Coal River

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  Uncle Otis parked the car, came around, and held Aunt Ida’s hand to help her step off the fender. Percy got out and opened Emma’s door, offering his arm, his face solemn. Emma refused, then hunched her shoulders, pulling down the edge of her hat in the hopes that Clayton and the miners’ wives wouldn’t see her. On shaking legs, she followed Percy and his parents toward the gravesites. Emma had tried to leave earlier that morning by saying she wanted to walk to the cemetery alone. In truth, she’d wanted to arrive before her aunt and uncle did so she wouldn’t have to stand beside them during the services. But as usual, Aunt Ida insisted they attend the funeral as a family, to show a united front to the community and Hazard Flint.

  The six burial plots had been dug earlier that morning, and the mounded clods of raw earth sat like miniature culm piles beside the dark holes. Father Delaney waited by the open graves with a book in his hands, his gnarled fingers resting on the first page of the children’s burial service.

  Emma stopped behind her aunt in the second row on one end of the loose horseshoe of mourners grouped around the burial site. She steeled herself and desperately searched the front row for Clayton, for Jack and Sadie and Edith and Violet. If she saw Clayton in the front row without Sawyer, it would mean her worst fears had come true. Her heart skipped a beat, then thudded hard, preparing for the shock. What would she do if she saw Clayton over there, shoulders slumped and crying? Would she be able to stop herself from running over to him, to comfort him and the surviving children? Would she collapse in a sobbing heap on the ground?

  But thankfully, Clayton wasn’t in the front row. Emma dropped her shoulders in relief, then scanned the other faces, praying she wouldn’t recognize any of the dead boys’ parents.

  The pallbearers—uncles, friends, older brothers of the deceased—lowered the coffins into the ground. One by one, Father Delaney sprinkled holy water on the coffins to sanctify them for all time. The mothers of the deceased, wearing worn church dresses and hats with makeshift veils, their faces the color of watered-down milk, stood swaying and clinging to their husbands’ protective arms, as if they were rafts in a stormy sea. The fathers looked around with shocked eyes, as if to verify they weren’t dreaming.

  One of the mothers began to sob hoarsely, a white handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Her husband held her up with one arm, a baby cradled in the other. Beside him stood an older boy and a little girl with a baby doll clutched beneath her chin. Emma’s heart dropped, and a fresh flood of tears stung her eyes.

  The woman was Pearl.

  Poor Pearl, whose fear was disguised by pride. Poor Pearl, who put on a brave face no matter what. Her words rang in Emma’s ears: Twice as a boy and once as a man, that’s the poor miners’ lot. Now one of Pearl’s sons had been robbed of his chance to be a man. Emma drew in a shaky breath and looked at the rest of the mothers, hoping she wouldn’t know anyone else. Then her breath clogged, and the world began to spin. She had to fight the urge to grab Percy’s arm. Six people down from Pearl, Francesca leaned against her husband’s shoulder, her eyes closed, her arms limp at her sides. She was thin as a skeleton, white as a bone. How was she staying upright? How was her broken heart still beating?

  Emma bit down on her trembling lip, swallowing her sobs. Panic scratched at the edges of her mind. If she started weeping, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She’d fall apart, like she did when Albert and her parents died. Then she noticed Mr. Flint and Levi a few feet away from Francesca, and a jolt of rage shot through her. Levi was staring at the graves with glassy eyes, his face somber, while Mr. Flint leaned on his cane and checked his pocket watch. She fought the urge to march over and ask him what he was doing there, if this was enough proof that boys shouldn’t be working for the mining company. She wanted to ask him how he was going to help the grieving families. How he could sleep at night knowing parents’ hearts were shattered and children were dead because of him. Grief and anger twisted like acid through her body, threatening to burn a hole through her chest. Her limbs trembled with the effort of remaining in control. How could these poor people tolerate having the man responsible for their children’s deaths at this funeral? Was she the only one filled with revulsion and hate, or was everyone else too scared and grief-stricken to send him away?

  “Let us pray,” Father Delaney said in a raspy voice. The mourners bowed their heads. “Lord God, through your mercy, let those who have lived in faith find eternal peace. Bless these graves and send your angels to watch over them. As we bury the bodies of these young boys, welcome them into your presence, and with your saints, let them rejoice in you forever. We ask it through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the congregation muttered.

