Beloved Physician (32 page)

“Great! Ah … we talked before you left for Denver about your letting me take you on a tour of the mine.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How soon can you come to the mine and take the tour?”

“Well, let’s see …”

Dr. Fraser spoke up. “If you’d like to do it tomorrow, I can fill in for you here in the office. I’ve taken the tour. It’s really interesting. I know you’ll enjoy it.”

Tharyn laid a hand on her husbands arm. “Why don’t you take the tour tomorrow, honey? You could use a little diversion from your work.”

Dane smiled at her, then turned to Kirby. “How about right after lunch tomorrow? Say one o’clock?”

“That’ll be a good time. I’ll meet you at my office at the mine at one o’clock. I’d suggest, Doctor, that you come in clothing you don’t mind having stained with coal dust.”

Dr. Dane chuckled. “Okay.”

Greg’s eyes sparkled. He was still holding Cassandra’s hand. “Dr. and Mrs. Logan, something wonderful happened while you were in Denver.”

“What was it?” asked Tharyn.

The young couple looked at each other and smiled. Then Greg said, “On Tuesday evening I asked Cassandra to marry me, and she said yes!”

Cassandra’s face was beaming.

“Well, congratulations,” Dr. Dane responded warmly.

There was a silent moment; then Tharyn said, “Yes. Congratulations. Have you set a date?”

Greg shook his head. “Not yet, but it will probably be in November. Before I asked her to marry me, I discussed it with Dad. He advised me to let the engagement period be at least three months. He felt this would give Cassandra and me time to make preparation for the wedding. I agreed, and after Cassandra had said she would marry me, I told her about Dad’s suggestion and she agreed.”

Cassandra was smiling, but in her heart she wished the wedding could be sooner than November. She knew if she had disagreed with Greg, it would only cause trouble between him and his father.

“I’m excited about it,” Kirby said jubilantly. “I’m going to give
the entire third floor of the mansion over to Greg and Cassandra when they marry; then next spring I’ll have a mansion much like it built for them on a piece of ground I already own on the north side of town.”

The thought of having her own mansion made Cassandra’s heart skip a beat. She took hold of her future father-in-law’s arm and flashed a smile at the Logans. “Isn’t he just wonderful?”

“Sounds like you’re going to be happy as Mrs. Greg Holton, Cassandra,” said Dr. Dane.

“Oh, I most certainly am!”

Tharyn did not comment. Again there was a silent few seconds before she said, “Well, husband of mine, we’d better be heading to the house.”

While the Logans were driving home, Dane turned to her with a questioning look in his eyes. “Honey, I could tell you weren’t overjoyed with the news of the engagement.”

She looked surprised. “Was I that obvious?”

“To me you were.”

“I just feel so uncomfortable around Cassandra. Mabel has told me at church how the girl is so blatant with her atheism and how greedy she is. And I can see it for myself that the only reason she wants to marry Greg is because he’s rich.”

Dane nodded. “I think you’re right, sweetheart, but Greg is a grown man and makes his own decisions.”

“I know, but I just hate to see him so taken by her. I know he’s not a Christian, but I still don’t want to see him marry a woman who’s after his money.”

As they turned off Main Street to head for their house, Tharyn took hold of his upper arm and squeezed it. “I wish everyone could have a perfect marriage like ours. Centered on Jesus, with all this love between us.”

At one o’clock the next afternoon, Kirby Holton opened his office door in response to Dr. Dane Logan’s knock.

“Welcome, Doctor! Come on in. I need to put a helmet on you.”

Wearing old clothes, Dr. Dane stepped in and noted two metal helmets lying on Kirby’s desk. Each had a lamp in the front.

Picking up one of the helmets, Kirby struck a match and lit the lamp. “This is so you can see where you’re going anywhere down in the mine. The grease in the lamp that I just lit is called ‘sunshine.’ All the miners wear them so they will have light to work by when they leave the torchlit main passageways and can see to make their way in the darkness of the narrow tunnels.”

Dr. Dane grinned as Kirby placed the helmet on his head. “Well, I’m glad somebody invented that ‘sunshine’ stuff.”

