The Cold Millions

Two brothers, Gregory “Gig” and Ryan “Rye” Dolan, wake up on a ball field among unhoused people. The narrative flashes back to the night before. Gig takes Rye to the Comique Theater to see Ursula the Great, a dancer with whom Gig is smitten. Gig learns, however, that Ursula is entertaining a mining baron named Lemuel Brand. She later comes out to assure Gig that she will not have sex with Brand and apologizes for having to oblige him because he is the owner of the Comique. Gig is crestfallen, walking away in spite. He takes Rye on a drinking spree.

The bars in Spokane are full of union workers who have come to town for a protest on free speech. Gig, a member of the IWW labor union, introduces Rye to his friends, union leaders James Walsh and Frank Little. Rye generally disapproves of unions and drinking. At the end of the night, the two drunk brothers wind up on the ball field to sleep.

Rye and Gig are described by the narrator as the last remaining members of their family. In another flashback, Rye sets off to find Gig in Spokane and tell him that their mother has died. They travel to the nearby states to look for jobs before settling back in Spokane, where they board on the porch of a woman named Mrs. Ricci. The brothers aspire to buy Mrs. Ricci’s orchard so that they can build a house on it someday. They try to find more work through employment agencies, which use an exploitative fee system to slot them into temporary roles. Their experiences with the agencies drive Gig to sign up for IWW membership.

The following morning, Rye invites his brother to look for work together. Gig declines, preferring to go to the union hall instead. This frustrates Rye, who always considered Gig smarter and more likable than him. Soon, a gang arrives on the ball field and starts attacking everyone in sight.

The gang of brutes, who have been searching unhoused camps all morning for Alfred Waterbury’s murderer, scatter the people on the ball field. Rye and Gig are chased down to the nearby Spokane River with two others, one of them a stranger and the other Rye’s friend, an old Salish man named Jules.

Caught at a dead end, Gig demands to know why they are being pursued. The gang leader, whom Rye deduces is a police officer, accuses them of being anarchist members of the IWW. Gig reassures them that they are not anarchists, and asserts that it is not illegal to join the union. The gang leader then charges them with violating the anti-agitating law, specifying that no “more than three men can gather for public speaking or organizing” (21).

The stranger in the group goes up to the mob and steals one of their clubs before knocking the mob leader down. A brief fight ensues, resulting in the mob’s retreat. Gig, Rye, and Jules learn the stranger’s name: Early Reston.

The four men speculate that Westbury had not been killed by an unhoused person and that the mob attack was intended to intimidate the union before the upcoming protest. Gig invites Early to join the protest, but refrains from assaulting the police. Early assumes that Gig is a union leader, which prompts Gig to discuss his belief in wealth sharing. Early recognizes that he is quoting the English philosopher John Locke.

Early reveals that he is not a pacifist, though he was previously sympathetic to union concerns. After being arrested at a strike, he found that his pregnant wife had been murdered, which provoked him to take a more violent approach to dissent. Hearing this, Gig starts trading quotes with Early, first citing the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx before moving to quotes from Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Their discussion turns into a debate, which Gig enjoys greatly.

Rye feels left out by their conversation. They walk near a creek that had been named after Cavalry Colonel George Wright’s devastation of the area’s Interior Salish tribes. When Rye asks Jules for his opinion, Jules relates how a ferryman named Plante, who adopted and employed Jules but never paid him, once beat him for losing his ferry to a pair of outlaws. Rye fails to understand the story’s significance, which leads Jules to state plainly: “One man to a boat… We all go over alone” (27).

The narrator describes the way Spokane expanded with the mining industry. Downtown Spokane is divided into two parts according to class status: the west side, dominated by the wealthy, and the east side, where Spokane’s unhoused and working-class sectors live.

The narrator notes that Rye and Gig ended up on the east side because of their father, Dan Dolan, an unlucky Irish immigrant who was put in debtor’s jail before going to work in the mines. Pretending to be a mining baron, he sent for a bride from his hometown and ended up marrying a scornful woman with whom he had four children. Dan died at the door of a bar when Rye was still a child. From then on, each of Dan’s children started leaving home to find work. Gig had been drawn to Spokane for its buzzing theatre scene, which spans across both sides of downtown. He thus became acquainted with the two halves of Downtown Spokane, the divide between them sustaining his conviction in the IWW.

Gig and Early continue to discuss ideas of class war on their way to breakfast at the union hall. While they are eating, Acting Police Chief John Sullivan arrives looking for James Walsh. Early suspects that Sullivan has come to ask about the mob leader he attacked that morning. He leaves before Sullivan can come back out of Walsh’s office, agreeing to meet with Gig again later.

