Montgomery - The Awakening Part 24

"Thanks," he said, took a handful, then turned on his heel and left.

Grace went back to reading, and it was hours before she stopped smiling.

"Put me down," Amanda said.

Hank set her to the ground then grabbed her forearm and began pulling her behind him. "I want you to see something," he said.

"I was told not to go to the fields."

He stopped and turned on her. "You still won't think for yourself, will you, Amanda? You believe what everyone tells you, no questions asked. How your father has treated the pickers in the past years has been so bad people are talking of murder in order to make it stop, but that doesn't affect you. Caulden spends five minutes telling you he's a good man and you believe him over hundreds of other people."

"But he's my father, he-"

"You can't make a person good because you want to believe it. You can't will it to happen." He turned and started pulling her again. "I want you to see why unions are being formed."

Amanda was as angry as he was now and thought she'd love to see him drive off a cliff in his little yellow automobile. Her anger kept her from at first realizing what was before her.

She smelled the place first. It didn't take a breeze to bring the smell to her. It was a hundred and five degrees and the humidity was high as they got closer to the irrigated fields. Suddenly she knew she didn't want to see what lay ahead in the tented city on the horizon. "Wait," she said, jerking back and halting. "I don't want to go."

"Neither do I. I want to take a bath and maybe get ready to go to a dance tonight, but they can't and I can't and you can't." He began pulling her again.

On the east end of the hop fields was an enormous flat meadow that was now covered with tents and crude little shelters. There were also piles of filthy straw here and there. Garbage was everywhere: bones, rotting meat, horse manure. The flies were thick, and Amanda saw the skinned head of a sheep at the door of one tent, maggots crawling over it.

Hank had her arm firmly in his hand. "Your father rents the tents for seventy-five cents a day. Considering that a grown man works all day in this sun and this humidity and makes about ninety cents, that's a little steep, wouldn't you say? The ones who can't afford the tents buy straw and live on it. There is no provision for garbage."

He pulled her down the road to the center of the stench, and for a moment Amanda could only stare. Here were the outdoor toilets. There was a line of fifteen to twenty people waiting before each toilet, and as Amanda watched, one pregnant woman in the back of a line stepped aside and vomited. Amanda's own stomach turned over and she was still yards from the toilet.

"Your father has provided nine toilets for two thousand eight hundred people," Hank said. "Each one's a two-holer. The men and women share the toilets-they're only laborers, so who cares about privacy? They're just animals. Yesterday the pickers tried keeping the grounds clean by disposing of their garbage in the toilets, but the holes are only two feet deep. They were full by last night. Caulden doesn't provide any cleaning. Would you like to go inside one, Amanda? There's excrement on the floor an inch deep. As you can see, the smell makes the people sick. Stay here long enough and you'll get to see someone soil his pants or her skirt. The filth is giving everyone dysentery."

Amanda's defiance was leaving her. She had never seen anything like this, never imagined anything like this. Hank didn't have to pull her when they walked away. He stopped by a well pump.

"There are two wells for all the workers, but they're pumped dry by sunup, and the next closest well is a mile away. They don't get much rest as it is, but they lose what little they have by going for water."

He began walking toward the fields, his hand still clutching her forearm. He led her to the hop fields. On one side the workers had pulled down the tall, steeplelike trellis that supported the hop vines and on the other side the trellis was still up. The field was covered with men, women and children hurriedly pulling down the vines and stuffing them into bags. It was unbearably hot here and the heat waves s.h.i.+mmered in the humidity.

"Would you like to work in that heat, Amanda? A man died from the heat yesterday. So far four kids have been taken out on stretchers. There're no toilets out here, so the pickers can either not go all day or take the hour or so to walk back to the camp and wait in line for the toilet. And do they drag their one-hundred-pound bag of hops with them or leave it and let someone steal it? They go there," Hank said, pointing to the unpicked rows. "Of course that means that when they reach that part of the field they have to pick while walking in human excrement."

Amanda could say nothing. She could barely stand up in the intolerable heat. She made no resistance when Hank began pulling her again. He led her to a wagon, took money from his pocket and handed it to the man standing at the back of the wagon. "How about a cool gla.s.s of lemonade, Amanda?" he asked and handed her a filthy gla.s.s with a hot liquid in it.

She didn't dare refuse him. She took a sip, then grimaced. With great difficulty she swallowed the awful-tasting drink.

"Citric acid," Hank said. "Lemons cost more. With citric acid your father can make gallons for pennies, sell it for five cents a gla.s.s and make hundreds of dollars of profit." He took the gla.s.s from her and offered it to a sweaty, tired-looking little girl of about eight years. The child drank it greedily and looked at Hank with adoring eyes before turning back toward the fields.

