Billy Creekmore

by Tracey Porter

  But a funny thing happened. Instead of getting scared, I got angry. All of us did. Seeing Mr. Newgate in town flanked by his guards, with his fat belly near sticking out of his topcoat, only made us more resolved to shut down the mine until he paid us better and gave us safer conditions.

  The man from the UMW struck out of town and camped out in a holler on the banks of Paint Creek. Some miners stopped coming regular to meetings, for it was altogether a dicier situation. We snuck out of town one by one or in twos. And there was plenty of scares, too. Someone would misjudge where the guard was on his rounds, or we’d hear gunfire at our backs. Plenty of times Uncle Jim would tell me to just freeze and not move a muscle till he could tell if the dogs was coming our way. We’d wait between trees, still as statues, wishing our breath didn’t steam the way it did, our hearts pounding, our eyes and ears tuned tight and fierce just like we was animals hunted in the night.

  The union man gave us counsel and told us the state of things in the other mining camps up and down Paint Creek and the Tug River. We was planning one big strike that would close all the mines nearby. That way the railroads and the banks would lose big money, too, since there’d be no coal to haul and no reason for the coal companies to pay ‘em. And, if all the mines closed down, Mr. Newgate and the other coal barons would be hard pressed to bring in enough workers from down south to keep the mines going.

  “And if you’re scared of dying, if you think we’re pushing too hard, and demanding too much, remember that long ago Mr. Newgate decided he’d rather let men die than lose money. To save the cost of a few timbers, he let those men and that boy die. To save money in wages, he makes you work eleven hours instead of eight, letting you fill your lungs with coal dust, so that you’re an old man at thirty, sitting by the fire coughing yourself to death. Sure, he brought his guards into town, and they’re ready to shoot to kill. But if you think about it, you’ll realize he’s always been willing to kill, long as it helped him make a profit.”

  I didn’t have to think about it. I knew the UMW man was right.

  Long after midnight, taking different paths and leaving at different times, we headed back to our homes. Clayton shepherded different groups as we got closer to town. He headed out first after the meeting was done, then hung near the edge of town to watch the guards, holding us back or hurrying us on so we’d get back safe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE

  BALDWIN-FELTS GUARDS

  OPEN FIRE,

  and

  My World

  Forever Changes

  It was spring. The snows melted and the trees were filling out with green. We gathered at the camp in the holler for our meetings, and Clayton was our guide. He called like a bobwhite if the coast was clear, whooping like a whippoorwill if the guards was coming our way. We were getting ready for the day the strike would begin. The UMW sent rations and tents, and we set them up in the woods, for sure enough we knew we’d be run outta town soon as the strike begun. We was preparing for the long haul, and aiming to shut down all the mines in the Tug River Valley. Every day Mr. Newgate lost money, said the UMW man, brought us closer to our goals.

  It was joyful in a way, exciting the way telling my stories used to be. Knowing there was a spy about kept me on my toes, but even this added some fun. I loved tipping my hat to Mr. Wheeton in the morning, and dropping my eyes when I passed a Baldwin-Felts man like I was ever so scared. I’d even fake a tremble if they yelled at me to look an elder in the eye.

  “Yes, sir,” I’d say and look at ‘em like I was ‘bout to burst into tears. But inside my heart was cold and glad, glad I could fool ‘em and go about on the sly, working for the union and planning our strike.

  It was in the middle of the night, sometime in April with the sky sprinkled with stars. We was stocking boxes of canned food in a tent in the woods. A lantern hung above us. Clayton, Uncle Jim, Mr. Moon, and I were working together; other folks in other tents, not far off, doing the same. Clayton heard the first shot.

  “Listen up!” he said. “I heard gunfire.” His words were barely out when I heard it, too, and then there was more. We heard footsteps running, and miners yelling out to one another. You could hear dogs in the distance and the sound of wood breaking, like maybe they was taking a hatchet to the tents or else breaking through trees.

  “Get outta the tents!” a voice yelled at us. “It’s the Baldwin-Felts and they’re coming for us! They’re shooting up the camp!” Clayton tore open the tent flap and out in the night we went running. I could hear the dogs and see some of the guards running with torches and guns. Shots broke out, and one bullet whizzed past me, sounding like the singe of a match. Outta the corner of my eye, I saw Uncle Jim fall.

