“I drove up there on a cold rainy Friday and stood on the overlook and looked down on the tunnel adit. It was about the loneliest feeling I ever had. All those men who had died putting that thing under the mountain and not one word was written to tell me that a single soul was sorry that it had happened.”
— from the personal papers of the late Ruby Winebrenner, Gauley Bridge, WV, as quoted in The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel: An Unabridged History by Patricia Spangler
Boyd coughed, silica dust trapped in the air like dust mites all around.
The air was dry. He craved the rushing air of the cold night and to see the stars that punctured the tight
black, like pinholes in a window shade.
All he knew now was clay that clung to him, heavy as the burden that brought him here.
Couple dollars a day to shovel. He’d done worse for less.
A man named Rufus had told him about it one night after a game of cards.
I know you’ve needed something, Rufus had said after a long pull on his beer bottle. And it ain’t any
different than being in the mine.
Not looking for that kind of work anymore, Boyd said.
He knew what to expect from the type of men who ran the tunnel site. Rich men from out of state who
always promised more than they gave, divvying out a gross imitation of what had originally been offered.
The golden dream of money haunted all of them in that town, a gaunt specter that lived in coal-blackened lungs.
He’d seen it all before, and he didn’t have any hopes. He had no choice.
Alright, Boyd said.
He spent his days in the tunnel now, and all he could think of was getting home to Eula and the supper of
chicken and dumplins she’d promised. Seeing her at the stove, still focused on the task ahead of her,
knowing she wouldn’t hear him come in—cause she didn’t hear nothing ever—flicking the kitchen light
so she’d know he was there. Always smiling at the golden red hair caught in sweaty curls against her
neck, against the small bone at the nape of her neck that he loved to kiss.
All she lived was dread anymore. Dread he was gone in one way or another.
Dead. Left her.
She saw the tiredness in his eyes. Knew what all he carried for the both of them. And it filled her with a
guilt so wide-reaching her lungs felt full.
Every morning.
Worst of all, she knew she could probably go on without him if she had to.
But this never stopped the fear of always losing him. In the swirling river. In the tunnel they were
building. In another woman’s bed.
Her mother told her she was born on the wrong day, and that’s why she was different. She carried an
ever-present anger from this misfortune next to her leaden heart.
Strangers always told her how sweet she was because they couldn’t see beneath it. They only pitied her.
Through so many veils, they missed it all. Woman. Poor. Deaf.
And she didn’t try to persuade them otherwise. She didn’t have time to. She’d be trying to convert the
world. Bringing in the sheaves, as they sang on Sunday.
Truly it wasn’t always cold and bleak. She was happy alone in her work. Weaving on the porch. Tending
her herb garden in the evening sun. Even washing and mending his shirts gave her a sense of
contentment.
But on these dark days nothing got through. Nothing could pierce her heart and bring her back.
Boyd knew when he got to the tunnel site he’d made a mistake.
The sound of the grinding machinery, the silica dust filling the air around the mouth of the tunnel
reminded him of the mining life he’d been avoiding. The very same his daddy had refused, eking out a
living selling pigs and running liquor instead. Like many things he’d known in life, this job was too good to
be true.
He walked up to the site supervisor he’d met yesterday when he signed the contract. Mr. Rochester, he
said.
The man turned when he heard his name. His suit was incongruous with the body-breaking labor
performed by the men around him. Boyd, he exclaimed, clapping him on the arm. Let’s get you started.
Rochester led him over to another man who was standing just inside the tunnel. He was slender and tall,
with sallow skin and a strange facial hair like Abraham Lincoln. Boyd noticed the man’s eyes were set
deep in his skull, lightless. His gut plummeted as if he saw his death standing there before him.
Tooley, Rochester said, gesturing to the ominous man. I’ve brought you someone else to help out. This is
Boyd Jenkins.
Tooley merely nodded.
Rochester turned back to Boyd. I’ll leave you to it then.
Boyd was more scared of the man in front of him than the opaque dark of the tunnel. He didn’t know
whether he should keep on or run back home. But he knew he’d make quick money here. That’s what
he’d been told.
