“‘You may think you’re organized.’ I said, ‘but I’m the best organizer they is and you aint met me yet.’
“About then, I pulled out my pistol and pointed it at that door. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘Before yall suck my blood, yall got to come through that door and git me. Now I got me a gun in here. First booger man comes in that door, I’m going to shoot. Second booger man through, I’ll likely shoot too. Wont be until the third booger man comes through that somebody gits to suck my blood. So you got to git together. You got to git organized. You got to decide which booger men will be the first ones through that door, because them will be dead booger men.’
“Well, I heard them shuffling around and muttering out there. I waited and waited. After while, I hollered, ‘Booger men. Oh, booger men. Yall got organized yet? Ifn I aint organized you, I’ll be mortal disappointed.’
“Then I heard this buzzing and squeaking, you know how booger men do when they’re just so riled they’re like to bust. And I heard them bang back down them stairs and drive away in that car. And I knew I hadnt been able to git them booger men organized. But sons, I’ll tell you, I lit out of Trinidad right now.”
He leaned back, looked slyly at me. “And that there is my story. Git your Aunt Carrie to tell you about how she saved an organizer from booger men over at Vulcan.”
“Tell us!” they clamored. I said lamely that he was pulling their legs, and glared at him. He grinned back at me.
Ben took him into the front room after supper, like he always did with guests, while I helped Aunt Becka stack the dirty dishes. Through the doorway I saw Ben draw close to Rondal, speak to him. Rondal looked at him, nodded his head. A few more words passed between them, then they stared at one another briefly, before Ben motioned that they should sit down.
Flora came in from taking the children to the outhouse. They headed straight for the front room.
“Dont pester that poor man,” she warned them.
Aunt Becka poured a pail of boiling water into the washtub. “That there is a rascal ifn I ever seen one.” She waved her dishrag at me. “Go on in there with them. Me and Florrie will take care of this here.”
“I might walk up and fetch that banjer,” I said.
When I told Rondal where I was going, he insisted on coming along. “I want to see where you live,” he said.
“I want to go,” Luke cried.
“Stay here!” Ben said sharply.
We strolled along the edge of the cornfield. Rondal kept looking toward the river.
“Damn, I’d love to fish that thing,” he said.
“What did Ben say to you?”
“When?”
“In the setting room. I seen him talking to you.”
“He asked if I had a gun. I said I did, and he said dont show it to the younguns or say nothing about it. I said I wasnt planning on it. That’s all.”
I pushed open my door and he stepped inside. The banjo stood alone by the hearth.
“Place of honor,” he said.
“You would think so.”
He picked it up, ran the back of his finger over the strings. “You let it git bad out of tune.”
“I aint paid a lot of attention to it. I dont know nothing about it.”
He twisted the knobs, strummed, narrowed his eyes. Then he launched into Old Joe Clark, but stopped in the middle of it. “That’s where Isom should come in,” he said. He set it down, looked around the room.
“You git lonesome?” he asked.
“I got my kin. You git lonesome?”
“Me? Naw. Too busy.”
“What you doing these days? They aint much you can do for the strike in Charleston, is they?”
He smiled. “That’s what you think. Me and Doc and some other boys, we got big plans. We’re going to overthrow the government.” He whooped and slapped his leg. “I wisht you could see your face, Miss Carrie!”
“Well, what kind of crazy talk is that? You aint serious!”
“Never been more serious in my life. Come on, let’s git back so I can pick for them younguns. We’ll talk about it later.”
All the way back up through the cornfield he kept snatching lightning bugs out of the air, then letting them go.
“How in the hell are you going to overthrow the United States government?”
“Carrie Lee! Such language!”
“You answer me!”
“I aint talking about the United States government. I’m talking about this government around here.” He waved his arms in a wide arc. “I’m talking about that son of a bitch sheriff up in Logan County, and them Republicans in Justice County, and the gun thugs and the state police and maybe even the goddamn governor of West Virginia.”
