The force of the blows he had suffered gave his face a look of anger that had never been upon it in life. I raised his head to my lap. My hand came away wet with blood and I soon felt the dampness soak through to my thigh.

“I love you,” I whispered. “You allays knowed that.”

My throat closed tight and I sobbed. A forest of legs blacked out the light. Strong arms lifted me up. I kicked, struck out with my fists.

“Murderers!” I screamed. “Bastards!”

The men holding me laughed. Two others put a pistol in Albion’s hand and carefully wrapped his limp fingers around it. A man in a blue suit with a camera snapped pictures. Then they took the gun away and left.

Someone leaned over me and said, “God in heaven.”

I looked up into Miles’s ashen face.

“I swear I never knew anything about it,” he said.

“Git away from me.”

“Oh, God, Sis, let me get you away from here. You got blood all over you. There’s nothing can be done for him now.”

“Dont you touch me,” I hissed. “Hit’s you needs doing for. I hope you burn in Hell.”

He stared at me. “I swear—” He stood up. A man in a black suit was with him. “You can’t tell me the Association didn’t know about this,” Miles said.

The man shrugged, looked away. “I suppose Tom Felts didn’t trust the court. He lost both his brothers, you know.”

Miles turned back to me. “Sis, we got to send for an undertaker. I’ll help you take him back to the Homeplace.”

He had his arms around me, pinned me to his chest. The smell of him was familiar, like sweet mown hay in the summer. Then I cried, with great racking sobs so that I couldn’t breathe. I clung to him, terrified, struggled for breath while my throat closed as though I were being strangled. I heard talk of a doctor and I felt a stinging on my arm.

We buried Albion as close to Alec May as we could. Miles stayed two days, then packed to return to Justice.

“You aren’t going back to those tents?” he asked me. “I’m not sure it’s safe for you. This was all a message, you know, that they won’t be challenged anymore.”

“Albion wanted me here,” I said. “And I heard tell the union has sent another nurse.”

“Good. There isn’t any more you can do. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Coal is here to stay and the sooner folks cooperate, the sooner we’ll get back to normal.”

He carried his suitcase to the wagon where Ben waited. Flora and Aunt Becka followed him, hugged him. I stayed on the porch.

“Carrie,” he said.

“Quit that job, Miles. They’s other things you can do.”