The Last Ballad

by Wiley Cash

  NOW IS THE TIME TO DO YOUR DUTY.

  Advertisement Paid for by the Council of Concerned Citizens of Gaston County

  Chapter Fourteen

  Brother

  Saturday, September 14, 1929

  It had begun, which is to say that it had begun again, on the evening he’d seen Ella May Wiggins. At first he had been satisfied with the homebrew wine the monks made in secret and kept in the monastery’s kitchen pantry. The brothers grew the grapes in an extensive system of arbors that threaded through a sunny glade in the middle of the woods not far from campus. A small, gurgling creek snaked along beneath the vines, the green tendrils often trailing in the water. It was not a secret place, but it was secret enough to remain unmolested by the college men and uninvestigated by the local police.

  Even after more than a decade of experimentation, the brothers had not yet mastered the art of fermenting grapes, and the wine that often resulted from their efforts bubbled with a yeasty carbonation. At night, Brother would lie burping in his cot in the monastery’s basement, the glaze of mild drunkenness having settled over him, the tiny chair he balanced on his chest rising and falling with each breath and belch. He’d stare into the darkness and ask himself what had first caused him to accept a drink after so many years, what caused him now to accept them still, what led him up the stairs from the basement and into the kitchen at night long after everyone had retired, what evil thing whispered in his ear and told him where to find the empty Mason jars to hide the wine.

  His heart had been shrouded in a once-forgotten guilt since first laying eyes on Ella back in the early summer. Since that night his waking moments had been shadowed by dark memories of a wasted time that he had tried to put away. The rot and loss of his life, which Brother had kept behind him for so many years, now threatened to suffocate him. Many times he’d thought of cutting a length of rope from the workhouse and walking into the woods in search of a suitable tree with a limb that appeared strong enough to support his weight and long enough to keep his feet from the earth as his body thrashed above the ground. And then, one afternoon, he’d been cleaning Father Gregory’s cell when he peered beneath the old man’s bed and found it: an old, seemingly unused Winchester 270, a dusty box of ammunition resting beside it. Finding the rifle gave him a new thing to think about during the night as he lay awake: he saw himself kneeling in the middle of the maze of arbors, the grapevines stirring in the breeze above him, the mouth of the rifle’s barrel propped beneath his chin, his outstretched arms balancing the length of it, his thumb resting on the trigger.

  And then, one day, the wine was no longer kept in the kitchen pantry. The monks no longer offered him discreet pours during meals. He wanted to ask about the missing wine, but he knew they suspected him of stealing what they had once so freely offered. Instead of taking the length of rope from the workhouse, he took a thin strip of wire and used it to pick the lock on the sacristy’s door inside the basilica. The wine there was used for communion and therefore authorized by law, shipped from Rome, and corked inside bottles.

  Throughout the hot, violent summer the monks followed the events of the strike and discussed it often. Brother knew of Chief Aderholt’s murder, the apprehension of Fred Beal and others, the destruction of the tent colony, Ella May’s ascendance to strike leader after the Local moved to Bessemer City. He tried to keep her from his mind, but his awareness of her, especially her proximity to him, pushed him toward drink, and after months of drinking the bubbly homebrew the smooth, rich communion wine was a revelation. By September he had begun making near-daily trips to the basilica, which was often unlocked and unattended, especially in the early mornings before Mass.

  Although it was mid-September and roughly three hundred students had returned to classes two weeks earlier, Brother did not encounter a soul that morning when he walked to the basilica. The empty Mason jar in his pocket bulged against his thigh like a tumor he was afraid of cutting free.

  Inside the basilica his steps echoed along the floor and lifted to the arched ceiling thirty feet above. Over the main altar, a statue of Mary, Help of Christians, stared down upon him with loving, forgiving eyes, the Christ babe held aloft in her arms. He passed beneath her gaze and walked between the monks’ pews toward the sacristy that sat in a walled section behind the altar, which offered him ample cover while he picked the lock. But when he turned the corner he found a new latch and padlock securing the door.

