Foxfire (35 page)

“Ye didna get the telly-phone down there ye've been yammering for!” said Tom, cocking his grizzled head and chuckling, as Dart prepared to leave. “'Bull'ead thinks ye're a great mollycoddle fussing so about it. 'E says ye even got at the old man.”

Dart flushed. He paused with one hand on the doorknob. “I did. I hope Mr. Tyson gave the order, too.”

“Aow. I expect 'e did since Bull'ead's madder'n a wet hen. Says 'e'll take 'is own good time about getting the cable. 'E said some mighty stiff things about your going over 'is 'ead to the old man.”

“Oh, hush now, Tom, do,” laughed Tessie, shaking her head. “Ye mustna tease poor Mr. Dartland. He knows what's best, ye've said so yourself time and again.”

“For sure I 'ave,” agreed Tom, grinning at Dart's frowning face. “It's just me bit o' fun. Ye'll win out, sir, ye always do. Bull'ead's no match for you.”

Dart started to speak and then stopped. There was no use explaining to Tom that this matter of the telephone was not a personal feud between himself and Mablett, at least in Dart's eyes. It was a matter of rudimentary mine safety, of improved practice. But Rubrick had worked most of his life in small mines where such refinements had been ignored, and it was clear that he shared Mablett's view that Dart was showing excessive caution. Dart was too sure of his own ground for real annoyance, so he merely shrugged and said, “Well, time will tell.”

A meaningless phrase which was later to find an unpleasant echo in the shift boss's memory.

Dart kissed Amanda, nodded to the Rubricks, and strode down the path to the car. Tessie and Amanda set out a deck of cards on the kitchen table, opened three bottles of beer, and using matches for chips, were soon immersed in an enthusiastic game of Black Jack. They intended to wait and play until Dart came back off shift at midnight.

Tiger had his own room in the mine bunkhouse, and he watched from the window for the lights of Dart's returning car. As soon as he saw them, he glided downstairs and out into the night. He concealed himself behind a creosote bush near the shaft and watched the foreman's tall straight figure moving in the darkness exactly as Tiger had foreseen—disappearing in the hoist house for a moment to have a word with the hoistman, then walking silhouetted against the sky, until he reached the waiting cage at the shaft.

Tiger crept near enough to hear what Dart said to the eager. “Evening, Mike. Boys down below on the thousand okay?—Well, we'll spit the fuses, after you get all the other men up, then you can go. I'll handle the cage myself.” He stepped inside, and the skip clanged downward.

The listener in the bushes squeezed his hands tight together in an ecstasy of satisfaction. He had no particular reluctance to eliminate the eager as well as the others, but the satisfaction came from having foreseen just this decision too. Mastery over the Apache's brain, smarter in every way than the Apache.

Tiger crept to the window of the hoist house. He watched the tense young figure on the high stool by the levers that ran the hoist.... Bill Riley hunched forward, his eyes glued to the enormous round indicator that showed by means of a revolving arrow the present location of the descending skip. The hoist drum thundered and whirred, paying off its lengths of oily black cable. The huge arrow paused on the indicator, the machinery stopped; then, from a horn high overhead on the opposite wall, there came a sharp buzz, and a red light flashed. The hoistman pulled the levers again, and the indicator arrow resumed its slow revolution.

This routine procedure was not what interested Tiger; he was watching for something else, and soon he was rewarded. Bill Riley lifted the thermos full of coffee and took a long pull. Tiger nodded to himself. Just enough dope in there to take the edge off Riley's alertness, just enough to haze his time sense a little, so he wouldn't get to wondering. But there was small chance of that anyway. Riley never took responsibility on his own, he stood in great awe of Dart, and his anxious mind was focused on only one thing, precise obedience to the signals.

It can't go wrong, thought Tiger exultantly. His bony fingers caressed the reassuring bulk of the flashlight in his pocket, and the twin prongs of the wire cutter. That was all it needed. So simple, as though the Lord had planned it. He glanced around the deserted collar, then slipped behind one of the steel uprights of the head frame. There it was, the conduit running up out of the shaft, innocent inches of wire, inconspicuous as they were accessible. He had already loosened the insulation, he knew exactly where to cut. It wouldn't take five seconds, the minute Riley received the alert-for-blasting signal, and acknowledged it.

