ATDDTA (6): Contest for his soul, 174-178 #2

[Paul Nightingale]

Hence, Lew is compelled to bear witness to class struggle here. And as he
does so he "[meets] posse-sized units on the trail ..." etc, who force him
to fall back on his role as detective, just as much a bought soul as any
vigilante: "each time the atmosphere was a little more tense ..." but he is
protected by "his Illinois and Colorado licences" (176-177). So the "contest
for his soul" is inseparable from the repetitive act of hiding behind
official documents that, purporting to identify him, say who he really is.
Perhaps, as with all such repetitions here, he is remembering an earlier
state, a lost innocence.

At which point we learn that "[b]y now he had been slowly pushed out of half
his office space by an accumulation of files on Anarchists professional and
amateur ..." etc (177). Lew is neglecting the paperwork to ride the trail;
but the relentless 'documentation' of anarchism carries on nonetheless. He
might well, as is implied here, ride the trail to have an excuse to ignore
paperwork. Back in Ch6.2 he was sent to Denver, ostensibly, because of his
expertise: "Soon, along with dozens of file drawers stuffed with the
information he brought back, Lew had moved into his own office, at whose
doorsill functionaries of government and industry presently began to appear
..." (51). Moreover, Nate possibly fears he might be "lure[d] away" by the
Pinkertons, in which case sending him to Denver gets him out of the way.

He concludes "that somebody might be playing him for a sap" (178) because (a
"really odd thing", 177) "the names of owners' operatives were also turning
up among his files on the mine workers". Earlier, he realised "slowly" that
anyone can set a bomb and blame anarchists who might or might not exist
(175). By now he has realised that, far from being in Denver to study and
counter anarchism, he is there in order than an anarchist threat can be
established as 'fact'. Moreover, the "greedy pikers playing both sides"
(178) perhaps remind Lew a little of himself at this point in time, hiding
behind his 'badge' in order to bear sympathetic witness to hidden histories
("concealed stories", 175).

Once in Denver Lew is caught between the overview provided by the
bureaucratic office and the up-close perspective on what had earlier been
called "the shooting gallery of day-to-day history". Hence, he "had too much
trouble locating jackets on individual cases to be able to stand back and
put any of it together" (177).

And: "Nearly every day ... he found he was running across and even getting
into conversations with folks, from both the Union and the Owners
Associations, who previously had been only names in field reports." Cf.
Burke's comment, a few pages back, that the mysterious Kid "always
identifies [his targets] by name and address ..." etc (173). The Kid,
whoever he (or she?) might be, is ahead of the game, it seems.