The Long November Read online

  They wondered, for they could remember when the boys marched away before, and when they themselves had marched away before that...away to round up a few Boers on an African veldt, and leave a few more white crosses. They wondered, these old men, for they could hear something the younger ears hadn’t heard yet...the rattle of old laughter coming down the street...the same street that winds its way to every door sooner or later. They looked with watery old eyes at the new and wondrous weapons with which men could now kill each other, and they wondered if one day every last acre of the world would yield only a snowy crop of little crosses.

  Yes, old men, it’s different this time...there aren’t as many parades. It’ll be different next time, too. They have to get new angles, and they do. But some men will wonder then, too. Maybe even some guys will lie in dank rooms and wonder. Maybe one day they’ll say:

  “No, not again...it’s too old, and we’ve heard it too many times, and it’s catching in our throats like flat beer!” What a hope, Joe. You know they 11 never do it, because they’re honest men and you can always suck in an honest man with a good lie. They’ll do it then, too, as they always have. They’ll work, slug, starve...shiver in the biting wind as it whips through their thin clothing. Sleep in flop houses or with whores to keep warm. Get their mess of crawling food from a soup line, like the soup line in Toronto six months before war was declared. Lie, steal...even kill to live...but live, for Christ’s sake, LIVE! Live to collect their shining reward—a little white cross in a field.

  But you were at war, Joe. Who, me? Nuts, bub, Joe Mack never declared war on anybody. Don’t you remember? You were and you still bloody well are...and you’ve been at war since the Umbrella said so! Yes, and I remember he didn’t offer a stinking word of apology for it. Oh, come now, Joe, don’t blame the Umbrella. The hell I won’t...if a tiger gets loose in the zoo, I won’t blame the tiger. Even little kids know a tiger’s mad. I’ll blame the stupid bastard who left the gate open. It’s an idea, Joe, but there were others watching that gate, too.

  Funny things happened. Things you’d never have expected. Guys who’d been out of work for years suddenly found the government had a job for them, and a new suit of clothes. And does it matter that the suit may soon be a shroud, or that the job is to kill? Anything’s better than the biting wind, better than the soup lines, isn’t it? Isn’t it better to be one of “our boys” than a shifty-eyed guy who wanders around with newspapers covering the holes in his shoes, listening to the mush-mouthed crap about how there’ll always be a percentage of the population that can’t be employed. Don’t question where the money came from in ‘39 to clothe and feed you, bo; don’t ask where it was in ‘38. Don’t look that gift horse in the mouth—it’s got a hell of a bad breath. Take it and be glad, and if you find a one-way ticket to hell goes with that suit of clothes...be glad about that, too. It proves you can be employed.

  Some men were happy, some despaired. Some dreamed of profit and some of loss. To some it was a new chance at life and to others it was the end of their only chance; but all felt the cold wind of fear fan their dry cheeks, even if they could feel it only when they stood alone. It’s a funny wind, it blows the bugles and it waves the banners, but it doesn’t take sides...it does the same things for the enemy, too. And only the very old ears can hear the faint rattle on the wings of the wind.

  CHAPTER 9

  I never doubted the golden wealth of Curly’s beauty, Freddie. I knew “she was a big mine—a hell of a big mine,” long before the drills cut through her. I knew it just as I knew why Curly had given her to me and why I’d met Fern and you. There were some things I didn’t know, though. I didn’t know that all the “big” men aren’t Peter Morelands and all the “little” men aren’t Freddie Millers, and I hadn’t learned just how far a dream could grow in Joe Mack’s heart. My dream of making a cooperative mining venture died because I didn’t know these things. I sat in a musty cabin and thought of you, and of Bill Berigan and Jerry Koro, and then I thought of Peter Moreland and I got sore. I was going to show Canada how “big” money was raping her resources. I would take funny little people and line their bank accounts with the gold of their own land. I’d build the greatest mine the world had ever seen, and I’d be known as the man who gave away a hundred million dollars for a dream.