After that there would be no more signals. But later when someone began to wonder, when indeed he himself perhaps might start the wondering, the wires would have been spliced again, the signals in perfect working order. No one would know what had happened, except that the Apache down below had somehow made a fatal mistake.

Tiger's eyes glowed like a cat's in the darkness, he clamped his lips tight over a burst of triumphant laughter. He eased himself cautiously down the hill below the collar and the abandoned tailings dump. Here in the darkness he would wait until the moment came.

 

At eleven o'clock Dart, replacing the absent shift boss, had checked on work in all parts of the mine, and was now prepared to go down to the thousand-foot level, where the two drillers, Old Craddock and Pedro Ramirez, had been working. He went on top with the last of the regular shift, dismissed the eager, and took the skip down again alone. It was well to have as few men as possible around when the blasting was so close to the shaft as this would be.

Dart stepped off the cage at the lowest level into a little inferno of choking heat and rock dust. The ventilation was poor down here as yet. The two men greeted him eagerly. Old Craddock was not yet sixty, but he was humped over and wrinkled like a mummy. His lungs were half eaten away with silicosis, he wheezed and coughed constantly, but he held on always just a bit longer trying to save enough money to buy a little farm back East.

Pedro was a burly brute of a Mexican, who had a certain knack with the jack-hammer and drill, but otherwise the mentality of a ten-year-old child.

“All set, mister,” said Craddock, limping up to Dart and coughing. “All ready to spit 'em.” He gestured back to the face of the cross-cut. Dart nodded and walked over to inspect.

The rock chamber in which they stood was about ten feet in diameter. On one side there was the shaft with the waiting cage, on the other the beginning of the cross-cut, a tunnel so far but eight feet deep, blocked by the rock wall in which the men had been drilling. Across the face of this rock wall there dangled eight thread-like fuses.

Dart looked at the fuses, and turned frowning to Craddock. “You've trimmed them already!” he said. “I told you I'd do it.”

“Gee, mister,” answered the old man plaintively, “I been trimmin' 'em for thirty year, I know how they fire best. I want to get out of here fast. Me chest's killing me.”

Dart nodded and accepted this. He considered that some of the fuses were pretty short, they'd not burn two minutes, but also at the back of his mind he heard Tom's chuckling quotation of Mablett's “Mollycoddle.”

“Okay,” he said. “We'll signal to Riley.”

The two men stood beside him while he turned to the shaft and pulled down the signal cord five times, the alert-for-blasting signal.

It seemed to Dart that the hoistman's response was slower than usual, but after a moment the waiting cage began to rise slowly thirty feet up the shaft, hovered, and descended back into position by Dart.

This was the proper acknowledgment of the first signal, it showed the hoistman to be alerted and ready, and that the hoist was under control. Riley would now wait for the one long ring which showed the fuses had been lit, and the men in the cage must be carried at once quickly to the surface.

“You get in,” said Dart to the two men. “I'll light them.”

Craddock and the Mexican walked into the cage and stood together at the back. Craddock coughed long and rackingly. He wiped some bloodstainted spittle off his mouth with his hand.

Dart moved back and forth across the rock face, lighting the fuses, the glow of his carbide lamp dancing methodically in and out of the shadows with his quick controlled motions. The fuses began to sputter and hiss like little snakes, an acrid sweetish odor mingled with the smell of rock dust.

“Okay,” said Dart, he pulled the signal down once sharply and sprang into the cage with the men.

They waited.

“Jesus Maria,” said the Mexican, “whassa matter—you no give signal?”

“Of course I did, you fool!” Dart reached around the wall of the cage and pulled it again. He waited a second and then added seven convulsive jerks—the alarm signal!

A thousand feet above them in the hoist house Bill Riley sat waiting, staring at the horn on the wall which would presently buzz, at the red light which would flash. He was sleepy, couldn't seem to think straight. How long did it usually take between the alert and the blasting signal? But Mr. Dartland was in charge so there was no use speculating. Probably lastminute change in trimming the fuses. His eyes shut and he opened them with a jerk. He reached for more coffee. Never let Mr. Dartland catch you nodding like this, be right out on your ear in nothing flat, and then how about Mary and the baby, with decent jobs so hard to get, any jobs—you got to be alert—alert—how long was it since that alert signal, maybe only a second, I don't know what's the matter with me I'm so dopy, I don't want to do anything wrong. His hand went to the lever and then fell back. Can't raise the cage without the signal—what's the matter with you...?

