Red Helmet (37 page)

Bum began to walk out. He reached the turn for the main line and kept going, ready to jump into a manhole if he heard Cable's jeep coming behind him. He felt a tremor, then a blast of hot air struck him from behind, so powerful it lifted him off his feet—and Bum was flying! With the meth coursing through him, he had a brief moment of ecstasy before crashing headfirst into one of the cribs. Then he flopped into the gob while the furious exhaust of a mighty explosion roared over him and began to spread through the mine.

M
OLE WAS IDLY
watching the manlift from the doorway. He was waiting for his brother Clarence to replace him at the bank of monitors so he could go home to his wife and eight kids in the doublewide he owned on the slope of Harper's Mountain. It took a lot of money to keep those eight kids in shoes, not to mention baseball caps for them to wear backward and iPods to stick in their ears. He pondered the birthdays coming up. The kids having them would expect nice presents.

They had it so easy. When Mole was a kid, the mines were mostly all shut down, and his father, after years out of work, had gradually gone nuts until one day he'd hung himself from the limb of a big oak just behind the house. His mother had soon been packed off to the loony bin. Mole was only twelve then, yet it fell to him to take care of his two younger brothers and three younger sisters. The state tried to break them up, shipping them off to foster homes, but they always ran away and came back to Highcoal, sneaking into their abandoned house and living off squirrels, mountain cabbage, and creek water. Finally, Old Preacher, Preacher's father, took responsibility for them. It had been quite a family since Old Preacher had six kids of his own. Somehow they'd made do, and now every one of those kids had grown up to have good jobs, mostly out of state. There were a ton of grandkids too. Mole was proud of what he'd done to keep his family together, and it didn't bother him a whit to extort a rich woman like Song, or anyone else, for a little extra coin. To him, money meant more than buying things. It meant survival.

Day-shift black caps and one red cap, which proved to be Justin, stepped off the manlift. They were joking around, as they always did. Mole saw Justin grinning and knew the jibes were probably being directed at him, but they were apparently good-natured ones. Justin was going to get his black cap, and maybe that would allow him to get his son back. Mole approved. Cable would be happy for Justin too, and Lord knew Cable needed some good news, what with Square in the hospital and now Stan Stanvic drowned. The news had the entire town in an uproar. The telephone lines had nearly melted from the people trading speculation on what had happened. Of course, nearly everybody in town had called Mole. Since he was the mine clerk/dispatcher with an office beside the superintendent's, it was expected that he would know everything. But Mole didn't know a thing. What had happened to Square and then to Stanvic was all a mystery to him.

Mole felt a sudden jolt through the floor. Another pillar pulled too close, he supposed. But if so, it had been a complete collapse. There was a lot of energy in the tremor he'd felt. Maybe part of the old works had collapsed. That would make sense. Then he heard a steady beeping in the control room. At first, he didn't put the vibration in the floor and the alarm together. He suspected that a sensor in the mine was in need of calibration or had failed. But then there was another beep, and then another, and another, all joining in an irritating cacophony, demanding that someone come and see about them.

Mole hurried into his office and sat down in his chair to study the monitors. It took just an instant to see the carbon monoxide sensors were activated near Six West. One by one, other sensors were being activated along the main line return. He'd never seen anything like that before. There was also a red light on the seismic monitor. Mole studied a blip on the screen that was nearly straight up and down. He'd never seen anything like that either. A bump or a roof fall created a sharp spike, but not one that big. He reached for the phone and called the machine shop at the bottom. “Did you feel anything down there?”

“Yeah,” a machinist named Mayday said. “What was it?”

“Check your detector for carbon monoxide,” Mole said.

A moment later, Mayday came back. “All's normal. Wait a minute.” Mole heard Mayday talking to someone, then he came back on. “A motorman on one of the mantrips said he heard thunder and the mine shook. What's going on?”

“I don't know. I just see CO sensors lighting up in the return. Is Cable or Bossman at the bottom?”

“Nope. Bossman's usually the last man out so he's probably somewhere back down the main line.”

“If either Cable or Bossman show up, tell them to call me.”

