Coal River

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  Emma started to tremble. If Clayton said he loved her, if there was the slightest chance that they could be together, she didn’t know what she would do. She’d already lost so much. Would she be brave enough to go through with her plan and go inside the breaker? What kind of fool would risk her one chance at true love? And even if she survived going into the breaker, was she willing to live the rest of her life in constant fear of losing him to a mining accident? She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. This wasn’t about her. It was about the breaker boys.

  “Or maybe the most foolish,” she said.

  “Just be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

  With that, despite her attempt at being rational, waves of elation washed through her. Finally she knew how he felt about her. Her heart swelled in her chest, overflowing with love and relief and fear. It was nearly more than she could bear. What was going to happen after they helped the breaker boys and miners? Could she stay in Coal River, knowing she’d be living in constant terror of losing Clayton? Or would she be able to convince him to leave, to find a safer job someplace else so they could grow old together? She tried to smile, to reassure them both, but it didn’t work. Her eyes filled with tears. Then he was kissing her, and she forgot all about being afraid.

  Emma stood beside Clayton inside the colliery office, a clapboard building near the mouth of the main shaft, between the engine house and the powder shop. Coal dust had seeped into every crack and crevice, staining the floors, ceilings, and walls, making the wooden planks look like slabs of gray granite. A chalkboard on one wall read:

  Steam Coal: 4–6 inches. Broken Coal: 3–5 inches. Egg Coal: 2–2.5 inches. Stove Coal: 1–1.6 inches. Chestnut Coal: less than an inch. Pea Coal: less than a half inch. Culm: rock, slate, dirt, clay, ash.

  Pulling Sawyer’s cap low on her forehead, she stuffed her hands in her pockets to keep them from shaking. Along with one of Sawyer’s heavy jackets, she was wearing hobnailed boots that were a size too big, and a wool scarf around her neck. Clayton had said she would need the scarf to put over her nose and mouth while working, and even though the inside of the breaker was hot as a furnace, she’d need the extra layers of clothing to protect her skin from the sulfur in the coal dust.

  The pit boss stood on the other side of the counter, squinting at her over the top of his round glasses.

  “This is my nephew,” Clayton said. He put a strong hand on Emma’s shoulder, shaking her to show how sturdy his nephew was. “Come over from Wilkes-Barre. He’s staying with me now and needs work.”

  “You got a name, boy?” the pit boss said.

  “He don’t talk much,” Clayton said. “Had the fever when he was small. Name’s Emmet.”

  “How old?” the pit boss said, reaching below the counter for the necessary paperwork.

  “Old enough,” Clayton said.

  “You got proof he is who you say he is?” the pit boss said. “Birth certificate or somethin’?”

  “No, sir,” Clayton said. He pulled a letter from his pocket and began to unfold it. “All I have is this note from my sister, written on her deathbed asking me to take good care of her boy.”

  The pit boss waved the letter away and started filling out Emma’s working papers. “You ever work in a coal mine, Emmet?”

  She shook her head.

  “We lost a nipper yesterday,” the pit boss said. “Idiot fell asleep and didn’t hear the mine cars racing down the track until it was too late. He opened the door, but he weren’t no match for a four-ton coal car. Think you can handle the job, Emmet? Of course you have to listen to the mountain while you’re sitting there too, and warn the miners if you hear the gangway roof working.”

  “I don’t think that’s the best place for him,” Clayton said. He tapped his ear. “Fever affected his hearing a bit too. Seems I recall there was always room in the breaker for another set of hands.”

  “All right,” the pit boss said. “Take him over to the breaker. I’ll let Walt know he’s coming.”

  “Will do,” Clayton said, and turned to leave

  Emma followed Clayton out of the office and toward the breaker, rivers of sweat running down her back. The first coal cars of the day rumbled out of the mine and traveled up a set of steep, narrow tracks, pulled by heavy cables to the top of the breaker. Sawyer was waiting near the breaker steps, waving beside a gang of boys. Emma kept her head down, hoping no one would recognize her. When she and Clayton reached Sawyer, he pulled a folded bag out of his pocket, shoved a wad of chewing tobacco between his gum and cheek, and offered it to her.

