Skip Rock Shallows (22 page)

Lilly was overwhelmed. And though she’d fought so hard against it, she knew exactly what God meant for her to do. It concerned her right hand—her writing hand.

Tern scrunched his shoulders, preparing for the slide into the confining chamber. Elbows lay within easy distance from the opening, but it felt like ten miles. Tern’s elbows and knees were ragged from the process of propelling himself in and out. He went in belly up this time, just to give his joints a rest. Being on his back with the breakdown blocks mere inches from his face made him queasy—like he was in a crypt—even though he’d been a miner off and on for years. The position forced him to leave his light off, but it wasn’t that dark anyway. Mr. James had left a lantern at the end of the tunnel to shed a light for Elbows.

Smelling strongly of rat droppings and creaking ominously with the dry rub of rock against rock, the crawlway was a distinctly unpleasant place. The tunnel constricted considerably just before the area where Elbows’s body rested. If the man had only made it a few more inches before the troublemaking rock loosed from the ceiling, he would have been scot-free.

They had been so close yesterday—so close you could taste it. Tern couldn’t believe the luck—or more rightly, the lack thereof. He had been in the tunnel holding a folded cloth loosely over Elbows’s face, to protect him from the fine sifts of rock dust, as Bob and his team worked just yards away. They aimed to widen the narrow space so they could reach in and remove the stones that held Elbows as twisted as the coils of a copper distillation tube.

Turnip was chipping the rock face with a mason’s hammer and chisel when Tern heard Bob cry out. The roof was falling again. Instinctively, Tern had tried to cover his head with his hands. Then the men on the other side were scrambling to save themselves and Bob, whom Turnip had pulled out by the shoulders.

Now it was the third day, and Tern was once again earthworming to the man he seemed to have inherited, like a bad debt on the family farm.

“Buddy, can’t you see your way clear to get me out of here?” Elbows said when Tern reached him. “I knowed you would come to save me; I knowed it for a fact. I told my daddy at breakfast this morning, ‘My buddy’s gonna save me today.’”

Elbows was becoming increasingly disoriented. Last night he’d had supper with President Roosevelt. He and Teddy had dined on quail’s eggs and buttered toast in the presidential dining room of the White House. And now he’d had breakfast with his father? He was cracking. Tern was cracking too. With but a few brief breaks, he’d been with Elbows for three days. The dark and the damp and the confining spaces were getting to him.

It had been a long night, but now he heard the sound of the men working at the other end of the tunnel. Stanley had made the crew take last night off. He’d told Tern he would stay the night with Elbows. “Go catch some shut-eye” was the way he’d put it, but Tern couldn’t get himself to leave for long. It just didn’t feel right to leave until Elbows was safe.

As men called out one to the other and tools banged and screeched, Elbows fell quiet. Despite the din, Tern dozed. An argument between Stanley James and another man whose voice he vaguely remembered startled him awake.

“Keep your voice down. The man can still hear,” Stanley said.

“James, give me one reason you’re not working this mine.”

The strong scent of a Cuban cigar wafted into the tunnel. Evidently Stanley had motioned toward the crawl space, because the other man answered with a dismissive “Humph.”

The cigar smoke melded with the brusque tone. It was the big shot from the Black Lump Coal Company, the man who’d threatened Stanley’s job before.

“It’s not like I’m saying leave him in there, James. Work around him is all I’m asking.”

“You might as well sign his death warrant if you start production again. That tunnel will collapse like a house of cards.”

The air in the tunnel hazed with smoke. Tern could imagine the short, stout man puffing furiously.

“Stanley, Stanley, Stanley—you’re becoming a liability. You’ve got until tomorrow morning to get this outfit up and running again.”

“My men won’t cross the line. They won’t put a paycheck above another miner’s life,” Stanley said.

“Your men?” The company man gave a mirthless laugh. “They aren’t yours, James. They’re mine, and they’ll do what I say. Like I told you before, there’s plenty more men where they came from, and some of them are real hungry.”

There was a sound like one man slapping another man’s back just a little too hard. “Buck up, Stanley. The poor slob’s probably gonna die anyway.”

Tern waited, holding his breath, praying Elbows was sleeping. He should get out of there, hop the next train to DC, and report the intolerable conditions imposed on the workers by the Black Lump Coal Company. Maybe he could put a stop to this madness before it was too late for everyone.