"Your father sells food too, and the only water they get is one gla.s.s for one bowl of stew. You want a second gla.s.s you have to buy another bowl of stew. You can't buy the water by itself-and Caulden sure as h.e.l.l doesn't give away the water for free."

He began pulling her again, but this time Amanda walked beside him. He didn't have to hold her to him. She had to see all of it, had to see part of the world she had never known existed. She had sat in her room year after year while the hops were picked and had never even wondered about the people picking them.

Hank led her to the weigh station but they couldn't get close because everywhere were men and women frantically dumping their heavy canvas bags full of hops on the ground and stripping the vines and leaves off. There was pain and anguish written on the faces of the people, as if they were fighting for their lives.

"It takes a man many hours to pick a one-hundred-pound bag of hops, and then he drags his bag to be weighed and have it credited to his name, but your father has set up inspectors to tell the pickers the hops aren't 'clean' enough. So the pickers have to waste precious hours pulling off vines and string and tossing out unripe hops. Usually a man can pick two hundred fifty to four hundred pounds a day, but your father has it so a man can only get a hundred pounds a day. He works all day in this sun, no water, no toilet, and he earns from ninety cents to a dollar ten."

He turned to face her. "You know why your father demands such clean hops? Two reasons: one, he doesn't have to pay for the weight of a few leaves and string, but, most important, the second reason is because he wants the worker to quit. Your father is awfully clever, Amanda. I wonder if you got your brains from him. He came up with an ingenious way to cheat these people. The going rate across the country for hop picking is a dollar a hundred pounds. Your father, in his ads, promised top wages and a 'bonus.' His wages are ninety cents a hundred-pound bale and a ten-cent bonus for every bale picked. This 'bonus' is to be paid to the people who stay the whole harvest time. If a worker quits before all the hops are in, he loses his 'bonus.' Already a thousand j.a.panese have left. They wouldn't work in this filth. For every person who quits, your father gains ten cents on a hundred pounds. Multiply ten cents by thousands of bales by thousands of people. What you'll get is one h.e.l.l of a lot of cigars for Caulden and"-he looked her up and down-"one h.e.l.l of a lot of silk dresses for you, Amanda."

Hank's fury was spent now and his shoulders slumped. "You can go home now, Amanda. Go home and sit under a tree with your pretty mother and enjoy what your father provides for you."

"Wh-what is going to happen here?" she managed to say. Her voice was hoa.r.s.e. The horror of what she was seeing was just seeping into her.

"I don't know. This is worse than I was led to believe. Whitey has been doing a lot of talking. The workers are terrified of losing their jobs, but seeing your six-year-old kid pa.s.s out in the heat does something to you. And as hard as these people are working, what with the wages so low and the food and water so expensive, they're spending what they're making. Some of them are already in debt to your father. Tempers are beginning to boil. I think they'll go to your father soon."

"He won't listen," Amanda said, watching a little girl pull vines off hops. She was about three years old, and the seat of her pants, showing under her dirty dress, was soiled. Amanda didn't feel like defending her father. The man who could allow something like this year after year couldn't be defended.

Hank lifted one eyebrow at her. "No, he won't listen, but I'm going to try to persuade him. I worry what will happen if some changes aren't made."

"You?" Amanda said. "But this morning I saw Sheriff Ramsey come to our house. Sheriff Ramsey will..." She trailed off.

"Shoot first," Hank said. "I'm aware of that. I want you to go back now, Amanda. I don't want Whitey to know who you are. Stay in your room. Better yet, why don't you and your mother go to San Francisco for a few days?"

Amanda could only look at him. Coward, she thought, I have always been a coward. At fourteen I was afraid to stand up to Taylor, and at twenty-two I'm afraid to stand up to my father. She turned away from him and started back toward the ranch house. Maybe she could make up for lost time.

Hank watched her go. It wasn't her fault, he knew that, but he'd wanted her to see what he was fighting. He made a little prayer that she'd take his advice and go away somewhere. But he didn't have time to worry about Amanda. He had to find Whitey and see what that fanatic was planning. These people were just hot enough and angry enough that it wouldn't take much to push them over the edge.

Chapter Seventeen.

The door to the library was open, but it wouldn't have mattered to Amanda if it were closed. She walked into the room. Her father sat at the desk, papers before him, Taylor bent over him.

Taylor straightened and frowned at her. "Amanda, you are supposed to be in your room. I told you-"

Amanda looked only at her father. "There is going to be violence if you don't change what is happening in the fields."

J. Harker looked at her, his only movement his mouth working on his cigar.

"Amanda, you are not to speak of things you know nothing about," Taylor said. "You are to go to your room this instant and-"

"Shut up, Taylor," Amanda said. "This is family." Her father leaned back in his chair and Amanda met his gaze equally. The smells of the toilets and the rotting garbage were still in her nostrils. "The union leaders are talking about bloodshed, and your blood is whose they want to see first."