  She shook her head.

  “If you want to keep the coal dust out of your throat,” Sawyer said. “You better take a pinch.”

  She looked at Clayton.

  “He’s right,” Clayton said.

  Emma reached into the bag, pulled out a clump of the dried, red leaves, and pushed them inside her cheek. The sharp tang of tobacco juice seeped over her teeth and tongue, making her saliva run and filling her mouth with a bitter taste, like a mixture of dirt and prunes and rotten wood. She swallowed.

  “Don’t swallow!” Sawyer said.

  She spit on the ground and wiped her lips, her stomach churning. “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “It tastes horrible.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Clayton said. “It’s better than having a mouthful of coal dust. Just keep spitting.”

  She spit again, trying not to gag. Then the boys started moving toward the stairs on the outside of the breaker. Sawyer motioned for her to follow.

  “Just do what you’re told,” Clayton said. “Every time. And if Mr. Flint is making the rounds, keep your head down.” He gave her a watery smile, squeezed her shoulder, and left.

  Emma followed Sawyer up the steep, narrow steps on the outside of the breaker, cringing as the bone-dry staircase creaked beneath her boots. Gripping the iron railing with one hand, she hoped no one would see the terror in her eyes. The smell of wet timber and coal dust filled her nostrils. As she climbed higher and higher, the colliery opened up below her like a monochromatic painting where everything was various shades of gray and black—the culm piles and boiler house, the lamp house and carpenter shops, the silt ponds and mule yard.

  She pictured the other boys working inside the mines, the nippers and spraggers and mule handlers. She wasn’t sure which would be more terrifying: climbing up the side of this multistory building that looked ready to collapse in a pile of splinters and coal dust, or riding the trip cars deep into the belly of the mine, dropping thousands of feet into the earth. She imagined water dripping from the rocks, rats scurrying along the dark tunnels.

  Then she swallowed and was instantly dizzy. For a second she thought she might throw up. She spit the wad of chewing tobacco out over the steps, wiped her chin, and pulled her scarf over her nose and mouth. The tobacco was too strong, and she wouldn’t be able to work if she was nauseous.

  When she reached the flight outside what she thought was the fifth floor, the machinery inside the breaker began to churn, giant belts screeching and whirring, colossal gears grinding. The monstrous building was beginning to wake. She held the railing tighter, certain the breaker was going to fall apart, or the stairs were going to collapse beneath her feet. The entire structure started shaking and moving, as if it were about to grow legs and climb up the mountain. It was all she could do not to turn around, fight her way past the others, and run back down the stairs. Her legs felt heavy as stone, but she gritted her teeth and kept going, trying to remind herself why she was there.

  Finally, she reached the entrance and followed Sawyer inside. The grating roll of the crusher was deafening. Emma put her hands over her ears; the boys laughed and pointed. She dropped her arms and looked around, berating herself for drawing attention. Blackened beams held up the high walls, and a fine dust fell from the shaking rafters like black snow. Faint beams of sunlight filtered in through a soot-covered set of multipaned windows on
the far wall, and pitted metal shades with grimy bulbs hung from the high ceiling, giving off a weak yellow light. Her heart dropped. Maybe Clayton was right. The inside of the breaker was darker than she’d imagined.

  No, she told herself. It’s still early. The sun might get stronger as the day goes on. Besides, it’s too late to turn back now.

