“Where you going, sweetie?” one of the volunteers said. “Whose legs is that sticking out of that wagon?”
“Hit’s my husband,” I said in my best plaintive voice. “He was out working his corn and a stray bullet hit him. Come offn the mountain there, I reckon. I tried to tell him not to go out with all the shooting, but he said the corn had to be got in.”
The man strolled over and flipped back the sheet with his rifle barrel.
“He’s in a bad way all right,” he agreed. “Where’s he hit?”
“Took in the back,” I said. “He cant move his legs none. I’m taking him in to Logan to the hospital.”
The man walked back around and stood near one of the mule’s heads. He fingered her bridle. “Can’t move his legs? Why, he won’t be no good to you at all, now, will he? Can’t hoe the corn and can’t cut the mustard.”
The other men laughed.
“Where you come from?” the other volunteer asked.
“Hewitt Creek,” I said.
“That right? Yall had a nest of rednecks over there lately, ain’t you? Been helping them out?”
“They stole from us,” I said.
“That right? Most of you people over on Hewitt are red yourselves, that’s what I hear.”
“I dont know nothing about red,” I said. “My man aint no miner, he just farms. I got to git him to the hospital. Will you let me by?”
“Why don’t you forget about him?” said the man closest to me. “He can’t do a thing for you now. Come on over beside the road and I’ll show you what a real man can do.”
They laughed except for the state policeman. He was only nineteen or twenty. I looked at him and he looked away. The man came closer. I leaned over and brought the pistol from under my skirt. It trembled as I pointed it at the man. He laughed.
“Darling, what can you do with that old thing? You can’t even hold it straight.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m so scairt, I might just aim at your feet to scare you and shoot off your pecker by mistake. Now you let me pass.”
His smile faded and he backed up. I held the pistol more steadily and pulled back the hammer with my thumb.
“Let her go,” the state policeman said. “This thing is over anyway.”
“That’s the hell of it,” the man said. “Pretty soon there won’t be any more fun.” But he stepped aside sheepishly.
I kept my gun on him, facing backwards and letting the mules go forward on their own, until they were out of sight.
At the top of the mountain so many men were in the road that I had to stop. They all wore white armbands. They stood in clusters and talked, drank what I suspected was whiskey from tin cups. Many others had started walking down the mountain, and while I was grateful that they paid little attention to me, I could not get by them. They walked slowly as though to prolong their adventure, stopped frequently to wave their hands and laugh.
Then, after what seemed an eternity, I passed the car.
It was a large dark green touring car with a spacious back seat. A man and woman stood beside it, pads and pencils in their hands. I was surprised to see the woman. She wore a stylish gray suit and hat, and looked cool despite the heat. She smoked a cigarette.
I pulled up beside them.
“Who are yall?” I asked.
“Press,” the man said. “New York Times and the New York Tribune. Yall ever heard of them there?”
The woman flicked ash from the tip of her cigarette and gave him a withering look.
“That yall’s car?” I asked. “Yall going to Logan anytime soon?”
“Right away,” the woman said in a strange, clipped accent. “It appears it’s all over up here.”
“I got a man in my wagon, hurt real bad. I’m trying to git to Logan. Will you ride us in your back seat?”
“Certainly,” the woman said.
The man sighed and looked at the wagon with a dubious expression.
“Wait,” I said. I jumped down and went to Rondal. Unconscious, pulse slow but steady.
The woman looked over my shoulder.
“What happened to him?”
“He’s shot in the back. He’s paralyzed.”
“Is he—”
She saw something in my face and didn’t finish her question.
“Please,” I whispered. “Ifn somebody here recognizes him, they’ll kill him sure.”
We lifted him out, board and all. I hated to move him again, but told myself the damage was already done. I had to turn him on his back and bend his knees before he would fit in the car.
I quickly sold the wagon and mules to a dozen men who wanted to ride off the mountain, and returned to the car.
