Muckers

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  Permanent termination of mining and smelting at Hatley and Cottonville was announced Tuesday morning by the Eureka Copper Mining Company. Notices posted at the smelter and mine read: “To employees: the company regrets to announce that due to the depletion of the ore reserves, all smelting and mining operations at Hatley and Cottonville will permanently terminate October 17, 1950.”

  No figures were released by the company, but it is estimated that 500 employees will be affected. Some are being offered similar jobs at other E.C. operations. Though closing of the mine had not been unexpected, definite setting of the date did not come easy to many veteran workers. Transferred or otherwise, it won’t be pleasant to be uprooted from the place they have long known as home. Some have records of 35 years or more, dating back to the boom days.

  WANT ADS

  HOUSES FOR SALE—Bid for purchase of nine houses located in Hatley to be accepted at Eureka Copper offices, care of H. W. Elton, by 10 a.m. October 30. Bids may be made on any one house or entire group. Successful bidders agree to raze, tear down, or remove said houses from their present sites within 45 days of contract.

  COME & LISTEN—Selling a portable, mechanical phonograph with 15 popular & western records. $14. Contact Tuffy Briggs. Miners’ Hospital.

  REAL PEARLS—Nicest pearl necklace you’ll ever see. Must sell by end of the month. Call Red O’Sullivan. 869-H.

  Ritz Theater Closed Until Further Notice. Buddy Ritz Missing in Korea.

  Chapter 20

  RUNNING INTO THE PIT

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5

  11:56 P.M.

  I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE when I get to the field at midnight—there’s Cruz and Tony standing around Mr. Mackenzie in T-shirts and shorts same as me, their football shoes already laced. Alonzo Cushman, Lupe Diaz, Ricky Sanchez, and Marty Quesada are here, too. Pretty much most of the team. Except for Rudy and Wallinger.

  “I called you all here,” Mr. Mackenzie says—he’s wearing a miner’s helmet and the carbide lamp shines over us like bursts from a meteor shower—“because I know you can keep quiet about what we’re about to do.”

  “Where’s Wallinger?” Cruz asks.

  “He’s in Prescott for a job interview I arranged,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “He’ll be back tomorrow afternoon in time for practice. He’s still the interim coach while Coach Hansen’s recuperating in the hospital.”

  “Hank Wallinger can’t help you win.” It’s Pete Zolnich talking. He’s been sitting in the bleachers where there’s no light. We all turn and watch him come over. “Wallinger’s from Cottonville, and he’s as selfish as they come,” Zolnich sniffs, turning on his carbide lamp.

  “Peter’s able to be here with us because, well, we’ve decided to take matters into our own hands,” Mr. Mac explains. “So Sheriff Doddy has issued a special dispensation for him to be released from jail until the football season’s over.”

  “Since it’s an emergency.” Zolnich smiles. “The sheriff was a Mucker in twenty-four, too, when we won the Northern title against Flagstaff, like you’re gonna, though I wish Sims could be here, too.”

  “The English teacher?” Tony asks.

  Zolnich shakes his head. “Not that whiny nut. His father.”

  “Tuffy Briggs will be keeping time during the drills,” Mr. Mackenzie says.

  Cruz’s brother Manny comes out from behind the bleachers, still looking fit and towering over Tuffy’s wheelchair, which he’s pushing onto the field, and I haven’t seen Tuffy come out of the miners’ hospital since Maw’s been there.

  “That’s right.” Tuffy holds up the stopwatch he had tucked in his wheelchair.

  “But there’s no train to race at this hour,” Tony says.

  “You won’t be racing the train,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “You’ll be racing against yourselves.”

  Zolnich starts taking out helmets from a net bag and lines them up on the field. “You want to win, don’t you?” he says.

  “But the town’s dying,” Melvin Sneep murmurs.

  “You never die if you win,” Manny says. “And if you win this time, it’ll make going under in that big hole bearable.” He points to the open pit. “No matter where the mine is you get transferred to.”

  “That’s why we can’t lose,” I say.

  “No way we’ll lose,” Cruz says. Tony and the others agree.

  “We’ll show you how to win,” Zolnich says. “Like we did against those Flagstaff Warriors.”

