by Tess Oliver
Two pigeons eyed me optimistically for a lunch treat as I sat on the park bench. I pulled out my cell phone. There was only one person who I could think I wanted to talk to, and the second I heard his deep, confident voice I crumpled into a distraught, little girl. “Daddy, it’s me. It’s all gone to hell here. I’m ready to come back home.”
Chapter 3
Kellan
I scooted several feet along the rock floor. The ribs in the shaft were no more than four feet high leaving me little brow room to move without crowning my miner’s cap on the roof. On days like today, after hours spent hunched over and on my knees, the black dusty chamber felt suffocating. Occasionally, if I thought too much about the tons of earth surrounding me, if I let the impossible physics of it all get into my head, my work space would close in on me and a moment of complete panic, a grim sense that I’d been buried alive would grab me. During those fleeting moments of uneasiness, I had trouble facing the bleak reality that much of my adult life would be spent below the surface of the earth where sunlight was as foreign as fresh air. In other instances, when I’d finished securing a mined out section, leaving behind a safer vault for others to walk through, I would feel calmed by the solid feel of the underground passages, the maze of coal pillars, the sense that I was walking in the same footsteps as my dad and granddad, holding up the family tradition.
A fine spray of black dust covered my safety goggles as the bolt twisted through rock. It was the final roof bolt of the morning. Dawson, my work partner and long time best friend, signaled that he was finished. He pulled off his knee pads and headed out to the gallery. The gallery passageway led to the underground station where the lunch tables were set up.
Dawson and I had both grown up on the south side of town, although, technically, it wasn’t so much south as it was below the railroad tracks. The tracks moonlighted as a long border of steel and wood that cut the south side shabby neighborhoods apart from the wealthy end of Bluefield. Dawson had grown up with three sisters, an iron-fisted dad and little else. We’d managed to get into a fucking lot of trouble on our journey to adulthood, and we weren’t all that great at avoiding it now, even at the ripe old age of twenty-five. But we always had each other’s backs. Aside from the obvious choice of a Victoria’s Secret model, there wasn’t anyone else on the planet I could think of who I’d want to be trapped in a mineshaft with, if that was an ugly fate I ever faced. A rock fall at this depth would make rescue difficult and survival for long unlikely. So I’d decided long ago that I was lucky to have Dawson with me. If I had to die a slow, agonizing death of suffocation, I wanted my best buddy to be right next to me cracking jokes until the end.
Dawson and I were in charge of moving in behind the continuous mining machine and its operators to secure the roof of the cleared sections. A dangerous job but one I was glad to do next to Dawson.
The light on my helmet glowed down over the dial as the torque wrench reached the proper pressure amount. The bearing plate was set. My machinery hissed and sighed as I shut it down.
My stomach grumbled with hunger as I crouched beneath the brow and found my way to the gallery where I was able to straighten my legs and back for the first time since I’d stepped off the man trip, the low profile vehicle that carried the miners down to the work sections.
I unbuckled my knee pads and tossed them over my shoulder. I traveled along the haulage way, the long underground corridor used to transport coal to the surface. Float dust, tiny particles of coal, circulated through the air like microscopic bugs as I made my way to the underground station, a series of subterranean rooms set aside for lunch break, first aid, storing equipment and charging batteries.
Two headlights shifted side to side as a truck crawled toward me. I raised my hand to block out the blinding glare and saw it was Jason Meade’s vehicle. Like Dawson, I’d gone to school with Jason. But he was no friend. Being the son of one of the owners of Bluefield Mine, Jason had slipped conveniently into a managerial position. Since he hadn’t actually earned the position, the crew liked to call him Honorary Boss when he was out of earshot, or, when pissed at him, to his face. It usually made his nostrils flare wide like a raging bull.
The light on my hard hat and the long reflective strips on my coveralls glowed back at the truck, but it continued rolling toward me. I waved to let them know I was on the path, but the asshole seemed to be playing a lopsided game of chicken with me. It didn’t take too much common sense to know that the half ton truck would win the game.