Tooley picked up a shovel from a stack and handed it to Boyd. Get to diggin’, he said in an alarming
baritone.
Boyd didn’t know if he meant the tunnel or his own grave. He could barely breathe with all the silica in
the air. Ain’t you got masks for us? he asked.
Tooley’s reply was a long stare.
Boyd turned, coughing, to walk deeper into the tunnel.
Eula walked into the entryway of the superintendent’s office, the beauty of the building almost bowling
her clean over.
The afternoon sun shone on carved white wooden paneling that ran halfway up the wall, a motif of trees
and leaves that mirrored the woods that nearly swallowed the town. The rest of the wall was covered in
an ornate navy blue damask wallpaper with gold flecks. She looked closer and wondered if the gold was
real. She saw quick that the company spared no expense for superficial things.
She’d come to talk to someone in charge to let them know their men were spending nights coughing and
heaving. Some had already passed on.
Eula saw someone approaching out of the corner of her eye and turned to look down the hallway. A man
in a dark suit with a stiff collar said hello. He was bald, with dark eyes that narrowed when he saw her.
She held out the notepad and fountain pen she always carried with her.
Please write what you need to say. I’m deaf.
He touched her hand as he took the notepad. She shivered.
How can I help you?
I need to speak with the superintendent, she wrote.
What do you want? he wrote. His handwriting cut deep, leaving the paper embossed.
My husband’s friend was killed, she wrote. What are you doing for his family?
He read the question quickly and refused to take the notepad back.
She held out the paper, but he refused to take it. He turned and walked away. She followed, wondering if
that’s what he wanted.
He turned around, eyes blazing. All of you want handouts, he said. There are many to take his place, and
you will get nothing from me.
She reached out to touch his arm. Please.
He shrugged off her hand and pointed to the door.
He went back to where he’d come from, slamming a black lacquered door in her face.
She was used to being shut out. She would try again another day. She had to, for everyone. She had to,
for Grace.
The thought of her friend made her cheeks flush. She wondered when she’d see her next.
The first thing Rufus noticed was the smell of the trees. A deep weedy smell that stuck with him as he
walked to the superintendent’s office. The air was clear and fresh, just like his mother had said it’d be.
The green resonated with him, a welcome break from the hot red clay back home.
He hardly knew what was good for him anymore.
At the meeting, Grace took shorthand notes for Eula as the speaker shared the progress they’d made.
Dorothy had come from out of state, a labor organizer who collected death threats like wildflowers.
The conditions are untenable, she said. We’re all here for the same reason—to make known what is
happening to these men.
Eula looked around the room. There were only ten or fifteen people there. How would those few make a
difference?
Who do we need to talk to, she scribbled to Grace.
As if Dorothy had read what Eula wrote, she answered. Our best bet is to abscond with the superintendent’s log, she said somberly. Only then will we have the proof we need.
Eula looked at Grace in shock after she’d read the notes. She thought about what her mama had always
said: God helps those who help themselves.
She raised her hand. I can.
Dorothy looked at her in consternation. I appreciate that, Eula. She turned to look at the rest of the
room. Can someone help her? she mouthed in an overly expressive and enunciated manner.
Eula frowned and shook her head. I can do it myself, she said firmly.
Grace wrote quickly. I’ll go with you if she won’t listen to you.
Eula crossed her arms. This always happened with her parents. With Boyd. No one thought she could do
things on her own.
Yet somehow the thought of Grace accompanying her didn’t bother her.
She nodded curtly.
Grace spoke up. We’ll go together.
Eula couldn’t ignore the thrill she felt in her gut at the word together.
It felt right.
That night she dreamt of being suffocated by clay: eyes, nose, mouth, full.
She woke up flailing, hitting Boyd, who merely grunted and turned back to sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, feeling it moving toward her. She got up, feet on the ice cold floor picking up
grit on her way to the kitchen. No matter how much she swept, there was always grit.
