by Homer Hickam
“How’d you like to operate a shuttle car?”
Song was eating an apple, the last food in her bucket. The two sandwiches and bag of chips and cookies were already devoured.
“Are you joking?” she asked, suspecting a trick.
Mallard’s grimy face seemed sincere. “You worked hard all morning. I think you’ve earned a chance to see what sit-down work is like. Come on, give it a try. Bama, you come along too, help us out.”
Bama was one of the shuttle car operators. He had been born and raised in Alabama, thus his nickname. Grinning, he closed his bucket and took a last swig of water. “Glad to, boss,” he said.
At the shuttle car, Bama went over the operation details. “First thing, ma’am, don’t lean out. You get caught between a buggy and a rib, it’ll tear your arm off.” After that cheerful insight, Bama continued. “The seat turns around so the buggy don’t have to. You keep easing in behind the miner until you get the car full, then you turn yourself around, not the buggy but yourself, then drive it through that curtain and raise the boom and dump it into the bin that feeds the belt. That’s all there is to it. Understand?”
“I think so,” Song said.
“Okay, here’s the switch to turn the buggy on, here’s the lever that raises the boom and lowers it. There the pedal on the floor that makes it go, and a brake to make it stop just like in a car. All your power comes through that big electrical cable. Got it?”
“Got it,” Song said. She was getting excited at the prospect of driving the huge machine. “Can I give it a try?”
“Sure. Your car’s already full so all you got to do is dump it in the feeder bin.”
Song sat in the hard plastic seat and eagerly put her hands on the wheel.
“Go ahead,” Bama said. He backed away, getting well clear.
Song took a deep breath, then threw the switch marked ON/OFF. She could feel its power vibrating through her seat. “Here I go!” she yelled, then pressed the pedal down. The shuttle car lurched forward, way faster than Song expected. She found herself roaring toward a rib. Steering wildly, she swiped it, took out three posts, and plowed on until the brakes took hold. Bama and Duck came running.
“You okay?” Duck asked, his eyes white and wide in his coal-blackened face.
Song was trembling. “I-I th-think so,” she stuttered.
Duck whistled at some miners who had jumped in a manhole to get out of Song’s way. “Get them posts back up!” he yelled at them and they got busy.
“Use a little less gas next time,” Bama suggested, patting Song on her shoulder.
“You’re going to let me try again?”
“Sure. Go on. You’ll get the hang of it.”
This time, Song pressed lightly on the accelerator pedal. The huge machine trundled forward. She turned and then braked, all without hitting anything.
“Well done!” Bama yelled. “Now, take the coal to the bin.”
Song turned the seat around and pressed the pedal again and rolled across the soft gob. The buggy picked up speed. She hit the brake just before she reached the ventilating curtain that guarded the conveyor belt, then rammed the rib beside it, backed up, snagged the curtain with the shuttle boom, then roared ahead, the curtain flapping from the boom like a big gray flag. Bama appeared beside her. He was laughing so hard, tears were carving streaks in the grime on his cheeks. “You might as well keep going,” he said. “I don’t think you can do much more damage to this old mine. I’ll hang the curtain back up.”
Song happily kept going, managing to swipe another rib before finally lurching up to the belt where she stopped just short of ramming it. She started the belt, and the coal spewed in a black torrent off the boom, most of it on the floor. She backed up and tried again, dumping the rest of the coal more or less into the bin. Song wiped the sweat from her face, which was split with a big grin.
“I did it!” she yelled while the miners watching her laughed, cheered, and applauded.
Song turned the seat around and powered the huge machine back toward the face, men scrambling to get out of her way. Bama finally waved her down. “I’ll take over from here,” he said, still wiping his eyes from his laughing fit. He handed her a shovel. “See all that coal you dumped into the gob? Use this to get it where it needs to go.”
Song’s lip went out. “You think I’m a bad driver, don’t you?”
“Not a bit of it,” he said. “For a first timer, you did great!”
“You really think so?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can I drive it more today?”
“Well, maybe not today. Company rules, you know. A buggy operator is only allowed to knock down three posts and rip down one curtain on a single shift.”
Song nodded. “How about tomorrow?”
Bama chuckled. “You’re something else, lady. For now, let’s see how well you operate that shovel.” Bama pressed the accelerator pedal and trundled smoothly off toward the face.
Song walked back to the pile of coal she’d accidentally dumped, shoveling the last of it just as Bama returned. He drove the shuttle car to the feeder, stopped precisely, and loaded the bin without losing a single lump of coal. “That’s how you do it, ma’am,” he said, touching his helmet. “Next time you’ll do it perfectly, I swan.”
Duck came by. “You did good for a red cap,” he told her. “Last one I let run a shuttle car almost turned the dang thing over. Keep shoveling. Every lump of coal mined should be a lump of coal sent out of here.”
Song kept shoveling until a question occurred to her. “Duck, is there some place in this mine where coal could get lost?”
“Lost?”
“Misplaced. Or even stolen?”
