Red Helmet (46 page)

Shorty looked around his group and they looked back. “There's a scoop loader on Two East,” Shorty said. “That section's higher than the main line and the return. It should be dry.”

“I'll get the dang thing,” Blackjack said.

“We also need Doctor K,” Shorty advised.

“The power's off,” Mahata said. “How could she get down here?”

Shorty thought it over, then gave Einstein a call. “What now?” he demanded.

“We need Doctor K down here,” Shorty said.

“When we turn the power on, I'll send her down.”

“Einstein, every second counts. Just turn the power on to the manlift long enough to get her down here. That's all I'm asking.”

Einstein was silent for a while, then said, “All right. That makes sense. But don't go any farther than you are right now unless I give you the word.”

Shorty crossed his fingers. “Oh, don't worry. We wouldn't think of it.”

Shorty hung up and looked around the rescuers. He chose Justin. “Justin, go to the bottom, then escort Doctor K back here. Can I trust you to do that?”

“You bet you can!” Justin took off.

“That's a good boy,” Shorty said.

“No, that's a good man,” Mahata said. Shorty had to agree.

T
HE WATER LEVEL
kept dropping. Cable and Song clung to one another. “You did it,” Cable said.

Song's SCSR was gone, ripped from her face by the flood. She hacked and coughed until Cable stuck his mouthpiece into her mouth. “Come on, baby. Breathe!”

Song had nothing left. She was completely spent. She took several breaths from Cable's SCSR, then spat out the mouthpiece and put her head down to sleep. “G'night, Cable,” she said. “I love St. John, but I don't want to snorkel any more.”

“We're not in St. John, Song. We're in the mine. Wake up. We've got to find Bum's stash of SCSRs.”

She blinked awake when he pushed the mouthpiece back between her lips. “They had to be washed away,” she said around it.

“Not if they were in a manhole. Go look for them.”

“Leave me alone, Cable. You're a terrible boss. You keep making me do things I don't want to do. I'm going to take a nap. I deserve it.” She let the mouthpiece fall out of her mouth again.

Cable stubbornly pushed it back. “Don't give up, Song. Please. We're going to get through this. I've always known we would. It's our destiny.”

She opened one eye. “My favorite Jim Brickman song.”

“And he wrote it for us, even though he didn't know it at the time.”

Song tried to look at Cable, but his face was blurred. Her eyes were failing her, she thought, but then she remembered she had on her goggles. She pushed them onto her forehead. “I think I've changed my mind,” she said groggily. “I don't like being a coal miner any more.”

Cable tried to chuckle but he didn't have the strength. “Too late,” he said. “You're trained now.” He took off his helmet, unclipped the battery from his belt. “Here, I sill got some juice in my battery.”

“No, Cable. I haven't earned a white helmet. I want a black one.”

“Take it. You own this mine. I guess that gives you the right.”

Song took off her helmet and handed it to Cable. “Don't lose it. It matches my lipstick.”

“Song?”

“Hmm?”

“We're breathing a lot of carbon monoxide. Go after the SCSRs.”

“Slave driver.”

“I thought I was the superintendent
of your heart.”

“Same thing.”

“Bum probably holed up around the belt. Look for the SCSRs there.”

“All right, Cable. I'm going.” She thought to kiss him, but didn't have the energy.

Song crawled down off the boom and into the mud. She was shivering from being wet. She looked around for Bum, hoping that she wouldn't have to see his body. She saw no sign of it, probably flushed away by the awesome torrent of water. She headed for the belt, but the going was slow, the sticky gray mud sucking at her boots with every tortured step.

When she finally reached the belt, she began to search the manholes. She was surprised and delighted when she found the sodden box of SCSRs in the first opening. She fired a fresh one up for herself, clipped two to her belt, put a couple more under her arms, and headed back to Cable.

“Not so fast, girlie girl.” Rising up out of the gloom like a black goblin was Bum. “Thought I'd drowned, didn't you?”