She looked out the back window, into the yard, running the water as hot as she could and did dishes. The
motion soothed her, and the water brought her back into the safe present.
By the time she’d finished, the pink light around the mountains had begun. Boyd came in and wrapped
his arms around her. He kissed her neck, leading her back to bed for the short time they’d have before he
left for the tunnel.
The first time Eula kissed her stayed with her every waking moment, a scene on a reel she never wanted
to stop playing in her mind.
It was by the creek, in a low part where no one would see them. They’d come there just to talk, to make
a plan to talk to the tunnel superintendent.
But things changed when they sat down, facing each other so Eula could read Grace’s lips, their knees
touching.
It was the gold in her eyes, Eula swore. That’s what did it.
And from then on, she moved like a ghost through each day, the happiness turning to immobilizing guilt
when she saw Boyd.
She didn’t know what had gotten into her, newly inhabited with this rabid love, sure as the Holy Ghost at
Pentecost. Full of fire and speaking in tongues. Her heart halved. She’d never be the same.
Go on now, his brother taunted. Do it.
He’d captured a little brown frog from the gulley next to their house. It looked up at him now with pleading and guileless eyes.
His brother handed him the rock.
Rufus closed his eyes and cast the rock down with all his might.
He ran off when he saw the pulpy mass. Weakling! his brother screamed.
The boy had come to help. Make yourself useful, his mother had said. You’re driving me crazy staying
underfoot.
So he’d come to the tunnel to see what it was all about. His father had started work on the project a
month or so ago, and he’d heard hushed arguments between his parents at night. Over the money, over
the cough that kept his father up all night.
He’d brought two buckets of water. It was the only thing that seemed to help his father catch his breath,
and he figured it might help the others too.
He watched the men walking to and from the mouth of the tunnel, some of them wasting away to
shades of what they used to be, others still great hulking men. It was the biggest marker of who’d been
working there the longest.
He approached the men. Cold water here, he yelled out.
One of the men walked over. Thank you, son, he said. But you best get on out of here before they put you to work. He laughed painfully, his breath wheezing like a concertina.
The boy wondered what the joke was. He knew in a year or two he’d join the men here, if the project
lasted long enough. His father had told him as much, told him to keep it a secret from his mother.
Nathaniel, you’re a man now, he’d said. You need to start contributing.
He felt cold at the thought. When I go, who will bring me water?
Was she born of violence? It wasn’t fair the way she had been, but that was long past done and
accepted. Put in the grave, as her mama always said. Done and buried.
Boyd often wondered what it was like to live in her silent world, if it ever made her claustrophobic. As
much as he knew of her—her taste, her smell—he never wanted to ask that.
Eula folded a dish towel and set the heavy skillet down on the table. He watched the tendons in her
forearms tense under the weight of the cast iron. Despite her almost delicate appearance, her physical
strength was undeniable. He had noticed it when they played horseshoes in her front yard, when he was
sure about his love but unsure about hers. It was the first time he heard her laugh, low and long, when
he missed the nail by about a mile.
He tried to remember that laughter, when her green eyes flashed at him in frustration now, too often.
When was the last time he’d heard it?
The night they’d planned to break into the superintendent’s office, Eula couldn’t see the moon. Clouds
had filled the sky, like suffocating smoke.
She met Grace at the maple tree a few feet from the steps up to the superintendent’s house. Like most
tyrant’s, the office sat high above the town, in a place of false honor. The steps were made of stone and set into the easy slope. It looked like a Celtic castle Eula’s ancestors might have known. To her, history
never changed. The current of power simply attached itself to something different every decade or
century, and the results were the same: subjugation and death.
When she approached Grace, she could smell her intoxicating scent: woodsmoke and tea and the herbs
that hung from her kitchen ceiling.
Are you sure you want to do this? Grace said.
Yes.
As they approached the house in the gloom, Eula felt her skin buzzing the way it did when a
thunderstorm was coming.
They both wore the darkest clothes they had and gloves as well. They looked like thieves in mourning.