  At the top of the breaker, the coal cars were tipped, and tons of coal tumbled into a wide iron channel, roaring into the building like a black avalanche. Before the coal went into the crusher, men and older boys picked out the largest pieces of slate. Some of the coal chunks were as big as a bull, heavy enough to crush a grown man. After being broken up by the great teeth of the crusher, the coal streamed into iron troughs lined by conveyor belts. The troughs ran side by side at steep angles down through the building like giant slides. Rivers of coal shook and rattled on the belts, filling the air with clouds of smoke and black dust. Each trough was flanked by smaller chutes on one side, and a set of wooden steps on the other. Across the tops of the troughs were wide planks set at regular intervals, like rungs on a ladder.

  Between the black rivers of coal, three men with gray mustaches and bristled chins stood holding brooms on the steps. They watched the boys with pitiless eyes, their pallid faces weathered by hard labor and buried grief. A fourth man sat on the edge of a trough, grinning and tapping the iron with a long stick. Two of his front teeth were missing.

  “Get to work!” he shouted. “I’ll be checking the first run in ten minutes! And it better not be full of culm!”

  The boys scurried up the steps and found their places on the planks. They sat down and straddled the troughs, five and six in a line, one above the other like passengers on a carnival ride. Sawyer motioned for Emma to follow, then climbed halfway up and sat on a wooden plank. She clambered up the steps behind him, pulling her scarf tightly over her face. Another boy sat on a plank above Sawyer, and another sat below. She stood on the steps, awaiting further instruction. Sawyer braced his boots against the coal-filled conveyor belt, using his feet to slow the flow.

  “Pick out the slate, clay, and rock!” he shouted. “And throw it in the culm chute!” He picked up a piece of clay to show her, then tossed it into the narrower trough. “Then let the coal go by. Like this!” He lifted his feet and let the coal continue on to the boy below him.

  “You there!” a breaker boss shouted. “At chute five!” Emma turned to look. It was the gap-toothed boss, pointing his long stick in her direction. She lifted her chin to let him know she heard him. “Get to work!”

  Emma looked around for an empty seat. The only available plank was near the top of the breaker, right below the crusher. She climbed the steps, straddled the iron chute, and sat down, coal dust clogging her eyes, nose, and throat. The snarl and roar of the crusher was deafening, like dynamite repeatedly going off inside her ears. The breaker boss lumbered up the steps and stopped beside her, towering above her head.

  “By the time that coal gets down to the final boy, it needs to be pure!” he shouted. “Pick fast and don’t make their job harder, or you’ll be seeing the end of my stick!”

  She nodded and turned back to the trough. The breaker boss cracked his stick on the edge of the chute near her foot, then made his way back down the steps. She clenched her jaw and reached into the rushing river of black coal.

  CHAPTER 24

  That evening, Emma sat at Clayton’s kitchen table in her work clothes, her coat and scarf in a dust-encrusted heap on the floor. She bit down on a leather strap, tears of agony streaming down her cheeks. After ten hours in the breaker spent sitting on a wooden plank and crouching over an iron chute, her back ached, and the bones in her buttocks screamed in pain, as if knives were being pushed into her muscles. Her shoulders and legs trembled and throbbed, and she felt as weak as the old women on widow’s row. Her ears were ringing, and she could still see the black river of coal in her mind, rushing between her feet and legs, her filthy, blood-spattered hands reaching in over and over and over and over. But all of that was nothing compared to the pain in her fingers.

  With a worried look on his face, Clayton took her hand and slowly lowered it into a basin of water on the table. She grimaced and tried to pull away, the sting of tar soap like needles in her fingertips. Clayton gently held on and forced her fingers below the surface. She let out a tortured moan, grateful for the leather strap that stifled her scream. Earlier, Clayton had instructed the children to go outside and told Sawyer to knock if they needed to come back in, but only if there was an emergency. Then he locked the doors.

  “Still want to go through with this?” Clayton said.

  Emma hung her head and closed her eyes, tears and sweat running off her face. She clenched her stomach, trying to hold on to consciousness. In spite of that, she managed a nod.

  “Give me your other hand,” he said. “Best get this over with as fast as possible.”

  She let him put her other hand into the basin, groaning as soon as her fingertips hit the water.

