Red Helmet (28 page)

Song had no idea how to get back to where the bolts and plates were stacked. She chose a random direction that took her behind a shuttle car. She carefully stepped over its power cable just as the car shot forward, causing the cable to lift off the floor. It caught her in the crotch, picked her up, and slammed her against the roof. Her helmet went one way and she went another.

Petroski came over, picked her up, and handed her her helmet, now deeply scratched in several places. “Don't never step over a power cable!” he yelled. “Didn't Square tell you that? Always step
on
it. You just found out why. When are you going after those bolts and plates? Won't be long before the roof bolt crew needs 'em. Get on now, and stop fooling around!”

“I don't know where to go,” she confessed. Her legs had been bruised by the cable and her head hurt from being slammed against the roof, but she tried not to show it.

“Go the way you came in,” Petroski said, then pointed with his light. “Right over there. See the entry? When you're done, come see me and we'll get you going on the posts.”

Song had no idea what “get you going on the posts” meant, but she headed into the darkness in the direction of the foreman's point. She saw a light ahead, which coalesced out of the gloom and proved to be Bum with another armload of bolts and plates. He didn't say anything, just pushed by her, breathing hard. Song kept going until she reached the pallet, loaded up as many bolts and plates as she could, then realized she had no idea what she'd done with her lunch bucket. While lurching bent over toward the face, she tried to recall exactly where she'd last seen it. She dropped her load with the other bolts and plates, then looked around and spied her pink bucket lying in the gob just seconds before a shuttle car ran over it. After the big steel vehicle rumbled on, she picked the crunched bucket up, then ran to get out of the way of another roaring shuttle. With some relief, she saw the bucket was just badly bent. She found a place in the gob where other buckets had been left and put hers down beside them. There was a flash of light across her, and when it flashed away, she saw it was Petroski again, watching her. He was talking to a miner and she saw both of them laugh. She was certain they were laughing at her.

Determinedly, Song made her way to the pallet, picked up as many bolts and plates as she could, and headed back toward the face. This time, she didn't pass Bum or anyone else. He had disappeared. There was no other option, so she kept going back and forth until the pallet was empty. Gasping for breath, she knelt beside the stack of hardware and tried to straighten her back. Petroski's light flashed over her again. While pushing her fist into the small of her back, she walked over to him.

“You done?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

“Got them all, every bolt, every plate?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You put the plates on the bolts?”

“No, sir.”

“Well then, you ain't done.” Petroski turned away.

Song started sliding a plate over each bolt. It wasn't long before her fingers were bleeding. She pulled her gloves from her back pocket, put them on, and kept working. A man on the roof bolt crew hurried over, picked up an impossible armload of the bolts and plates, and headed back to the face. The continuous miner roared out of the cut and the roof bolters charged in, drilling, tamping, and bolting. It was all terribly loud, and dust filled the air. Some of the men wore paper masks, but most didn't. Song put hers on, but when she felt like she wasn't getting enough air through it, she took it off. She wished she had ear plugs. But then she realized ear plugs were probably not a good idea. In the darkness, the whine of an electric motor was sometimes the only way she could tell to get out of the way of something big that could crush her.

The roof bolters kept working until the roof was safely pinned, then clambered out so that the continuous miner could move back in. Its operator lunged it forward to knock down more coal, while its mechanical claws gathered up the spoil and transferred it via its conveyor to the shuttle cars. Then the mining machine backed out and the roof bolters charged in again, laden with the hardware Song had provided them. It made her a little proud to see her work being used productively.

The shuttle cars kept howling in and out, their operators expertly guiding them behind the continuous miners to catch the spewing coal from their booms. As soon as they were full, they were off, their big headlights lighting up the nearly rectangular tunnel, revealing the ghostly gray posts that lined it, the rugged gray roof of rock, and the dusty gray floor. The working area of the face smelt of coal dust and electricity. It was energetic and dynamic. Song realized she kind of liked it. It made her feel, well, alive.

