Turpentine

by Spring Warren

I noticed other children working the mine, some few on picks, more loading carts pulled by stunted black donkeys. One child, a girl, hefted a knob of cannel the size of her head. The pile of coal they loaded was a week of my heat at Mother’s. If charged to excavate it myself, I’d prefer to freeze.

  As I shuddered, Quillan basked, as animated as if he’d discovered mermaids. He hummed indecently amid the misery, took notes, bent almost nose to notebook to discern the marks of his pencil squeaking over black-dusted paper. He tapped the walls, scraped at the ceiling, which had seemingly descended on us as we walked as was now within our reach.

  “Ned.” He handed me a surveyor’s pick, speaking as if he wished me to answer the door. “Get that, will you?”

  I took the tool and began to chip away at a section of coal that Quillan inferred had a fossil embedded in it. It seemed the force that I had to work the rock coal in order to chip the specimen out would certainly bring down the walls, and I shivered, thinking of the muscular swings the real miners were making.

  As we descended farther, the atmosphere went south, becoming as hot and damp as a New Orleans summer. The timbers were lanate with the yellow-white filaments of a particular mine fungus. Moths fluttered around this subterranean vegetation as if famished for any life at all.

  I wished I had better company in this perilous place. Depending on Quillan and Dunlaw was like trailing carnival balloons into a firestorm. I could have depended on Tilfert and Avelina to get me out posthaste, but that was beyond conjecture now. Buck Mason, though good with a gun, had proved himself to be too interested in his own skin to be reliable. Osterlund came to mind. Stalwart and no-nonsense, the solid Norwegian might well thrust his neckless shoulders against a failing beam. I acknowledged some wisdom in Lill’s choice.

  I jumped at the worrisome sensation of something passing over my feet and stared intently at the floor: rats. Meandering along the floor as if they were carting coal themselves.

  Quillan noticed as well. “Good Christ, rats!”

  Dunlaw laughed. “The damned vermin eat the men’s lunches, the oats the mules drop, even chew meat from the animals’ forelocks. We put out poison, the men shovel a ton or so of dead rats out every month, and still they proliferate.”

  How long we trudged the dark rooms and galleys of the mine I am not sure. The dark began to tell on me, even as the feather of rats across my feet failed to worry. A sharp crackling over our heads was the rock “working,” we were told. Dunlaw seemed complacent, though the noise finally gave Quillan pause. His voice lost its gustatory tone. “I think we are finished here, Mr. Dunlaw. You may escort us back.”

  Dunlaw, however, motioned us on. “It would be a shame to miss the pump as long as you’re here. Won’t be another ten minutes.”

  The floor pitched downward at a ten-degree slope. Ahead of us a vast pool glimmered like oil in lamplight. Next to it rumbled, roared, and chugged a gigantic machine. “For every ton of coal we pull out of the earth, ten tons of water must be extracted.” Dunlaw pointed proudly. “A Watt’s engine.”

  Quillan had obviously caught my fear and now tried to hurry the man along. He squeaked, “Impressive, but I have no time!”

  For my part, the hammer of my chest had metamorphosed into a curiously weak sensation. My legs were going numb, my head was light. I stammered, “I am not feeling well.”

  “Happens to folks new to the mines,” Dunlaw shouted from ahead. “Takes a strong man to handle it.”

  I ignored his blustering as another two curiosities made themselves apparent. The rats, hitherto meandering through the tunnels, now coursed en masse out of the black grotto from the tunnels beyond.

  Quillan lifted his feet, one after the other, and said, “Lord.”

  I asked, “Do you smell violets?”

  At the bellow of “White damp!” men and children dropped their tools with a clatter and raced with the teeming vermin toward the main shaft. The percussion of tools gave way to shuffling feet, the huff of lungs, the shriek of rats.

  All raced toward the cage. Rats coursed up its ropes, biting, scratching, and falling like ripe fruit on the heads of the dozen or so miners already clapped to the tiny platform like limpets. Dunlaw pushed ahead of the waiting men, dragging us with him by the arms of our coats. One of the miners on the floor shouted, “Brush the roof!” and men tore the shirts from their chests and began manically waving them overhead to fan the gas away.