"Amanda," Taylor said, recovering from his shock, "you cannot-"

She turned to look at him. "Sit!" she ordered, as if he were a pesky little dog. She glared at him until he obeyed her, then she went to her father's desk, put her hands on it and leaned forward. "You've got away with your thievery for years now, but this year is different. I think the pickers could put up with the filth and the lack of water, but they won't put up with the way you're cheating them of their money. If you don't start paying, they're going to start shooting." She looked at her father and their eyes were alike, both angry and stubborn.

"Amanda, I-" Taylor began.

Amanda glanced at him. "You keep quiet or you leave." She looked back at her father. "Well?"

J. Harker gave a snort of derision. "I have fifteen men working for me in the fields. They tell me what's going on, and if they can't reach me to ask permission, they carry guns and they know how to use them. Bull has more men posted around the area. Let them talk all they want, but the blood spilled will be theirs, not mine."

Amanda stood back. She had no intention of asking why he had so little humanity and she could see it was no use trying to persuade him. She would have liked to threaten him. But she knew of nothing that mattered to him except the ranch. If she threatened to leave home if he didn't clean up the camp, it would mean nothing to him. Hank had been correct: a man who could shun his wife and exile his daughter was capable of anything.

J. Harker's eyes looked triumphant.

"Winning is everything to you, isn't it?" Amanda said. "No matter who gets in your way, who you have to step on to get there, you have to win. You're not going to win this one. You may starve a few poor, uneducated migrant workers today, but tomorrow you'll lose. Your day is over." She turned on her heel and left the room. She couldn't bear to be near the man any longer.

Taylor caught her on the stairs. "Amanda," he said softly, "I didn't mean -"

"Yes you did," she said, glaring at him. "You meant every degrading, humiliating thing you've ever done to me. For years you've tried to make yourself just like my father. He has thousands of helpless pickers to tyrannize while you had only one isolated, lonely girl who was eager to please. Well, Taylor, just like those workers are fed up, so am I."

"But, Amanda, I love you."

"No you don't. You don't even know me. You love a wooden doll you've carved into what you think a female should look like. When you want me, you pull me out of my room; when you have no more need of me, you send me back to my room with a little list to keep me busy." She didn't want to waste more time talking to him but continued up the stairs.

"Amanda," he said, moving in front of her, "what are you going to do? I mean, our engagement is-"

"Off," she said, then halted and gave him a look of great patience. "First I am going to do what I can to help the pickers. I will..." She paused, searching for an idea of what she could do. "I am going to make them lemonade-free lemonade. And when the hops are picked I'm going away."

"With him?" Taylor shot at her. "I'm not as blind as you seem to think."

She looked at Taylor as if she'd never seen him before. "You may not be blind, but I have been. If Hank will have me, yes, I'll go away with him, but it's not likely he'll want me. Now, will you please move out of my way? There are people fainting from the heat even while we stand here arguing about inconsequential matters." She moved past him.

"Inconsequential!" he half shouted up at her. "My whole future is being decided by the whim of a woman l.u.s.ting after some two-bit-"

Amanda whirled to face him. "You'll get the ranch, I'm sure of it. Where else is my father going to find a mirror image of himself? Neither of you men need me. But let me give you some advice, Taylor. You ought to leave here. You ought to leave today. Now. You should go get Reva and keep going and never look back. Reva will be good for you. She's just loose enough to counteract that piece of steel you call a spine. Now, I must go, and to tell you the truth, Taylor, I don't really care what you do."

She hurried up to her room, tore off her heavy silk dress and put on the lightest-weight white blouse and dark cotton skirt she owned. When she was dressed, she pulled clothing from drawers and her closet. She had no suitcase, so she went to her father's bedroom and pulled his from the top of the closet. She stuffed her clothes into the case and went downstairs. She didn't look at the house, for there was no feeling of sadness at leaving it. There was only a feeling that there was freedom outside the door.

She set her suitcase down in the butler's pantry and went to the kitchen, where she borrowed a tall, lever-handled juice extractor from the cook and called the grocery in Kingman and ordered a truckload of lemons. "Then send to Terrill City for them," she said into the telephone.

She went outside, the suitcase in one hand, the juicer in the other when she stopped. She needed to say goodbye to her mother.

Amanda stood beside her mother's chair under the tree for a moment, and everything that had happened came back to her. She felt overwhelming anger at herself. Why had she allowed Taylor to deny her mother? Why had she followed Taylor so blindly?

Grace looked up at her daughter.

"Mother, I-" There were tears in Amanda's eyes.

"Planning to leave?" Grace asked, nodding at the suitcase.

"I have been a terrible person to you, and I-"

Grace interrupted her daughter. "Mind if I run away with you? And what's that for? It's not a cudgel for someone's head, is it?"

