Author's note: The next two chapters will contain more "adult" content, including graphic violence and sexual menace, than any other segment in this story. Reader discretion is advised.
April 1st, 1919
For the past two weeks, Rick Corduroy had tried keeping the Gravity Falls Loggers' Collective together. Unfortunately, their clash with the Legion and the police in the town streets had driven a wedge in the group, between those who urged violent retaliation, others who wanted to quit the strike and throw themselves on the mercy of the Northwests, and those few who continued siding with Rick.
Headlines in the local papers howled about REVOLUTION IN OUR FAIR CITY!, branding Rick and his comrades with the predictable epithets. Balancing the hysteria were sympathy strikes in other logging camps throughout the state, leading to fear of a general shutdown of all Oregon. The Governor put the National Guard on alert, wired Washington, DC for help, even invited Mayor Ole Hanson of Seattle for assistance in crushing the incipient rebellion. Hanson, who had resigned his position after the Seattle strike concluded to become a lecturer, arrived in Salem to give a well-paid speech on the perils of Bolshevism, then left without providing any actual advice or assistance.
It was a scary time, with ordinary Americans unable to separate real threats from phantom revolutionaries. In the East, bombs would DC, New York and a dozen other cities later that spring; strikes, or threats of strikes, moved the entire country to terror. Within a few months Attorney General Palmer would round up thousands of immigrants and suspected radicals without warrant or formal charges. The President, incapacitated by a stroke, did nothing to curb the excesses, or else actively encouraged them; local authorities, businessmen and radicals nourished it to their own ends.
Naturally, in the logger's tent city, the loudest agitator was Bob Christiansen, who advocated throwing in with the Wobblies and syndicalists, who said that guns and dynamite could do a lot more than words and marches. Many of his men, who bore scars and bruises from their savage encounter with Sprott's Legionnaires, seemed eager to agree. Two of their number had perished in the fighting (including young Scott Lodge, who lingered in a coma for four days after the riot before dying) and they weren't eager to negotiate.
Rick still hadn't forgiven Christiansen for touching off the riot (let alone shooting him personally), and wondered what use the reckless Swede could be at this point. Or, indeed, if he was a threat. He had taken to bringing his ax into bed with him, just in case someone tried a one-man coup. And some of his more reliable allies joined him: solid John Cox, for one, kept vigil outside his tent with a double-barreled shotgun, daring anyone to try.
Still, Rick decided that solidarity, for the moment, mattered more than internal divisions, and squashed those who warned him to oust the troublemakers. He told his friends in one of many interminable meetings:
"We will continue fighting as one group, with one voice," Rick said. "We aren't going to start throwing bombs or taking drastic actions that will give them an excuse to crack our heads. Keep it peaceful, keep it together and we'll see this through."
The lumbermen still respected Rick enough to take his advice as gospel; they nodded their assent and with scarcely a grumble returned to their tents, civil war averted. But Rick sensed that they'd reached a point where he couldn't restrain them for much longer.
He started wondering whether he shouldn't have taken up Mr. Wentworth's offer and found honest, soft and safe work away from the town. But he banished it from his mind; he was a logger, a real man who took pride in his work and wouldn't dare do anything else. Still, at this point he felt he could only pray to God for a miracle to deliver him and his friends before disaster befell them.
Unbeknownst to Rick, Dylan Northwest seemed likely to deliver that miracle. He had seen enough bloodshed and didn't want any more. The sight of demonstrators lying cracked and bleeding in the streets made him sick to his stomach. Within Dylan, sentimentality and contempt, power and paternalism always wrestled for control. Despite the hysteria his allies and son whipped up around him (the Mayor offered to raise an army of gunmen to extirpate the "Bolsheviks") he insisted upon a sane course of restraint.
He appealed to the UWWA leadership, who sent their Vice President, Lewis Stone, to participate in a mediation. The UWWA was as mild and moderate a non-company union as existed in 20th Century Oregon, and even they had been disgusted by what people were already calling "the Battle of Gravity Falls." And while Governor Alcott seemed predisposed to unleashing his soldiers on any agitators, he sent a young aide, Charles B. Ware, to Gravity Falls.
The three men met in Northwest's drawing room, and they drafted a petition to send to Rick Corduroy. They would parlay with the lumbermen and enter into negotiations, agreeing that Dylan Northwest would rescind any terminations in exchange for a reasonable agreement on benefit and wage increases. Final terms would, of course, be subject to approval by the Board and the union leadership, but Dylan was still confident that they could.
By that evening, the petition was mostly completed, and Dylan Northwest invited Messers Stone and Ware for a tour of scenic Gravity Falls. There wasn't much to see as they drove through town, except mud and dirty streets, cracked windows and blood spots that were a reminder of why they there in the first place. Mr. Stone harrumphed that it was a damn ugly town, and Mr. Ware said nothing. Chastened, and not a little embarrassed by their reaction, he invited them back to his residence for another drink before they retired for the day.
