Face the Winter Naked Read online

  "Stay still," he whispered. "They'll kill us."

  "Let me go!"

  "It's too late for me to save Woody or Frank or the others." He stopped to get his breath. "But by the Lord, if I can't save the life of just one person, then my own life ain't worth a damn."

  She cried, and he covered her mouth with his hand.

  "You—you see what they're doing. They ain't going to give us our money. They're going to kill every last one of us. Our own government's trying to kill us."

  "No!" The woman escaped his clutches and scrambled to her feet. "My husband! Oh my God, I have to find him!"

  "Come back—" He reached for her, but she took off running.

  "Jim!" she screamed. "Jim, where are you?"

  Daniel's heart lurched as the woman ran blindly toward the group of veterans. Her screams echoed in his head. No longer able to see her, he crouched in the ditch, waiting and watching in horror as soldiers on horseback attempted to evacuate men, women, and babies from the federal grounds with tanks, rifles, and bayonets. All around him people fell screaming. Others retreated across the river. When a canister of tear gas landed nearby, he yanked his overalls' bib over his nose and mouth, choking and gagging on the fumes. His eyes watered and burned, his tears mingled with the sweat of his fear, and the living nightmares returned full-force.

  Darkness fell, and MacArthur—ignoring the injured around him—led his infantry to the main camp, and by morning the camp was in flames.

  Daniel didn't know if he'd passed out from sheer terror or simply fell asleep, but his next awareness was a smoke-filled sky and burning lungs. Scenes of war clogged his brain. He knew from experience it would take awhile before they faded enough for him to think straight.

  He shook his head to clear it, wiped sweat from his face, sat up in the ditch and saw destruction wherever he looked. He straightened his glasses and found his cap on the ground. Slapped the dust from the cap and covered his head. The veterans had been ragged and hungry, hollow-eyed and lost, and their own government had tried to kill them. Never in all his born days would Daniel Tomelin have imagined this could happen in his own country. How could the president condone such treatment of its citizens? His trip to Washington D.C. had planted him smack-dab in the middle of a war between the wealthy and the desperate. He thought of the young woman he'd tried to save, and wondered if she found her husband.

  He left the scene in a daze, found his tools and gunnysack where he'd stashed them in Chester's shack. A deep sorrow came over him when he saw the hovels he'd helped build lying in ruins. Damn. All our hard work shot to hell. There was no sign of the man who befriended him his first day in camp—had Chester made it to safety? Or was he sitting off somewhere nursing a grudge and a broken heart. He was glad nobody was around to see his own tears.

  Daniel adjusted his tools in the loops and pockets of his overalls, checked his pack and slung it over his shoulder. He took one last, sad look at the veterans' disbanded camp—signs of fighting, hoof and boot prints in the dust—then left the city the way he'd come almost two months before, by the back roads near the Anacostia River. Toward evening, when the opportunity presented itself, he took refuge aboard a freight going west. The rocking of the train lulled him into a restless sleep filled with ghastly images of the Bonus Marchers' camp in flames.

  When the train slowed the next morning, he grabbed his pack and hopped from the car to the ground, dusted himself off and started walking away from the pink sky in the east.

  As the light came up, buildings appeared on the horizon, and the closer he got, he could see the dilapidated evidence of a Hooverville hobo camp. Knowing from experience what to expect, he removed some dimes from his leather purse and dropped them in his pants pocket.

  He approached the squalor, set his pack on the ground and squatted near a smoldering campfire with a lard can of coffee simmering over the coals. The aroma whet his appetite and he licked his lips. Three filthy, unshaven tramps sat on milk crates around the fire, smoking snipes and spitting tobacco juice into the coals. Faces hardened by despair and suspicion, they watched him like a pack of hungry wolves.

  "Can you spare a little coffee? I can pay."

  "You got your own cup?" The man shifted his eyes at the others as Daniel opened his pack and removed his tin cup.

  He watched the man fill it, then blew the steam away before sipping.

  "Where you been?" a second man asked.

