The Widows

by Jess Montgomery

  Once beside Marvena, Lily stares at her, eyes glazed. Marvena holds the bullhorn aside, mutters to Lily, “You have to command them. Tell them to tend to the injured.”

  Lily takes the bullhorn, but her weary arm slacks. Marvena takes the horn back, holds it up to Lily’s mouth, and puts her arm around Lily. The woman is quivering. Marvena tightens her grasp around Lily’s shoulders, gives her a little nudge with her hip.

  “Tonight,” Lily starts, “we need to tend to the injured. Where is Nana?… Ah, there. You and Marvena head up seeing to the wounded. We need a place to tend them.”

  Joanne Moyer steps forward. “Use the boardinghouse. Plenty of room in the dining hall.” In the flickering light of torches, she looks up at Lily and Marvena with new esteem.

  “You heard her; start moving the injured there,” Lily says. “And if Miss Moyer doesn’t mind, the dead, too.”

  Joanne nods and for a moment Marvena thinks Lily is going to rally, but then her eyes alight on Martin and Lily moans, looks at Marvena. “I’ve got to get Martin back to town, to the undertaker, talk to his wife.”

  The crowd stills. Someone hollers, “We gonna let her go back to Kinship? Why, she might help raise more against us!”

  Lily stares into the crowd. What can she say to them? How can she help them?

  And then a memory, from just before Daniel’s been found, comes to her.

  When she was jail mistress and there was a foul-mouthed Pinkerton in the cell and all she thought she had to worry about was making sure that he and the new prisoner, a miner, were in separate cells. How the Pink had lusted for war. How she had said to him, You and your kind will not bring war down upon my county. Sheriff Ross will see to that.

  Well, now that was her. She was Sheriff Ross. And she would, somehow, make good upon that promise.

  So she says, strong and clear, “Hold me here if you like. But you know it is only right that Martin is returned to his wife. He was here, helping rescue, and he died. Please, let me take him home. Then I can help you.”

  Someone near the front cries out, “What say you, Marvena?”

  The crowd stills, watching Marvena, awaiting her word. Silence stretches amid the crowd, more so between Lily and Marvena. Lily looks at Marvena: Trust me.

  Then Lily gives the bullhorn back to Marvena. I trust you.

  Marvena takes it, her eyes all the while on Lily’s. Then she turns to the crowd. “I was in there with her,” Marvena says. “She saved Alistair when anyone else would have given up. When I was about to give up. How much more do you need to know? We can trust her. I trust her, leastways. So do as she says, an’ she’ll need two men who aren’t hotheads to go with her.”

  Jurgis and another man step forward, volunteering.

  Marvena lowers the bullhorn, says quietly, “You drive, and take the sheriff’s automobile. Maybe the sign will make Luther’s men think twice about shooting, just so’s not to have the sheriff’s blood on their hands.” Lily frowns, and Marvena goes on. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t put it past Luther to have his men lying in wait? Have our men keep watch, shotguns out the sides. Do what you must, but get back here in one piece. If you don’t, some fool hothead will think you’ve tricked us and go off after you, bring the fight to Kinship.”

  LILY

  Lily starts down off the cart and startles when she sees Joanne Moyer waiting for her. The woman is holding in one hand Lily’s sopping dress and shoes; she must have retrieved them from the canoe. Over her other arm is a dry dress; she holds with that hand a pair of women’s boots by the laces.

  Joanne nods at the dry dress and boots. “These are mine, and they’ll be big on you. But I reckon they’ll be better than a jacket that’s too big on you!”

  Twenty minutes later, Lily restrains her desire to drive as swiftly as possible up and down the rises and around the tilting curves of Kinship Road. A spring rainstorm has arrived. But she has found her second wind. Steadfastly, she watches for ruts, rocks, drop-offs, other automobiles, as her headlights scoop out darkness. This is her first time ever driving at night. She takes the ruts and curves slowly, mindful of Jurgis in the back with Martin’s body. Jurgis also keeps his shotgun pointed out the driver’s side. Beside her, another man—a miner from another town, whose name she hasn’t yet learned—stares out the passenger side, his shotgun also at the ready.