Kirby chuckled as he picked up the other helmet and lit the lamp. “Me, too. Sure makes things a lot easier down there in all that darkness.”

As Kirby placed the lamp on his own head, Dr. Dane said, “I just went by the Frye home. Ben is doing quite well.”

The mine owner smiled. “You did a good job on Ben, Doctor. He’s the best foreman I’ve ever had. Well, let’s go.”

They stepped outside and Kirby Holton led the doctor down toward two large open shafts.

“See those shafts in the ground, Doctor?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“They are operated with cages. You will notice that only one cage is visible at the top of a shaft at this moment.”

“I see it.”

“The other one is down in the mine. Those two cages are on pulleys and are used to lower miners into the depths of the mine and raise them out, and to raise coal out of the mine in
the small rail cars that are pulled through the mine tunnels by the mules that live and work down there. Up here on the surface, the coal is weighed, then placed in those large wagons over there.”

“I see.”

Kirby pointed to the two harnessed mules at each shaft. Each pair was hitched to a large horizontal wheel beside the shafts. “See how those mules are hitched to those big wheels?”

“Uh-huh.”

At that instant, a mine worker stepped up to the pair of mules at the shaft where no cage was visible. He put the mules in motion, leading them by short lengths of rope.

Kirby went on. “The wheels control the cage’s pulley ropes. As you can see, the mules walk in a circle, turning the wheels, lowering and raising the cages.”

Dr. Dane nodded. “Well, those wheels are large enough to give plenty of leverage for the mules, I’ll say that.”

“Yes, sir.” Kirby pointed to the large wagons close by. “Those wagons are used to carry the coal to our customers in other mountain towns, as well as carrying it all the way to Denver to be marketed to customers on that side of the Rockies. They also load coal into railroad cars and carry it to distributors north, south, east, and west in the country.”

“Sounds like you’ve got the coal mining business working good for you, Kirby.”

They were drawing up to the two shafts. Dr. Dane noticed small piles of shale and rock in the area.

The cage that had been down in the mine moments ago was coming up with a loaded coal car and four men. As the mine owner and his guest came to a halt, the car was rolled onto stationary ground tracks by the four men. Then Kirby Holton walked up to the man who was in charge of the mules and told him to lower Dr. Logan and himself down into the mine.

Kirby ushered his guest into the cage, and the mules were put in motion at the large wheel.

While they were being lowered slowly into the dark shaft, Dr. Dane said, “I’ve read a little about black lung disease. What percentage of your coal miners get it?”

“I can’t really give you an accurate percentage, but many men come down with it after they’ve worked in the mine for a few years. Eight or nine years, I’d say. For others it takes maybe a dozen years or so. And still others never get it.”

“Oh. Guess I haven’t read enough on the subject. I thought all of them eventually get it if they stay at it very long.”

As they dropped into the mine’s depths and the darkness enveloped them, Dr. Dane was glad for the lamp on his helmet. The thought of being so deep in the earth sent a shudder through him. The damp chill in the air seemed to trickle into the marrow of his bones.

Soon they reached the bottom of the shaft. Dr. Dane noted the flaming kerosene torches that were fixed on the rough walls of the passageway where they stood.

“Well,” said Holton, “we’re now almost three hundred feet below the surface.”

The thought of it brushed Dane like a cold finger, raising a chill on the surface of his skin.

Holton looked at his guest, noting his uneasiness. “Just so you’ll know, Doctor, throughout the mine there are air shafts some twelve inches in diameter to let gases out and clean air in.”

Dr. Dane nodded. “That’s good to know.”

Kirby then pointed to eight-by-ten-foot structures on each side of the two shafts. “Those are called powder houses.’ They contain dynamite sticks, which as you probably know, are used in the mine to open up new tunnels. We also use it to blast away stubborn sections of coal from the walls of existing tunnels. All the loose coal is loaded into the small coal cars on the tracks that you
see at your feet. These tracks are on the floor of every tunnel and passageway. My men also use picks to break loose coal that is embedded shallowly in the tunnel walls, which of course, have been opened with the dynamite.”