  And I looked down the road. It looked free and open, and I started, but I ran into a small man with a large hate, and instead of going further along the same road to where the Freddie Millers are waiting, I let an Alf Jolley stop me. Then I tried another road. I turned to the union bosses with my scheme for a co-operative pay roll; they thought I was a phony and maybe they were right. They laughed at me, and why not? I was Capital, I was a Mine Operator, I was the Enemy and they threw me out on my ear. If they’d strung along with my idea they’d have done themselves out of a job, and they knew it, but if I’d gone further along the same road I’d have met some great men...for there are great men on that road. I tried, but not hard enough. I walked out on the great dream you and Curly gave me when I collided with the first obstacle along the way.

  I’m lying here in Italy, Freddie, in a hell of a place. A dirty, damp room, a room that would make Fern sick if she could see it. Under the moldering floor I can hear the rats scampering around happily—fat, sleek rats. The best fed rats in the world, and why shouldn’t they be? There’s always lots of fresh meat handy. And here just above them I know something I didn’t know before. I’ve learned about dreams. You’re luckier than you know, Freddie, you died when your dream was alive and growing—you didn’t have to wait, like me, to find the dream was too big for your heart. It passed on, like a flame after the fire’s spent, but it was lovely while it stayed. It lifted me from the crowd that never had a dream, from the “meat still on the hoof.” It lifted me from those who wander aimlessly through a lifetime, waiting to be dropped in a hole and have the earth pushed hurriedly in their faces. But it passed on, and all that’s left is cold and hard and sour.

  After it had gone, Freddie, there was darkness and loneliness, like a strange crossroads at night. I stood for a while, not knowing which road to take, and I hoped a guy like you or Curly or Jake would come along to help me, but no one came. In time I knew it didn’t matter which road I took, for who can tell where any road goes?

  I guess the threat of war scares people more than the fact, because Dick started selling large blocks of Sleeping Squaw shares and the treasury grew. We were pretty happy those days and we blithely signed the drill contract and put ourselves out, dangling, on the end of a limb. Then one afternoon Quill Masters sawed that limb off, and with it went my dream. I know now, Freddie, that all the Sleeping Squaw will ever be is another series of stopes and drifts to cave in on guys, widow their wives, and leave a flock of hunky kids without fathers. More long shafts with oily sumps—more little girls with great big eyes. And at the end of it I can see Joe Mack on a banana island, belching from too much food and liquor, and growing a crop of double chins. God, Freddie, how I’d like to stop it, but you can’t stop anything in this world—you can only start things. Anyway, it isn’t mine to stop any more. I’m only one of the owners—just one.

  I knew what had happened, Freddie—when it was too late, I knew I’d sold you, and Curly, and even Steffie down the river. The dust settled and I could see clearly—I could see Joe Mack, but he looked like Peter Moreland.

  That’s right, Joe, you’re another Peter Moreland. You aren’t Joe Mack any more. You’re a “success story” now. You’re Joseph Mack, president of Sleeping Squaw Gold Mines, Ltd.; you’re “Canada’s Young Mining Wizard.”

  “Canada’s Millionaire Private”—like the one in the last war. You’re a story they tell little kids in school...you’re not a man, you’re a fable. You’re an Alger hero—“Sink-or-Swim!”—“Bound-to-Get-Ahead,” you know the guff, Joe. Why, they even tell the kids how you carried Curly back to Moreland Lake, how you rode the freight out, and the parts they don’t know, Joe, they’ve made up. You’d be sur
prised to learn the things you’ve done—lots and lots of things that never happened.

  Everyone who ever knew you tells the story. Take Alf Jolley—can’t you see him? By the time he gets through with it, you’ll have been sleeping with him. Yes, Joe, you’re a “success story” and how they love it—and can you tell anyone a guy with three million bucks is wrong? No, maybe not, but there’re a few other things you can tell them. Tell them about Rosie in Chicago. Tell them about Cataract City...tell them I didn’t join the army to “do or die for dear old Canada.” Tell them Emily Dawson would have sent me to the can if I hadn’t joined, and tell them I’d rather be in the can. No, tell them nothing—they wouldn’t believe it anyway—just tell Steffie.