  Dunlaw shoved two miners from the elevator, who gave their space without struggle, and we got on. One of the miners picked up a boy of perhaps eight and shoved him forward. “Please! Take the boy.” The platform rose. Dunlaw shouted, as he fiercely shoved the child back into his father’s arms, “Enough, we can’t all perish for stupidity!”

  The miner continued to hold the child beseechingly as we ascended. There was more than enough time for me to have put out my hands; I could have taken the child. I could have traded my space for the boy. Instead I sighted overhead, praying for the distant eye of God to fix yet another omnipotent error. I stared upward to will day to rise. When I looked back down, when I finally called out, “We can’t leave him there!” my chance had safely gone.

  As it was, all the miners made it out alive, men and children, though twelve of the mules succumbed to the sweet-smelling gas that had alerted us to its presence. White damp, a mixture of gases sometimes created after routine blasting, was deadly even in small quantities. We had been more than lucky. Dunlaw clapped me on the shoulder, called me “sweet canary,” and stuck a Havana cigar in my pocket, avowing I’d saved the lives of all of them with that nose of mine. I was a hero. Again.

  The image of the terrified eyes of the miniature laborer, and the hopeless sneer on the face of the man holding the child before him, bore mute testimony. I was no more a hero of the mines than I was of the plains.

  Can you be a despicable coward once and go on to be a decent human being or does it foul your soul forever? Perhaps my soul was already dark and heavy, and until now there had been no way of knowing.

  More likely it is sin that is white, colorless, and weightless, and we must fill our days, our mind, with the weight of what we don’t want to face. Mine our own selves, turn away from the easy impulse of pale natures. Dishonored and stunned, I walked away from the place, past the mule-drawn trips and black holes in the earth. It was only midmorning, and the men who had cheated death descended into accessorial holes to cheat it again.

  Quillan and I returned to our rooms and Dunlaw to his office to sit and shake loose his close call in a large leather chair.

  As pickaxes rang and Quillan schemed, I slept away the afternoon, the night, and most of the next morning. When my waking overcame my sleeping and I was forced to keep company with what I had done, I cast about for means of relief. Redemption is expensive. A moral stance requires stock. It is seldom that even a twelve-by-twelve timber can be righted against the world’s great injustices without a trust and an inheritance. What did I have to buy a clean conscience? I’d upped my cigar stash to three and had two dollars in my pocket, five in Connecticut. Not much of a launder would be done with that.

  I went outside and stared up at the eternal gray, at the cinder-covered world around the mine, and felt as hopeless as the drained landscape, hungry—in fact starved—for blue and red and yellow. And if I was hungry after a day, what hungers did the miners feel? If I could conjure color, I would give the miners a brilliance of geese, a glow of new grass, a flourish of buttercups. Only roots would be privy to underground. For men are no more made to be subterranean than birds and blooms.

  CHAPTER 19

  SAINT PATRICK’S HOME FOR CHILDREN

  BLENNING, PENNSYLVANIA

  Transfer to Widowmaker Mine, Scranton

  Period of indenture: seven years

  Name: Patrick O’Grady

  While the professor napped, I returned to the mine wearing his jacket.

  Dunlaw was in his office, handing a stack of papers and filing to his secretary. I str
aightened my lapels and spoke with authority.

  “I’m here for the boy.”

  He looked puzzled. “Which boy?”

  “The first push out of the gas, a boy was left behind.”

  “Tut. They all came out in good time, not a casualty among them.”

  He was acting as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. Perhaps he didn’t, but I would press my case. “What was the child’s name, sir?”

  “I tell you, there were several hundred miners in that vein alone, many of them boys. I couldn’t possibly know all their names.”

  “Do you know who would know who he was?” I was getting impatient. “I have employment for that boy. Professor Quillan expressly asked for that child. There will be trouble if I return without him.”

  The secretary, still standing with the armful of papers, broke in. “O’Grady. They call him Curly.” The woman had a slight accent, modulating the brogue from her voice. She turned and began pushing papers into drawers. “I heard of the incident yesterday.”

  The VP looked vexed.

  I pressed her. “Do you know where to find him?”

  She continued filing as she spoke offhand. “A boy from the orphanage. Staying with the Hennesys. House twenty-one.” She finished her filing and slammed the drawer shut. “That’s all I know.”