  “Slag and rocks weren’t enough,” Mr. Mackenzie adds. “You need the endurance of a miner. Ready, Tuffy?”

  Manny wheels Tuffy to the edge of the pit.

  “Follow me, boys,” Mr. Mackenzie says.

  “Are we getting thrown into the pit?” Melvin asks.

  “We want you to be stronger to win, not dead,” Zolnich tells him. “You need to build strength to beat the Warriors. They’re twice the size of you.”

  “Now take a helmet,” Mr. Mackenzie tells us, and I realize those aren’t football helmets on the ground, but miner hard hats like the one he’s wearing.

  “We’re going down there?” Alonzo asks.

  “Might as well get used to it,” Lupe says. “For when we get to Ajo. Nobody’s fitter than a hard-rock miner.”

  “Coach Hansen trained us on these ledges,” Manny says. “So that we’d be strong enough to play both ends once we got to Flag.”

  “Took it right out of Coach Kerr’s playbook from twenty-four,” Tuffy says. “It worked.”

  “Go single file running down the ledges, then sprint back up once you get to the bottom,” Mr. Mackenzie explains. “And make sure your light’s on. After three nights of this you’ll be faster on the way up, I can assure you.” He eyes Melvin. “That’s the goal anyhow. Who wants to go first?”

  I put on my helmet. “I will.”

  “You’ve never been down there before, Ugly,” Cruz says. “Sure you don’t want me to go first?”

  “Not this time.”

  “I’ll be right behind you, then.”

  Manny makes his way down and says he’ll meet us at the bottom.

  “How do we stop ourselves from slipping?” Melvin asks.

  “If it can hold a hundred-ton shovel, it’ll hold you,” Zolnich says. “Just don’t look into the pit, and stay on the wall side. Now get going.”

  I run into the darkness with nothing but a narrow beam from my lamp to show me the wall. The ledges are hard-packed and not too steep, but Melvin’s right: the footing’s slippery and it’s hard to get a toehold, especially once the first ledge quits. The only way to the next one is by sidestepping into a sharp slide down a path that’s a vertical drop.

  Nobody’s saying anything behind me as we go deeper, trying to miss the unseen divots that could trip us up, hidden in a surface no wider than a pickup truck, and there’s no sign of Manny up ahead.

  “Keep your knees up high,” Cruz shouts, nearly clipping my heels. He seems to know what it’s like down here pretty well, running sideways—even off the slopes—and could overtake me if he wanted to.

  I run down another ledge, snatching a glimpse skyward to where we came from. But I can’t see Mr. Mackenzie or Tuffy or Zolnich, and it seems impossible to make your way out of here when you’re in this deep, like being trapped inside a box made of stone with the lid barely open—just enough to see the stars and how far away they are from down here.

  I catch sight of the burning pyres of ore to my left down below as I slide into the final ledge, where the air thins out—though that doesn’t make any sense—collecting in the middle of the pit like a smoke signal. It’s sour and stronger than the sulfur that hits us by the time it gets to the school after a blast, and I don’t know how Pop’s done this all these years. Some of the guys start coughing and I try not to breathe it in, but I’m winded and it stings going down.

  “The last ledge gives out in ten paces,” Cruz says.

  He’s smiling at me from above like he’s enjoying seeing me sweating and feeling trapped. Cruz neve
r seems to feel that way.

  Then another voice calls out, “First time you’ve ever been down here, huh, kid?” I see the carbide light before I can make out who it is as I hit the bottom of the pit. I thought we’d be alone somehow, with just Manny waiting for us when we got here, but there’s a crew of about a dozen miners, eyes wider than ringtails’ and lined with soot, looking at me, grinning. They start clapping, then somebody yells, “Good goin’, Red. Your pop never thought you’d be down here.”

  “Welcome to the jungle,” Manny says.

  “Don’t get used to it,” Cruz says when he reaches me.

  “I won’t.”

  “Time for target practice.” Manny points to me as Diaz and Quesada make it down. “The rest of you guys start heading back up.”

  Manny’s lined up ten footballs on the rocky floor about forty feet from the shovel and the rail track it’s mounted on. “That’s how Coach Hansen got Bobby ready for Flagstaff,” Manny explains, looking up at the dipper stick of the bucket. “Shovel precision. Nothing like it to get your throws higher and away from those Warrior fingers.