  During the rest of the service, the Catholics muttered their answers, “Lord, hear our prayer” while the rest of the group stood in silence, their heads bowed reverently. While everyone prayed, Emma searched the crowd for Clayton and Michael, but didn’t see them. There were too many lowered heads, too many drooping shoulders. Robins and redwing blackbirds flitted above, chirping and shooting through the indifferent sky.

  “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” Father Delaney began, and other voices joined him in reciting the Lord’s Prayer, their words swept away by the wind.

  Francesca had begun to rock back and forth, moaning.

  “Amen,” the congregation muttered.

  Francesca began to weep loudly. She staggered forward in spite of her husband trying to hold her back, her ravaged face streaming with tears. She weaved to the right, toward the end of an open grave, and for a brief, panic-filled second, Emma feared she was going to throw herself in. Hands reached out to stay her, and she took a few more steps, then fell to her knees at Mr. Flint’s feet. She grasped his trousers with thin hands.

  “Give me back my twins,” she screamed. “Please, there’s been a mistake! My boys are still alive! You have to keep looking!”

  “Oh my,” Aunt Ida said, pressing a silk handkerchief to her lips.

  Emma reeled in horror, suddenly dizzy and nauseous. My God. Both twins had been taken.

  Mr. Flint grimaced in disgust, as if fighting the urge to kick Francesca away. Her husband hurried to her rescue, his face falling in on itself.

  “Please!” Francesca wailed. “They’re all I had left in this world!”

  While the rest of the mourners watched with shock and sadness, Levi helped Francesca’s husband lift her to her feet and return her to her spot. Then Levi hugged her, put a comforting hand on the grieving man’s shoulder, and went back to stand beside his father. Mr. Flint shook his head, as if ashamed by his son’s public display of emotion.

  Lowering her chin, Emma ground her teeth so hard, they would surely crack. She felt cold all the way down to her bones. Percy took his mother’s arm and drew her close, while Uncle Otis stood stiff and unyielding.

  “Lord,” Father Delaney said, finishing the service, “comfort these men and women in their sorrow. You cleansed their children in the waters of baptism and gave them new life. May we one day join them and share Heaven’s joys forever. We ask this in Jesus’s name, amen.”

  When Emma raised her head, she saw that Francesca had fainted.

  CHAPTER 16

  At two a.m. on Sunday morning, four days after the breaker boys’ funeral, the white-paneled ballroom on the top floor of the Pennsylvania Boarding House and Hotel was dark, save for four flickering oil lamps on two wooden tables. Wool blankets had been nailed over the closed windows, and the air in the room was stagnant, thick with tobacco smoke and the sour odor of human sweat, nervous excitement, and fear. Four dozen glum-faced miners and breaker boys sat on stools and wooden chairs, or leaned against walls festooned with red, white, and blue bunting. All eyes were locked on Clayton Nash, standing at the center of the middle table. On either side of Clayton, six immigrant miners sat in wooden chairs, including Nally, the giant Irishman.

  In a back corner, Emma slumped in a chair, avoiding eye contact with those around her. Despite the heat, s
he fought the urge to wipe the sweat from her brow and neck. She kept her arms crossed, her fists hidden beneath her elbows to hide her hands. Earlier, she’d cut her fingernails to the quick and rubbed her hands with road slag to make them look worn. Still, she worried someone might notice that her pale, delicate fingers were those of a woman. The trousers and shirt she was wearing belonged to Sawyer, and her hair was pinned in a tight bun beneath one of Clayton’s mining caps. Luckily, her feet fit into a boy-sized pair of gumboots, and, with a little help from a chunk of soft coal, she had darkened her brows and given the illusion of faint stubble on her upper lip. She wouldn’t pass for an adult male, but in the dim light, it would be easy to mistake her for an older boy, maybe around the age of twelve or thirteen. Even so, her heartbeat roared in her ears. After seeing how angry the miners got when they saw her at the mine, she was terrified of being discovered.

  Clayton had warned her that the miners would be uneasy, worried Hazard Flint and his men might break down the doors and arrest everyone in attendance. If that happened, she would be in all sorts of trouble. But hopefully, in the meantime, it meant less attention paid to her.

