Every Boy Should Have a Man

5 Red Man, Red Man, Why Do You Weep?

On the day the red-haired female man arrived at the mines, the boss took the measure of her and liked what he saw.

He would have preferred that she not be so pale. On the other hand, two years in the eastern mines had made her lean, strong, and clever. He put her to work on the load-and-pull and found that she could do it better than any other man, and so he put her to lead it.

They told him she was a vicious fighter, that she had the gift of landing the first blow. The winding scar on her arm, they told him, was proof. He checked the scar and decided he may have been deceived. It may have been got from the lash. She was a talking man, and so he asked her.

“I have been defeated,” she said. “But never by the same man twice.”

Feisty, he thought, and he patted her head, his lips curling upward in delight. “I shall call you Red Man, for you have red hair.”

She winced and he took notice. Fearing a man bite, he withdrew his hand.

The boss was first among poets.

How serious are her eyes, he thought. They are alert and at the same time so weary.

He peered into her emerald eyes and was afforded a hint of what two years of working in the eastern mines could do to a man — two regular years (six man years) of breaking rock and stone with hammer and club, of hauling the overloaded wheeled carts, of hefting granite, coal, slate, and silver, in the dark bowels of the earth.

“But,” he said to himself, feeling a sudden surge of compassion, “here in the western mines, it shall not be so.”

As soon as he said it, he took it back: “On the other hand, there is much silver to be made.” He rationalized, “She is but a man, after all.”

The boss was first among gamblers. He made her his favorite so that in lean times she would not be eaten as others had been. He made her his companion in the planning of strategy against the man who would be sent to meet her in the fight yard behind the food wagon.

He would point to the opponent. “Gold Braid does not weigh so very much, but she is tall with sharp teeth.”

His female man would nod. “I will run against her and knock her to the ground. Then I will pounce quickly and pin her arms. I will twist like so to avoid her teeth, and I will bite with mine. Mine are sharp too, you know?”

“Good plan, my little red top,” he would say, and then he would clap his hands. “See to it then!”

That is the way it went in the western mines.

She lived for the day’s labor.

She lived for the day’s opponent.

He was called Yellow Fellow, for his hair and his flesh were yellow-hued, and he was the champion.

Like her, he was a talking man. Like her, he was a man of talent, and his talent was word singing. The boss would watch the mans as they gathered by the fires to listen to the word songs of Yellow Fellow, and he would send Red Man to join him as companion in music. She played on a kind of tinny drum she fashioned out of whispering stones and coal rocks of differing size.

The word songs of Yellow Fellow were very beautiful, and every man listened with attention unflagging.

Even the oafs would gather behind them and hum the parts they knew. But when the food wagon was delayed, the hungry ones entered the tents of mans with their long knives and pick-sticks drawn. The chant of Pick one, pick one, pick a nice fat one rang out through the death-still air of the black night, and every man cried out to the great creator for deliverance.

“Let it not be me! Let it not be me!”

The red-haired female man cried out for all mans: “Surely, you cannot eat us! We are your mans! We work by your side in the mines!”

The oafs would have eaten her to silence her cries, which troubled their sleep as well as their minds, but she was spared, for she was a favorite of the boss of the mines.

When they complained to him, he sucked his teeth. “Leave her be. It is but the cry of a man. Sleep through it.”

When she entered his tent and blasted her complaints loudly against his ear, he came to understand what the others meant when they said it was a disturbance to their sleep.

He put the muzzle on her and rolled over with his back to her. It helped but a little. She was his favorite, but as he lay there, a common working oaf, his precious sleep disturbed by the yapping of a man, he hatched a plan to punish her that brought a smile to his lips, if not relief to his ears.

The plan had much to do with her companion in music, Yellow Fellow.

He had a stout belly and was larger than she was — and he was stronger too, they knew, from his feats in the mines.

One day the boss watched amazed as Yellow Fellow saved her from a heavy stone that was falling, catching it with one hand and shoving her to safety with the other.

But outside the mines, he was sluggish and not much interested in the matches, most of which he won by intimidation into submission with his greater size.

