Coal River

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  Emma put her head down, moved to the far side of the road, and walked faster, trying to stay on the compressed shoulder to lessen the crunching beneath her shoes. Then the rising sun bloomed behind the peak of Bleak Mountain, and in the thin light, she spotted a group of women and children picking through the mine waste. They were filling their buckets and wheelbarrows with bits and pieces of coal. Three women hunched over the tallest pile halfway up, their hands and shoes slipping on the rubble. They worked with their sleeves pushed up to their elbows, their long aprons stained black with coal dust. A boy of about eight was searching through the freshest culm near the crest of the bank, over fifty feet in the air. On the ground, a toddler in a filthy bonnet and torn tights sat on a burlap sack in one of the wheelbarrows, her sleepy face smeared with soot. A blond girl in a one-piece dress carried two buckets over to another wheelbarrow, her clothes and arms sullied up to her armpits, as if she’d been dunked in black mud. As if by signal, the women turned off their lanterns, took children, sacks, and wheelbarrows in hand, and began to disperse with the arrival of day.

  Then one of the women saw Emma and froze, her face filled with fear. When she realized who Emma was, her shoulders dropped in relief. It was Pearl. She came out to the road.

  “You makin’ another food run?” she said, eyeing Emma’s suitcase.

  “No,” Emma said.

  “Runnin’ away?”

  “Something like that. I can’t stay at my uncle’s anymore.” She set down her suitcase to rub her aching hand.

  “I’d offer you a bed,” Pearl said. “But we barely got enough to make ends meet as it is, ’specially without Tanner’s pay.” Her eyes filled, and she put a hand on her lower abdomen, rubbing her soot-covered fingers in small circles. “We can’t take in another mouth to feed, what with me expecting and all.”

  “That’s all right,” Emma said. Then she hugged Pearl, a sudden flood of tears burning her eyes. “I’m so sorry about your son.”

  Pearl hugged her back, then drew away and ran a black hand beneath her nose. “Guess it was the good Lord’s will to take my boy away,” she said, sniffing. “And now He’s blessed us with another child to heal our broken hearts.”

  Forcing a smile, Emma tried not to think about the poverty Pearl’s new baby would be born into. “How are you feeling?” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “I’m getting along all right,” Pearl said. “You want me to ask one of the widows to take you in?”

  “No, no,” Emma said. “I got myself in trouble. I’ll get myself out.”

  “Your uncle find out you been helping us?”

  Emma nodded, then looked over Pearl’s shoulder at the women and children still near the culm banks. “What are you doing out here?”

  Pearl followed her gaze, her forehead furrowed. “We’re cullin’ coal,” she said. “There’s good pieces of anthracite mixed in with all that gravel and rock. Mr. Flint says we’re supposed to buy our coal from the pluck me store, but it ain’t right us having to pay for coal when our husbands are the ones who dug it from the earth. And some of us can’t afford to anyway, even if it was right.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Emma said.

  “You won’t tell?”

  “Of course not. Haven’t I proved myself to you yet?”

  Pearl nodded. “I s’pose you have.”

  “But why are you out here so early?” Emma said. “Wouldn’t it be easier to wait for more daylight?”

  “Uh-uh,” Pearl said. “Used to be the Coal and Iron Police would look the other way when they saw us cullin’ for slag coal. But as of late they been patrolling this area, smashing our baskets and wheelbarrows if they caught us. Last time they said if they seen us again, they’d search our houses and charge us double for all the coal we had on hand, no matter if we bought it from the pluck me store or not.”

  Emma shook her head in disgust. How could anyone as rich as Hazard Flint be so greedy?

  Just then, the thunder of galloping hooves traveled up the mountain road. Pearl didn’t wait to see who it was. She raced over to the culm piles, gathered up the toddler from the burlap sack, and disappeared into a stand of scraggly pines. The rest of the women and children followed, leaving buckets and wheelbarrows behind. On the peak of the highest bank, a young boy started down, sliding on the loose culm. His mother waited at the bottom of the incline, urging him to hurry, her arms outstretched as if to catch him.

