FanStory.com - One Man's Calling, chapter 7Aby Wayne Fowler

In the last part, Ben left the Bar-V ranch after helping to ‘set things right’ in the bunkhouse. He was headed into lake City, Colorado following God’s call.

“You Italian?” a man at an adjacent table in the part saloon, part restaurant asked.

“Family came from Tennessee, far as I know. Maybe Mississippi before that. Why?”

“Heard you askin’ about work. There’s a mine over to Animas Forks looking for seventy-five men – Italians need not apply, they advertize.”

“Well then … Ich bin ein Italiano.” Ben responded as he imagined one of his college buddies might have – rife with snarkiness.

“Huh? Oh, well. Prob’ly just as well. Heard they built a giant size bunkhouse and require all single men to live there. Then they charge ‘em all their wages for rent and keep. I think the superintendant came from the coal mines back east.”

Ben shook his head at the plight of the poor men, who counted on mining wages to send back to their families. Lucky prospectors are one in a million, and miners that aren’t killed or injured can’t save a nickel to send home. He saw the need for a leader, someone to organize the miners in order to help them be better miners for the owners, and better supporters of their families. He knew there was a need … but knew also that that was not his calling.

At the livery in Lake City, where he inquired about work, he heard of the advance railroad crew building trestles, some only over a ditch, others fifty, sixty, eighty feet tall. Ben felt an urging.

“Say you can work horses?” the man at the table inside a saloon asked. “Can you work a team from the ground, working block and tackle?”

“Sure,” Ben replied, not exactly lying, though he’d never touched block and tackle in his life. Other farms back home had them in their tall barns, but their own barn was a walk-out, the loft at ground level from up on the hill, an actual second story at the low end. He was certain that he could learn it quickly enough, also knowing that the wrangler worked the horses, or mules, or even oxen, and not the hardware. He figured he could manage the work.

“You got a horse? We ain’t feedin’ yer horse. Put ‘im in with ars an’ somebody gonna ride off with ‘im.” To the gathered men, he yelled, “You all be right here in … three days.”

Three days hence fell on a Sunday. Ben grimaced, but acknowledged the order. His calling was undisturbed.

Three days later, early Sunday morning, Ben stood among a crowd – older boys and men. Most appeared to be failed miners, some possibly sons of miners, one group standing somewhat apart, were likely cash-starved locals, and many appeared to be the fired Italians. Nearly all of them clearly suffered from being under-nourished.

“All right, men,” the recruiter began. “You’re all on the payroll beginning tomorrow morning.”

Ben heard the grumbling of men who’d already felt cheated of a day’s pay.

“What, you want paid for riding in a wagon? The job’s in South Fork. Starts there. That’s where we have a camp waiting for you.”

“We have to get our gear! All we brought was our totes! We have to tell our families!” Those and other shouts drowned out the recruiter’s attempt at control. After several moments he drew his railroad issue navy Colt, firing it into the air. “See here!” he shouted. “See here! You all be here. Right here tomorrow morning at sunrise. No difference. You start here and work to there, or start there and work to here. No difference.”

“Why ain’t you hiring men in South Fork? Something wrong here.” The shout came from someone in the crowd.

“Because all of you are here. Those men are building the roadbed and laying track. Now we’re in the mountains. Just good sense. Now you’ll work double hard to get this day made up!” He fired his pistol again for effect.

Ben used every bit of the rest of the day locating an extra blanket that someone was willing to sell, figuring he’d need two.

“I say we strike!” a man shouted to a mixed chorus. The few men were gathered outside their camp, away from prying ears, Ben among them. “They haven’t done one single thing that they’ve promised. Two weeks and we ain’t seen a pay day yet.”

“We got work, sure enough. Work aplenty. Ask Ponack, him with the broken back. Sent home to starve on a cot. We ain’t been paid a dime. Not one thin dime. No wood for a fire at night, hardly any food. And we ain’t even Chinese!” The speaker was a miner from the Eureka mine near Animas Forks, fired for the same sort of trouble-making behavior.

“He’s gonna git kilt,” a friend of Ben’s, a fellow wrangler, said to him in a whisper. “Railroad boys got ways miners don’t. They been at this a long time.”

Ben made his way to the man’s stump, a log he used as a podium, hopping on and edging him off with a gentle turn of his broad shoulders. “Men, we have every right. No one here, or anywhere else, wouldn’t agree that we’ve been slighted. Now I’ve heard all sorts of remedies all the way from sitting down and crying like babies …” He paused to let the laughter subside. “To taking up arms and murdering every man wearing a bow tie.” The crowd understood him to mean bosses and owners of every sort.

“Now I’m not taking up for them, or anybody else. But …” Ben paused for quiet, gazing across the crowd, making eye contact with as many as would. “I’ve been at a stage hold-up where bandits tried to take the strongbox that held payroll. It does happen.”

“That ain’t food!” someone shouted to concurring grumbles of hungry men. “Nobody robbed ‘em of our food!”