He was not swift. He was not graceful. He quite often stumbled and bumbled into victories. No, he was not a great champion. He was champion by default, and he was the favorite of a lackadaisical and overconfident oaf who needed badly to be relieved of his silver.

“You are quicker than he is, true. But how will you turn advantage to victory?”

“His real weakness is his thin legs. I will knock against them, and when he topples I will wrap my arms around his neck. And then his battle is lost. I may not even have to apply my teeth.”

The boss nodded. “Good plan, little red top. Although,” he suggested, “I think you should apply your teeth regardless.”

She peered back with eyes that were dangerously weary, as though she wanted to apply her teeth to him.

“But I guess that is your choice to make.” He sucked in his cheeks and stepped back. “See to it then!”

They faced off behind the food wagon, everyone in attendance anticipating a great battle. But Yellow Fellow was too slow, too sluggish that day; she fearless and quick. In a flurry of noise and dust, it was over.

To all watching, the battle was hard fought and hard won, though brief. To the boss’s thinking it could have been harder and longer, but he happily collected his winnings from the gamblers who had wagered on the wrong side. With a wide grin, he relieved Yellow Fellow’s oaf of his burden of coin.

Then, since his pockets were heavy with silver, he extended the respite between periods of labor and demanded of the musical man a song. Yellow Fellow arose and cleared his throat. Red Man got with her whispering stones and her coal rocks of differing size to join him as companion in music.

And Yellow Fellow was a great singer of word songs.

He sang the Word Song of Elber-So-Wadle and the Village of Mans.

And the bard did sing:

And here the bard did end his song.

The applause was great from both oaf and man. In admiration, the female man touched the man man’s cheek lightly. Then the companions in music, Yellow Fellow and Red Man, bowed and said their final goodbyes.

When the bell tolled the end of respite, all went back to the mines and resumed their labor.

At the end of day when they bore him away, she followed as far as they would allow. From the basket where he awaited his fate,Yellow Fellow saw her and the boss heard him say: “I thank you.”

“For what?” she asked.

“For the gift of song.”

“Oh, that.” She looked around first, searching for those who might overhear. Then she whispered, “And I thank you for my victory, sweet one.”

Just as I thought, said the boss, who had often observed their sneaking off together.

He ordered her to leave, and she tightened her face to hold back the tears and she left.

Now we shall see, the boss said.

When they were finished with him, the boss hid some scraps of man flesh in the flesh of a bovin, and bid her come eat. She preferred, as did most mans who were not feral, a diet of vegetables and grain. In the mines, however, mans were made to eat whatever was put before them, despite their stomach’s revulsion to it.

She took a bite of what she believed was a slice of bovin, but her stomach reacted to it with a different type of revulsion. She said to the boss: “It does not taste the same as it did before.”

He burst into laughter. The female man lifted her eyes from her bowl and spied atop the table of the oafs, the well-cooked arms and legs of her great opponent. Her stomach heaved and surrendered all that was in it.

The boss and his companions around the table shook with laughter at the new champion chucking up the flesh of the old.

The boss was first among poets and he led them in song: “Great lord Red Man, oh mighty Red Man.”

The others chanted, “Wel-come to the Village of the Oafs! The Vill-age of Oafs welcomes you!”

And the bard did sing: “Out here in this blackness, this loneliness, this place of barrenness, horror, and stone, the bitter tears of Red Man began to flow.”

Someone touched her shoulder. It was her companion in music, Yellow Fellow!

They embraced, and the boss heard the man man say: “It was a joke they played on you, sweet one. Wipe your tears away. Oh, but I’m glad to be alive.”

“You’re glad to be alive?” The female man did not wipe her tears away, but continued to weep.

The boss came to her and petted her head. “Red Man, Red Man, why do you weep? It was only done in fun.”

She winced at his touch and he pulled his hand away, fearing her teeth which were bared.

“He is just glad to be alive,” she said, pointing sadly to the table, “but there is still a well-cooked man on your plate. Why can Yellow Fellow not understand this? How can he be so selfish?”

Her tears continued to flow.

“Out here in this blackness, this loneliness, this place of barrenness, selfishness, and stone, the bitter tears of Red Man continued to flow.”

And here the bard did end his song.