by Gregg Olsen
“Mrs. Johnson,” Farris said, “we found Gene’s body.”
Betty’s face drained of blood. Her free hand fluttered. Peggy knew instantly that her mother had just heard the unthinkable.
“No, you didn’t!” Betty screamed into the phone. She slammed down the receiver hard enough to break it. Peggy started screaming, too. Her eyes wild with shock, Betty reached over and slapped her daughter as hard as she could.
“Shut up! He’s not dead!”
Betty didn’t want any of it to be true, because none of it could be. Farris was wrong. Her legs moved on their own accord and started for the door, taking her into the night and up the hill toward the mine. She felt like one of those wind-up toys that Gene and the kids had loved so much. She was moving and she had no control. No wind-up key. She started to cry. Gene can’t be dead. He can’t be. The screams were echoing from her on the inside, until she collapsed in Peggy’s shaking arms.
That Thursday, four other telephones rang from one end of the district to the other. Hoistman Lino Castaneda was at his sister-in-law’s tiny Mullan home and took the call from Farris. He’d already prepared Teresa Diaz, forty-three, for the news that her husband was dead. It was good that Castaneda was there. The Guadalajara-born Diaz’s English was poor. The confirmation was brief and final: Roberto esta muerto.
That she had been notified by telephone angered Betty Johnson. A person who hits somebody’s dog will knock on a door to give his or her regrets to the owner. Why didn’t they think enough of Gene to come tell us face to face? They owed him that much. How many times did that phone ring in the middle of the night or on a day off with a request that Gene get up to the mine? Gene Johnson never complained about any of that. He just pulled on a pair of Levi’s, got in his truck, and did whatever he was asked.
How come, she wondered, those bastards at Sunshine paid him back by not sending someone down to see our children and me?
If ever a seed of hatred could be planted in someone’s heart, Jim Farris’s call was it. Farris probably even knew he’d screwed up. He wrote that he had notified Johnson by telephone: “She thought this was [an] unkind way.”
TIME UNKNOWN, MAY 4
4800 Level
UP THE ROAD, AND ALMOST A MILE UNDERGROUND, THE ONLY SURVIVORS of the 4800 level took turns sleeping, though neither could manage a half hour. Ron Flory and Tom Wilkinson removed their boots, cushioned their bed boards with more burlap, but nothing could make either man feel like sleep was a good idea. The poisoned air might make its way to the Safety Zone and they’d never wake up. Rescue crews finding them would only know that they had been the last on their level to die. Sometimes they’d wake each other up. Neither could stand being awake and alone with nothing but their thoughts circling around, piling doubt upon doubt.
One man always remained awake, watching the gray, hazy smoke as it was sucked into the cross-drift, behind the paper towel. At times it resembled the wispy sheet of cigarette smoke from a district pool hall. At other times the form appeared solid.
“As long as it keeps moving that way,” Flory said, “we’ll be okay.”
The pair had faced danger together before. Not long before the fire, in fact, it was Wilkinson who’d been the rescuer. They had shot a round in a back stope, and Flory needed to go over the top of the muck pile to secure the eyebolt so they could slush it out. Flory crawled over the muck into a small pocket. It was stifling hot, an overheated brew of gases, powder smoke, and dust. He could barely breathe, but he inched forward. Have to get the work done. Have to go another ten feet. But a little deeper into the pocket, panic seized him. He was shutting down. He couldn’t go another foot, forward or back.
“I can’t make it!” he called out.
Hearing this, Wilkinson grabbed his pard’s legs and pulled, dragging him over the muck pile and back to cooler air—about 90 degrees.
Flory was nearly unhinged. “If you hadn’t got me,” he said, “I don’t know if I would have made it.”
That drama was nothing, of course, compared with what they were facing on 4800. Off in the distance, somewhere far down the drift, Flory thought he heard the muffled sound of men talking. It sounded like Richard Allison, one of the miners working on their level on May 2. He knew for a fact that Allison was dead. How could be speaking?