Eula had done a quick surveillance of the place after she’d tried to talk to the superintendent, so she
knew which window was the office window. She ran her fingers across the sash, feeling for tension,
opening it in one deft motion. She looked at Grace, who appeared forlorn but determined. They both
had too much at stake to be doing this, but here they were.
I had to lie to get away from George, Grace said unexpectedly. Her words were loaded, feeding the
tension that was already a living, breathing thing between them.
Eula shrugged. It had to be done.
She slid into the office, quick as a cat.
Grace followed, but one of her gloves caught on a nail. Eula helped her, her fingertips brushing against
her friend’s wrist.
She began opening and closing drawers as softly as she could. Finally, they found it. She couldn’t help but flip through it, reading the notations. Grace had grabbed the ledger.
Eula felt anger course through her as she read the notes in the margins. Fewer men lost than we
projected. Everything is going smoothly.
Her cheeks were blooming with the same heat that embarrassment usually caused. They knew, she
thought. They goddamn knew we would die.
She saw a box of matches and grabbed it.
Please, Grace said. A single word with a thousand meanings.
Before she could stop herself, Eula struck the match, staring at the flame for a moment before she
dropped it on the lush carpet.
Grace reached for the box and took a match herself. She let it drop, hers catching on the fibers of the
rug.
They kissed as the flames took over.
The dust fell around them like snow, cursed angels all of them.
Who benefitted, who profited, who left with no blood on their hands, who buried their crime and turned
the soil to plant corn, who never had nightmares, who built their mansions to the sky, who took their
money and doubled it and tripled it again, who rose to the highest office in the land, who quieted the
words of those who saw what they did, who silenced all in the mountain.
Rufus trudged to the mouth of the tunnel site. He heard the whistle blowing still, but it wasn’t the end of
the shift yet.
He saw the supervisor screaming at the confused men gathered around. He was covered in dust, glaring.
Who did this, the bald man screamed. The veins in his forehead were bulging.
I know one of you did it, he continued. His voice was shrill and sharp with anger and raspy from smoke
exposure.
Follow me, he said. Now!
They approached the town in a mass, like a people on their way to glory and freedom. They quickly saw
what had happened. The office was in ruins, smoldering.
There was absolutely nothing left.
The police car rumbled over the potholes in the road that had been made by the trucks carrying supplies
and bodies to and from the tunnel.
Her wrists chafed in the handcuffs that signaled what her life would be for the next five to ten years. No
pity for the deaf woman, she would face the same penalty Grace would serve. As if to punish them
further, they’d be sent to different prisons.
They’d never gotten to say goodbye.
She’d thought she’d cry, have at least some sort of release after anxious weeks of waiting for the
sentencing. Boyd had visited her every day in her holding cell, asking her why she did it, as if she’d done
it for him when he hadn’t asked.
It didn’t need to be this way, he’d said. He’d had no trouble crying.
Alongside the fear in her gut was the feeling of freedom, her imagination propelling her forward in time.
She would be released, and she would find Grace. She’d tell Boyd.
It has to be over someday, she thought.
Rufus had been buried for three weeks now.
Boyd remembered pulling his brother in the sled up the hill, his eyes shining. It was the first time he felt
the bond of an older brother, the unspoken vow he’d been forced into, to care for him and keep him
safe.
He leapt onto the sled with his brother, plummeting them down the hill. They were going too fast, he
knew it.
Then he heard a snap.
His brother screamed, and they slowed to a stop. His hand was bent at an odd angle, and his face was
contorted in pain. He rolled out of the sled into the snow.
I got you, bub, Boyd said. It’s alright. He tugged him back into the sled and began pulling him back to the
house, his brother’s screams cracking the air in half, his own hot tears slipping down his face.
Rufus didn’t know why he was the way he was, and he knew even if he’d been given a reason, it still
wouldn’t be enough.
He wondered if he’d ever be in love and hold someone.
Once, when he was twelve, he’d gotten too close to one of his friends. He’d smelled the boy’s sweat and
stared at his mouth, wanting to kiss him so badly that all he could do was push him roughly and turn
away laughing. He’d already known what was at stake.