  Daniel handed each person a dime and found himself a box to sit on. For good measure, he pulled his screwdriver out of its loop and laid it across his lap. His head was clear. Gone were the nightmares, for now. He drank the coffee, taking his time, knowing the bums were eyeing him and wondering where he kept the rest of his money.

  "I been in D.C. with the Bonus Army."

  "Yeah?"

  A grizzled old tramp in ragged clothes inched closer to Daniel, and Daniel's free hand moved ever so slightly toward his screwdriver. The man retreated, leaving him to his hot drink as he scanned the group with one eye open for trouble. The coffee was strong and bitter.

  "A terrible tragedy happened in Washington," he said. "Maybe you heard about it."

  "Word travels fast in hobo jungles." The man nodded. "That was shameful. You can't trust nobody these days."

  "Only one good thing can come of it." Daniel raised his cup and drank. "If Hoover had any chance of getting re-elected, it ended that day."

  The other man rose and took a leak in a nearby weed patch, and when he came back, Daniel continued.

  "Some people in this country are still decent. This rich society lady went around asking people, 'Have you ate?' Then later she came with coffee and cigarettes for the whole bunch, and a thousand sandwiches, to boot. That's something you don't see every day."

  He waited for someone to speak, but the bums sat silently staring at him, their eyes half closed in grubby faces. All of a sudden, he felt an uneasy urge to leave this camp of drifters. Hunger makes a man crazy and dangerous.

  He rose and stretched, shook the leavings from his cup and replaced it in his bag.

  "Gonna git now."

  "Where ya going?"

  "I'm not sure. Hop a train maybe. Or strike out over the hills to find work."

  "It's a damn cold day in hell when there's a lick of work in this country." The man spat in the hot coals.

  "So be it," Daniel said. "We'll find out when Mr. Roosevelt gets elected, won't we?"

  He tipped his cap and moved off into the morning.

  Crouching in the shadows of a deserted shack somewhere in eastern Ohio, Daniel held his breath and watched the flashlight beam approach in the darkness. Heavy footsteps crunched in the gravel. The light stopped moving. Except for crickets reporting the temperature in the hot, humid air and the faint hissing of other night insects, all was quiet. The light moved; the footsteps resumed. From somewhere a dog barked. Then silence.

  The dark figure of a railroad "bull" worked its way along the freight sitting idle on the tracks half a mile from the depot. There was no great hurry yet. The man would make his rounds first, checking inside every car.

  Keeping his ears open for the train's whistle and one eye on the train, Daniel observed George's outline in the darkness, hating to disturb him as he huddled against the building half asleep. But the train would be pulling out soon and they both wanted to be on it. He didn't think the old man could do it himself. He recalled their first meeting, thinking how things were different now.

  Last December. Cincinnati. They were waiting outdoors in a soup line as a cold wind with traces of sleet whistled through the alley between the downtown buildings. If Daniel himself was freezing in his old winter coat and thin overalls, it was a lot worse for the old man with a banjo directly ahead of him.

  "We'll both feel better with a little soup in our bellies," he said.

  "Even if it is thin and watery slop," the man replied. "I hope it ain't dishwater."

  Daniel leaned closer. "What do you mean?" He grabbed his cap a
s the wind lifted it up.

  "Some people pour dishwater in the slop bucket and feed it to their hogs."

  "No kidding? Why would they do that?"

  A shrug. "Can't waste nothing these days."

  "Well, this soup might be thin, but it'll warm us up." Daniel opened his pack and removed a small, tattered blanket. "Here now, let me wrap this ol' rag round your shoulders so you don't freeze to death." George had nodded and let Daniel tuck the blanket around him. "There, how's that?"

  "Mighty good. Thanks."

  "Nice of the soup folks to take pity on us," Daniel said.

  "We can thank Al Capone for the soup."

  "Al Capone? The gangster?"

  "Yep. Capone opened the first soup kitchen right after the Crash. Three meals a day." People turned and stared at him. "Well, it's true!" he said, his gritty voice rising. "Al Capone had a good side, crook or not." They turned away, shaking their heads.

  Cold air crept down Daniel's collar. His gunnysack, held against him for warmth, did little to block the cold. He hunched down into his coat and motioned to George's banjo. "Can you play that thing?"

