The Red-Winged Blackbird
A Novel by Bob Reed
Flight #1
August 19, 2013
"The whole world operates on coal, boys. Men will kill for it. That makes a miner pretty damn powerful."
Powerful, yes. But in the viperous worlds of mining, union organizing and warfare, digging coal can also make a miner a sitting duck.
By his own reckoning, Alan Tanner is just another coalass trying to make a living, take care of his family and have a little fun. Trouble is, death stalks him. His mine explodes and the stench of bloody carcasses lingers. Brutal guards and soldiers threaten. The UMW secretly organizes and risks a strike. Gunrunning flourishes. Hostilities rupture into battle. After fending off machine gun and rifle fire all day, the young miner watches helplessly as the tent homes of a thousand strikers erupt in flame. The New York Times calls it "the Ludlow Massacre". Screams of trapped widows and orphans haunt Tanner. It's payback time for the striking miners.
The war surrounding the Colorado coal strike of 1913-14 is the bloodiest, costliest labor dispute in American history--but few have heard of it. With The Red-Winged Blackbird, this pivotal catastrophe springs to life with a ferocious authenticity that can only come from an eye-witness. As Alan describes his evolution from a whore-mongering, drunken wage-slave to a wise and witty storyteller and warrior, the past becomes prologue.
By turns hilarious and heart-rending, Tanner's saga chronicles the depths men will plummet for hunk of coal and the right to dig them.
(Watch for more posts on the evolution of The Red-Winged Blackbird)
"Late in the afternoon when the sun was right, Lou Dold set up his camera on an abandoned flat car and shot three picture postcard, left-to-right, so he could show the whole colony. 'Ludlow,' he labeled the center photograph in white pen, 'September 23, 1913.' "
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 173
Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
**************************************************************************************************************************
The Red-Winged Blackbird
A Novel by Bob Reed
Flight #2: The story in pictures
August 21, 2013
I stumbled upon this obscure piece of Colorado/American history when I was looking around for something new to write about. The more I read and researched, the more intrigued I became. When I started this project in 1983 (!!!), I had no internet to rely upon. But I did find two excellent books, The Great Coalfield War by Senator George McGovern and Leonard Guttridge and Zeese Papanikolas' Buried Unsung, the biography of Louis Tikas (called Nicholas Kistos in my book). Those books led me to the Carnegie Library in Trinidad, Colorado, where I was able to view microfiche (!!!) of newspaper accounts of the strike. Next, I visited the Library of the State Historical Society of Colorado in Denver, where I obtained permission to don white gloves and view Lou Dold's photographs, some of which are shown below. Finally, I visited the Ludlow, Delagua, Berwind sites, twelve miles north of Trinidad. Even camped out among the ghosts in the coal canyons one night.
Some of my characters, like John Lawson and Mary Harris (Mother) Jones appear as themselves. Other real historical figures appear under assumed names of my choosing. For my fictional characters, I studied the photographs in books and pamphlets, chose interesting-looking miners, wives, detectives and militiamen, wrote back-stories for them, then let the actual events unfold through their interaction with real figures, like Mother Jones and John Lawson. Stole that technique from E.L. Doctorow.
Hope the photos stir your curiosity and imagination like they did mine.
(PLEASE NOTE: Permission for use of all photographs in this portfolio was obtained by the author from either the Denver Public Library or "History Colorado" and are so designated. Captions for each photograph come from The Red-Winged Blackbird. )
“ ‘Looks worthless, don’t it?’ Papa would slap the ground and lecture in his high-pitched voice. ‘Won’t grow nothin’. But right here, under our feet, God put the richest bituminous coal deposit in the West. When I shine my lamp across a face, the coal twinkles for me like diamonds on black velvet. The whole world operates on coal, boys. Men will kill for it. That makes a coalass pretty damn powerful.’
