Coal River (29 page)

He frowned, confused. “What was me?”

“You were the one who threw my locket out on the ice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about my brother, Albert. You remember him, don’t you?”

Frank unfolded his arms. “What does your brother have to do with this? And why in the world are you bringing that up now?”

“You owe me.”

“You want an apology? Now?”

“That would be a good place to start,” she said.

“Emma . . .” he said, shaking his head. “That was the past. You’re in trouble here. Now. Today. You need to—”

“No,” she said. “It’s not the past. I live with it every day. And I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if my brother were still alive.”

Frank sat on the edge of the desk, and his eyes dropped to the floor. “I was just a boy.”

“Albert was just a boy too. Two or three years younger than you as I recall. You knew that river ice was dangerous because you grew up here. Albert didn’t. He thought it was safe.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know he would go after the locket. I thought. . . I don’t know what you want me to say. If I could go back and change things, I would. It was an accident.”

“No,” she said. “It was your fault. And still, even after what you did to Albert. Even after everything you’ve put me and my family through, I risked my life to save yours, twice. I even took a bullet for you.”

“I know,” he said, his brow furrowed. He went around the other side of the desk and sat down. “All I can do is offer to help you now, if I can. What more do you want?”

“You know I didn’t do anything illegal.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But that’s not going to get you very far during a trial. Nally is a member of the Molly Maguires. He’ll hang without a formal trial. There were a lot of witnesses, so there’s no way he’ll get off. And I’ve never seen Mr. Flint like this. He’s so broken up over losing Levi, I thought he was going to need to be sedated. He’s lost everyone now. First the nursemaid kidnapped his second son, then his wife committed suicide, and now Levi has been murdered.”

“Don’t ask me to feel sorry for him.”

“I’m not, but Mr. Flint wants someone to pay. And unless you want to be hanging from a rope next to Nally, you better tell me what you were doing in the mine. The only way I can help is if you tell me the truth.”

“I’ll tell you the truth if you promise to do something for me.”

He looked doubtful. “What?”

“Promise me first.”

“I’m not promising anything until I know what you’re asking.”

“I just need you to mail something for me, that’s all.”

“That’s it?”

She nodded.

He stared at her for a long time, clenching and unclenching his jaw, his temples working in and out. Then he leaned back in the chair, eyeing her suspiciously. “All right. I’ll do that for you. Now tell me what happened.”

“I was in the mine taking pictures,” she said. “There was a cave-in, and Nally dropped the torch I was using for light. I didn’t know he had a gun, or that he was planning on shooting anyone. I just used him to get into the mine. Clayton knew I was going into the mine, but he didn’t know Nally had a gun either. That’s the truth. I swear on Albert’s soul.”

“So you cut off your hair and dressed like a miner just to take pictures?” he said. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“What were you taking pictures of?”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, unsure of how to continue. She couldn’t think of a lie that sounded believable. It wasn’t likely that she’d cut off her hair and risk her life for a photography hobby.

“It’s Uncle Otis’s camera,” she said. “I stole it so I could take pictures of the breaker boys and the nippers and spraggers.”

“Why?”

She moved to the edge of the chair. “Please, I just need you to mail the film for me. That’s all.”

He shook his head. “Not until you tell me the rest.”

“It’s for a good cause, I promise,” she said. “And we had a deal, remember? Just do the right thing for once, will you?”

“What did you think? That you could help the miners get what they want by sending pictures to your friends in New York?”

She kept a straight face, despite the fact that he’d figured everything out so quickly. “No,” she said.

“You’re being naïve if you think anything is going to change around here.”

“Then it won’t matter if you help me.”

“Where have you been staying?”

“Why does it matter?”

“You said you’d tell me the truth.”

“With Clayton.”

He swore under his breath, and red blotches bloomed on his face.

“Please,” she said. “Just mail the film for me. No one has to know.”

He exhaled heavily. “To who?”

She dropped her eyes and picked at the blackened skin around her thumbnail.

Frank sat forward. “Quit pussyfooting around and just tell me what the hell you’re up to. You might not believe this, but I don’t want to see you strung up by the neck any more than you do.”

Outside the office door, the front entrance to the jailhouse opened and closed. Heavy footsteps tromped across the wooden floor.

“Captain Bannister?” a man called out. It was Hazard Flint.