  “Keep running, Billy!” yelled a voice. It was Clayton. I turned to see him kneeling by Uncle Jim, who was laid out on the ground, his chest covered in blood.

  “Don’t stop, Billy! Keep running!”

  Another bullet whizzed by, and I saw Clayton jerk backward. His body was spread out not far from Uncle Jim’s. I didn’t have to get close to know both of ‘em was dead.

  I ran through the woods, my heart bursting, my lungs feeling like they was being stabbed with knives. I ran away from the gunshots, the dogs barking, and men yelling in the night. I picked up one path then abandoned it for another. It was two miles or more into Holly Glen, and I ran the whole way. I tore open the front door, and Aunt Agnes rose from her chair when she saw me.

  “What, Billy? What is it, boy?”

  “They shot Uncle Jim…. They shot him and he fell … and Clayton bent down to be with him, but he told me to keep runnin’, and both of ‘em are dead….” The words near broke me, my chest was heaving and aching so, and then I started bawling, and I couldn’t stop till Aunt Agnes put her hands on my shoulders and shook me a little.

  “Stop it, Billy. You’ve got to stop crying and keep your wits about you. You’ve got to run away now, ‘cause soon the guards’ll be coming into town and rounding up all of you that’s run off…. And there’ll be more shooting and more killing, and they’ll be after you ‘cause you’re in the union, so you’ve got to leave now….”

  It was like she had been expecting this all along and had decided long ago what to do once the shooting started. In a flash she pulled together a sack of food and supplies. She packed a knife, and some rope, a couple bottles of her medicines, and an old sheet to rig up a tent from a tree.

  “Follow the train tracks to Charleston,” she said.

  “Ain’t it dangerous for you to stay? Shouldn’t you come with me?”

  “I’m no threat to Mr. Newgate and his guards. I’m just a woman. I don’t work in his mines and I can’t join the union. But you’re a union man, one that’s already planning strikes, and he’ll be out to get you, so you’ve gotta leave.”

  “Come with me. I’m too afraid to go alone.”

  “I can’t, Billy. I’d only slow you down. Besides, the best thing I can do for folks is stay here and help tend those that’s been hurt. You’ve got to go now, before the guards set on the town. Now don’t forget these …”

  She took the postcards and broken necklace out of my old tin and put them in the bag.

  “I’m lost to you now for you can’t ever come back here. There’s only your father now, and you must find him if you can.”

  I took the bag from her, then she hugged me tight for a moment. “Keep moving, Billy. Put as many miles between you and Holly Glen as you can.”

  And so I left. I turned my back on Holly Glen and the only home and family I ever had. I tore down the footpath along the tracks outta town, not knowing where I was going or if I’d ever see Aunt Agnes again. I don’t know how long I kept running, only that dawn came and went and I was still on my feet, only slower now so I could keep going without my heart giving out.

  Part Three

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ALONE

  IN THE

  WOODS

  a Different Type of


  SPIRIT

  COMES TO ME

  For weeks I lived in the woods, finding shelter in rundown guard stations near the switches or else under the boughs of a tree with the sheet Aunt Agnes give me spread above. My clothes got to be all rags and dirt. Days was mostly sunshiny and still with the faint dronings of bugs in the air that can drive a body crazy. If I listened too hard, I’d start wishing I was dead, for it was an agitating sound that made me think of Uncle Jim and Clayton dying in the hollow, and the evilness of the guards running through the camp with their guns. There was spirits all about, but they were ancient and proud, not the newly dead filled with yearning to find their kin. They kept their distance, and the only thing I felt from them was indifference.

  I kept a move on best I could, hoping Charleston would appear soon. There were more switches than I ever thought, with tracks branching off to the northeast or southeast, as well as some that just seemed to circle back to nowhere. But where I was actually heading, I couldn’t say. Nights was lonely and long, with possum and raccoons creeping through the underbrush and scaring me so I could hardly sleep. I don’t think a human had stepped foot in those parts since the Chesapeake and Ohio first laid tracks fifty years ago.

