Storming Heaven

Rondal visits Carrie in her tent on Ermel’s farm, where she and Albion are staying with the other evicted miners. He explains that they burnt down Lytton Davidson’s house the previous night. Inside Lytton Davidson’s house, Rondal found a woman crying, who mistook him for her son Francesco. Rondal took the woman to the hospital and learned that she lost all four of her sons in the explosion.

Despite living in tents, Carrie feels as though the strike is going well through the summer. “On every corner, an armed miner stood sentinel with his red bandanna knotted around his neck,” (200) and the union in Charleston sends them food. In the fall, the coal companies fire the strikers and bring in more Baldwin-Felts guards as well as strike-breakers, people from around the country “who believed they would make their fortunes digging coal” (201) to work in the mines. Albion and some other strikers go to shoot at the strike-breakers and dissuade them from working, but they shoot at the ground and over their heads. Doc Booker invites Carrie and Albion to live with him, but they decide to stay in the tents in solidarity with the other strikers.