Dr. Dane ran his gaze over the wooden structures. “Interesting.”

Moving a few steps with his guest following, Kirby pointed to the other side of the passageway. “Over here, Doctor, you see feeding troughs and bins along the wall. As you can see, the bins are stuffed with hay bales. This hay feeds the mules I mentioned, that live down here and pull the coal cars. You will notice that next to the troughs are these open tanks of water. We keep our beasts of burden well supplied with water.”

“I can see that they are well-fed and well-watered.”

“Let’s go on down the passageway.”

As they moved slowly between the rugged stone walls, Kirby pointed upward. “See those twelve-by-twelve-inch wooden beams that rest on those vertical beams?”

Looking up, Dr. Dane nodded. “Uh-huh. They form a protective ceiling, don’t they?”

“Yes. They are in every tunnel and passageway.”

Soon they came to a pair of mules that were pulling a loaded coal car on the track in the center of the passageway.

Dr. Dane recognized the man driving the mules. He had treated Russ Mooney for a burned hand the first week he had owned the practice.

“Hello, Russ!”

Mooney smiled broadly. “Howdy, Doc!” He chuckled. “You lookin’ for a job down here?”

Dr. Dane laughed. “Not exactly. I’m just taking the tour.”

Mooney looked at Holton. “Well, give him a good one, boss!”

“He’s doing that, all right,” said Dr. Dane.

Mooney moved on.

Moments later, they left the wide, torchlit passageway, and Dr.
Dane found himself more than glad he was wearing the helmet with the sunshine lamp.

They visited miners who were busy chipping coal from the walls of the tunnels and filling coal cars to which mules were harnessed.

At one point, they came upon assistant foreman Art Berman, who was teaching a new young miner how to dig the coal from the walls. Kirby and Dr. Dane heard him giving the young man instructions on how to hold the pick he was using.

Art looked up and recognized his boss first.

“Howdy, Kirby. Who you got with—Well, I’ll be! Howdy, Dr. Logan!”

Dr. Dane grinned. “Howdy, yourself, Art.” A tiny light twinkled in his eyes. “This young man teaching you anything?”

The young miner chuckled. “I’m trying, sir, but he’s so old, he’s havin’ a hard time getting it. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, you know!”

Art playfully cuffed the young miner on the chin. “Back to work, buster, or I’ll cut your pay!”

Kirby and Dr. Dane were laughing together as they moved on.

They came to a spot where the tunnel was a bit narrow and the combination of walls and darkness seemed to envelope Kirby’s guest.

Dr. Dane took a deep breath. “Whew!”

Kirby stopped and looked at him. “You all right?”

Dr. Dane took another deep breath. “Having a little claustrophobia.”

“Oh. I had that problem the first time I went down into a mine. Lots of new miners have it, but in time, it goes away.”

The tour was over after an hour and a half, and Dr. Dane was glad that he and the mine owner were riding upward in the cage where there was more air and lots of sunshine.

When they reached the top and the cage came to a halt, they
saw Greg Holton and three other miners climbing into the cage of the other shaft, about to descend into the mine.

Greg smiled at his father and the doctor. “Hi, Dad. So how’d it go, Doctor?”

“Well, I had a little touch of claustrophobia, but I made it through the tour all right.”

“What do you think of the mine?”

Dr. Dane smiled. “Its awesome, Greg. Awesome.”

The cage started down, and Greg gave his father and the doctor a wave.

Kirby climbed out of the cage with Dr. Dane right behind him. As they moved toward the office building, Dr. Dane said, “Thanks for the tour.”

“You’re welcome. I hope you enjoyed it.”

“Oh, I did, even though I felt a little apprehension at times, being so far down into the mountains bowels, but I really did enjoy it.”

When Dr. Dane returned to his office, Dr. Fraser was alone. He was seated at the desk, making notes in a patient’s file. He looked up with a smile. “Tharyn’s in the back room, stocking the medicine cabinet. A new shipment just came in on the stagecoach from Denver. She should be just about finished.”