Billy Creekmore Read online

“But that’s cheatin’!” I said.

  “Of course it is, lad, but Mr. Newgate calls it fair. He says we was filling the cars with slate and rubble when he’s paying for coal. I’m telling you, Jim, a union would help us! We need the United Mine Workers here in Holly Glen.”

  “Now, John, be careful. Didn’t Mr. Newgate say he’d send in the guards from the Baldwin-Felts Agency to evict any miner who supports the union?”

  “A miner was evicted down the road just a few years ago. A terrible thing it was,” piped in Aunt Agnes. She joined the men on the porch, angry as I’d ever seen her. “Kicking a family out of their home in the middle of winter!”

  “That’s why we need the union!” said Mr. Moon.

  “That’s why we have to be quiet, John. And watch what we say and who we say it to,” said Uncle Jim. “We need to see what happens in the other mining towns along Paint Creek. I want to know how much the union is willing to help us before we start demanding things from Mr. Newgate.”

  Aunt Agnes cut him off. “Mind how you talk in front of Billy, you two. He’ll be working in the mine before long. Now, Billy, you forget all about this. Not a shred of your storytelling nonsense about what you just heard. Don’t say the word union to a living soul, and if folks ever try talking to you about it, act like you don’t know what they mean. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. And I meant it, too. I could tell the union was a dangerous thing to discuss.

  “Good. Now get in the kitchen and help me with the last of the washing.”

  It was Friday, and Mr. Moon and my uncle talked long into the night. They started speaking in Welsh, so I don’t know if they talked more about the union or Mr. Newgate. Whatever they were saying, it was a passionate discussion. Mr. Moon slapped his hand on the arm of his chair more than once, and Uncle Jim smoked pipe after pipe while he rocked in his chair.

  For the time being, it was easy to forget what I heard about the union and the Baldwin-Felts guards, ‘cause I had plenty to think about. Neva Shyrock had told me the truth about the night I was born. Then, there were two other things occupying my mind. One was hearing Uncle Jim say he’d be talking to the foreman soon and that finally I’d be getting a job in the mine. The other was a letter from Rufus that set me to worrying so bad, I couldn’t sleep at night. Seems he’d taken to spying at night whenever he heard that Mr. Colder was coming to dine. Just like I did, he’d sneak out in the dark and hide under the dining room window.

  You can imagine how scared I got hearing Mr. Beadle offering me to Mr. Colder to apprentice in his factory. Peggy heard it too when she was clearing their plates after supper, and we spoke about it the next day. She says the same thing you did—that it’s no type of life for a boy. She’s putting money and food aside and helping me plan how to run away to Albright, where I can hide out for a while until I figure out where to go next. So, Billy, this might be the last letter you get from me for a long time.

  Well, I got right quivery reading this letter and thinking about Rufus stealing away and hiding about in the night. It was over a year since I last saw him, but even so I couldn’t imagine him being big enough to either work in the glassworks or take off on his own. Where’d he sleep at night? What would he do once the food ran out? I suppose he could always sneak back to the orphanage for a handout from Peggy. I knew she’d be good for it, but how Rufus could manage on his own I couldn’t begin to figure. I thought about the Cheat River and how it took Meek. I wished there was some way Rufus could come here and make a home with Aunt Agnes, Uncle Jim, and me here in Holly Glen, but it was already too late to send word to him. He might be out in the dark wandering the very moment I read his letter.

  I fretted over Rufus for days until I figured there was nothing I could do except hope for his safety. I went back to practicing my whip, and finally, one day I managed to put out a flame and leave the candle still standing. It was early evening and the sun was still out. I called Aunt Agnes and Uncle Jim.

  “Look! I can do it now!” I lit the candle and stepped back from it about ten feet. I brought my arm back and snapped the whip. Crack! The very fringes of the tip brushed the flame and put it out just like that. A thin ribbon of blue smoke curled upward. I puffed up with pride. Aunt Agnes and Uncle Jim clapped for me.

  “There you go, lad! Congratulations! You’re ready to meet the foreman,” said Uncle Jim. “I’ll take you to the mine with me tomorrow to see if he has a job for you. Now it’s time to learn about your safety lamp. I bought one for you not long ago, and I best show you how to light it before your first day.”

