Storming Heaven

Flora becomes pregnant around the same time that Miles returns from Berea College. Carrie notices that “Miles always said ‘it’ now, never ‘hit’” (59). Miles explains that the purpose of education is “to prepare mountain youth to take their place in the modern world” (60). He hopes to become superintendent of a new coal mine owned by one of his professors. Miles convinces his father, Orlando, to sell his timbers to the new coal company because they always need wood and Orlando will make a lot of money. 

Orlando tells Carrie that he doesn’t expect her to find a husband because her “tongue was too sharp and [she] was too forward in [her] ways” (61). But Carrie isn’t interested in the boys she knows anyway and is still looking for her Heathcliff. She tells Miles that she wants to go to school to become a nurse, and Miles offers to pay for her education. Orlando laughs at the idea of her going to school.

The men begin the dangerous work of cutting down the trees and sending them down the river to be sold to the coal company. One day, Orlando falls into the river and is killed, “all for a handful of silver” (65). Flora goes into labor that night, three months early. The baby dies less than an hour after being born. They bury the baby next to their mother. Eventually, Ben builds a large house for the whole family using the money Orlando earned selling timbers.

Rosa works as a maid for Senore Davidson, the wealthy owner of the coal company Mario works for. Mario plays baseball so Senore Davidson doesn’t require him to go down into the mines, which is dangerous work, but Rosa’s sons are expected to work in the mines. Senore Davidson, whose wife lives in Philadelphia, flirts with Rosa and tells her that she is his best maid. Rosa’s mother sends her a reliquary, a small Catholic statue, from Italy. Rosa sets up an altar for the reliquary in her home and prays often.

C. J. wants Rondal to help unionize the coal mine workers, but also to become a doctor. Rondal knows he can’t do both, and one night, when Rondal is 17, he and C. J. get into an argument. Rondal says that he has decided to go back to work in the coal mines and to try to form a union, knowing that if he becomes a doctor, “aint no doctor going to bring in no union” (71). Rondal knows that the coal miners still see him as one of them: “I was Clabe Lloyd’s boy, even if I did live at Annadel. Isom and I spent time with them in the beer joints and whorehouses” (73).

At first, Rondal’s mother won’t let him move back home in Winco, but she finally agrees when she realizes this means her youngest son, Kerwin, can stay in school and won’t have to work in the mines. One day, Rondal’s brother Talcott runs off with Isom’s younger sister, Pricie, to get married. Rondal’s mother is worried this means Kerwin will have to go into the mines after all, but Rondal insists that he will work in the mines for the family. After two years, Rondal writes to a union in Charleston, asking them to send an organizer to help unionize Winco. A month earlier, the coal company had hired the brutal Baldwin-Felts guards to come to Winco, after hearing rumors of union activity. One evening, a black man named Johnson stops Rondal asks if he wants to “ride the goat” (79). Johnson tells Rondal to meet him later that night and to bring men. That night, Johnson tells the men that they are forming a union. He explains that the “union is for white and Negro alike. Union is for foreign. Union is for Catholic. Anybody want to be a free man and fight for it, union is for him” (80), and that the men better be prepared to die for each other. Everyone signs up. 

Johnson and Rondal begin recruiting new members, which was “a frightful thing to approach a man, to read his eyes as you talked to him and wonder if you had misjudged him” (81). However, one night, the guards capture Rondal. They bring him to their base where they have Johnson tied up as well. The guards threaten to throw Rondal into the furnace, but when they lift him up, they throw him against the wall instead. Instead, they throw Johnson into the furnace. They tell Rondal that he has 24 hours to get out of town. Rondal tells his family, C. J., and Isom, and the next day, Rondal escapes to Kentucky under the name Lloyd Justice.