Coal River

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  Two cars down, a group of men in worn jackets and work pants exited the train, their faces somber. The miners shouted at them to go back where they came from, and started throwing rocks and sticks in their direction. The police shoved the miners backward, yelling at them to simmer down. One of the miners broke through the line and started toward the train. Four police aimed their rifles at the rest of miners, while three others grabbed the escapee, pushed him to the ground, and wrestled his arms behind his back. Emma ducked and hurried toward the station, one hand on her hat, trying to remember where she saw her uncle. Suddenly, a strong hand closed over the handle of the suitcase and she turned, ready for a struggle. Percy smiled and pried the luggage from her grip. He tipped his top hat in her direction. His eyelashes were so light, they were nearly invisible, and his hair was such a bright shade of blond, it looked white.

  “Hello, Emma,” he said. “I’m sorry you’ve returned to Coal River under such sad circumstances, but it’s so good to see you.”

  She nodded once. “Percy,” she said.

  Just then, a miner in a tattered coat broke through the police line and headed toward Uncle Otis, his face contorted with rage. A policeman caught him, wrapped an arm around his neck, and dragged him backward across the train platform. A second policeman hurried over to help, handcuffing the man’s wrists behind his back.

  “What in the world is going on?” Emma said.

  “Everyone is restless these days,” Percy said. “It’s the heat.”

  “But why are the miners throwing rocks at those men?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, as if noticing the disturbance for the first time. “Those men are new immigrants,” he said. “The miners think they’re here to take their jobs.” He extended his elbow, asking permission to escort her through the crowd. “Shall we?”

  She lifted the hem of her skirt and reluctantly took his arm. “I suppose.”

  “You look exactly the same,” he said. “That is, I mean to say, you look wonderful.”

  She gave him a thin smile and searched the faces of those around her to avoid his probing eyes. No doubt he was surprised she was still so small in stature, despite the fact that nine years had passed since her last visit. She wondered how long it would be before he made fun of her for being so short. He ushered her through the crowd, using her suitcase to nudge people out of the way. Near the ticket window, Uncle Otis was talking with a policeman, his face red, his brow furrowed.

  “Take down the names of anyone who gives you trouble!” he said.

  “Yes, Mr. Shawcross,” the policeman said.

  “Father,” Percy said. “Look who’s arrived.”

  Uncle Otis smiled and opened his arms. “Welcome back, Emma,” he said. “I’m sorry about your parents, but it’s a pleasure to see you.”

  “Hello, Uncle,” she said. She clenched her jaw and turned her cheek to let him hug her.

  “My God, woman,” he hissed in her ear. “Where is your mourning veil? Have you no decency?”

  She drew away and gripped the edge of her handbag, twisting the drawstring between her fingers. “I removed my veil on the ride here,” she said. “It was too cumbersome to wear the entire trip.”

  “Well, now that you’ve arrived,” Uncle Otis said, forcing a smile, “you must put it back on before riding through town.”

  She shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she said. “The train was unearthly hot, and when I opened a window, the veil was sucked right out.”

  Uncle Otis frowned. “I don’t have time for this right now,” he said. “I’ve got my hands full with these miners. Take her up to the house, Percy, then come back for me. Tell your mother to get her settled in.”

  “Yes, sir,” Percy said.

  Uncle Otis started to move away, then stopped and turned to face Percy again. “Take the side roads,” he said under his breath.

  Behind him, a group of miners broke through the police line and rushed across the platform, shouting obscenities at the incoming immigrants. The police charged forward and pulled them back a second time. Uncle Otis stormed toward the commotion, arms flailing. A shot rang out and Percy grabbed Emma’s arm, urging her through a door and across the station.

  On the other side of the train depot, the dirt road was filled with horses, buggies, pedestrians, wagons, and bicycles. A yellow Tin Lizzie sat at the edge of a plank sidewalk, its high, white wheels stained gray, its gold head lanterns and low windshield coated with a fine, black powder. Like everything else—the surrounding buildings, the windows, the sidewalks, the store canopies, the telephone poles, the ground—the car was shrouded with coal dust. Percy opened the passenger door and helped Emma climb into the vehicle. She wrestled the black sea of her skirt into the car and settled it around her feet, then sat in the front seat and looked around.