Moving fast, Frank yanked open the desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of stationery with the jail letterhead. He dipped a pen in an inkpot and poised it over the paper, ready to write. “Where do you want me to send the film?” he said.

“To the editor of the
New York Times
.”

He hesitated, scowling. “Why?”

“You said you’d help me.”

“What’s the address?” he said impatiently.

“One Times Square,” she said, starting to shake. “New York, New York.”

Before Frank could write the information down, the door handle turned and the door started to open. He dropped the pen, hurried around the desk, and stood over Emma. Mr. Flint entered and closed the door behind him, leaning hard on his cane, his left arm in a sling. He looked shriveled and sick.

“What the hell is going on in here?” he snarled. “Why is she out of her cell?”

“I’m questioning her,” Frank said. “She was just getting ready to tell me what she was doing in the mine.”

Mr. Flint made his way into the room and stood at the end of the desk, his face drawn with anger and misery. “You’re not a lawyer!”

“I’ve had previous run-ins with this prisoner,” Frank said. “I’ll get the truth out of her. Just let me do my job.”

“Do whatever you want to her then,” Mr. Flint said. “Just make sure she’s alive when it comes time to string a rope around her neck.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if he were in pain, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “What a hellacious mess we’ve got on our hands.”

“Any progress at the mine?” Frank said.

Mr. Flint shook his head. “Twenty-four men escaped with minor injuries, but we can’t get the fire out to reach the others.”

Emma took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, overwhelmed by a strange mixture of relief and despair. Twenty-four were now safe, but how many more were going to die?

“Miss Malloy knows how it started,” Frank said. “And she was just getting ready to tell me what she knows about Nally.”

“Save it for the trial, if there is one,” Mr. Flint said. “You don’t want to give her any ideas on how to change her story!”

“But she could lead me to other Mollies through Nally’s cohorts,” Frank said.

Mr. Flint stood silent, as if trying to decide what to do. “All right, but write down every damn word she says!” Then he swayed and grabbed the edge of the desk. Frank pulled the chair around and helped him into it.

“You all right, boss?” Frank said.

Mr. Flint leaned back in the seat, breathing hard. “I’ll be . . .” he started. But then his lip trembled and he shook his head, unable to speak.

Despite her hatred for the man, Emma’s throat tightened. She knew the agony of grief all too well, and seeing it break down this tyrant only proved its power.

“I know you don’t believe me, Mr. Flint,” she said. “But I’m truly sorry about Levi. His death was a tragedy. He seemed like a good man.”

Mr. Flint blinked at her with crusty, bloodshot eyes. He looked as though he might scream, or yank out a gun and shoot her dead on the spot. But to her surprise, his face crumpled in on itself. He took a handkerchief out of his vest pocket, his shoulders convulsing.

“Yes,” he said. “My son was a good man. A better man than I’ll ever be. And I never told him. . . .” His voice caught, and he couldn’t go on.

Emma swallowed. Now that Mr. Flint had lost his son, maybe she could reason with him. If there was one thing she knew for sure, grief had a way of changing people. Maybe he would finally see that putting other people’s sons in danger was wrong. “I know it’s not the same as losing your child,” she said. “But I have some idea how much pain you’re in. I lost my brother. And my parents. That’s why it’s so hard for me to understand what’s happening in Coal River.”

As if suddenly coming to his senses, Mr. Flint shook his head. He wiped his cheeks and pushed himself to his feet. “You should have thought about that before you brought in a radical mine striker,” he snarled. Then he stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket, brushed past her, and started toward the door.

Emma clenched her jaw, berating herself. What was she thinking? A heart made of stone could never be changed. She turned in her chair. “Now you know what the parents of dead breaker boys suffer,” she said. “You’re feeling the same pain. The same grief.”

Mr. Flint froze midstride and spun around. “Was that your plan? To teach me a lesson?”

“No,” she said. “I would never wish the death of a loved one on anyone, not even someone as greedy and vile as you.”

“How dare you?” he yelled. “My boy is dead because of you!”

“Have you ever asked yourself how many mothers and fathers have lost their boys because of you?” she said.

With that, Mr. Flint stormed toward her, his face wild. She leapt to her feet and backed away, her heart kicking in her chest. He herded her into a corner and raised his cane to strike her, his lips pulled back, his teeth bared. She lifted an arm to protect herself, cowering between the wall and a wooden cabinet.