Outside behind the head frame Tiger crouched near the broken signal wires. Fifteen minutes would do it for sure, then he could splice again. He laid his ear to the shaft, listening, but you couldn't tell from that far down. There were some dull, shaking thuds from somewhere under the earth, but might be from other parts of the mine. Anyway, it was foolproof. The Apache blown into a dozen mangled pieces, like my mother was mangled, and again he had to clamp his lips tight over wild laughter.

Below in the cage the three still stood. The eight writhing fuses sputtered and hissed inexorably.

“My God—my God—” whispered Craddock staring at them. Suddenly and louder he cried in a thin whine, “My God, my God, my God-” He gave a sharp bubbling gasp and fell forward onto his face across the floor of the cage.

In the same instant Dart jumped out of the cage. He flashed to the rock face, his jackknife opened in his hand. Already the character of sputter from the three shortest fuses had changed.

The hissing red fire had crawled lip into the rock holes which led to the caps. Dart took a deep gasping breath. He dug with his knife into the holes beneath the tamping and cut the fuses. He pulled the burning ends out with his fingers and threw them to the ground. Then he cut steadily with precise motion the remaining five fuses which still protruded. He stamped out all the burning ends with his heavy boots. Then he released his breath and swayed against the wet rocky wall, staring at the eight black holes in the face of the rock. He unclenched his jaws and a warm soft trickle ran down his chin from his bitten lip.

Pedro, the Mexican, lumbered out of the cage and came over to him. “Brav' hombre—” he said, peering at Dart. “You cut fuse—? We no blow up?” There was a foolish uncertain grin on his slack mouth.

Dart straightened slowly. “No—” he said. “No. I guess we don't blow up.” He looked down at his right hand, the first two fingers and thumb were charred black, beginning to ooze a bloody serum, but he felt nothing.

“Somesing go wrong wid Craddock—” said the Mexican. “He fall down.”

Dart walked back to the cage. The old miner lay crumpled at the back on the planks. By the sharp yellow circle of his lamp Dart saw that the shrunken face had turned gray blue, but the man still breathed.

“Give me a hand here—” snapped Dart to the Mexican, who sluggishly obeyed. They lifted the unconscious man out of the cage and laid him on the wet ground.

Dart stared down at Craddock, then pulled the signal again. Seven sharp jerks. He waited, but there was no response. What in God's name has happened, he thought, and looked at the wall by the shaft where the telephone should have been.

Craddock gave a feeble sighing moan, his hands fluttered then dropped to his side.

He's dying, thought Dart. We've got to get him out of here—Decent air, Doctor.

“Take his feet again,” he said to the Mexican, and he knelt down scooping his right arm under Craddock's shoulders, and around the bony chest.

“Wha' for?” said Pedro staring. “Where you goin'?”

“Up the manway,” said Dart impatiently. “Hurry up.”

Pedro's jaw dropped. He stared at the perpendicular iron ladder which ran up the side of the shaft. The spindle rungs a foot apart were slippery as eels from the constant drip of water. He wagged his head. “No can go up with him—” He hunched towards Craddock. “We fall.”

“Shut up!” shouted Dart. His blazing eyes glared at the Mexican. “Do as I tell you.”

Pedro gave a rebellious mutter, but he picked up Craddock's legs.

Dart hauled the inert hundred-and-fifty-pound body up a few rungs, then rested the feet on Pedro's shoulders while the Mexican stood below. They began to crawl up the ladder one rung at a time, grunting and heaving. Dart felt his injured right hand go numb, and tried to shift Craddock's weight to the other arm, but his right hand was even more useless for grasping the rungs above his head, and he had to shift back.

During this maneuver Pedro's rubber boots slipped off the slick rungs, and he gave a frightened bellow, thrashing wildly in the darkness beneath, while Dart, his ears bursting and his heart thundering, supported the whole weight, then Pedro regained his balance on the rung.