  The next morning I was awake before the mine whistle. I slung my whip over my shoulder, and Uncle Jim helped me hook my lamp on my cap.

  “Here you go,” said Aunt Agnes, handing me my lunch pail. “I baked you a cherry pie.” She looked me in the eye for a moment, and I could tell she wanted to tell me to be careful, only it warn’t her manner to do so.

  We left the house, and she walked with us for a while, then hung back to talk with some of the other women. Clyde Light spied me and came tearing over.

  “Good to see ya!” he said. “I was wondering when you’d finally get here!”

  The sun was coming up as we tramped up the mountain. Some of the spraggers gave me a hard look and a smirk, and Clyde told ‘em to steer off and keep to themselves.

  “This here’s Billy Creekmore,” he said, “and he’s going straight to being a mule driver.”

  “Sure he is,” sneered one of ‘em. “I’ll be seeing you inside, Billy Creekmore!”

  “Don’t mind him. He’s scared of the rats. Hates seeing ‘em run through the mines. One of the boys tied a dead one to his lunch pail by its tail and scared him half to death.”

  “You don’t say. A big guy like that afraid of rats …,” I said back. I couldn’t admit that I hated rats myself. I hoped there warn’t near as many rats running through the mine as I heard folks say.

  The foreman was at the entrance of the mine, checking in the miners, giving them their id tags for the coal cars they’d fill, and waving hello. He was a secret looking man, with one side of his face twisted up.

  “Mr. Wheeton, this here’s my nephew Billy Creekmore. He’s ready to work in the mine now. Wants to be a mule skinner.”

  “Most boys start out as trappers or spraggers in the mine.” One of his eyes half shut, like he was taking aim at something with an invisible gun. He looked at me like I was a target, and I could tell he didn’t like anything too out of the ordinary on his watch.

  “Yes, sir, it was that way in Wales, too. But Billy’s talented with a whip, and he’s been working old Coppers for quite a while now. He’s a clever boy, too, can learn a trade quick as any his age or older.”

  Things didn’t seem to be going my way, so I decided to pipe in. “Why, Mr. Wheeton, when I was only ten I was all set to work in the glassworks since I was known far and wide to be such a fast learner. Mr. Colder was gonna assign me straightaway to the main furnace, but along come my uncle to have me live here in Holly Glen.”

  Uncle Jim gave me a glance, but it seemed I did some good.

  “Well,” said the foreman, “we can always use a good skinner…. I’ll give him a try.” Then he whistled over another mule skinner the name of Clayton Nicewander and told him I’d be following him about for the day.

  “Oh, will he, Mr. Wheeton? And will you be paying me extra for teaching the boy his trade? I’m sure I’ll do it to your specifications, sir.” He gave Mr. Wheeton a little bow, and then spit some tobacco near his boots.

  Mr. Wheeton jumped back, but a little bit of tobacco juice hit his toe. He fixed on Clayton with his one open eye, all bright with meanness. “No, I won’t be paying you extra, just like I didn’t pay the boy extra who taught you, Clayton. Now get along. Learn quick, Billy, and, Clayton, don’t cause no trouble.”

  Inside the mine, Clyde and Uncle Jim peeled off one way, and Clayton and I went another toward the stables.

  “Good luck!” calle
d Clyde.

  “We’ll see you at the end of the day,” said Uncle Jim.

  I had never been inside the mine before. The ceiling was held up with rows and rows of timbers, which is nothing more than tree trunks stripped of bark and branches. The light of my lamp wouldn’t let me see more than several feet ahead of me. Beyond that was the deepest kind of darkness I’d ever been in. It was blacker than pitch, all velvety and thick without no light of any kind. It was cold in there, too, and the sides of the tunnels was wet. I could hear water dripping into a pool, but where it was I couldn’t tell. Worse than that was the sound of timbers creaking and groaning in the distance.

  “Is the mine cavin’ in?” I asked Clayton. I was dreadful afraid all of a sudden. The startling sounds and fierce blackness all around me was making me right jumpity.

  “It will if they don’t put up more timbers. That’s coming from the old part of the mine. The roof ‘s settling and squeezing ‘em so bad they’re splintering from the pressure. I’ll take you to see ‘em. It’s quite a sight. Some look just like bent elbows. That part of the mine is near run out of coal now. The company’s pushing the miners to get it out fast before the roof collapses.”