  But only slashes of rain and the beady eyes of one wary fox interrupt their passage.

  In Kinship, they take Martin directly to the undertaker at the Kinship funeral home. Jurgis and the miner follow Lily to Martin’s house, hanging back on the porch as Lily knocks on the front door. At first Fiona stares at her in the doorway with her usual look of displeasure at seeing Lily, and then her expression changes to shock.

  “I’m sorry, Fiona. There was a confrontation. Martin was caught in the gunfire.”

  Fiona gasps, puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh God. He’s just hurt, isn’t he, just hurt?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lily says. “He’s—he’s dead.”

  Fiona gasps again, stumbling forward.

  Lily catches the woman and hugs her. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  After Lily fetches a neighbor to come sit with Fiona and her son, she walks home, forcing herself to move quickly, though it feels as though she’s dragging herself again through a rank stew of muck and filthy water. Back at her house, Jurgis and the other miner wait in the parlor, while she hurries upstairs to change clothes. In her bedroom, Lily gasps as she looks in the bureau mirror. Some of Martin’s blood is smeared on her cheek. God. No wonder Fiona had stared at her so, just as she’d stared at Daniel’s blood on Elias’s shirt.…

  Tears start to prick her eyes, but Lily shakes them away.

  CHAPTER 27

  MARVENA AND LILY

  MARVENA

  Three days later, Ben Russo sits in Luther’s chair in the Ross Mining office, across from Marvena and Lily. He looks exhausted, lines etched more deeply around his mouth and eyes than they were two days before, when he arrived in Bronwyn County, several inspectors from the Bureau of Mines with him. He had, as it turned out, been away to his mother’s funeral—thus the delay in responding to Lily’s telegrams.

  Now Ben’s weariness doesn’t keep him from being sharp. “What do you want Luther to do? Crawl through Rossville to every home and beg for an apology?”

  Even though she thinks, Yes, Marvena looks down at her hands to hide her bemused smile. She can see why Daniel had counted him a friend during the war.

  “That’d be a sight a lot of folks here would pay to see—if they had any money besides scrip, that is,” Tom says. He’s standing behind Marvena. He spits into the coal stove behind him, currently unlit, although the mid-April afternoon is cool and blustery, bloated with the promise of rain.

  Though the small office is chilly, Marvena is thankful that coal is not burning in the stove. She’s worried about Lily, who looks feverish. Sweat dots her brow and upper lip.

  “My brother has good reason to be bitter,” Marvena says. “Days of talks, and all Luther will say is that he’ll reduce what the men owe in scrip and look into better safety equipment?”

  Lily says, “She’s right. The men and their families need more than that. The Widowmaker permanently closed. The dead from Rossville Cemetery reburied, with dignity, at Ross Mining’s expense. The dead from the recent collapse also properly reburied.”

  Marvena shudders; for the past three days, volunteers had labored to make wooden caskets, to bury the dead in a makeshift graveyard just outside of the tent city.

  Now Marvena slaps her hands against the desk. “That’s just a bit of what we want. We want to be free to talk about organizing. And agreement for better pay, shorter hours, boys under the age of sixteen kept out of the mines—”

  But Ben is shaking his head. Marvena guesses what he’s going to say; they’ve been over this turf several times in the past days. Ben and his men have been going back and forth between Rossville and Elias’
s farm, where Luther and his men have holed up. In Kinship, a trainload of Pinks have shown up and taken over the Kinship Inn. Some keep watch, shotguns at the ready, from roofs. The miners of Rossville have rallied under Marvena’s leadership—and more arrive each day from nearby towns in the region, striking at their own mines, ready to join in the brewing fight. Ready to take it to Kinship.

  Everyone, it seems, is eager for a fight. Once it starts, many will die. It’s frighteningly easy to envision how a fight here could quickly become bigger and more deadly than the Battle for Blair Mountain.