Just as Song put the last plate on the last roof bolt, the foreman's light flashed over her again. She got up and went to him.

“See over there, that cross-cut?” Petroski demanded. “There's a stack of posts there. I want you to move them down to where there's a placard the engineers put up. Says Danger on it. If you look, you'll see where they've marked the old posts with some chalk. You take them old posts out, put the new ones in. There's shims in the pile.”

Song looked in the direction Petroski was pointing. “By myself?”

“Bum's there already. Don't let him give you any crap.”

Petroski abruptly moved off, and Song bowed her head beneath the rock and headed in the direction he had pointed. A shuttle car came howling out of the darkness and she ran from it, her helmet bouncing against the roof. Her headache deepened.

She found Bum sitting on a stack of wooden posts, each about five feet long and eight inches square. “Petroski sent me to put up posts with you,” she said.

His light went into her eyes and stayed there. “You know how to timber, girl?”

“Square showed us. Raise the post against the roof, tap shims at the top to wedge it in.”

Bum's smile was cold. “Pick up a post and let's go. We got to move them all before we start.”

“Can't we carry one together?”

Bum didn't answer, just climbed off the pile and picked up a post, put it under his arm, and waddled off. Song did another yoga maneuver, a forward fold, to stretch her back again, wished at the same time she had some ibuprofen, then put her arms around one of the posts. It was all she could do to lift it, much less carry it. She took a few steps in a contorted posture, but the forward end of the post jammed into the roof, driving her to her knees. “Come on, girl!” Bum yelled from somewhere ahead.

Song gritted her teeth, picked up the post again, and staggered on. Petroski's light flashed across her as she disappeared into the darkness.

Song reverted to crabbing backward, dragging the post with both hands. This resulted in her head slamming into the roof again, knocking her helmet forward with the lip painfully cutting her nose. She felt the trickle of blood. She awkwardly turned and went back to dragging the post beneath her armpit, finally reaching Bum. She dropped the post and leaned over, her hands on her knees, to catch her breath.

“Well?” Bum growled. “Go get another one.”

She followed Bum back to the stack of posts. He picked one up and lurched past her. Song also picked up a post and started dragging it. After she had gone back and forth four times, she didn't see Bum anymore. Still, she kept dragging posts, her jumpsuit soaked with sweat, her head throbbing like something inside it was busting to get out. Finally, she dropped the last post on the pile and sat down to rest. A light flashed over her. It was Petroski. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “You just sitting here? You were supposed to knock out the old posts and put the new ones up.”

“Well . . . uh . . . you see . . .” Song stammered, trying to form some cogent thought around her monster headache.

“Look, lady,” Petroski growled, “you can't expect no favors down here. You got that red cap on to work, and I expect a full day of sweat. You can't just sit around. Where's Bum?”

“I don't know,” Song replied, her eyes squinted in pain from her headache.

“It's your job to keep up with your buddy,” Petroski growled. “If he went off and left you, you should have come to me, not lounge around on this stack of posts.”

“I wasn't lounging!” Song protested.

“You could have fooled me.” His light struck her in the eyes, and her head felt like it was going to explode. He turned and left, called back to the face by flashing lights seeking him out.

Song looked at her watch. It was getting close to noon. She realized she was starving and thirsty. She hurried to her bucket. When she opened it, she discovered it was empty and the thermos bottle inside smashed. The shuttle car had probably crushed the thermos and then someone had stolen her food. Was it a joke or was she to starve?

She tossed the bucket aside and started walking, finding some miners tucked away near the now-empty
pallet. All their lights flashed toward her. “Somebody stole my sandwich,” she said, “and my thermos got busted.”

“Sit down here, little lady,” someone said. She sat on the pallet and a plastic water bottle was passed to her.

“You want one of my sandwiches?” another miner asked. She recognized him as the passenger in the mantrip who had used her shoulder as a pillow.

“If you don't mind,” she said.