That’s why he’d left home, come to this mountain state. Not the promise of fair wages and shelter, a
dream that vanished before he’d stepped off the train.
His mama said he had to go. It’s time you got that out of you, she’d said. Hard work will do it. Or nothing
will.
Boyd woke, choking. The cough always came in the hours he used to wrap his arms around her. Now that Eula was gone, all he had was the suffocating feeling from the clay in his lungs.
He walked out onto the porch, hoping fresh air would help, knowing it never did. The night sky was full
of clouds and empty of stars.
The coughing grew deeper each day. Some days it felt like it would tear him in half.
He’d been fired from the tunnel work after what Eula had done. Some kind of retribution after they took
her away.
His days spread out the same as the nights. Empty and hourless.
He roamed the mountain like he had when he was a boy. He found a bobcat den, the scat around the
entrance giving it away.
He backed away from it as if it were dynamite in the tunnel. But before he did, he saw the curled up
shape of the animal and two little ones tucked close to her.
He ran from the cave, but a fit of coughing stopped him. He continued on at a slower pace, gasping.
How he made it home he never knew.
Sometimes Eula had a lightness inside her that felt as if it could carry her all the way to heaven. She’d fly
away to glory, like the crows that surrounded their cabin, up through the clouds that must feel like the
mist she’d walk through some mornings to get water from the creek.
She loved the early moments of the day, living in between two worlds.
She often thought of her father these times, wishing he could visit her. The rules were solid in that way,
she believed. No previews of heaven, only the absence of light that loved ones leave when they die.
Boyd granted her this time unintentionally; he snored through the precious mornings he was off and the
rest of the time left while she was still in the dream world.
She spent the rest of her days working. There was always something to be done. Feed the chickens. Kill a chicken. Gather eggs. Pluck the chicken. Mend Boyd’s overalls, darn her stockings, wash the piles of
clothes.
Though Boyd’s heart was good, he was unhelpful in so many ways. Her mother and father had split the
chores evenly, to much laughter from their friends. Eula had hoped for the same.
She remembered what she felt when Boyd had begun to court her not too many years ago.
He’d come sit on the porch with her, always bringing some flower or sprig with him. She showed him
how to write what he wanted to say in the notebook she always carried with her, and he became quicker
and quicker until she eventually got comfortable reading his lips.
The first time he asked her to marry him had been written down in the little notebook. And she carried it
to this day, folded up in a locket that had been her mother’s.
She’d hold on to it as she chanted prayers all day for Boyd. Something in her knew he’d leave this earth
too soon.
She looked for omens, augers in nature, anything foreboding or suspicious, and then she covered it in
salt and herbs and prayers. Her mother had taught her this. To believe the signs when they came.
Boyd never made fun of her for her superstitions though most would, and had. The way he loved her
was like caring for an abused dog; he approached her carefully and gave constant reassurance that she
was safe.
She didn’t know why he treated her this way. Her deafness was nothing tragic. It wasn’t the result of a
dramatic bout with fever or some awful fall. She had never heard anything, and never would.
There was no one there the day they buried him. His parents had died before him and his brother lived
in California.
And Eula didn’t know.
They buried him with the other fallen men, somewhere near Rufus. Somebody had given that kindness
at least.
The letter she’d written him, the only one, was returned.
She held it in her hands and looked at the writing on the outside over and over.
Recipient no longer at this address.
The night he laid down to die, he thought of the barn cat he had when he was a child. It was gray and
had a yellow-eyed fixed stare, broken only by a solemn, solitary wink that never failed to make him
laugh.
He’d named him Mr. Pisster, and he would rewrite songs with the cat’s name. Mr. Pisster, where you
been. You’ve gone round, now you’re back again.
That night it seemed all he did was cough and gasp till his bunkmate yelled out, Goddammit, can’t you
stop?
He closed his eyes to see he was in the hayloft with Mr. Pisster. Only now the cat sang to him instead.
Rufus, my friend, where you been?