  Masters waited till we’d painfully lifted Sleeping Squaw to a “street” market of .32-.30 and in one afternoon he kicked it down to .3-.2. From a firm bid of thirty cents a share to a shaky bid of two cents, and it took every cent we could scrape together to try to hold it; but it was useless. What he pulled was an old stunt—he called on our clients and urged them to sell. After he’d alarmed them to a panic point, he “shorted” the market on Sleeping Squaw. I don’t know how much he made, but whatever it was he never had a chance to spend it. He never spent the ten grand he nicked me for in England, either. It was tough for Dick and me, but it was hell for BF. I guess facing Rebecca was the hardest part, and it began to look like he’d better go back to Spadina and College Streets, back to “Kasten’s Secondhand Furniture, Open Evenings.” He was tired, and he looked old.

  BF went home early that night. Dick and I stayed on, sitting quietly in BF’s office. Dick had changed, the cockiness was gone, and in its place was an angry look. He was mad clear through. Mad that he’d trusted Masters, mad that he’d been made a sucker of, and mad that his dream had been kicked around by a double-crossing bastard. I tried to cheer him up, sort of a Pollyanna of the bankruptcy courts.

  “The spring’ll be different, Dick,” I said, “we can try again...”

  He looked at me as if I’d flipped my lid.

  “We won’t own the claims in the spring, Joe, those drillers will tie a lien on the property. Somebody’s got to pay them for carting their equipment up there.”

  It hit me then. Hit me with a force I’ll never forget, as though someone had bent a piece of lead pipe over my noggin. The idea of losing the claims had never occurred to me. Those were “my” claims! They’d been given to “me” by Curly and let no son-of-a-bitch have any doubts about it! They were the first things I’d ever owned and by Christ, I was going to keep them. It’s the old business of ownership, and it dates back to the first time some guy threw another one out of a cave and decided it would be his cave alone. I shook from the impact of the thought and I could feel it to my shoelaces. I owned those claims, Goddamnit! I scraped them with Curly. I carried Curly back. I buried him.

  “No, Dick, no one is going to take those claims...” No, no one was going to take those claims. No drillers were going to sell us out to settle a lien. There had to be another way.

  “Maybe if we dig up enough to cover their costs they’ll call the contract off,” I said.

  Dick shook his head. He was silent a moment, working on an idea. “No, Joe, there’s a smarter way, by Christ, and I know it. I’ve just thought of it...” He smiled for the first time that day.

  “What is this brainchild, Dick?”

  He looked at me, a cold, hard look. “It’s a little risky, Joe...are you game?”

  Are you game for a little risk, Joe? Game to take a chance to save your claims? Game to bury the works in a long shot? Yes, I was game and I knew what he meant before he said it. He meant Emily Dawson, and twenty grand in Dominion of Canada bonds, green and crinkly, lying in the office safe. He meant to take them and sell them as any fool could do. I thought of Emily, thin as a razor and with the same amount of human kindness. She’d been Old Bill Urquart’s special lay, or so he thought, for years, and when the old pirate died he left his dough to Emily instead of his wife. But I knew Dick meant Emily’s bonds because we’d both thought of them the moment BF opened the registered letter that brought them in. Emily had her own brand of patriotism; Canada could win, lose, or draw in the war, and Emily would still be in the dough...she was cashing her bonds and buying U.S. currency.

  “You mean Emily’s bonds, Dick?”

  His eyes sparkled. “Sure, Joe, what else?”

  “Those gates at Kingston Penitentiary are damned high, Dick, like the walls...”

  “Nonsense, Joe, we’ll just borrow the dough for a few days. I’ve got a terrific idea...”

  “It certainly is. ‘Hello, Warden, my name’s Joe Mack...’”

  Dick smiled, but then his face grew serious.

  “I mean it, Joe...here’s the angle. We’ll plaster the papers with the story that we’re drilling...die “street” will jump to at least twenty-five cents a share, and we can unload enough stock to pay Emily off. In the meantime we’ve just used her dough to pay the drillers...

  “We can’t be sure of those drills, Dick. Christ, for all I, or any other guy knows they might drill nothing but camel-dung.”

  He looked at me as though I were moronic.

  “Who gives a damn what they cut with the drills? We know there’s gold there but it might take some time to prove it. If we give it enough publicity we can ease a hundred thousand shares of stock into the public’s hands. It’s a natural!”

