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“Sorry, Papa,” Alberto said, leaning his pickaxe against his leg, wiping his brow with the back of a sleeve.
“Now work at a steady pace, son,” Giacomo urged, spitting against the wall of black. “But don't kill yourself while doin’ it. There's enough coal in this here earthen grave to fill many of our buckets.”
Alberto looked away from his Papa, toward a man who was pushing a shovel over some sort of screen. “Papa, what's that man doing?” he asked, watching more closely.
Giacomo's gaze followed Alberto's. He flicked a suspender, making coal dust fly all around him, then said, “We have these little screens that you dump your coal that you dig on. You take a shovel and push it over the screen so's your real fine coal falls out on the ground. You can't sell that. We leave it lyin’ here in the bowels of the earth. We only pass the big lumps of coal up to the ponies a waitin'.”
“Oh, I see….” Alberto said, then felt his heart leap when a loud, thundering blast echoed into his ears. A slow, moaning, rumbling of the ground and walls around him made Alberto close his eyes. He covered his head with his hands, flinching, looking sideways, waiting for the ceiling to come tumbling down upon him. He lowered his hands and turned wide-eyed toward his father, when he heard his father guffawing next to him.
“Son, you've got to get used to that,” Giacomo said, wiping his eyes with the back of a hand. “What the hell… ?”
“Just some blastin’ goin’ on up a further piece,” Giacomo said, patting Alberto on the back.
“Isn't. .. that… a bit dangerous … ?”
“Not if it's done properly. It's an everyday occurrence. You'll get used to it.”
Alberto laughed nervously, lifting his pickaxe once again. “I thought the whole damn thing was falling in … that the whole top was coming in on our heads,” he said.
“I know, son. It took about a week fore I knowed whether to run or sit still. I know. Just be a bit patient. You'll learn in time.” Alberto began swinging the pickaxe again, letting his mind wander to more pleasant thoughts. If he couldn't afford to think of women, then he could think about his card game. He just had to find a place where he could play. It was like an illness… eating away at his insides. ,
Maria strained and pulled, then lifted the washtub of water and inched her way toward the back door. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, feeling muscles straining in every inch of her body. She wasn't used to this type of labor. No. None that she had found on this her first full day in Hawkinsville. She still couldn't believe that she had to walk several blocks to the only faucet allowed this small village of Italians to get her water for everything they needed in the house. And then to have to throw the filth of the water out the back door onto the ground for flies to buzz around so freely? “I hate it,” she murmured. “I just hate it.”
She kicked the screen door open, then leaned the washtub onto the top step, tipping it so the water could start running over the washtub's edge. She watched the white lathery suds wash along the top of the scales of black earth, then get swallowed up in gulps as they searched out the cracks that reached out like veins on the back of a hand.
Placing a hand on a hip, groaning, Maria let the washtub tumble downward, to rest awkwardly on its side at the foot of the steps. Breathless, she looked slowly upward, seeing the blueness of the sky and feeling the warmth of the sun. She knew that was something to be grateful for. Her father had told her that November in Illinois was usually a month for the first snowfall, and freezing temperatures enough to make one's bones ache.
“But this is only the first day of November,” she said, rolling a sleeve up on her dingy cotton dress, feeling the heat of the sun caressing her arm. Her eyes traveled further around her, feeling the need to get away from the drabness of her surroundings. Surely she would only have to walk a short distance from this community to find something besides coal and coal dust. She was anxious to breathe some fresher air . .. see some grass . .. lean against a tree. Only then would she feel the freedom of the soul that she now so longed for.
“I will,” she said determinedly, rushing back into the house. “I'll take a walk. Surely leaving my chores until later won't matter. I have to see what else this countryside has to offer.”
Slipping her apron off, she looked down at the dress she now wore. She had chosen not to wear the new dress Aunt Helena had purchased for her. She knew that to do so while working in such filth would mean to ruin it in one day's time. No. She had chosen a simple cotton dress that didn't have any lace or bows to brighten it.
“Should I change into my newer cotton dress?” she pondered to herself, holding the thick gathers of her dress up into the air, letting it then cascade back around her. “No. I'd best not. It would take too much time. I want to leave now. And I must be ready to get right back to my work when I return.”
