK.
MEETING AT MASONIC HALL.
EVERY MAN & WOMAN IN MOONSTONE
STRONGLY URGED TO BE PRESENT
“Beware the Ides of March” was all K.T. would say about it when I told her.
About seven-thirty that evening, Dottie Weeks burst into the Record with great excitement. “Let’s go. We want to get a seat.”
“Not me,” K.T. said, coughing. “Not with that flock of muttons. You two go ahead.” She shut the door behind us but opened it again to call: “Pelletier! Take notes.”
All along Marble Street, citizens of Moonstone hurried toward the hall. Moonlight smudged the clouds scudding along the ridge, mottled like sour milk. We arrived at the same time as Mr. and Mrs. Phelps, rude parents of rude Tommy the paperboy. Florrie Phelps cut in front of us. Mr. Phelps held the door for his wife, then went through, leaving it to slam in Dottie’s face.
“The nerve,” Dottie said.
“Muttons,” I whispered, and made sheep noises, bleating.
Dottie laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth with scandalized eyes. “Shh, Sylvie.” We laughed again, not yet afraid.
Hal Brinckerhoff came to sit with us in the back. The place was packed, more than a hundred people inside, many standing. The room smelled of damp wool and camphor and something foul. Vengeance.
At the front was Colonel Bowles. When the room was quiet, he began.
“I wish first to impress upon you that my position is simply that of an individual. I’m not representing the Company, but merely myself. I have only the interest that every person here should have: that of men and women whose bread and butter rely upon town industries, barber or baker or banker. Your livelihood depends on Moonstone Marble. Let’s start by saying this is not a Company meeting.”
“Ha!” Dottie Weeks elbowed my ribs.
Next to speak was Bull Baxter, the Colonel’s new assistant. “We have met to discuss a common enemy,” he said. “A certain newspaper. Nothing has hurt the town so much as these reports from the so-called Record that our Company is a stock-selling swindle. A preposterous claim.”
The crowd sent glances down the rows as if passing a church collection, gathering nods of approval. Baxter continued.
“The Record’s disgraceful article yesterday suggested that Destiny—a divine and deserved retribution—had visited tragedy upon our little town. That’s the last straw.”
I copied the speeches, dread constricting my chest. In the front row, Frank Goodell, editor of the Booster, was writing too.
“Unforgivable!” Baxter cried, his cowlick trembling. “That the paper openly exulted in the disaster! Reading it, one can only assume the editor is sorry no one was killed!”
“Miss Redmond never said that!” I blurted quite loudly. “She is not glad.”
Florrie Phelps turned to stare. Tarbusch whispered to Bowles, eyes boring my skull. Surely, I’d be revealed as the writer of the fateful news report. Someone would point the finger and expose me.
“The time has come when the town must be rid of this frightful editress.” Mr. Koble held up a piece of paper. “The orders here say that Miss Katrina T. Redmond must get out of town.”
The crowd erupted in applause, raucous cheers.
“The floor is open for debate,” Koble said. “Then we vote.”
Hal Brinckerhoff crossed his arms over his chest. Carlton Pfister glowered at me, his new Pinkerton badge glinting off his coat. I took notes with a shaking hand.
The banker rose to his feet. “Every man here tonight hates to tackle this problem because the editor is a woman!”
“When a woman takes a man’s place,” somebody shouted, “she must expect to receive what justice a man would receive!”
The crowd was foaming now. They would hang us from a gallows.
Reverend Winthorp: “The Lord instructs us to protect the weaker sex. But—”
Mr. Koble: “In regard to that heinous article, there’s no disagreement. This City Hatchet is chopping the blood out of our town.”
It was blood they wanted. You could feel the heat of anger rising in the room, winter frustrations pent up and boiling.
Little Mrs. Overby was lifted upon a chair to speak: “Too many people read her articles and do not take pains to find out whether they are true.”
Dottie elbowed me to my feet. “Say something.”
“The newspaper simply reports the facts,” I said with a burning face.
“Miss Pelletier,” said the Colonel, twitching, “it’s common knowledge that you’ve been wrongly influenced by outside agitators. For your own health, it would be best for you to stand down.” Dottie pulled me, shaking, to my seat.
Mr. Mill Manager Phelps: “The editor is the paid agent of those who try for their own gain to hurt the Company. I’m too much of a gentleman to say what I think of her.”
With a smile, as if administering cakes to the poor, Florrie Phelps passed around copies of the resolutions while Bull Baxter read them aloud:
WHEREAS, the editor of the Record newspaper, Miss K. T. Redmond, has endeavored to injure the chief industry of the town by publishing scurrilous and untruthful statements, and
WHEREAS the wrecking of the mill by the recent snowslide was a disaster, and that the article in the Record was untrue, written with a fiendish satisfaction over the loss to the Company, and seeming to regret there was no loss of life, and
WHEREAS such an attitude is in direct opposition to all community interests, and the continued publication of this slanderous sheet a menace to the people as a whole, be it
RESOLVED: That we hereby request Miss Katrina T. Redmond to take her departure from the town at once, never to return.