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
Wilkinson sat up and listened. He also heard what he thought resembled voices. It wasn’t clear enough to determine whether it was real or just his mind wanting to hear it. It seemed like the noise of a distant television.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Flory hit a pipe with his wrench; a sharp sound echoed down the drift. He was unsure what he’d actually heard, and doubted anyone could hear him. After wielding the wrench a few more times, he stopped.
The voices—the noises that sounded like voices—would come again. Sometimes the trapped partners would acknowledge when they both heard them. Other times it was better to let it pass. Maybe the other guy hadn’t heard it at all.
All the while, the cruel, needle-sharp hunger ate at their insides. Both men knew there were other dinner buckets on and near the station. There might only be scraps, Wilkinson thought, but a hungry man will eat just about anything.
“There are dinner buckets at the station,” Wilkinson said. “We ought to go get them.”
NEAR MIDNIGHT, MAY 4
Osburn
KWAL’S PAUL ROBINSON HAD TAKEN DOZENS OF CALLS FROM PEOPLE offering to help. Some offered food, money, even the use of a car. What more can we do? This isn’t going away tomorrow. All the media folks who had been camped out in motels throughout the valley and on the studio floor in sleeping bags had come to take from the people living through the disaster. They were after a story. Robinson knew that when the story was over—no matter the outcome—it would fade, the reporters would move on, and the valley would be left with a hole in its heart. He thought of a man in Salt Lake who had a night-owl show that reached nearly coast to coast. The man’s shtick was to work a prayer circle, sell some cruises, and mix in some causes. The priorities were not necessarily in that order. Robinson cogitated on that. Maybe this guy in Salt Lake will help.
Robinson looked up the number and dialed. A woman at the Salt Lake station answered and listened intently as he explained what had been going on at the Sunshine.
“I can’t promise anything,” she said, “but I’ll let him know.”
It was an easy sell. A moment later, Robinson was on the air coast to coast. He wasn’t selling soap, eggs, or tuna for the friendly folks at the IGA. But he was selling the story to a nationwide audience of insomniacs who either couldn’t sleep or just saw more clearly in the dark. Saying the words was difficult for Robinson, and the genuine emotion in his voice surely struck a chord.
“We have a lot of kids up here,” he said, “dozens who’ve lost their dads. We’re trying to help the kids so they can go to college.”
AND OVER IN SMELTERVILLE, AS THURSDAY CAME TO A CLOSE, BILL Noyen picked up his diary and wrote of his son-in-law, safety engineer Launhardt: “Bob was on Spokane’s Q6 TV this evening and I thought he answered questions thrown at him in good shape. However, there is a lot of criticism of the safety program. But one has to know that Bob had just started and to the best of our knowledge was hired back to do something to improve the safety facilities at Sunshine. . . .”
Forty
MORNING, MAY 5
Coeur D’Alene Mining District
FRIDAY STARTED WITH A TELEGRAM SENT BY PRESIDENT NIXON: “The tragic loss of life that resulted from the fire at Sunshine Mine profoundly touched the hearts of all Americans.”
While the president sent his condolences, Idaho governor Cecil Andrus rightly picked up on the severity and the possible long-term effects of the deadly fire. Sunshine was shut down, hundreds of men were out of work, and, tragically, dozens of women had become widows. Governor Andrus dispatched a telegram to Nixon seeking federal disaster status for Shoshone Co
unty. Nixon immediately denied the request. While it was true that federal law didn’t cover a catastrophe like Sunshine’s with disaster aid, many hoped that the government would find a way to help the community get back on its feet. Governor Andrus pulled strings, and so did Idaho congressman James McClure, but no federal agency would offer up a dime of postdisaster funding.
“Sympathy and concern are fine, but they don’t buy groceries,” Andrus retorted.
That morning, a miner called a USBM safety hotline ostensibly set up for coal miners and said Sunshine’s “respirators” were unusable. “The chemicals in them were so old that they were solid,” he said. He was correct, and the USBM acknowledged it in an internal memo: “The bureau has on hand two or more self-rescuers brought up from underground since the fire that are rusted shut; one shows marks of attempts to open it, apparently inflicted by a wrench.”
More than a half-dozen lawyers from the USBM had arrived in Kellogg, joining the Idaho attorney general, lawyers for Sunshine, and the United Steelworkers. Bob Launhardt made a count of attorneys and he stopped at thirty-two. He knew the focus was shifting from rescue to blame.