  Four policemen rode up the hill behind Emma, floating like phantoms in a gray cloud of dust. Emma picked up her suitcase and ran toward the woods, her shoulders hunched. Then someone screamed, and she stopped and spun around. It was the mother waiting at the bottom of the culm pile. Her boy had slipped and fallen, starting an avalanche of shale and rubble. The culm was collapsing around him, swallowing him alive. It was already above his knees. Emma’s blood went cold. She ran over, dropped her suitcase at the bottom of the pile, emptied one of the buckets, and lurched up the side of the bank with it. Trying to avoid the collapsing rubble, she climbed parallel to where the boy was disappearing. The culm shifted and rolled beneath her feet, and she was forced to get on her hands and knees. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she couldn’t just stand by and watch the boy die. The mother screamed over and over, crying for someone to please save her son.

  The boy was panicking and digging himself deeper with every movement, clawing at the culm with bare hands. He twisted onto his side and reached toward the peak of the bank as if swimming in black quicksand, his fingers scratched and bloody.

  “Stop moving!” Emma shouted. The boy did as he was told, his eyes wild and staring at her, his thin face ashen. Still, the culm kept shifting, slowly swallowing his waist, inching toward his narrow chest like a downward conveyor belt of rocks and dust. For a second, Emma froze. The mine waste had turned white, and she saw Albert falling through the ice. She shook her head to clear it, then lay down and stretched across the rubble, parallel to the ground and slightly above and to one side of the boy. The sharp shale stabbed her stomach and chest. She edged closer and closer, her legs splayed out behind her, and tossed the bucket toward the boy, keeping a grip on the handle.

  “Grab hold!” she yelled.

  The boy threw himself sideways and reached out, clamping onto the bucket for dear life. She pulled, but it was no use. He was in too deep. She edged closer, testing the firmness of the rubble as she went. When she thought she was close enough, she threw her body across the culm and latched on to the boy’s elbows, pulling with every ounce of strength she could find. It wasn’t enough. She let go and started digging around him with the bucket, hoping to free him enough so he could pull himself out. But the slag and gravel filled in faster and faster, and the boy kept sinking deeper and deeper. She tried to think, her pulse thrashing in her ears.

  At the bottom of the culm pile, two policemen grabbed the screaming mother by the arms and started dragging her away while the other two kicked her wheelbarrow over and emptied her bucket on the ground. Then one of them stopped and looked up, as if noticing Emma and the boy for the first time. It was Frank.

  “Hold on!” he shouted, and ambled up the side of the bank in wide, powerful strides.

  He reached the boy within seconds and pulled on his arms, grimacing with the effort. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Emma tried to help. It was no use. They couldn’t get enough leverage. While she held on to the boy, Frank took a step sideways, trying to get closer. Then the culm shifted beneath Frank’s boots, and rock and clay and shale started sliding down the bank like a black river. Frank stumbled and fell. The culm gave way and swallowed his legs up to his knees, as if a sinkhole had opened up beneath him. He slid several feet down the pile, away from the boy. Then the ground shook and rumbled, as if the earth was caving in. And Frank started to sink. Fast.

  Keeping a grip on the bucket handle with one hand and holding the boy’s wrist with the other, Emma stretched out and extended the bucket in Frank’s directi
on. But he was too panicked to notice. In what seemed like slow motion, the culm pulled him deeper and deeper. He tried grabbing hold of something, anything, to pull himself out. But there was nothing to grab on to, and his hands and arms slipped on the culm as if it were ice. Within seconds the gravel and shale were up to his waist. Unaware that he was making things worse, he kept reaching out again and again, clawing more and more culm toward himself. He was burying himself alive.