“You want to sit up front?” the woman asked.
I shook my head, self-conscious because it was so hot and I had not been able to bathe for days. I squeezed into the back beside Rondal and rested his head in my lap. He mumbled but didn’t wake up. I stroked his temples. When I looked up, the woman had turned and was watching me. I blushed and looked away.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Tears slipped down my cheek and I cried. The car moved forward and the man blew the horn to clear a way. The men in the road scattered, probably assuming we were someone important.
They told me their names but I forgot them at once. I gave them mine but wouldn’t tell them who Rondal was. They both lived in New York; the man was originally from Baltimore.
“You going to tell our side?” I asked.
“She will,” the man said. “She’s practically a damn Bolshevik herself.”
The woman laughed. She had taken off her hat and her hair was black and curly.
“We aren’t Bolsheviks,” I said, careful of my grammar. “We’re all kind of things.”
The woman took out a pad and pencil. “Why don’t you tell me about it? I won’t be sending this out because they’re censoring us in Logan, and listening in on our telephone calls. But I’ll hide my notes and write them up after I return to New York.”
I was glad to talk, to keep the worry away. Sooner than I expected we came down off the mountain, drove through the coal camp at Ethel. Then we reached the outskirts of Logan.
“You say there are people here who might recognize your friend?” the woman asked.
“Oh, yes. There’s lots from Justice County up here, we heard. And the Baldwin-Felts guards, some of them know who he is.”
“Some men were murdered in the jail,” she said. “They were ordered up on the mountain to fight but they wouldn’t take up arms against the union. So they shot them.”
I was frightened but said nothing.
The man shook his head. “This is a hell of a place you’ve got here.”
“Who made it that way?” I said sharply, tired of his smart-aleck attitude.
“Not me,” he said.
“Leave her alone, George,” the woman said. She turned to me. “What will you do now? Put him in the hospital?”
“I’m scairt to. Hit’s the coal operators’ hospital. Besides, I want to take him home to Kentucky. I got a brother with a coal company. I figure he’s in town. I aim to find him.”
“If he’s with the operators, he’s probably at our hotel. That’s where they all are. The Aracoma.”
We couldn’t park in front of the hotel. Downtown Logan looked like the Fourth of July, there were so many people, and American flags everywhere. We finally found a place near the railroad depot. A train filled with brown-shirted soldiers had just arrived, and the people in the street stopped to applaud.
“Fortieth Infantry,” said the man. “We were told they’ve got mortars on that train, and 37 millimeter guns, big ones. Knock holes in these hills of yours.”
“Why dont you go look for your brother?” the woman said. “We’ll stay here with your friend.”
I was frightened to leave Rondal. But it occurred to me that anyone who saw him in such a fancy car would assume he was one of the coal operators’ men. I walked dow
n Cole Street to the hotel.
The hotel lobby was packed with men eating supper. It was home-cooked food served up by stout, beaming ladies. Miles was nowhere to be seen. A clerk at the desk told me he was in Room 311, and that was where I found him. He had been sitting on the bed reading a book.
“Carrie! What on earth are you doing here?”
“I need your help, Miles. I need it real bad.”
He led me to a stuffed chair.
“Sit down here and tell me what’s wrong.”
“Hit’s Rondal Lloyd. You recall Rondal? The organizer you kicked out of Vulcan eight years ago?”
He frowned. “I’m afraid that I do. Jesus, Sis, you aren’t messed up with him again! You aren’t—” He looked me up and down. “You’ve been on the mountain. Why didn’t Ben tell me?”
“Because he thinks I’m still yet in Charleston. Miles, I’m desperate. Rondal got shot and he’s real bad off. He’s paralyzed. I got him out in a car near the depot. They’s some New York reporters looking after him. You got to help me git him out of here before somebody recognizes him. Help me git him on a train for home.”
“Oh, Lord. How do you get in these messes?”