“Stop!” Frank yelled.

Mr. Flint brought down the cane, aiming for Emma’s head. Frank grabbed the cane and stopped it in midair.

“She’s not the reason Levi is dead,” Frank said. “And that won’t help us find out the truth.”

Lowering the cane and breathing hard, Mr. Flint glared at Frank for a long time. Then he grunted and staggered across the office, grabbing the desk and chair to steady himself as he went. Finally he disappeared through the door and Emma breathed a sigh of relief.

Frank gaped at her. “Are you out of your mind? That man can hang you without a trial! Do you understand that?”

On wobbly legs, Emma left the corner and went back to the chair. “Then I don’t have much time. Give me a piece of paper. I need to write a letter to send with the film.”

Frank gave a frustrated shake of his head. “It’s not going to do any good.”

She sat down and looked up at him. “Are you going to help me or not?”

He swore under his breath and fetched a piece of paper from the drawer. Emma calmed her trembling hands and wrote as fast as she could without smudging the ink as Frank watched from the other side of the desk. In the letter, she explained where the pictures were taken, and that Hazard Flint was breaking Pennsylvania child labor laws. She said he was taking shortcuts in the mine and murdering anyone who opposed him. She described how she had gone undercover as a breaker boy and miner’s butty. Then she paused for a second, remembering that Levi was trying to change things. She added that to the letter, not wanting to sully his name. But Hazard Flint wasn’t the only guilty one. Some of the other bosses, including her uncle, had broken the law too. She signed her name at the bottom, picked up the letter, blew on the ink to dry it, and folded it in thirds.

“I need an envelope,” she said.

Frank reached for the letter. “Let me read it.”

“No,” she said. “You’re doing the right thing this time, remember?”

For a moment it looked like Frank would refuse, but then he dropped his arm with a grimace, and searched in the desk for an envelope.

CHAPTER 28

A
t dawn the next morning, the rattle of a key in a lock startled Emma awake in her cell. She sat up and looked toward the door. No one was there. The cellblock was dark except for a thin, yellow glow coming from a single ceiling lamp at the far end of the corridor. Briefly, she wondered if she was dreaming. She had been dosing in fits and starts all night, alternating between furious nightmares and dreams of her parents and Albert. At times she felt like she was drifting in and out of consciousness, not sure where the dreams ended and the all-too-real nightmares began. Then she realized the sound of keys was coming from the next cell.
Clayton’s cell
. She swung her legs over the cot and rushed to the door. The only thing she could see was the back of a guard from one side. An iron door screeched open, and the guard disappeared into the cell.

“Is that you, Frank?” she called.

No one answered.

Heavy footsteps crossed the cell floor, a metal cot creaked, and it sounded like a body was being moved and lifted. Then the guard reappeared, a man’s bloody arm draped over his shoulders. Boots scraped across the floor, and a man groaned. Two guards half carried, half dragged Clayton past Emma’s door. Neither of them were Frank.

“Clayton!” she cried.

He didn’t answer. The cold fingers of fear clutched Emma’s throat.

“Where are you taking him?” she shouted.

Then Frank appeared in front of her cell, making her jump. “Mr. Flint wants him moved to the infirmary.”

“How come?” she said.

“He wants the satisfaction of seeing him hang at the end of a rope.”

“Are you saying there’s a chance he might die from the gunshot?”

“Hard to tell,” Frank said. He sounded deflated. “Depends on how hard he’s willing to fight, I guess.” He started to walk away.

“Wait!”

He came back. “Now what?”

“Did you mail the film?” she whispered.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and disappeared from view.

Frank’s footsteps echoed across the stone block, then a heavy door screeched open and slammed closed. Emma turned back into the cell, fell onto the cot, and put her face in her hands. Clayton had to survive the gunshot. The alternative was unthinkable. Then again, what was the point of surviving if he was just going to be hanged? She closed her flooding eyes and tried to quiet her racing thoughts. But once her tears started, she was helpless to stop. She pictured Albert and her parents, and sobbed out loud. She wept for the orphans, for the mothers and fathers who had lost children, for the miners still trapped in the mine, for the dead and maimed breaker boys, and for all the others suffering in this town to satisfy Hazard Flint’s greed.

She prayed for exhaustion to overtake her, to release her into sleep. But it was no use.

