Last Ragged Breath (35 page)

The hoist continued its drop. Every few feet it paused, swaying slightly back and forth as if making up its mind if it wanted to keep going, and then, with a reluctant groan, it resumed. The creaks grew louder and more frequent. Craggy gray rock seemed to slide upward past the hoist as they dropped. When Bell looked straight up, she saw that the light at the top was only a frail dot now. The lower they went, the dimmer it grew. Soon, though, a light at the bottom of the shaft began to blossom.

“Still can't believe that a McDowell County boy's never been down in a coal mine,” she said, hoping that a bit of teasing might put him at ease. She pronounced it
Mac
Dowell, the way the natives did.

“Yeah, well, if I had—I think I'd remember,” he answered, in a hoarse, choked-sounding voice. He coughed, as if that was the problem.

The hoist bounced against the rock ledge at the bottom of the shaft, bounced again, and then settled itself with a heavy thud, a brief grinding noise, and another thud. Bright lights burned all around them, lights that seemed to spiral outward from a central core. Miners walked by with purposeful strides, heads bent, intent on their jobs, few of them bothering to check out the new arrivals that the hoist had deposited here. Even the skinny men looked burly, bulky, wrapped as they were in the thick coveralls and boots and helmets—just as Bell and David were, but on these men, it looked different. It wasn't a costume. She and David were tourists, and this was temporary; these men were workers, and this was their livelihood, for as long as it lasted. They looked like men who had emerged not from one of the corridors radiating out in four different directions from this spot, but from the deep and mysterious past, living throwbacks to an era when human muscle and will were the primary sources of energy. Coal, the coal pulled forcibly out of the earth with that muscle and will, was secondary. These men were dirty-faced phantoms from a dying—really, already dead—era.

“Here you go,” Bell said. She stepped off the platform and gestured for him to follow. They were engulfed in a world of shiny black rock. The strong lights gave the sides of the walls a wet look. The air smelled like hosed-down gunpowder. She could sense David's apprehension. The distance from floor to ceiling was about five feet; they had to bend over as they moved. A neck ache tomorrow morning was a sure thing.

“Just step over here a little ways,” she said. “Got to keep the way clear.”

More miners came along, spines curved to accommodate the ceiling, walking singly or in twos. Some were holding thermoses by the plastic handles, or lunch boxes. They talked in low murmurs, like people in church. Occasionally there was a loud string of laughter that seemed to be passed on down the line, dying out by the time it reached the last man. That group disappeared in a corridor and another three or four men appeared from another. The men had to walk to one side, because rail tracks ran down the center of each corridor.

“A lot of those men are doing what's called dusting,” Bell said. “They spread rock dust around the face of the seam. Air and coal dust is a highly combustible mix. The dust makes it safe. Well—safer.”

Before she could say another word a violent shaking ensued. The vibration of the rock beneath their feet made it difficult to stay upright. Bell's legs felt liquefied. A massive roar of machinery filled the cavern. This time, David didn't reach out for her arm; he was ready for surprises. The noise went on for several minutes and then suddenly cut off.

“That's a continuous mining machine,” Bell said. “Just tears the hell out of the rock walls, dragging out the coal. It digs in a sort of square pattern so it makes four walls—a room. In each room, it leaves pillars of coal to hold up the roof. And then it comes back and takes out the pillars.” She pointed down one of the corridors. Visible in the distance was a mammoth rack of spotlights bolted to both sides of a giant black block with enormous mechanical arms.

“Can we go see it?” David asked. Eager as a kid.

“Nope. It's a worksite. We'd be in the way. This's as far as we go.”

“So where's all this beauty you were bragging about? So far, all I've seen is rock. And all I've gotten is a mouthful of coal dust.”