I pressed close against the wall. Loose debris sloughed off as my shoulder skimmed the wall. The fucker was obviously in a shitty mood, and if there was one person Jason hated, it was me.
The truck had no side-view mirrors, making it more streamlined for narrow passages. It was just an inch from the same wall I walked along. I hurried my pace to the first man hole, a crevice dug into the wall so a worker could safely duck out of the path of the hauling vehicles. But this was no hauler, this was just one pig-faced, spoiled asshole getting his kicks for the day. Jason Meade, or Mean Meade, his well deserved high school nickname, had had it out for me since I’d defended a kid from his bullying back in high school. I’d laid Jason flat out on the hallway floor, an incident that had nearly gotten me expelled. Jason’s just as mean father had taken out his wrath on my dad by demoting him from hauler to the menial task of scaling debris from the mine walls, a job that’d ended up collapsing his already damaged lungs.
I slipped into the crevice just as the truck reached me. I could see two heads in the cab. Meade never went anywhere without his thickheaded yes man, Sean Gilly.
I waited in the crevice for the truck to roll past. Instead it stopped, wedging me tightly between the rock wall of the manhole and the passenger side of the pickup. After crawling on my hands and knees with tons of earth above my head all morning, the last place I wanted to be was wedged into the tight pocket of rock.
The window rolled down and Gilly’s goofball smirk landed in the spotlight produced by my helmet. Meade held his hand up to block the light as he leaned forward. “Dim that light, bolt boy. Can’t see you hovering in the crack. You look just like a fucking lizard hiding in the rocks.” Meade always had a good time laughing at his own jokes.
I reached up and dimmed the light on my helmet. The diesel smell of the truck was quickly filling the fissure. “Just heading to lunch, boss,” I said the word with enough emphasis to assure him that I thought of him as anything but a boss. “What do you want?”
Meade had a wide forehead with close set eyes that made him look just about as dumb as a person could look. His lips flattened to his infamous Meade grin. “How do you know I needed something, Kelly boy? Maybe you were just in my way.”
In high school, Meade had decided it was much more fun to call me Kelly than my real name Kellan. I let him because I didn’t really care what came out of his mouth.
He laughed again and chucked Gilly on the shoulder. “Told you he’d get antsy like a little girl if he was stuck in a refuge hole.” He lowered his fat face to get a better look at me. “You’re the only guy down here who gets wormy about being in a confined space. Kind of hilarious, since you’re, no doubt, bound for an early grave. It also proves that you have no right to wear a miner’s cap. You should be out shoveling manure on a dairy farm or something, just you and all the fresh air and shit you need.”
I was hungry and my back was aching. Boss or not, I was done with him. “Seems like I’m already surrounded by a lot of shit just standing here.” Like any true born asshole, Meade only got a kick out of jokes when he was handing them out.
“You fucking lowlife, Trog. I could have you kicked out of this mine with one phone call. Then you’d have to beg in the streets to feed that crazy mom of yours. How’s she doing, anyhow? Heard she’s getting old and forgetful already.”
I stared at him and wondered briefly how easily I could just
kill the fucker and drag his body through the shaft to the area that was slated for backfill.
“I guess we better let you take your lunch break, so you can get back on your hands and knees again, bolt boy.” The truck moved an inch. I was ready to jump from the manhole when it stopped again. “By the way, figured you probably hadn’t heard this down below the tracks, but Rylan is moving back home.”
He’d been working to get a rise out of me by insulting my mom and reminding me that he had the power to fire me, but his last statement was the one that knocked the breath from me. And because I was never good at hiding the way I felt about Rylan, Meade picked up on it right away.
“She’s left that fancy Wall Street fiancé of hers, and she’s coming back to stay with her parents. Not that it should matter to you because you’re going to keep your fucking distance from her.” He exchanged a smirking wink with Gilly. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want a repeat of that ugly little scene from graduation night. Trogs stay below the tracks, and Highlanders stay above. That hasn’t changed even if we’ve been out of school for seven years. Got that, Trog?”
