by Homer Hickam
“Raise your helmet,” Mahata demanded. “Let us get a look at you.”
When the odd rescuer hesitated, Mahata took a step toward him. “All right, all right,” the man said and raised his face plate, revealing the face of a skinny young man with a GI buzz cut.
“Who are you?” Mahata demanded.
“Chevrolet’s my name, rescue’s my game,” Chevrolet said.
“All right. What are you?” Mahata demanded further.
“My buddy’s in there,” Chevrolet said.
“What do you mean?”
“The woman. She’s a red cap and so am I.”
The Fox Run team members stared at the young man, then started to laugh. “Whoa, son, you got some brass,” one of them said.
The other team leaders discovered the disguised red caps on their teams too. There proved to be a total of four. “Mine’s a Mexican!” Cotton Eye reported with some astonishment.
“Sí, señor,” Gilberto said. “But I have my green card.”
Cotton Eye scowled at him. “Like that makes any difference!”
Ford and Justin were pushed out of the gathering to stand beside Gilberto and Chevrolet.
“Where did you get your equipment?” Mahata demanded.
“Highcoal has a lot of retired rescue miners,” Chevrolet answered with a shrug. “Our daddy, God bless his soul, had an outfit at our house. We borrowed the others, sort of, when their owners weren’t looking.”
“The oxygen bottles? Where’d you get them filled?”
“Quick trip to Bluefield took care of that.”
Mahata called for a conference of team leaders. “What do we do?” he asked Shorty and Cotton Eye.
Shorty shook his head. “We can’t send them back by themselves. They’re red caps. They’re liable to get lost.”
Chevrolet was listening in. “We ain’t gonna slow you down. Our equipment’s good,” he said.
Cotton Eye reached over and slapped Chevrolet on the side of his helmet, then laughed. “The boy’s right, Pritha,” he said. “Let’s keep going. We can kick their red cap butts later.”
Mahata gave it some thought. “All right, if we all agree. I am assigning one of my men to watch our foolish little red cap. I suggest you do the same with yours. Let us go ahead.”
“I got something else to say,” Shorty said. He flashed his light over his team members. “My boys and I think we need to ditch the book. We’ve only got about three hours of oxygen left in our packs. At this rate, we’ll never get up to Six block. We got to get moving. Let’s shotgun it. Straight ahead, fast as we can go.”
Mahata looked at the roof immediately overhead, then flashed his light down the escapeway. “The roof seems good,” he mused. “The air quality is not that bad.”
“I agree with Shorty,” Cotton Eye said. “Let’s make a run for it.”
“Einstein will go very much insane,” Mahata worried. “He is also certain to levy a fine upon us.”
“If we bring them back alive,” Chevrolet interjected, “who gives a flying you-know-what?”
“You will please be quiet, red cap,” Mahata interrupted. “You do not have a voice here. And kindly do not use profanity. Yes, yes, I know you didn’t say the word, but you thought it. That’s the same thing. It’s bad luck.”
“The next red cap says a word, he’s going to get his butt kicked,” Shorty growled. “Butt ain’t profanity, is it, Mahata?”
“It is not to my way of thinking,” Mahata replied.
“All right,” Shorty said, “let’s take a vote. Red caps, you don’t get one.”
The rescue teams huddled. One by one, through their faceplates, their eyes met. Every man nodded an affirmative. Chevrolet, Ford, Gilberto, and Justin stuck their thumbs up, even if they didn’t count.
The decision was made. The rescue teams were through with Einstein’s book. “Let’s move, you smoke-eaters!” Shorty yelled, and every man cheered.
WHEN AN AMBULANCE arrived at the Highcoal Church, reporters and television personalities rushed it, thinking that somehow they had missed news of a rescue. The doors were opened and they were disappointed to observe an old man on a gurney, who was soon off-loaded. Still thinking there had to be a story, they stuck a microphone in the man’s face. It turned out to be Square Block.
“Why are you here at the church, Mr. Block?” a personality named Geraldo demanded.
