“Carrie, I’ve got two children now. I’ve got a good future with the company. They’re not a bad company, not like some of the others. I can’t just throw everything away. If the union will just quit pushing, things will be all right. I’ll try to get to the bottom of all this. Those men murdered Albion and they ought to be punished. I promise I’ll look into it, even though I won’t be too popular for it. I promise.”

I went into the house. Flora followed me into the bedroom. “He’s your brother. Try to forgive him.”

I turned on her. “Goddamn you! You sound like Albion! How can I forgive somebody that aint sorry?”

She turned pale and fled. I threw myself across the bed and lay there until I heard the wagon rattle off into the distance.

Miles wrote me from Vulcan to say that no one had been arrested for the shootings. He’d had no luck asking questions and made a few people angry. The state police were gone and hundreds of Baldwin-Felts guards roamed the hollers. Even he was afraid to say anything more. The union must see that it was hopeless, he said, they must let things be or the guards would remain and there would never be peace.

No one wrote to me from Annadel, and I was left to imagine how Gladys must grieve, how Ermel would be old and broken, how hungry they all must be.

Part Four

Eighteen

CARRIE BISHOP

NO ONE HAD LIVED IN THE AUNT JANE PLACE FOR YEARS. Weeds grew close and dense in the yard and hung in tangles beneath each of the front steps. Inside, spiders draped their webs over the rough-hewn rafters and dustballs caught on splinters in the floor. I was so pleased when I moved in. I craved the roughness and untidiness.

I could see the headstones of the May family cemetery from my front window—Alec May, my mother, Aunt Jane, baby Orlando, Albion. The man who preached Albion’s funeral spoke of the worms splintering the pine wood of coffins and devouring flesh, of sin and corruption. His words were oddly comforting. I couldn’t have abided silliness from him.