The Last Ballad(15)

As it drew closer, Ella saw the faces of two women peer at her from behind the dirty windshield. The truck creaked to a stop at the crossroads, lurched forward, and stopped again. Its engine shook the ground. The driver, a girl who didn’t appear a day older than fifteen, opened the door and looked out at Ella where she stood on the side of the road.

“You waiting for a ride?” the girl asked. She had olive skin and dark eyes, thick, wavy, brown hair, and an accent Ella had never heard before. She wondered if the girl came from another country.

“I’m heading to Gastonia,” Ella said.

“For the rally?” the girl asked.

Ella nodded. A woman in the passenger’s seat leaned across the driver and looked down at Ella. Her pale face was thin and pinched, her hair tucked up under a bell-shaped hat. She could’ve been thirty or sixty.

“At which mill do you work?” the woman asked. She was from the North.

“American,” Ella said.

“Which one?” the northerner asked.

“Number Two.”

The two women in the truck looked at one another. The younger one said something to the northerner that Ella couldn’t hear, and then she looked down the road in both directions as if hoping more people would materialize. She looked at Ella.

“Where’s everybody at?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ella said. “Church, maybe. Home. I don’t know.”

“You ain’t got friends?” the girl asked.

“I got a couple,” Ella said.

“You couldn’t bring none of them?”

“I tried,” Ella said. “None of them were interested.”

“You want to join the union?” the woman from the North asked.

“I don’t know,” Ella said. “I figure on learning something about it first.”

“You a capitalist?” the girl asked.

Ella looked down at the clothes she wore: the same white dress she’d worn the day before, one of two she owned that didn’t embarrass her; the soles of her dusty black shoes caked in mud; her loose stockings, the hole in the left knee that the women couldn’t see. She looked up at the girl.

“No,” she said. “I don’t have the cash money to be capital about nothing.”

The girl smiled. She turned and looked at the passenger.

“There’s room in the back,” the older woman said.

“We’ve got a few more stops to make,” the girl said. “Pick up a few more interested parties. I just hope they got more friends than you.”

Ella walked alongside the truck. High, wooden rails lined its bed. It gave the impression that a dog pen had been set down atop it.

The truck was so tall, it wasn’t until Ella reached the open tailgate that she discovered that the truck’s bed was empty. She stood there a moment, the smoke and heat of the exhaust gathering about her. She considered whether or not to climb in, whether or not to go around to the driver and ask to ride in the cab with the two women. But the gears grinded and shifted, and the truck jolted forward. Ella reached up and grabbed the railing and pulled herself inside on her belly.

The truck lurched through the crossroads, and Ella raised her eyes and looked up as she passed beneath the twining wisteria. She felt speed gather around her, knew that they were following the Kings Mountain Highway west in the direction from which she’d come. If she had stood and looked to the south, she could have seen the red mud road that led down into Stumptown, could have marked Fox Denton’s crumbling shack as the truck passed by it. But she did not stand, and she did not look. Instead she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the rails.

She waited until the truck had slowed and made a right turn that carried them north. Once she knew for certain that Bessemer City was behind her, she opened her eyes and stood and looked out over the roof of the truck at the road before her. The wind blew her hair back and made her eyes water. Tears streaked her cheeks. The wind wanted her to sit down, but she refused.





Chapter Two

Lilly Wiggins





Sunday, December 25, 2005



Edwin, I want to tell you up front that I do not write very many letters. I do not write much of anything these days, so please forgive my handwriting. I am much more likely to send an email than I am to pick up a pen and write a letter and then search this house for an envelope. Yes, old ladies do write emails. It is 2005, after all, so do not be surprised if you happen to receive an email from your aunt Lilly one day. Although I would prefer to telephone you as I always have, I do not resent technology like some old people pretend to. Those same old people who complain about the Internet are kept alive by medicine and machines that did not exist even five years ago. They’d prefer to lick a stamp with their crusty old tongues than hit “send” on the computer. Don’t even get me started on stamps. As I write this now I am already combing my mind for a place in this house where I can find a stamp or two to make certain this letter reaches you. If I send it. I will probably send it. I hope I do, anyway.

Needless to say, I arrived safe and sound tonight despite your worry about me driving home after dark on Christmas. The roads to Asheville were empty, which I guess is what one should expect on Christmas night.

This evening, when the two of us were standing on your porch before I left and we heard the panther cry from the zoo down in the park, it brought back many memories that I had not thought of in a long time. I did not tell you about these memories then because I did not know how to tell you about them, but I want to tell you now.