Bell swung her head toward one of the empty corridors. The light from the lamp on her helmet struck the dark wall, and it was as if a secret cache of diamonds had suddenly spilled in their laps: Tiny chips of mica in the rock glittered in a rippling swath. These points of light, caught in the illumination from Bell's headlamp, seemed to leap and dance like living things. During this minute or two when the mine was quiet—no machines, no men—it was as if Bell and David stood in the heart of a dense forest, one that quivered with thousands of fireflies, or were perched in the midst of a night sky that seethed with stars.

She could hear his breathing.

“Okay,” he said. Voice quiet, subdued by awe. “I see what you mean.”

Finding beauty within the ruins. Finding, in the darkness, something lovely, something that had meaning, if only for the person who beheld it. This was a trick Bell had taught herself early. Given her profession—one that required her to see the very worst that people could do to each other, inflicting all manner of physical and emotional pain—she kept the trick handy, like a magician who never leaves the house without that special deck of cards.

David coughed. It broke the spell; the fragile moment collapsed all around them. His tone turned to one of complaint. “But how the hell does anybody spend their life working down here? I feel like I want to run my lungs through a car wash.”

“Wouldn't be my first choice either,” Bell said. “But don't worry. These mines—the few that are left—are doomed. And Lord knows, they should be. They're dirty and dangerous. The coal they produce is doing all the bad things to the atmosphere that you and your friends accuse it of. No defense for it. And far too many men have been killed or injured in mines just like this one.” She turned back around to face him, switching off her headlamp. Now the wall returned to being just an expanse of black rock. Not a trove of diamonds. Not a harvest of stars. “But before these mines go away entirely—before the only thing that's left of this place is a bunch of sepia-toned photos of men in hard hats with dirty faces—I just wanted you to see it and hear it. To smell it. To feel it.”

She was aware of something in her own throat, but it wasn't coal dust. She swallowed it back down again. “This way of life—this place—is gone, David. Two-thirds of the coal produced today comes from strip mines, not underground mines. Since 1976, seventy-five percent of these mines have shut down. Coal miners? Down to less than a third of what there were back in the 1970s.”

“And that's a good thing, right? Like you said.”

“Yeah. But what's coming along behind it? What kind of employment is left for people in Raythune County? Salary-wise, these were damned good jobs. Jobs you could raise a family on. Build a life on. Do you really think Mountain Magic's going to offer that for maids and busboys? For waitresses? For caddies and desk clerks?”

He didn't answer. There was no answer.

“Time to go,” she said. She pointed up. “Back to the future.” And then she paused. One more thing to say. “Sorry to go all Studs Terkel on you there. I just know how hard coal miners work. And what they've meant to West Virginia.”

He nodded. He let her lead the way back onto the hoist. She leaned over and pushed the brass button, the signal to Dickie Lavender that they were ready to return to the surface.

Slowly, the platform began to rise. It was a smoother ride than the one on the way down, as they climbed steadily past the rough walls of the shaft.

“That is pretty amazing,” David said. He watched the chipped and mysterious rock that looked as if it were sinking down past them as they were hauled up. “I can't wait to tell my girls about—”

A squeal of machinery, a hiss, and then a popping sound. The lights went out. The platform halted. It jerked once. Again. The hoist hung forlornly in the middle of the shaft, swaying slightly, as if even the contemplation of its current location was making it dizzy. Another jerk. Then it was still.

*   *   *

“Hey,” David said.

“They'll get it going again,” Bell said. “Just hang on.”

“Don't have much of a choice.” It wasn't a wisecrack. There was an edge to his voice.

“Happens all the time,” she said.

“Really.”

“Yeah. The motor overheats. It's got an automatic shutoff. Once it cools, we'll be good to go.”

“Or good to fall.”

“Relax, David.” She smiled at him. She turned her headlamp on, so that they could see each other. His face was taut with the opening stages of panic.

“Believe me, I'm trying to,” he said.

The platform jerked again; unprepared for it, they almost fell over. Then: nothing.

“Jesus,” David said.

“I'm telling you. We'll be fine.” She didn't know if they would be fine or not, but she'd learned a few things from Nick Fogelsong over the years, and one of them was: When you're scared shitless, act brave. And keep thinking.

