Gary Amdahl - The Daredevils

“Good water up here,” said Charles.

“We don’t have any trouble with it,” said the man.

“Can you direct me,” Charles continued briskly, “to the sheriff’s office and to a doctor?”

“The sheriff’s office and a doctor,” repeated the man. “That kinda sounds like trouble, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I’ve got a prescription for the latter and some questions for the former,” Charles said. “I must, as per the outline of my duties, visit the sheriff, and I want, more than anything else, to find morphine for Vera here, who is in a great deal of pain from a recent bombing. I fear she will go to pieces on us, and we need her rather desperately to stay together.”

The woman laughed, as if anticipating something the man was about to say. “No, the prescription should be for our poor old sheriff and it would read, ‘Get out of town before they tar and feather you,’ and the question would be for the good doctor: ‘Doc, how much you charge to set the broken bones I aim to come to you with when I suggest those darned old weights aren’t quite what they seem to be — or I should say, there’s more to ’em than meets the eye!’”

The man and the woman laughed privately and lengthily.

“Not exactly sure what you’re saying,” Charles said with a polite smile, “but I guess it won’t take long, is that right? For me to get it?”

“BIG DOINGS IN TOWN!” shouted the man.

Charles clapped his hands, feeling altogether upstaged, and said, “HOT DAMN!”

“You’re not the first guy,” said the man, shooting an amused look at Vera but speaking to Charles, “that I’ve ever seen before to come in here wanting a drink to start the day out right. How do I know you’re a Pinkerton? How do you know I’m not? How do I know you’re not from the NPL pretending to be a Pinkerton for God knows what nasty-ass reason — to decoy another goon from the Justice Department who’s actually a militant prohibitionist striking a deal with the Chicago Wobblies to thwart the, uh, the, uh. ”

“Detroit,” said the woman.

“Detroit Wobblies. How do I know that’s true or not true? How do you know that? And while we’re at it, who are these other men here? Do you know? Do I know?”

“We’re Chicago Wobblies,” said the older man at the table.

“How ’bout you, buddy?” The man at the bar lifted his face to Ray.

“My name is Rejean Houle. I am a hired gun.”

This was inspired stagecraft and Charles brightened.

“Who hired you?”

“Mr. Minot.”

Charles applauded.

“YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!” the woman hollered at the top of her lungs. Then she and the man collapsed in laughter. It was now clear that they were both quite drunk. Charles stepped down the bar to an open bottle of whiskey, picked it up and saluted the two of them with it, then took a long drink.

“Jesus Christ,” said Vera. “Mr. Minot? You’re gonna make yourself sick.” He took another long drink. “Charles? Chick?” Vera tried. “You look hypnotized. Come on, let’s go. Yes, these people are comrades and they are charming, but let’s go.”

“Yes indeedy-do!” said the woman. “Mr. Minot, aka Charles, aka Chick, wants to find that darn doctor and the sheriff before he tips over, which will be in a second or two, because whatever I don’t know, I do know who can’t hold liquor!”

“Good luck to ya!” the man sputtered.

Charles had begun to make his way to the door, following Vera, but came back to shake the hands of the man and the woman, as he was evidently not going to stop swilling whiskey. Vera let him tug him a step, still drinking, then stopped with a jerk that threw him a little off balance. He reached out and slammed the bottle down on the bar and to the saloonkeepers said, “The blonde is with the NPL, and was with the Wobblies in Paterson and Lawrence. It’s possible she met the old man and the young man at the table over there in Paterson, or possibly had a hand in some goings-on in Los Angeles and later in San Francisco, where we all met. I am an heir to one of that city’s biggest fortunes. Family owned a theater and it was bombed — by somebody trying to look like somebody else. Then there was this parade. We all left when it got bombed. Some of our friends have been framed for the bombing and some of our friends have been killed in the course of the frame-up. Because I have connections in DC, I’m working way up high, the high wire, don’t you know, with the MCPS. And yes, you heard right: I’m a Minot. That’s my little town they got out there somewhere in the Dakotas. We’re riding along together up here in the dynamic northland, kind of on a little picnic, because we were in the right place at the right time. I don’t know why we weren’t put in the same all-purpose frame in San Francisco, and I don’t know if anybody here knows exactly who we are, if we’re on a tether or just the lucky recipients of high-speed bureaucratic incompetence, or if nobody really gives a shit. My father is — was, sorry, just died, hasn’t sunk in — an important enough man for the railroad folks in San Francisco to have tried to kill him. In court! So maybe I’m just a pawn. Maybe I’m a target. Maybe I am being used. Maybe I am being used up. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

