The Coalwood Way (32 page)

And lo, it was Mary’s time so she brought forth her firstborn
son, and wrapped him in a Salvation Army blanket, and laid
him in the straw.

The light came back on, revealing a cradle between Slug and Carol, and in it was a real baby boy, loaned out by a mother from up Snakeroot Hollow. You could just see her coat as she disappeared around the corner of the manger. Every once in a while, she’d peek out from behind to make certain her baby was all right.

Carol rocked the cradle, looking at the baby, her face aglow with the love only a young woman can show for a child. The baby, dressed in blue, slept. It was a good baby. Sherman and Roy Lee had picked the right one for the part. I just hoped they hadn’t given it any of John Eye’s magic stuff to keep it quiet. I wouldn’t have put it past Roy Lee.

Billy brought another light up, this one on the tower. Eight men, dressed in their mining clothes, stood in front of it, fiddling with their batteries and lamps as if preparing to go down into the mine.

It was time for Quentin’s first pyrotechnics. A puff of smoke erupted from the top of the platform. It was a small bucket of rocket candy. I gleefully smacked Quentin on his back. “It worked!” I whispered furiously into his ear.

“Of course, old boy,” he shrugged.

From the smoke appeared Linda DeHaven on the platform. She was wearing a white robe and big paper wings. She waved away the smoke and then raised her arms in a blessing while the choir sang the special words to “The First Noel.”

On this Noel the angel did say
Was to certain poor miners
With scrip for their pay
With scrip for their pay, it was a hoot-owl shift
Huddled at the tipple awaiting the lift.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the babe whose story we tell . . .

Sherman continued:

And there was up the road at the Number One Portal the
hoot-owl shift putting on their lamps and batteries and getting
ready to go inside.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them at the
man-hoist, and the glory of the Lord shone round about
them; and being coal miners they were duly impressed but not
afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy for unto you is born this day a Savior,
which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in a Salvation Army blanket, lying in Mr. Carter’s
old mule barn.

The choir then burst into “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” the words modified according to the idea that Sherman had put into my mind when we watched the little fawn die on Sis’s Mountain, that neither place nor time is without meaning to God, only the story He wishes to tell.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!
Peace in the coalfields, and mercy mild,
Company and union reconciled.
Joyful, all ye miners, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With the angels yell out good,
Christ is born here in Coalwood.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!

When all the voices died away, Sherman proceeded:

And it came to pass, the miners said one to another, Let us
now go down past Tipple Row on Main Street and past the
school and the Big Store and the Club House and the Community Church and Snakeroot Hollow and the machine
shops; let us go even unto Middletown before Mudhole and
Frog Level and stop at the old mule barn, and see this thing
which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known
unto us.

And they came with haste, swinging their lunch buckets,
and found Mary and Joe and the baby just as the angel said
they would.

The miners walked across the Club House lawn to the manger and took off their helmets and knelt to the side of the sleeping baby in the cradle. The choir sang:

Joy to the world! The Lord has come:
Let’s now receive our King.
Let ev’ry family, show Him our love,
And Coalwood’s people sing,
And Coalwood’s people sing,
And Coalwood’s, let Coalwood’s people sing.

Joy to the town! Our Savior reigns:
Let all their songs employ,
While mountains, mines, and hollows,
And slack dumps and coal trains,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy.
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

When the choir finished, Sherman began to read again.

Now, behold, there were three Kings in Coalwood,
Saying, we have seen his star, and a rocket, too, and are come
to worship him.

What was coming next was tricky. At the crest of the wide pavement between the Club House and the Community Church sat a small rocket, topped by the cargo canister Mr. Bolt had given me just after Veterans Day. Quentin and Billy had loaded the rocket with rocket candy, a propellant that burned hot and long and produced a pretty pink exhaust. Tug and Hug monitored the rocket, keeping curious folk from approaching too close.

Quentin threw the switch. I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and closed my eyes. Actually, I squinted. But I opened them wide when I heard the rocket take off. It flew perfectly.
Good old rocket candy!
The audience let out a long, slow “ooooooh” as the rocket climbed, the pink flame from its tail shooting up into the darkness. At around a thousand feet, a mix of flash powder in the cargo canister went off, producing a big white and red burst of streaming fireflies. Presently, we heard something crash into the trees behind the church. I let out a long sigh of relief. The audience broke into sustained applause.

Billy threw a switch that went to colored lights strung around a Christmas star (an aluminum construction courtesy of the machine shop) on top of the manger. It looked glorious. Quentin got up and took a little bow. I made him stop it. I had been against the idea of the rocket, launched so close to a seated audience. “You worry too much, old boy,” Quentin said in disdain.

And lo, they followed his special star till it stopped over the
mule barn.

There was the sound of tire chains slapping the snow-covered road, and an Olga Coal Company Jeep pulled up at the Club House entrance.

Then the Kings of Coalwood rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
And so they gave Him gifts.
First came the Company King who brought the baby a gift

of West Virginia coal, the black diamond from which steel is
made. For without coal, steel fails, and without steel, the country fails.

My dad, wearing his old cowhide jacket and white foreman’s helmet, climbed awkwardly from behind the wheel of the Jeep and walked up the steps to the Club House sidewalk. In his outstretched hands was a white pillow, and on it was a large chunk of very black coal, sparkling even in the muted light. He stopped at the cradle in the manger, bowed, and went down on one knee, placing the pillow at the cradle’s foot.

Second came the Union King who brought a gift of West Virginia labor, without which there would be no coal, or steel, or
country, either.

Mr. Dubonnet got out of the Jeep, dressed in his miner’s clothes and his black helmet. He carried a coal shovel. He knelt beside Dad, jostling him a little, which earned a dirty look, and put the shovel down beside the pillow.