By tradition, the last day of the workweek was usually the best day; miners with fat wallets descended on the Big Creek Store or the Happy Landing or any of the other joints strewn throughout the district. But with forty-seven men still trapped in the lowest levels of the Sunshine, the entire district could not have felt further from a party mood. When Betty Larsen opened up the pay window and women started arriving for their husbands’ paychecks, as they always did, dark circles ringed their bloodshot eyes, and hair that might have been done up on the best day of the week hung like oily strings. Larsen had been distributing payroll for three years and knew most of the wives by sight and name. An unfamiliar face came to the window and asked for a man’s check. He was among the missing.
“We already gave it to his wife,” she said.
“I’m his wife. I’m his legal wife.”
“Wait a minute,” Larsen said, confused. “I don’t know you. Who’s the other lady?”
The woman became irritated, and her snotty tone let Larsen know it.
“She’s common-law,” she said. “I’m legal.”
The scene played out again as the past lives of several Sunshine miners caught up with them in Big Creek. As she glumly issued checks, Larsen tried to stay detached from the confusion and heartache. But three times her heart soared when men who had been presumed trapped and were on her list of the missing showed up for their pay. It gave her hope. The temperature warmed to 72 degrees, and Larsen watched a Red Cross worker out in the yard scoop ice cream. Maybe things would be all right.
THROUGHOUT THE DAY, MAY 5
Sunshine Rescue Command Center
IN MANY WAYS IT WAS A “HAIL MARY” PLAN, BUT THE TIME HAD come for that. The anxious faces across from the portal reminded rescuers that the hopes of the entire mining district rested with a rescue effort that was long on activity but short on results. Someone suggested using a terra capsule to go down the borehole from 3700 to 4800. Terra capsules, or torpedoes as they were also known, were sometimes used to ferry men from one level to the next when shaft construction wasn’t complete. One had never been used in mine rescue, and the USBM quickly declared it too risky. Not only was Sunshine’s borehole newly blasted, but it crossed through bad country, an unstable area prone to rockbursts. Running a cable-suspended capsule down a jagged shaft with two men on board was, some thought, foolhardy. Hadn’t enough died already?
Chase, Walkup, and especially Hecla’s Gordon Miner pushed for the capsule rescue idea. It was time for a bold idea, maybe even a gamble. Sunshine had two capsules, both about seven feet in height and wide enough to hold two men. One was cagelike, and the other looked like a water heater with a small door and baseball-sized holes punched in it for airflow. Crews were assigned to make repairs and any necessary modifications to ensure they’d make it down the chasm to the level that might be the best hope for finding survivors.
Stan Jarrett of the USBM, however, was firmly against the use of a capsule. He was concerned the device would get lodged in the ragged borehole and rescuers would be trapped. He also suggested that a capsule itself could block airflow to 4800, thus risking the lives of any survivors ensnared down there. Either the plan had to be abandoned or a capsule that could endure either worst-case scenario had to be fabricated. Hope won over reason. A borrowed hoist from a Spokane company was sent down to 3700 and the borehole. A Sunshine capsule was lowered as a test, but with only an inch or so of clearance, it was too tight for safe passage.
Gordon Miner, the Hecla chief, refused to be defeated by the setback. Miner wasn’t shy about calling in markers. He had served on a government mining commission and knew the Atomic Energy Commission used capsules at its test site near Mercury, Nevada, whenever the agency conducted underground nuclear weapons testing. Miner knew the two-man AEC capsules were smaller than Sunshine’s—one man rode on the shoulders of the other. Not only were they already outfitted with communications equipment, but AEC capsules also had escape hatches. Miner told Jarrett to get on with the AEC request or he’d do it himself.
It wasn’t a suggestion, but an order.
Across from command central at the portal, clergymen asked families to wear ID tags. That way, they promised, instead of calling out the name of a dead man, they could tap a family member on the shoulder. It could all be done quietly and without the rolling wave of fear that swept everyone into an emotional frenzy. Every name in the district associated with mining was consigned to tags or placards: Delbridge, Stephens, Russell, Byington, and more.