The man and the woman ceased their nearly hysterical laughter and watched neutrally as Charles made his speech. Vera looked thoroughly disoriented. The old Wobbly took her by the hand and started to lead her out the door. The man behind the bar repeated his wish for generalized good luck, this time without the irony and snickering. The woman looked at Charles, because he had picked the bottle up again and was drinking from it as if it were a teacup, pinky extended. He told her she was right, he wasn’t finished, that the main thing for an actor to do was be clear in his action. The audience had to know why he was doing what he was doing.

He said, “It’s really true that I am a rich young man from San Francisco who is doing special work for the government because it seems like that’s what a guy whose Father once thought he might be president someday ought to be doing — until a proper outfit is located for me. over there .”

He sang the last words and repeated them. “And it’s also true that Ray John works with me, for a group you know very well, the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety. It’s true that Daisy, who isn’t here, is on a speaking tour on behalf of the Nonpartisan League, and that Vera, over there — where’d she go, is she gone.? — is going along with her because it appears the NPL was just going to, you know, let Daisy do her thing and hope for the best. And it’s true that the IWW is aiding and abetting her because she’s kinda like the only card they got to play right now, up in this game anyway, if I understand correctly — and please understand that I myself am not a Wobbly. No ma’am. No sir. My brother is chief of staff for the governor of California, and my other brother ran the goddamn Bull Moose campaign in that state. My father was nicknamed “The Regenerator” when he and some likeminded fellows tried to clean up the graft in San Francisco. He ran afoul, as we all do eventually, of the railroad people — And here now is where it gets complicated because I can no longer speak of things I know to be true, only things I suspect to be true: I think the MCPS gang knows that I have been living with Vera. I’m not sure if they think it’s because I’m in love with her or because I’m in league with her. I can tell you folks it because I’m in love with her,” he whispered. “I also think they know that Ray John here is an old specialist in dirty work who has come out of his narcotics-addicted retirement in Chicago at the behest of old friends in the IWW, the Chicago Wobblies now, not the Detroit Wobblies. At their behest because they know he is a tried-and-true daredevil who will gladly sacrifice his life to keep Vera safe. They thought they were slipping me into the MCPS via the usual kind of ridiculous deal-making that goes on all the time, the Socialist mayor of Minneapolis demanding that the MCPS, you know, open itself up and be a real governmental operation, not a secret one. But the MCPS boys didn’t believe that for a second. They suddenly, and without really planning such a thing or even dreaming of it, had me and Vera riding in the same train together, regrouping after the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade and Minot Theater bombings, knowing there would be fireworks and hoping, thinking on their feet, that they could do a very great favor for some real friends of theirs, railroad men out west. Fellow by the name of Durwood Keogh: My father caused his uncle — to whom he was devotedly close! Never were uncle and nephew so spiritually matched! — to flee the country. My father was so hated by the United Railroad men that they tried to kill him in court. And yet here in what they persist in calling the Great Northwest but which they’re going to have to start calling the Great Midwest a Minot is a railroad man! I’m repeating myself, I’m so excited. The Western railroad men hired some idiot to waltz into court with a six-gun and fire a few rounds! And they so loathe and detest the spirit of progressive reform, of Christian soldiers, of honest devotion to the commonwealth, of temperate and wise men of business — of the principles of an enlightened and democratic — excuse me, a Platonic republic, of higher good, of common good, of decency, of compassion — that the idea of a Minot running not just a railroad but the country drives them to murder. Relentless, remorseless murder. Smart thing for me to do would be to take my beloved Vera and get the hell out of Dodge, wait for things to blow over, and then be a decent chap and citizen, or say to hell with it all and move to Alexandria. Not the one here! The one in Egypt! But I’m not smart. I’m a daredevil. I’m an anarchist. Not like you hear about in the news, but like this: if no one is ruling, all are ruling. I can’t obey and I can’t command. I see things as they are, too clearly, for any of that.”