At those words came a fearsome swell of applause and stomping on floorboards. The windows rattled. The assembly cast cold muttering looks in my direction.
“Dottie.” I nodded for the exits, and we fled.
“Trina!” Dottie burst into the office. “They’re going to throw you out of town.”
K.T. sneezed. “They wouldn’t dare touch me. I’m contagious. I’ll infect them all with plague.” She looked quite pale.
“I tried to speak up,” I told K.T. “But they weren’t in a mood to listen.”
Dottie went home. We pushed the tables against the door and barricaded ourselves in for the night.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
ABOUT ONE O’CLOCK THE FOLLOWING day, a delegation of Moonstone citizens gathered at Mr. Koble’s store across the street. I peered out the window, watching them work up a froth. “Sheep are ruminant mammals,” K.T. said. “Look at ’em chewing the same cud they started last night.” She went out with her shovel and began to chip ice off the sidewalk in full view of the flock. They crossed the road and stood directly outside the Record. Bull Baxter and Carlton Pfister approached manfully.
“Katrina T. Redmond!” said Baxter. “We have a resolution to present you.”
“I don’t care if you have kittens,” K.T. told him. “Stay off my property.” She flung a load of snow to the street. Later, at the trial, Pfister would claim she’d threatened him with the shovel.
“Come and hear the verdict, old girl,” Baxter said. “You’ve got to go.”
“I’ve got to go write a headline about your kangaroo court,” K.T. told him. “Your sham verdict. It’s got no basis in law.” She came inside, and we watched the crowd’s maneuvers from the window. Hal Brinckerhoff stood at the far edge of the group.
“Brinckerhoff!” Baxter called out. “You’re a friend of Trina Redmond’s. If you represent her, we’ll read the resolutions to you.”
“I don’t represent her,” Hal said. “She’s her own agent.”
“Then bring her out.”
“Bring her out yourself,” Hal said. “I don’t believe in mob law. We have courts in the land to settle these things now. Not vigilantes.”
“Savior Hal,” K.T. whispered behind the glass.
“You have a crush on him,” I said.
“I might.” She smirked. “But we don’t kiss and tell around here, do we?”
Baxter came to the window and rapped on the glass. “Katrina Redmond! I know you can hear me. I present you the resolutions.” He read them aloud, ending with righteous thunder: Never to return. “Come take this paper.”
“You can put that where the sun don’t shine,” K.T. told him.
“We’ll drag you out if we have to,” Baxter said.
Carlton Pfister pounded the door. “Open in the name of the law.”
“You are not the law,” K.T. cursed him, but when the lunkhead Pfister threatened to break the glass, she undid the latch.
Carlton barged in, waving his shooter and an official paper. “We have an order here, signed by the Mayor, to take you in custody. You’ll come with me.”
“To jail?” she said. “That can’t be what this says.”
“It does. Read it.”
“You may not simply take the law into your own hands,” K.T. scoffed.
“I’ll take you, then,” Pfister said. “And your assistant with you.”
“Leave her out of it,” K.T. said.
“You don’t come now, we can’t guarantee your safety.” He pointed his chin at the window, where the good people of Moonstone pressed their wet noses. They began to chant, “Throw! Her! Out!” Bits of gravel and ice pelted the storefront.
“Get your things, Sylvie,” K.T. said, her face pale. She gathered papers frantically. “We’ll go to Dottie’s.”
“Leave everything,” Pfister said. “You’re only allowed a change of clothes.”
When he was distracted, I put my notebook in my skirt pocket. K.T. hurried upstairs. In my closet, I packed some clothes and Jace’s Finances diary. I took a hundred dollars from the pages of Du Bois’s Souls. But when I reached for the rest of my nest egg, hidden in Dickens and Conrad, Pfister pulled me roughly by the elbow.
“You’re hurting me. Let go!”
“What if I don’t?” Carlton smirked and leered.
Mr. Baxter snooped among the papers. K.T. rattled down the stairs with her bag. “The ledger,” she said. Just in time, I snatched up the register of subscribers’ addresses, all the East Coast financiers she kept informed about stock-selling scams.
“Leave that, now,” Baxter said sharply. “It’s likely to be evidence against you.”
Pfister wrested the ledger from me even as I fought him. When Baxter took charge of it, I saw him smirk, and then understood what the Company wanted above all: to keep the investors from finding out about their business losses and cruel practices. They didn’t care a fig for anything but profit. Pfister and Baxter marched us down the street. The good people of Moonstone town stared from their doorways at our sad parade. A mob of dogs and children followed, barking and jeering.