  “You’ve got ten shots and thirty seconds to hit the bucket where I put it,” Manny says, tossing me the first ball. “I can still throw, you know, even if I’m missing a few fingers. Your body adjusts. Sometimes faster than anything else does.”

  The rest of the shovel crew gathers around me, pointing their carbide lamps at the shovel as Manny climbs up to the controls. I focus on the mouth of the bucket, thirty feet up, and its row of bottom teeth. I can see the arc of its swing in my head and shoot for where I think it’ll go, and I connect on the first try. The miners clap and start yelling, “Do it again,” and I do—over and over—just like I did with those ducks at the fiesta. Then the shovel rotates and lurches low to the ground and I hit the boom instead, so Manny bobs it up and to the short side. I nick both the dipper stick and the bucket.

  Manny puts up his eight fingers. “Eight out of ten. Not bad, Red.”

  I look back and Tony’s putting Melvin on his shoulders. “For balance,” Tony says, laughing, as he turns to go back up. “What you got, rocks in your pocket?” Tony asks him.

  “I gained twelve pounds since the season started,” Melvin says. “I guess all that fighting with the bus helps.”

  “Tuffy’s still timing you,” Manny tells me. “Better get back up there.”

  The rest of the miners collect at the base of the ledge and shine their lamps along the path to help me see—their eyes hungry for what they believe I can do. I start racing toward the sky, away from the burning ore and out of this box, ignoring the sting in my own body, the sweaty ribbons of sulfur smoke whirling all around me. I pass Tony, and Melvin waves, but I focus on the faces of those miners, coated in soot and hopeful, and on how Bobby must have done the same thing, racing up these ledges and feeling the need like I do right now, wanting to make them feel puffed up and proud.

  “Six minutes and nine seconds,” Tuffy tells me when I get back up to the field.

  “You’re bleeding again,” I tell Cruz.

  “Bleeding’s good.”

  Tony drops off Melvin next to Tuffy.

  “You’ll be doing the same drill twice more,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “Saturday and Monday at midnight. That should make you good and ready to take on Flagstaff.”

  “How’d you get permission from Ruffner to stop a shift from running for an hour in the first place?” I ask.

  “I didn’t get permission from William Ruffner,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “I got it from your father.”

  Chapter 21

  NEXT TO NO SHOT

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  7:32 A.M.

  WE COULD SURE USE RAIN, it’s been so dusty around here. Every time I shoot the football through that tire and it lands on home plate, it churns up a dust storm and I have to wait for the clouds to settle before throwing again. I know it’s too early for anyone to be at the school except Charlie, but I can see the sidewalk from here, and Mr. Mackenzie should be walking across it anytime now. I’m hoping he’ll know something more about Coach.

  It only takes two more throws before I hear Mr. Mac as he comes around the corner in his pin-striped suit. He sees me right off and walks over, saying “Good morning,” dropping his cane in the coldenia behind the fence, and lifting up the tire to forty-five degrees. I’m trying to figure out if the “good morning” is really a good morning like things are going well, or if it’s a good morning like you have to grin and bear it because if you don’t, you just might start welling up not knowing if the tears will stop when you want them to.

  “Any news about Coach?” I ask, hurling the ball through the tire. It goes through without skimming the sides and Mr. Mac looks pleased.

  “You’re looking much stronger, Felix, just in time for the game with Flagstaff. Looks like all that ledge work helped.”

  “That and Faye Miller bringing me all those casseroles.”

  He nods and holds the tire up a notch higher.

  “I’ve seen her little boy,” I say. “It’s good she … kept going. With her life, I mean. Got married. Do you know her husband?”

  Mr. Mackenzie lowers the tire and scoops up the football. “No, I don’t, Felix. But her son, Samuel, he’s really taking to the school and he sure loves football.” He tosses the ball back and I aim for the tire again.

  “I remember the first time Ben Hansen saw this town and this tire,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “He asked if we were supposing there’d be a flood and we’d all hang on to that tire and go swinging over the baseball field. I brought him here, you know. When nobody thought the T formation would work or a coach from the Midwest for that matter. And you know what? He loved it here. ‘This is home, Edward,’ he told me after only a year.” Mr. Mac holds the tire up higher and I rocket it through again easy, then wait for him to collect the ball.

