Ludlow

Ludlow

April 20, 1914

When I lived on the plains my feet were always cold and wet, ever since we moved down from Tabasco and into the Tent City. We headed down the canyon in September, I remember, it was cold and it rained all day. Our shoes were real heavy with mud. I was scared, but kept my mouth shut about it. I didn’t want to worry my little sisters. I was nine, after all, and just about grown up. It was time to set an example for the girls. Pa built a cart, put it together with some wheels he cobbled together from the junk pile, and we got it all loaded and he pulled it, I don’t know, maybe three or four miles out of the canyon. Some of the lucky miners had wagons and horses, but our family never seemed to be lucky. Everything we owned got wet ‘cause there was nothing to cover anything with. That wet mud kept sticking to the wheels, we kept pushing it out of the spokes with our sticks. I know that helped Pa a lot. On one turn above the creek the whole thing slid sideways into a ditch. We were unloading everything in the rain when a Union Boss came along, a big tall man with a jaw square like a bucket and kindly eyes, and he helped get us right. He had big leather boots that laced up all the way to his knee. Someday, I said, I will get me a pair like that. Thank the Holy Mother the Union was there, lots of strangers helping us and everybody. It was good they was there, ‘cause we were terrible afraid of the Company men and the Guard. They did their best to scare us, calling us all kinds of names and even pointing rifles at everybody. They lined the road the whole way down.

We didn’t want to leave our homes. The six of us seemed alright in our house. It was a little bigger than the tent and it was always warm and dry, that was for sure. It was up high, high enough for the dogs to walk under and the little kids to play beneath, so all the water stayed out of it. That I couldn’t say about the tent. I loved the smell of pinion burning in the stove. It was better than coal, which stunk up the walls and made everything smelly like a dirty sock. Scrub oak burned best. We gathered it after school in the fall. It burned clean and was free. Coal we could hardly afford anyway, but we scrounged enough to toss in the stove when the temperature dropped to single digits.

The road out of town was under the bluff where the new school was just built. I didn’t know how I would get to school now, and the teachers would get mad at me. I would miss walking along the creek, because I could go down there late before bedtime by myself in the summer and sometimes I would see that new Wop girl, and I once left her a note tucked into the stone wall down below that lined the walk. I don’t know if she ever got it, and I don’t even know if she could read English, not that I’m so great at it, but we all learned a little Italian and a little Greek and they learned some Spanish so we all got along.

At the mouth of the canyon everything looked like a nightmare. We could see all the families from Hastings come down too. Both canyons drained that jangle of miners into Ludlow. By the steel bridge, just before town, was a swarm of Union men and people from Trinidad. There were even cars. Everyone was yelling. On the tracks a train was parked, trying to keep everybody from going to Tent City. We were told they had sharpshooters and machine guns in the train. Farther past the tracks we could see where the tents were set up, only we couldn’t see many tents. The babies were crying, the grownups were screaming and hollering, and across the tracks we could see a large crowd collected around the big tent. We had nothin’ to eat, and could smell beans cooking from the Ludlow houses. That just made everybody hungry. Pa left us for a while with some Greeks so he knew we’d be safe, and went to find out what was going on. One of the Greeks came up, the one we called Mr. T, and he led us all to the canteen where they was doling out milk and coffee and biscuits. The clouds broke up a bit then, and we even had a little sunshine for a spell. That was nice. 

All in all, though, we were a pitiful bunch of wretches. I could tell by the looks we got from everybody that came down from Denver. 

Eventually, Pa came back and got some help hauling our wagon across the tracks at a spot the Union found that was clear of Militia. There was only sixteen tents and a couple thousand strikers. The rest of the tents were on their way, we were told, but got held up by the Militia. We slept in the big tent with everybody else for a week. It snowed that night and everybody told the little ones not to worry, because the strike would be over soon, we would get to keep our money, and that this Christmas was going to be the best one ever. They told us that a lot.

Well, Christmas was alright. But we spent it in the Tent City, not back home. The strike was still on, and we all got licorice and oranges. We got a lot of attention from the grownups; I know they felt bad about the mess we were in. The Militia was always making threats. We weren’t even scared of the Death Special when they rolled it down the tracks. We always knew we could blow up that big gun. I was ready to do it myself. And every time there was a little skirmish between us or the Greeks and the mine guards, we’d go out and yell at ‘em and that was that! No matter what, we were Union men. We have fought them here for years and we will fight them ‘till the end!

Still, once we all got settled in, we dug cellars in the tents to hide in ‘cause every now and then they liked to rattle those big machine guns, the ones set up by the water tanks, in the direction of the camp.

Easter was fun, we had a baseball game going and the Greeks roasted some sheep. They were all dressed up. I was down by first base when a gang of them Militia charged up on their horses. Well, we took care of them. The women ran up and told them to go away, and then we all made a big show of yellin’ and hollerin’. I think when us kids turn on them they are forced to leave. We weren’t afraid of them. And when the skinny Militia man on the horse said, “You can have your roast today, we’ll have our roast tomorrow,” all of us just laughed. 