Duck gave her question some thought. “Not inside,” he said. “Up there.” He raised his light toward the roof.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it. Where does all the coal go after it leaves the mine?”
“I heard some of it goes to India.”
“That’s the last place. Before that, it has to be washed.”
“Coal is washed?”
“In a manner of speaking. Sometimes the process is called cleaning the coal. It’s where the coal is separated into different grades in big water tanks. Simplest way to explain it is coal with a lot of rock sinks, while pure coal floats. Washing coal is done in a preparation plant. Gosh-awful lot of coal can get lost in a preparation plant. If the washing’s not done right, a lot of good coal gets thrown away.” He thought for a moment more, then added, “Also, there’s coal rustling.”
All of Song’s investigatory antennae were up. “Coal rustling?”
“Stealing coal. Some of that’s been going on around the coalfields during the last few years.”
“How do you steal coal?” Song eagerly asked. She was certain she was on to something. “And why would you want to?”
“How, I’m not sure,” Duck admitted. “Why? Same reason you’d steal anything, I reckon. To make money.”
Song gave that some thought. “Is coal worth stealing?”
“Metallurgical coal is, if you steal enough of it. That’s expensive stuff.”
“How much is it worth?”
“Well, a few years ago, you could get a ton of the finest grade of metallurgical coal for thirty, forty dollars. These days, it’s more like a hundred. This special stuff the Indians are after, wouldn’t surprise me if they were willing to pay even more for it.”
Song was dubious. “It still doesn’t sound like it’s worth the effort.”
Mallard shrugged. “Most of the coal trucks you see out on the road can carry up to thirty tons. If you find a buyer, one load of coal would bring you some good money. Steal enough loads, it adds up.” He frowned at her. “You don’t plan on rustling coal, do you?”
“No. I was just wondering.”
“Well, wonder with that shovel in your hand and pick up the rest of your spilled coal,” he said.
“Yes, sir, Duck.”
Song got back to shoveling along the belt, but the foreman’s words kept running through her mind: Steal enough loads, it adds up.
Back on the surface, she spotted Mole at his usual station, leaning in the doorway to the office, watching the miners come off the manlift. She went up to him. “Tell me something, Mole. Why does this mine keep missing its quota to that Indian steel mill?”
He cocked his head. “Who wants to know?”
“I do.”
“And who are you to wonder such a thing?”
“Somebody who has a hundred dollars in her pocket.”
“Do you have two?”
“No. Just one.”
Mole put out his hand and Song gave him the money. “So what’s the answer?” she asked.
He tucked the bills in his back pocket. “I have no idea.”
“You took my money and that’s your answer?”
Mole shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
Song tried another tack. “What would it take for me to look at the production data on your computer?”
Mole whistled low, then looked skyward, as if for divine inspiration. Finally, he said, “Cable wouldn’t like that. Why, a man could get fired.”
“I didn’t ask what Cable would like. I asked you what it would take. How much?”
“One thousand dollars.”
“I’ll have it for you by tomorrow,” Song said.
He touched the brim on his black helmet. “Have a great evening, ma’am.”
Song turned for the bathhouse, her step surprisingly light. Her blisters were still there, but the poultices had worked and her boots were loosening up. Her muscles still ached, but she could almost feel them getting harder. She held her head high. A knot of miners at the manlift watched her as she passed by. One by one, they took off their helmets. Song nodded to them, then touched the brim of her red helmet in mutual respect.
Twenty-Six
The church in Highcoal was rocking on Sunday morning. Preacher preached a great sermon, and then Song sang a solo Preacher had picked out for her:
O for the wings of a dove!
Far away, far away would I rove;
In the wilderness build me a nest,
And remain there forever at rest.
As Song sang, she felt Cable’s eyes on her. When she sat down, she bowed her head, lest she look up and find him still watching her. Afterward, when she was exiting the rear door of the church, he was there. He took off his hat. “I didn’t know you could sing.”
She stood on the steps. “Until I came back to Highcoal, I didn’t either.”
Cable slapped his hat against his leg, that nervous gesture of his, then put it back on. “Well, that’s all I wanted to say.” He turned to leave.
“How was New York?” she asked.
He turned back. “It hasn’t changed much. I still have a job, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did your managers know they’d been bought?”
“Nope.”
“Good. We’re not ready to let it be known.” She looked him over. He seemed somehow diminished, as if the weight on his shoulders had pressed him down. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I haven’t signed the annulment papers, but I will. I was going to take them to New York but forgot them.”
“That’s not what I was going to ask. Are you going to marry the governor?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Highcoal gossip.”
“You’re plugged into Highcoal gossip?”
“I certainly am. I gossip with the best of them now. So, what about the governor? Are you to be West Virginia’s first husband?”
He studied her for a moment, then asked, “What if the answer was yes?”
“Then I would be the first to congratulate you.”
“I see. Well, the answer is I don’t know.” He consulted his wristwatch. “Look, I’m headed for the mine, got to meet Bossman there. Ventilation on Six West needs work. We’re going to pull out of there pretty soon. Getting too close to the old section that’s filled up with water. That’s going to take some planning.”
