The trouble in Thor

by Armstrong Charlotte

  "It's vague," said Henry. "Skidded on the bridge, didn't I?"

  "Yes. What made you do that?"

  "I don't know. Something moved. Don't know. Say, I didn't hit anything?"

  "Nothing but the rail. No person. Nobody there that I know of."

  "Might have been a dog. What time is it now?"

  "Nearly one."

  "So late?"

  "Not too late," said Dr. Hodge and he sat down and let his arms dangle.

  "Son," said Henry softly. "Boy."

  "I . . . er . . . thought we'd better not mention your accident. Told Mrs. Trestrial so."

  "Libby doesn't know I turned over? Who called you?"

  "Turner. He was in the saloon. Heard it happen. Used his head, too. If you'd lain there another half hour bleeding like a—"

  "Cut?"

  "Bad one. I've got you patched together. Don't sit up."

  Henry sat up, unsteadily. "Feel pretty fair."

  "Take it easy."

  "By the way, thanks," said Henry. "I might have bled to death, I suppose."

  "You well might have. Good thing you picked a spot next to the only night life around here. Meantime, you managed to have a son."

  "Wait a minute," said Henry.

  "That's right." The doctor watched the intelligence dawn.

  "But . . . who was with her?"

  "Mrs. Trestrial." The doctor yawned and snapped his fingers. "Now I knew there was something else. She said your phone's ringing like mad. Mrs. Trestrial wants it stopped. Calling you from the mine, she says."

  "Then I'd better . . . Wait a minute." Henry rubbed his left hand on his hair. "You left her?"

  "She sent me."

  "To me?"

  "No, no. I couldn't tell her it was you." Henry looked stunned. "Fact," the doctor yawned, "I don't want to tell her now. Not what a close call you had. Not yet. Let her rest and be proud of herself. She earned it." He yawned again.

  Henry stood up. "I'll stop that phone from ringing," he muttered.

  The electric lights had come back long ago, but there was only one low lamp lit in the bedroom now. Libby was not asleep, although she seemed to be. She lay, limp and quiet, in the shadow. It was over.

  You forget, she thought. You do forget. I'm beginning to forget already. I feel absolutely wonderful and I have a son. The storm is over, too, and I never had time to be afraid. How queer it all was.

  She turned her cheek to the clean pillow feeling a sweet

  animal comfort. I did all right, she reminded herself. Now wasn't that the funniest thing?

  She had a full feeling in her heart for the droll little scrap of life, the fantastically tiny baby that was here in the room. In the house, town, world. A boy. Born to trouble, no doubt. Born to attack some stubborn fact, to work and to do. Born to misunderstand his mother and all women, who misunderstood . . .

  But it needn't be so, she thought. Men and women are not as alien as men and dogs. There can be a contract.

  About Henry and that rumored something she would not wonder now. She would simply do as Henry would do, ask for the information and then meet it, whatever it was. Deal with it when she knew, and not sooner. Learn from him. Henry, she mused, may have been trying to do as he thought Libby would do, slide over. Put up a good temporary show. Hold all in a balance, keep everything steady on the surface until this was over.

  Well, it was over.

  Not over. Started. Across the room in the crib there was a morsel, a scrap of life. She smiled, dozing, lazy.

  In the sitting room, Mrs. Trestrial put down the telephone. She came in. "Awake, eh? I told a fib, then."

  "I'm not so very wide awake," said Libby fondly.

  "Doctor's coming."

  "Oh, did the man live?"

  " 'E lived."

  "I wonder which one he was."

  Mrs. Trestrial said, "Oo knows," carelessly. "Going to brush your 'air, child. In a snarl, 'tis. Land. Your man'll be 'ome soon. You'll want to be neat."

  "Mrs. Trestrial, my tongue's loose tonight. Before I lose it again, did I tell you you're a darling?"

  "So the old woman came in 'andy," sniffed Mrs. Trestrial. "Now, lift your 'ead. There's a good girl."

  Libby thought it was a coincidence that Henry came just as the doctor came. They entered her room together. Henry seemed to whirl toward her in breathless haste. He had a wet coat slung around his right shoulder, the sleeves dangling, and he stopped short, a yard away. "I don't want to

  touch you, Libby. Too filthy and cold. Are you all right, dear?"

