A Distant Music

by BJ Hoff

  The company was not known for an abundance of mercy, nor for showing pity to a coal miner’s widow with no man to earn their keep. Even with three sons still fit and able to go into the mines, they would be hard-pressed to stay in Skingle Creek at all, would find it harder still to maintain a decent way of life.

  It was times like this that stirred an old rage in Matthew, making him painfully aware of his helplessness to improve the lot of his men, and dredging up the hateful reminder of just how subject he and his family were to the same ill fortunes as their neighbors. There were no labor unions in Skingle Creek. Indeed, the company had made it known in no uncertain terms that they would fire any man from his job for even raising the subject of a union and would not hesitate to shut down the mines if the issue were pressed.

  Matthew had seen enough from men like Judson Tallman to deduce that if the mine owners themselves were as hard-hearted as their superintendent and his kind, threats of revenge from the bosses against union organizers were not merely idle words.

  “The doc is here.”

  Sean Kelly’s voice pulled Matthew back to his surroundings. He got to his feet to make room for Lebreen Woodbridge—for whom he had little use and, if truth were told, even less trust. Still, the injured boy desperately needed attention, and capable or not, Woodbridge was unquestionably the one man in town who stood any chance at all of helping him.

  At supper that night, as Maggie listened to the exchange between her parents about the fate of the little Pippino boy, she could sense her da’s frustration as keenly as her mother’s distress. Where her mother could not seem to think of anything but the injured boy’s condition, her father seemed fixated on the hopelessness of the town as a whole.

  He scared her a little, talking as he did about there being no hope of improving the lot of the miners and their families, no possibility of things ever getting any better than they were today—indeed no future for the folks of Skingle Creek except more of the same. As the conversation went on, Maggie began to realize that her father’s anger wasn’t so much directed at the men who owned the mines as toward himself. He seemed to be overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness and even guilt.

  Clearly, her mother had also picked up on Da’s strange quarrel with himself, for at one point in his tirade she reached to cover his hand with her own. “Don’t take on so, Matthew. Things can’t be as bad as you’re making them out to be, and even if they are, none of it is your fault.”

  Da pushed his plate away, even though he’d scarcely touched his meal. “The safety of the men—and the children—is my responsibility, Kate. A foreman ought to be able to keep a wee lad like Benny Pippino safe! He shouldn’t be working in the mines to begin with! He’s little more than a babe!”

  “Matthew, you do your best. You do what you can.”

  “Small comfort, that, when I can’t even protect a child! The boy lost his hand, Kate, and he may yet lose his life. It should never have happened at all, and I can’t so much as get proper treatment for him.”

  “But you said the company will pay the hospital bill.”

  Da scowled, his face turning even redder. “Aye, they’ll pay for the hospital all right, but if the boy isn’t fit to work one-handed the day he comes home, then the bosses will throw him and the rest of his family out the door to make room for new renters who can pay!”

  Maggie jumped, as did her sisters, when he scooted his chair back with a terrible screech. “I’m going for a walk.” His words were clipped, his tone harsh as he tossed his napkin onto the table and crossed the room to yank his coat from its hook on the wall.

  He was no more out the door than Maggie’s mother stood and went to get her coat. “I’m going after your father,” she said, tugging her collar snugly about her neck. “You girls mind the baby.”

  She glanced at Baby Ray, who sat in his high chair, stuffing potatoes in his mouth with his fingers. Then she hurried out the door, leaving Maggie and her sisters staring at each other and wondering what was happening with their parents.

  Matthew was a good ways down the road before Kate managed to catch up with him. The cold wind stung her face and burned her eyes. By the time she reached him she was chilled through.

  The hunched shoulders, the head tipped down instead of lifted high as it usually was, hands in his pockets—all spoke to her of his self-debasement and feelings of powerlessness.

  “Matthew—”

  She caught his arm. He stopped and turned to look at her. “Leave me be, Kate. I need to clear my head.”

  “You need to stop beating yourself up for something you can’t help.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not it, Kate.”

  “Then what, Matthew? What’s eating at you so?”

  His shoulders sagged still more as he turned to stare into the night. For the first time, Kate saw signs of aging upon the face she knew better than her own: the lines that webbed outward from his eyes, the even deeper lines that creased his forehead, the silver shot through his copper hair about the temples. She reached a hand to his bearded cheek, and he caught it and held it there.

  “It’s because no one can help,” he said.

  The ache of despair in his voice tore at Kate’s heart like a knife slashing her skin.

  “Oh, Matthew, you can’t keep this up,” she said, her own voice hoarse. “You can’t go on trying to shoulder everyone else’s troubles! You’re only one man.”

  He took her hand and passed it over his eyes, and then he held it against his heart. “When a man cannot protect a helpless child, Kate, he is not much of a man.”

  Something turned in Kate, and her voice broke when she answered him. “You are the strongest—the finest man in this entire town, Matthew MacAuley. But you’re not an army, and an army is what it would take to heal the troubles in Skingle Creek.”

  He let out a long breath, looking at her as if he knew she was merely trying to make him feel better. But Kate could see that he wanted her to make him feel better, and so she kept on.