His stupid-ass warnings were barely registering past the idea that Rylan was coming home. Suddenly, all I could think about was that stubborn little curl on the side of her bangs that she was constantly tugging at to tame, or the way she would put on lipstick or the way she would peel an orange. And that glimmer of a smile that she always flashed to get whatever the hell she wanted from anyone. It was like her secret weapon that was anything but secret.
“Hey, Trog, you listening?” I focused back on the two pillowy faces staring at me from the truck. Everyone else underground was covered head to toe with black coal dust, but Meade always managed to look fresh and pink like a newborn baby’s ass. During my grandfather’s generation, the kids on the north side of town came up with the label of Trog for the kids living on the south end of town, where most of the men worked down in the mine. At the same time, they’d labeled themselves Highlanders, a completely misplaced label if there ever was one.
“Yeah, I’m listening. You just can’t let go of those glory days at Bluefield High, can ya?” The news that Rylan was coming back had stirred me plenty, but I forced a stone face. “If we’re done here, I need to get to the station. Unless you want me to piss on the side of your truck, which would be fine with me.”
He grumbled something to Gilly. The truck inched forward and stopped. Gilly pushed open his door just enough to shove the edge of the door hard against me. I heard glass crack and the light on my cap went out. The door edge jammed into my chest and forced me against the back of the crevice.
“You’ve been warned, Trog. Now get to the station and pick up another light, or I’ll cite you for a safety violation.”
Gilly pulled the door shut, and the truck rumbled down the passage. I stepped out of the hole and was faced with complete darkness. Most of the men were on break, and the haulage way was deserted and void of any light. I dragged my gloved hands along the rough, uneven wall as I stumbled blindly along trying to figure out how many steps I needed to reach the cross entry, the passage that would eventually get me to the station.
Splintered light from different sections of the mine produced just enough shadows as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. I felt my way to the end of the main gallery, then I turned left onto the crossing passage that would take me to the lunch area. I followed the low rumble of voices. Yellow light poured through the opening to the lunch area. Three foldout tables had been hauled down to the station for breaks and lunch.
Dawson was reaching into his lunch box as I stepped into the clearing. He did a double take. “What happened to your light?”
I took off my cap and shook my head, not wanting to waste any of my break time talking or thinking about Meade. I walked to the lockers at the end of the tables, grabbed my ice chest and returned to where Dawson was sitting. I plunked down across from him.
The light in the lunch station was dim, and covered as we were in black dust, the only things visible were the whites of eyes and teeth as the crew scarfed down their lunches and bullshitted about things other than work.
Dawson shoveled his sandwich into his face and chewed it slowly as he stared at me across the table. He knew me well enough to know that I was off.
He swallowed. “Ten minutes ago you were your old self putting up the last support beam, and now you look like someone stole the pudding cup from your lunch box. And that cap light looks as if someone broke it on purpose.” He glanced toward the passage I’d just come from. “You walked all the way in the dark?”
“No, little glow in the dark fairies lifted me up by my coveralls and transported me here.”
He lifted his hand. “Fine, you don’t want to talk about it. Got it. I’ll just finish my sandwich. Told you that new spicy mustard was going to be good. Fucking delicious sandwich. Wish I’d brought three. Two won’t be enough.”
Dawson and I, along with our buddy, Tommy, had rented a house together just past the edge of town. It was less a house and more a primitively built cabin. The original owner, a crotchety old man who would yell at us if we rode our bikes too close to his place, had died, and someone put up a for rent sign. It was deep in the woods near a river and far enough away from town to make it a cool place to live, even if it was kind of a shit hole.
I reached into my ice chest and pulled out my second sandwich. I tossed it to him.
“Yeah? You don’t want it?”
“Nah, you eat it.” I popped open a can of soda and drank half of it in one long, continuous gulp. The cold liquid washed away the microscopic grit that coated my teeth and tongue.
“Well then”—Dawson unwrapped the sandwich I gave him—“this makes up for the lack of interesting conversation since my lunch mate is a fucking bore today.” He lifted his chin. “Hey, you playing poker on Saturday? Heard there’ll be plenty of cash flowing. Sure as hell could use a chunk of change. I already signed up to play. What about you?”
