Chương 148: Please Forgive Us, the Barbarians

Arthur didn't answer immediately. Because the crucial, irrefutable evidence had already rushed into the scene himself.

A man wearing worn-out round-framed glasses squeezed through the crowd from the back.

He looked very thin, wearing a faded coarse cloth shirt with frayed cuffs, like a down-on-his-luck village teacher.

He practically tumbled and crawled into the center of the crowd, nearly tripping over the coal dust on the ground several times.

This man's name is "Pastor". He is one of only two literate people in the entire Black Coal Valley.

During the devastating coal mine strike three years ago, he was a grassroots cultural organizer for the United Miners Association in this settlement, responsible for reading out external union directives.

After the strike failed, the educated organizers were either killed or fled north, but he remained.

Arthur had noticed this person earlier. He was sent to pack his luggage, and unsurprisingly, he saw those newspapers.

At that moment, the pastor was clutching several old newspapers of the New York Herald that he had pulled from Arthur's suitcase. The edges of the newspapers were curled up and crumpled from his grip, but the writing was still clearly legible.

He was completely oblivious to the fact that old Seris had a skinning knife pressed against his neck. He was trembling violently, whether from fear or excitement, it was hard to tell.

The pastor shouted, "Put down your guns! All of you, put down your guns! This is a huge misunderstanding! He is absolutely not a lackey of Washington and the coal companies!"

He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving violently, and his eyes behind his glasses were wide open.

Cletus roared impatiently, "Are you crazy looking at a few scraps of paper, Priest?! That's his cover! Get out of our way and don't get in the way of killing this bastard in the black coat!"

Cletus took a step forward, gun in hand, intending to push the priest aside.

"This isn't just a tattered cover! This is a newspaper from the Pennsylvania mines!"

The pastor turned around angrily. He had never spoken to Cletus in such a tone before. Holding up the newspaper, he roared at Cletus and the illiterate mountain people around him with an unprecedentedly forceful posture.

He spread the newspaper out, held it above his head, and forced himself to face everyone's gaze. He loudly read the words aloud to the illiterate mountain people around him.

That was the climax of the lyrics that Arthur attached to the article "Sixteen Tons".

You loaded sixteen tons of coal, and what did you get in the end?

It's just that I've gotten a day older, and I'm sinking even deeper into this unfathomable debt.

Saint Peter, please don't summon me.

Because I can't leave, my soul has already been pledged to this damned corporate store!

His voice echoed across the empty settlement. Each syllable struck everyone's ears.

All the mountain people, the families of the miners, and even old Seris were stunned into silence.

Some people lowered their guns. Some people opened their mouths but couldn't speak. Some people stood motionless, as if struck by lightning.

The lyrics accurately depicted their tormented lives.

Sixteen tons—that's the work quota they earned every day in the pitch-black mines, inhaling countless amounts of coal dust and sacrificing their broken lumbar vertebrae.

What they received was not dollars, but ledgers in that "corporate store" where money could never be taken out, and "corporate token" debt with compound interest.

The pastor, panting, continued flipping through the pages. He turned to the front page and eagerly compared it to the half-body photograph printed on it.

The man in that photo had a cold and stern look in his eyes; he was the same young man who was currently holding old Seris hostage with one hand.

He raised his hand, trembling, and pointed at Arthur.

"Father!" the pastor's voice was almost a roar.

"His name is Arthur Kennedy! He's the guy who wrote Sixteen Tons! He's the author who brought the big corporations and the Tannen gang leaders to court in New York!"

He took a few steps forward and pointed to the thing in the trash can with a blue corner sticking out.

"That congressional investigative report isn't a legitimate document used to suppress us. It's his shield, used to track down evidence against those big capitalists across state lines!"

The priest used the simplest logic to clarify Arthur's identity.

The atmosphere at the camp has changed.

In Appalachia, mountain people do not trust any bureaucrat who speaks while wearing a tie.

They don't trust the courts, the police, or the government officials who come with official documents. But they absolutely revere someone who dares to point a finger at the coal oligarchs and declare war on them in the newspapers.

In this struggle, which was deliberately shielded from the outside world and violently and bloodily suppressed, Arthur was not there to eliminate their enemies.

He is the only person in all of America who truly speaks out for the wronged souls in these ruins.

Arthur saw that the time was right.

He decisively released his left arm. The skinning hunting knife that he had been holding against old Seris's neck was casually tossed aside by him, landing with a clatter at old Seris's feet.

Old Seris lost his balance and slumped forward, collapsing onto the muddy ground. He gasped for breath, raising his head to look up at Arthur. There was no anger in his eyes, only shock.

The hundreds of mountain villagers who had been menacingly poised all simultaneously lowered the guns they were holding level. The butts of the guns slammed to the ground with a dull thud.

Cletus took a few steps back and shrank behind the crowd. He lowered his head guiltily, not daring to look at Arthur again.

Old Seris struggled to his feet with one hand, then reached out with the other to remove his felt hat.

He held the hat in his hands and knelt on one knee on the hard cinder ground.

He lowered his arrogant head.

"Please forgive my old eyes, blinded by hatred, for almost allowing Black Coal Valley to commit an unforgivable and devastating crime."

Forgive us, you savages driven mad, Mr. Kennedy.

He looked up, tears streaming down his scarred face.

"In this dark, coal-filled valley, which even God has abandoned, all we see are corporate agents with court warrants and machine guns slaughtering us. All we see are the wronged souls who were exploited and bankrupted by large corporations and then committed suicide by shooting themselves."

"Never—not even one urban intellectual has ever been willing to open their eyes and personally come into this quagmire to see us, this bunch of talking industrial beasts."

He looked up at Arthur.

"You are the first to cross this dead man's ravine."

After saying that, he pushed himself up from the ground.

He laboriously walked to the trash can that had just been thrown out and retrieved the dark blue congressional badge that he had personally tossed into the filth.

Old Seris carefully wiped the leather with the corner of his robe, trying his best to clean every bit of mud and grime from the luxurious texture of the leather.

After wiping it, he held the document in both hands, walked up to Arthur, and respectfully handed it back to him.

The posture was as if he were holding a sacred religious relic rescued from the flames of war.

Arthur reached out and took the now-cleaned document.

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