Amanda held the juicer up. "Father promised the workers lemonade and I'm going to give it to them. I figure it will be a day or so before he gets the bill for the lemons and stops delivery."

"And the suitcase? Does that have to do with the pickers or one very handsome economics professor?"

"I..." Amanda knew she'd been so brave for the last few hours, but her newly found courage was leaving her. She fell to her knees and put her head in her mother's lap. "It was so awful," she cried. "Those poor people are fainting from thirst because Father charges them for water, and I feel like such a fool. I have spent years in my room and-"

"Hush, Amanda," Grace said sternly. "Las.h.i.+ng yourself isn't going to help at all. You were a sweet little girl who wanted to please her father. Now dry your eyes and let's get to work. It's almost sundown, so the pickers will stop for the day, and the lemons will never get here before tomorrow morning. You wait here while I pack a few things, then we'll spend the night at the Kingman Arms and tomorrow we'll make lemonade. Now dry your eyes so you'll look pretty for your professor."

"But, Mother, you can't leave Father just because I'm leaving."

"What's here for me? Your father and I haven't had anything between us since he punished me for what he saw as a betrayal by taking you away from me. I have just been waiting until you either married Taylor or came to your senses. I couldn't leave before; we couldn't all desert you. But now I can leave." She stood. "Stay here and I'll be back as soon as possible."

Amanda sat on a chair, her hands clasped in her lap. "If Hank will have me," she'd said. It wasn't difficult to see that she'd loved him for a long time. With a grimace, she thought that if nothing else about her was strong her willpower was. She'd willed herself to love Taylor, and in spite of his bullying her, in spite of his patronizing kisses and his punishments, she'd remained loyal to him. Yet Hank had shown he cared about her, had treated her as a person, but she'd willed herself to despise him. She'd almost willed herself into a miserable life that she would surely have had with Taylor.

Her first concern was the pickers, but when they were gone she'd go to Hank and beg his forgiveness on bended knee if she had to.

Her attention was taken off herself as, through the trees, she saw about ten men approaching the front of the house. At the head of the group was the man with the distinctive hair, Whitey Graham.

Amanda was on her feet instantly. This was no doubt the presentation of the grievances that Hank had said he was going to give to her father. She began running and reached the house just as Taylor, J. Harker and two of Bulldog Ramsey's deputies came out to stand on the porch. Amanda stood in the deep shade to one side. She didn't feel that she fit completely with either side.

"We have a list of grievances," Whitey said. "We ain't happy about things in the fields."

Harker didn't give any indication that he heard the man. He just glared, his eyes like coals.

Whitey stepped up on the porch so he was an equal height level with Harker. Taylor started to protest this insolence, but Harker pushed him aside.

"Say what you came to say," Harker grunted.

Whitey read a list of seven complaints that included a need for field toilets, camp toilets, drinking water delivered to the fields, pickers appointed as inspectors, lemonade made with lemons and, finally, one dollar and twenty-five cents paid for one hundred pounds picked, with no bonus.

Everyone held his breath as Harker made up his mind.

Please, Amanda prayed, please agree to this.

Harker at last spoke and he agreed to more toilets, water delivered three times a day, real lemonade, and even to pay two dollars and fifty cents a day to inspectors chosen by the pickers. But he refused to raise the wages.

It was Whitey's turn to be stubborn. "You have just dug your own grave," he said quietly.

Harker smacked Whitey across the face with the back of his hand. "Get off of my land."

In the next moment all h.e.l.l broke loose. One of the deputies lunged at Whitey. Whitey ran down the steps, while the nine men with him didn't seem to know whether to run or fight. The second deputy yelled that Whitey was under arrest, to which Whitey said there was no warrant for his arrest. With that, Whitey and his men ran from the property.

Amanda leaned back against the porch railing. It was done now. The ball had started rolling down the hill. No humans could stand the conditions in the fields for very long without exploding.

Suddenly, Amanda stood bolt upright. Where was Hank? He said he was going to present grievances but he hadn't even been among the presenters. Did he decide to keep out of it? Had he at last come to his senses and realized it wasn't his fight?

She almost laughed at the idea. Hank Montgomery didn't have a cowardly bone in his body. He'd single-handedly taken on J. Harker Caulden, a man who terrified his own family yet Hank had always stood up to him. Hank dealt with crazy men like Whitey Graham. Hank set up a Union Hall in the middle of Kingman, California, and when the citizens had painted GET OUT OF TOWN on the building, Hank had just shrugged and had Joe paint over it.

No, the cause of Hank Montgomery's absence from the grievance committee wasn't cowardliness or disinterest. So what had made him stay away? Something awful must have happened in the fields.

Without another thought, she started walking rapidly toward the fields. Her mother caught her arm before she was out of the cool, shady garden.

"Decide to leave me behind after all?" Grace asked, trying to sound lighthearted, but her voice betrayed her concern.