And third came the Teacher King who brought the baby the
greatest of West Virginia gifts, education, by which He might
learn to read and write and understand our history and traditionsand see an end to all ignorance.

Jake went over and helped Miss Riley out of the Jeep. Although I’d originally selected Mr. Likens, the Coalwood school principal, to play the part, he and his teachers had decided to give the honor to Miss Riley, instead. Technically, of course, she was a queen, but sometimes a writer has to trust his audience to understand that words are as much art as definition.

Miss Riley, wearing a tweed coat and borrowed galoshes that were too big for her, leaned against Jake and then straightened and came forward on her own. She carried school books. She put them at the end of the cradle beside the coal and the shovel and then knelt with Dad and Mr. Dubonnet.

Then they worshipped Him as did all the people of Coalwood
who had come together as never before.

Roy Lee suddenly appeared from the shadow of the Club House. He worked his way over to me and Quentin and Billy. He had the casement I had loaded during the past two days. “Look!” he whispered. The casement was discolored, as if it had gotten very hot.

“I had Roy Lee static-test our new nozzle,” Quentin told me. He was also whispering. “I couldn’t wait to see if we’d solved the problem.”

I was furious. “Couldn’t you have asked me?”

“The ignorant hesitate,” Quentin sniffed. “The intelligent demonstrate.”

I stared at him. “What?” His Quentinese had finally beaten me.

“I stuck the casement nosefirst in the slack,” Roy Lee said, ignoring our little tiff, “and lit the fuse. Man, it was loud!”

I recalled the odd thunder I’d heard coming in the direction of Frog Level.

“Did it work?” Bill whispered eagerly.

Roy Lee used a flashlight to show us the results. “Look!”

We all peered inside the casement at the nozzle. “Not a trace of erosion,” Quentin said aloud. “Is this not the most rigorous result there could possibly be? It’s a miracle!”

It was, but I hushed them, anyway. Quentin, Roy Lee, and Billy fell silent.

Ginger, having donned a choir robe, climbed to the top of the Club House steps and turned. Her smile was radiant. Her mother gave her a nearly inaudible cue on the pitch pipe, and then she began to sing in the purest, lightest voice anyone had ever heard. Each note was perfect. It was as if they had substance, made of the finest and purest crystal, floating from Ginger to cross the sky.

Silent night
Holy night
Coalwood’s calm
Coalwood’s bright

It had started to snow again and it seemed as if a white, translucent veil had been drawn across the Club House lawn. I heard a murmur of voices and then I saw that people on the front row of hay bales were standing up. Miss Riley was on her feet, too, and then Slug, Carol, Dad, and Mr. Dubonnet got up, too. Champion was making little neighing noises. The baby’s mother came and got her child out of the cradle, holding him close. They were all looking at a dark form that I couldn’t quite make out that had come around the manger. Then, as the snow lifted, I saw what it was. “A deer!” Quentin said.

It was the buck. It came into the manger and started grazing on the hay. Champion nickered a greeting. Then, another deer, this one a doe, crept up to the first row of hay bales. The people that had been sitting on them stood up to make room. “Look, Mommy,” one little girl cried. “It’s Santa Claus’s reindeer!”

The doe stuck her big black nose into the hay and snatched a clutch of it, chewing and swallowing in nervous gulps. Then another doe came out of the darkness and then, from around the Club House, came three more does and a fawn. Ginger sang on.

Round yon virgin
Mother and child
Holy infant
So tender and mild

Shock was giving way to small chuckles. Soon, everyone was raptly watching as the deer made their way through the bales. “Merry Christmas,” I heard Sherman say. “I think we’re seeing a real miracle.”

Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

As Ginger finished, another voice picked up on her final, perfect note. It was a woman’s voice, deeper, throatier. Then a chorus of voices. In front of the Community Church stood a vast choir, dressed in gold. I thought at first it truly was an angelic host. Then a woman stepped out and sang “Silent Night” to the syncopated claps of the others, all swaying to a beat I had never imagined could be applied to the ancient song. I spotted a man standing apart from them, dressed in a suit of what appeared golden armor. It was actually gold lamé and wearing it was none other than the Reverend Julius “Little” Richard. The Mudhole Church of Distinct Christianity choir kept singing, and soon everybody was singing with them and clapping along. I looked and Ginger was doing a little dance on the Club House porch, singing and clapping enthusiastically in time with the Mudhole chorus.

When the choir was finished, Little stood in front of them. “My friends, you were so kind to invite me and my flock to this gathering but we had a gathering of our own planned, I swan, and so we are a mite late. I invite you now to walk back with us, praising God all the way, to see all that there is to see.”

And so we did, all the people, leaving the famished deer to eat their fill. The Mudhole church choir in gold mixed in with the Coalwood church choir in maroon. They began to sing “Joy to the World.” Everybody joined in. I looked over my shoulder, and the deer were still happily eating the hay. To them, there was joy indeed.

As we passed the old mule barn, the site of our fictional manger, I could see Little’s church. Built into the front of the church were two perfectly round windows. With the light from inside the church shining through them, they looked like the sun and the moon. “What does it mean, Reverend?”

“What does it mean? Why, child, those windows are meant to be the potter’s wheels. Remember the verse from Jeremiah?”

Little walked on to be with the joined choirs gathered beneath the glowing circles. They began to sing “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.” I kept looking at Little’s windows.

Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine.

Every Christmas carol anybody could think of was sung, and we held hands or locked elbows and swayed in time with the music. Then, finally, I could feel the perfect thing was complete. Everybody else seemed to know it, too, and people started walking home in warm groups of the spiritually satiated. I walked behind my mother and father. They were holding hands, like school kids in love.