  "Right as can be," she beamed. "Oh Henry, look at him!"

  She lifted on her elbow to watch the man move toward the baby. She couldn't see his face, only the cords of his neck. Dr. Hodge said, "Well, young lady . . ." She shook her head to hush him.

  But when Henry turned back to her, although he was smiling, all he said was, "Awful little, isn't he?"

  She said defensively, "He isn't very old."

  "John?"

  "After your father."

  "John Samuel."

  "And mine."

  "Or Samuel John?"

  "No. John's prettier."

  "Listen," said Dr. Hodge, "if you don't mind . . ."

  Libby laughed. "He wants to see whether I survived."

  "Looks like you did, all right." Henry's voice was strange. "You must have been pretty scared."

  "No," she said. "No, it was funny."

  He seemed to totter. He said so quickly that it sounded like pure impatience, "Libby, do you need me now?"

  "What?"

  "They want me. At the mine."

  "Oh," she said, "for heaven's sakes."

  "I'm going to throw him out anyway," said Dr. Hodge, "if you please."

  "All right, Henry. Don't lose all your sleep."

  "You go to sleep."

  "All right." Their eyes clung and then drew apart.

  "Change those clothes first, Duncane," the doctor said in a voice of threat. "Now, Ma'am . . ."

  Henr)' reeled out of the bedroom and leaned on the stair post. Mrs. Trestrial hurried to support him.

  "Doctor doesn't want her to know . . ."

  "You're a lucky man, Mr. Duncane."

  He gave her a dark look, which she fathomed. She bridled. "Glad I was 'andy."

  But she was not fooled. Her wise eyes saw a physically weakened, a stunned and confused young man, who was trying to think simply about things that were complicated. He was tr}dng to push on and do what he ought, poor lad, and was more upset about them in the mine than he'd let on and bound he'd help. Not knowing quite where he was on this night when life and death were waltzing around him in the town of Thor.

  Oh, he was grateful to Ellen Trestrial, all right, but not because she stayed with the girl in her need. No, for he knew as well as she that there had never been the smallest possibility that she could have done anything else.

  Ah, trying to think, simple, poor man, she thought, about the girl, per'aps, who runs from the thunder and 'as squabbles with the 'ired girl, but lets the doctor go, at the last, and makes a joke of survivin'. 'E can't figure out the woman, or any woman, in one of 'is neat written—what do they call 'em?—h'equasions. None but me. I've done naught but what's simple. Been a neighbor and decent. So 'e thinks 'e understands me, poor lad.

  Her curls bounced as she nodded wisely. "Get you dry," said she. "I suppose you must go, if you're wanted."

  But Libby was thinking with rueful mirth, Isn't that just like Henry? None of this falling on the knees before the miracle. No worshiping tears for the little mother. Not even a kiss. "Little, isn't he? Survived, eh? Well, busy, good-by."

  "Doctor," she said, "isn't anything ever what we expected in this world?"

  "What's the matter?" He teased her. "Better or worse?"

  Libby couldn't say. Could not say.

  When the men were gone and the house was quiet, Libby said pensively, "More trouble? Why do they want him at the mine, I wonder?"

  "To talk on t
hat there pipe," said Mrs. Trestrial.

  "Pipe? Oh, I just about forgot. . . . Oh no, those poor people. Not still buried down there!" Libby was puzzled and not sure why.

  Mrs. Trestrial looked at the wall. "They be near, so 'e said. I don't know what 'twas." She shook her curls. Walked to

  the crib and looked over. " 'Is Lordship's sleeping sweet again."

  "That poor Mrs. Cole," murmured Libby. "And she has no children."

  "Nor 'as Mable Marcom. Nor Alice Beard. Miz Pilotti, though, 'as four."

  "She's the lucky one."

  "So she is," said Mrs. Trestrial.

  "Am I going to pass out?" Henry asked coolly.

  "Probably not," The doctor grumbled. "I'd never advise this, mind. I'm taking you up there because you've got no car and I wouldn't let you drive it if you did. But I'm not saying it's the healthiest idea in the world."

  "Little enough I can do. It seems they hear me."