Sullivan emerges back into the hall, warning the union not to hold their protest. He cautions that Waterbury’s murder has provoked the police officers to violence. Walsh points out, however, that per Sullivan’s report, the odds that the killer had been a union member were low. Soon after, Sullivan leaves.

The novel shifts back nearly 50 years to 1864. A narrator named The Kid and his companion, Bonin, are riding along the Spokane River in search of Plante, the French ferryman who operates a service across the river. Bonin wants to go to Fort Colville to sell pelts he acquired from a Scottish trapper. The Kid suspects, however, that the pelts had been stolen.

They reach the ferry, though Plante is nowhere in sight. The river current is too strong to cross on their own, and Benin worries that it will ruin the pelts. Jules, a young boy then, comes to help them. After they board the ferry, The Kid spots a group of riders coming after them.

Bonin hijacks control of the ferry, throwing Jules off the platform. He then draws his knife and cuts the ferry rope so that they can ride it downstream and escape the riders. The Kid laughs at the thrill of the action, but Bonin soberly reveals to him that he had stabbed the trapper for the pelts. A bullet takes down The Kid’s horse, and in the ensuing scuffle, Bonin’s horse also falls off the platform, bringing the pelts along with it. The Kid realizes he has been hit by a piece of the bullet that killed his horse. Bonin tries to steer them away from gunfire into safety. The Kid soon realizes that the two of them may be hanged for Bonin’s crimes.

More riders emerge on the opposite side of the river, including Plante and Jules. As Bonin repeatedly fails to stop the ferry, The Kid becomes weaker, leading him to fear his chances of survival. Bonin anticipates that they will soon come up to the falls at the end of the river, which he thinks they are unlikely to survive. He abandons The Kid on the ferry, but quickly regrets his choice. He drowns before The Kid can haul him back to the barge.

Jules rides forward to get ahead of the barge, but cannot do anything to save The Kid. The Kid calls on Jules to witness what’s about to happen. The ferry hits a boulder and The Kid goes down 10 feet, surviving the waterfall. He tries to call the awestruck Jules to come to him but dies in the attempt.

The narrator describes how Rye first met Mrs. Ricci in Little Italy while searching for Gig. Mrs. Ricci, whose three sons are no longer living at home, came to treat Gig and Rye as boys of her own, taking them in as tenants.

Gig and Rye wake up at Mrs. Ricci’s on the morning of the free speech protest. Rye tries to tag along with Gig, but Gig reminds him that he is not part of the union. As Rye’s legal guardian, Gig forbids Rye from going to the protest.

Rye is furious and insults Gig. He jumps on Gig’s back and cries to stop Gig from leaving. Gig reassures him that he will come back, even if he gets arrested, and then leaves to attend a union meeting. Rye sits down for breakfast with Mrs. Ricci and then rakes her leaves. Still upset, he follows Gig.

Rye arrives at the union hall, where the crowds have gathered for the protest. as Gig, Walsh, Jules, and other union members leave the hall. Rye follows Walsh before noticing that Gig has split away from them at some point. They reach a carnival on Stevens Street, where the union members mix with the general crowd.

Rye spots enforcers and uniformed officers at the protest. Walsh ascends a soapbox and starts speaking against the agencies’ relationship with the city government. Sullivan beats him down, attempting to scatter the crowd. The protestors refuse, and union leader Frank Little steps up on another soapbox to deliver his own speech. Sullivan beats him down as well.

An onlooker heckles at the police chief and is taken into custody by the enforcers. Soon, two more speakers get up on their soapboxes and are taken down. Jules is the next to get up on a soapbox, where he is beaten by a cop named Hub Clegg. The protest escalates into a riot, and Rye attempts to escape with the fleeing crowd.

One more protest speaker ascends his soapbox and sings lines from “The Banner of Labor,” a working-class version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The man’s beautiful voice momentarily distracts everyone from the violence until he, too, is struck down by Clegg. Gig quickly takes his place to continue the song, prompting Rye to approach him. Two enforcers pull down Gig and assault him. When Rye reaches the empty soapbox, he stands on it and meekly continues the song. Finally, he, too is brought down and beaten.

Rye remembers an old man he met on the journey to Spokane who told him to avoid the city at all costs for fear of police brutality. Rye, Gig, and other protesters are led to the Spokane jail, where they are booked and processed. When the jailer identifies Gig, he isolates him in the prison’s C block with the rest of the strike committee. Rye tries to follow him but is refused by the jailer. He is instead crammed into a small holding cell with other prisoners.

The conditions of the cell are poor, and Rye is forced to sleep between the bodies of other prisoners. Later that night, the prisoners are brought up to the courtyard, where other union members and leaders join them. Gig and Rye check in on each other from across the courtyard.