“I trained her,” Square announced. “I trained Song. She’s one of my red caps!”
“Red cap? Is that some kind of bird?” an anchorman asked. The breeze coming down from the mountains was ruffling his toupee.
“No, you idjit! She wears a red helmet!” Square roared. “And she’s a dang good miner too!”
“What did he say?” a reporter from the Washington Post asked a reporter from the Washington Times. The Times reporter frowned at the Post reporter and said, “You guys haven’t had a decent story since Watergate.”
“Well, you’ve never had a decent story at all,” the Post reporter sputtered.
“Take it outside, gentlemen,” Geraldo said.
“We are outside,” the Post and the Times replied in unison, at least agreeing on something.
Then the doors to the church swung open and Square was wheeled inside. As the doors closed, the journalists heard the voices within rise in strange jubilation.
“Does anybody have a clue what’s going on?” Geraldo demanded.
“Let’s go ask the governor!” a reporter shouted and a stampede began toward Omar’s, where the voluptuous chief executive was still holding court.
“WAIT! BUM! LISTEN!” Cable demanded. “Don’t you hear it?”
Bum’s expression was odd, his features contorted, and Cable knew he must’ve sniffed more meth up his nose.
Song was staring at the roof. “I hear something too!” she cried.
There was no doubt about it. It was the sound of drilling.
“Put the shovel, down, Bum,” Cable said. “They’re probably drilling into the escapeway to see what the air quality is first, then they’ll be right along.”
Bum lowered the shovel, but he still had a wild-eyed look. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and his arms were trembling. He pointed a shaky finger at Song. “She tried to kill me!”
“Because you tried to kill me,” Song retorted. “I guess that makes us even.”
Bum slowly dropped to his knees. He put down the shovel and held his head in both his hands. “This sure ain’t been my day,” he muttered.
“It’s going to be okay, Bum,” Cable soothed.
Bum looked up with his sad, mad, contorted face. His mouth was all twisted. “No, it ain’t. I pushed Square over the mountain, then I killed Stan. Oh, I’m so filled with sin. I’m headed down to the hot place, sure.”
Cable and Song exchanged glances. Then Cable asked, in a soft voice, “Why did you do all that, Bum?”
Bum’s lips were trembling. He pawed at his face as if something was crawling on it. “Square saw what he shouldn’t have seen,” he whined. “Stan, he wouldn’t give me my money. He even tried to kill me. It was him who came up with the plan, the rat bastard.”
“What plan?”
“To steal fine-grade coal. Stan had a dummy corporation.” He huffed out a mirthless chuckle. “He called it Coal-ron.”
“You and Stan really shouldn’t have done that,” Cable said. “I thought you were my friends. We all played football together.”
“We didn’t steal that much. Just enough to make it worth our while.”
“Any amount was too much. But stealing’s one thing, murder’s another. You were brought up better than that, Bum. What would your mother say?”
Bum rocked from side to side. He slapped at his arms. “There’s bugs on me,” he whined.
“It’s only the meth,” Cable replied.
“My daddy was killed in this mine,” Bum wailed. “Then Mama got cancer. What chance did I ever have?”
Cable’s tone was firm. “You had the same cha
nce I did. I went into the army, got the GI bill, and went to college. You went straight into the mine. There’s nothing wrong with that except you got bitter about it. Then you got on drugs.”
“Nobody ever gave me a break. My whole life.”
“I did. Truth is, I should have fired you a long time ago.”
Bum stared at Cable. “You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking I should go ahead and kill you and the girl. You got to know that, yet there you are, sitting with your busted leg, saying mean things about me. Sometimes you ain’t very smart, Cable, not nearly as smart as you think you are.”
“You’re not going to kill anybody ever again, Bum. Rescue is coming. Just sit down and breathe easy.”
Astonishing as it was to Song, Bum seemed to acquiesce to Cable’s advice. He crawled to a rib and sat against it, then turned off his light. Song kept listening to the distant drilling. It was the sound of hope and life. But then she felt Cable sag against her. “No, Cable, don’t fall asleep. Please.”