 

Over the next few days, the pounding of hammers and the scraping of saws filled the stone jailhouse. Carpenters walked back and forth in front of Emma’s cell, carrying timber, tools, rope, and carriage bolts. They laughed and joked, milling about during dinner breaks, asking the guards if they’d be allowed to witness the executions. Frank stopped outside her cell door to tell her the carpenters were building a gallows in the center of the block, and to give her updates about the mine. Every day, she sat on her cot and leaned against the wall, hugging her knees and alternating between crushing sorrow, pulse-pounding fury, and panic. Every so often the wound on her arm started bleeding again, but any pain was eclipsed by terror.

The news from the mine was horrific. Seventeen men and boys were still missing. Rescuers had found two dead mules in the shaft, and the overwhelming presence of lethal levels of black damp left little hope for any trapped miners. A fan powered by a steam donkey engine arrived a few hours after the accident to ventilate the tunnels, and they had sent a canvas hose into the mouth of the mine to pump down air and establish fresh air bases. But by late afternoon the day after the explosion, rescue crews had only succeeded in advancing seventy-five feet down the gangway, despite the ventilation. They found the ventilation furnace and an adjacent pile of coal blazing, which stalled efforts to circulate air deeper into the mine. Since debris in the shaft had blocked normal ventilation, black damp continued to be produced at lethal levels. Water piped from the surface finally extinguished the fire and, eventually, with the help of downcast fan ventilation, successive fresh air bases were established. By four a.m. the next day, workers were able to move down the shaft, several hundred feet inward. There, the first two victims were discovered, their bodies bloated, blood oozing from their mouths. It was the inside foreman and a young mule driver.

By the fourth day, rescuers arrived at the east gangway, a crosscut off the passageway where the cave-in occurred. A hundred feet in, they encountered a makeshift barrier of coal, rock, scrap wood, mud, and canvas. The trapped miners had apparently constructed the barrier in an attempt to stop the infiltration of black damp. But when the rescuers pierced the barrier, they found the bodies of nine men and boys who appeared to be asleep. A father was found embracing his son, some men held hands in prayer, and others leaned against gangway walls. Some seemed to have struggled for a final breath, their faces buried in the coal dust of the floor or wrapped in shirts, their eyeballs protruding, blood dried around their mouths and noses. There was little hope that the remaining six missing miners would be found alive.

With every report, Emma wished she had died in the mine. All those miners, all those boys, dead, in part because of her. Maybe she deserved to be hanged.

When the carpenters finished building the gallows, guards set up chairs in the cellblock, lining them across the floor in straight rows. Watching through her cell door, Emma struggled against the writhing coil of panic that threatened to cut off her air. What about the trial? Frank would have told her if all three of them were going straight to the gallows, wouldn’t he? And if there wasn’t going to be a trial, who were they going to hang first? Nally? Or Clayton, before he died from his wounds? After all, he was the connection between her and Nally. Maybe they blamed him for everything. Or maybe they were going to hang her first because she had snuck into the mine, and obviously had something to hide. She went back to her cot and waited, trying not to be sick.

Three hours later, the jailhouse was filled to standing-room only with men in suits, women dressed in their Sunday best, and the entire regiment of the Coal and Iron Police in full uniform. They talked and chattered and gossiped in rising and falling waves, filling the stone space with an electric current of tense expectation, nervous excitement, and a droning murmur, like a million bees buzzing inside a giant hive. Emma watched from her cell door, trembling in the grip of impending doom.

Then Frank appeared in front of her cell, unlocked the door, and ordered her to step out. She did as she was told, every beat of her heart like an explosion beneath her rib cage. She was shocked to see Nally already on the gallows platform, high above the cellblock floor. They’d cuffed his hands behind his back and tied his feet together. His brow was bloody and bruised, his lip split, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Two Coal and Iron Police stood beside him looking out over the crowd, their faces void of emotion. Armed guards stood on either side of the scaffold.

Two other guards dragged Clayton up the aisle toward the front row. His skin was gray, his face pinched in pain. He was wearing a shirt, but it was only buttoned at the collar, and the left sleeve was empty. His arm was bandaged tight to his body beneath the shirt, and his chest was wrapped in white cloth. He looked like he was struggling to stay awake. Emma’s bowels turned to water and she gasped for air, fighting the flood of terror rising in her throat.
They’re going to hang us all!

Frank handcuffed her and led her toward the gallows. She stumbled beside him on rubbery legs.

