Arly Jr tried to get up from the road, but hed hit the ground hard, and he had a bullet in him. The men stood back upright, their pistols reloaded. Trenchmouth, with no weapon other than the flask derringer tucked deep in his pack, did not go to his friend. A voice ordered Arly to raise his hands up and he did so. Convinced they werent going to shoot Arly, Trenchmouth whispered to Ewart to stay quiet and they began crawling into the woods.
The voice called out, You remember me, nigger? Then, Mose, get after the one that run off up there. Trenchmouth and Ewart crawled faster, then stood up and ran. But Trenchmouth could still hear the voice as they went, and though it was faint, he recognized it somehow. You think you can whoop me again for callin you what you are? I growed a little, aint I? They were just out of earshot, all-out clambering up the hillside thick with trees when he knew for certain: Warren Crews.
FIFTEEN. Who Has Worn And Who Has Broken?
There was a battalion of the 19th infantry regiment deployed to Mingo County, after pleas from the governor for help to stop the killing. Coal operators were pleased. Martial law had been declared, meetings and demonstrations banned, the carrying of firearms outlawed. The green fisted could stop looking over their shoulders. Mr Bern reported all of it in the New York Times, and people all over, just like people in Matewan and Red Jacket and Williamson, split on who was right and who was wrong. Newly appointed mine guards like Warren and Mose Crews walked a little taller with the army backing them. Behind closed doors, they pistol-whipped Arly Scott Jr and asked him again and again, Who else was in the vehicle? He never spoke a word.
Anne Sharples saw the butt end of a gun herself. Anse Pilcher had been a friend to those with influence, and when Anne Sharples answered their whereabouts questions with words like, Ewarts gone back to Tennessee, and I never heard of no Trenchmouth, they hit her, hard, because it was easy for them to do it. Whores were used to catching beatings.
It was George Crewss men who did most of it. Warren and Moses father had risen to the rank of president of the White Star Mining Company in Merrimack. His wife, a former customer of Trenchmouths, had died of typhoid fever, though some folks claimed syphilis, and George was less concerned with his public image. He was set on breaking those that defied him.
Arly Sr, angry that his boy was being held on murder charges without any proof hed pulled the trigger, organized men in secret and consoled his wife who wished theyd left for Georgia with the Belchers on May 19th. She didnt get out of bed much.
Sid Hatfield beat his murder rap. He and twenty-two other defendants were acquitted of all murder charges stemming from the May 19th shootout. It was a circus of smiles and back-patting for all except those kin and friend to Al and Lee Felts. They just stood and swore revenge to themselves. Some Felts sympathizers grumbled that one defendant wasnt even present in order to get acquitted. The tooth boy, one man said to a reporter. He done shot up most of the law men that day, all on his own. Some said the tooth boy had shot Anse Pilcher and skipped town back in summer. Others said that was wrong, that the killer in that incident was already in custody. It was the colored boy they said. The one with too much pride for a colored boy.
So Sid walked free unlike young Arly, and folks just accepted this as proper. Sid was a man of the law. In this manner it became clear that to most folks, Arly Jr was nothing more than what Warren Crews had said he was, a nigger.
But men will fight together though their reasons be different. So it was that after martial law was gone, on a May Thursday, almost a year to the day since the shootout, the steady flow of scabs returning to the coalfields would think twice yet again. George Crewss town of Merrimack was laid bare. Striking miners hacked away the telephone and telegraph lines strung across tree-covered hills. A cow horn signaled the start of the shooting, which lasted three days. Homes and businesses, mine property and scabs, officers of the law, all felt the destruction of 10,000 bullets.
But men will fight together though their reasons be different. So it was that after martial law was gone, on a May Thursday, almost a year to the day since the shootout, the steady flow of scabs returning to the coalfields would think twice yet again. George Crewss town of Merrimack was laid bare. Striking miners hacked away the telephone and telegraph lines strung across tree-covered hills. A cow horn signaled the start of the shooting, which lasted three days. Homes and businesses, mine property and scabs, officers of the law, all felt the destruction of 10,000 bullets.
After the Three Days Battle, folks were used to sleeping in their cellars for fear of stray shells. Strikebreakers quit scabbing, lucky to draw breath, as their buddies had been carried from the woods without any left. The governor pleaded with the new president, Warren Harding, for more troops. He was not heard.