This god-forsaken countryside was our inheritance.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 8
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
Delagua, Colorado
“Electric winches pulled two rows of loaded cars from mines on either side of the canyon across the trestle and up to the scales. After the cars were weighed and their coal dumped through a trap door into a boxcar, the empties rolled into a line that could be taken back into the mines. Cars rejected for too much rock or dirt would roll, lickity-split, through the tipple to be dumped into rash piles at each end of the bridge. Diggers marked their first car with a flag so they could keep up with their day’s work as it was hauled across the trestle.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 124
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
Site of Delagua tipple, May 15, 2014
"What we called Numbers 1, 2 and 3 was really one big mine with three portals. Tunnels connected them all about a half-mile inside the mountain. It was possible to go in through one entry and come out another, but it would be a booger of wandering."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 1
Photo Courtesy of History Colorado Collection
"In a mine’s silence, when the earth breathed and the timbers popped like a shotgun blast before they split or broke, you’d ignore the shit in your union suit to set another prop, right quick, before a cave-in. The walls and ceilings were held up by sawed timbers, logs and planks, wedged-in, nailed up, helter-skelter, as we dug deeper into the mountain. Shoring in these rat holes, done quick and half-ass to keep us from getting squished, looked like framing for a house thrown together by drunken carpenters."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 1
Photo Courtesy of History Colorado Collection
"Of all the working mules in Delagua, Colorado, old Grady was number one. A Suffolk, bred to work, he was handsome, keen-nosed and predictable. Some mules would trick you. Stand there like a saw horse while you traced them. Turn your back, and they’d jigger around with a hind leg until they unhooked themselves, then trot away, grinning. Not Grady. Hitch him up, he stayed hitched. Holler, “Up mule,” he pulled. Cry, “Whoa,” he stopped. Never snapped, never napped, never farted. In the mines, where even a marginal mule was worth five men, an animal like Grady was worth ten."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 1
Photo Courtesy of History Colorado Collection
"A car chockablock with bitty slag was supposed to weigh 3000 pounds and diggers were paid fifty cents a ton. But we could get rooked at the tipple in many ways. The scale could just be messed up and weighing wrong. If the scale wasn’t busted, the weigh boss could record less weight and the company would get a bunch of free coal at our expense. If the boss thought the coal had too much rash, or he was pissed off at the diggers, or he was just in an ornery mood that day, he could reject all or part of a car’s load. Those cars got dumped on the ground where flunkies sifted the dregs."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 124
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
"The Victor-American Company wouldn’t buy much new track or timbers, so, as we dug deeper into the mountain, we scavenged used rails and crossties, prying them up from rooms that were played out, toting them to the end of the line, coupling them up and spiking them to the floor."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 2
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
Delagua, Colorado, November 8, 1910
"An edgy calm filled the coal camp. Operators had shut down the winches that pulled coal cars coming from the mines across the great trestle spanning the canyon. Center of this bridge sat a deserted tipple house where rows of loaded cars waited to be weighed and dumped into boxcars sixty feet below.
When a mine blew, routine ceased. The day shift would come out of the other mines to help with the rescue and the night shift wouldn’t go in. Along with lunkers from neighboring camps, company swells, ink slingers, doctors, undertakers and coffin builders would come up. We’d be newsworthy, like Primero and Starkville."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 9
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
Rescue Team
“The helmet men were lumpies like us, Americans from the coal mines up north, specially trained in Pueblo. Said our disaster was the worst they’d ever worked. They discovered bodies huddled with their arms wrapped around each other. Found ‘em alone, some with their hands folded in prayer. Came on ones who’d scribbled goodbyes on scraps of paper.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p.20
Photo Courtesy of History Colorado Collection
“Each woman told her version of the same story about keeping a family fed and clothed on meager wages. They took in laundry and cleaned house for swells. Cooked mush and beans and, when that ran out, boiled prickly pear pads and cattail roots. Made dandelion and watercress salads. Raised chickens and rabbits. Some trapped game.
Every month they paid down on a past-due account at the pluck-me store. On his first work day, when her man had picked up pack, black powder and fuses, auger, cap, carbide lamp, pick, shovel and lunch bucket, the account opened with debt. And it seldom closed, even if he died. . . .
If they were scared or sad or bored or angry, they learned to stuff it. Because, above all, they had to bolster a fickle and moody knothead who might go on a bender or run off or get himself trapped in the mine. The working man was the hub of their wheels and they weren’t about to wait long for news about his well-being.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, pp. 11-12
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“ 'We own our house,' I threw in. 'They can’t just kick us out.'