  “I know it’s hard for you, Matthew. But it won’t always be this way. One day we’ll have our farm, and your only boss will be yourself. Things will be better for us then.”

  He gave her a lame smile and kissed the palm of her hand. “Ah, Kate, that dream is wearing thin, and you know it. Besides, I’d still have to work for the company, at least for the first few years. A farm alone wouldn’t keep us without a second wage.”

  “Shush, Matthew,” she said, growing impatient with his stubbornness. “If you’d spend as much time praying as you do worrying, you might just be surprised what would happen.”

  He looked indignant. “I do pray.”

  “Yes, but you worry more.”

  He caught her by the forearms and held her away from him as he studied her. “You can be a terrible scold sometimes, Kate MacAuley, for such a slip of a girl,” he said, his Irish tongue thickening.

  “Perhaps because I married such a hardheaded man.”

  “Oh, is that so?” He slung an arm around her and, turning her toward home, started walking.

  “Indeed.”

  “Ah, Katie, Katie. You are a treasure, and that’s the truth.”

  Kate dug in a bit closer against him, pleased to hear the smile in his voice. “The children will be wondering what’s become of us. Let’s go home.”

  He stopped, dipped his head, and kissed her lightly.

  “Matthew, someone will see!”

  Ignoring her protest, he kissed her again. When he lifted his face from hers, he searched her eyes for a long moment. “I can’t think what I would ever do without you, Kate.”

  Kate didn’t know if it was the events of the day or his earlier dark mood infecting her, but she felt a cold shadow pass over her heart. She had always known that, strong and capable as he was, Matthew would be all right without her. What chilled her soul was when she let herself consider what she would do without him.

  Every time the question stole into her mind, she determined to pray j
ust that much more faithfully for the farm he had dreamed of all these years. Wouldn’t he be surprised if he should learn that she wanted that farm even more desperately than he did?

  Kate wanted, more than anything else, whatever would get her husband out of the coal mines. And the sooner the better.

  Fifteen

  What Kind of Man?

  I am only one,

  But still I am one.

  I cannot do everything,

  But still I can do something.

  Edward Everett Hale

  Matthew saw it as nothing short of a miracle that the Pippino lad managed to survive. Though the boy lost his hand, he would live, and Matthew was determined that he would remain on the payroll. To ensure it, he meant to face Judson Tallman man to man.

  He came up from below early Monday, washed up as best he could at the pump, and headed for the superintendent’s office. By the time he reached the top of the steps, his hands were clammy, his heart beating way too fast. It grated on him that a man like Tallman could make him squirm, but then he doubted there was a miner among the lot of them whose insides didn’t clench in the super’s presence.

  Judson Tallman was one of the oddest types Matthew had ever come up against. To the best of his recollection, Tallman had never shown a hint of interest in any man who worked under him nor a drop of compassion in the face of injury or death. He had never seen Tallman smile, had never caught a glimpse of emotion in the man. So cold, so unfeeling did he appear that he almost seemed more like one of the machines used in the mine than a human being with a soul.

  Matthew couldn’t help but wonder what sort of father Tallman was to his son, who must be the same age, or near to it, as his own Maggie. Sure, it would not be easy for a child to live in the shadow of such a stone.

  It was widely known that Tallman’s wife had run out on him. That no one seemed to know the truth surrounding the scandal only raised more questions and added fuel to the rumors that Tallman might have been violent with her.

  It occurred to him as he knocked on the door of the superintendent’s office that this probably wasn’t the time to be puzzling over the super’s personal life. As it was, there seemed little likelihood that he would gain a sympathetic audience from the man on the other side of the door; it wouldn’t help his cause to go in predisposed against him.

  Tallman acknowledged him with a curt nod and a cold stare. He sat at his desk, drumming the fingers of one hand on a stack of papers in front of him, a mannerism he quickly traded for rolling a pencil between the fingers of the same hand.

  He offered no attempt whatsoever to put Matthew at ease, but then Matthew had not expected that he would.

  “If I might have a word with you, sir?”

  Cap in hand, Matthew managed not to cringe at the note of subservience in his voice. He straightened his shoulders, put his hands behind his back, and lifted his chin, adding, “It’s about Benny Pippino.”

  “Who?”

  Matthew found it discouraging to his purpose that the man didn’t even recognize the boy’s name. “The breaker boy who lost his hand last week.”

  Recognition seemed to dawn slowly, though Tallman gave nothing more than a slight turn of his head. “What about him?”

  “I was hoping to keep him on the payroll. His father was killed in the cave-in last year, you see, and even with his three brothers working the mine, they barely manage to survive. The lad’s wages are needed just to keep them from the road.”

  The other gave an impatient shrug. The thing about Tallman, Matthew realized, was that he always seemed impatient.

  “If the boy can’t work, he doesn’t get paid.”

  Matthew swallowed. “But that’s just it, sir. There must be something he can do, some way he can stay on.”

  “I hardly think so.”

  Clearly, Tallman was dismissing the idea without further thought—and dismissing Matthew at the same time. He turned his attention back to his desk, leaving Matthew to feel like a great fool.