  Emma shouted his name over and over and, finally, Frank came to his senses. He stopped struggling and reached for the bucket, his eyes bulging with fear. On the first try, he missed and let out a yell of terror. But instead of trying again, he dug more frantically at the shale, trying desperately to break free. The cords on his neck stood out, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. Inch by inch the culm kept swallowing him. Then he stopped struggling again and looked at Emma. He was breathing hard, his coal-dusted face slack-jawed with a strange mixture of shock and recognition. He knew he was going to die.

  Emma stretched out as far as she could, inching the bucket a tiny bit closer. “Grab on!” she yelled. “You can reach it!”

  After what seemed like forever, Frank tried again, and again, but he still couldn’t reach it. Every time, his attempt grew weaker and weaker as panic and horror sapped his strength. He gasped and coughed as the culm started to crush his chest. Then he gave up and went limp, and Emma was certain it was the end. She shouted his name again and, to her surprise, he tried one more time. Finally he caught the rim of the bucket with one hand, and then the other. But the culm kept on pulling him.

  Using every ounce of strength she had left, Emma held on to the bucket and the boy, her shoulders and arms screaming in pain, as if her muscles and bones were being ripped apart. Then she started sliding too, closer and closer to the black river of shifting culm.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t hold on another second and was going to be swallowed alive, a policeman grabbed her around the waist and pulled. The other two pushed a long beam beside Frank and the boy. The boy wrapped his arms around the lumber and held on. Frank let go of the bucket with one hand and caught the wood with the other. One of the policemen gripped Frank’s wrist until Frank could latch on to the beam with both hands. With the policeman’s help, Frank heaved himself out, then grasped the boy by the arms and pulled him free in turn. The other policeman yanked Emma backward and out of the way. They all fell back on the culm bank and scrambled away from the sinkhole.

  But the sinkhole kept getting bigger, growing wider and wider. It moved toward them, its black edges falling away bit by bit. It swallowed the bucket and the wooden beam. Emma grabbed the boy’s bloody hand and scrambled down the bank. Frank and the other policemen followed, trying to outrun the avalanche of shale and rubble. At the bottom of the bank, the policemen caught the horses and ran out from between the culm piles. Emma followed, dragging the boy toward the road, where his mother was on her knees, wailing.

  Finally in the clear, everyone stopped. Behind them, the pile continued to rumble and shift. The boy ran to his mother and collapsed on the ground. She knelt, wrapped her arms around his head, and pressed him against her heaving bosom. Frank bent over and put his hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath. Emma coughed and spit to get the dust out of her lungs. When she was finally able to breathe without choking, she went over to see if the boy was all right. His hands and forearms were scraped and bloody, his trousers ripped. One of his shoes was missing.

  “I told you it was too high,” his mother said. “Given the chance, that culm will swallow you whole.”

  “I know, Mama,” the boy said. “I won’t do it again.”

  Emma put a gentle hand on his back. “Are you all right?” she said. “Does anything hurt?”

  The boy shook his head, his chin trembling.

  “Can you stand?” Emma said.

  The boy pushed himself off the ground and walked to prove he was okay, limping on the ball of one bare foot.

  The woman touched Emma’s arm, her eyes full of tears. “Thank you for saving him,” she said. “I don’t know what I—”

  “We warned everyone to stay away from the culm,” one of the policemen interrupted. “Now you’re all under arrest for stealing.” He made a move toward Emma. The other policeman started toward the boy and his mother.

  Frank straightened and came over. “Let them be,” he ordered the policemen. Rivulets of soot and sweat streaked his temples. He brushed black dust from his sleeves and trousers. The other men frowned.

  “But Mr. Flint said—” one of the men started.

  “I don’t care what Mr. Flint said,” Frank said. “Neither of you saw anyone stealing coal today! Is that clear?”

  One of the policemen jerked his chin toward Emma. “I’m not going against the rules just because you’re sweet on this one.”

  “Don’t give me that shit!” Frank said. “I can throw you both in jail, and Mr. Flint won’t even ask why. Now get back on those nags and get over to the mine shaft. This isn’t why we came up here, and you know it!”

  The men mumbled and spit on the ground, then started toward their horses. They climbed on and waited. Frank waved them away.