'You don’t own the land house sit on,' Nick said. 'Company will evict.' ”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 120
Photo Courtesy of History Colorado Collection
Labor Organizing
"John Lawson jabbed his finger at us. 'What is a life lived on your knees? Lunkers up here have been living on their knees for so long, they’ve forgot how to stand up. I’ve been organizing for over ten years in Colorado, north and south. My dad was a union man in Pennsylvania. I’ve been shot by a mine superintendent and my home in Denver was bombed. When beatings and shootings and bombings didn’t work, Victor-American offered me a healthy bribe not to come south. But here I am.' "
The Red-Winged Blackbird, pp. 119-120
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“ ‘This weather is terrible,” Lawson continued, ‘but it shows what you’re made of. It would be easy to come out in the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon and listen to men in starched shirts, then go back to work on Monday. The owners would let us do that all year long. But it takes real citizens to leave your homes, to shake your fists in the faces of the companies, their scabs and hired thugs and say, “We are human beings and we have rights under a higher law than state law.’ ”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 171
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
Day One of the Coal Miners’ Strike, September 23, 1913
“I grew mindful of my breathing, not just hearing and feeling it, but giving in to it. In its coming and going, I sensed the comings and goings of breaths around me. And the longer I mused, the more I felt that we were no longer a mass of isolated souls gasping at different paces, but a single soul taking in the night ai
‘Hey, Sidney,” I muttered, “right there’s your union.’ ”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 143
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Mother Jones waited for the cheers to lessen, then she cranked up again. ‘If you organize and stick with it, you will win. I’ve seen it happen in West Virginia and up in Michigan. You will be free. Poverty and misery will be unknown. You will turn the jails into playgrounds for the children. You will build homes and not log kennels and shacks as you have them now. There can be no civilization as long as such conditions abound, but you men and women will have to stand and fight!’ ”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p.17
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Five days after Sid’s funeral, Baldwins shot up the tent colony at Forbes. They pounced in a contraption called “Death Special,” a Model T, stripped to its frame and armored with slabs of steel manufactured at the CF&I mill in Pueblo, of all places. The detectives mounted a machine gun and spotlight where the windshield had been. They tested both at the colony a few miles south of Ludlow.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 194
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“ ‘Governor Ammons has called upon the militia to maintain peace and order until the coal strike is resolved. General Brandon Sisk will be joining us later this afternoon to oversee the pacification of the strike zone. I assure you we’re ready for whatever might happen.'
. . . ‘I have women, children and unarmed strikers to watch over. I know your business, Major, and I trust it is for the good. As I say, anything you can do to help get our rights, we appreciate.’
‘We’re not here to help you get any rights, Mr. Kistos,’ the major said. ‘We’re here to expedite a mission of law and order in the southern coal fields. We’ll begin this morning and stay until you strikers respond to reason and return to work. The state of Colorado is losing thousands of dollars each day that these mines are closed or operating at minimum output.’ ”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, pp. 213-14
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
"Colony girls and whores had been sashaying around in front of the saloon all morning and some of the soldiers couldn't resist coming across the tracks. Lou Dold showed up and made picture postcards.
The National Guard boys in their dull green sweaters cocked their hats, put their arms around each other's shoulders - or around the shoulders of the gals bold enough to sit on their knees - and posed for Lou.
A couple of whiskey bottles appeared and the picture-making session got boisterous. Pretty soon, seven more soldiers crossed the tracks, three carrying rifles. I figured the festivities were about to conclude."
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 211
Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“ ‘You men fall in,” the sergeant hollered. . . . ‘I’m not one goddamn bit impressed by your attitudes, gentlemen. You are presently inattentive‒in your thoughts and actions, in the way you wear your uniforms, in your lack of regard for higher rank. You will not stay inattentive in this strike zone, because you will get hurt. And when you get hurt, that causes me an inordinate amount of paperwork and an inordinate amount of paperwork spoils my day. I did not come all the way down here from Denver to have my days spoiled.’ "
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 212
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“The general turned back to us partisans. ‘The force of the Colorado National Guard is a fact of life in this strike zone,’ he hollered. ‘You might as well get used to that. . . . Major Teller . . . ,’ the general hollered for his man.
‘Yessir.’
‘You’ll move Companies B and K into full bivouac just across the tracks there.’ The general pointed behind him at a stretch of flat grassland. ‘My best troopers will be your close neighbors, ladies and gentlemen. You won’t sneeze without them knowing it.’ “
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 219
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Snow had fallen for ten days, piling around the tents and sheet metal buildings. The clouds sagging above the prairie could drop as much as a foot in one night. It never warmed up much during the day and, with the snow so heavy, most folks stayed under cover, trying to keep warm. Christmas Eve, John Lawson had brought a carload of candy and fruit for the kids and some of the women made rag dolls. Only a few got out to claim their gifts.