“I aint got time for no lectures. He’s a-laying there in that hot sun.”
“I wasn’t planning on leaving until tomorrow morning. Last regular train left about an hour ago. But I could go tonight. Lytton Davidson has a private train pulling out around eight-thirty. But getting an organizer on there, I don’t know.”
“You can say he’s one of your employees. They’ll take your word for it.”
“Well, we can try.”
I threw my arms around him. His hair was neatly trimmed close to his ears and his neck smelled of cologne.
We stopped outside the ballroom downstairs.
“You had supper?”
“I aint et since this morning.”
“Plenty of food in there.”
“I wouldnt eat their food.”
“But you’ll ride on their train.”
“That’s different. Hit’s for Rondal.”
We went into a restaurant and bought sandwiches, and soup for Rondal. At the depot, the woman said, “He’s awake and asking for you.”
I introduced Miles and they shook hands all around. Then we lifted Rondal out of the automobile and laid him in the shade. I knelt beside him and felt his forehead, rummaged through my bag for a thermometer.
“The train’s over on the siding,” Miles said. “I’ll go see if we can take him on board.”
“We’d better be going,” said the woman. She took my hand and smiled. “Good luck.”
“I cant thank you enough.”
“Well,” said the man. “Happy Labor Day.”
“What?”
“Labor Day. Tomorrow’s Labor Day. Isn’t that ironic?”
Rondal’s temperature was 103. I poured water on a cloth and wiped his face.
“Dont give me no more shots,” he said.
“But the pain—”
“Hit’s settled down some. Hit’s tight in my chest is the worst part. The rest dont feel at all. Please. I’m scairt I might die while I’m asleep.”
“You’re holding up real well. Maybe you aint going to die.”
“Up on the mountain there, I wanted to die. Just for that moment, I wanted it. And now I dont, even with my legs gone. Aint that funny?”
His voice faded, even without the morphine, and he slept again. Miles returned with another man and they carried him to the train.
“Why dont you keep him in the hospital here?” the man asked. “He looks about done for.”
Miles looked at me.
“Doctor’s seen him and said they done all they can. And he wants to go home. I reckon he’s got a better chance there anyway.”
“Legs don’t work, huh? Poor bastard.”
They carried him to a car toward the back of the train that was done up like a setting room and laid him on a desk. I tucked a blanket around him.
“More room here,” the man said, and left. I sank onto a chair beside Rondal.
“Who was that?”
“Works for Malcolm Denbigh, Davidson’s number two man.” Miles smiled. “Denbigh’s English and that fellow is his interpreter.”
He unwrapped a turkey sandwich and handed it to me.
“Will you be in trouble?” I asked.
“Naw. I told them Rondal was one of my men who volunteered. They’ve got no reason to disbelieve it. In fact, they were impressed. Even gave us Lytton Davidson’s study here to stretch out in. Davidson’s not here. He went to White Sulphur Springs when things got hot.”
“Water,” Rondal said.
I jumped up to give him some and helped him sip tomato soup through a straw. I scarcely noticed when the train left the station.
The door opened and a tall man in a brown suit entered. He had a long heavy head and a wide nose.
“So this is the brave fellow,” he said loudly, as though Rondal was deaf. Rondal turned his head and stared.
“This is Malcolm Denbigh,” Miles said. He looked uneasy. “This is my sister, Carrie. She’s been on the mountain today nursing our boys.”
“My dear girl! Do you mean they wouldn’t let you stay in town to perform your duties?”
“Someone had to go,” I said. I glanced at Rondal. To my surprise he was smiling. I looked away quickly.
“A genuine Florence Nightingale,” Denbigh was saying. “I do admire your courage. My own wife thought it a chore to see me off on the train at four in the morning. But here’s the truly brave fellow.” He strolled over to Rondal. “What a shame you had to take a bullet. But I’ll bet you gave those reds a rough time of it. It is an honor to shake your hand.”
