FOR THE FIRST TIME in years, Mother Jones wept. The tears came churning out of her eyes in sorties, squadrons, battalions—swamping her. She was on the train out of coal country, her face a red sea. For hours, she’d been watching the army of miners headed in the opposite direction, a whole tide of them marching up the tracks with their knotted bandannas and slung rifles, some of them hanging from coal hoppers or riding on boxcars.
She twisted her handkerchief in her hands, hard. Her born sons were long dead, struck down as babes, and she’d made this whole nation of boys her own. She’d fought and cared for them as best she could, putting every ounce of herself into their futures. Oh, how she loved them. Now she feared they were marching to their deaths, and she could do nothing to stop them.
A steward knelt beside her in the aisle. “Are you okay, Mrs. Jones? Anything I can get for you?”
She wiped her nose with her handkerchief. “No, young man. It’s just I fear these boys are marching to slaughter.”
The man nodded. “Some of the railroad brothers gone to fight with them,” he whispered. “That’s the word on the line.”
“They have the cold fury now, like I’ve not seen. It’s no show. They are marching to work, they are. They mean to use those guns sure as shovels and picks.”
The steward nodded. “Reckon there comes a point a person just don’t care no longer. Rather get killed standing up for himself than cowering in fear.”
Mother nodded. “I understand that. Well, I do. But I’ve been around a long time, son, nigh on ninety years. Long enough to smell a trap. I believe the coal operators and Baldwins want them to march. It’ll force the Army to intervene again, in force this time.” She shook her head. “I’ve preached a storm coming, I have. Backlash. Revolt. It’s inevitable. Americans will only live so long without freedom. It’s oxygen to them. The very lifeblood of the Great Experiment. But war? No, son. Not like this. Whole universes of pain and grief come of that, blasted across generations. That’s got to be accounted for. I did my best to stop it. To talk them down. Desperate, I was.”
She looked down at her hands, which had held the telegram. Phony it was, though she’d hardly admitted that even to herself. Perhaps she’d hoped if the whole world believed it, the President would have to make it true.
She shook her head. “I lost their trust.”
The steward nodded. “If you done a bad thing, it was for a good reason. So you’re even in my book, Mrs. Jones.” He paused. “What are you going to do next?”
An attack of the rheumatism was coming on, she could feel it. It would spread through her body like a wildfire, seizing her up. Soon her joints would be gripped in searing fists and her feet would swell up, threatening to bust from their little black pumps. Nodules would break out on the backs of her hands, pale hives she’d scratch bloody if she didn’t mind herself. She might even be bedbound. The spirit is willing but the flesh …
“I’ll keep fighting, son. If I can’t do it in on the ground, I’ll see what sway I’ve got in the high offices.” She looked out the window. They were slugging across the rolling fields and vast plantations of Virginia, heading for the nation’s capital. She began opening and closing her fists, as if readying for a prizefight. “We’ll see if I’m as dangerous as I used to be.”
But by the time they rolled into Union Station, the rheumatism had its teeth in her. The steward helped her down from the train and a pair of old family friends met her on the platform—the Powderlys, her hosts in the federal city. The steward helped her all the way to their car. She climbed into the back seat, gritting her teeth against the pain.
“Give them hell, Mrs. Jones,” said the young man.
She squeezed his upper arm.
“Born to,” she said.