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 232
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Some lunkers had inherited eccentric old Colts or untrustworthy single-shot Savage rifles. These were no match for the light-weight Winchesters and Springfield repeaters the Baldies used. Me and Cockeye decided it was time to get armed. Neither of us had ever held a gun. Now, we planned to purchase weapons that could compete and learn to use them.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 194
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
"While the colony girded for attack, my mama pinned sheets to the clothesline. As strikers dashed along the railroad tracks up toward the steel trestle, she lifted a pair of overalls.
'Put down that washing and come on with me.'
'I can't just leave our clothes out here, Alan.'
Suddenly, gunfire erupted.
'I guess you'll come now, dammit. Keep your head down.'
Nick ran up to us.
'Who's shooting?' Mama asked.
'Greeks in the railroad cut,' he huffed. 'Militia on the hill firing back with a machine gun.' I saw despair cloud his eyes for the first time. 'I cannot stop this, Alan.' "
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 253
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Sure enough, rag-tags were sneaking back into the camp across the tracks. I shot two before the rest took cover and I kept firing until the locomotive groaned and lurched forward. Then I sprinted across the open space near the stage. The train had pulled away by the time I reached the trestle and the machine gun and rifle fire intensified once more.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 259
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“I looked at the colony through the glasses. Three-fourths of the tents had burned and the ground smoked in spots. Broken ridge beams smoldered amid buckets, dishes, kettles, bedsprings, sheets of tin, fallen smokestacks.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 270
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“In the pit where I’d wanted Mama to go, eleven children and two women suffocated. I found out when Susan woke me. The three Bastrop kids, the two Costas, the six I didn’t know‒candles snuffed out. Clem and Diego had gone back to the site. First, they discovered Ida and Cissy roaming around, blathering out of their minds. Later, they found the hole where the dead lay. After they brought the two women to the house, Clem went to Cedar Hill. Guess the bodies would have rotted if the rancher hadn’t made Major Teller take them out.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 271
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Two days later, over 100 armed miners seeped through the pinyons above the mines in Delagua, with me among them. I didn’t give a damn about organization or mission. Each thing I could tear up or burn, each swell I could torture would ease my pain a little. I didn’t have to wait for the lead of a warrior. I knew the way back home. And I had scores to settle.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 271
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“Two columns of people, over a mile long, followed the coach that carried Nick down Main Street and onto Commercial. Greeks in their blouses and leggings marched right behind the coffin, Barba and Harry among them. Strikers stood at attention with their hats off, their rifles at their sides, as the coach rumbled by. Curious townspeople, some holding little American flags, lined the streets like it was a parade. Automobile and wagon traffic held up. . . .
We crossed the Purgatoire and climbed the hill to the Knights of Pythias cemetery, where Sid was buried. Over five hundred people prayed over Nick’s fresh grave and the graves of the others who’d died at the colony.”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 287
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“ ‘Is Ludlow full of soldiers again?' Mama asked.
'Yeah, some.'
'President Wilson’s called out federal troops,' Mama said. 'General Sisk is supposed to arrive sometime today to take charge.'
The Red-Winged Blackbird, pp. 280-281
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
“ '. . . right there’s your union.' ”
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 43
Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
**********************************************************************************************************************
The Red-Winged Blackbird
A novel by Bob Reed
Flight #3: The Death Pit
August 23, 2013
Imagine a 6X8 earthen cellar under the floorboards of your tent. Even in the daytime, it's dark, musty, scary. Things crawl across the walls, rats on the floor. Your mama takes you and your sisters down there because soldiers are shooting at your tent. Everything will be okay; your papa dug the hole in case something like this happened. Neighbors join you and soon fourteen are canned like potted meat. Hot and sweaty from bodies wedged, you're lumpies trapped in a hole with little air. The attack lasts for over eight hours. By-and-by, smoke seeps in. It gets hotter. The tent is on fire. You try to climb out, but the guns drive you back. YOU CAN'T BREATHE. Sisters stop squirming . . . crying. Eyes close . . . terror dissolves.
You are dead.
