The Midwife of Hope River (32 page)

“Milton did all the woodwork himself,” she explains. “He'll be home soon. He went into Delmont to the stock auction. Not to buy anything, just to listen and watch. The vet will be there too.” She says this as if she thinks I'd be interested, and I am, just a little.

39

Forgiveness

Hiking home up Wild Rose Road, I reflect on what I learned at our tea. Mrs. Maddock, who I thought was aloof and judgmental, is curious and graceful and gay. Mr. Maddock, who I thought was hard and unfeeling, is in fact passionately in love with his wife. The Patience I thought had to maintain her secrets . . . was today open and honest . . . up to a point.

 

I've had a difficult life, or I think I have, an orphan widowed twice before she was thirty, but how do you measure suffering? Sarah Maddock almost died of polio, lost the use of her legs, and had her baby given away. All four of Mrs. Potts's children died of yellow fever within one week. Mrs. Kelly suffered the loss of her husband and their only child and then, after a ten-year relationship, lost Nora to another woman.

The vet in the Great War saw pain and horror I can't even imagine. Bitsy lost her mom and then Thomas, who's gone 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 a widow the second time; with Ruben, I widowed myself . . . I lash out at the stone a third time and end up twisting my ankle and falling into the ditch. When I pull myself up, my leg hurts badly but not as badly as my heart.

Sometimes I've felt I was dreaming; this evening I'm awake and would like to crawl into dreams again. The first star rests on the top of the mountain. A whippoorwill sings. The bare trees are black against the lavender sky. It's funny how beauty rides the back of pain . . .

It starts with a few tears, then comes the flood again, muddy water raging over rock, hard sobs, and hiccups. Fearing Mr. Maddock will come home and see me sitting in the ditch crying my eyes out, I crawl over his rail fence and limp through 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 of myself. Behind my tear-filled eyes, a flickering black-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 Lewis wants me and a few of the others to go down there and settle things 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 miners and their families, was murdered along with his good friend Ed Chambers. They'd traveled to McDowell County to stand trial for charges of dynamiting 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 Chambers was slaughtered with a shot to the back of his head.

Word spread from mountaintop to dark hollow that Hatfield, the miners' hero, had been murdered in cold blood, and armed union men were already congregating along the Little Coal River, talking about revenge, about marching on Mingo County to free other radicals, end martial law, and organize the nonunionized miners. The plan didn't make sense, but that's the way of a mob. Nothing has to make sense.

“Please, Ruben. I have a bad feeling about 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 mothers due for two weeks, so we all began 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, muggy and hot, when our little Pittsburgh coalition climbs out of the passenger coach in Marmet, a village on the banks of the Kanawha River. Right away we can see there's big trouble. Close to ten thousand miners have already gathered, and the men are armed with rifles and revolvers. I've never been in such a crowd and the mood of the men is ugly.

Ruben and the other men from our coalition rush off to try to talk to the leaders, but no one will listen. Urging them on is Bill Blizzard, the fiery southern West Virginia organizer. 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 fathers . . . tell them there's no need for bloodshed!” she cries, seeing how things are going and where they may end. “Bring them to their senses!” The women, mothers and sisters, daughters and lovers, try, but it's no good; the union men's anger has already been ignited. They begin marching like soldiers, wearing red bandannas around their necks, toward Logan and Mingo, the last of the nonunionized counties. They're going for the mine owners, the bosses, anyone who opposes them. They don't give a damn!

Like an army of ants the mass moves south, thirteen thousand of them now, some say, over mountains and through valleys, high on their own rage and moonshine. We should have just gone home when Ruben saw how it was, but he still thinks he can do some good. 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 my hand on his cheek. He picks me up laughing and swings me around; then Nora, Mrs. Kelly, and I lose track of him and travel along with the medics.

It's on the third day, at the edge of Logan County, that all hell breaks loose. The coal company forces, wearing white armbands, have built fortified positions at the top of Blair Mountain; their weapons, machine guns and carbines, point straight downhill. Within minutes we're surrounded by men in hand-to-hand combat, guns going off and the smell of liquid courage on half the fellows' breath.

Through 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 wet with blood, that I'd lifted from a dead miner's hands. One slashing blow, from the butt of the gun, used as a club and meant for the man straddling Ruben's chest with his hands around Ruben's neck, crushed my lover's skull. Rage is contagious, and I meant to kill someone, just not my husband.