  “Luther Ross will never agree to all of that,” Ben says. “With all due respect, Miss Whitcomb, you and your brother need to convince your men to accept what’s been offered.”

  Marvena leans forward, glaring at Ben. “And why in the hell should we do that? I’ve got three-hundred-plus men out there with pickaxes and dynamite and shotguns, and more men coming every day from other towns. The Mine Workers of America is well organized enough to send more in from out of state, if’n that’s needed. Mr. Ross and his Pinks are outnumbered.”

  “Because you’re only outnumbering his men for now. My management wants this resolved fast. I’ve already heard that the governor is not happy with this situation. He’s ready to deploy the Ohio National Guard. If there’s more bloodshed, to even go all the way up to the president, and ask for an army detachment to be sent in.” Ben grinds his cigarette into an ashtray on Luther’s desk. “And if that happens, your men will be outnumbered, ten to one.”

  Marvena studies Ben; this is not, she sees by his sorrowful expression, an empty threat.

  “Marvena,” Lily is saying, “Mr. Russo has a point. I don’t know how long my men can keep Luther’s at bay.”

  “You’re asking me to go to the miners out there, and tell them they’ve lost friends and loved ones, watched Luther send in men and boys to die in a mine he knew was unsafe, and all they’re gonna get is a promise of looking into better safety equipment?”

  “I’ve done all I can,” Ben says quietly. “I only came when I heard what happened to Daniel. In honor of him. I think he would have contacted me, if he’d had time.”

  Ben has told them that he never heard from Daniel, who’d promised Marvena and Tom he’d contact Ben only a week before he was killed. Time enough—but perhaps he’d had a reason not to telegram or write to Ben immediately.

  “Maybe you can talk with Luther again,” Lily says, “help him see that in the long run—”

  Tom snorts. “There is no making that son of a bitch see. He’s already figured out what this fella here just said, and he’s waiting us out. Well”—he spits into the cold coal stove again—“if we can’t have some decent pay and more than promises about safety, I’d rather die, lots of men would, above the ground fighting than sending our boys in—” His voice breaks off. Alistair is recovering, slowly, but the losses and near losses have shaken everyone.

  “Maybe,” Ben says, “we should all take a break for a while, cool off.”

  Marvena stands. “Your bosses ain’t the only ones running out of patience.” She thinks of the dynamite, hidden away, and decides it’s time to go fetch it from its hiding places. They have all of the rest, too, but they’ll need every bit if they are going into a full-scale war.

  With that, she and Tom leave.

  LILY

  Lily stares into her lap while listening to the door opening, then shutting, as she is left alone with Ben. She shivers, though heat seems to blister her from within.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  Lily looks up. “There’s no chance they’re going to get more from Luther, is there?”

  Ben shakes his head. “No. You seem to be friendly with Miss Whitcomb and her brother. Is there any way that you can convince them?”

  “They’ve already lost so much! How can I, how can anyone, tell them now—”

  “Mrs. Ross, your community is going to be torn apart if you don’t find a way.”

  Lily drops her head to her hands. “Daniel would have known what to do.”

  After a moment, Ben says quietly, “Oh, I don’t know. Daniel was a good man, sure. But he didn’t walk on water.”

  Lily looks up at Ben. In the day since he’s arrived, this is the first time they’ve been alone. It’s also the first time he’s shown a sense of humor—something Daniel would have appreciated. But the humor belies something deeper, a core to him, solid, like Daniel’s. Yet with a soothing calmness that Daniel didn’t have. “Was he? A good man?” Lily gasps at her own thoughts and questions. They seem, even after everything, a betrayal of her husband.

  Ben’s eyes flick toward the door. “I know he was friends with Marvena; he mentioned her once or twice, but you—”

  Lily sighs. That’s not what she means. Her stomach turns at the thought of the clippings George had sent by way of Abe, at the thought of Daniel beating Frederick Clausen to death in some stinking alleyway, leaving the man’s wife a widow.

