The Midwife of Hope River

Dark pours into the hollow, and lanterns appear. I find another empty dynamite box and drag it over next to Mrs. Potts, all the while keeping my back to the lawmen. So many times I have waited like this, stiff with worry outside a mine, waiting for Ruben while he confronted the bosses. I could always tell, by watching, when he was angry. He’d stuff his hands deep in his pockets to keep his big fists from flying into someone’s face.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,” the old lady begins in a deep contralto, “that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” Mildred, Emma, and a few of the other Hazel Patch ladies join in and then three white ladies and then the vet and me. It’s funny how music can soothe, can heal, can give us courage, especially singing together.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares we have already come. ’Twas Grace that brought us safe thus far . . . and Grace will lead us home.”

There’s movement at the opening of the mine, then a rending cry from the waiting assembly. Hester grabs his bag, grips my arm, and leads me forward, but the new victim, carried by Izzie Cabrini like a rag doll over his shoulder, has no use for our medical services. He’s a broken man, his face gray and covered in mud and his eyes wide open. I look away, and the vet steps forward to check his pulse with his stethoscope. He shakes his head to confirm that it’s hopeless . . . and Izzie moves on. The immobile victim is the second man crushed under the slide.

Now the crowd surges forward. More miners are coming out, five of them, staggering, limping, shuffling, crying. I search for Thomas. Maybe his dark face doesn’t show in the gloom—and then I catch sight of him hobbling forward, supporting another injured coal miner, whose left arm dangles from his shoulder. From nowhere a small brown body shoots forward. It’s Bitsy, who jumps up on her brother, shouting “Praise God!”

Where did she come from? How did she get here? Last I knew, she was heading down Wild Rose Road toward the banks of the Hope River, carrying her shotgun, planning to shoot a wild turkey for dinner. She must have come home, seen my note, heard the distant wailing siren, and, fearing for Thomas, run through the woods and over the ridge all by herself.

Hester motions me forward. “Patience! Over here.” The women of the camp have made pallets on the ground, and he is kneeling over a man with a gash on his head. “You clean the wound and bandage it. There’s a lot of mud. Wash it thoroughly. I’ll check this fellow, it looks like he may have a broken arm.”

No one asks who we are or if we are a qualified physician and nurse. They’re just glad to have us. Bitsy trots over with my birth satchel and gets out the yellow antiseptic soap and clean rags. Mrs. Potts brings over a vial of echinacea tincture and a fifth of whiskey. I’m shocked when she boldly pulls the booze from under her shawl.

“Had it since my husband passed away in ’19, before the Prohibition,” she explains. The injured man reaches for the bottle. “No, you don’t.” She blocks him. “It’s for cleansing your wounds, and it’s gonna burn some.” She drips the liquid over the four-inch gash in his forehead. “Now bandage him good, and he’ll stop bleeding.”

“Patience!” It’s Hester calling again. Bitsy finishes the dressing, then collects our gear, and we move where we’re needed.

“His arm isn’t broken, just dislocated,” the vet explains. “I’m going to try to put it back in place. Save him the expensive hospital admission and the painful trip to Torrington over the muddy rutted roads. What I want you to do is hold his right shoulder down. You may need to kneel on it.”

The injured man looks at me, his face white with pain.

“What’s your name?” I ask him.

“Farley Tuggs.”

“It will be okay,” I comfort him. “Mr. Hester’s very good at this.” In reality, I have no clue what we’re doing.

I fix my glasses behind my ears, put the man’s arm against his side, and, with both my knees against his shoulder, pin him down, like the vet said. Bitsy, without anyone asking, cradles his head, protecting it and at the same time keeping the poor fellow from thrashing around. Mrs. Potts shows up and this time gives the man a slug of whiskey for the current pain and the greater pain he has coming.

“Ready?” Hester asks. The miner shuts his eyes.

I watch as the veterinarian first folds the victim’s forearm in and across his abdomen, then rotates his arm and shoulder out. Slowly, steadily, he rotates the limb back and forth. Tears make white rivulets down the sides of the patient’s coal-blackened face, but he doesn’t make a sound, just bites his lower lip till it bleeds. When the dislocated shoulder pops back into its joint, Farley screams. Then “That wasn’t so bad! Thanks, Doc.” The relief is instant. He sits up smiling. It reminds me of a woman after she’s just given birth. “That wasn’t so bad!” It’s the fear of the pain more than the pain that gets to you.

“Can you fellows make him a sling?” Hester asks two men in the crowd around us. “I need you to stabilize his whole left side.” Then he stands up and goes on to the next miner, who is sitting on the ground holding his leg. A woman with tears streaming down her face, who I imagine is the guy’s wife, hovers over him and has already brought a pan of warm water out of their shack. The leg is not broken, just cut down to the bone, and Hester sews it up in layers as I watch.

In an hour, the crisis is over. Two miners are dead, but the rest have survived and, if they aren’t too banged up, will go back to work as soon as the water subsides and the walls are shored up. They have families to feed and are paid by the ton. There’s no camp medical care. No disability benefits. No life insurance for the dead miners’ families. I look around for someone in charge. If there’s a foreman, I can’t tell. Thomas and the miners seemed to have organized everything.

For twenty years, the United Mine Workers fought for mine safety, higher pay for hazardous work, and cash compensation rather than scrip at the company store. They won victory after victory, but there was a price: union men were injured in riots, sometimes killed.

As steel production dropped after the boom, the need for coal went down too. Union membership dwindled. Mine owners returned to the practice of treating miners like chattel, and now here we sit on the wet earth, tending the nonunionized miners of Wildcat Mine.