Hub Clegg and the mob leader whom Early had attacked enter the courtyard. The mob leader, whose name is Edgar, searches the prisoners for Early, but cannot find him. He identifies Jules and Gig, however, so Clegg tries to intimidate Gig, demanding to know him the name of Edgar’s assailant. Gig refuses.

Rye speaks up and shares his version of the attack on the ball field, stating that he had not known who Early was when it happened. Clegg learns that Rye is Gig’s brother, and threatens Gig with Rye’s mistreatment. Still, Gig refuses to give up Early’s name, joking instead that it had been American businessperson John Rockefeller. Clegg beats Gig down.

Rye is returned to the holding cell with the other union prisoners. A union member tries to organize labor discussions and protest songs to keep their spirits high. The jailers promise them toilet access if they stop. This kicks off a cycle of aggression between the prisoners and the jailers.

Sullivan forces the prisoners to work on breaking down an artificial rock pile. The prisoners protest by quietly laying down their sledgehammers. Sullivan rations the prisoners’ food and has them hosed down in the courtyard. The union leaders answer by calling for a hunger strike. The jailers read pro-establishment newspapers to demoralize the prisoners. The prisoners disagree with their misrepresentation in the news.

As more people are arrested for being associated with the union, Sullivan is forced to find alternate locations to hold the prisoners. Rye learns that he is being transferred to a school, which he dreads because of how belittled he felt at his previous school. There, the prisoners refuse to perform any manual labor, so Sullivan reduces their rations and forces them to freeze at night. The prisoners burn cabinet doors and bookboxes for warmth. Rye looks through the schoolbooks, resenting his lack of education, and repurposes one as a pillow.

Arraignments are held for the protest prisoners, though the judge is tough on them. Many union members and leaders are convicted while non-union prisoners are released with citations. Others have their charges dismissed on the condition that they leave Spokane permanently. Sometime before Rye’s arraignment, Salvation Army members visit the school to inspect prison conditions. One of them asks Rye how old he is, but Rye fails to understand the question. The jailer consults the booking list and finds that Rye is listed as being 61 years old instead of 16. Realizing the obvious error, the Salvation Army visitor asks Rye to give his real age. When Rye finds out what day it is, he realizes that he will soon turn 17.

Rye is appointed a skilled young lawyer named Fred Moore. Moore has offered to represent the entire union pro bono after learning that city prosecutors were charging them with disorderly conduct to avoid scrutiny of the anti-speech law. He complains that the city had violated habeas corpus by keeping Rye, who is still considered a youth, in the adult prison for more than a week.

The prosecutor, a man named Pugh, argues that Rye’s detention was based on the age recorded in his booking. Moore rebuts that anyone could have determined that Rye was not 61 years old before criticizing the prosecutor for placing the burden of the city’s mistake on Rye. Rye is pleased with his defense, but also ashamed by the way Moore describes him as a “hobo waif.”

The judge decides to release Rye. Rye is glad, but continues to feel the sting of his lawyer’s words, which is compounded by the judge’s implication that Rye is a fish to be “tossed back.” The court then moves to arraign Rye’s fellow prisoners, all of whom are quickly found guilty and sentenced to a month at the school. As they are taken away, Rye encourages them to remain strong. One of the prisoners greets him a happy birthday in return.

Jules recalls the last time he had seen his mother before going to work for Plante. She had advised him not to speak his native languages of Salish or Sahaptin, as well as to be discreet in his behavior. Jules realizes that his careless laugh has gotten him into trouble, ultimately landing him in jail, just as his mother warned.

One night, he is brought to the prison courtyard, where he is met by Clegg. Clegg demands to know who attacked Edgar, the mob leader. Recalling Gig’s joke about John Rockefeller, Jules laughs once again. Clegg cracks one of Jules’s ribs in retaliation. Jules has trouble breathing and finds it difficult to speak from then on. He is unable to answer Rye when he sees him working at the artificial rock pile.

Jules befriends a Finnish sawyer named Halla in prison. Jules enjoys Halla’s humor but soon starts coughing up blood as he laughs. Halla tries to get Jules some medical attention but is unable to have him transferred into the overfilled infirmary. To pass the time, they share details of their early lives, Jules talking about the beauty of the Salish people’s land, which has now been destroyed.

Clegg forces Jules to continue working on the rock pile, even as his illness worsens. Jules is carried back inside after he falls twice on the job. He tries to tell Halla about the time his ferry had been hijacked but is too weak to do it. A jailer speculates that Jules has developed pneumonia. Halla asks if Jules has any family left, and Jules hesitantly tells him about a niece on his late wife’s side. Jules falls into a deep sleep in which he waits to see his mother in his dreams. He half-wakes as he is brought out of the jail and put on a wagon.

Jules arrives at the house of his niece, Gemma, and her husband, Dom. Gemma welcomes him into her home and entreats him to sleep.