“I knowed you long enough to know you aint no fool. You cant believe they’ll let you git away with that.”
“I didnt say we’d git away with it. I said we’d try. Hit’s like old Thomas Jefferson said. Hit’s the course of human events.”
They waited for us on the front porch. Rondal played Dusty Miller and Cripple Creek, Shady Grove and Soldiers Joy. Then he played and sang My Old Kentucky Home. We joined in the chorus.
Weep no more my lady, oh weep no more today.
We will sing one song for my old Kentucky home,
For my old Kentucky home far away.
After awhile Ben stood and stretched, said it was bedtime and corn to be hoed in the morning. Rondal offered to help and he agreed.
“You can have my bed tonight, Mr. Lloyd,” Aunt Becka said. “I’ll go up yonder and sleep with Carrie.”
“Oh, no ma’am,” Rondal said quickly. “I aint aiming to put nobody outen their bed. I’ll just sleep in the barn.”
“You’ll do no such thing. We dont treat company that a way.”
“But I love sleeping in barns. I love to smell the hay. I’m just like an old hobo, ma’am. I’ll be right at home there.”
“Nonsense.”
Flora looked from me to Rondal. “Let him sleep in the barn,” she said suddenly. Aunt Becka looked startled. “He should sleep where he’s most comfortable,” Flora said firmly. “Let’s not fuss over it. Now kiss everybody goodnight, younguns, and wash your faces.”
I said my goodbyes and Rondal asked if I would show him the barn. When we were up the road a ways, he said, “You reckon I could take a bath up at your house? I aint had one in a while. Hit sure would be relaxing.”
I didn’t answer and he walked on beside me. We didn’t speak until we reached the house.
“You fetch the water from the well,” I said. “I’ll start a fire in the stove.”
After the water boiled, I went out onto the front porch and sat on the steps. I heard him splash around, heard the cascade of water as he stood up to dry himself. Then he came outside with only his overalls on, rubbed the towel over his wet hair, sat down beside me.
“Dont I smell sweet as a rose now?”
I felt faint with the smell of him. I looked away. “You’ll stink like a barnyard in the morning.”
“Ifn I sleep in the barn,” he said.
I turned on him. “You think you can just walk in here after all these years and—” The words died in my throat, strangled. He put his arms around me, kissed me lightly on the mouth.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Eight year,” I whispered. “Eight year.”
He kissed me again, unbuttoned the front of my dress. I put my hand on his.
“Rondal, somebody might come up here and find us.”
“They wont. Your sister Florrie knows what’s going on.”
I knew it was true. I leaned my head on his shoulder and kissed the soft skin of his neck, even before I had decided whether I should. We took a long time with our lovemaking, two old friends getting reacquainted after many years apart. It was good to be a woman with him, instead of the frightened young girl of so long ago. I loved him hard, and knew I could bear whatever might come afterward.
We clung to o
ne another in the featherbed.
“How was it?” he whispered.
“Hit just aint the same without the cast on your leg.”
He laughed.
“I dont know what you must think of me,” I said. “They aint nobody else I carry on with this way.”
“Dont you fret. One thing I’d never take you for is a loose woman.”
“I loved my husband.”
“I know it. But he’s dead, Carrie. Like Isom’s dead, and C.J., and Sam Gore, and my daddy and brother. Me and you, we’re still yet alive.”
I tickled his mustache with my fingertip.
“I never stopped loving you.”
“I know that too. Hit scairt me oncet, and maybe it still yet does. But I seen how easy things can be lost. Hit seems silly to push them away when it will all be took soon enough.”
“You still aint said you love me.”
“I aint sure I do. And I aint one to say things I dont mean. But I need you. I need you right now.” His arms tightened around me. “Now that there is something I understand, needing somebody. But love—they must be something wrong with me, but I just dont know what it is.”
“Didnt you love C.J. and Isom?”
