“Is goot,ja? It cuts the dust in a fellow’s throat.”
Before I could reply, a voice boomed from across the room. “So, ve haff a Chermann in our midst!”
Hans and I looked to the source of the noise, and Hans seemed to tense up all over. A man was weaving over toward us, pointing at Hans. “I tol’ you never to come here again, Herr Chermann!”
Hans glanced at me, and then looked coldly at him. “Go away, you stupid Polack.”
The man lurched at Hans, more than a little drunk, and outraged by Hans’s words. “You filthy Chermann! I’ll kill you!”
This was clearly not the time for a “let’s not fight each other; let’s band together and fight management” speech. I got to my feet and stepped between the drunk and Hans. “Leave him alone,” I said. I noticed that the room had become quiet, except for an undercurrent buzzing of “who is that man?”
The drunk looked at my chin, and then slowly looked up to my eyes. He seemed impressed, but too drunk to think about it. “Who are you, and why do you protect Chermann filth?”
Before I could answer, Hans popped his head around me. “He is called Big John,” he offered, and then retreated quickly.
“I don’ like your smell!” the drunk yelled.
“Go sit down.” My adrenaline was pumping, and I kept reminding myself that these miners were strong. But probably very few of them had taken martial arts self-defense courses that every union organizer felt was necessary in my time. Anti-union violence hadn’t stopped in the 1930s. Besides, I lived in New York. Self-defense training was almost required by law.
It was almost too easy. The man was so drunk he telegraphed his moves horribly. I blocked his punch, jabbed him in the solar plexus with three stiff fingers, and caught him on the side of the face with a right hook. He went down with a crash, smashing against a table on the way down, and lay still.
There was still silence in the room as everybody stared at me in awe. From the whispering, I gathered that I had just knocked out the town bully. Behind me, I heard Hans talking in German to some friends. He probably assumed I couldn’t understand—English was probably the only common language among these groups. But Germany was a major industrial power in my time, and I had a pretty good command of German as well as several other languages.
“I met him today, and he is friendly but very, very stern. Be sure you don’t give him cause for offense. You saw what he did to that Polack! Well, there was trouble with a woman, I think, in Louisiana. I think he killed a man over her. But he does not like to talk of it.”
There was a buzz of voices I couldn’t quite make out. I was circling the room with my eyes, ready for an attack by the drunk’s friends. But nobody was moving. Hans’s voice came again: “Yes, that’s his name. Big John. The strongest man I’ve ever seen.”
A legend is born, I thought, not allowing the smile to come to my lips. That guy sure has an active imagination. I kept looking around the room. I couldn’t see anyone who was as tall as me. It was amazing, considering that I was only six foot six—not much taller than average in my own time. It must have been nutrition and medical conditions. I remembered visiting Stratford-upon-Avon when I was in London at an International Order of Workers meeting, and touring the house believed to be Shakespeare’s. The tops of the doorways hardly came up to my shoulders.
I gave one more look around the room, activating my camera and looking as tough as I could. If people were afraid of me, they’d steer clear. That would help a lot in my mission.
Hans drank more beer than Helga would have approved of, but he was feeling very good. He had befriended Big John, and his hunch of Big John’s usefulness had already borne fruit. That obnoxious Polack who terrorized just about anyone in town had chosen him, Hans Deckert, to be his primary victim. But with one crashing right hand, Big John had leveled the tormentor, and Hans could enjoy the camaraderie of the tavern again in peace.
He staggered a little in the night air, mucking through the deep mud that was everywhere. “You are already famous in this town,” he informed Big John. “Come. I will show you the boarding houses, and the employment office at the mine.”
He gave Big John a drunken tour of the town, which didn’t take long. “There is not much here except the mines,” he confided, hiccuping. “But for a man such as you, there are many women about, if you know what I mean.” He started to elbow Big John in the ribs, but thought better of it at the last moment. It wouldn’t do to be overly familiar with such a dangerous man. “But here you can get settled, and you will probably start work tomorrow.”
“I’m grateful,” Big John said gruffly. “For the guidance and for the dinner.”
“It is my pleasure," Hans said expansively. “And I am grateful in turn for your help in the tavern. That dirty fellow, he has been a trouble for many months, but I do not think he will be anymore. Good night, Big John.”
Hans headed back home, weaving slightly. Everything felt right with the world on a night such as this.
As the days went by, Hans saw Big John become more familiar with the workings of the mine. Any experienced worker could see that the big man’s stories of previous mine experience were false, for the man had some mannerisms of a tenderfoot— but a tenderfoot who somehow knew what to expect. It was puzzling. But nobody was going to make so bold as to ask Big John about it.
He was a hard worker, too, and had none of the wind fatigue that plagued so many of them. Ach, but that was something that would come with time. Hans had seen it happen to many of his fellows, and to himself, too.
As far as he could tell, Big John had made no friends. He talked to many of the fellows, though—and this was certainly strange!—he didn’t much seem to care who they were. He talked to Polacks, those men with missing teeth and crazy eyes; with the Czechs with the impenetrable language, even the Norsks and Hungarians He spent time with Hans and the Germans as well, of course, although Hans could have sworn that when he spoke German to the other fellows about Big John, the look in the big man’s eyes made Hans wonder if the German was truly going over his head. Certainly the little English that came out of Big John’s mouth was excellent, with a strange accent that Helga had pointed out was not what they imagined a Southern accent would be.
All in all, Big John was a mystery. Discreet inquiries at the boarding house he had taken told Hans that the man was a good tenant, quiet and clean—although he had made one strange request: he asked about having a bath every day! Frau Muller, the housekeeper, told Hans, “I gave him such a look, I wondered if he was a madman, and might kill me next! But he merely gave me a dark look and muttered apologies. Then he went back to his room. I was quite relieved! They say he’s killed a man. It was over a woman, you know, so perhaps he won’t kill again. Still, you never know.”
Hans agreed that one could never know. Consumed with curiosity, he went from there to the many brothels in town, and inquired within. No, none had done business with the tall, dark and silent man who was new in town.
“Why do you wonder so about this man?” Helga asked him one night, nestled in the crook of his arm.
“I don’t know,” Hans admitted. “I owe him a debt of gratitude. He is fearsome, yet seems to be a good man. And his stories of his past do not seem to match up to his behavior.” He did not admit the true reason for his curiosity: that it was more pleasant to wonder about this man than it was to contemplate his own future.
For it was rumored that the mine was failing. The richness of the ore was deteriorating, and profit was decreasing. And everyone knew that that would mean a decrease in the wages. Unless the mine was closed, and then there would be no jobs, and how would Hans Deckert provide for his wife and new baby?