  “Why don’t they put in more timbers?”

  “‘Cause the coal’s almost gone and the company don’t wanna spend the money. Besides, the mine boss says there ain’t no danger of a cave-in. Says all that creaking and splintering is just the mountain settling and nothing to worry about.” Clayton laughed a bit, then took his whip off and cracked it into the dark. “Now don’t start getting the cold shivers, Billy. You’ve only just begun.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  An Account of

  MY FIRST DAYS

  IN THE MINE

  as Well as of

  THE CIRCUS THAT

  CAME TO CHARLESTON

  Clayton Nicewander was rude to Mr. Wheeton and didn’t take no nonsense from the spraggers, but he was a good teacher. He was sixteen years old, five years older than me, and as patient as I needed. He didn’t laugh or yell when I fumbled with my lamp or forgot which part of the mine to visit first. He taught me everything I needed to know, from how to get the stubbornest mule to work a bit longer to how to find my way to safety if my lamp fell or burned out and I was stranded in the dark.

  “The mule knows the way, even in the pitch dark without no light at all. Just get off the car, feel your way to her side and take off her harness. Throw an arm over her back and walk with her toward the stable. She’ll lead you to one of the miners or back to the stable, and you can hold on just like that all the way there. A man loses all sense of direction in total darkness, but that don’t happen to a mule. So you’ve got to rely on her to get to safety.”

  Some of the mules was more stubborn than others, and one day when we was driving an old fellow named Piston, I cracked my whip on his backside and kicked him in his rear to get him going.

  “Don’t be doing that!” scolded Clayton. “He ain’t even carrying half a car. If you have to whip him now, you’ll never get him to carry four cars of coal for you!”

  “Well, how do I get him to move, then?”

  “You gotta make him think you’re gonna whip him. Crack a warning in the air ‘bout three feet above his ears. If he still won’t move, crack it again, only lower. Then again if you have to, but don’t do more than sting the tips of his ears. Otherwise he’ll get used to being whipped. Then he’ll figure out that it ain’t as bad as hauling eight tons of coal and you’re sunk. He’ll lie down on the tracks and won’t move at all, letting you whip him all you please. But he won’t pull any coal for you. Then he’ll send word around to the other mules that you’re a cruel driver, and none of ‘em will work for you. I ain’t figured out how they communicate like that, but they do.”

  Clayton taught me all the different routes in the mine. He told me which ones to visit first and how to keep pace with the miners.

  “Don’t take off till you double-check the miner slipped his tag on the car. See here?” He pointed to a curved nail at the front of the car. “Each miner has his own number engraved on a brass tag. He puts it right here on this hook. If it’s not there, the foreman won’t credit him for all that coal he loaded and he’s out his money.”

  Some miners was angry every time they saw us, complaining we was lazy and slow and making ‘em lose money. Others said nothing, just gave us a quick nod when we coupled their full car and left an empty one behind. I was glad to see Uncle Jim on our route.

  “How you doing there, Billy? How you doing, Clayton?” he asked. He stopped digging at the face to chat, asking how things were going in one part of the mine or how Clayton’s mother was getting on. She was a widow, and just like Clyde’s ma she ran one of the company boardinghouses. Clayton’s pa and older brother died when he was just three. They was suffocated by the black damp, which is a type of poison gas that builds up when the coal is pulled out of the earth.

  Clayton said not to worry none about the angry fellows. He said it warn’t nothing personal, just what happens to some men because of the nature of the work.

  “A miner only gets paid for the coal he produces. But before he can fill up a car, there’s a whole lot of things he has to do that he ain’t paid for.” He went on to tell me how the miner’s got to chip away at the bottom of the face, then blast into it with explosives, then dig out the rubble to get to a new seam of coal in the mountain. The company gives ‘em the timbers to support the roof, but the miner has to put ‘em in place. Likewise, the company provides the track, but the miner has to lay it into the room. “All this takes two days or more, and he ain’t paid for any of it. A miner don’t earn a dime till he fills that car we bring ‘em with coal, and then he only gets twenty cents a ton. Much as I don’t like being yelled at, I understand the angry miners. Miners get a raw deal from the company.”