“Them two, that’s different. They was just allays there, like the mountains is allays there. All I ever knowed of the world had C.J. and Isom in it. But with a woman it would have to be different, wouldnt it? It would have to be clean and pretty and clear, like that river running yonder, like this place here. I aint never lived in a place like this. I dont know it. Coal camps is home to me. Hit’s like a baby duck when it’s born, it takes the first thing it sees for its mommy. A baby duck spies an old ugly sow first thing, hit thinks, ‘That there is home.’ Hit’s the same with me. I look for an old rattling coal tipple, or a house covered with the black dust. I look for things to be tore up. I seen so much of death and destruction they feel like home to me.”
I couldn’t let him say any more. I put my hand to his mouth and then I kissed him until we made love again. I knew Albion did not mind. He was not dead to me, but murmured benevolently from the graveyard.
In the morning, I fried up eggs and potatoes and bacon, cut slabs of cold cornbread spread with apple butter. We ate quietly like an old married couple, then went out on the porch to smell the dew.
“I’ll leave tonight for Charleston,” he said. “I want you to come with me. Mind, I aint asking you to marry me. We need nurses.”
“What makes you think I’d marry you?”
“I’m just checking. Be sure and bring your uniform.”
“I aint even said I’d go.”
He hugged me. “They’s one thing in the world I trust right now.”
While he hoed corn, I killed two chickens and fried them, baked fresh cornbread. I stuffed underwear, a dress and a nurse’s uniform into a pillowcase. Then I put on an old shirt and a pair of overalls.
Flora stopped by on her way to call the cows.
“You’re going, aint you? You aint never been good at hiding how you feel.”
“Florrie, dont think hard of me.”
“Honey, I dont. When you love somebody, you got to stand by them.”
I started to cry. “I aint sure whether to be scairt or happy.”
“You cant pull them two apart,” she said. “Now you go on. Just promise you’ll be back.”
“You know I will.”
We left as soon as it was dark, walking down Grapevine by lantern light. The full moon was out. Rows of weeping willows leaned and trailed their leaves like the trains of giant ladies-in-waiting. A rim of light glowed behind the black curve of the mountains and a night breeze rushed from the mouth of Bearwallow.
We stopped toward dawn and slept on a high rock above the river. I dreamed of fairies and Wuthering Heights and great adventures. One night, outside Louisa, we flagged down a slow train, a “redneck special” Rondal called it, heading for Charleston. He leaped into a boxcar and pulled me after him. Moonlight flashed between the wooden slats. We made love to the rhythm of the rails, and afterwards fed each other fried chicken.
Nineteen
RONDAL LLOYD
SOMETIMES I THINK I HATE HER. IT’S NOT HER FAULT. ALL IN all, she’s one of the best women I know, right up there with Annadel Justice and Violet Marcum. But a certain look on her face brings the anger up in me, a look of such assurance that I can’t abide it.
She put that look into words only once. We were in bed at the Fleetwood Hotel. She pressed up against me despite the heat.
“I love you like my own kin,” she said.
I was glad I couldn’t see her face in the dark. I knew what it looked like, the lips pressed together, her gray eyes lit with expectation. Nobody I know expects as much as she does.
“Kin aint got a thing to do with this,” I said. I can still hear the impatient edge of my voice. “Hit’s like water running and cant nobody hold it back. But when it’s gone, it’s gone. That aint like kin.”
My impatience melted like ice when she pulled away at the tone of my voice. That’s when I know she’s just like the rest of us, that she’s not any stronger, that she’s not like Mommy, who can’t be hurt by anyone but Jesus. I can come close to loving Carrie then, after I’ve hurt her.
Talcott was working at a union mine at Point Lick, on Campbells Creek near Charleston. He came into town often to talk things over with me. He was in charge of the men from his mine. They met every other day for drill, hid their guns afterward. Talcott has been in the Army, knows what war is like.