  I said thank you, but she had already disappeared into the back office.

  The VP looked flabbergasted. “What do you mean, employment?”

  He was not so much set against the idea as disbelieving.

  “The professor has several more boxes to transport back to the museum.” I pulled out the two cigars Phaegin had given me at Christmas, offered Dunlaw one, and stuck the other in my mouth. “Dr. Quillan was certain you would be of assistance.”

  Dunlaw hemmed. “If he’s an orphan boy, he has company debt to pay.”

  “Certainly he could be discharged into my care, pay his debt working for us.” I lowered my voice. “After all, we work for the same tremendous machine, eh? A little grease from you, we give a little grease back.”

  He looked dubious but rubbed his chin and walked to the file cabinets. Shuffled through and called his secretary again. She appeared as if she’d been standing just outside the door. “Patricia, get me the boy’s indenture.” She withdrew it as if the paper were magnetic.

  Dunlaw tapped the paper. “O’Grady. He’s got two years to work off.” He looked over his glasses at me. “They come in with seven.” He slapped the paper down on the desk, initialed the bottom with a flourish, and handed it over.

  I nodded. “The professor will be most pleased. Expect a letter of commendation.”

  The VP put up a hand. “Let’s keep the specifics between us. A good general word, however, would be most gratifying.”

  The houses leaned slightly one direction and another as if they’d all had a little to drink: mean shanties with only one window, holes in the roofs repaired with pieces of steel, tarred paper, awkwardly nailed sheets of wood, and even a tattered quilt. The Hennesys’ house had a large 21 chalked over its door. I knocked.

  A woman, Mrs. Hennesy I presumed, yelled, “Wot!” She was a stocky woman, bent over a washtub scrubbing canvas pants in black water. A small girl scooted into the shadows under the table.

  Mrs. Hennesy looked me over. I bowed. “Mrs. Hennesy? I am here for Curly.”

  She frowned. “Wot’s he done now? He ain’t nowhat my business. Boards, but he’s nown a mine.”

  I looked around the room. Two little girls peered out from behind a curtain hung as a partition. “How many of your family work in the mine?”

  “Three. Not counting the boy.” She repeated, “He’s nowt mine.” I nodded, acknowledging the lack of relation between them. She flung the pants over a chair with a slap and crossed her arms. “I’m a fremit bearer, but I broke my ankle and canna take the weight.”

  “Fremit bearer?”

  “The hewer hacks the coal off’n the seam. Wimmin and gurls take it out in baskets.”

  I nodded. “Is Curly here?”

  “Has he trouble?”

  “No, no, not at all. I’m going to take him with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Employment.”

  “An’ you take Curly?”

  I nodded and repeated. “Is he here?”

  “I’m owed ’is board. You take ’im, I still don’ have the quarter.”

  I looked around the tiny room, the filthy wasted faces peering at me from under the table, behind the curtain. I felt the two dollars in my pocket. I handed both to Mrs. Hennesy whose tired face twisted into a jack-o’-lantern grin. She reached under the table and drew a squirming girl out. “Go get yer Curly.”

  The little girl, with a panicked look at me, went racing out. The woman invited me to sit on a crate at the sawbuck table and went on with her washing. In ten minutes the little girl came back, towing a red-headed boy behind her. Though still filthy, he looked as though he’d had some washing and looked less like the skeletal waif with burning eyes whose face had haunted me through the night. The boy, maybe closer to ten years than the eight I had thought, stood breathless from his run—bandy legs in short pants and socks darned at the ankles into lumps, hands in his pockets—and studied me with his head tilted to the side, a raggedy cap under which sprouted curly hair kinked every which way, almost hiding his protuberant ears. He squinted one eye shut. I said hello and he stuck his hand out manfully. “Oy.”

  I shook his hand. “Are you Curly?”

  “I yam.”

  “I saw you, yesterday—”

  “On the lift.”

  “Well, Curly, I need some help, back in New Haven. I wondered if you’d come and work off your time with me.”

  He grinned and his other eye squinted up as well. His two front teeth were not grown back in. “Sure’n I would.”