Sid Hatfield continued to walk his streets, now as an elected constable, with men at his back and pistols on his side. But a new charge arose, one which linked him and Ed Chambers to the dynamiting of a coal tipple at Red Jacket. Trenchmouth had been the one to blow up that tipple, his knowledge of its construction a handy skill in knocking down such a beast. But Sid was arrested and would be tried alongside Ed in Welch, McDowell County. The site was four miles down the mountain from where Trenchmouth now hid with Ewart, under cover of the steepest terrain the Southern Appalachians offered. Surviving on what most never could.
Hed built them a little shelter, camouflaged of course. There was trip wire and a noisemaker to warn of potential intruders. They ate okay. The Widows provisions lasted a while, and Trenchmouth laid traps for squirrels and rabbits, even fished some in a nearby stream. Winter had been tough, but they managed. They lived like a young couple might have in the pioneer days. They laid down together and the awkwardness of their first attempt faded. Kisses on the mouth accompanied such routines, but Trenchmouth never opened his lips.
The moonshine was rationed into nightly portions, with Ewart permitted to sample only on Saturday. The Widows mouthrinse concoction also threatened to run out, and when it did, his condition would start to require more moonshine. This was a problem. He scratched at his thin, forming beard and read again and again the note hed found from the Widow inside the pack. Get to Dr Warble in Welch when you can. Hes a fine dentist, and one of my best customers. I reckon hes one of the few who truly knows the source of his supply, as he and Richard were good friends. Warble knows how to put in the gold crowns, and if you plan to be gone from here for a while, those teeth will need to be fixed for fear of more infection and pain. It was nearing time to visit the good doctor who had given him his name.
Trenchmouth knew things. Current events, folks called them. He even knew of the impending August 1st trial of his two-gun buddy. This was all because Ewart walked into Welch now and again for the paper, careful to keep her face down, to not draw attention. It was on one of these visits that she met Dr Warble at his office and told him of Trenchmouths oral situation. She made an appointment for her man on August 1st at four a.m., as hed asked her to. She also told the good doctor what she hadnt told Trenchmouth yet. She was fairly certain that she carried a child.
She left Welch that morning feeling good for having told someone. Now, she supposed, she could tell her man. She didnt even keep her head tucked as she walked back toward the hills, didnt keep to the alleys. By this point, more than a year had passed since the shootout, and no one much cared what had become of the crazy, dead preachers whore of a daughter. Trenchmouth, on the other hand, was a man, who, as a juvenile, could be linked to more than one murder, though some would call it self-defense.
Ewart told him of her pregnancy and he was happy. But he didnt say much on it. In those days, he didnt say much of anything. Mostly, he thought. He thought about giving up the gun. There were nights when he pledged to himself to never raise a firearm to another man again, and there were nights when this seemed impossible. He thought about how he couldnt remember things. Things from childhood and things from yesterday. Things from moments when he supposedly took mens lives or handled snakes or dug up a dead man who was his father. The quiet of the woods made memories turn to dreams. He wondered if he could not remember things because of all the moonshine hed drunk over the years. While he wondered, he sipped moonshine. It was, and had always been, the only way to get to sleep.
Ewart lost the baby in late July. There was so much blood that Trenchmouth thought about picking her up and running to town, giving up on hiding altogether. But she told him it would stop soon enough. That it happened some. That it was early enough along where shed be fine. Coming from her line of work, Ewart had experience with such realities.
He rubbed her back and stomach where she ached. He blew on her hot forehead while she slept.
When he left at two-thirty on the dark morning of August 1st, he carried his derringer flask. He wore plain clothes, a set the Widow had packed him. On his head, a found golfers hat, something hed not be caught dead in were he a free man. His beard was patchy, but it was enough to cover his youth.
The plan was to be in and out of Dr Warbles chair by ten a.m., gold-toothed and swollen and costumed. Moonshine and mouthrinse replenished. Hed be able to watch Sid Hatfield go into court from the cover of the inevitable crowds. Watching wouldnt do much for Sid, Trenchmouth reckoned, but he felt it was right somehow. Not that he owed Sid or anybody else, but hed feel better being there. It wasnt right to let it all go just yet.
Dr Warble was standing in the dark street at four. The two of them went in the back door to his office without a word. They only nodded. Inside, Trenchmouth took a seat in the chair. He took out a small wad of all that money hed saved from the hideout ladies, but Dr Warble shook his head. Its not necessary, he said. Your mother has been good to me. I owe her right plenty. But I do have something for you. He pulled four jars of moonshine and one of mouthrinse from the top shelf of a locked cabinet. He did not say another word about the Widow, just smiled as he set them down next to Trenchmouths pack.