“You won’t leave me in here to die alone, will you, Joe?” Elbows asked.

Tern choked on coal dust and cigar smoke. He released a breath of resignation. “No, buddy. I won’t leave you. But listen, you’re not dying. I can tell by your voice you’re still as strong as ever.”

Hours later, Tern had time to grab a meal. He washed his face and hands at the wash bench. He wished he could go to the bathhouse for a shave. Leaning against a stack of lumber, he ate the plate of supper Billy had brought him from the canteen. Although he generally liked Mrs. DeWitt’s cooking, the ham steak, redeye gravy, and collard greens tasted like so much sawdust. He guessed the gravy and a few greens would be easy for Elbows to swallow. He wouldn’t chance the ham.

Poor Billy was in there now. Every time Tern came back from a break, the kid was pale as white bread.

Down the mountain, Tern caught sight of Lilly. He’d heard Bob bragging about the care with which she’d stitched his scalp. She’d insisted he take a rest in a hammock. The stitches made his head look like a baseball.

What would the men think if they knew she was promised to Tern? Or sort of promised, anyway; she hadn’t exactly said she’d marry him. She had said she loved him. That was enough for now.

An assembly of women, children, and a few old men trailed up the road toward the portal of Number 4 but stopped well short of the entrance. What sort of uprising was this? Tern wondered.

“Page 426, ‘The Lord Is Good to Them That Wait,’” said the man Tern recognized as the local preacher, and the group joined in as he began to sing:

          O’erwhelmed by distress, I mourn at Thy feet.

          The joy of salvation, when shall it be mine?

          The high consolation of friendship divine!”

The melody sailed up the mountain on a breeze. Tern was enthralled. In all the places he had worked over the years, he’d yet to see anything like this offering of testimony in the midst of such a difficult time.

“Page 102, ‘On the Mountain’s Top Appearing,’” the minister instructed.

Tern needed to get back inside, but something about the music kept him in place. He would listen to one more song.

          Lo! the sacred herald stands.

          Welcome news to Zion bearing,

          Zion, long in hostile lands:

          Mountain captive, God Himself shall loose thy bands.”

Tern longed to stay, but his duty called. As he picked up the bowl of gravy and greens he’d fixed for Elbows, the choir’s next choice of song stopped him in his tracks. They sang, “‘Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion, We’re marching upward to Zion, that beautiful city of God.’”

Tern couldn’t believe his ears. He’d marched up the aisle to the beat of that song when he was nine years old. His mother took him to church every chance they got, and although his father had declared it hogwash, his mother stood on the banks of Troublesome Creek with tears in her eyes when Tern was baptized into the Lord.

Shame heated him from the inside out. How had he gotten so far away from the tender, longing hopefulness his mother had held for his soul? When he turned thirteen, he began to emulate his father, going hunting with him and fishing with him side by side at the farm pond. Looking back, he could see how he must have hurt his mother. And then she up and died before he could become her son again. It was easy to blame his nefarious father, but he was a grown man now. He had made his own choices for a very long time, and none of them had led him closer to the Lord.

He’d never been a praying man, rarely even throwing out a selfish request, much less praying for someone else. His mother had a simple prayer that Tern had heard her say many times. “Thy will, Father,” he repeated now as he turned up his lamp. “Thy will be done.”

Later, after Elbows had had his supper, and after he grew quiet, Tern slid back out of the crawl space. He hunkered down just outside the entrance with his forearms resting on his knees.

Stanley came by and squatted beside him as Elbows’s tortured snores filled the air like thick dust.

“He’s sleeping,” Tern said as if Stanley couldn’t tell.

Stanley got right down to business. “I figured you overheard the earlier conversation, if you can call it that.”

Tern nodded. “I did.”

“What’s your take?”

“Pardon?”

Stanley cleared his throat. “There’s talk about you, Repp. Some say you’re a pawn for Black Lump. They say the company embedded you in our midst as a spy.”

Tern fought the impulse to hang his head. It made him sick to think he had lost Stanley’s respect. “What do you think?” he asked, meeting the other man’s eyes with a direct gaze of his own.

“I ain’t a stupid man, Repp. Simple maybe, but not stupid.”