  One afternoon a grand train with seventy cars or more, loaded with coal, carrying timber and passenger cars, rumbled by. I heard it coming a mile away, and saw its smoke rising above the tree line. It passed too fast for me to see the folks looking out the window, but I wondered about ‘em. Where was they going, and what was they after? Was they miners or their kin? I thought about folks back in Holly Glen, and it almost tore me up not knowing how my aunt Agnes was, or Clyde’s mother, or little Belton. I wondered who’d bring Uncle Jim’s and Clayton’s bodies back to town for a funeral and who would help Aunt Agnes in her grieving.

  Days run together, and then one morning in a wide part of the valley, I came upon a string of ten cars or more on a siding off the main line. They was waiting to be picked up by a locomotive, I reckoned. Some were flat cars carrying the longest poles I’d ever seen, and some were box and passenger cars. All in all, it warn’t like any train I’d ever seen. A few of the cars carried blue and gold wagons, and the sun picked up the glittery paint, and the shine sparkled my eyes. Down yonder from the tracks off in the trees was a whole crowd of folks, some lounging on blankets in little groups here and there, and others fishing in the creek. As I got closer, I could see posters with painted pictures and fancy script covering the sides of a few of the front cars. Suddenly, I realized plain as day that it was a circus train. I got to where I could read the posters and one of ‘em said:

  CHARLES SPARKS

  WORLD FAMOUS CIRCUS!

  Now in Its 30th Year!!!

  I started running up to the folks under the tree, whooping hello and waving my hat to ‘em. Some of the folks stood up with a jump, and I guess I must have looked awful wild and strange, running out from the woods, my face covered in dirt and my clothes all raggedy.

  “Are you real circus folks?” I yelled. I was excited as could be, remembering how glorious the circus in Charleston was, and what a fine time I had with Uncle Jim and Clyde.

  “We sure are, son,” said a man. “Who might you be and where are you from?” He was straight and elegant as you please, with a royal sounding voice. I guessed right away he was the ringmaster.

  “I’m Billy Creekmore, and I’m not from anywhere.” Then before I could think to stop myself, and probably because I hadn’t had a soul to talk to in so long, the words tumbled out of me and I told him my life story. I went on and on, not knowing what to leave out, so I didn’t leave out much. I told him about my mother’s death and my pa’s postcards, the way Mr. Beadle beat us and how I just barely escaped the glass factory. I talked about Rufus and Peggy, Aunt Agnes and Uncle Jim, Clyde Light and his little brother with his strange ways, and Clayton and the union man, then how the Baldwin-Felts guards shot my uncle and my friend, and how I didn’t know what town they was visiting next, but they better stay clear of Holly Glen. Somewhere in the story, I started crying and it felt like my heart was breaking when I told them about my uncle, Clayton, and Clyde.

  Other folks had come around to listen. Some were sinewy and strong, some were beautiful as kings and queens, and others had the funniest kind of bodies, all pear shaped or uneven on one side. One fellow came up to my waist, tiny as could be, but muscled like a strong man. There was an Oriental family of tumblers that I recognized from one of the posters, and a fat lady all soft and billowy in her flesh. All of ‘em had kind faces.

  “Well, Bert, let’s take him along!” said the fat lady. Tears were streaming down her face. “Let him ballyhoo to earn his keep till we teach him an act or give him a trade. But don’t leave the poor little orphan behind!”

  Others took up the cry, and it warn’t no time at all before Bert said all right, and it was fine by him for they could use another boy posting bills, ‘cause it was too much work for the one little guy they had. Bert gave me a clean cloth and told me to go rinse off by the creek, then he gave me some clean overalls to put on. Other folks shared their lunch with me. It was cold fried chicken and pickled eggs, and I think I shocked everyone with how quick I gobbled it up.

  Before long, a locomotive come by on the main track. It slowed to a stop just where the siding meets the main track. Someone ran down to wake up the trainmaster, who was still sleeping under a tree, and soon enough the engineer and him was shaking hands and saying howdy do, and thanks for coming along. A band of men hooked up the circus train to the locomotive and double-checked everything before we set off. I sat in the passenger car in a little sliver of a space next to the fat lady. Her name was Darla and wasn’t it a wonder, she said, that I lived in the woods for so long without a grown-up and wouldn’t I like life in the circus so much more.

