by Homer Hickam
“Sure!” I said, standing up.
She chose a rocking chair near the swing. “Sit down, please,” she said. She sounded tired. “I’m just a junior engineer, after all, the lowest of the low.”
I settled back into the swing. “You’re also a woman. Mom worked hard on my manners and I guess she wouldn’t like it if I didn’t use them.”
“I’ve heard your mother is an independent woman.”
“Some people say she’s mostly stubborn.”
“What do you say?”
“Unique is the word that comes to mind.”
Rita smiled, though a bit wanly. “Maybe that would describe me, too,” she said. She looked over her shoulder through the window into the dining room. “The Mastersons,” she said.
“Who are the Mastersons?”
“Frank Masterson is the chief bean counter for the steel company. My father tried to get him fired sometime back—there was some kind of irregularity in the books—but Frank’s a survivor. His wife, Jill’s her name, is nice enough. She used to be his secretary until he got her pregnant. Father always said Frank marrying her was the only decent thing he ever did.”
“Your father works for the steel company?”
“He’s not an active player anymore,” she said, a defensive tone creeping into her voice. “He just owns a lot of stock. And he didn’t raise a finger to get me this job, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking that at all,” I lied.
“I guess your dad didn’t help you get your job, either,” she said.
“That would be a safe assumption,” I replied, trying not to laugh and succeeding. It would have been too much to explain to her, and she probably wouldn’t have been interested, anyway.
She looked over her shoulder again, then frowned. “I wonder what Frank Masterson is doing down here?”
“People in Coalwood figure anybody from the steel company’s pretty much a dime squeezer,” I said. “Maybe he came down to tell Mr. Bundini to squeeze a little harder.”
“Could be,” she said. She settled back into the chair, rocked a little, and peered into the darkness. “Nice night,” she said, though she didn’t sound convinced. Fatigue dragged at her voice.
“That’s why I’m out here,” I said. “Just enjoying the breeze and the sounds. By the way, where’d you go to college?”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“Just wondered,” I replied, which happened to be the truth.
It turned out Rita had gone to the Colorado School of Mines. She had picked it because it was one of the best mining engineering schools in the country and also because she happened to love skiing. While she was there, she said, she had almost made the American Olympic ski team. “One tenth of one second faster and I’d have been on it.” She fell silent, though I could see the muscles in her jaw working. Then she said, “God, I hate to lose.”
“At least you came close,” I said, fascinated to imagine her so near the glory of the Olympics.
Rita looked over her shoulder again. “Close isn’t worth anything.” She removed her helmet and turned it in her hands. Her hair was tied up in a bun, though a black tendril fell down alongside her cheek. “If you get used to losing, pretty soon it gets to be a habit. I made up my mind a long time ago to never quit anything I start—and that includes beating this idiotic superstition about women in the mine.”
“Have you made any progress?”
She huffed a breath. “No. Every time I send a message to the front office about it, they just say it’s up to the mine superintendent. Your dad,” she added unnecessarily.
“Dad knows miners,” I said. “They’re a superstitious lot.”
“How about him?”
“His mine tag number is thirteen. That might tell you something. No, Dad’s an intellectual, doesn’t believe in the supernatural. But he also knows he has to keep his miners happy and if they believe something, especially when he’s got no reason to change it, he’ll support them.”
Rita shook her head. “I’d give anything to get a good report from your father. You know how many junior engineers ever got a good one from him?”
“Zero would be my guess,” I said, shrugging.
“Two. I was shown those reports before I was sent here. ‘Rita,’ my boss said, ‘go on down and show Homer Hickam what kind of engineer you are.’ But your father’s never given me a chance!”
“Tell me about your folks,” I said, figuring it wise to move to another topic.
“Mother died when I was born,” she said in a neutral voice. “My father was my best friend growing up. He always said I was the light of his life.”
“We have something in common, then,” I said. “My mom always said I was the light of her life, too. Dad said if that was so, she was following a mighty dim beacon.”