  “Go on!” he shouted. The men turned their horses and rode off, their faces hard. When they were out of earshot, Frank directed his gaze at Emma.

  “What are you doing up here?” he said.

  Her mind raced. “I was—”

  “Was that your suitcase?”

  She tensed and glanced toward the culm piles. She had dropped her suitcase when she scrambled up to help the boy. Now the entire bank had shifted, and her suitcase was nowhere to be seen. The culm had swallowed everything she owned. Then it occurred to her that if she was going to stay and help the breaker boys, it would be easier if everyone thought she was gone, especially Frank Bannister and Hazard Flint. “I’m leaving Coal River. My aunt and uncle never want to see me again.”

  He frowned. “This have anything to do with Clayton Nash?”

  Struggling to control herself, Emma bit down on the inside of her cheek. Frank knew perfectly well why her aunt and uncle never wanted to see her again. Less than twelve hours ago, he had been in their living room, holding a gun to her head. She opened her mouth to call him a liar, then stopped. It wouldn’t help her situation to egg him on any further.

  “We’ve had some horrible disagreements,” she said. “So they ordered me out.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’re up here,” he said. “Unless you’re lying.”

  The veins in her neck throbbed as if about to burst. She had just risked her life to save his, and now he was treating her like a criminal? Again? Maybe she should have let him die.

  “My train doesn’t leave for another two hours,” she said. “I just came up to say good-bye to some of the miners’ wives and children.” She pressed her lips together, as if trying not to cry. “I know you and I have had our differences, but please don’t tell anyone I was up here again. There have been so many bad rumors. And despite my quarrels with my uncle, I don’t want to cause Aunt Ida anymore pain. She’s my mother’s sister, after all, and she’s been good to me. I just want to put all this behind me and start over someplace new.”

  “I just need to know one thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Why did you save me?”

  She blinked, surprised by the question. “Because it was the right thing to,” she said. “That’s all. And besides, you’re not worth the guilt I’d feel for letting you die.” The words came out before she could stop them.

  “That’s it?” he said, searching her face. “No other reason?”

  She shook her head, wondering what other reason he thought there might be. What did he think, that she wanted his protection? That she had come to her senses and realized they were meant to be together? If so, he was out of his mind. “No other reason,” she said.

  “What about the fact that I didn’t tell Mr. Flint you were down by
the river that day?”

  She gaped at him. “You mean right before you tried to get me in trouble for talking to the miners’ wives and Clayton Nash? Or before you held a gun to my head for calling you a coward?”

  He sighed heavily and crossed his arms. He had been caught. “So where’s your train ticket?”

  She placed her fingers above her bosom, patting the money folded inside her brassiere. “It’s safe,” she said. “Where no one will find it.”

  His eyes fell to her chest and he reached for her hand. She snatched it away.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  She looked down. Her fingernails were torn and black, her skin and knuckles caked with coal dust and blood. A long, bloody scrape ran down the back of one hand.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He gestured toward his horse. “Why don’t you come with me?” he said. “You can’t go anywhere looking like you just crawled out of a mine shaft. I’ll take you down to my place, and you can get cleaned up. Afterward I’ll escort you to the station.”

  “No,” she said, a little louder than she’d intended. “I mean . . . one of the miners’ wives will help me wash up.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I should allow you to go over to the miners’ village. You’ve caused enough trouble, and I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything. Maybe I should take you down to the jailhouse for your own good.”

  “Maybe I should have let you die in that sinkhole.”

  He stared at her for a long time, then wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth and looked at the ground. For the first time ever, he looked ashamed. “I guess I owe you one.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You do. And since I’ll be gone before the day is over, you can forget all about me. It will be like I was never here.”

  “You don’t have to leave,” he said. “If you need a place to stay, my mother and I have a house down at the end of Susquehanna Avenue. Your aunt would approve, and you’d be safe there. It’s not much, but I’m working on it. And it’s more than you’ve got right now. I’ll bet it’s more than you’ll have wherever you’re going.”