The men laughed uncertainly, puzzled by the calm tact of this man. They waited, watching him at his solitary table toying with his glass. But when he didn’t go on, the crowd turned its attention back to Evenwrite, who still stood clutching his empty glass. Evenwrite felt the attention burn at his back: balls. He’d been going good before that bastard had showed up; real good. But some way Draeger had made him the fool again, though damned if he could see how. He tried to study the fact for a moment, then gave up and vented his frustration on Teddy by demanding a free glass on account of dammit for all the juice he’d throwed down in there tonight if it’d been real stuff he’d be drunk on his ear, now ain’t that so? Without comment, Teddy refilled the glass. Evenwrite drank it with a gulp, not even closing his eyes, then smacked his lips thoughtfully. “Pigeon piss,” he decided and spat in the direction of the spittoon. There was a little wave of laughter, still uncertain. The men looked back and forth from their president to their representative, waiting for the next move. Draeger seemed unaware of the silence that had risen up after his entrance; he peered through the little glass he twisted in his fingers, his eyes patient as his smile. Evenwrite leaned against the bar. He knew he was on the spot. Draeger had made it his move. He rubbed his neck and finally broke the quiet by throwing the glass at the brass pot wired to the corner of the bar and shouting “Pigeon piss” again. “That ain’t whisky, that’s pure hundred-fifty-proof pigeon piss.” There was more laughter and he turned then toward Draeger, confident again. He was leaning slightly, eyes very bright. “Okay, Jonathan Bailey Draeger, since you’re so fuckin’ smart let’s hear what you say we should do. You called this walkout the first place. Ain’t that so? Since you’re so smart, okay let’s hear what you’re gonna do to get us outa this mess. I’m jus’ a dumb-ass sawyer! I mean, nobody pays us dumb-asses to think. Since you’re so smart—” Draeger brought the glass down on the cocktail napkin on the Formica table top; there was a muffled yet resonant click, sounding at once distant and very near, like a click heard under water. “If you’ll just sit down and take it easy, Floyd—” “Ho ho. Don’t you Floyd old boy me, Jonathan Bailey Draeger. Legal? All right, if you want to be legal then, you know and I know what we gotta do. Maybe we beat our gums here the rest the night but we know! An’ me hollering to go out there after Stamper was a dumb-ass thing, sure . . . but not no more dumb-ass than you suckin’ us into this strike none of us wanted!” “Floyd, to hear you tell it last August you boys were all starving to death.” “Last August you told us we’d settle without a walkout!” “Are you scared to gut it out, Floyd? Scared you might miss a couple of paychecks?” Draeger still spoke so softly that it was difficult to tell if the voice came from him or not. Evenwrite’s voice grew louder to overpower the silence that Draeger had brought down on the room. “No, I ain’t scared to miss a couple of paychecks! I done it before. All of us have. We’ve struck before and we’ve gutted it out. We’ve gutted it out since the days before the Wobs came to back us up. And we’ll do it again, won’t we, boys?” He looked about at the men, nodding. The men nodded with him, watching Draeger. “You’re damn right. We ain’t scared to gut it or miss a couple paychecks, but we ain’t scared to back off when we’re dead whipped, neither!” “Floyd, if you’ll—” “And legally, if you want to be that way about it, we are whipped! Whipped comin’ an’ goin’.” He stopped speaking to Draeger and turned toward the men again, wiping his nose. “I been wantin’ to cash it a long time now. It was the wrong time of year to walk out; we all knew that—hell, middle of winter, not a whole lot in the strike fund—but Draeger figured if he could just swing this one he was on his way to him a big spot, make a goddam king or something of hisself ...so he got us—” “Floyd . . .” “Draeger, if you’re so fuckin’ smart—” “Floyd.” Click. Again that light, restrained touch of the glass against the table, as light as a hammer cocking. The heads swung back to Draeger. I see now; now I understand. ...From behind his bar Teddy marveled at the man’s power and timing. . . . You know how to wait. As soon as you started speaking . . . watch these idiots draw in toward you without leaving their places, straining without motion toward your voice as metal particles strain in toward a magnet ... “Floyd ...doesn’t the foreman from the Stamper mill, Orland Stamper, live right next door to you?” . . . Straining in to you without even moving; it doesn’t make any difference what you say. Because you are one of the forces yourself, a force, and that’s what matters. Not what you say. Like Walker the Healing Preacher is sometimes a force. But not that way either, because you know more than Brother Walker and his God put together... “And Sitkins, you and your brother, I heard you both have children in the same class as some of the Stamper children. It seems I recall hearing that. Those kids are just kids, aren’t they, just like your kids?” ...You know what it is—the col............