  "All right," said the doctor testily. He understood, of course. "Don't run around or do any jumping. Try to lean, man. I've had enough trouble with you for one night."

  "Will you stay up there. Doctor?"

  "No. Home. Sleep."

  Henry nodded. He understood perfectly.

  People were there around the shafthouse. Now that the storm was over they had come sifting back to stand along the margin of light on the wet ground, in the cool drenched air. Not many. But the drama would not play to an empty house, and those who watched in this uncanny hour were a quality audience, for they did so with double intensity.

  The word was that the rescuers were so deep in, now, they must move with a hard-headed, disciplined delicacy that made them slower and slower just when the impulse of the heart most screamed for speed.

  It was not yet known whether what they were trying to do was possible,

  Henr)' Duncane got out of the doctor's car and started slowly towards the cage. Moving, he caught the eye. The doctor took it upon himself to lean out and beckon a man who came quickly to listen to him. He was a miner, waiting and hoping to be called to relieve a man below. Smartly, he

  stepped to a place beside Duncane. "Doc says I should go down with you."

  "Thanks, Uren, but I'm all right." Henry was forced to turn, and now he was able to see, across the lighted roadway, a certain Ford where a man and a woman were sitting. For a moment he stood still, peering. Then Henry lifted his left hand, as if some magic had roused him. "Who is that?"

  "Miz Cole," said James Uren, "Miz Marcom, she's here too. But they took Miz Beard home."

  They could see the woman in that car bend over suddenly as if the lift of Henry's hand had tripped a trigger. Perhaps she burst into weeping. It was hard to tell.

  Duncane said in a voice of tight sorrow, "Let's go."

  "Pity to see that," said Uren as the cage dropped them. "Miz Trezona don't come here at all. Miz Pilotti went with the priest when it stormed. Pretty hard on the women."

  Henry said nothing. His cheek trembled where he was biting it inside. "You don't feel so good, Mr. Duncane?"

  "Feel thick-headed," said Henry. "Been a night."

  "You don't feel so good," said the man, positively.

  Underground, at the pipe-end, the faces lifted. Fred Davies was there.

  "Listen," he cried, leaping up. "We can't figure it out. They're tapping, slow. Listen to it, Duncane, will you? What does that mean?"

  Henry sank down.

  Davies saw the white-wrapped arm under the dangling coat. "What happened to him?"

  "Doc brought him, said he lost a lot of blood. Said somebody should get him home soon."

  "I'll see he gets a ride home," offered Davies at once.

  "Say, if you'll do that . . ." Uren was suddenly on needles to go. "It might be I'm needed."

  "Get along, then. I'll take care of him."

  Henry said sharply, "Stop that talking, will you?"

  On the pipe the sound came. Tap tap tap tap, evenly, monotonously, with no break and no spacing. Just the slow drear}' tap tap tap tap, repeating and continuing. "Hear it?" Davies squatted.

  Henr)' said, "Only one thing I can say that they get. Wait, I'll try it."

  So the long vowels went moaning, "HOW . . . MANY . . . MEN . . . ALIVE?" The group of five or six around the pipe shivered and bent close. They heard the tapping seem to stumble and stutter, and then it stopped.

  "HOW . . . MANY . . . MEN . . . ALIVE?"

  Tap.

  At last Davies looked up into Duncane's face. "Better let them know, eh? I mean those digging."

  "I'll go." Somebody went.

  Henry leaned on the wall and closed his eyes.

  "Say, you better let me get you home." Davies now seemed to dance on coals.

  "I'm all right."

  "Won't be long, now." Davies looked over his shoulder down the long reaches of the tunnel. "In a minute they ought to be able to hear him from where they've got in. Can tell, then."

  "We can wait."

  "You feel all right?"

  "Fine. I'd like to wait."

  "One man left," Davies mourned, "and the old boy's worked so hard."

  "Trezona?"

  "Him, I mean. Yes."

  "Used his brain?"

  "Broke his heart, that he's lost four of them."

  "Tough."

  "Any four of them," Davies insisted, somberly.

  "What I said. He's tough." Henry closed his eyes again.

  "I . . . can't stay away from it," Davies confessed. "I never saw this before. Listen, if I go back where they are . . ."

  "Go ahead."

  "Sure you're O.K.?"