He stuck out his hand. Rondal looked at it.
Miles twisted on his chair. “He doesn’t move his arms well,” he said in a high voice.
Rondal reached into his pocket and fished out his red bandana, laid it across his chest. Then he pumped Denbigh’s hand before the astonished man had time to move.
“You’re a motherfucking son of a bitch,” Rondal said. He smiled sweetly.
Denbigh dropped his hand and backed away.
“What is this?”
“Oh, lordy,” Miles croaked.
I stood in front of Rondal in case Denbigh called a gun thug.
“Bishop, did you know about this?”
“This is my sister’s—my sister’s—”
“I’m carrying his child,” I said.
Miles stared at me.
“I was going to tell you. And I dont apologize. I’m proud of it.”
“I want him off this train!” Denbigh demanded.
“I can’t put my sister off.”
“She can stay, but he goes.”
“I go where he does,” I said.
“Bishop!”
“I can’t put my people off this train,” Miles said.
“This is Lytton Davidson’s train,” Denbigh said grimly.
“I don’t care if it belongs to the President of the United States,” Miles said. “That man is gravely wounded. If you put him out and he dies, I’ll swear out a warrant on you.”
Denbigh stood in the middle of the room and cracked his knuckles.
“You’re as ignorant as the rest of them,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust a goddamn one of you. I think I’ll post a letter to Boston. The good gentlemen who own Imperial Collieries will be interested to know where your sympathies lie. Then you can go back to slopping the hogs.”
He turned on his heel and left.
Miles pointed a finger at Rondal. “Who gave you the right to do that? After what I’ve done for you.”
“I done saved your soul,” Rondal said. “Even the preacher didnt do that.”
“You’re raving!”
“No, hit’s you. You stood up there and testified.” Rondal’s fingers plucked restlessly at his blanket. “That man done murder when he was the boss man at Winco. I seen it w
ith my own eyes. He had a Negro tossed into a furnace.”
“God.”
Miles flung open the door of the car as though to leave, but then he stood there.
“I can’t face them,” he said.
“You can be here with us,” I said. “You could work in that bank. You could start up a store. You could teach at a school, or run for office.”
“Don’t talk to me any more. I just want to think.”
Rondal’s breathing was more labored and I bent over him.
“You want another shot?”
He shook his head and worked his lungs, his mouth open. Finally he relaxed and shut his eyes, and I thought he slept. But when the train stopped at a station he opened his eyes.
“Where are we?”
I looked out at the lighted platform, empty save for two guards with rifles, read the sign.
“Annadel,” I said. My throat hurt. “We must have come through Peelchestnut Tunnel. We’re at Annadel.”
The train moved forward.
“I want to look out the window,” he said. “I want to see one last time.”
“Rondal, hit’s nighttime. Hit’s dark.”
“Please.”
Miles stood up wearily and helped me move the desk close to the window. The train window was a rectangle of flat blackness. Then the car swayed with us and a pinpoint of light blinked like a fallen star.
“There’s the farmhouse,” Rondal said. “We just went through the cut and that there’s the Justice farm. And the tents over yonder.” He smiled.
He fell asleep before we reached Davidson. His temperature rose to 104. I checked his pulse, then settled into a chair with his hand in my lap.
“Are you really going to have a baby?” Miles asked from the corner.
“Yes. Probably in the early spring.”
He lit a kerosene lamp on the table beside him. His face was a white mask with large black hollows for eyes.
“You remember when we were younguns?” he asked. “Remember when I kilt that dog?”
Twenty-five
CARRIE BISHOP
HE WAS BITTER AND HATEFUL MUCH OF THE TIME. HE SPOKE harshly to Flora’s children when they came to visit. They called him “the mean man,” and little Rachel was frightened of him.
Sometimes he could be kind. From his bed he watched me drag my heavy belly around while I cooked and cleaned. He fretted because I must do so much.
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