She reached upward and touched her hair. She had already brushed it until it shone. Smiling, she pulled her combs from each side, letting her hair fall to hang loosely to her waist, wanting to relish the breeze of the day, to let it lift her hair from her shoulders, to give it a fresh smell.
She hurriedly chose a knitted shawl to wrap around her for warmth, pinched her cheeks for color, then rushed through the front door, not stopping to look back. She knew one thing. She wasn't going to go in the direction of the mine. Its tipple was a threatening sight for her. She knew that below it, somewhere beneath the ground, her Papa and Alberto were working with danger. She closed her eyes and shook her head, not wanting to let herself think such thoughts. She had to believe that her Papa knew how to protect himself, and knew that he would protect Alberto before he did even himself.
“They'll be all right,” she mumbled, hurrying her pace, seeing a small bridge ahead, now knowing just where she was headed. It was the house that she had seen the day before that was luring her onward. She stopped for a moment, cupping a hand above her eyes, seeing the spaciousness of the house that still sat far in the distance. The heat rays from the sun were a wavy haze, distorting her full view, but she could tell that this house was like none other she had seen before. Not even in comparison to the homes owned by the richest of families in the city of Pordenone, Italy.
This house was of a red brick, two-storied, and had a wide, spreading porch on front, the roof of the porch supported by tall, white, round pillars. This house was Nathan Hawkins's. To go stand in front of it might even mean to get a glimpse of this evil man … a man who she was growing to hate with every fiber of her being. Some way, she would get revenge for herself and the small community of Italians. Some way. …
Drawing her shawl more securely around her arms, Maria moved onward, knowing that what lay between her and possibly Nathan Hawkins was a wide stretch of tall Indian grass that seemed magically to begin on the other sicie of the small creek that the iron bridge she had just stepped onto led her across. She could hardly wait to move through the blowing gentleness of the grass. Today, it could be compared to an ocean as it dipped and swayed in gentle greenish-yellows, it was such a relief to get away from the coal dust. Even the air around her had changed. She inhaled deeply as she left the bridge and made her first step onto a thick carpet of moss that laced the edge of the creek bed. Then she moved on into the thigh-high grass, now wondering about another house that had been hidden from her eyes by a thick grove of trees.
She stopped to stare in its direction, seeing that it was of much better quality than the one she now lived in, but yet not at all similar to the brick house that she had been heading for. She looked to the distance, studying the brick house, then glanced back at this white frame house, trying to decide which to seek out first. A sense of adventure made her choose the smaller house, full of wonder as to how anyone had succeeded at ha
ving such a nice house in this area that was supposed to be owned by Nathan Hawkins … a house painted a clean white, with a fence surrounding it on all four sides … a house much nicer than the ones that the coal miners and their families had to live in.
When Maria reached the trees and began to move beneath the towering oaks, their dried leaves rustled above her head, sounding as though they were heaving restless sighs while the prairie breezes continued to blow its breath onto their faces of brown. A gray-tailed squirrel hopped from a lower limb, then picked an acorn up from the ground and began turning it in circles between its front paws as its teeth worked their way hungrily into the nutty center.
A sudden eruption of dogs’ barks broke the serene setting that Maria had found herself surrounded by. She tensed and looked hurriedly around her, always having feared stray dogs. She knew that the tall grasses could hide the dogs from her eyes, but that it in no way kept them from smelling her presence.
She went to stand beside a tree, clutching at its trunk, watching for any sudden movements around her. But nothing. When the barking began again, she ceased breathing for a moment, listening closely, then knew that the dogs had grown no closer or further. She inched her way onward, pushing low branches of trees aside, feeling thorns from the brush that she had moved into nipping at her ankles, then found herself standing in the open, next to the fence that she had seen from afar.
Two huge brown dogs came racing toward her, yelping and snarling, showing their teeth, but unable to reach her because of the fence that stood so tall between them.
Maria flinched each time the dogs lunged toward the fence. But she began to move onward, now looking toward the house that sat in the middle of this fenced-in yard. It was two-storied, with drapes pulled shut at each window, and smoke spiraled slowly into the sky from a tall, brick chimney that reached upward from the ground, almost clinging, it seemed, to the side of the house.