  A few yards away on the opposite side of the thoroughfare, a young boy in an oversized cap and frayed jacket sat slumped against a telephone pole covered with sooty flyers, his empty stare locked on the passing people and horse-drawn wagons. His face was puffy and pale, his sunken eyes the color of silver. His hair was dark and thick, like Albert’s, and his left leg was withered and encased in a metal brace. His tattered boots and the ends of his crutches hung over the edge of the sidewalk, sticking out into the road.

  Behind him, two older boys sat smoking cigarettes on a wooden box, their backs to the street. A policeman marched across the road and kicked the end of the boy’s crutches, shouting and pointing at him to move back. The boy struggled to stand while the policeman waited for him to obey. Emma started to climb out of the car to go over and help, but before she could get out, the older boys pulled him to his feet, and the three of them wandered away.

  Percy lifted her suitcase into the backseat, then climbed in the driver’s side and started the engine. He took off his top hat, stretched a pair of goggles over his eyes, and put on a driving cap.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded, one fist over the knot in her stomach. Percy pulled the vehicle away from the sidewalk and steered it along the busy road, swerving around wheel ruts, honking at slow horses and wayward children. On the plank sidewalks, women stopped to watch them pass, whispering behind gloved hands. Policemen patrolled every other block, strolling the sidewalks and streets with rifles strapped to their shoulders. A few raised hands in greeting. Others walked with their heads down, spitting tobacco juice on the ground or smoking cigarettes.

  Emma didn’t recall the streets being filled with police the last time she was here. She thought about asking Percy why there were so many, but the engine was loud and she didn’t feel like talking. As they drove through town, she was dismayed by how little things had changed. She felt like she’d gone backward in time and everything and everyone was still here, frozen and waiting for her return.

  The two-story Company Store looked exactly the same, with brick chimneys, peeling red clapboards, and black shutters. A gathering of old codgers still sat in rocking chairs and stools on the slanted porch, whittling or playing checkers on overturned barrels. The burned-wood sign to the garbage dump was still nailed to the mule barn, and potholes still filled the narrow road leading past the village green.

  Up ahead on the sidewalk, an old woman with white braids doddered toward them, hunched over as if she were about to pick something off the ground. Beside her, a young boy thumped along on wooden crutches, one empty trouser leg tied shut. Emma stiffened. The boy could have been Albert’s twin. He had the same thick shock of black hair, the same sprinkling of brown freckles across his nose, the same buckteeth. As Percy drove past, she turned in her seat, unable to tear her eyes from the walking apparition. The boy stared back at her with solemn eyes, his head turning on his neck. Then he stopped and scowled as if he recognized her.

  The icy fingers of fear clutched Emma’s throat. Was it all just a horrible nightmare? Had Albert been alive all this time, trapped in Coal River and waiting for her to come back and rescue him? But why hadn’t he aged
? And what happened to his leg?

  Then the boy turned and kept going, seemingly unfazed by the encounter. Emma faced forward, a hollow draft of grief passing through her chest. The falling sensation returned with such force that she had to resist the urge to grab Percy’s arm to keep from swooning.

  No, she thought. Albert is dead. I saw his frozen body after it was pulled from an ice jam beneath the train trestle. I saw his small coffin lowered into the ground in Freedom Hill Cemetery on that bright winter day. I felt the bone-chilling wind shriek down from Bleak Mountain. I watched my mother sob in my father’s arms. It can’t be him.

  She took a deep breath and held it, trying not to panic. Was this how it was going to be? Was every little boy in Coal River going to remind her of Albert? Were they all injured or maimed? Or was she finally, once and for all, losing her mind?

  Maybe she should have taken her chances in the Brooklyn poorhouse after all.

  CHAPTER 2

  Percy’s Model T sputtered up the steep grade of Flint Hill, and the trees fell away on both sides of the road. On the right, Emma could look down on the center of town. On the left, the Flint Mansion overlooked all of Coal River. Perched high on a manicured lawn, the Italian-style manor was massive and rambling, with low roofs and wide eaves, a multilevel porch surrounding the two bottom stories, and cast-iron railings painted white to match the ornamental trim. At the house’s highest peak, an oversized, octagon cupola sat above the red tile roof like a miniature lighthouse.