  He stepped back, stared at the new lock, imagined the monks speaking of the missing communion wine in quiet voices, their conversations ceasing upon his appearance. Of course they had noticed it. Of course they had considered him. Brother assumed that one of the younger monks, perhaps Father Elian, had come the evening before and used a hand crank to drill holes in the door for the latch as his spectacles slid down the bridge of his nose. The padlock key probably lay hidden somewhere in the monastery, and Brother’s mind cycled through all the probable hiding places, but there were too many for him to consider beginning a search, and there was simply no way a search could go unnoticed, especially since it was clear to Brother that they suspected him of being the thief.

  He passed beneath the statue of Mary again, stopped in front of the altar, and stared down the center aisle of the basilica. Dust motes floated through wafts of light that beamed through the small windows on the doors that kept the morning outside. The confessionals sat in the shadows on either side. To his right, in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, the light from the red candle wavered in its sconce. A wooden crucifix hung on the wall, the face of Christ downturned.

  If someone had discovered him they would have believed that he had fallen at the feet of Jesus in prayer, but Brother did not pray. Instead he picked at the lock on the tabernacle box with the scarred bit of wire, the chair he wore around his neck swinging like a pendulum before him. His hands sweated, his fingers shook. The light from the red candle licked the floor around him. He did not know how much wine the monks had blessed and set aside for the communion of the homebound and those who might need last rites at a moment’s notice; all he knew was that the lit red candle signaled that the wine was inside.

  He opened the box and peered inside, saw the crusty loaves and the glass pitcher, the dark wine catching the flickering light. He took the Mason jar from his pocket and unscrewed its lid, picked up the pitcher, and poured the wine into the jar until it overflowed the sides and ran through his fingers. He set the near-empty pitcher back inside, closed the box, and stood, stuffing the capped Mason jar back into his pocket.

  He walked along the shadows of the basilica’s west wall. Above him the morning sun illuminated the stained-glass windows that portrayed the lives of saints: Bernard, Patrick, Boniface. He’d almost reached the back wall of the basilica when something made him stop: the sound of feet coming up the steps outside, the basilica’s front door creaking open.

  Brother opened the door to the small confessional closet, stepped inside, and pulled it to behind him. It squealed, the noise of it echoing along the basilica’s floor. Brother closed his eyes tight and tried to slow his breathing. The footsteps continued into the basilica and stopped nearby. Whoever it was knew he was there. He was surprised to hear a woman’s voice.

  “Father?” she said. She waited. “Father? Are you there?”

  In his old life, Brother had asked this same question of God many times, and now he wanted nothing more than to offer this woman the same silence that God had always offered him, but she was persistent, and the more Brother tried to slow his breathing the more difficult it became. He swallowed, ran his dry tongue over his teeth.

  “Yes, child?”

  “May I give confession?”

  Inside the darkened closet, Brother placed his hands over his face and pressed his fingers into his eyeballs. He stayed that way until his breathing slowed.

  “Father?”

  “Yes, child,” he said. “Yes.”

  He listened as she opened the door and stepped inside, settled herself
only inches away from him. He slid open the screen that separated them from one another, stared down at his lap, did not raise his eyes to her. He pictured her as a dark-haired woman of middle age who smoothed her dress over her legs when she sat down, who wiped at the corners of her eyes where tears had already collected.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said. “It has been three weeks since my last confession.” She waited.

  He eased the wine-wet Mason jar from his pocket, careful not to drop it. He unscrewed the lid as quietly as possible, tipped it toward his lips. A drop of wine spilled onto his white shirt, blossomed like blood gushing from a wound. He took a sip. “Go ahead, child,” he said.

  “I am weak,” the woman said.

  Her northern accent surprised him. He took another sip of the wine.

  “We are all weak,” he said. “We are all human.”

  “I am weak because I fear my husband,” she said. “I remain silent while he commits violence and leads others to commit violence. And I know more violence will be committed today.” He heard her stir and resettle herself. “And I fear that someone might be killed.”