“Umph,” he responded, but it was obvious he was sliding away.
Bum suddenly jumped to his feet. He slapped at his arms and legs and did a nervous dance, his boots shuffling in the gob. He turned his light back on. “Well, I made up my mind,” he said. “I’m gonna kill you both. You see, I have to ’cause you know too much. God knows why I confessed to all that, but I did and that’s the long and short of it.”
Bum picked up the shovel and turned toward Song. “You first, girl. Say your prayers.”
“I’ve said them, you moron,” Song said, then summoned up all her strength and launched herself helmet-first into Bum’s stomach. Caught by surprise, he doubled over and staggered backward. She snatched the shovel from his hands and swung it, just missing his head. He squalled in rage and fear and scrambled away on his hands and knees. He stopped long enough to pick up the last two fresh SCSRs and then disappeared through the curtain.
Song looked unhappily after him. “I just can’t seem to kill that man,” she muttered. She knelt beside Cable and shook him.
“Wake up, Cable! Snap out of it! Don’t you leave me!”
Cable’s only response was to mumble something incoherent. Song realized she was starting to wane too. She looked at the gas detector and saw why. The CO level was in the danger zone. She sat down and sucked into the mouthpiece of her SCSR, but there was little oxygen coming out of it. Her eyelids fluttered, and she felt consciousness begin to slip away. “No, must stay awake,” she said to herself, or somebody, and then she felt like she was falling through a warm and comfortable and endless void.
“WHAT IS IT?” Einstein barked across the phone line.
“We’ve punched through, Einstein,” Birchbark replied. “We put down those sensors like you said. They’re reading hot, real hot. There’s black smoke coming out of the borehole too. I’d say the mine’s on fire.”
Einstein grimaced. This was the worst possible news. “All right. Cap it off and move your rig five hundred yards to the west. I want to see if the fire is going that way.”
“What does it matter?” Birchbark demanded. “You know they’re good as dead down there. There’s no way to put out a mine fire, not without foam, lots of men, and lots of time. And you ain’t got none of that.”
“Just do what I tell you!” Einstein demanded.
Birchbark was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “All right, Einstein. I apologize. You ain’t giving up, so me and my boys ain’t, neither. We’ll have that hole dug in a couple of hours.”
“Got Shorty on the black phone, Einstein,” Mole reported.
Einstein put down the outside phone and picked up the inside one. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Five block,” Shorty answered sheepishly. “But we’ve stopped now. There’s been a roof fall here across both the intake and return entries. We’re going to need to bring up a scoop loader to clear it.”
Einstein simmered. He knew the rescue teams had ignored his careful plan and had simply lunged as deep into the mine as they could go. Shotgunning was what they called it. Einstein called it stupid, but he’d deal with their misdeed later. “Listen to me,” he said. “There’s a fire on Six block. How big I don’t know, but you know what that means. How’s the air where you are?”
“Carbon monoxide is high, methane okay; oxygen is below twenty percent. There’s smoke, but not too bad. All this rock is probably keeping it from getting to us.”
Einstein processed the information, then said, “Get back to Three block. I’ll send fresh air packs to you there.”
“What about the scoop loader to move the rock?”
“Can’t do it. You open up a hole, the fire could spread through it.”
“That fire’s got to be put out,” Bossman said. He’d been listening in from his station at the bottom.
Einstein knew fires in coal mines were all distinctive beasts, requiring different ways to put them out. He needed more information. “I’ll get back to you when I learn more,” he said.
Shorty turned to the rescue teams, including the red caps. “Boys, I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ve got to turn around.”
SONG WAS STARTLED awake. She’d been dreaming. Something about a great white bird. It had picked her up in its talons and lifted her out of the void, then dropped her from a vast height over the mountains. She had fallen and fallen. Just before she’d hit the ground, she’d woken up. She had no idea what it meant, or if it meant anything except oxygen starvation in her brain. She turned on her light, then leaned over and shook Cable. She was relieved when he groaned.