  A chill passed through Emma. She shivered, staring up at the mansion and wondering if a house could put a curse on people. The scandal and death connected with the mansion occurred several years before her birth, but it had instantly become a tragic tale that would be ceremonially passed down from generation to generation.

  The story of Hazard Flint and his wife, Viviane, was the closest thing Coal River had to a local legend. Viviane, the sole heir to the Bleak Mountain Mining Company, had married Hazard Flint in an arranged marriage when she was barely sixteen. Two months later, her parents died in a train wreck on their way to Chicago, and Hazard took over everything. According to the mansion help, he was mean-tempered and crass, controlling his pretty young wife along with the mining company. After their son, Levi, was born, Viviane insisted on separate bedrooms. Five years later, when she gave birth to a second boy, everyone wondered if Hazard had changed his ways, or if Viviane was having an affair. Then the nursemaid and the stable hand kidnapped the six-day-old infant and left a note in his cradle, demanding ten thousand dollars for his safe return. As instructed, Hazard left the ransom money in the alley behind the blacksmith shop, but the newborn was never seen again.

  Rumor had it that Hazard was the one who found Viviane, hanging from the rafters in the cupola in the summer of 1889. On the cedar floor beneath her feet was a suicide note and a tear-stained letter saying she couldn’t go on without her baby. From then on, the youth of Coal River had tortured themselves with stories of a female ghost standing at the copula windows, waiting for her son to come home. Over the years, many a local boy had been thrown off the property for climbing the trellis outside the nursery window, trying to look inside the baby’s room, which was said to be untouched since the day he’d disappeared.

  Emma could still picture the dark-paneled hallways, the Persian carpets and oversized furniture, the hand-painted portraits lining the walls. She could still smell the old wood and plaster, like sawdust and cold oatmeal in her mouth. Why hadn’t she found another way out all those years ago? Maybe if she’d snuck out a side window or porch door, Albert would still be alive.

  She thought back to that winter, when Percy and his friends dared Albert to break into the mansion. They had been teasing him for weeks, making fun of his city clothes and calling him “sissy boy” because of his thick curly hair. Then one day, on her way home from buying potatoes at the Company Store, she saw Percy and his friends peeking over the snow-covered hedgerow in front of Flint Mansion, snickering and taking wagers on whether or not the boy who went inside would get caught. When Percy told her they’d promised to stop calling Albert names if he stole something from the nursery to prove he’d been inside, she threw the sack of potatoes at him and ran up the sidewalk to rescue her brother.

  She tiptoed across the garden porch, slipped in through a back door, and snuck through the summer kitchen into a back hallway. Midway down the corridor, a door stood partly open, and a soft, rhythmic voice drifted down the hall, as if someone were reading out loud. Keeping close to the wall, she edged forward and peeked around the doorframe, her legs vibrating. Inside the room, an older woman and a pale, dark-haired boy sat at a mahogany table, their heads bent over an open book. It was a tutor and Viviane’s first son, Levi, who, according to Aunt Ida, was practically kept prisoner because Hazard Flint was terrified of losing him too. Emma crossed to the other side of the hall and hurried past, wondering how upset Mr. Flint would be if he knew how easy it was to sneak into his mansion.

  She found Albert upstairs in the nursery, crying and shaking next to a cobweb-filled cradle, a dusty rattle in his hand, the front of his pants wet with urine. She pried the rattle from his grasp, tossed it back into the crib, and led him out of the room. On the way downstairs, Albert insisted over and over that Viviane’s ghost had appeared in the nursery mirror, pointing a gnarled finger at him. She was wearing a white nightgown and a noose around her bruised neck. Her tongue was hanging from her mouth, black and swollen.