“What about the trial?” she cried.

“They held a quick trial this morning,” he said. “This is what Mr. Flint would have wanted.”

“What do you mean, what he would have wanted? Where is he?” Emma scanned the crowd for Mr. Flint but didn’t see him.

“Mr. Flint is unwell right now. The Coal and Iron Police, the mine supervisors, and the foremen made the final decision in his place.”

“But you can’t let them do this! You can’t just . . .” Emma gagged on her words, unable to continue.

“Be quiet,” Frank said, his voice hard.

Above her, spectators filled the second-floor walkway, looking down with curious eyes.
This can’t be happening,
she thought.
Maybe I’m having a nightmare. Maybe I’m asleep.
She tried to think of something she could do, some action she could still take to save them. But she couldn’t think of anything. Frank pushed her into a wooden chair at the end of the first row and stood beside her, his face set, his arms behind his back. The other guards put Clayton in a seat on the other end of the row, propping him against the backrest as if he were a rag doll. Clayton’s head kept dropping to his chest. A guard stood beside him, nudging him to stay upright.

The wooden gallows soared above the floor at the end of the cellblock. Two front beams of the scaffold formed a cross that faced the audience, and thick wooden stairs led up to the platform. Above it, three beams formed the hanging frame that reached above the second level of the jail, like a swing set built for giants. A thick brown rope hung from the horizontal crossbeam. At the end of the rope was a noose.

Emma felt like she was going mad.
Who are they going to hang after Nally?
she thought
. Clayton? Me?
The crowd murmured and pointed at the gallows. At Clayton. At Emma.

She looked up at Frank. “Clayton and I didn’t do anything,” she said, her teeth chattering.

Frank ignored her.

Standing in front of the gallows, a gray-bearded policeman read from an official-looking book, but Emma heard only phrases: “Guilty of murder in the first degree . . . inciting rebellion . . . fearful deeds . . . criminal organization . . . death by hanging.” When the man finished reading, one of the policemen on the platform put a black hood over Nally’s head, covering his face. A second policeman put the noose around Nally’s neck and pulled it tight below his left ear. They both stepped back and put their hands on a thick lever coming out of the floor.

Emma got to her feet, ready to run, or yell in protest, but Frank pushed her back down. “I said, be quiet,” he hissed.

The crowd grew silent. The gray-bearded policeman turned and gave a nod. The policemen on the platform pulled the lever and the trapdoor beneath Nally’s feet dropped open. Nally fell through. The trapdoor swung back on its hinges and hit him in the head, knocking him sideways. The hood over his head darkened with blood. Nally jerked to a halt at the end of the rope and immediately started flailing. Blood gushed from beneath the hood along his neck and torso, running down his trousers in red rivers and dripping onto the floor. He wheezed and whistled, trying to get air. Emma closed her eyes and dropped her chin, bile rising in the back of her throat. Women gasped. There was a heavy thump on the other side of the room, as if someone had fainted. Wood and rope creaked in protest against the heavy weight of Nally’s writhing body until, little by little, the only sounds were women softly crying and sniffing.

Emma looked up, tears burning her eyes. Nally hung limp at the end of the noose, his blood-covered boots just inches from the stone floor. Frank put a hand beneath Emma’s arm and pulled her to her feet. She struggled to tear herself from his grasp, unwilling to go to her death without a fight.

“We didn’t know he had a gun!” she cried. “Clayton and I don’t deserve to die!”

Everyone looked at her and started talking at once. Men pointed and women turned to one another, putting gloved hands over their open mouths. Frank tightened his grip on Emma’s arm, yanking her closer.

“Shut up,” he said. “You’re just here to bear witness.”

Overcome with relief, Emma sagged halfway to the floor, every muscle and bone going loose. If it weren’t for Frank holding her up, she would have fallen. Her vision began to close in and, for a second, she thought she was going to pass out. For the last few days she hadn’t cared if she lived or died, would have almost welcomed her demise to ease her guilty mind. But then, when faced with the hangman’s noose, she fought against death with everything she had. Either she was coward, or she had an incredible will to live. Which one, she wasn’t sure.

Frank pulled her upright and held her there, and the room swam back into focus. The crowd was beginning to disperse. The guards had pulled Clayton out of his seat and were dragging him out of the room. Emma watched him go, wondering helplessly if the next execution would be his.