 

Ruben's brown eyes go wide and snap shut as his life's blood flows out of him, down around his red bandanna, onto the ground, 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 among the men's feet, and she drags me, screaming, back into the crowd.

 

Within hours we were hidden in the back of a Baptist preacher's wagon, heading north toward Pittsburgh. Two hundred men died that day. Some say three hundred. I never saw Ruben again, and no one else knows what 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, who would I tell? If they'd never been in a riot or on a battlefield, experienced the chaos, the fear, and the guilt, how would they understand?

 

Oh, Ruben
. . . I take a deep breath, blow away the sorrow. Above me a small bird in the naked branches preens in the last of the golden slanting light. Bitsy and I call her the “water bird” because of her song, like water in a brook running over the stones.

“Water bird,” I whisper, wiping my tears and pulling myself up on my knees, “these hands have killed and these hands have brought life into the world. If I were a religious woman, I would call upon God to ease my soul.”

I try to think what my prayer would be.
Light of the World, take this sorry heart and cleanse it. Take my sorry self and make me new. Forgive me . . . forgive me for everything . . .

I hold my work-worn mitts up into the fading sunlight, then bend over and wash them in the clear, cold creek water, wash away the guilt and sorrow. I cup the cold water and wash my face, wash away the tears, all those tears.
I once was lost, but now I'm found
. . . I sing the words we sang at the Wildcat Mine cave-in, then I lean back and stare up at the evening star.

A few years ago, I would have been afraid to lie in the leaves alone in the darkening woods. Now I find peace.

40

 

October 5, 1930. Rainbow around the almost full moon.

Another delivery, Carlin Hummingbird, 10 pounds! The third son of Addie and Norton Hummingbird, the Indian family of Dark Hollow. The baby was born without fuss in their log cabin along the creek. Mr. Hummingbird stayed in the kitchen, and Addie was very self-sufficient. I just rocked in a chair and Bitsy tended to everything, then we did the delivery together. Very little bleeding. No tears. Mrs. Hummingbird gave me a beaded basket that will be very nice for my knitting.

 

Target Practice

It's been a few cold rainy days, but around two, when the sun comes out, I see Bitsy, through the front window, lead Star out of the gate, heading, I imagine, toward the Hope River. She's been strange lately, running over to the Wildcat Mine and to Hazel Patch nearly every day. Twice I saw her sneaking food from the cupboard wrapped in a white dishcloth. If she wants to take food to Thomas, she doesn't need to tiptoe around. The fact is, though I haven't really admitted this to her, I miss her company, her puttering around the house, the sound of her voice.

“Bitsy!” I lock my journal and stuff it under the cushions, then throw open the blue door. “Bitsy! Can I come?”

She shrugs. “Okay,” she says, surprised, and pulls me up on the horse behind her.

 

Cloudless blue sky, smell of fallen leaves, the sound of the Hope roaring over its banks in the distance . . .

We clop along Wild Rose Road, riding double, and I wave to Mrs. Maddock, who sits in her wheelchair on her front porch. She's wearing her blank public face today, but she nods. If I hadn't had tea with her a few weeks ago, I would never have guessed the warmth that's inside her.

“Are you going to hunt?” I ask my companion, making reference to the gun balanced in its case over Star's neck. “What for? Ducks? Geese? Turkey?”

“Just target practice. I don't like to do it around the house. The sound of the rifle might irritate you.” She's probably right. I have been a little snappy lately.

I surprise myself when I ask her, “Will you show me how?”

Since Blair Mountain, I haven't touched a firearm and before that never, not even Ruben's Colt revolver.

I can't see my companion's face because she is sitting in front of me, but her back softens, like a smile, against my chest. “Sure. I didn't know you were interested.”

“I don't know if I am. I just want to feel what
you
feel when you shoot. I know you like it, and who knows, someday I might need to hunt for myself.” Bitsy shrugs as if she can't imagine such a thing, and that's the end of it until we get to the dirt path that winds down to the raging water.

“I have targets set up along the bank.” We slide off Star's back, lead her through the brush, and tie her to a small sycamore. On a rise where the willows thin out, my friend has nailed three old rusted signs to the trees: a red Coca-Cola sign with a soda jerk peeking out from behind the bottle, a green Case Tractor sign, and a Days Work Chewing Tobacco sign, all riddled with bullet holes. Scattered along the trunk of a fallen tree are tin cans, which we begin to set up.