I remember the game. I remember getting a little bit of roast. There was still patches of snow on the ground, a few short purple flowers here and there, and at the end of the day my feet were wet and my socks got dried on the stove. I remember all that.

We were all in bed next morning when the explosions woke us up. The tent rattled. The boom went right through us. We did like we were told, and we all piled into the cellar. I guess it was about nine or ten o’clock already, because we all got to stay up late from the dance in the big tent the night before. I was the last one in, because I had to piss, so I stood behind the stove in case of bullets and pissed in the can before we got down in the cellar. It was real small, it was only a set of steps to nowhere. Then Ma shut the door, pulled the mattress over the top, and we were alright. She always told us that one day those big machine guns would come to life. We weren’t in there long before the second bomb went off. Even down in the ground we could hear all our stuff exploding in the tent, the pots and lamps and probably everything we had was ripped to shreds. 

After awhile, Mrs. Jolly hollered for everyone in the cellars to get out, that we could make a break at dark and high tail to the arroyo where everyone was meeting up in the Black Hills. But that arroyo was too far for my little sisters to run, Momma just knew they would be mincemeat before long if we poked our heads up. It was a prairie dog shoot, except we were the prairie dogs. Besides, Pa was out there pickin off a few of the Guard and I knew that a whole army of Union was headed this way. 

The shooting calmed down once in a while and we thought about making a break for it, but then it always picked up again, just like a heavy rain. Sometimes when it quieted Ma picked up the corner of the cellar door and moved the mattress enough to look around. About an hour before dark the Guard was in the camp and there was a lot of hollerin’ goin’ on. Mrs. Tonner, she had five kids and was heavy with another, she was begging for the love of God don’t torch the tent while they soaked our tents with kerosene. Lt. Linderfelt, just told her flat out, “There is no use in you crying and carrying on. We have orders to do this and we are going to do it, no mercy on any of you.” We all knew Linderfelt, the rotten bully from the National Guard.

Now, some things I can’t remember exactly, it gets all mixed up seeing things now, but those words he said will always be with me--“There is no use in you crying and carrying on. We have orders to do this and we are going to do it, no mercy on any of you.”

Then we heard them pulling everybody out of their cellars, we heard women and children begging to live, gunshots and screams. There was a lot of crying and coughing and Ma said it was safer in the cellar because the flames couldn’t get us here and maybe the Militia wouldn’t. If we could just hold out in the hideous pit long enough for the Union. For the Union!

We all got quiet when we heard a commotion on the ground and packed closer and tighter to each other. They rattled around in what was left of our tent. We dare not cough, which was very hard to do. We dare not cry. Then they torched our tent. It was gettin hot, there were bright flashes in front of my eyes even though they were squeezed tight. I saw my family riffle in front of me like a moving picture, except all herky jerky. I couldn’t breathe. Before long it was easy to be still. In the cellar it seemed there was bright light from the fire. Soon, that light was everywhere.

Even now, I can see them going through our stuff. I looked for Pa. I couldn’t hear words exactly, but it looked like I knew what they were saying, and they said all we had was trash. Fire was everywhere. It was like there was a muffled sound, some kind of gas, come up from the cellar, like everything moved some. At first I wanted to fight so bad, but then something told me it was too late. 

 Mary and Eulie, I saw them, holding hands like always, standing right in front of me. They were scared and then they were alright and then scared again and everything kept going back and forth. But we weren’t under the ground anymore, we escaped. I kept looking for Pa because I wanted to say something to him. I wish I’d said goodbye.

Ma was there, and I looked down and she was holding the baby still. See, all this happened in a flash, sort of. I want to explain it, because it seems very important in my life, but it was all strange and yet familiar at the same time, like a dream I dreamed before. I was going to hug Eulie, but then we didn’t, and that was alright, and then Ma was gone with the girls and it was night, except the only lights were the tents on fire. They were all on fire. The noise I heard with my mind, but not my ears.

From above, I saw what they did to Mr T. Linderfelt smashed his head with the rifle. I never saw a dent in a man’s head before. He broke the stock, then they threw him on the ground and shot him in the back. Three or four times. I saw the bullets go into his body. Each time there was a little twitch. I don’t think he felt it. They rolled him over and stomped on him, a jack boot to the face. He just lay there with his red leggings and field glasses. I knew he was dead too.

I saw Frankie Snyder. Even though he was on his stomach, I knew it was him. He must have been running towards Hastings; I think his Dad was up there. They probably shot him ‘cause he had a gun. Bloody red bullet holes in the back of his head. I think he was ten years old.  

I wanted to be angry, but I was just confused. I wanted to be like Pa. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I kept thinking all the while. Part of me seemed real adult all of a sudden, but I was a puzzle, nothing was fitting together right, and there seemed to be new parts. I was thinking it was a real bad dream, so I stayed for when I could wake up. When it was light they opened the cellar. I could see us all. I was on top, my arms were all black and my hair was burnt. Then there was nothing to do but go.