Hank snorted. “Caulden’s daughter is as pretty as he is. All she needs is a cigar in her mouth and she could be his twin. This lady is Miss Janet Armstrong.”
“Too bad,” Whitey said. “I’ll bet Caulden would do a lot to protect his daughter.”
As Hank looked at the wild, glittering eyes of Whitey, those eyes combined with the unnatural glow of his white hair, Hank felt chills along his spine.
Amanda would be a prime target of their fanaticism. Kidnap her and they could blackmail Caulden into doing what they wanted. Kill her, Hank thought, and they would get the world to look at the problems of the migrant pickers.
“I can handle this, Whitey,” Hank said, doing his best to keep the fear out of his voice. “Go back to where you came from.”
Whitey stepped out of the circle of light made by the car headlamps. “Sure, Doc. I’ll leave as soon as I see there’re no problems. As soon as I see that my people are treated right, first by Caulden then by the other hop ranchers, I’ll go home. I won’t cause no problems.” His voice began to fade as he moved farther away from the car. “And you say hello to that Miss Caulden for me. What’s her name? Amy, is it? No, it’s Amanda. You tell her Whitey Graham says hello to her.” There were footsteps, then it was quiet.
Hank stood where he was, and in spite of the heat even at night, he felt cold. He didn’t speak to Amanda as he started the car and got back into it. He went from being cold to sweating, so that by the time he reached the Caulden Ranch he was sweltering.
He stopped the car and turned to Amanda. “I don’t want any argument from you, but tomorrow I want you to stay home. In fact, don’t even go outside. Have Taylor give you some lessons and spend the day in your room.”
Amanda didn’t bother to answer his patronizing tone. “Do you think they mean to kill my father?” she whispered.
Hank just wanted her safe. He cursed himself for allowing her to work at the Union Hall, for exposing her to what could be a violent situation. “Whitey isn’t really sane. He believes himself to be on the side of the workers, but I think it’s an excuse to justify violence. Last year in Chicago he beat up an eighty-year-old—” He stopped abruptly. He was so upset at Whitey’s threats to Amanda that he wasn’t thinking clearly. “I don’t think he means to kill your father. More likely it will be innocent people who get killed, some man who has six kids to support. Whitey just wants blood to flow so the newspapers will write about it. It doesn’t matter whose blood it is.” He lowered his voice. “Not even yours, Amanda.”
“Innocent people,” Amanda said. “My father may not be killed, but ‘innocent’ people might. Does this imply that my father is guilty.”
“Amanda, I don’t want to get into this. Your father is out to make a profit any way he can. He doesn’t care what he has to do to make a profit. I told you that he’d advertised in three states for his pickers. That’s so thousands will show up. Maybe two thousand of them will agree to a union and will walk out of the fields if the conditions are intolerable, but there will be thousands more who are so hungry they’ll work no matter what the conditions.”
“My father isn’t an inhumane man,” Amanda said softly.
Maybe it was having been near Whitey’s intense emotions, but Hank felt his own rising. “Your father shunned his own wife for years because before they were married she danced on a stage. He turned his only child over to a cold machine of a man who withheld food from her if she didn’t obey his every whim. I wouldn’t say Caulden is a man who is capable of putting himself in the place of others. Caulden decides what he wants and goes after it. It doesn’t matter how many people get knocked down on his way to obtaining his goal. He wants profit from the hops and the hops have to be picked. I don’t imagine he ever considered that those are people in his fields. They are profit-making machines to him.”
“My father isn’t like that,” Amanda said. “You don’t know him like I do.” She remembered their meals together for the last few days. She refused to remember his words that he couldn’t abide her. That was her fault, not his. She got out of the car, not waiting for Hank to offer his hand.
Hank jumped out of the car and ran after her. He stepped in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “Amanda, whatever you feel about your father, that doesn’t matter. What matters to me is your safety. I want you to promise me that you’ll stay home tomorrow and not come to the Union Hall.”
“What would you do if Reva were threatened?”
“Reva?” he asked. “What has she got to do with this? You still jealous of Reva and Taylor leaving the carnival together?”
Amanda walked away from him but he moved in front of her.
“I want your promise, Amanda.”
“If Reva’s life were threatened you’d probably think she was courageous enough to stand up to it. But me, I’m supposed to hide in my room because I’m just a silly little society girl, is that right?”
Hank gaped at her. No man could ever live long enough to understand women. “If Reva’s life were threatened I’d want her to stay someplace safe too.”
“But Reva’s poor and I’m rich and that makes all the difference in the world.”
Hank felt as if he’d just drunk a quart of whiskey and jumped on a merry-go-round. “The unionists want you because you’re Caulden’s daughter. Amanda, promise me you’ll stay home tomorrow.”
She walked past him. “Do not concern yourself with me, Dr. Montgomery, I can take care of myself. If not, I’m sure I can buy my way out of any situation.” She hurried ahead into her house.
Hank stood outside, his fists clenched in anger. If he had to tie her to the bed in her room, he’d not let her expose herself to the fanatics’ violence. He didn’t understand just what she was so angry about but he wasn’t going to let some little feminine snit of hers endanger her life. He went back to his car.
Amanda leaned against the front door of her house for a few moments. She knew she hadn’t made any sense, but lately it seemed that her emotions were always ruling her brain. Those union men had scared her, scared her a great deal. The man named Whitey had a voice that quivered with emotion and it grated on Amanda like a metal file on her skin. The man talked of murder the way a person would speak of reading a book. Today when bloodshed in connection with the union was mentioned it had seemed like something remote and not possible. But this man Whitey made violence seem not only possible but likely.
If only there was something she could do!
Suddenly she stopped slumping against the door. All the talk of bloodshed was based on the assumption that her father was going to force the pickers to work under hideous conditions. If there was some way she could persuade the unionists that her father was not the monster they seemed to think he was, she could prevent violence before it started.
Even at this hour of the night her father was in the library. She had never before dared to disturb him, but lately she seemed to be doing many things she’d never dared before. She knocked on the library door, and when he told her to come in she slid the door open.