“Will do,” Mayday said and hung up.

Mole stabbed the button for the pager on Six block. When no one answered, he activated its speaker to demand that somebody, anybody, pick up. But no one did. He tried pagers working back toward the bottom on both the intake and the return. There were no answers anywhere.

The carbon monoxide sensors continued to beep. Mole turned off their audio, then pushed his chair back and thought for a couple of seconds, then got up and went to the door. He was looking for a white cap. He spotted Vietnam Petroski, waved him over, and told him all that had happened.

“Doggonit!” Petroski exclaimed. “Sounds like methane has lit off somewhere back around Six block. Did you call Cable or Bossman?”

“Bossman should be on his way to the bottom. Cable's in the mine somewhere, but I'm not sure where.”

“I do,” Petroski said. “He was on Six block. He was talking with Song. They were still there when we left. Cable said he'd bring her back on his jeep.”

Mole uttered an expletive. “That ain't good, Vietnam.”

Petroski kicked at the dirt, then looked back at the manlift. The cables were vibrating, indicating more men from the day shift were coming up. That at least was good. But the evening shift miners were starting to cluster around the shaft to take the ride down. They would have to be stopped. “Did you call MSHA?” Petroski asked.

“Not yet,” Mole said. “I wanted to talk to a white cap first. What do you think? Should I call?”

Petroski worried it over. “This is above my pay grade. Cable or Bossman should decide.”

“Yeah, but they ain't here.”

Petroski reached into his pocket and pulled out a pouch of chewing tobacco. He dug into it with his fingers, then pushed a huge wad into his cheek, took a chew, then spat the whole thing out and kicked dirt over it.

“Call MSHA,” he said to Mole's back. The dispatcher was already on his way to the telephone. Petroski turned to tell the evening shift to back away from the manlift. They weren't going inside, not until Cable, Bossman, or MSHA said so.

Before Mole could call anybody, his telephone rang. It was Bossman. “I'm at the bottom,” he said overly loud. “What going on? My jeep almost went off the track that bump was so big.”

Mole quickly brought him up to speed, ending with what Petroski had ordered him to do. “You agree with me calling MSHA, right?”

Bossman hesitated. “That's a question for Cable.”

Mole heard Bossman put his hand over the receiver, then a few muffled shouts. When he came back on, he said, “I was trying to find out
if anybody had seen Cable or his jeep. Nobody has.”

“So I call MSHA?” Mole pressed.

Bossman took a few seconds to think, then said, “Call their main number, then track down Einstein.”

T
HE VENTILATION CURTAINS
had ceased flapping. Cable read his gas detector, then tucked it back in its holder.

“Stay here,” he said to Song. “I think there's been an explosion toward the main line.”

There was no way Song was going to stay alone in the section. She followed Cable through the curtain into the entry. There was a wisp of smoke floating in the beams of their lights and the odor of something burning. “Carbon dioxide and monoxide levels are up, but not too bad,” Cable said, checking his detector again.

“How about methane?” Song asked.

“Higher than it should be.” Cable took a breath and coughed. The smoke, though thin, was acrid. “We'd better get our SCSRs on.” He turned to help Song but saw she already had hers ready. “Square trained you well,” he said. “Let's get to the bottom before this air gets any worse.”

“I'm right behind you,” Song replied.

They hurried to the jeep. Cable energized it and they climbed aboard and began to head out of the section toward the main line intake, which was the way home. The smoke thickened, burning their eyes. “Put your goggles on,” Cable ordered.

The smoke was getting denser. Soon it was difficult to see more than a few yards ahead. Cable slowed the jeep while straining his eyes to see the marker that indicated the turn onto the intake. “Do you see the placard?” he asked.

“There it is, I think,” Song said when she spotted a whitish smudge through the smoke.

Cable eased the jeep forward, then felt it curve to the right. He was relieved. It was the turn that would lead them to safety. There was also a pager there.

Cable stopped the jeep and felt his way to the manhole where the pager was located. He picked up the receiver and listened. There was no dial tone, not even static. He went back to the jeep. “The line's probably been cut somewhere up ahead,” he said. “We'll keep going out.”

