The Last Ballad(40)

Morning in downtown Gastonia was different from morning in Stumptown: Across the street, a boy unloaded bound newspapers from the back of a running truck and stacked them neatly on the sidewalk. Cars and trucks rolled past. A man pushed a covered vegetable wagon down the center of the street. Lights winked on behind glass windows inside businesses that were preparing for the day’s work. Ella drew closer to Greasy Corner, where the smells of frying eggs and bacon, toast, and coffee filled her nose and stirred her hunger.

Ella had walked far enough that she could see an end to the downtown streets and sidewalks as they gave way to countryside. She stopped, looked back toward Loray, where smoke rose from cookstoves down in the village.

She heard voices and looked toward the shadows at the end of an alley. Fred Beal stood talking with a tall, thin man in a black suit and a black stovepipe hat. A silver star gleamed on his lapel. The man must have felt Ella’s eyes on him because he raised his head, still listening to Beal, and looked at Ella where she stood at the alley’s mouth. He nodded. Beal noticed, and he looked up at Ella too, raised his hand to her. The men walked up the alley toward her, their heads bent, their voices just beginning to reach her.

“It’s the law, Mr. Beal,” the man said. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about the law. Mill owns those houses. You know that.”

“But it doesn’t own the people inside,” Beal said.

“I agree,” the man said. “But they can’t just stay there if the mill wants them out. The mill has a right to remove them. I’ll have some men on hand to see that it’s done carefully and respectfully. But I need your people to be careful and respectful too, Mr. Beal.”

“I’ve made clear to them that there is to be no violence,” Beal said. “But we’ve been attacked before, Chief Aderholt. You saw what happened to our old headquarters. You saw how the commissary was destroyed.”

“And I hated it,” Aderholt said. “It just made everything worse, and we can’t have it get any worse than it already is.”

“You’ve got a few ruffians on your hands too, Chief. Roach and Gibson, to name only two.”

“I’ve spoken with them about the complaints,” Aderholt said. “And I’ve given Roach some time off to get himself together, and Gibson knows I’m watching him. Passion’s running high, and not everyone has acted as professionally as they should have, but you need to take responsibility for your people’s behavior too.”

The men had moved out of the shadows. They stopped in front of Ella. Aderholt nodded toward her. “Is this the one?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Beal said. He smiled, put his hands in his pockets. “This is the one. This is Ella May.”

Ella stared at Aderholt while he stared at her. He was older than she’d assumed. His skin was fair, his eyes dark. Wisps of white hair protruded from beneath his black hat. He touched its wide brim, nodded.

“Miss,” he finally said.

Aderholt turned back to Beal.

“Mr. Beal?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“Let’s not have anyone hurt or, God forbid, killed this morning.” Aderholt looked behind him, where sunlight poured onto the road, shone against the windows of the shops and restaurants along Franklin. “It’s too nice a morning for that.” He turned and walked back toward town. Beal and Ella watched him go.

“He’s a fine man,” Beal said. “He has to toe the city’s line, but he’s done everything he can to help us.”

“What did he mean?” Ella asked. “When he said, ‘Is this the one?’ What does that mean?”

Beal smiled. “Word’s out about you, Miss May.”

“What word?” Ella said. She felt heat rising in her face, and she didn’t yet know if it came from anger or embarrassment, but she knew that whatever Beal said would decide it for her.

“You made quite the impression last night,” Beal said. “With the story you told and your song. It all made quite the impression on Loray, on the newspapers too. They’re saying we brought you in from Nashville, paid you big-time money to get up there and sing.”

“I ain’t from Nashville,” Ella said. “I ain’t never even been to Nashville. I’m from Sevierville.”

“It doesn’t matter, Miss May,” Beal said. “The mill wants people to believe that you’re not real, that your story’s not real. They want everyone to believe that you’re an actor or a singer or anything other than a mill mother with sick babies and an empty wallet.

“But we’re going to fight against lies like those,” Beal said. “Your story’s true. People need to hear it. Your singing too.” He lit a cigarette, turned his head, and blew smoke up the alley. “You were wonderful last night. And that song. It was wonderful.”

“Thank you,” she said. She spoke the words just in time for the sound of them to merge with another sound. A westbound train that neither she nor Beal was prepared to see or hear burst from the morning’s silence and bolted past at the end of the alley. The rush of it blasted a gust of wind toward them. Beal stumbled, ducked as if someone had hurled something dangerous at him—a knife, a stick of dynamite, an unspent bullet—and in a quick sweep his eyes strafed the alley as if that dangerous, unseen thing were now rolling toward him, where it would stop at his feet. He caught himself, smiled at Ella, straightened his suit. They stood without speaking and waited for the train to pass.