  For two days she’d begged Clayton to let her attend the meeting, arguing that she couldn’t figure out a way to help if she didn’t understand what was going on. Right now it was all too confusing. Between the immigrants and the miners, the mine owner and the Coal and Iron Police, she couldn’t keep things straight in her head. The fact that the police couldn’t be trusted went against everything she’d grown up believing. And listening to Percy and Uncle Otis, she thought the English-speaking miners were worried the immigrants would take their jobs. But somehow Clayton had gotten some of the native-born Americans and the immigrants to come together, to see they were on the same side. Now he just needed the rest to agree.

  At first, he’d been adamant she stay away. But then she threatened to come regardless, reminding him she had gone up to the mine and confronted Otis despite knowing her uncle and the miners would be upset. Eventually Clayton gave in. He told her it was only the second meeting in six months because it had taken that long to spread the word and get everyone to agree to come. At the first meeting, held back in February, four months before Emma had arrived in Coal River, there had been only twenty in attendance. Now it seemed the breaker accident had brought everyone together. There were over twice as many miners in the room. Clayton cleared his throat and addressed the crowd.

  “Before we begin,” he said. “I want everyone to take mind of the windows back here.” He pointed at the wall behind him, drawing the audience’s attention to four tall windows beside a brick fireplace. “If Mr. Flint’s henchmen show up, we’re going to hurry out those windows. Outside, there are ladders leading down to the back porch roof, and two more from that roof to the ground. But some of you might have to jump from there. After that, scatter. Understood?”

  The miners and breaker boys nodded.

  “Good,” Clayton said. He looked around the room, his face serious. “This is the day that marks the beginning of an uprising against Hazard Flint and the Bleak Mountain Mining Company. We’re going to stand up for what is right, throw down our tools, and march against oppression. We’re going to come together to fight for our rights and the rights of our children, and our children’s children.”

  A number of miners sat forward, listening intently. Emma sat rapt, goose bumps rising on her arms. She was right. Clayton was a born leader. And he was on the right side of truth and justice.

  “You see these men?” Clayton pointed at the new immigrants. “They don’t want to steal your jobs. They’re just men, workers, like you. And right now they’re slaves to the mining company too. Hazard Flint takes money from their wages to pay their room and board. He supplies them with clothes and powder, then takes that out of their pay too. If they get hurt or sick, he takes two dollars out of their pay so they can see a doctor. He even took the price of their train tickets to get here out of their pay! It’s not us against them! It’s all of us, together, against the company! And if we stick together, if we all walk out at the same time, Hazard Flint won’t be getting his coal out of the earth. The coal we dig is not German coal or Polish coal or Irish coal. It is just coal.”

  The miners mumbled amongst themselves. Some nodded in agreement, while others crossed their arms and scowled, as if not convinced.

  “This man, Nally,” Clayton said, “arrived here at the end of June with the rest of the immigrants. Seven months ago he led a successful strike against the mine owners at Cabin Creek. Now he’s offered to help us.”

  Nally stood, his face grave. “Look at those grand mansions in the hills,” he said. “The supervisors’ wives dress with the blood of yer young lads. Mr. Flint makes ye load coal for any price he chooses. Up there on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek, we obeyed the laws. Then we went on strike and got twice what we used to get for loading coal. We reduced our hours to nine a shift. I will be with ye, and the Coal and Iron Police, those bloody bastards, will go!”

  “How many miners died during the strike at Cabin Creek?” a miner called out. “How many were shot down by the Coal and Iron Police?”

  “What about Eagle Hill?” someone else shouted. “Them miners were carrying nothing but the American flag, and the deputies and sheriff met them with rifles. How many miners died that day? Twenty? Thirty? We want that happening here?”

  “I’d be a right fool to say there weren’t clashes between strikers and police,” Nally said. “But the police were hired to protect the mines, just like they are here! If ye lads aren’t willing to sacrifice to fight for your rights, maybe ye don’t belong at this meeting. Let me tell you what I saw in ’02, the big strike in the Pennsylvania coalfields. Better than a hundred thousand men and boys dropped their tools, and it didn’t matter what, if they starved or lost their jobs, nobody backed down. A few good men lost their lives, but that’s a whole lot less than would have died in the mines if they’d kept going that way. From what I heard, mining accidents here in Coal River are even more common than in other mines, where they’re bad enough.”