“I'm having trouble breathing out of the SCSR,” Song confessed. “The air's too hot.”

“Slow down your inhalations,” Cable advised. “Relax as much as you can.”

Song did her best to take slow breaths and also to relax, but it didn't seem to help. The oxygen was still too warm to be comfortable. It caused her to start coughing. “Hurry up, Cable,” she urged.

“I can't go any faster through this smoke,” he replied, talking around his mouthpiece and breathing between comments. “This is the intake and the smoke should be blowing past us, but it's not. Something must be blocking it, maybe a roof fall. We don't want to plow into it.”

A few minutes later, Song felt the wheels on the jeep rolling over something. Cable pushed the brake and the jeep ground to a stop. “It's what I was afraid of. Rock on the track. We're going to have to walk ahead to see if there's more of it.”

Song climbed off the jeep and felt her way until she bumped into Cable. “Oops, sorry,” she said.

Cable took her hand. “Stay close.”

“Like glue,” she answered.

They hadn't gone far before they ran into a massive rock fall. Their beams shot aloft and illuminated exposed roof bolts hanging like bizarre chandeliers. Cable climbed up on the rocks and tried to see over it. He came back down. “I think there's another fall in front of it.” Cable consulted his detector. “Carbon monoxide is rising.”

“Can we move enough rock to get through?” Song asked.

Cable played his light along the rock fall, then shook his head. “It's going to take some heavy equipment to clear this.”

“So what do we do?”

“First, we don't panic.”

“I'm not panicking, Cable,” Song replied evenly. “I just asked you what we should do. You're the experienced hand here. I'm just a lowly red cap.”

Cable gave himself a moment to think. “Petroski ought to be at the bottom by now and he knows where we are. I'm sure the carbon monoxide and methane sensors have gone off in Mole's office.” He paused to take some hits off his SCSR to satisfy his oxygen debt. “The one good thing this rock fall has done is to keep the smoke from being pushed back into Six West. The air back at the face might still be clear. We'll go back there and barricade ourselves in.”

“I don't like the sound of that,” Song admitted.

“We'll be fine. There's a half-dozen SCSRs stocked near the entry. We'll pick them up and take them with us. If we ration our oxygen, we'll be okay for a day, maybe more.”

Song eyed the wall of rock. “Are you sure we can't move enough rock to squeeze through?”

“I'm sure. Come on. We're going to be fine. Get back aboard the jeep.”

Song climbed aboard the jeep while Cable again checked his gas detector. “Carbon monoxide's still climbing. Methane's up but still not too bad. Most of it got burned off, I think.”

Song looked at the detector, squinting through the oily smoke to make out the numbers. “What caused this?” she wondered.

“Methane explosion, I'm pretty sure. If I had to guess, I'd say in the old works. It was big enough to blow out a stopper. Maybe more than one.” Cable put the jeep in reverse.

“What would cause that?”

“I have no idea.”

While Cable went after the box of SCSRs at the turn-in to Six West, Song peered through the smoke and saw lying in the gob what looked like somebody's cast-off shirt. She got off the jeep to take a closer look. “Cable, there's somebody buried over here!” she yelled.

Cable secured the box of SCSRs on the jeep and came over for a look. “You're right,” he said grimly. He began to dig with his hands until he had enough rubble and gob removed to turn the man over. When he did, an all-too-familiar face was revealed. “It's Bum! What's he doing here?”

Song shook her head in disgust. “Probably fell asleep and missed the mantrip out. According to Vietnam, it wouldn't be the first time either. Nobody can figure out why you haven't fired Bum a long time ago, Cable.”

“That's not entirely true. Most folks know why.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Song said, rolling her eyes. “Your old football teammate.”

Cable took the SCSR off Bum's belt, opened it up, then tossed it away. “Empty. He's been taking hits off it, most likely.” Cable leaned in to smell Bum's breath. “He stinks of meth too. Bum, you sorry sack of . . . I've done my best to help you, but this is the end of it.”