Page 84 (1/1)
The vet in the Great War saw pain and horror I can’t even ione into hiding Life, it seems to me, is all about loss, just a series of losses I kick a stone and kick it again
I was not just athe second time; with Ruben, I ed myselfI lash out at the stone a third ti into the ditch When I pullhurts badly but not as badly asI’ain The first star rests on the top of the ainst the lavender sky It’s funny how beauty rides the back of pain
It starts with a few tears, then co over rock, hard sobs, and hiccups Fearing Mr Maddock will co h the pasture until I come to a creek Here, in the woods, I fall backward into the dry grass, arms at my sides, a shell ofblack-and-white picture show begins
"I have to go, Lizbeth!" Ruben barked, pacing around the living room we shared with Mrs Kelly and Nora "There’s trouble in the West Virginia coalfields, and John Leants s down It’s for the workers It’s what I do, you know that!" (Lewis, Ruben’s old friend, was now the president of the UMWA, the United Mine Workers of America)
This was in 1921, a week or two after Sheriff Sid Hatfield, who’d stood up for the Matewan ood friend Ed Chambers They’d traveled to McDowell County to stand trial for charges of dyna a coal tipple, but were executed in front of their wives by a group of Baldwin-Felts agents standing at the top of the courthouse stairs Hatfield was killed instantly, and Chahtered with a shot to the back of his head
Word spread from mountaintop to dark hollow that Hatfield, the miners’ hero, had been regating along the Little Coal River, talking about revenge, about o County to free other radicals, end anize the nonunionized miners The plan didn’thas toabout this! Don’t go!" I pleaded Mrs Kelly was in the kitchen with Nora, trying not to listen "West Virginia is so violent, all you have to do is sneeze to be beaten and tossed in the tank!" But Ruben could never say no to John Lewis
Then Nora got involved and said the three of us could go with Ruben, make an adventure of it Mrs Kelly had no an to collect medical supplies and food for the camps The next day, I went down to Union Station for train tickets
It’s the dog days of August, h coalition clie on the banks of the Kanawha River Right ae can see there’s big trouble Close to ten thousand athered, and the men are armed with rifles and revolvers I’ve never been in such a crowd and the ly
Ruben and the other men from our coalition rush off to try to talk to the leaders, but no one will listen Urging theanizer He pushes Ruben aside Deep in the crowd, our friend Mother Jones stands on a dynamite box, but her back is turned and she doesn’t see us
"Tell your husbands and fatherstell thes are going and where theythehters and lovers, try, but it’s no good; the unionlike soldiers, wearing red bandannas around their necks, toward Logan and Mingo, the last of the nonunionized counties They’re going for the ive a damn!
Like an army of ants the mass moves south, thirteen thousand of theh on their own rage and one home when Ruben saas, but he still thinks he can do soood For one brief moment my husband and I hold each other He wears a red bandanna, like all the others, and I kiss it for luck "Love you," I say with s me around; then Nora, Mrs Kelly, and I lose track of hi with the an County, that all hell breaks loose The coal co white armbands, have built fortified positions at the top of Blair Mountain; their weapons, ht downhill Within oing off and the sh the crowd I catch sight of two men down on my lover One has his hands around Ruben’s throat
It wasn’t a bullet that killed my husband The truth is much worse I held the murder weapon, a rifle still ith blood, that I’d lifted fro blow, froun, used as a club andRuben’s chest with his hands around Ruben’s neck, crushed ious, and I meant to kill soo wide and snap shut as his life’s blood flows out of hiround, and I collapse as if the blow had hit me
"Lizbeth!" Nora yells and whips into action She crawls forward, dodging bullets, grabs the rifle, and throws it like a red-hot poker; it skitters on the road a, back into the crowd
Within hours ere hidden in the back of a Baptist preacher’s wagon, heading north toward Pittsburgh Two hundred men died that day Soain, and no one else knohat really happened but Mrs Kelly, who’s under the ground, and Nora, four thousand miles away
I untie my shoes and sink my feet into the cold creek water For years I have carried that rusted tin box of guilt with me Even if I trusted someone and explained that it had been an accident, ould I tell? If they’d never been in a riot or on a battlefield, experienced the chaos, the fear, and the guilt, hoould they understand?