  “Hold on for another minute,” he said. “We’ve got to get the sulfur off your skin.”

  The burning was like nothing she’d ever felt before. If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn someone had cut off the tops of her fingers and rubbed the bloody stubs in a vat of vinegar and salt. How could anyone think it was acceptable to put young boys through such agony? How desperate did a mother have to be to see her child in so much pain, then send him back for more the next day? It was unimaginable.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Clayton retrieved two clean rags from beneath the sink, spread them on the table, and gently lifted her fingers from the water. Fighting the instinct to yank her hands away, she let him place them on the rags. The water in the basin swirled red with blood.

  “Don’t move,” he said. He pulled the curtains closed and filled the washtub on the floor with water from the stove, then he tenderly covered her hands with the clean rags until he had wrapped them up like mittens.

  “Can you stand?” he said.

  Emma nodded and pushed herself up on weak legs. The leather strap fell from her mouth. Clayton put his arm around her waist and led her over to the washtub.

  “I’ll help you get washed,” he said. “But you’ve got to get out of those clothes.”

  With tears of pain still blurring her vision, she lifted her elbows so he could remove her shirt. He pulled the dust-covered shirt out of the waist of her pants, then held the ends of the sleeves while she pulled her arms free. Despite the rags around her hands, the slightest contact with the sleeve material felt like a hot iron searing her fingertips.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  Emma squeezed her eyes shut, and Clayton pulled the shirt over her head. As the shirt came off, coal dust went into her mouth and nose. She sputtered and spit and, even though she was still wearing the burlap binding, instinctively covered her breasts with one arm. Clayton wet a rag and wiped her lips and eyelids, then put a bar of soap in the tub, swished it around to make suds, and gently finished washing her face, careful not to get soap and dust in her eyes. Then he told her to kneel on the floor and bend over the basin. Without a word, he knelt beside her and washed her short hair, scrubbing the grime from around her neck and shoulders, his strong hands massaging her sore muscles. When he had finished, he helped her stand again. Then he unbuckled her belt, pulled down her trousers, and instructed her to step out of them.

  In too much pain to care that she would be half naked in front of him, Emma did as she was told. Even though she had been wearing two layers of clothes, a fine black powder coated her skin and underdrawers.

  Clayton gestured toward the washtub. “Get in.”

  She stepped over the edge of the wooden tub and stood in the water. With gentle hands, Clayton washed her shoulders and arms. Gritty water cascaded down her body, making her feel like a porcelain statue in a muddy fountain. He ran the wet rag under the top and bottom edges of the burlap binding, his warm fingers touching he
r waist and the slight swell above her cleavage. She started to shiver.

  “I’m nearly done,” he said.

  By the time he got to her legs, her cotton drawers were soaked though with water, and she worried he could see through the thin material. He ran the wet rag along the waist of the drawers, his fingers skimming just below her navel. Then he knelt and rolled the legs of the drawers up as far as they would go and washed her knees and thighs. Her face grew warm and she looked at the ceiling, trying to think of something else. Despite her throbbing fingers, a tingling sensation filled her pelvis, and all pain retreated from the forefront of her mind. It was as if her hands had disappeared or fallen asleep, and the only thing she could feel were his hands on her body. She struggled to breathe normally.

  Clayton stopped. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He finished rinsing her legs and straightened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t do a proper job while you’re still . . . when you still have your . . .”

  “While I still have my drawers on?”

  He nodded. “And the binding.”

  She bit down on her lip. She had imagined undressing in front of him numerous times, just not like this. But the coal dust felt like grit on her legs, and the sulfur was already burning the delicate skin around her nipples and the tender, inside creases of her thighs. It was bad enough that her fingers felt like they were on fire; the last thing she needed was burning skin anywhere else.

  “Then I’ll take them off,” she said. “But you’ll have to untie the burlap for me.”

  His face flushed, and he shook his head.

  “It won’t be the first time you’ve seen a woman naked, will it?”