Song studied Cable for a long second. “Is that all you want from life, Cable? Just this town and your mine? There has to be more.”
“There is,” he said. “Family, friends, people you love, someday maybe children. That’s what life means to me. Or could with the right woman.”
“Then why,” she said, doing her best to hold her tears back, “did you choose me to marry, of all people? Why didn’t you pick someone who would want the same things you do?”
He looked at her, his eyes searching hers. “I don’t know, Song. I honestly don’t know. I sincerely regret I married you. Is that what you want to hear?”
Song felt as if he had driven a roof bolt through her heart. She struggled to contain how she felt. She mostly succeeded, although her smile was a bit crooked. “Michelle Godfrey’s not the right woman for you,” she said firmly.
“Well, that’s one thing we agree on,” he said, then turned and headed for his truck. He drove past her, without so much as another glance. She felt her heart crack, joining all the other cracks he’d already put there.
AFTER EVERYONE HAD gone to bed, Song slipped into Rhonda’s office and sat behind her computer. She tapped on the mouse and the screen came to life. She inserted the first disk Mole had given her. It was software called ProdStat, which stood, she supposed, for Production Statistics. The computer whirred and clicked, installed the software, and instructed Song to remove the disk. She did, inserting the second disk, and opened on an icon marked SectProd. Mole had told her that was the one that would show her the tonnage produced over the last three years, section by section. The numbers were interesting, showing that each section had increased its production and efficiency per miner. Good management, Cable, she thought.
She next opened a file called MonOrders. This one let her look at the orders that had come in to the mine from Atlas headquarters month by month. She sorted through them until she found the one marked India. That was the one she was interested in. She saw that the orders for India had increased until the past three months, when they had gone flat, perhaps leveling off because the mine had never met the previous orders. She next opened an icon marked GradeProd, which showed the monthly tonnage of the various grades of coal as they came out of the preparation plant.
She studied the numbers. What she needed, she decided, was a monthly comparison of the Indian-grade coal and the overall production. The software, however, gave her no way to get it. She realized that she would have to print out the results she had, then do the calculations manually, a tedious exercise.
Song did the printing on Rhonda’s laser printer, then removed the disk, trashed Mole’s software out of the computer, and put the computer to sleep. She folded the documents, then headed for her room. Tomorrow was a work day. She didn’t have time to work with the numbers now, but she would get to it as soon as she could. Inside those statistics, she hoped, was the answer to the mystery of why Cable wasn’t meeting his quotas.
Song undressed and climbed into bed and slid beneath the cool sheets. She found herself looking forward to going to work the next morning. It was hard inside the mine, but it was always challenging. She liked that her foremen all thought she was doing a good job, and the other men, even the veteran black caps, respected her. She went to sleep soon after, and it was the sleep of quiet satisfaction.
Twenty-Seven
Bashful’s rig was on the back slope of Tucker Mountain, on the western end of Atlas Energy property. Using bulldozers, his crew had cut a road across the mountain and set up a drilling rig, but Birchbark, his straw boss, was not happy with the setup.
“There’s old mine works below this spot, Bashful,” he complained. “We’ll punch into them if we drill.”
Bashful put his hands on his hips, took a deep breath, and looked around the slope. It was a lovely spot. Clear-cut thirty years ago to provide timbers for the mine, it had grown
back into an even denser forest. The only people who ventured into it were deer hunters. Since hunting season was over, Bashful’s crew had the place to themselves.
“Quit your worrying, Birchbark,” he said. “So what if those old works are down there? They abandoned them twenty-five years ago, and they’re at least a thousand feet below us. My gut tells me we can make a big strike here.”
“How do you figure?” Birchbark demanded. “There’s old wells spotted all around this area. They’ve been pumped dry, far as I know.”
“Maybe, but nobody’s drilled at this spot. I like the looks of the geology. I think there’s a big pool of gas right below us.”
“Sounds like wishful thinking, Bashful.”
“Well, you just let me do the thinking, wishful or otherwise,” Bashful snapped. “Drill here and keep drilling until I tell you to stop.”
Birchbark opened his mouth to argue, but it was too late. Bashful was already walking purposefully toward his ATV. He climbed on, then roared off. Birchbark shook his head. He didn’t like the idea of punching into a sealed-off section of an old mine. He’d never done that before and he didn’t know what might happen if he did. But orders were orders, and there were car and trailer payments to make. Reluctantly, Birchbark waved at his men to level the rig and start drilling.
MONDAY MORNING, BOSSMAN Carlisle came up to Song as she stepped off the manlift. “I’m putting you as a helper on a roof bolt crew today. Two East. Don’t let me down.”
The chief foreman kept moving, whistling and waving his arms at his black helmets, signaling them to climb aboard the mantrip. Justin had overheard.
“I’ll probably just shovel gob all day,” he said despondently.
“I’m sure you’ll be doing something else soon,” she said.
“I don’t think so. Seems like whatever I do requires a strong back.”