  Brother took another sip from the jar. “Have you gone to the police?”

  “The police?” she said. “They can’t save her.”

  “Who is she?”

  “That singer at Loray,” she said. “That woman Ella May.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ella May

  Saturday, September 14, 1929

  Ella was alone in the struggle now; at least it felt that way. Fred Beal and Carlton Reed and several other strike leaders remained in jail, charged with Aderholt’s murder. Sophia and Velma had been arrested and then freed for lack of evidence. They’d both left town, Sophia heading home to her parents in Pittsburgh, Velma back to New Jersey. Sophia had promised Ella that she would return as soon as possible, but Ella couldn’t wait for her, especially after the collapse of the Gastonia Local. She’d acted alone in opening the office of the Bessemer City Local, which she’d organized as an integrated branch of the National Textile Workers Union. Most of the members were from Stumptown, but a handful of Gastonia strikers had joined. Others had returned to Loray or moved on to other mills.

  Today’s rally in Gastonia had been organized by the national office. Party officials would be there, as would workers from mills in other parts of the state, all to show support for Beal and the jailed strikers. After how he’d treated Hampton and thwarted their attempts to integrate, Fred Beal was the last person Ella wanted to support. But she could not risk running afoul of the national office. The money Kate had given her was running out. She’d been able to piece together some kind of life from the meager funds that dripped down from New York, but she knew it wouldn’t last forever, because the strike wouldn’t last forever. Her only choice was to keep going, to try to recruit new members, to keep working to shut down the mills, to keep insisting that the union’s demands be met. If it worked, her life would change. She could go back to the mill, feed her children, take care of them if they got sick. If it all fell apart, she didn’t know what would happen.

  It seemed that summer had only recently come to a close, but the morning had begun cool and breezy. Ella wore John’s old jacket with the knowledge that it would be too warm to wear it by noon. She and Lilly stood with Violet and Iva on the side of the Kings Mountain Highway at the top of the mud road that led down into Stumptown. She’d been able to recruit two drivers with trucks to carry them into Gastonia for the rally. Aside from a fee of five dollars, the drivers had only one stipulation: no guns.

  The drivers, both of them farmers, one from Kings Mountain and one from Shelby, stood by their trucks, smoking cigarettes and speaking in low voices. Occasionally, one of them would look back at Ella as if making certain she was still there, was still willing to pay the men for this job. The rally was scheduled for noon, and the strikers were set to leave at 10 a.m. At this moment it was just Ella and Violet and the girls standing out by the road, but Ella knew others would come.

  “I’m cold,” Lilly said. She cupped her hands together, huffed her hot breath into them.

  “It’ll warm up,” Ella said. “And if it don’t you can make a fire in the chimney. There’s plenty wood.”

  “I don’t know how,” Lilly said.

  “Of course you do. It’s just like making a fire in the stove,” Ella said. “Otis knows how. He can do it. Tell him I said to do it.”

  “Okay,” Lilly said.

  Violet stood behind Iva. She had her arms around her younger sister’s shoulders to keep her warm. Violet’s eyes were closed. She hummed a tune. Iva stared at the two drivers smoking by their trucks. Violet stopped humming, opened her eyes, looked over at Ella, gave her a weak smile.

  “Thank you,” Ella said.

  “For what?” Violet asked.

  “For sticking with me through this. I bet you didn’t know what you were getting into.”

  “Don’t matter what I knew when,” Violet said. “I’m in it now.”

  Ella felt Lilly’s hand find its way into hers. The girl leaned against Ella, put her cheek to her stomach, stared down at the road. Ella’s belly had begun to grow round, but she was still thin enough that John’s old coat was able to hide it. She wondered what Lilly would think when she discovered that her mother was pregnant again, that there would be another mouth to feed by the time winter arrived, that this new child, like the rest of her children, would not have a father to claim as its own now that Charlie had finally disappeared.