Perhaps, Dylan Northwest thought as he scanned the town, it was time for modernization - more roads, more schools and projects to make the town less of an eye sore, to relieve consciences shaken by the fighting in their streets - to make Gravity Falls a great place to live, rather than an eyesore whose only distinguishing features were trees and inexplicable critters. But that was a project for the future. He had to resolve this ugly matter with Rick Corduroy first.
The petition was never sent; when Northwest and his party went out, a servant dutifully placed it in the drawer of a wooden table off to the side. That table, and its contents, would be obliterated that night by a stick of 40 percent dynamite. The explosion would also break windows, blow out the walls, shattering the ceiling, demolish cabinets and their contents, shiver Mr. Ware's torso to unrecognizable fragments and turn Mr. Stone into a human pin cushion, causing him to drown in his own blood before help arrived. Only Dylan Northwest would survive, and only then because the merest quirk of fate and nitroglycerin blew a wooden plank against his body, knocking him away from the worst of the blast, rendering him unconscious but alive.
Thad Northwest spent most of that evening with Rebecca, taking her out to dinner and escorting her home. They spent some time in her foyer, with Thad talking animatedly about events overseas. Rebecca noticed that he seemed less concerned with the Peace Talks in Paris than riots in Egypt and Wales, revolution in Hungary, and fascism's birth in Italy. He wasn't sure yet whether Benito Mussolini was admirable or monstrous, but his tough talk against socialism made Thad cautiously optimistic.
He relished chaos, Rebecca noted warily; his mind could only think in apocalyptic terms. To him, the lumbermen in Gravity Falls and the Welsh miners, Bela Kun and Benito Mussolini, the Kaiser and Lenin were all one and the same. The whole world was embroiled in one endless conflict, and he was determined that his side win, whether or not he was right. Not only did it make him an amoral man, she thought, it made him a boring, fatuous companion.
Still, Rebecca sat silently, allowing him to bloviate, feeling that letting him talk was less harmful than allowing him to take action. She just smiled and nodded, occasionally rolling her eyes or smirking at his more ridiculous comments, thinking back to more pressing matters.
Of course, she daren't tell him that she had saved Rick Corduroy from certain death during the street battle a few weeks before, or that she had given him refuge, first in her store and then in her home. Or that, after several days, she had started seeming him less as the lumpen logger and more as the dashing, kindly man she had loved before the war, that he seemed full of energy when he discussed worker's rights and basic living, that he seemed, somehow, even more alive than he had before the war.
Any penny dreadful novelist could have predicted what happened next: they fell into each other's arms with a long-repressed, scarce-recognized hunger and made love. And did so again the following night, until Rick decided he was needed back at the camp before things degenerated any further. Leaving Rebecca with memories of bliss and feelings of regret, hoping that once things sorted themselves out, they could find a way to rekindle their relationship.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Thad's latest comment. "Of course, it all depends on Rick Corduroy."
"What?" Rebecca was stunned by his mentioning the man she'd spent so much of the evening thinking about.
"Well, my father and his aides want to negotiate," Thad said off-handedly, "and of course everyone wants a peaceful solution." (His downcast glower, Rebecca thought, indicated that he did not.) "We'll have to see what that screw-loose brute has to say about it, though. Of course, it's entirely possible that some of his own men might take matters into their own hands."
Rebecca was stunned by this remark. "What do you mean?"
"Well, sometimes the vanguard acts without organization," Thad explained, relishing that his knowledge had finally captured her attention. "In Russia, for instance, it wasn't the Bolsheviks who triggered the Revolution but soldiers mutinying in the cities. Or in France, there wasn't an organized call for the Jacobins to storm the Bastille. Sometimes a particularly clever man or group of men will take the initiative and everyone else has to follow him. Perhaps such a man exists in the logger's camp."
"Oh, you'd love for such a man to exist, wouldn't you?" Rebecca snapped. "You'd love an excuse to stamp down on those poor lumbermen."
Thad clapped his hands in surprised glee. "Of course I would! No question about it. There needs to be a reckoning, and if they're the ones who light the fuse, so to speak, so much the better. Of course, there's no reason why we couldn't give things a push in that direction."
Rebecca quickly registered the implications of this; her eyes fluttered in horror.
"I can't believe you think human lives are a game like that," she shouted, standing up from the table. "Thaddeus Northwest, I demand that you leave my home immediately."
He stood up facing her with a complacent smile on his face. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you are no longer welcome in this home, or anywhere near me," Rebecca said firmly.