  "Not till my fingers thaw out."

  "Where you headed? Got family somewhere?"

  George had a faraway look in his eyes, but offered no reply.

  "You got a name?"

  "George."

  "Well, George, I'm Daniel Tomelin. There, we've met. Now we can take soup together."

  Though George would never admit it, Daniel suspected he rode the rails from one end of the country to the other, simply because he was all alone in the world and had nowhere else to go. They traveled together for a few weeks, George following him around like a lost pup, and Daniel started calling him the "banjo man," for the playing he did after his fingers thawed.

  Then George disappeared, and he didn't know if the old man had fallen climbing into a boxcar and got crushed under the wheels, or if he'd just got tired of Daniel's company and wandered away.

  Whatever the reason, Daniel Tomelin was damned if he knew how the old tramp always ended up in the same boxcar as himself. He thought he'd lost George before going to Baltimore to see the Kimballs. But he'd popped up again yesterday in a one-gas-pump village in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a farmer to dump a load of old cabbages and turnips on the ground for the bums to pick through. The two men resumed their relationship, and Daniel was beginning to feel responsible for him. Sometime between now and the last time he saw him, George's health had deteriorated.

  Now, a noise over by the tracks caught Daniel's attention and he turned to see the officer swing himself up into a boxcar. He tapped George's shoulder.

  "Wake up, train's leaving any minute." George mumbled and tried to stand. Daniel helped him up and lay a hand on his shoulder. "You okay, buddy? Watch your step."

  George coughed. "Yeah—hand me ol' Betsy there."

  Daniel picked up George's banjo and his parcel, then jerked around as the train whistle blasted. "Come on!" He shoved George's belongings at him and grabbed his gunnysack. "Can you make it?"

  "Dunno. Maybe."

  They clutched their bundles and hurried to the train as the man with the light—a detective hired by the railroad to apprehend vagrants—jumped down from the car and continued searching. He moved away from them, shining his light inside the freight cars.

  "Ready?" Daniel asked.

  The train lurched backward then moved forward very slowly, accompanied by a long, shrill whistle and belching black coal smoke from its stack. The officer disappeared into a boxcar a good distance ahead as the freight came to a halt, and before the wheels turned again, Daniel grabbed a hand rail and hauled himself aboard. He was getting better at hopping a boxcar while still hanging onto his pack. He steadied himself in the doorway and waited for George to catch up.

  "Here ... grab my hand ... careful ..."

  He pulled George up into the car just as loud shouting erupted ahead. Several men jumped to the gravel bed and scattered in different directions to evade the officer's club, escaping into the night. A loud cry pierced the air as one unfortunate passenger caught the blows from the club and was dragged away to a vehicle parked on the other side of the shack.

  The freight picked up speed and clacked along at a good pace as the new stowaways, feeling their way in the dim light, stumbled away from the big sliding door and moved into a far corner. Safe for now, they lowered their packs to the dusty floor and lay with their heads against them.

  "Reckon some poor soak got it," Daniel said.

  "Damn railroad bulls. Oughtta be a law against clubbing people."

  "Better get some shuteye, George. Morning'll be here before we know it."

  "I'm damn near tuckered out."

  It was close to midnight, that summer of 1932, and the two men were already asleep as the B & O freight smoked up the tracks on its way through Ohio, stopping at small depots along the way for as long as an hour at a time as it headed west toward southern Illinois and the Mississippi River.

  Chapter 4

  Elizabeth brought her baby in the house and handed him over to LaDaisy. Ralph Channing squirmed and fretted, turning his mouth toward LaDaisy's chest, his curled fists hammering and digging at her smock.

  "Would you look at him?" exclaimed his mother. "He's starving. He couldn't wait till we left the doctor's to start raising cane. Even the sugar tit didn't console him."

  Elizabeth looked frazzled, from the heat and from coping with a hungry baby for the drive from town. She was a petite woman next to LaDaisy, with a small turned-up nose and frosty, light brown curls. LaDaisy was no match for Elizabeth's perfect complexion and delicate features, but she was far ahead with bosom, for Elizabeth Channing was built like an undernourished boy.