  I argued a little, not much. I’d have done it with no chance of the “street” coming through. Just on the hope of what the drills might show. And I didn’t give a damn about whose money was used. It could have been the Widows’ and Crippled Orphans’ Fund, and I’d still have snatched it. Emily could afford it, though, if that makes it any better....Yes, Joe, no son-of-a-bitch with any two-bit lien was going to take “your” claims. And those gates at Kingston shrunk until they didn’t exist. Nothing existed. Afterward, I thought of many things, but that was afterward.

  And Dick was waiting for an answer.

  “What happens if it all goes wrong, Dick?”

  “Canada’ll get a couple of damned good soldiers in a hell of a rush.”

  “What about BF?”

  “Look, Joe, don’t cross these bridges or rivers or what-ever-the-hell it is until you get to them. We’ll tell BF afterwards, and if everything does go haywire I think I can handle Emily—she’s been trying to make me for years...”

  “You mean that old bag?”

  “Sure, Joe...now why the hell do you suppose she sends her bonds to me to sell. She can hope, can’t she?”1 “Jesus, Dick, an old hatchet like that! What a business. Don’t tell Mother I’m working in the brokerage business, Daddy, tell her I’m still towel-boy in a whorehouse.”

  “It isn’t that bad, Joe. I heard of an honest guy once, he...”

  “Let’s get back to how this is done, Dick...why does it need two of us?”

  “Are you cutting yourself out, Joe?”

  Are you cutting yourself out, Joe? No, but I sat in a strange poker game once and lost a grand. This isn’t a strange game, Joe. Are you in or out? Dick had a funny look on his face—he was wondering about Joe Mack.

  “I didn’t mean that, Dick. Can’t we roll to see who’s ‘it’—do we both have to take a rap?”

  Dick’s face relaxed.

  “You had me worried for a minute, Joe. We’ll roll the dice if you want, but there isn’t going to be any rap to take—you’ll see.”

  He reached in the drawer and pulled out a pair of transparent dice and dropped them into a water glass. He capped it with his palm and shook it like a cocktail shaker.

  “Low man on one roll, Joe? Low man sells the bonds, wires the dough to the drillers, then keeps out of sight, while the other guy goes to work on Emily and the publicity. Okay?”

  I nodded. Dick shook the dice once more and rolled. Little Phoebe, a three and a two. He sure made it tough for himself. He grinned and handed me the glass with the dice.

  �
��You could toss one of them out the window and still beat me, Joe.”

  As I shook the glass my eye caught the desk calendar, and my face must have shown my dismay.

  Dick asked, “What’s the matter, kid?”

  “You’re safe as a church, Dick, it’s November 1st.”

  I rolled Little Joe—a two and a two, and any way you add, it’s still only four.

  Take a dream—a nice shiny one. A couple of men with big hearts, and a bent old man with a sore—then take a slim girl with white-blond hair that smells of clover. Take another girl with big eyes and half a hundred hunky women and God knows how many kids—drop the works into a water glass and shake it with a pair of dice, then roll.

  But only the dice will come out...and only the dice did come out. It was like a wall I’d built to block out all the things I didn’t want to think of. I didn’t want to think of Jake—he’d just wonder why I was walking away from a good scrap. Curly would say, “Well, Joe buried me like he said.” And Freddie would smile as if to say “maybe that’s what you had to do, Joe...” but he wouldn’t believe it. They’d still like me...but it would be different. And Steffie, Joe, what about Steffie? I didn’t think about Steffie because I was afraid to...I knew she wouldn’t approve.

  I didn’t think of her any more than I could tell her, until I had to. Until I knew we’d guessed wrong on Emily, and until I had to run for the Army. Those weeks of waiting for Dick’s phone call, to say he’d cooled Emily out and she wasn’t going to call “copper.” Those weeks of hiding in my apartment, or taking Steffie riding to places I mightn’t be recognized, just in case Emily had sworn out a warrant. Those weeks of praying to God the drills would work properly and give us some news, because Dick’s hopes for the “street” didn’t come through.

  And each night Steffie would say, “Joe, something’s wrong...you’re different. What is it?”

  The stalls, lies, tricks, and all because I couldn’t tell her what I’d done...I was afraid. I knew I was wrong not to tell her, but I also knew I’d have to defend myself when I did, and I had no excuse except the one I still believed in—those were “my” claims, by God! I stood it until the middle of the third week, and then I blew wide open and fixed the works all in one day—Emily, Steffie, and the Army.