He knew I didn’t like to go up Campbells Creek with Mommy around. I went up to Point Lick once, took Carrie along just because I knew it would make Mommy mad. She’d stayed seated when I introduced them, but still managed to look down at Carrie. Her nostrils quivered like the gills of a fish.
“I know what kind of woman takes up with this boy,” she said.
Poor Carrie was so earnest. She wore her good green dress and her hair was pinned up neat on top of her head.
“I’m a widder woman,” she said. “My husband was a preacher.”
“Do declare?” Mommy’s eyes narrowed. “What persuasion?”
“Hardshell Baptist.”
“Them’s all lost,” she said.
“If my husband is lost then they aint no God,” Carrie said.
“With that kind of heathen talk, you and this youngun of mine must git along just fine.”
On the train back to Charleston I said, “She thinks the wrong boy got kilt in the mines.”
Carrie looked out the train window. We passed a tugboat pushing bargeloads of coal down the green Kanawha River like a scissor slicing through velvet.
“I talked to her some more while you and Talcott was drinking beer on the porch. She said she’d burn in Hell for all eternity if she could only have her boys back again.” She touched my sleeve. “Rondal, she didnt mean just the one.”
I was furious. “Hit’s none of your goddamn business, none of it,” I said fiercely. “My kin aint got nothing to do with you.” I got up and moved to an empty seat at the front of the car.
It was the worst moment we had in our two weeks there. I waited for her on the station platform but she walked right past me. I let her go, bought a cup of coffee inside the depot. From the restaurant window I watched her disappear across the curve of the bridge, swallowed by the buildings of downtown. She didn’t come to the Fleetwood that night. Doc Booker called me the next morning. We had often visited him in his house on Shrewsbury Street, and Carrie had spent the night there. I found her drinking coffee in the kitchen.
“I should have gone back to Kentucky,” she said. “I got enough money for a ticket.”
“Why didnt you?”
She blew her cheeks out full like she does when she’s being stubborn. “I wont do you like you do me. I’m better than that.”
I sat down at the table and Doc went into the front room.
“What’s going to happen when this is all over?” she said. “
Will you just go off?”
“I dont know.” I picked up her hand that lay beside the coffee cup, turned it over and traced the lines of her palm with my finger. “I dont want you to depend on me too much.”
She pulled her hand away.
“You want me to put you on the train?” I asked. “I wont think hard of you.”
“You want me to go?”
“No.”
I knew she wouldn’t leave.
In the meantime we got word that martial law was declared once again in Justice County. Hundreds of miners were in jail. There were reports of murders, rumors that women were being raped. Many of the reports were exaggerated, but I knew enough were true. We passed on the word.
Twenty
CARRIE BISHOP
I’VE NEVER KNOWN HOW IT WAS PLANNED, OR WHO WAS IN charge. They were pledged to silence, and they keep their word even today. What I do know is that Rondal was gone most nights to the miners’ hall on Summers Street, or on the train to a local union hall up some holler. I never expected to be with him in the evenings.
Summer evenings in the city had a special charm. A cool breeze from the Kanawha River blew the daytime heat from the sidewalks, and the air softened. People came out to stroll along the brick streets and children flew by on rollerskates or played hopscotch. I liked to walk up Kanawha Street, past the elegant Ruffner Hotel and the three-story stone mansions set back beneath the trees. Rondal said they were mostly coal operators’ homes, but I liked to look at them anyway.
If I didn’t feel like walking far, I sat on the riverbank and watched the boats, looked in the store windows downtown or went to the stone library near the state capitol building. I didn’t have any money, but Rondal had a small salary from the union and he gave me quarters for ice cream sodas. On my birthday, he took the entire day off. We walked around the corner to Majors Book Store and he gave me a copy of Bleak House for a present. Then we took the streetcar to Luna Park, rode the merry-go-round and ate hot dogs. We ended the day with vaudeville at the Burlew Theater. I loved to be with him, but I didn’t mind being alone. He was happier than at anytime I had ever known him.
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