  “We hardly know you from Adam!” another man shouted. “How do we know we can trust you?”

  “Ye don’t,” Nally said. “But right now you’re trusting your livelihood, nay, yer very lives, to a criminal.”

  “Clayton,” the first man said. “You gathered us here. I’ve known you since you were cutting teeth. Most of us here worked with your father. You should be the one doing the talking, not this stranger.”

  The majority of the miners nodded, muttering, “That’s right,” and “We agree.”

  Nally threw up his hands and sat down.

  “All right,” Clayton said. “Simmer down. But Nally’s right. They did a lot in ’02, but it didn’t solve our problems. They cheat us on the scales, and underpay us for the coal we dig. When we finally got them to set a price for a full coal car, Hazard Flint bought bigger cars. Then he hiked up the price of goods at the Company Store. How are we supposed to live like that?”

  “The state don’t care,” a deep voice called out. “The country don’t care. The government don’t even care!”

  “That’s not true,” Clayton said. “The mine laws are on our side. No breaker closer than two hundred feet from the mouth of the shaft, every mine with an emergency escape in case there’s an accident in the main shaft. Good ventilation. Plus rules on storing blasting powder in the mine, proper working of the breaker, even the kind of lamp oil they give us so we don’t blow ourselves up!” He was worked up now, talking fast. “Got to have proper stretchers, ambulances, the works. There are laws! Hazard Flint just breaks them all!”

  Clayton’s anger seemed to energize others in the room. An old man stood in the back row. He wore an eye patch and leaned to one side, as if nursing a sore hip.

  “I been working in the mines my whole life,” the old man said. “And I haven’t a whole bone in my body. My skull was fractured, my eye was put out, and one leg feels like it’s m
ade of wood. Last time I was injured, I couldn’t work for six days. On the last day, I got an eviction notice because I was behind on my rent. I asked for one more day because my wife had fallen ill. The police said I couldn’t stay another five minutes. They took me, my sick wife, and my blind mother-in-law down the road, and we took up with a widow and her five boys. It was raining, and the cold worsened my wife’s condition. I didn’t have money to pay for a doctor. A few days later, she died.” He hung his head and sighed, then looked up again. “Clayton is right. It’s time for us to stand up to Hazard Flint.”

  A few seats away from Emma, a thin boy of about twelve stood, wringing his cap in his coal-stained hands. “After my pa got sick and died,” he said, “I moved into Widow’s Row and went to work in the breaker. Supposed to get sixty-five cents a day. But they gave me a rent due notice instead, saying I owed nearly a hundred dollars for back rent my father never paid. I’m still workin’ to pay it off.”

  This brought grumbles and angry shouts from the miners. Emma could hardly believe what she was hearing. Things were worse than she thought.

  Then another man stood. “I don’t know if you all know me, but I been married to the local midwife going on some twenty years now. My wife has held young’uns in her arms and seen them die from tuberculosis, pellagra, and the bloody flux. I saw my own sister’s baby starve for milk while the mine owners were riding around in their fine cars, their wives and children dressed in diamonds and silk, all paid for by the blood, sweat, and tears of the coal miners. I hear the hungry children crying in my dreams. It ain’t right!”

  The miners started talking all at once, some shifting in their seats, some standing and shaking their fists. Clayton raised his hand to quiet them.

  “I appreciate your stories,” he said. “Our suffering is even more important than the laws.” He glanced at Emma, then looked away. “And that reminds me. We have another fight on our hands. Child labor was outlawed by the anthracite commission, but these boys have got to keep working the mines and the breaker as long as their parents need wages and the coal companies need their labor. Take a look around. Has to be one mine worker in four a boy under the age of sixteen. Plenty of them are seven, eight years old. Here in Coal River, all our boys work in the colliery. I’ve seen boys as young as five in the breaker. If the funeral last week didn’t convince you to put a stop to that, I’m not sure what will. You need to talk to your neighbors and friends, tell them what you’ve heard here tonight. Tell them the only way we can change things is if we stick together. Tell them we’ll be having another meeting, and I want to see them all here. Are you willing to do that much for yourselves?”