  Ben is still trying to comfort her as if he understands the source of her doubts. “It was you he talked about whenever he could. Shared your letters with whoever would listen.” His smile turns impish. “Well, not everything in the letters. Every now and then, he’d grin and read silently to himself.”

  Lily reddens. “I’m sure you got such letters.”

  “Oh, I received letters from my fiancée, at first.” He shrugs. “She wasn’t willing to wait.”

  “I’m sorry. I hope since then you’ve met a nice lady—”

  “No, and don’t be sorry for me. My work keeps me busy and I don’t mind a bachelor’s life.” He leans forward, turning serious. “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you, Mrs. Ross. I’m just saying that Daniel loved you. Just you. And clearly you loved him. That’s why he kept some compromises hidden from you.” He shrugs. “It’s pretty hard to get through life without making compromises. Someone is going to have to here, or—” He stops, shakes his head.

  Lily stands, paces to the small, dirty office window and gazes out at the people milling about outside. Suddenly Ben stands, crosses to her. He puts his hand to her forehead.

  “You’re feverish. Are you sure you’re all right to continue negotiations?”

  Lily nods as he lowers his hand, but then he brushes just his fingertips along Lily’s jawline and chin. He lets his fingertips linger against her face. A tremor threads from his touch across her face, down her neck, through her body. More heat rises within her, and not from fever. For just a moment the air stills between them. All she has to do is lean forward just a little. A tiny part of her longs to.

  Instead, Lily takes his hand in hers, gently pushes it down and away.

  Ben puts his hands in his pockets, steps back, looks down. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ross.” He goes back to the desk, sits down.

  “I’m … going to rest for a bit at Nana’s,” Lily says.

  But Ben’s already looking away, jotting in his notebook.

  * * *

  Lily changes her mind on the way to Nana’s and turns up the main road in Rossville, toward the tent city. As weary and feverish as she is, Lily gives a thin smile at the memory of how shocked she’d been to see Rossville emerge over the rise of Devil’s Backbone when she’d first driven here to seek out Marvena.

  Now she’s walking these Rossville streets—again to seek out Marvena—and the only thing shocking about them is their relative stillness. The mine openings on top of the surrounding ridges are abandoned of workers and mules. So too is the chute at the bottom. Lily shudders, remembering how fearful she’d been about the boy working the chute, how she’d worried he might fall in. It had seemed such an overdramatic fear at the time. She’s always known life is fragile. Now she’s seen firsthand how it is even more precarious here.

  The street rises between boardinghouse and company store—its door hangs open, but its shelves have been cleared—then at the top Lily again finds herself gasping at the sight that emerges. Below is the tent city, spread across a meadow betwee
n two hills. From what Lily has heard talking to residents, the tent city had been just a dozen or so families a few weeks before, but since the newest disaster in the Widowmaker the tent city has grown to include miners who’ve walked out on strike from their own jobs—or simply walked out from non-union companies—to come here, to join forces with the Ross Mining workers. Some lodge in the miners’ houses; Nana and Jurgis’s is bursting full. But many come here. Word has spread of the fresh disaster and Lily calculates that the tent city below holds twice again as many workers as employed by Ross Mining.

  Lily walks down Kinship Road and into the city, and soon she’s in the midst of the campsites, surrounded by children running and playing, by men talking in small groups, by women cooking over fires or washing clothes in pots. Sharing and helping, as women always must. The noise and earthy smell of people living in close quarters is overwhelming. And yet it’s a community, one tense with anticipation, excitement, and fear. Is this what it felt like for Daniel and her brother and Ben on the front? Lily wonders.

  “Sheriff!”

  Lily turns at the sound of a man calling to her. She sees that he and his compatriots are trying to tend to another man whose leg is bleeding.

  Lily walks over. “What happened?”

  “I was coming here on the main road,” the man gasps. “Stupid me! Got shot in the leg!”

  The man who called to her says, “He’ll be fine. Barely scraped his flesh. But you should know about this. He wasn’t shot by a Pink.” He nudges the shot man, who moans. “Tell her.”