Rita gave me the reward of her dazzling smile. It was so sudden it nearly took my breath away. “You got that hike planned?” she asked.
“How about Sunday?” I suggested eagerly.
“How about Saturday?”
I told her there was a lady asking for my help and I’d promised to come on Saturday to do it. I didn’t tell her it was Mrs. Dooley. If Rita’s father owned part of the steel company, she didn’t need to know a man was on the company payroll who didn’t do anything.
Rita said, “Sunday it is, then. Say about one o’clock?” She looked over her shoulder once more, then put on her helmet. She tucked the tendril of hair up inside it. “They’re about to wind up in there. I guess I’d better go do my duty and say hello to the Mastersons. Plus I’m starved. I haven’t eaten yet.”
I stood as she got up from the rocker. “See you Sunday afternoon,” I told her.
She nodded, but she was paying most of her attention to the people in the dining room. After taking another look, apparently gauging their momentum toward the door, she went inside the foyer. I heard a shrill cry of greeting, apparently coming from Mrs. Masterson. I edged into the shadows, watching through the screen doors. Rita was being hugged by everybody, including Mr. Bundini. I still didn’t want to get introduced, so I went around to the back of the Club House and climbed the fire escape up to the second floor. My plan was to wait until the parlor was empty, then slip down and call my mother. I would have almost rather stood under an unsupported kettle bottom, truth be told, but it was past time for me to endure her righteous wrath.
VICTOR AND Ned wound up their evening watching The Bob Cummings Show on television and then vacated the parlor. I waited until I was sure they’d gone upstairs, and then I dialed Mom’s Myrtle Beach number. She picked up after one ring, and I immediately threw myself on her mercy. “Forgive me,” I said. “For I knew not what I was doing.”
I waited for her to start yelling, but she remained perfectly calm. “I intend to kill you the next time I see you,” she said evenly. “All I hope is that you have written your will to my satisfaction.”
“I’m leaving everything to you,” I said.
“Good. If I sold it all at ten o’clock in the morning, it would keep me going until at least half past noon.”
I started babbling apologies, and Mom seemed content to let me do it, not interrupting once. I went through all my excuses: how I’d been trying to help out Bobby Likens, and how I needed the money to pay for the car, and how Mr. Dubonnet had skunked me. “That’s the long and the short of it,” I concluded.
“So ’tis,” she murmured, as if she’d not paid much attention to anything I’d said. “I presume during all your peculiar adventures in Coalwood this summer, that you have taken at least a minute to spend some time with your father?”
I told her that indeed I had, neglecting to mention that so far it had been time spent mainly arguing and yelling at each other. Mom, however, was too sharp for my half-truth to slip by. “What do you talk about?”
“Mostly the best way to mine coal,” I prevaricated.
“Be careful in that old mine,” she said.
&
nbsp; Her warning surprised me. “Be careful? You don’t want me to quit?”
Her sigh filled my ear. “That’s the one thing your daddy and I’ve always agreed on, to raise you boys not to be quitters. No, I don’t want you to quit a thing you’ve started.”
I decided to ask her then if she planned on coming back to Coalwood anytime soon. I thought maybe she would confess she was never coming back and I could send it around the gossip fence and people would stop asking me about it. But she said, “We’ll see. The remodeling is a slow go. They don’t know how to do things in South Carolina like we do them in West Virginia. Law, I never seen men take so many breaks.”
“Maybe it’s too hot down there,” I said.
“Maybe they’re just lazy.”
“Maybe they don’t like working for a woman, either.” It was just a suggestion.
“Are you smart-mouthing me?” she demanded.
“No, ma’am.” I really wasn’t.
“Maybe I better get you squared away.”
I thought: Uh-oh. Now I’ve done it. Here it comes.
“I expect you to not get yourself killed in that filthy hole.”
I said “Yes, ma’am” and continued to do so as she went down her points.