Song aimed her light at him. Bum's face was bloody, his nose smashed by the shovel when she'd struck him. He also sported a broken-toothed grin around his mouthpiece, and his eyes were wild and crazy. He was also holding a slate bar. “You know, I'm going to have a little fun with you before I kill you,” he said. He grabbed his groin. “Gonna join the mile down club, you and me are.”

Song tossed down the SCSRs and backed away. “We're only eight hundred feet deep, Bum.”

“All right. The eight-hundred-foot club. What does it matter?”

Song turned out her light and ran. Bum laughed and shot the beam of his light after her. “You can only go so far, girlfriend,” he sang.

Song ran until she found herself beside a scoop loader. She climbed aboard and settled into its seat.

Bum laughed. “Stupid red cap. That loader's been underwater. It won't start.”

Song looked up at the roof. “Well, Lord, here we go again,” she said. “This one's for me and for Cable. Same reason as before.”

Song pushed the start button and the dashboard lights flashed, dimmed, then brightened. She pushed the throttle forward. Bum saw the big machine groan, its tires tearing out of the mud, and then trundle in his direction. He ran. Song turned and twisted with him, catching him just as he came to rest with his back against a rib. She lowered the bucket and roared straight at him, stopping just short of running its sharp edge into his chest. “Don't kill me!” Bum screamed. “Please! Oh, have mercy!”

“Crawl into the bucket,” Song ordered.

“Why?” Bum asked, wiping his shattered nose with the back of his hand.

“I'm not going to tell you again, Bum. Crawl into the bucket or I'm going to cut you in two.”

Breathing heavily, his face wreathed in fear, Bum crawled inside the bucket. “What now?” he whined.

“This,” Song said and pulled the lift lever to the stops. The bucket slammed into the roof, trapping Bum within a prison of steel and stone.

Song de-energized the scoop and climbed off it. She walked until she found the spare SCSRs and came back. Bum was scrabbling inside his cage and screaming. “You can't leave me in here!” he wailed. “I'll suffocate!”

“Tell it to someone who cares,” Song muttered, and kept going.

T
HEY FOUND
S
ONG
and Cable beside a shuttle car. They were sitting in the muck, leaning against one of the big tires. Cable had his arm around her and Song was snuggled against his chest. Inexplicably, he was wearing her red helmet and she was wearing his white one. She had the mouthpiece of her SCSR in her mouth. He didn't.

Doctor K took their pulses, then touched Song on her shoulder. When Song didn't react, the doctor lightly shook her. Song's eyes slowly opened. She blinked a few times, then, as Doctor K watched, light and life came back into her eyes. A small smile formed on her lips.

“Doctor K. You're here.” She looked up and saw the rescue team members standing around, then picked out Chevrolet, Ford, Gilberto, and Justin among them. “Hi, fellas,” she said sleepily.

Song turned and looked up into Cable's face. His eyes were closed. “Cable? Look who's here. They've come for us at last.”

“Song . . . ,” Doctor K began.

Song moved her hand to touch Cable's cheek, the one with the dimple. “Cable?” she asked. “Cable?” she demanded.

“Come help me with her, boys,” Doctor K said to the red caps. “Quickly now.”

“No, please,” Song said, running her hand across Cable's mouth. “Breathe, sweetheart.”

“Stay back,” Justin warned the rescue team members who were crowding in too close.

“Please, Cable,” Song begged.

“We love her,” Chevrolet explained to the others. “She's the best of us.”

“Please, no. Oh, God,” Song cried.

“We'll take care of her,” Gilberto said.

And they did.

Forty-Two

I
t was a story that had briefly captivated a nation, but now it was at an end. Three weeks had passed and most of the reporters, anchors, correspondents, stringers, and strap-hangers of the media were gone from Highcoal, much to the relief of the little mining town. The satellite trucks, generators, trailers, and vans that supported them were gone too. The tale of the mine explosion, fire, and underground flood beneath the winter-bare hills of Appalachia was but one of a never-ending reality series reported by the American media for urban dwellers who were gratified to discover there were still real people in the heartland accomplishing real things.