“Where do you get these cans?” I break the silence. “We haven't had any store-bought food since that Heinz soup Hester gave us when he was injured.”

“Mildred saves them for me.”

“Mildred Miller? She knows you shoot?”

“Sure, I bring them a rabbit now and then. She makes a stew almost like Mama's.” This surprises me, as if Bitsy has another life, one I don't know about.

“Okay,” I say, banishing my dark reflections and adjusting my wire-rimmed specs. “Let's get going. What do I do?”

Bitsy is a patient teacher. She shows me how to load the rifle. She demonstrates how to stand sideways and aim through the sight. She shoots off a few rounds, perfectly knocking the cans off the logs.

“Now you try. Tuck the stock into your right shoulder where it fits.”

I experiment with a few places, but nothing seems right.

“Here,” she says and places the gun where she thinks it should be. “You'll have to get used to it. Put your other hand under the body of the rifle, aim down the barrel, then pull the trigger.”

I squint, dreading the loud noise.

“Hold it tight against your shoulder! Don't let it slip, or it will kick you in the arm.”

I swallow. Why is this so hard? It's supposed to be fun.

Boom!
The Favorite Sweet Corn can flips off the log!

“I hit it!” I'm dancing around.

“Hey, watch the gun!”

That clears my head. “Pretty good, huh?”

Bitsy smiles at my enthusiasm. “A born cracker shot.”

“Can I do it again?”

All afternoon, we take turns back and forth. My first shot, it turns out, was beginner's luck. It takes eleven more before I hit another can. “We better not waste any more bullets,” I say, cutting short the practice. “You might need them for hunting.”

“It's okay. Byrd will give me some more.” Byrd Bowlin again! I plunk down on the log, and Bitsy sits next to me, putting the rifle back into its case.

“It's serious with him, isn't it?”

She shrugs and gets a faraway look in her eyes. “He's my family now.” That hurts a little. I thought I was Bitsy's family. “Thomas isn't coming back, and Ma has gone to the other side.”

“Thomas is gone? I thought he was still hiding out in the mountains. Gone where?”

“Philadelphia. Last week Reverend Miller and I drove him to Torrington, where he hopped a freight train. He had a little cash set away and has already sent word through the reverend that he got a job driving electric streetcars.

“I told him the sheriff was probably going to drop the investigation after Katherine talked to him, but Thomas doesn't want to come back. Says it's too dangerous for any black man who wants to be something and mining's no life for him anymore.”

Black men and white, I reflect as I pick burrs off my trousers, work side by side in the mines, but a black can never supervise a white or use the heavy machinery. Negroes get the same pay but worse work. If he stayed, he would be handpicking coal forever.

“Thomas wants Byrd and me to come east,” Bitsy goes on. “Says he can get Byrd a job like his with the Atlantic Railway.”

My heart sinks. Truly that hurts me, that I wasn't included as one of the trusted few when Thomas left and that they are thinking of leaving, but I keep it to myself. “Do you and Byrd want to live in Philadelphia?”

“Maybe.” She stares toward the roaring Hope as a pair of mallards rise. “You could come too . . .”

For a minute I contemplate the idea. I used to think I'd do anything to go back to the city, but now I'm not sure . . . the noise, the crowded streets, the stench of the smoke from the factories.

“No, I lived in Pittsburgh and before that Chicago. I like it here now . . . the sound of the river, seeing the new leaves in spring, watching them turn colors and fly away in the fall.” This surprises me, that my exile is no longer a punishment. “So are you going? Going to Philly to live with Bowlin?”

“I'm thinking about it. I miss Thomas . . . And I have dreams.”

Dreams
. . . I let out my air. She has dreams. Of course. Bitsy is young and smart, why would she want to live at the end of Wild Rose in someone else's house forever? But what are my dreams? I've never had any. Just lived from one high or low, one triumph or catastrophe to the next.

Bitsy stands, collects her rifle, and unties Star as if ready to leave. “And it would be better work for Bowlin, driving a streetcar. I can't help remembering the cave-in at the Wildcat. How the emergency siren went on and on, ripping the sky. I was so scared . . . I'm seriously thinking about it.” She turns for the road, expecting me to follow, and leads the horse back through the brush.

I just sit there. One of the bullets has gone through my heart.