  "O.K."

  "Then I'll come back and help you get home. Don't move."

  "Told you, I want to wait."

  Davies began to run.

  Henry Duncane sat still with his left hand touching the cold gritty pipe as if his fingers lay on that lonely pulse that beat and repeated monotonously. Tap tap tap tap, with no break..

  "Captain may 'ave lost 'is boy," somebody said.

  "I have a boy."

  "No kidding, Mr. Duncane? Say!" A little singing pleasure lifted all their hearts and brightened their voices.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When the doctor drove up and Henry Duncane got out, alive, and when, turning as he had, he'd seemed to see her and hft his hand, Madehne collapsed. It was pure relief.

  Ever since, she had been too relaxed and too cheerful. Cyril had warned her more than once, "All right, you're lucky. He wasn't hurt and he doesn't know and you've skinned out of that one. All right. But take that look off. Remember where you are. Please."

  "I know where I am," she caroled.

  "Not so happy."

  "I know, though." She shifted down until her head lay on the seat back. She closed her eyes. It's all right, she thought. Probably Arthur is gone and that means I am free. If he's alive, so much the better for Arthur. It won't make a difference. I'll skin out of that one, too. And if Henry Duncane could not help but wave his hand to me . . . Ah, the rest will go well. The rest will be easy. And she painted the picture on her eyelids: his hand lifting, greeting her alone, indiscreetly, uncontrollably.

  How beautiful she must have looked, early in the evening, like an angel in the storm, and all he could know was her longing to be near him. The truth, she thought, complacently. The truth, after all.

  "Be a good idea," grumbled Cyril, "if you did lie low. Look asleep, can't you?"

  So, dreaming, she looked asleep. And when a man approached with the news that ran so bitterly on that pipe, (One, now. Only one man left, alone, down there.) Cyril had hushed him. He would tell Mrs. Cole, he whispered, all in good time.

  "Poor thing."

  "Ssh. Been half crazy. Now, let her be."

  The man drew off and Cyril sat back. She did not open her eyes. But she had heard the news plainly, and he knew she had heard it. Nothing to say. Cyril peered about. Who prayed for his own, now? Did anyone dare? He thought, if I ever prayed, I'd dare,
for Trezona. And then he caught himself wincing superstitiously. No, no. For Arthur, poor pushing Arthur, pushed to this.

  Down below the striving men crept, pried, balanced, prayed, and dared not blow breath. Near morning, although they did not know what morning was any more, they heard a voice. And they were led. Delicately they groped. The entrance they were spinning like a thread in the hard dark touched on the place they were seeking and became the exit from it.

  The news spiraled and blew upward and, above ground, softly exploded. Cyril saw the explosive rippling outward of the news. It was perfectly visible. "They're through!"

  Madeline sat up. "How do you know?"

  Now she thought of that one man. Still alive. All of a sudden she knew it was Arthur. Arthur, the stubborn, the single-tracked. Arthur, pounding and nagging at staying alive, would be the one to do it. Why, he would wear death itself out. All of a sudden she saw the look on his forehead and his red eyes, and she heard his whine, and she was certain that he would come up out of the ground, knowing everything. Charley Beard beside him for hours. Things she had said that she shouldn't have said and the time, all this time, to remember them. He would fix on her those terrible eyes . . .

  She cried out and in panic hid her face on Cyril's coat. "No! I don't want to know!"

  "Ssh." He held her head tightly. "All right. Be quiet. I won't let them tell you. I'll tell you. Don't look, then. Don't look. Don't listen. Take a while."

  But Cyril looked, eyes straining from their sockets. His

  heart was beating heavily, not fast, but with force. It banged in the flat frail cage of his chest.

  He watched everything. Once a man started toward them. Quickly, Cyril motioned him back, nodding, nodding "I understand." For he guessed. He thought he knew.

  No man was alive. Not any.

  Never mind telling her now. Time enough. He had to see this.

  The cage came up. Some weary men got off and were surrounded. Cyril held his sister's dark head and she clung to him, breathing deeply in the dark fold of his coat. The cage went down with more men, fresh men.

  The doctor's car came again. The big black car of the superintendent pulled up and stopped in the roadway, and Mr. McKeever himself had come. He went down.