I wanted to kill him. He was the same man I had known all my young life, Omar Kane from Justice town, who give me a molasses candy when Papaw went to the polls to vote. I wanted to get my squirrel rifle and shoot him. When he rode away and I had not done it, I despised myself for a coward.

The fields was half plowed when we packed to go, leaving the homeplace the Marcums settled in 1801 when they first come to West Virginia, on the little creek called after us, Marcums Branch. We left my papaw buried atop the ridge behind the cabin in the Marcum family cemetery. They wasnt no preacher due for a while and we knew that this time he’d not come by for the summer funerals, so me and Mamaw each said our own goodbyes and trusted the Lord would hear them. I read a little from the scripture about folks raised up on the Last Day. I throwed the first dirt on with my hands, then shovelled the hole full. I pictured the Last Day, when Papaw would come busting through the very dirt I piled on him. He would fly straightway to strangle Sheriff Kane and all the smooth-faced railroad men.

We wasnt sure where to go. Some folks had left for Kentucky or Tennessee to look for farms to buy there. Others heard tell they was mountains like ourn out in Missouri and Arkansas. But most was living makeshift until the new coal camps was built. The men was promised jobs cutting the timber, putting up the houses, and then working the mines. But mamaw said she wouldn’t let me do that. I didnt care to no how.

We finally settled on moving to the Justice farm. Ermel was Papaw’s cousin and, like Papaw, he hadnt signed no paper for the railroad. So far, nobody had bothered him. Even before the coal companies come, Ermel Justice held more land than anyone on Blackberry. His fields stretched more than a mile up past where Pliny forked off. At the forks, Ermel had set up a mill to take advantage of the rush of water. He also built a blacksmith’s forge and a general store. Folks come from Peelchestnut Mountain, from Pliny Fork and Lloyds Fork to trade with Ermel, a tithe of meal for the miller, a gallon of linn honey for bought goods. The post office inside the general store was named after Ermel’s wife Annadel, who was postmistress.

Ermel’s great grandfather built the two-story log farmhouse in 1818. The porch was added in 1852 by his papaw, who had so many younguns to help with the chores that he could afford to sit in a rocking chair on a soft summer evening and survey his holdings.