  “Is the hospital letting him take visitors yet, I mean … other than his family?” I ask.

  Mr. Mac puts his hands in his pockets, then kicks up some dust with his wingtip. “There’s a good chance we’re gonna lose him, Felix. And if we do, it will be a sad day.”

  My heart and my mind go racing for the right words but they won’t come.

  All I hear is Mr. Mac saying how he knows how fond I am of Coach and that he and Coach are friends—just like me and Cruz—and I don’t know what I’d do if Cruz was in that Cottonville hospital right now with nearly no shot at making it.

  “Everybody thinks a coach just wants to win for himself and some people think that about Ben Hansen, too, he’s so driven,” Mr. Mac says. “But that’s never been why Ben does all this. You know what he told me just last week? He said, ‘Isn’t it funny how they’ve saved me the best team for last? We’re gonna take it, Edward—the state championship. You know what that would mean to the boys if they won it? How different they’d feel for the rest of their lives? That’s what I can see for them. I can taste it, Ed. That Yavapai Cup trophy’s been earmarked for them.’ ”

  SPORTS CENTRAL

  Phoenix-Flagstaff Gridiron Showdown Expected

  The reigning state football champions, the Phoenix United Coyotes, are one victory away from getting a chance to defend their title. The undefeated Coyotes host Mesa on Saturday in what is expected to be a rout.

  In the North, Flagstaff seems certain to take it all, with only a scrappy but undersized Hatley team standing in their way. Those two face off in Flagstaff tonight. The likely Phoenix-Flagstaff state championship game would be Oct. 21 in Flagstaff.

  “We’re not looking past anyone,” said P.U. coach Pug Johnson, who admitted that his players have been studying film of Flagstaff’s most recent games. “We beat Mesa by 35 points last year, so we’re confident. And Hatley’s the smallest team in the state, so don’t expect much from them.”

  Chapter 22

  BITTERSWEET

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13

  8:40 P.M.

  THE LAST TIME A MUCKER team beat Flagstaff, Bobby was quart
erback with Manny his top receiver, and every lineman on that ’41 squad as big as Tony.

  We’ve held the Warriors scoreless for half a game instead of letting them run roughshod over us like the papers predicted. It’s been a physical game and not very clean—two unnecessary-roughness penalties against Flagstaff and one on us. Cruz let his temper gallop onto the field again and hit a receiver about five yards out-of-bounds. But none of that is the same as beating them—we haven’t scored yet either.

  But we’ve run the ledges, same as Bobby’s team, and Mr. Mackenzie says we’re faster than they were. Manny does, too. They both drove up to watch us play. Zolnich isn’t allowed to leave town or he’d have been here, too. And if the mine wasn’t closing, we’d have a whole lot more people rooting for us under these pines. Must be at least three thousand Warrior fans in the stadium, which is the biggest we’ve played in all year. Most of them are dressed in Warrior colors—green and white—like Christmas candy.

  We’re sitting in the locker room—which is the size of our auditorium—waiting for Wallinger. He’s been in the john for the entire halftime, he’s so nervous. The folding chairs are cold as icicles and start vibrating with the sound of those Warrior cheers, so I get up, clench a fist, and punch it into my palm.

  “Wonder what Coach Hansen would tell us right about now?” Lupe says.

  Cruz lifts my throwing arm up high. “He’d say that we’ve got the O’Sullivan magic! Isn’t that what Coach told us when we first started this season?”

  “And that we’re Muckers,” Tony says.

  “What do Muckers do?” I start chanting. “Muckers fight!”

  “No matter what pit you’re in,” Cruz adds.

  “Remember the ledges?” I tell them. “All that running up and down?” I start pounding on the seat of a chair. “Flag kept bringing in subs the first half, but they couldn’t wear us down. The second half belongs to us.”

  Wallinger finally comes out of the john with a cap on like Coach Hansen’s and barks, “Let’s get out there and win.” But there’s no way he could ever be like Coach, or we could be like Bobby’s team—we’ve got to be even better.