  Mrs. Hennesy snorted. “Sure’n he would. Good luck.”

  Curly wrapped his arms around her and gave her a big kiss. “You been like a ma to me, you ’ave. I’ll send you chocolate on Christmas.” She pursed her lips.

  The little girls shot out from behind the curtain. “Will you send us chocolate, Curly?”

  He scooped them up. Small as he was, they were half his size. “Nah, I’m sending you peppermint piggies. That’s what you’ll get. Each with a penny in ’is snout.” He kissed each one, then crossed his arms. “Ready, sir.”

  “Don’t you need to pack?”

  He slapped his chest. “All I own’s on me.”

  CHAPTER 20

  I told Quillan that Curly’d been provided by the VP to help with the boxes of samples the professor had collected in the mines. Quillan looked Curly over and shook his head. “You’d think they could’ve found someone a little older. What’s your age, boy? Nine, ten?”

  Curly drew himself up. “Fourteen, mister.”

  “Fourteen?!” I was incredulous. “You’re not four feet tall.”

  “Try livin’ offa potatoes peppered with coal dust and see how tall you get.”

  I supposed that was right, but I felt somewhat disappointed in not having rescued a waif but an adolescent. I pointed to my mouth. “So the teeth … ?”

  He laughed. “Lost the first two when I’s three, hit with a ax handle. Lost the second two in a fight, not two weeks after they grew in. I take it my mouth don’t like them teeth in front.”

  I was floored. Curly, however, was oblivious to my incredulity. He cheerfully carried the boxes to the train, strong as a horse despite his small size, climbed on top of the seats to stow the boxes in the overhead, and plopped himself down on the horse-hair cushion.

  Quillan frowned. “Here now. Get off there. You sit in the aisle.”

  Curly looked at me. I nodded. He dragged hangdog off the seat and posited himself outside the door of the compartment, so we could see the kinked flame of his hair bobbing with the train’s movement. After some minutes, a woman in a brown dress walked by, then gave a little scream as she passed. Quillan
and I looked at each other, puzzled. When it happened a second time I opened the door and asked Curly what that had been about. Curly shrugged. “Maybe a sharp in the rug.”

  I saw no such thing in the aisle, but did see one of the cabin attendants hurrying down. Curly shrunk up and put his face in his knees.

  The attendant looked apologetic. “Do you know this boy?”

  “I do.”

  “A lady has complained.” The attendant took off his hat and leaned toward me. “She says he grabbed her ankle.”

  Curly looked up, his blue eyes swimming with tears. “I didn’t. She stepped on my hand. Didn’t even look at me. Didn’t want to trouble her, but the heel hurt so, I pushed her foot away, that’s all.” He sniffed. A fat tear rolled down his cheek.

  The attendant nodded. “No need for tears. Just keep yourself from underfoot.”

  Curly nodded soulfully, and the attendant departed. As soon as the man was beyond hearing range, Curly shook his head. “Cow. Smiled at me at the time. That’s who you have to watch for, the ones who like it.” He wiggled his fingers at his stomach. “Guilt starts eating on ’em.”

  I grabbed his collar, dragged him inside, and sat him on the floor there. Quillan frowned.

  “Rules about keeping the aisle clear,” I explained.

  When we got back to New Haven, Quillan hired a cab for himself and the boxes, instructing us to make it back alone. Curly swaggered around the station. “Nice place.” He walked over to the tea woman and purchased two pastries and some tea. I took the proffered treats. “Where did you get money for this?”

  “I got me money saved. Few pennies in my sock.” He winked.

  I shook my head. “Well, don’t spend it on me. Though this is very kind. Thank you.”

  Curly tipped his cap, stuffed the entire pastry into his mouth, sucked tea into the balloon of his cheeks, and swallowed. “Let’s go, eh?”

  When Curly stepped outside he moaned rapturously. “Would you look at it. Purty blue sky an’ white clouds jus’ like a pitcher book.”

  I grinned at his pleasure. “Come on, this way.” As we turned the corner of the building, the thug brothers stepped back into the shadows. I pulled Curly close, but though I looked behind me repeatedly, there was no sign of the men following us. After I was certain there was to be no attack, I engaged my new charge in conversation. “So, Curly, you’re an orphan?”