“Do everything Johnny Basso tells you to do. He’ll keep you safe.”
I repeated my affirmative, reflecting that I hadn’t mentioned Johnny’s name. Who were Mom’s informants? Floretta was at the top of my list, but there were at least a dozen more ladies who’d have been glad to tell her everything they knew, plus a little extra.
“I expect you to work hard and do the best you can.
“I expect you to keep your eyes and ears open and help your father whether he knows it or not.
“I expect you to not go dragging around with a long mouth like you’re prone to do. And I expect you to stop fussing with Bobby Likens. There’s never been a better boy to come out of Coalwood, you included.
“And I expect you to keep me informed of everything.”
Her litany seemed to be over, so I said, “Mrs. Dooley asked me to help her give Nate a bath.”
“Do it. You owe Nate Dooley your life. The least you can do is help keep him clean.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you squared away?”
“Never squarer.”
“Good.”
And with that, after a routine utterance of undying motherly affection in my direction coupled with another threat toward my continued existence if I made any more mistakes in Coalwood, she hung up, leaving me convinced that my mom was up to something, though what it might be remained a puzzle. When it came to concealment, I suspected God had some competition from the woman in Myrtle Beach.
18
A SKY MADE OF STONE
WHEN I next stepped aboard the man-lift, Johnny pulled me aside. “You ready to work like a bull?” he asked. “A certain fellow asked me.”
I knew he meant my dad. Since I was not only squared away with my mom but had also received general absolution from Reverend Richard, I was in a free and easy mood. Not only that, but my muscles had nearly stopped complaining. “I wonder if we can get a heavier sledgehammer,” I told Johnny nonchalantly. “That five-pounder’s mighty puny.”
That made him chuckle. “Turn your light on, boy,” he said.
At the bottom of the shaft, I saw a miner who didn’t have his lamp switched on walking toward the man-trip. “Turn your light on, boy,” I said, and was rewarded by seeing him, after a startled look, do it.
“Not bad,” Bobby admired.
I looked around to see if I could observe any more offenders and slammed the top of my helmet into a protruding roof bolt. “Nice try, but they already drove that ol’ bolt in ’bout as far as it would go, Sonny,” somebody said. Heavy laughter echoed down the man-trip line.
I laughed with them. They could poke fun all they wanted, but I thought I was getting the hang of mining coal, even though I still technically hadn’t mined any.
Later that day, when Bobby had to stop for a pee break, Johnny started thumping the roof with his broomstick. “They need some roof bolts in here,” he said.
“How do you know?” I asked.
He pointed at some fine lines that ran like a brown spiderweb through the rock. “That’s mud. Makes it weak. A little squeeze, the whole shebang’ll go to pieces.” He took a piece of chalk from his shirt pocket and made a big “X” on the spot. “I’ll leave a note for the hoot-owl shift foreman to look for my mark,” he said. “His crew’ll put in a bolt.”
I studied the roof again, running my hand over it, feeling the tiny fissures. “It’s funny,” I said. “I’ve been looking up at the sky ever since Sputnik got launched four years ago. Now my sky is five feet high and made of stone.”
The circle of Johnny’s light played across the rock. “See the mica? See how it sparkles? This old gray rock is right pretty in its own way.”
I looked closer and I could see what he meant. Millions of minute silica flakes glimmered in our lights. “A sky of stone with stars of mica,” I said, trying to put out of my mind that it was also about a trillion tons of rock supported only by wooden posts and the occasional steel roof bolt.
“Most people think you got to know coal in the mines, but it’s rock you got to know if you want to stay alive,” Johnny went on. “I know a little about it but not like your daddy. He can tell you everything about this rock just by looking at it. You take the average engineer, all he knows is what he’s read in a book. Your daddy, he don’t need no book. He can smell bad rock.”
I looked at Johnny. “Why are they blaming Dad for what happened to Tuck?”