“Not now, honey,” he said. “Let’s just sleep in.”
“You better not add ‘Michelle’ or ‘Governor’ to that line, buster,” Song muttered.
“What’s happening?” Cable asked, suddenly alert.
“Bum took our fresh SCSRs.”
“Where’d he go?”
“How should I know?” she snapped. “He’s gone. That’s all I know. Hopefully, he’ll stay gone.”
Song looked at the gas detector in Cable’s lap. “Put your mouthpiece in and breathe, Cable. The CO is in the danger zone.” Her eyes were watering. “And the smoke is getting thicker.”
“Because the fire’s getting closer,” he said.
She listened. “The drilling’s stopped.”
Cable took a deep hit off his SCSR. “They probably punched through,” he said. “Maybe into the fire. It won’t give them much hope for us.”
“What can we do?”
Cable said nothing, which also appeared to be his answer.
“There has to be something we can do,” she insisted. “We can’t just give up.” She thought for a moment. “There’re fire extinguishers on the miner and the shuttle car.”
Cable managed a small shrug of his shoulders. “You can’t put out a fire that’s consuming an entire entry with a couple of fire extinguishers. It would take ten thousand gallons of foam to do that.”
“Come on, Cable. I’m depending on you!” she raged, shaking him. “There has to be a way out of this!”
Cable lowered his chin, a gesture of defeat. “When the fire comes, try to find another hole. Keep moving away from it.”
“I’ll take you with me if I have to carry you every step of the way,” she declared.
“No. With this leg, I’m not going anywhere, but you can. Just promise me to never give up.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “You have! Just like you gave up on us!”
“I didn’t give up on us,” he said. “You gave up on us.”
Song wanted to argue the point, but she didn’t have the energy. She sank back against the rib. “We both gave up,” she sighed.
Cable nodded. “You’re right. We both gave up.”
They fell silent until Song said, “I’m thirsty.” She looked around. “I see Bum stole our water too.”
“I’m sorry about all this,” Cable said.
“Is that all you can say? Think, Cable! Think! You’re supposed to be t
his all-knowing mining man. Get us out of this!”
Cable fought through the cobwebs in his brain. He was trying to put a cogent thought together. Then an idea formed. “Water,” he said. “We need water.”
“Yes, Cable,” Song replied tiredly. “I just mentioned that.”
“But would it work?” Cable asked.
Song peered at him. “What are you talking about, Cable? Would what work?”
“It might be too dangerous,” he said.
Song thought Cable had slipped into delirium. “We’re about to get burned up in a mine fire,” she said. “How could anything be more dangerous than that?”
His hand found hers and gave it a squeeze. “I have an idea that might save us.”
She looked into his eyes. They were bright, alive. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Let’s hear it!”
“I don’t know, Song. It’s kind of nuts.”
“Cable . . . me wearing a red helmet and working in a coal mine. That’s nuts. Nothing else comes close.”
Cable told her his idea. “I may not be thinking straight, Song. And you’d have to go back out there to get what we need.”
Song gave Cable’s idea some quick, sequential thought. She concluded it was indeed nuts and it also had nearly zero chance of working. On the other hand, it was better than giving up. “Bum’s out there,” she said. “How can I get past him?”
“I keep forgetting about him,” Cable confessed, then took a drag off his SCSR.
Song climbed to her feet. She was still game even if half her blood was bubbling with carbon monoxide. “All right, Cable. It’s our only chance. I’ve got to try. Tell me again what I need to do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Tell me before I lose my nerve!”
Cable nodded. “All right. You work your way past my jeep to the fourth crosscut on the right. There’s a manhole there. I’m sure that’s where the shot fireman left his box. It’s plastic and it’s yellow. His name’s Rimfire Jones and he has his name stenciled on it. After we pulled out of Six block, he had a work order to knock down enough rock to seal it off, and then we were going to build a ventilation overcast there.”
“How much does the box weigh?”
“About thirty pounds, I think.”