Nearby, Jewell cage tender Kenny Wilbur kept his eyes on the breathing apparatus spread out on a plywood sheet supported by a couple of sawhorses borrowed from the mine’s carpentry shop. He saw a man approach with a piece of heavy white paper clenched in his fist. Written in black was the name GREG DIONNE. The man wanted to know if there was news of his brother. Wilbur looked up, but couldn’t speak. He just stared. His mouth froze as though paralyzed. He knew if he said anything, he’d start to cry. Bawling in front of the portal was something he didn’t want to get started.
Greg Dionne’s brother, like the rest of his family—like all the families waiting there—wanted to know anything he could find out.
It was Greg’s partner, Tony Sabala, who helped the Dionnes piece together what had happened on May 2. Sabala was a fifty-four-year-old veteran of the industry, though in all his thirty-six years working he’d never actually mined an ounce of ore. Working as a pipeman’s helper on Tuesday, Sabala had met up with Dionne at the pipe shop on 3700. He’d poured himself some coffee and sat down. Before he got too comfortable, the drift shuddered with an explosion. It sounded as though someone had blasted close by, but Sabala knew no one was setting charges around there. It could be a cave-in. He took a quick sip and considered going to investigate, but never got the chance. A minute or so later, a brownish black tornado raged through the drift, eclipsing all lights like a shield. His eyes watered and his lungs constricted and burned.
“Call the blue room,” he called over to Don Beehner. “Tell them to go check. We’ve got a bad fire someplace.”
Beehner made the call, and both left for the station. Sabala considered escaping by heading down the drift, but he doubted he’d make it out alive. Either get out on the cage or die right here, he thought. He saw some men stumble and fall in the smoke. They jumped on the cage with Dionne and some others and made it to 3100, where Gene Johnson met them kneeling by the gate. Sabala thought it was because the layer of smoke was heavier at the top of the drift, and somewhat clearer lower, down along the track. It also passed through Sabala’s mind that Johnson was taking five.
“You boys head right for the Jewell,” the foreman said.
As the group fought its way off the station, Sabala turned around to check on Dionne. He took out his mouthpiece to speak.
“How you doing, Greg?” he asked through the sm
oke.
It was Don Beehner who answered. “Greg isn’t here,” the nipper said. “Johnson asked him to go down below and help cage men out.”
Sabala didn’t think Dionne was in any better shape than he was. They’d both inhaled a bunch of smoke. He wasn’t up to caging anyone. It was true that Dionne was half his age, but the smoke was so bad, the pipe helper doubted anyone could survive what they had breathed in back there. The station was a smoldering cauldron.
The last words someone heard Dionne say were, “Let’s go get them.” Then he disappeared onto the cage.
Sabala didn’t think it was right that his young partner had stayed behind. He almost certainly would have gone on to the Jewell with the others if Johnson hadn’t asked him to run the cage. If Dionne had gone to the Jewell, he’d have survived. His wife wouldn’t be widowed; his daughter wouldn’t be fatherless. There was no denying that he was some kind of a hero, but wasn’t his own life worth something, too?
Greg Dionne’s older brother, Doug, absorbed everything Sabala said. In doing so, he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of man he’d have been if he’d been underground the morning of the fire. Some had scuttled out as quickly as they could and never looked back once. Others had stayed to fight the fire they couldn’t see. A few, like his brother, stayed to help others get out alive. Doug Dionne believed all men would like to think they’d be the kind of man who’d risk his life for others, but he wasn’t sure he was one of them.
The Dionnes weren’t the kind to stir up trouble—not in the face of such tragedy. They mostly talked among themselves about why it was that pipe crewman Greg had put on a self-rescuer and yanked men to safety, while cager Byron Schulz had left his assigned post and made it out alive.
One of the Dionnes told Bob Launhardt that Schulz “didn’t have a grasp” of what had to be done and Greg had “no choice” but to step in.
“You stay up here, and I’ll go down and get the men,” Dionne had reportedly said, the self-rescuer’s mouthpiece in his hand, as a black cloud billowed around the station. He vanished into the smoke and rode the cage a thousand feet down and brought men back up before doing it all over again.