  Fool or not, he had no intention of giving up so easily. “Doc Woodbridge says the lad should be up and about again in a few days,” he said. “Surely we could find something for him by then.”

  Tallman’s head came up sharply, his expression one of contempt. “I said no, MacAuley. There will be no sympathy pay around here.” A glacial finality laced his words.

  As if you would know anything about sympathy, you cold, unfeeling—

  Matthew flinched, for an instant thinking he had spoken aloud. Even if he had, Tallman probably wouldn’t have heard. As if Matthew were no longer in the room, the superintendent had already returned to his work, his dark head lowered, his concentration fixed on the papers in front of him.

  Matthew felt his blood heat. His grip on his cap tightened. He knew he must keep his temper in check lest he risk his own job, but even so, he would not be banished like a bumbling, disobedient child.

  “If I may, sir—”

  Tallman looked up, his mouth hard, his eyes going over Matthew with unmistakable irritation.

  Stubbornly, Matthew plunged on. “Would you object to keeping the boy on the payroll if I can find a job that needs doing—one that he can handle in spite of his injury?”

  He held his breath as Tallman glared at him, his fingers again tapping on the desk.

  “And what sort of job do you think that might be, MacAuley?”

  Matthew shook his head. “I don’t know just yet, sir, but I’ll wager something can be found, something the boy can handle. Pip is a hard worker, according to Sean Kelly. I’d like to keep him on and so would Kelly.”

  Tallman’s eyes narrowed still more. Matthew had all he could do not to squirm under the intense scrutiny. Finally, though, the super curled his lip, gave a short wave, and said, “All right, then. But there’d better be no trickery. I’m not passing out any favors here.”

  Matthew caught a breath. “Aye, sir. It will be a job that needs doing. You have my word on it. And thank you, sir.”

  Matthew turned to go, but Tallman stopped him. “MacAuley?”

  He turned back. “Sir?”

  “If I find out that little dago isn’t holding his own, I’ll call you to account along with him, do you understand?”

  The offensive word—heard all too often in the mines—made Matthew clench his teeth. He managed to keep the venom out of his voice only with the most deliberate effort. “I understand, sir.”

  I understand all right, you hardheaded Welsh bigot.

  He took the steps away from Tallman’s office two at a time, fuming in his rush to get home and rid himself of the foul taste in his mouth.

  Maggie watched her sleeping sisters in the bed they shared beside her own. Nell Frances was snoring lightly, while Eva Grace slept on her side, one hand tucked daintily under her head as if to keep her long blond hair from getting tangled.

  Eva Grace, of course, was far too refined to ever snore.

  It was well after eleven. Maggie was always asleep long before this time, but Da’s story at supper about his visit to Mr. Tallman kept running through her mind, making sleep impossible.

  Even now she shivered at the account of Mr. Tallman’s coldness and lack of sympathy. Was he that heartless where Kenny was concerned? She hated the thought of Kenny being hurt, especially by his own father. Her da could be a hard man, but she never had to question whether he cared about his family.

  Her mother said that Da would lay his life down for any one of them, and Maggie never doubted but what it was true. Though Da might give her a thorough scolding one minute, in no time at all he would catch her up in one of his big old bear hugs and set her to squawking with laughter. And every once in a while would come that squeeze on the shoulder or tug on a lock of hair that let her know he was pleased with something she’d said or done—or maybe that he was just pleased with her for no special reason.

  She couldn’t imagine having a father who didn’t love her. Even the thought of it made her eyes sting. She could only hope Mr.
Tallman was nicer at home than he was at the mine.

  Benny Pippino, who didn’t have a father, came to mind again. Da said Mrs. Pippino depended on the wages of all her sons just to pay the rent and keep food on the table. What would she do without the extra pay?

  There must be some kind of job for the boy. Da seemed to believe there was and clearly he was bent on finding that job.

  But why was Mr. Tallman so dead set against the idea?

  She supposed she ought to pray about the situation. But she was finally getting sleepy, and the room was so cold. Even with the rag rug beside the bed, she hated setting her bare feet on the floor. On nights like these, the cold would seep right through the thin material and shoot up her legs.

  Still, didn’t Mr. Stuart always say to pray if you have a problem, and pray even harder if someone else has one? She drew a long breath, delayed another moment or two, and then she threw the bedcovers off and slipped out of bed to her knees.

  She was shivering, but she reckoned the Lord didn’t mind that her teeth were chattering as she said a prayer for Benny Pippino and for Mr. Tallman’s hard heart.

  And for Kenny, just in case Mr. Tallman wasn’t any nicer to his son than he’d been to her da today.

  Sixteen

  When Hope Falters

  I falter where I firmly trod.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  What was going on with Maggie MacAuley?

  Jonathan Stuart studied the cloud of fiery red hair as the girl bent low over her desk. She was supposed to be copying her spelling words—five times each, as he had instructed the class—but for at least five minutes now she had been leaning on her elbow, her pencil poised in midair with no detectable movement from head or hand. Had it been any other student besides Maggie, Jonathan might have thought she was dozing.