  Ralph whimpered and grunted as his mother trailed LaDaisy to the rocker. There was a spark of jealousy in her eyes as she watched her son attack with gusto the stiff brown nipple of a stranger; however, Elizabeth had learned to wear a smiling mask.

  LaDaisy adjusted the baby's head to a more comfortable angle and rested her arm on the arm of the rocker.

  She had heard that when wet-nursed babies grew up, they snubbed the women who'd given them life. It wouldn't bother her, of course—she felt no maternal leanings toward Ralph Channing. She was simply a milking machine. Sometimes she was irritated because he seemed to be having a good time tugging at her own baby's breasts. It was a horrid feeling, and she resolved never to wet-nurse another.

  "What did the doctor say?" she asked.

  Elizabeth laughed. "Ralph weighs almost sixteen pounds. Your milk certainly agrees with him."

  "That's good."

  LaDaisy nodded and patted the baby's rompered bottom. He didn't resemble his mother in the least, but instead his father, with deep brown, wide-awake eyes and a headful of dark curly hair. As he nursed, he stared at her face.

  Elizabeth glanced toward LaDaisy's bedroom. "How's your baby? Mind if I take a peek?"

  Without waiting for an answer, she tiptoed into the room and peered in the cradle. Coming back, she smiled wistfully at LaDaisy.

  "She's beautiful. Peaches and creamy. I'd give anything for a little girl. I love my Ralphie. Don't get me wrong, you know, it's just—"

  LaDaisy smiled. "Maybe you think you can dress a girl in fancy bonnets and lacy dresses. But when you turn your back, they're out playing in the mud. Or letting the hound jump in their faces. They might get a bloody nose and bleed all over the starched little pinafore. The boys will yank the ribbons out of their pigtails. It doesn't matter if you birth boys or girls—they all end up looking like the devil's pigpen a couple hours past breakfast."

  She observed Ralph's white kid-skin shoes and turned to Elizabeth.

  "Will you go in my bedroom and bring me the little wooden box on my dresser? Looks like a trinket box."

  Elizabeth got the box and brought it out to her.

  "This?"

  "Open it."

  Elizabeth lifted the small metal clasp and raised
the lid. She looked in the box, then back at LaDaisy.

  She removed a small brown baby shoe—soft and wrinkled, with tiny buttons running up one side of the high-top leather. She turned it over and over in her hand, then looked back at the woman in the rocker.

  "Which one of your babies wore this?"

  LaDaisy stared hard at Elizabeth before replying in a low voice.

  "The dead one."

  "Th-the dead one? Do you mean? Oh my God, you don't mean a-a dead baby."

  LaDaisy nodded.

  "Whose baby?" Elizabeth returned the shoe to the box and gently lowered the lid before sitting on the davenport.

  "Our first baby boy, little Wayne. He died of pneumonia."

  LaDaisy gentled Ralph against her breast, recalling those final hours before her baby's soul slipped away.

  "His fever was one-hundred-six degrees. He was too weak to cry. He was so sick. My poor baby pulled his hair out by the handfuls."

  "Oh, don't!"

  "I was holding him. He went limp in my arms. I couldn't stop screaming."

  "Please don't talk about it! I don't want to know. Please stop."

  But there was no stopping.

  "Daniel and I, we lost our minds." She closed her eyes. "We buried him next to Daniel's grandmother."

  She opened her eyes and looked at Elizabeth Channing, who wept quietly.

  "It seems so long ago he went in the frozen ground." Her tears broke loose and flowed down her cheeks as the other woman sat in stunned silence.

  "I—I wanted to go to the cemetery and put a blanket on him—it was so cold—and change his diaper. If Daniel hadn't been there to stop me, I might've gone and—and dug up his casket with my bare hands." A choking sound came from her throat. "Part of me wonders if there's really a God. A God who could tear a living child from its mother's arms—"

  Elizabeth rose. "I don't know why you're putting yourself through this." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then went to the bedroom, returning without the box.

  "You've upset yourself," she said. "And me, too."

  "I know and I'm sorry. Guess I needed to tell someone." She glanced down at Ralph. "It won't bring Wayne back."