“I never thought you were, Mr. James.”

Though Elbows’s snores continued, Stanley lowered his voice. “I’ve watched you close ever since you first came to Skip Rock, and I’ve formed my own opinion.”

Tern’s heart sank.
Here it comes,
he thought.

“No skunk of a company man would do what you have done for that man in there.” Stanley punctuated his words with sharp jabs of his index finger toward the tunnel. “My opinion—and don’t worry; I ain’t voiced this to nobody—I think you’re one of those union guys. Maybe a government man.”

“What makes you think so?” Tern asked.

“Them shirts you always wear,” Stanley said with the shadow of a smile. “Ain’t a miner I ever knew wears such fancy shirts. And just for the record, next place you go, don’t shine your work shoes.”

“You got me there, Stanley.”

“Here’s the thing, Joe, or whoever you are. I’ve been in this business a long time. I can feel change in the air. The companies have gotten too big for their britches—it ain’t just here it’s occurring. It is past time somebody spoke out for the little man—the one who slings the shovel. My opinion, I think you’re that man.”

They both stood. Tern offered his hand. “My name’s Tern Still,” he said in a low but steady voice. “I’m sorry to have deceived you.”

Stanley shook his hand with a clasp as strong as a blacksmith’s vise. “I never felt deceived. Perplexed, but not deceived. I’d not have put up with that.”

“Someday, Stanley, I hope we can meet on different terms—maybe go fishing or something.”

“Anytime,” Stanley said. “But for now, listen up. You need to get on out of here. Mr. Big Shot was spouting off out where the men could hear him. He told them the company would hold last week’s pay unless they were back on the job in the a.m. No pay, no scrip, no nothing.” He tapped his cap against his leg. “They’re agitated as a swarm of bees with a bear’s nose up the hive. They got neither a word of encouragement nor one word of thanks from the company for all their work to get Elbows out. Things could get ugly in here real fast.”

The lantern glow emanating from the tunnel flickered and went out. “Hey, buddy, you out there?” Elbows cried. “It’s dark in here. Joe! You out there, Joe?”

“I can’t leave him in there like that,” Tern said, feeling for the number 10 tally markers he’d pinned to his shirt. Maybe his luck would hold.

“You understand I can’t protect you—”

“Best leave it be, Stanley. I’ve been on my own for a long time now. I know when to fold ’em.”

Stanley jerked his head toward the tunnel. He kept his voice low. “Come hell or high water, I’m not shutting this team down. Do you think he stands a chance?”

“We’ve got to get him out soon, or we’re not going to get him out alive.”

“Aggravating little varmint,” Stanley said with a despairing shake of his head. “I should have thumped him on the head a long time ago.”

“I know,” Tern agreed. “He grows on you, though.”

“It’s a terrible thing—terrible.” Stanley put his cap back on. “Well, I’ll send Billy back with some lamp oil—try to keep his spirits up.”

After Billy brought the can, Tern filled the lantern with coal oil and took it in to Elbows. He kept the wick trimmed and turned down as low as possible. Elbows would probably die from huffing kerosene fumes, Tern thought with a macabre sense of humor. His own head pounded from the oily smoke, and when he ran his tongue over his teeth, he tasted the grit of rock dust.

Elbows tipped his head back as much as the ceiling would allow, looking upside down at Tern. In the lamplight the ensnared miner’s eyes looked like black marbles suspended in space, and his whiskered cheeks were hollow as gourds. “I’m cold, buddy,” he said.

Tern massaged the one extended arm, then rubbed his shoulders. “I’ll go get a blanket.”

“No, don’t go,” Elbows said. “I’d druther be cold than lonesome.”

Tern fell asleep stretched out in the tunnel with his left cheek resting on the back of his left hand. His palm sank up to the knuckles in the malleable mud of the cave floor. He could track his own prints when he went in and out of the crawlspace.

“Joe. Joe? Are you sleeping?”

Tern banged his head on a slab of breakdown. Stars bloomed behind his eyelids. He couldn’t even reach up to rub the bump. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Sorry, that’s a stupid question.”

“That’s okay. It ain’t your fault.”

“I’m going to get you a drink. Be right back.”

“Be right back. Be right back,” Elbows mumbled.