Chapter 44 continues

The story so far: A horrific retaliation begins.

Three customers came into the mercantile, their deputy badges not quite as shiny as they were a month ago. They ordered chewing tobacco and Helen coldly filled their order. In a daze, Katka nodded to Helen and left the mercantile. She stopped at several other businesses before walking back home. Everyone had a story. The deputies had begun systematic home raids to intimidate workers into returning to the mines. They were given the go-ahead by Sheriff Turner to use "any means necessary" to get the workers to walk back and join a shift. A few were taken by gunpoint. They were there, now, prisoners working in the mines, against their will.

When Katka got home, Paul and Anton were sitting at the kitchen table and Lily was serving them coffee. They spoke in hushed tones. After hearing them promise to get the men out of jail, Katka went immediately down to the cellar where she wrote up the story. It was printed and distributed within forty-eight hours. People began locking their doors at night and men spent less time in the taverns and more time at home guarding their families.

Chapter 45

In mid-July, the days were getting shorter, but not by much. Light still clung to the night sky like a tired child who refused to shut his eyes for fear of missing something. When the light was finally gone, the temperature dropped ten degrees, sometimes more. After Katka's chores were done and her articles written for Strikers News, she walked almost every night, alone, to the secret meeting place in the field bunker to see Paul.

This particular night they had a task to accomplish. The cache of guns had arrived from Wobbly headquarters, wrapped in gunnysacks and hidden in the costume crates of the traveling opera that had come to sing at the Opera Hall in Virginia. They would be performing The Magic Flute on Saturday night, and Katka and Paul planned to attend.

Two stagehands had transported the weapons from Virginia to the bunker in Biwabik without being detected. "Here they are," Paul said, unlocking the crate. Katka looked inside. "That it?" she asked. "Can't be more than twenty guns in that box."

"Twenty exactly," Paul said. "Not much, I agree, but at least it's a start. Means they finally found a way to get them through undetected. We'll start distributing them tonight. You can take two back tonight to the Slovenski Dom. Give them to Anton. He'll know who to give them to."

"On one condition," Katka said. "I want to shoot that one." She pointed to a silver-plated Colt Frontier Peacemaker revolver. It had engraved, mother-of-pearl grips. To Katka, it looked more beautiful than any piece of jewelry she could imagine.

"How did that get in there?" Paul asked. He picked it up gently and handed it to her. "Know how to load it?"

"Better'n you, probably," she said. Paul gave her some ammunition and they walked out to the shooting range together. Their inventory could wait, but Katka wanted to shoot the revolver in the moonlight.

Tomorrow: Chapter 45 continues.