CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Murdoch waited while Reordan took another drink of the brandy, a much bigger sip this time.

“I got these burns nine months ago. I was working in Ottawa at the Perley and Pettee sawmill. Have you heard of them?”

Murdoch nodded. “There was a big strike there that eventually involved all the mills in the area but it ended badly, I recall.”

Reordan scowled at him. “I hope by that remark you mean it ended badly for the workers, not the bosses. They made piss-all concessions.”

“I did mean it ended badly for the workers. They couldn’t hold out.”

His comment agitated the Irishman and he got to his feet and began to hobble up and down the small room. Seymour watched him and Murdoch could see he was ready to jump in at any moment if need be.

“For sure we couldn’t hold out because we were almost starving before the strike and even with relief money, men with families couldn’t endure. The wives of the bosses sat around in their silk and satin while our wives went in rags and fed their bairns cold water to stave off the hunger pangs. All we asked was a ten-hour day and that the wages be restored to what they were which was pitiful enough. I was bringing in seven dollars a week and I was a single man and could hardly live on it.” Reordan’s face was contorted with old anger. “All the workers at the Pettee mill and the nearby mills had stopped work. My foreman, a bastard by the name of Napoleon Leblanc, had ordered a shutout. But we had dragged ourselves through a terrible summer of near starvation and we were determined not to give in. We’d have had too, though, if it weren’t for the Knights who came in to organize matters.” He paused. “The bosses called them ‘walking agitators,’ like their own workers were too stupid or too downtrodden to rise up against them. Well, that weren’t the case. When I heard what the Knights had to say, I joined up in a flash…And you despise us, no doubt.”

“I rather you didn’t put words into my mouth, or thoughts into my head that aren’t mine, sir. I have no reason to despise an organization of which I know little but what I do know has been favourable.”

Reordan was only slightly mollified. He was hell bent on hating somebody and Murdoch, the policeman, was as good a target as any.

“Like I said, we were determined to hold out. Then on the night of April 13, we heard that the bosses were bringing in scabs from Quebec. A lot of the men were at the boil when they got that news. They wanted to go and burn down the bosses’ houses and make a fight of it. But Jamie Paterson, who was one of our leaders, was as smart as a fox. ‘That’s what the bosses want, lads,’ he says to us. ‘They want the world to see us as a mob without morals or brains. Well we won’t give them that satisfaction.’ He says as how he wouldn’t put it past the bosses to set the scabs on a rampage and say it was us as did the damage. So he wanted four or five of us to go out on the watch and keep the property safe against anybody who come to pillage, don’t matter whether they’re calling themselves friend or foe. Well, it took a bit of persuading. There were a lot of hot heads in our own group at the end of their tether and they were ready to set fire to those big mansions stuffed with the food we had put on their tables. But finally they agreed.” He stood still, staring in to space as if he were watching his own story projected on the wall. “So that’s how it come that Saturday night, there I was sitting outside the boss’s house keeping watch. There was young Sam Gibson and me. We’d been issued with pistols, the both of us, which made us feel we could take on anybody as need be. It had turned cool and we were huddled around a brazier to keep warm, which was why we didn’t even see the scabs till they was on us. So much for our guns. There were two of them, muffled up with scarves so’s they wouldn’t be recognized. And they were on us in a flash. Sam was closer to them than me and as he turned to see what was happening, one of them smashed him in the jaw with his billy. They got me pinned to the ground before I could utter a peep and shoved a rag in my mouth. I was trussed and hogtied in seconds.”

Reordan wet his lips but didn’t face Murdoch. “The one who had hit Sam says to me, ‘We heard you fellows was talking of tarring and feathering the scabs. Is that true?’ I couldn’t answer even I’d wanted to. There had been loose talk about what we’d do to scabs if they was brought in, but it was just talk as far as I was concerned. ‘Is it true?’ said the fellow again and he kicked me good in the chest. I tried to shake my head but he weren’t looking for an answer. ‘We don’t like that,’ he says with another kick. ‘We’ve as much right to work as you do.’ The other fella didn’t utter a word, just him. He was the leader. Then he goes, ‘So we thought we do a bit of tarring up ourselves,’ he says. I could smell hot tar and then I saw they’d brought a bucket of pitch with them and a sack. ‘It’s got to be hotter,’ he says to the other cove like he was asking for a cup of tea. ‘The feathers won’t stick else. And we want them to stick. We want all you lads to see what scabs can do back if they’re pressed.’ I tried to struggle but they had the better of me. The one talking gave me the boots again and again and I could heard the crack as my thigh bone shattered. He laughed when he heard that, like he was enjoying himself.”