“I can’t talk to you about that, Sonny,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“I’m going to find out sooner or later. I’d rather hear it from a man I respect.”
Johnny’s light hit me in the eyes, then flashed away. “I swan,” he said, sniffing. He reached into his back pocket for his bandanna. “That’s a nice thing to say.”
Besides being superstitious, miners were a sentimental lot, too. Johnny honked his nose in his bandanna, then tucked it back into his pocket. “What I’ve heard, Sonny,” he said, “your daddy’s problem is that he let Tuck go inside by himself that night.”
“Is that against the rules?”
“No, but what they’re saying down at the Union Hall is it’s against common sense. Your daddy and Tuck were there together at the man-hoist, getting ready to go inside and inspect Tuck’s section. But Tuck went and your daddy didn’t. What some folks are wondering is maybe if they’d gone in together, your daddy would’ve stopped Tuck from driving his motor into that fire damp.”
“But Tuck was a good foreman, wasn’t he? I mean, he should have known to be careful.”
Johnny squatted on his haunches and stirred the gob with his roof thumper. “Tuck Dillon was the finest foreman in this mine.”
“Then why did he blow himself up?”
Johnny’s voice was flat. “That’s what nobody can figure.” He got up, stretched his back, then thumped the roof, took a step, thumped it again. “You listen for a low note to come back,” he said. “That’s a safe roof. You hear something that sounds high, like tapping on a stack of dishes, that’s rock with a crack. Don’t get under it.”
“I won’t,” I said. “Johnny, why do you think Tuck went in alone?”
His light swept back. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this,” he said. “If I was still a gambling man—which I ain’t—I wouldn’t bet against your daddy.” He studied his boots. “Something else I got to say, Sonny. Your mama, she needs to come home. That’s what everybody’s saying, too. Homer Hickam without Elsie ain’t the man he’s always been. It’s like without her his luck’s drained away.”
“She says she’s not ready,” I reported.
Bobby’s light flashed as he came from between two posts. “Hey!” he yelled. I guess he couldn’t see us.
“Over here,” Johnny said.<
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“Thank you,” I said to Johnny as Bobby made his way toward us.
“You boys ain’t nothing but trouble,” he replied, but I could tell he didn’t mean it.
AT MY knock, Mrs. Dooley appeared and pushed open the screen door. “I hope you’ve been building up your muscles,” she said.
I followed her into the tiny living room. When my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw an apparition sitting on the sofa. It was a man, gaunt as a dead hickory tree, dressed only in baggy underwear shorts. The few wisps of hair on his head floated up, reeds in the light wind coming from a small electric fan in the corner that emitted a low hum. A long, mottled scar ran across the top of his skull.
“Where’s his cast?” I asked Mrs. Dooley.
“His wrist is healed. I took it off.”
“By yourself?”
“What do you care?”
“Mom’s worried about him, said I should be, too.”
“Thank your mom and tell her he’s doing just fine.”
“But—”
“Nate,” she said, raising her voice, “it’s time for your bath.”
Mr. Dooley’s cheeks, gray with whiskers, puckered in, as if he were catching his breath. Mrs. Dooley looked at me. “Are you going to help me or just stand there?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I’ll start drawing his bath. You stand him up, help him into the bathroom. Go on. He won’t bite.”
I edged around the coffee table and took Mr. Dooley’s right hand. It was damp. A slick sheen of moisture was formed above his lips. His pale blue eyes looked drained.
“Ask him to stand up,” Mrs. Dooley called from the tiny bathroom just off from the living room. I heard the water running.
“Stand up, Mr. Dooley,” I said gently. He didn’t move. Beads of sweat were on his forehead.
I turned to call Mrs. Dooley. “He’s not mov—” which was the last thing I said for a while because Mr. Dooley launched himself from the couch, catching me chest-high with his bony shoulder. We fell across the coffee table.
“That’s it!” Mrs. Dooley cried, not bothering to come out and look. “You got him!”