  Once he finished training me, Clayton would be driving a two-mule team and getting a man’s wages. I was glad to know I’d be seeing him regular, though. He’d be at the stables in the morning when we was picking up our mules and at the end of the workday when we was feeding ‘em and cleaning out their stables. On our last day working together, he introduced me to my mule, Markel.

  “Markel’s a decent mule,” he said, scratching him between the ears. “He was my mule when I first came to the mine. Remember to whip just above his ears and not his backside and he’ll work hard for ya.”

  “How old is he?” I asked. I took over scratching him and looked into his huge eyes. They was shiny and dark.

  “Can’t say. He was here before I come, probably spent all but a few weeks of his life in the mine.”

  “Imagine. A whole life in the mine.”

  “Don’t say it, Billy.” Clayton groaned. “I don’t wish that on any creature.”

  That evening we came out of the mine to see the whole town had been papered with circus posters. There must have been a hundred of ‘em, plastered on every fence and building and lightpost from Main Street to the depot. My eyes ricocheted from one to the other as I walked home. Over and over we read the same thing, that for one night only in Charleston …

  The Frederick Ainsworth Circus

  Presents

  KING SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA:

  AN EXOTIC SPECTACLE OF ANCIENT DAYS

  Uncle Jim was as thrilled as anyone to see the posters. He nearly dropped his pick and lunch pail in the streets with happiness, and, just like he said he would, he took me to see the circus. He invited Clyde and Belton to come with us, but only Clyde came since Belton was too excitable for a circus. Aunt Agnes had “no interest whatsoever in such foolishness.” She told us to watch for the pickpockets that worked the crowds and said she’d just as soon stay home and get some work done. “I’ll spend the day boiling my herbs and making tinctures for the coming winter.”

  Uncle Jim loved the parade as much as the show, so we left Holly Glen on an early train and got into Charleston by noon. We walked from the station into town t
ill we got to the courthouse, where Uncle Jim said we’d have a good view of the parade. Plenty of Charleston folks had already staked out their places, but I couldn’t complain none. We had a fine view when the parade came by a few hours later.

  In the meantime, we ate our lunch on the steps. Afterward Uncle Jim let Clyde and me wander through town while he saved our seats. Oh, Charleston’s a beautiful town, with paved sidewalks and fine buildings. Seemed like every wooden one was painted a nice color. Others were made of brick or granite, and some was even carved from solid marble. The marble ones was mostly banks. They had gold grates over the windows, all fancied and filigreed, but strong, too, so a robber couldn’t bust through and take the money. Uncle Jim gave us each a nickel to get an ice cream. I asked if he wanted us to bring him back a cone, but he said no, he didn’t want none. Just sitting in the shade resting his eyes was all the treat he needed.

  Finally, the parade begun and all the folks sitting on the steps stood up to whoop and clap and wave their hats. First came the most magnificent white and gold carriage led by eight white horses with red plumes on their heads. Up top was a swarm of ladies waving at us. They was dressed like temple dancers, with flowing veils and fans of peacock feathers, and gold bracelets round their arms. All the circus folk was dressed from the time of Egypt, which pleased Uncle Jim to no end since he was right fond of old-time things. The last circus he saw was called “King Arthur and His Merry Knights,” and he was delighted this one was so different.

  “Look at that, boys!” he said when the tumblers came by, dressed in gold pantaloons and doing their flips and twists easy as pie right there in the street. “Oh, the glory of it! Oh, if only my mother were alive to see it. How she loved the tumblers!”

  Some desert Arabs on their stallions was next, looking as lofty and airy as you please. Then came some more gorgeous wagons, all painted right pretty and gaudy, carrying the fiercest tigers and lions, each one growling away and swiping between the bars. Another pack of ladies in temple costumes came next, dancing about with bells round their ankles, playing little cymbals and kicking up their legs. In and out of the whole throng of performers was a pair of clowns chasing each other. Their faces was painted white and they wore the tiniest little hats and played the most bent up out-of-tune instruments you ever did hear. Clyde and I laughed our heads off at ‘em for they was so quick and rambunctious. They kicked one of the tumblers in the pants, then ran off before he could catch ‘em, interrupting the jugglers and making ‘em drop their balls, and so forth.