Historical Fiction
(Fic)
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In the mid-1800's, a group of Pennsylvania coal miners were convicted and executed for crimes they may not have committed. They were known as the Molly Maguires. This story, though, is about the women who knew and loved them and swore to avenge their wrongful deaths. "Sounds interesting!"
Mary Clare McAllister lay Black-Eyed Susans on her husband’s grave. Today was shimmering – a bit of a surprise for October. She could smell windfall apples in the air and thought how she and Danny had gathered them last fall. She had taken a bag of them to Bridie who made an apple pie for her and Dannie. Bridie always seemed to have a bit of lard, flour, and a sugar lump and when you combine those rare items with apples you came out with pie. A perfect apple pie, so good Mary remembered watch...
“Git up. Git up, Sean Francis McCann!” Bridie said. Her voice was low but sharp as a hand pick. She shook her brother’s shoulder then pinched his ear. “There be a man asleep in Da’s bed. A stranger soon be receiving a good-mornin’-to-ya from my club!” she half-whispered. Sean McCann tried to ignore the intrusion into his dream. He was with his boys buying him whiskey in the shebeen. The lovely Katie sitting on his lap, stroking his hair as he sm...
Bridie was not done with Sean, but she’d have to wait to give him apiece. The man in what was once their parents’ bed bothered her more right now. She and the boys had talked about taking on a boarder - they could barely make rent with Bridie’s laundry work and what the boys brought in. Rent or necessaries at the Company Store? She muttered a curse against the Pennsylvania and Western Coal Company - the PW - the Piss and Wind Coal Company she mostly called it. Sh...
“I swear by Jehovah, I could walk faster than this. Gee, gee up, Rosie!” Mary said. She clucked hard trying to coax Rose into a gallop. Rose responded with a snort and picked up her pace for a few appeasing seconds. Mary felt guilty trying to coerce Rose to pick up speed. It was Rose’s day off from hauling tons of rock from underground. Poor Rose, probably just wanted to be let alone to eat grass and sleep in the sun. But Sarah Donnell’s baby had other ideas. Bridie he...
Bridie handed the child over to Sarah’s mother, who stood with a soft towel that had been warmed against her skin. The newborn’s body was beginning to turn pink and she was winding up for a good wail. Bridie knew this child had to be as large as Jack was when he was born and Sarah would have to heal for a good time to come before she could have another. Jack would want another, seeing how his first was a girl. Bridie hoped Sarah could persuade him to go easy on the making of more children. If...
Michael McCann stood at the bottom of the stairs at the back of Creary’s Place looking up at a man as broad as an oak tree. “Hello Hammer,” Michael said as he began the slow climb. He hoped his footfalls were silent. He had only been practicing the art of going unnoticed for a short time. With each step, sweat trickled down the back of his shirt, plastering it to him like one of his sister’s shite-smelling poultices. He was sure McHugh could see his Adam's Apple working...
Chapter 7
This MIGHT be the beginning
Chapter 7? Don’t know exactly where this fits. The Heat Leads Them To Do Something It was hot, an oppressive heat settled on them all day and there was no relief at night. You sweated it out, it’s all you could do. During the day, the men escaped into the dank mine shaft, which held its own misery – coal dust suspended, the air thick with it, thicker than at any other time. All of them kept quiet, to themselves lest their throats crack with dust li...
Chapter 8
First rough draft
Bridie and her Mother - First draft of chapter Bridie was First Child, First Daughter. Those whom they buried before they could speak, before uttering that first scream of terror as they entered the world, were three. Three. Three babies between Bridie and Michael, none living. The prayers of the priest did not bring them back. What use was he, impotent except to utter that it was God’s will and it was up to God’s mercy to forgive their original sin. Sin? Bridie, now old enoug...
Chapter 9
Rough draft: Michael in the Woods
First draft. Not sure the order of this chapter but posting it now. Appreciate comments, thanks! They cleared the path not long after the moon had disappeared behind the mountain pines. Michael was used to the dark, having spent so many years walking with his father to the mine and breaker. There were so many men making the same trek back then that he had no fear, he knew the way and he had his father. But this was different. He had rarely been on a horse. Sure, Rosie occasionally, b...
“Michael, you shite,” Bridie mumbled, picking up clothes thrown on the bedroom floor. She was gathering what she could of the family’s clothes to wash before laundering that of the Smyths. “Why can’t you put your dirties in a pile?” she asked the lump in the bed, “And ya gobshite, smells of horse shite and,” she sniffed, “yer own. Mary and Joseph, Michael, what ya been doin’?” She shook the clothes, intending to fold them over ...
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