  Trying to keep her brother quiet, Emma took the fastest way out of the mansion: through the main hallway and out the front door. Percy and his friends were waiting at the end of the sidewalk. They laughed and pointed at Albert’s wet knickers, and mocked him when he swore he saw Viviane’s ghost. When Percy pushed him to the ground, Emma punched Percy in the nose. Then she grabbed her brother by the coat, pulled him up, and turned to leave. But before they could get away, Percy caught her by the arm, yanked her mother’s locket from her neck, and ran. She chased him and his friends down the road, Albert on her heels. Her brother begged her to stop and let them go, saying Percy would bring the locket home later. But she ignored him and kept running. The boys went down to the river, and she followed. When they stopped on the shoreline, Percy held the locket out of her reach, laughing. She kicked him in the crotch, and he dropped the locket in the snow. Then one of Percy’s friends grabbed it and threw it out on the ice. And Albert went after it.

  Emma struggled to push the memories away, blackness washing over her.

  Percy noticed her looking up at the mansion and slowed the car. “Hazard Flint still lives there!” he shouted above the engine.

  She fixed her eyes on the road, her mouth dry as dust.

  “Levi too,” Percy said. “He works for Mr. Flint. Only a matter of time before he inherits everything.”

  Emma said nothing. She felt like she was trapped inside a nightmare, and morning was never coming. Maybe she died in the fire after all, and this was hell. Percy pressed the gas pedal, wrenched the gear lever into low, and steered the vehicle up the steep hill toward his parents’ house.

  Uncle Otis and Aunt Ida lived in a yellow, three-story Queen Anne with a corner tower and gingerbread trim. The property was far enough from the mine to avoid the invisible rain of coal dust, and tall pines, mountain laurel, and lilac bushes surrounded the vast yard. Potted ferns and wicker furniture lined the round porches, and black-eyed Susans grew along the front fence. Percy parked the car in the driveway, helped Emma down from the vehicle, and pulled her suitcase from the backseat. Emma looked out at the view, which stretched for several miles in all directions.

  The town of Coal River sprawled below, with Main Street and the village green centered in the middle of the valley. Houses and buildings gathered in haphazard groups, huddled between roadways and yellowed meadows. The red roof of Flint Mansion gleamed in the midday sun, like a basin of blood in a sea of brown. To the east, Coal River flowed beneath the train trestle, black and roiling, like a
low band of thunderclouds wrapped around the earth. In the distance, the mountain ridges looked like waves of gray smoke in the sky.

  Inside the house, they found Aunt Ida in the dining room, overseeing the setting of the dinner table. Like every other room in the three-story Victorian, the space was filled with oversized mahogany furniture, glass figurines, vases, oil paintings, rugs, and doilies. It seemed as though the decorations had doubled since Emma’s last visit. Aunt Ida was wearing a layered violet dress and a cameo at her throat, almost certainly real ivory, surrounded by a band of gold so thin, it was nearly invisible. How many times had Emma seen that cameo in her nightmares, floating above her on the icy banks of Coal River? How many times above Albert’s dead body? At the side of his grave?

  At the table, a gray-haired woman in a maid’s uniform folded peach-colored napkins, carefully placing them beneath the silverware. Arthritis gnarled her hands and distorted her knuckles. She dropped a spoon, and Aunt Ida snatched the napkins from the maid’s hand, her lips puckered in irritation. Then Ida saw Percy and Emma coming through the doorway, and her features softened. She set the napkins on the table and moved toward them with outstretched arms.

  “Emma,” she said, her voice catching. Ida was Emma’s maternal aunt, but you’d never tell by looking at her. While Emma’s mother had been fair and willowy, Aunt Ida was short and round, her chestnut hair parted down the middle and pulled back, accentuating her moon-shaped face. “Come here and let me give you a hug, you poor dear!”

  Emma wrapped her arms limply around her aunt. Aunt Ida pecked her cheek, then released her and stood back, tears wetting her fleshy cheeks.

  “I can’t believe my sister is gone,” she said. “And under such horrible circumstances!” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. “God knows we had our differences over the years, but she was still my sister. I loved her.”

  Emma’s chest tightened. “She loved you too.”

  Behind Aunt Ida, the gray-haired maid caught her shoe on the leg of a chair and dropped a tumbler onto the floor. The glass hit the thick rug with a muted thunk, then rolled toward the hem of Ida’s skirt. In one quick movement, Emma stepped forward, picked up the glass, and handed it to the maid. The old woman nodded once, giving her a weak smile of gratitude.