“No, it isn’t food. But there are ways, and there are ways. We’ve all heard the stories of what’s happening to workers back east … in the factories and such. The ones that raise the issues get themselves blackballed, no work, nowhere. That is, if they’re not killed. We’re not a lot different,” Ben said.

No we ain’ts and we’re betters were shouted and repeated throughout the crowd.

“As to our pay, no we didn’t get paid this week like they promised, but guess what? We didn’t get any pay the weeks before that either, when we were sitting at home watching the cat scratch and the wives work the garden. We can hold out another week.”

The grumbling continued, but sounded to Ben to be more positively charged than negative.

“Now, they know we can knock down every trestle built faster than they can be put up. They know that. Change is coming, but change happens slow. You make a fast change and it isn’t the changers that benefit, but the next crew, the next generation. Look at the Negroes. Yes, they’re free, but most of them are starving to death, can’t get work anywhere. Look at the activists back east, the ones can still talk or walk. Isn’t their families that will benefit. Maybe their grandchildren, but not them. Change is gonna come, but I can promise one thing for sure …” Ben stopped, waiting for total quiet. “It won’t start on a railroad line, and it won’t start in the San Juans.”

The murmurs sounded like a herd of cattle slowly rumbling through heavy grass.

Ben began to step off the makeshift podium, only to be thrust back up. “Ain’t leavin’ us high ’n dry,” one said.

“Go talk to them!” The charge was followed by assents throughout the crowd. Finally, Ben agreed.

“When?” shouted the original rouser, the one who’d started the meeting.

“How about right now?” Ben replied. “But this one demand I have …” Again, the men quieted for him. “Not a shout, not a grumble, not a word. We can’t have them frightened or angered. We’re going to be civil. Agreed? You don’t get a mean dog to calm down backing it into a corner.”

After a few moments of whispered grumbling, Ben noted the nodding of heads throughout. After finally making his way to his friend, he asked him to give his bedroll and belongings to whoever needed them. The Lake City bank held Ben’s funds. Red was stabled in Lake City where his rifle was stored with his saddle. Ben trusted he’d be returning to them in short order.

Ben knew that access to the highest level authority at the site would be near to impossible. He also knew that nothing could stand in the way of his calling. Following an inspiration, Ben decided on a John the Baptist approach. The temperature had taken a definite downturn, dipping into the thirties with the setting sun. This evening was colder than the last. After a thorough clean up at the river, Ben cut the legs off his long handles, barely covering himself. Donned in cut-off long johns only, a torch in each hand, he proceeded to the project manager’s railcar, standing like a statue, both torch-wielding arms extended, compelling himself not to shiver.

“You’ve got to see this, Boss,” a guard said to Saul Tate, the project manager. “You can see him out your window.”

“What the blazes? Who is he? What’s he doing?” Tate demanded. “What’s he want?”

Gazing at Ben, Tate started to demand that he be removed, or at least asked what he was doing, or … Until his eyes locked onto Ben’s and then he was as good as struck dumb. The guard knew better than to assume higher than his station, especially awestruck by the god-like statue Ben presented. Finally, Tate snapped free of his paralysis and asked the attendant to bring the man, whoever he was, into the car. Tate was still mesmerized.

Another guard, a recent hir-ee named Demone Lovelace took aim at Ben’s throat from a distance of only thirty yards. His rifle resting on a stack of railroad ties, himself concealed, Demone sensed his nearly unbidden trigger squeeze, releasing the tension just as Ben responded to another guard’s bidding.

“Mister Tate,” Ben began unbidden, declining a seat. “You need to feed your crew. Without coal, your locomotive goes nowhere but downhill, right? Without grain, horses walk, but can’t pull, or run. Without food, slaves can get to the fields, but can’t work the ground. And without food, your dogs will eat your leg.”

“Who I am doesn’t matter. Your workers haven’t had meat for three days. Or bread since yesterday. They are weakening as we speak. Soon they will fall out, walk off, or bite anything within reach.”

Tate ordered the job foreman fetched. Neither Ben nor Tate spoke during the wait, Ben’s unblinking gaze locking Tate in place.

“That’s one of the wranglers,” the foreman said unasked as he entered the railcar.

“No matter who he is,” Tate said. His eyes remained on Ben’s. “I want the men fed. And fed now. Tonight. And don’t be too quick to roust ‘em in the morning.”

Ben blinked, breaking the lock on Tate. He then accepted the offer of the seat Tate gestured to as Tate took another.

The two couldn’t get out quickly enough, scrambling over one another in their exit.

“No Sir. My job’s done here. The crew wouldn’t trust me, or they’d expect more of me than I’m prepared to give, and your men wouldn’t trust me either. No Sir, my job’s done. I’ll be moving on.”

Accepting a set of clothes, nicer than he ever owned, Ben made his way to town, to wait for the morning stage to Lake City where Demone Lovelace was preparing to return to Creede, finding Lake City too primitive for his liking.