“I might play.”
“Think Lowe’s setting up a new fight list too.” Dawson glanced down at the new scar on my knuckles. The fight with Jigsaw had gone my way, but it had taken some cracked ribs, a fat lip and a deep cut on my knuckles that needed stitching. Apparently, Jigsaw resorted to biting when he thought his number was up. “Your hand is healed. You going to jump in on that? I heard Jigsaw has been stomping around Browning with fire shooting from his nostrils, boasting that he’s ready to show Kellan Braddock his fists again. Are you interested in a rematch?” Most of our opponents came from Browning, the next town over. That way we never faced a neighbor or friend on the mat.
“You’re sure as hell are filled with questions today, that’s for damn sure.”
“Well, fuck you. Something sure has you in a knot, Braddock.”
Something definitely had me in a knot, but it wasn’t the shitty encounter with Meade. Reluctantly, I picked up my sandwich. I stared at it a second. “She’s coming back,” I said quietly. Saying it out loud twisted my insides up even more.
The whites of Dawson’s eyes glowed back at me as he chewed. “Who’s coming back?”
“Rylan. Rylan’s coming back home.”
Dawson stopped mid-chew. “Aw shit. Here we fucking go again.”
Chapter 4
Rylan
Seven years earlier
Kellan squeezed my wrist tightly in his hand as he dragged me through the hallway behind the school gym. The rickety stairway to the roof of the building shuddered as his big black boot hit the first metal step.
“Kellan Braddock, where are you taking me?”
His smile, the one that he flashed at me in the hallway and in study hall when no one else was looking, sparkled back at me over his shoulder. “Told you we were going stargazing . . . and stuff.”
I lifted my satin dress to avoi
d catching my shoe on the hem. My mom had had her seamstress sew it especially for the senior class graduation party. We reached the top step. I was out of breath, but it wasn’t from climbing stairs. Kellan always had a way of leaving me breathless, no matter what we were doing.
He fished a key out of the pocket of his faded jeans. Mr. Trumble, the vice principal and a major numbskull, had nearly barred Kellan from entering the graduation party because of his shabby jeans. Kellan rarely got angry. He’d held his chin high as he told the ignorant man that they were his best pair of pants.
Even in the dark shadows of the stairwell, Kellan’s eyes were crystal blue with mischief. Everything about him spelled trouble, and I loved him even more for it.
He turned and pushed the key into the lock.
“A prim and proper girl would ask why the heck you have a custodial key in your pocket.”
“Now where’s the fun in prim and proper?” The door lock clunked open, and he turned back to me. “I spent so much time in afterschool detention helping Mr. Gray clean the campus, I managed to snag an extra key.” He kissed me once, lightly on the lips, a whisper of what I could expect once we were alone on the roof.
Even that brush of a kiss made my knees weaken. “I was probably better off not knowing that little slice of incriminating information.”
Kellan pushed open the maintenance door. The cool, early summer night breeze ushered in, carrying with it the fragrance from the party below, a tart mix of popcorn, fruit punch and cheap aftershave. The voices and music were muffled, but the tar paper and gravel roof vibrated in harmony with drumbeats.
Kellan pulled me into his arms. No aftershave fragrance. Just the bittersweet, earthy smell of coal, a scent that often lingered on the skin of the kids whose dads worked the mine. It was a residue of sparkling black dust that was always present, and no amount of soap, water and harsh scrubbing could take it away. And it was sometimes the thing I thought about most, after moments like this, moments that always had to be stolen. The coal dust, the faded jeans, the easy smile, they were all part of him, the boy who I had loved since the first day of high school when he’d walked cockily into history class wearing a ripped shirt and his dad’s worn out work boots. The teacher, Miss Mohr, a stout, perpetually angry woman had scowled in disapproval at him as he plunked confidently down in the first row. Kellan was never ashamed of being a Trog, the ugly nickname for the kids who lived below the train tracks. He wore the title proudly just as he wore the shredded jeans, tattered shirt and chalky coal dust.