Now Thad's face contorted into a savage, snarling smile, and Rebecca felt a pang of fear in her chest. If she thought her fiancee was nothing more than a mean, fatuous oaf, he would soon disabuse her of the notion. He grabbed her wrist and pulled close, looking like a wolf about to pounce. Rebecca started to tremble, struggling to maintain her composure.
"Well, maybe it's no longer up to you," Thad growled lasciviously. "Maybe it's no longer up to you and your filthy lumberjack friend or the town elders or the soldiers or least of all my father. You and all Gravity Falls will help forge a new order to help cleanse this entire country."
He squeezed Rebecca harder, pulling him closer to her, as he started to rave. Rebecca grew terrified, trying to pull away. She wasn't strong enough.
"And if it requires the death of a few men," he rambled on, his voice turning into a sharp bark, "a few goddamned timber beasts or a whole pack of them, a few worthless old fat cats or stiff-necked soldiers or God knows some uppity women who think they know better than their men...Well, the first casualty will be your dignity."
He reached for her dress and tore open the bodice, causing her to scream.
The scream was drowned out by the explosion across town.
Rick Corduroy had heard the explosion and instantly fathomed what it meant. He called for all the lumbermen to assemble in the center of their camp; within minutes everyone did, all carrying tools or rifles, their wives and children huddled fearfully around them, all illuminated by the roaring fire.
"What happened, Rick?" Gene Black asked, clutching his wife with one hand and an ax in another.
"We heard an explosion," someone else called out. "What in tarnation...?"
"All right, everyone, be calm," Rick promised. "I don't know what happened, but it can't be good. Those bastards in town have been looking for an excuse to settle our hash and whatever this is, they're going to use it against us."
Now he looked at the crowd of scared, apprehensive loggers, looking for signs of guilt and fear.
"Now, there've been some grumblings in this camp lately," Rick said. "People unhappy at the way things are going, that I'm not strong or forceful enough to reach a reckoning with the plutes and the scissor-bills. Well, I'm saying right now, if anyone here went behind my back to cause trouble, let alone kill someone, boss they may have been, you'll have to answer to me. And by thunder, I will split you in half where you stand before I let you get away with it."
He noticed the loggers recoiling from him in fear, as he clenched his ax with barely-restrained fury. John Cox stepped up beside him, grim and silent as a rock as usual.
Finally, someone piped up. It was little Lenny Stoller, one of the youngest lumbermen.
"Rick," said the boy, gangly and freckled and still a teenager, "I know that Bob was planning to go into town and send the Northwests a message. Those were his words. I swear, I didn't know what he meant by that," choking back tears in fear of his boss, "I never thought he would..."
Rick growled audibly. Of course it was Bob. That squareheaded bastard had been asking for trouble ever since things had started. He looked Lenny in the eyes with undisguised anger, then snapped himself out of it.
"Everyone, the Northwests are going to come and they're going to play for blood," he said. "Everyone with a gun, get it. Hide the women and children best you can. If they want a fight, they're going to have it, and we aren't going to go quietly."
There weren't any cheers or applause, just shouts of panic and a resolute flurry of action as the loggers snapped into action, tearfully hugging and kissing their families before racing to the perimeters of the camp, hoping to throw up makeshift breastworks of trees and logs before any invaders could arrive.
Overhead, rain started to fall on the scene, and thunder flashed in the distance. And a solitary rider approached on horseback at breakneck speed. Rick and the others turned towards him, watching as Bob Christiansen emerged from the shadows, panting heavily from his ride. As he dismounted, the loggers gathered round, watching the Swede silently as he walked into the camp.
"Everyone," he said breathlessly, "there is news." He dismounted, barely noticing as two lumbermen hurriedly pulled his horse away from him.
"Someone blew up the Northwests' home," he said. "They say Dylan Northwest, the Governor's man, someone from the United Woodworkers - all killed! Obliterated."
No visible reaction, from Rick or anyone else. Only cold fury. Bob seemed amazed by their evident nonchalance.
"Well, by jiminy this means that they're going to come here and fight!" he said. "We've won the first round at a stroke, and now we just..."
"We're all going to die because you're a blockheaded fink," Rick said curtly. He gestured silently and several men grabbed the Swedes, pinioning his arms.
"Fink? But Rick, what do you mean?" Bob pleaded, struggling against his erstwhile colleagues.
"I don't know if you're just an idiot or if you're actually working for the Northwests," Rick continued. "Either way, it's the same. All you've done tonight is condemn all of us to death, whether by bullets or bombs or bayonets or the end of a rope. The least we can do is return the favor."
"No wait, Rick, I..." The Swede choked out panicked words as a mob approached him, brandishing knives and axes and other implements. His incoherent pleas soon turned to bloodcurdling screams.
Rick stood back, watching in grim satisfaction as the loggers tore the hapless provocateur to shreds.