* * *
Out by the quarry road, the jail was a small cabin of notched ill-fitting logs, well ventilated through the gaps. One of the two cells was occupied by the bootlegger Mrs. Hurley, serving a six-month sentence for selling hooch in our dry town.
“Hello, Rita,” said K.T. “Are the beds comfortable?”
“Unfit for ladies,” Mrs. Hurley said from behind the checkerboard of bars.
“Get in there,” said Pfister. “Both of you.” He shoved us at the empty cell.
“You aren’t going to lock us in there!” K.T.’s voice rose in panic.
Pfister puckered his lips at me. “A kiss will buy Frenchy here a mattress.”
“How dare you!” K.T. said.
“Like so.” He grabbed my face and mashed his lips on my mouth. I tried to bite him, pushed at him, gagging. He shoved us in, shut the door, and locked it. With my sleeve, I wiped off his tobacco slobber. K.T. wheezed for air, coughing. We were caged. Two metal bunks hung chained from the wall. The bedding was a rat’s nest of newspaper and rags that stank of urine and grease.
“It’s against the law!” I said at the bars.
“I’m the law now.” Pfister hooked his thumb under the star on his lapel, smirking.
“I’m sorry, Sylvie.” K.T. seemed old suddenly, watery bags like blisters beneath her eyes. Her breath was labored. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s my fault. I wrote that story.”
“Every word was true. That article was just their excuse. They’ve wanted me gone for a long time.” She sagged on the floor, coughing. Would I lose her too? I feared it. My only friend.
“They will take everything I worked for all my life,” she said.
“They won’t get it,” I said. “It’s not legal.”
“It’s legal if we say it is.” Carlton Pfister stretched his legs by the stove and fired a stream of tobacco juice hissing into the fire.
“Go to hell,” I said.
“Pretty mouth on you,” said the leering goat.
“Bootlickersonuvabitch stooge,” I said.
“Attagirl.” K.T. laughed. “You tell him.”
“Chien humain,” I said. “Maudit putain hosti chrisse de calice tête de marde.”
My French curses nearly killed K.T. The more I swore, the more she laughed, racked by coughing. “How far we’ve come, oh, Saint Sylvie of the Mount,” she crowed. “Miseducated by circumstance.”
“By a wicked employer, you mean. A knocker.”
K.T. roared again. “Pelletier, you’re a true printer’s devil now.”
It was high praise from her, fuel to me. Within the hour, we’d cheered ourselves by inventing lines of doggerel for our guard: “There was a young TOADY named Pfister, who made a girl sick when he kissed her…” But before we said the next bit, our keeper hurled a can of beans that hit the bars with a clang. Mrs. Hurley shrieked. We retreated to sit on the floor by the back wall. K.T. coughed on my shoulder. Her brow was hot.
“You need a doctor,” I said.
“I need a lawyer, is what I need.”
“A cup of tea,” said Mrs. Hurley next door. “Just wait while I boil it.” Through the boards came the sound of a struck match, our neighbor prattling. “They give me a wee camp stove here in my coop, despite I never sold a sip of hooch to nobody! Yet they lock me up and fine me! Three thousand dollars! On no evidence.” Our fellow prisoner maneuvered a steaming cup around the bars. K.T. took a sip and spluttered. “Jesus!” The tea was spiked with moonshine.
“Shush, now.” Mrs. Hurley passed me my own cup. “Drink your medicine.”
* * *
Evening fell outside our cage. Guard dog Pfister lit a lamp and took himself off for dinner, leaving us a tray of hard cheese and harder bread. I tried to sleep, but worries kept me awake: What would happen? What about my money? K.T. tossed with fever. In the darkness came a sudden noise like rats scrabbling in the walls. Outside, somebody whispered, “Rita, Rita.”
“Joe, darlin’!” Mrs. Hurley said. “Ladies, good news! My own Joe just slipped a bottle to that dunderhead Carlie Pfister. He’ll stay away now. And he’s brought us a fresh jug. I have my straw, and you’ll have yours. Just feel along the south wall.”
“Oh, Lord,” K.T. said. “A siphon. Genius.”
A rubber tube poked through the unchinked logs. K.T. doubled over laughing and had a draft of it. “Tastes like gasoline,” she said after swallowing. I myself took more than a swallow. The force of that hooch knocked us out, all three prisoners.
Our guard Pfister was at his own party, a Wrecking Ball. While we slept, he and his Pinkerton friends broke into the Record office, smashing and looting. They carted off the printing press to be junked. They seized cases of type and threw them in a box. We learned later from Dottie Weeks how they dumped it all out in a snowbank behind the building. The leads and the slugs, the ornaments and gauge-pin tongues that had composed all the sentences ever printed in the Moonstone City Record, sank down buried in white drifts. Perhaps they’re still there.