  “Sure, I will,” I said. “Back in Charleston I saw the Frederick Ainsworth Circus in a show ‘bout King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and there was the most darin’ trick riders, just as elegant and carefree as can be….”

  “And did your pockets get picked, and was you shortchanged at the ticket booth? Did folks living nearby get their washings stole right off their clotheslines, for I’ve heard terrible things about that circus. Filled with scoundrels and thieves, s’what they say. A regular con man’s show …”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Nothin’ like that happened, and, oh, it was a right spectacle, ever so glorious, set back in ancient Egypt times, and …”

  “That’s all right. I don’t want to hear it,” Darla said, fluttering her hand in the air like she was warding off a swarm of flies. “Mr. Ainsworth’s got a low-class show, not a thing like ours, and don’t he treat his folks bad? Why, you just ask Mr. Paul Wenzel who conducts the clown band. He used to do the same for that Mr. Ainsworth, and don’t he have plenty of stories to tell….”

  I felt awful worried that I made her cross, so I did my best to make things better. “Oh, well, the clowns was just awful! And so was the trapeze artist. He fell down a dozen times or more, then the fire-eater near burned off a lady’s hair!”

  This pleased her considerable. She looked out the window, happy as pie to hear about all the things that went wrong.

  “Oh, you’ll like it with us,” she said, smiling. “It’s a Sunday type show, clean as can be, entertaining the folks with spectacles and feats without cheating a soul. And Mr. Sparks loves us like family, feeds us like family, too, and you’ll have a family with us, if you want. Didn’t Mr. Sparks take on that other little boy? Of course, he did! You’ll meet Mr. Sparks soon. He’s with the advance crew in Huntington, meeting the mayor and fixing our parade route through town. Oh, he’s a wonderful man!” She went on and on, chattering away, till all of a sudden she fell asleep, just like that, her head knocking the window with every little bump on the rails, and her great body sliding across the seat and shoving me into the aisle.

  “Did she faint?” I asked the man sitting across from her.

  “No,
that’s just Darla’s way of falling asleep. She’s resting up for the parade and tonight’s show. Come on and sit here. There’s a space for you.” And so I sat next to Jimmie Carroll, who played trombone in the Big Show Band with his pa and near twenty other fellas. He was born in the very train we was on and had worked the Sparks Circus all his life. Seemed like he loved talking, too. I tried paying attention, but my mind drifted back to Holly Glen. I could see Aunt Agnes stoking the fire alone in the cabin. Of all the women she helped in their grieving, I wondered which one was with her now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The

  CHARLES SPARKS CIRCUS

  Takes Me Under Its Wing

  and

  I MAKE A CONFESSION

  TO A FRIEND

  We pulled into Huntington, and folks jumped off the train right and left, helping to unload things, or running off to meet up with other folks. Darla took me by the hand and waddled through what looked like pure chaos to me.

  “It ain’t chaos,” she corrected me. “Ain’t nothing like it. Pretty soon the cookhouse will be serving lunch, the Big Top will be up, and we’ll be getting in our costumes for the parade. Now, you just put on your best manners ‘cause I’m taking you to meet Mr. Sparks.”

  We walked among the hammer gang, the roustabouts, all of ‘em busy spreading out the vast canvas tenting and attaching the ends to stakes they pounded into the ground with sledgehammers near big as me. Darla stepped between ropes regal as a queen, and none of the men had a thing to say about it. They yelled plenty at me, though, telling me to look where I was going and didn’t I see how I tangled up the lines, and so forth. Just beyond the huge spread of the Big Top, I could see the lions in their cages and four elephants chained to a post by their back legs. They was eating hay while one fella scrubbed ‘em with a longhandled brush. Another man in a blood-stained apron was carrying a side of cow ribs to the lions. He was the circus butcher. Darla said that one of the trains was filled with livestock that he butchered on the road to feed man and beast alike. Well, like any other boy would, I bolted over there to see the lions eat, but Darla yanked me back.