“What’s going to happen when this is all over?” she said. “Will you just go off?”

“I dont know.” I picked up her hand that lay beside the coffee cup, turned it over and traced the lines of her palm with my finger. “I dont want you to depend on me too much.”

She pulled her hand away.

“You want me to put you on the train?” I asked. “I wont think hard of you.”

“You want me to go?”

“No.”

I knew she wouldn’t leave.

In the meantime we got word that martial law was declared once again in Justice County. Hundreds of miners were in jail. There were reports of murders, rumors that women were being raped. Many of the reports were exaggerated, but I knew enough were true. We passed on the word.

Twenty

CARRIE BISHOP

I’VE NEVER KNOWN HOW IT WAS PLANNED, OR WHO WAS IN charge. They were pledged to silence, and they keep their word even today. What I do know is that Rondal was gone most nights to the miners’ hall on Summers Street, or on the train to a local union hall up some holler. I never expected to be with him in the evenings.

Summer evenings in the city had a special charm. A cool breeze from the Kanawha River blew the daytime heat from the sidewalks, and the air softened. People came out to stroll along the brick streets and children flew by on rollerskates or played hopscotch. I liked to walk up Kanawha Street, past the elegant Ruffner Hotel and the three-story stone mansions set back beneath the trees. Rondal said they were mostly coal operators’ homes, but I liked to look at them anyway.

If I didn’t feel like walking far, I sat on the riverbank and watched the boats, looked in the store windows downtown or went to the stone library near the state capitol building. I didn’t have any money, but Rondal had a small salary from the union and he gave me quarters for ice cream sodas. On my birthday, he took the entire day off. We walked around the corner to Majors Book Store and he gave me a copy of Bleak House for a present. Then we took the streetcar to Luna Park, rode the merry-go-round and ate hot dogs. We ended the day with vaudeville at the Burlew Theater. I loved to be with him, but I didn’t mind being alone. He was happier than at anytime I had ever known him.

He did tell me a little at night when he came in worn out but unable to sleep and I bathed his face with a cool cloth and massaged his back. He spoke of Sheriff Don Chafin of Logan County, the meanest man in the state of West Virginia.