THE IRON THROAT
7
But walk in the night now, Andy Kvaternick, lift your face to
the night, and desperately, like an almost drowned man, breathe and
breathe.
"Andy," they are calling to you, in their lusty voices, your
fellow workers; it is an old story to them now, and they are strong
men. "Have a drink on us?" The stuff burns down your throat,
the thoughts lay shipwrecked and very still far underneath the black
sea of your mind, you are gay and brave, knowing that you can
never breathe the dust out. You have taken your man's burden, and
you have the miner's only friend that earth gives to her children,
strong drink, Andy Kvaternick.)
For several weeks Jim Holbrook had been in evil mood. The whole
household walked in terror, he had nothing but heavy blows, for the
children and he struck Anna too often to remember.
Every payday he
clumped home, washed, went to town, and returned hours later, dead
drunk.
Once Anna had questioned him timidly, concerning his work; he
struck her on the mouth with a bellow of "Shut your damn trap."
Anna too became bitter and brutal.
If one of the children was in her
way, if they did not obey her instantly, she would beat them, as if it were
some devil she were exorcising, in a blind rage. Afterwards, in the midst
of her drudgery, regret would cramp at her heart at the memory of the
tear stained little faces, "twasn't them I was beating up, something just
seems to get into me, when I have something to hit."
Friday came again.
Jim returned with his pay, part money, most
company scrip. Little Will, in high spirits, riln to meet him, not noticing
his father's sullen face. Pulling on his pants, Willie begged for a ghost
story of the mine. He got a clout on the head that sent him sprawling.
"Keep your damn brats from under my feet," he threatened in a violent
rage, while Anna only stared at him, almost paralyzed, "and stop looking
at me like a stuck pig."
The light from the dusk came in, cold, malignant.
Anna sat in the
half dark by the window, her head bent over the sewing. Willie huddled
against her skirt, whimpering.
Outside the wind gibbered and moaned.
The room was suddenly chill. Some horror, some sense of evil, seemed
over everything.
It came to Mazie like dark juices of undefined pain,
pouring into her, filling her heart in her breast, till it felt big, like the
world.
Fear came that her heart would push itself out, roll out like a
ball. She clutched the baby closer to her, tight, tight, to hold the swollen
thing, inside.
Her dad stood in the washtub, nude, splashing water on
his big, chunky body.
The menacing light was on him, too.
Fear for
him came to Mazie, yet some alien sweetness mixed with it, watching
him there.