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to Gastonia no more,” Lilly said. “I thought you said that.”

  “I won’t,” Ella said. “Not after today. Today’s the last day.”

  “But I don’t want you to go.”

  “Well, sometimes we don’t get what we want,” Ella said.

  “I want to go with you.”

  “No, you can’t go.”

  “But I want to.”

  “I need you to stay here,” Ella said. “Look after the babies. Tell Otis to make that fire. I’ll be back.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon or tonight, one. Soon as I can.”

  “Iva gets to go,” Lilly said.

  Violet stopped humming and opened her eyes. She looked at Lilly, and then she looked down at Iva.

  “Says who you’re going?” Violet asked her.

  “Mama said I could,” Iva said.

  “She ain’t never said that.” Violet looked up at Ella and shook her head. “She never said that.”

  “Shoot,” Iva said. She kicked at a rock. It rolled into the grass. “Thanks, Lilly. Thanks a lot.”

  Ella let go of Lilly’s hand and turned the girl’s shoulders so that they faced the road that led down into Stumptown.

  “Go on home,” she said. “Check on those babies. I’ll be back soon.”

  “I don’t want to,” Lilly said. She raised her face to Ella and reached for her hand again, looking as if she might cry. “I’m scared for you to go.”

  Ella didn’t want to admit it, not to herself and certainly not to Lilly, but fear had dogged her heart all night long and into the morning. She knew the primary fear was the fear of futility, the suspicion that nothing she could do today or tomorrow or the day after would change the events that comprised the course of her life and the future of the union.

  Less than an hour later enough bodies had arrived to fill the back of one of the trucks. Ella and Violet watched as colored women and men came up the road from Stumptown and white women and men came across the field from Bessemer City. By 10 a.m. fifty or so had gathered, plenty of bodies to make for a tight ride to Gastonia.

  “I hope you know what this means,” Violet said.

  She and Ella stood by the bed of the last truck, a man inside helping others get settled into spots. They’d all be standing during the trip. That was the only way for them to fit.

  “I hope it means something good,” Ella said.

  “I
t does, girl. This is your doing.”

  “Everybody else done it,” Ella said. “All I did was ask them.”

  Violet smiled and climbed up into the truck.

  Ella walked up the road and stopped in between the two trucks. She stepped into the grass on the shoulder so that she could see most of the people standing in the truck beds and most of them could see her.

  “I want to thank all of you for coming,” she said. “I’d like to be doing something else on a Saturday, but this is what we have to do, so we’ll do it.” Someone whistled from the lead truck. A few people clapped. Ella stopped speaking for a moment, looked up the road toward Bessemer City, and recalled what it had meant for her only five months ago to walk this road alone to the crossroads of West Virginia Avenue. What it had meant to wait for strangers to pick her up in an automobile and carry her to her first union rally. Who had that woman been? Who was she now?

  She looked back at the two trucks and saw Violet’s face peering out at her from in between the slats. “I didn’t join up in this union to be no kind of leader,” Ella said. “But the police and the bosses have either locked up our leaders or run them off somewhere. So, like I said, I ain’t no kind of leader, but I’m going to lead you now, and I need you to listen to me.

  “We’re about to leave here and go into town, where there are going to be hundreds of people, maybe thousands. Some of them are going to want us there, some of them aren’t, but there’s only two kinds of people you need to be on the lookout for today: the ones holding guns and the ones holding cameras. There ain’t no need to say a word to either of them, no matter what they say to you. We’re there to be seen. Let somebody else give interviews.” She smiled, tried to fight it, but found that she couldn’t stop. “Let somebody else get shot at.

  “I’m proud to stand alongside all of you,” she said. She looked at Violet. “I’m proud to be with my friends.”

  She walked to the back of the second truck, where Violet waited, her hand outstretched. Ella took Violet’s hand, climbed up, and stood beside her. The driver came around and slammed the tailgate shut. The engine fired on the first truck, then the second.