“Maybe I'd better turn off my headlamp,” she said. “In case we're here a while. Might need it later.” Hacked out of the rock on one side were small indentations that ran up the shaft, bottom to top. A last-chance ladder. In an emergency, Bell knew, they could step off the platform and climb. But that step—from solid platform to scooped-out place in the rock that was roughly the size of the front half of your boot, with no railing, and nothing existing between you and the rock ledge hundreds of feet below but your own strength and guts—was harrowing to think about. So she didn't think about it.

They were roughly halfway between the surface and the bottom of the shaft, so the light at both ends was muted, distant, like a faint memory of childhood.

“You okay?” she said.

“No.”

“Dickie knows what he's doing.”

David didn't want to talk about Dickie. “Look, Bell,” he said. His voice was hurried, but no longer on the precipice of panic. He sounded resolute. “If this thing ends up crashing down there and I'm crushed to death—but you make it out—promise me something, okay? Promise that you'll tell my girls how much I loved them.”

“Tell them yourself. We're getting out of here.”

“What if that foreman can't make it go again?”

“Dickie will come through.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if he doesn't,” Bell said, “and we don't make it up, he knows that Rhonda will never forgive him. Trust me—you don't want Rhonda Lovejoy mad at you. She can make life real tough for people she doesn't like.”

“Don't understand,” David said, “how you can joke right now. I really don't.”

Bell reached out to find his arm. She gave it a squeeze. “Better than falling apart, don't you think?”

He moved around on the platform, trying to dissipate his nervousness, perhaps, by staying in motion. But there was nowhere to go.

“Seriously, David—we just need to sit tight. Dickie's working on this.”

“What if he isn't?”

She was just as scared as David was, but saw no point in dwelling on it.

“Okay,” she said. She needed to take his mind off their predicament. Her mind, too.

“Let's play a game. Let's pretend that this really
is
it.”

“Great game.” His voice was glum.

“Come on. You'll see. Okay—so back to what you were saying. These are your last few minutes on earth. What do you want your girls to know about you?”

She heard him sigh. Gradually, though, he was giving in to her question.

“About me,” he said.

“Sure. Things you've never told them. Advice you want them to hear. Or things about your life. Anything.” She and Carla had first played this game one summer night. Her daughter was eleven years old and a terrible storm had taken over the world; the trees looked alive, yanked back and forth by a vicious wind, their tops thrashing, and the thunder cracked so loudly that you could feel the vibration all the way down to the soles of your feet. Rain was flung against the windows with what seemed like deliberate hatefulness. Carla had rushed into Bell's room and snuggled under the comforter.
Mom, I'm scared,
she said.
What if the roof falls in? What if—
Bell, holding her very, very tight, said,
The roof won't fall in, sweetie
. She could sense, though, that the reassurance wasn't hitting home. It was too glib, too pat, too easy. Who wouldn't say that very thing, at such a time? And so Bell said,
Maybe it will
. Carla sat up in bed.
Mom, what do you mean?
Bell replied,
If the roof falls in and that big tree out there smashes us flat, what are the things that were best about your life? What are the things that meant the most to you?
And Carla, instead of focusing on the storm or on her fear, focused on her answer:
The best things, Mom, are you and Dad, and playing basketball. And my Harry Potter books. And chocolate ice cream
. Carla's answer reminded Bell of a scene in her favorite play,
Our Town,
when Emily Gibbs comes up with her own list:
Food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths.

“So what would you want your kids to know?” Bell said, prodding him again. “Doesn't have to be huge, momentous, earth-shattering things. It can be anything you want it to be.”

David's voice came out of the semidarkness at a different pitch. It was stronger now, and thoughtful. “I guess I'd like them to know that I really tried to make our family work. I didn't want the divorce. I tried like hell to make a go of it with their mom.”

“Good,” she said. “What else?”