The ratings reflected the interest, and they were huge. On the morning when the rescue teams and the town doctor (a woman!) reached the trapped trio, there were shouts of joy and hymns of salvation sung throughout the land. When the manlift rose from the darkness, the television cameras, one of them even belonging to Al-Jazeera, moved in for a close-up, and print reporters and famous anchors crowded in just to hear a single word from the adorable female miner. They were disappointed. She stayed silent, her head turned away, as two of her rescuers carried her in a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. Beside her walked her father, Joe Hawkins, his silver-maned head held at an attentive tilt.

The woman's husband, the man named Cable, had already been brought out and taken away.

The next manlift brought out the murderer named Bum, and beside him stood the town constable and more rescuers. Bum hung his head and wept tears of shame and meth as he shuffled to another ambulance. Constable Petrie climbed aboard it with him, and then its siren shrieked as it rolled out of the tipple grounds and through the gate. Bum was also headed for the clinic, before being transferred to the county jail at Fox Run.

And yet, even then, the story was not over.

A star had been born by the events deep in the Highcoal mine. Governor Michelle Godfrey had talked the nation through it as the tragedy unfolded. She had proved to be witty, articulate, always informative, confident, and sexy, a potent combination. She had worn her miner's jumpsuit and a white helmet as she demonstrated how an SCSR worked, talked learnedly of the problems of mine ventilation, and even put on a rescue pack. In the days that followed the rescue, there was an intense media interest in her involvement with the silver fox himself, billionaire widower and very eligible bachelor Joe Hawkins, who also happened to be the father of the courageous woman who'd been trapped and apparently had a hand in her own rescue. The governor and the billionaire had been seen together a few times since, in New York as well as attending the West Virginia Symphony
in Charleston. The liaison with such a rich and powerful man only added to the governor's star power. There was talk of national office. A woman like that was too large in life to stay at the state level. Dick Morris called. So did James Carville. Several times.

The near-calamity produced another star, a twelve-year-old Highcoal boy, amusingly named Young Henry. His speech on the steps of the Highcoal Church about the importance of coal and the men and women who mined it had delighted viewers with its stirring simplicity. Governor Godfrey soon made an announcement that Young Henry was the new co-poet laureate of West Virginia (joining Irene McKinney), although he had not written poetry at all, just told the truth as he saw it. Young Henry was on David Letterman and Jay Leno, and all the morning shows, his big ears bright red from the attention. He did well on television, to the relief of his mother, and was adored by everyone. Despite his acclaim, his teachers did not let up on his homework and he got a B in English for the semester.

And still the story was not complete.

At the Highcoal Church of Christian Truth, they held a ceremony for Song and her fellow red caps to accept them into the fraternity of miners. For this event, the television cameras returned, and the nation tuned in as the five red caps were individually called forward by their instructor, a proud and beaming man named, even more improbably, Square Block. As each received their shiny new black helmet, Square took the scratched and battered red helmets and reverently placed them on the altar. In the choir pews, the choir and Preacher watched with benevolent satisfaction.

Song was the last red cap called forward. She took off her red helmet and solemnly put on a black one. Square hugged her for a very long time. She needed it. Her legs felt weak. Her whole body, mind, and spirit felt weak. She briefly wondered if she could go on, then she did.

Preacher rose and crossed to the pulpit. “Song,” he whispered to her, “you should say a few words. The people expect it.”

Song stepped into the pulpit. As she looked out into the congregation and the cameras, her eyes betrayed her fatigue. She had not slept much since her return to the surface. And tears came when she thought there surely were no tears left. She told herself to stand straight and proud, as Cable would want, as her mother would have required, as her father wanted now, as the world, always questing a hero, seemed to demand.

“I am proud to be here today,” she said, her voice catching momentarily. “I am proud to be associated in any way with these men, my dear friends and fellow red caps, Gilberto, Justin, Chevrolet, and Ford, and our instructor, Square Block.”

The ex-red caps all grinned encouragingly at her. The light from the winter sky poured through the church windows, burnishing their gleaming new ebony helmets, which they did not seem inclined to remove.