He stopped talking and took another swig of the whisky. Seymour stood up and took him by the arm.

“John, you aren’t going to find peace in that bottle. Do you want me to tell the rest of it?”

The Irishman was trembling violently and Murdoch’s own mouth had gone dry at the horror of the story. Reordan allowed Seymour to lead him to the chair and he collapsed into it, his head in his hands. The older man touched his shoulder gently.

“There wasn’t anything you could do to defend yourself.”

Reordan looked up and his eyelids were red, the scars on his head livid and raw. “Or Sam, right? I couldn’t help Sam either.”

Seymour waited for a moment, gripping the man’s shoulder until he gained more control. “The leader turned on Sam next–”

“He was just a lad,” cried Reordan.

“He was that and he’d been knocked unconscious with the billy so he couldn’t resist either. They poured hot tar over him and then rolled him in the heap of feathers they’d dumped on the ground. John was next.”

Seymour’s voice was matter of fact, not from lack of feeling so much as controlled outrage. “The tar was almost at the boil and immediately burned his skin wherever it touched.”

Reordan held up his hand. “I’ll tell him the rest,” he whispered. “Maybe it’ll help him understand.” He licked his dry lips. “They rolled me in the feathers the way they had with Sam Gibson. Then the short guy, the talker, looks down at me and says, ‘Let’s have pity here. Poor cove’s burning up. He needs cooling off.’ He made a gesture to the other fella. ‘Go on,’ he says, ‘cool his head off.’”

He couldn’t continue and Charlie again spoke for him. “The man undid his trousers and made his water–on John.”

Reordan held up his hand. “That’s enough for now.”

Murdoch’s neck tightened. “I assume these men were never caught,” he said after a moment.

Reordan spoke so quietly he could hardly hear him. “Of course not. They was helped to get away because the bosses were glad about what had happened to us, even though both Sam and me were hurt real bad. They thought it might make us workers buckle under.”

“It did just the opposite, I’m happy to say,” interjected Seymour. “They held the strike for three more months.”

“But there must have been an investigation?”

“I’m ashamed to admit it, Will,” said Charlie. “but the local police officers were in sympathy with the bosses. They did almost nothing. The two men have never been found or their identity discovered. Their faces were hidden and all John could offer was a general description of height. The leader was short and he talked with some kind of accent. He had a raspy voice, but the scarf muffled everything and he was most likely trying to disguise his voice. The man who defiled John was about six feet tall and seemed the younger of the two.”

Reordan looked over at Murdoch. “I’m going to find them some day, don’t you doubt it.”

Seeing the look in the man’s eyes, Murdoch didn’t.

“I didn’t get no compensation,” Reordan continued. “The boss said I wasn’t injured while doing my work even though it was his frigging property I was trying to protect. I’d have been in a bad way if it weren’t for the Knights. They paid for a doctor and gave me a stipend to keep me going. I don’t have no family, but Mrs. Pangbourn, who used to live here, is my aunt. She had to go take care of her sister in Vancouver so she asked me to come here and run the house for her. Charlie, here, was already a boarder so he stayed on, then Amy and Wilkinson joined us. I ain’t too proud to tell you, Detective Murdoch, that these folks keep me alive. It ain’t just the money they gives me, it’s that they treat me decent as they would any other human being. And in return I’m what you might call their bulldog. I might be crippled but I’m still capable of a good bite if need be.”

Murdoch stood up and walked over to him. “You’re as strong a man as I’ve encountered, John Reordan. Will you shake my hand now? I’m not here as an enemy but as a friend.”

At first, he thought the Irishman would spurn him but he stared into Murdoch’s eyes for a moment, then smiled slightly. “Like I said, I’m a bulldog sort of fellow. I can smell out friends.” He took his hand.