Ella slept on the floor inside the headquarters that night, her back to the wall, her head resting on her hands, her mind returning to Stumptown and the faces of her sleeping children. Sophia had found an old blanket—a wiry, woolen thing that was so stiff it seemed never to have been unfolded—and Ella had used it to cover herself.
A handful of people had remained outside the headquarters all night, passing around thermoses of coffee and flasks of whiskey. Ella had fallen asleep listening as they recounted stories of the Loray strike and the other strikes they’d heard of: Lawrence, Passaic, Pineville. They’d talked about the threats they’d received since joining the union, the violence they saw when the National Guard arrived, the potential of what was to come.
She woke in the night to what she thought was the scratch of Rose’s breathing, but when she opened her eyes she saw a mouse dragging a piece of mustard-coated wax paper across the rough plank floor just a few feet from where she slept.
The next time she woke it was to the sound of laughter on the street. Ella raised herself to her elbows, felt the bones in her back and shoulders shift into place, looked around the dark room at the shapes of sleeping bodies where people had arranged pallets on the floor. She searched for the forms of Velma and Sophia, but it was too dark to see them and too quiet to search them out. Instead she stood quietly and opened the door.
Outside, night felt closer than morning, although morning was near. Several groups of men stood in silhouette on the road in front of the headquarters. None of them seemed to take note of her.
She tuned her ear to the dark field across the street. The chirping of crickets rose from the grass. She heard the sound of faraway water where it ran over rocks in a shallow, muddy gulch that cut along the field’s far edge. For a moment, in this cool almost-night with the rolling water and the crickets in her ears, Ella felt transported back to the mountains. She closed her eyes and imagined that if she were to open them she would see dawn creeping through the low clouds enshrouding the lumber camp.
A burst of laughter rang out in the quiet street. Ella opened her eyes. Instead of the lumber camp’s denuded hills she saw the same dark figures of strikers clustered in groups of twos and threes. Out on the road, the glowing, orange tips of cigarettes. The shapes of shotguns propped on shoulders. The men’s whispered voices.
Ella crossed the gravel road, stood on the edge of the field. The stage remained, but someone had removed the skirt from beneath it and taken down the lanterns.
She looked at the building behind her. Beal had instructed them to meet at the headquarters at 7 a.m. to march down to the village, where they’d wait for the evictions to begin. Ella did not know what time it was, but the sun had just risen, and she knew there was plenty of time for her to be alone before the crowds gathered again.
She walked south in the direction from which she’d seen Loray workers coming the night before. She crossed the railroad tracks, studied the yards of the boardinghouses and small shacks as she passed them. She reached Franklin Avenue, where Loray rose before her. The morning was still dark enough to see the lights burning behind the windows, the downtown streets quiet enough to hear the incessant thrum of the great machines at work inside.
Ella stepped onto the curb, walked west. How long would it take her to reach Stumptown? Three hours? Four? She’d been gone almost twenty-four hours, which was the longest she’d ever been away from her children. If she left now she could easily make it home before noon, have a few hours with her babies before her shift started. Her body ticked with desperation to see them, to touch them and hear their voices.
They were used to spending their nights alone, but she’d told them she’d be back. Violet would have made sure they had something to eat for dinner. Lilly would have gotten them ready for bed. The children would be waking now: Lilly searching the cabin for something to eat; Otis stoking a fire in the oven in expectation of breakfast; Rose coughing the damp night air from her lungs; Wink swaddled in thin blankets, his fingers closing around anything he could reach.
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?”