He passed over a sandwich, wrapped in wax paper, which looked suspiciously like the one Rhonda had packed for her. She didn't care. She needed food. It was peanut butter and jelly. She unwrapped it and took a big bite. But it didn't taste right. In fact, it tasted like grease. She spat it out while the miners roared with laughter. She stared at them, then spied a shovel. She grabbed it, scrambled to her feet, and smashed one of their thermos bottles to bits.

The grins on their faces quickly evaporated. “What did you do that for?” the owner of the thermos asked.

“I thought I saw a snake under it.”

“There ain't no snakes in the mine, lady.”

She shrugged. “You could have fooled me.”

Then the grease that coated her mouth and throat and the gorge in her stomach would not be denied. She dropped to her knees and threw up. There was a stunned silence, then, “We always pull tricks on the red caps, ma'am.”

“Ain't just you.”

“Here's some water.”

Song drank and felt better. “I'm still starving,” she confessed. Instantly, sandwiches, apples, and cookies were passed her way. She ate two sandwiches, then a bag of cookies, then an apple, then drank some more water. She looked at her watch.

“Ain't no use looking at that watch, ma'am. You ain't going nowhere until the mantrip comes.”

Song thought it couldn't come fast enough. A few minutes later, the miners abruptly rose and moved back to the face. Song had an urgent need to visit the toilet. She found a place, did her business, kicked gob over it, and then, hunched over beneath the roof, went back to the stack of posts. There was still no sign of Bum, but there were two five-pound sledge hammers and a miner named Pennsylvania.

“Let's go,” he said brusquely, and used his sledge to knock out the first post. Song backed up. What if the roof caved in?

“Well?” Pennsylvania demanded, his light resting on her face. “Pick up some shims and a post, and stand it up so I can knock it into place.”

Song felt in her back pocket for her gloves and discovered she'd lost them. She grabbed a post and a splinter sank into the fleshy palm of her right hand. She cried out and dropped the post on her foot. Luckily, it hit the hardened toe of her boot and rolled off. She sank to her knees.

“I can't do this.” She hadn't meant to speak it aloud.

“You work the rest of the shift,” Petroski growled, appearing out of nowhere. “Then you can quit at the end of it.”

“I'm not going to quit,” she hissed.

“You said you can't do this.”

“You heard me wrong. I said, I
can
do this.”

“Then I want to see you working.”

Song took a breath, then grabbed a post. She ignored the sharp pain of the splinter in her hand and her splitting head. She ignored her back, which was sore, and her leg muscles, which were screaming. She even ignored her rational thoughts that kept telling her, in no uncertain terms, to crawl off somewhere until the mantrip came and never, ever do this again.

Twenty-Three

R
honda and Rosita were working as fast as they could go to deliver food to the ravenous miners. Young Henry was even dragged away from his homework to carry heaping platters of chicken fried steak, baked potatoes, biscuits, corn on the cob, plus pitchers of sugar-laden punch and sweet tea to the table. Except for Song, the red caps were ensconced at their own table, devouring everything set before them. When Rhonda asked about Song, they reported the last they'd seen her was when she'd limped off the manlift.

“She looked pretty beat up to me,” Ford said.

“I waited around for her,” Chevrolet added, “but she was taking her time in the bathhouse, I guess.”

Rhonda put her hands on her hips and frowned over the red caps. “If you'd been gentlemen,” she lectured, “all of you would have waited for her, no matter how long it took.”

Gilberto ducked his head. “
Sí
. You are right. But I was hungry.” He looked around the table. “We all were.”

Rhonda shook her head. “You men. There are only two parts of your body you pay attention to. And neither one of them is your brain.”

Chevrolet gave that some thought. “Okay, our stomachs would be one of them. Not our brains . . .” He shook his head. “Can't figure out what the other one is.”

Gilberto watched Rosita sashay by. “Ah. My lovely desert flower.”

The other red caps watched her too, as did every man in the place. “You are one lucky man, Gilberto,” Ford said. “Does she have a sister?”