The Red-Winged Blackbird, p. 271
The Red-Winged Blackbird
A Novel by Bob Reed
Flight #4: What's the Title Mean?
September 9, 2013
A song anticipates his appearance: “LOOK-AT-MEEE,” the “meee” like thimbles raked across a washboard. When he explodes from reeds or cattails, red and yellow epaulets on black wings dazzle.
Ranging from Canada to Central America, the red-winged blackbird is perhaps the most ubiquitous bird in the Western Hemisphere. In his territorial haunts, the male defends the nests of as many as fifteen chick-bearing females at one time, a daunting chore, evincing both wantonness and dedication. Praised and damned as a commoner, seen as harbinger of hope and despair, life and death, the bird has been scorned and celebrated throughout history.
Long before I delighted in the beauty of the red-wing, studied its habits and mysteries; before I named a novel for the bird and recognized it as my totem, I heard a song about him on Judy Collins’ third album, In Concert. “Oh, can’t you see that pretty little bird, singing with all of its heart and soul,” goes the ballad, penned in 1963 by West Virginian miner and future Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame member Billy Ed Wheeler. “He’s got a blood-red spot on its wing, and all the rest of him’s black as coal.” (Most folks know the work of Wheeler from one song‒“Jackson”‒popularized by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash and used so effectively in the opening scene of The Help.)
During the folk revival of the sixties, that song and others like it helped shape the social and political consciousness of my generation. Like the “broadside ballads” of the 18th and 19th centuries, these “message” songs revealed the plight of the downtrodden and the oppressed. They exposed racial and economic injustice, proclaimed the nobility of the working class, celebrated the natural world, mourned the loss of love, and protested war. Armed with guitar and harmonica, I sang these songs with an indignant, empathetic stridency. As Arlo Guthrie would say, “If you wanna end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.”
Twenty odd years later, I stumbled on an obscure historical event that fleshed-out Wheeler’s ballad and drew me closer to the red-wing. In 1914, the richest bituminous coal deposit west of the Mississippi rested in southern Colorado, and hundreds of mines penetrated the hills and canyons between Trinidad and Walsenburg. Ambitious people, lured to the remote and dangerous mines by promises of quick wealth, soon became wage slaves of the coal companies. Unionization, a general strike, migration into tent colonies on the plains thrust labor, management and questionable law enforcement into conflict. As food grew scarce and snow accumulated, talks between the factions faltered. Grudges festered, and violence erupted.
Wheeler’s lyric echoed: “Of all the colors I ever did see, red and black are the ones I dread. For when a man spills blood on the coal, they carry him down from the coal mines dead.”
This little known catastrophe, described by Senator George McGovern as the most violent and costly labor dispute in U.S. history, stirred up discord extant today. Issues involving labor, peacekeeping, development of natural resources, environmental degradation, racial and ethnic disaffection, immigration, women’s rights, even rebellious youth became integral parts of the tragedy.
I read what I could find on the subject—including McGovern’s excellent work, The Great Coalfield War. I perused slanted newspaper accounts and viewed the original photographs from the strike at the historical museum in Denver. I visited the “Ludlow Massacre” memorial, established by the United Mine Workers, north of Trinidad. I descended into the pit where the women and children suffocated; and, when I camped among the ghosts in the coal canyons, I heard machine guns firing again on the colony, imagined thousands scurrying for safety, smelled tents burning.
There, I saw red-wings clinging to cattails in a slurry pond, and the old song resonated once more: “Fly away you red-winged bird, leaving behind you the miner’s wife. She’ll dream about you when you’re gone; she’ll dream about you all her life.”
In Native American lore, one’s totem animal materializes at crucial times, to teach, protect and guide. The red-wing first came to me in song, returned through historical event, and lingered with creative act. Writing about the “Ludlow Massacre” aroused my adolescent idealism and awakened me to a life-long affiliation with this singular creature.
After that, I discovered red-wings everywhere—and that made me happy. But were they totemic? Good fortune often followed the sightings, so I hastily embraced the birds as lucky charms. Then I noted that, just as often after seeing them, things didn’t work out as I’d hoped. What, if anything, were they trying to communicate?
Just this: focus, watch out, breathe, enjoy, accept.
Like so many simple gifts, those birds had always been there; I just hadn’t realized I needed them. Now, the closer I look, the more I gain from the red-wings.
If that’s not totemic, I don’t know what is.