Sky of Stone (28 page)

Dad wiped his lips but held on to the bandanna. He read:

The attributes of an Olga foreman:

We are proud of who we are. We were chosen to be Olga men.

We are morally straight. We don’t lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. That not only goes for work, but everywhere.

We never stop learning.

We give orders and take orders like a man.

We don’t make deals. We tell our men what to do and then stick to it.

We don’t watch the clock. We get to work early and leave only when the job is finished.

We don’t make decisions on what somebody else said. We go and see things for ourselves.

When things go wrong, we don’t hunt for someone else to blame. We fix it.

We don’t buddy with our crews.

We’re not afraid to tell a man he’s no good. A man can’t get good if he doesn’t know he’s bad.

We’re the boss. We never tell the men to do something because somebody else said so. We say so and we make sure they do it.

We know production is the key. Without it, all the good things we have in Coalwood and Caretta, our homes, our schools, and all that we hold dear, all will be lost.

Dad took off his glasses, tucked them in his shirt pocket, and put the papers on the table. He looked straight ahead, his face expressionless.

“‘Production is the key,’” Mr. Fuller quoted. “‘Without it . . . all that we hold dear, all will be lost.’” He paced a bit. “Odd. I never heard you mention the word
safety
a single time in your little lecture.”

“Safety is inherent to a foreman’s job,” Dad said. “They all know that.”

“But you never mentioned it. Interesting.”

Dad kept his peace.

“Tuck Dillon made a mistake that even a common miner wouldn’t make,” Mr. Fuller pressed. “But you say you don’t know why. Is that right?”

Dad didn’t say anything, so Mr. Fuller paced some more. “Here’s what I think happened,” he said after taking a slow lap around the table.

Perhaps in a court of law, a defense lawyer would have jumped up and cried, “Speculation, your honor!” or some-such, but this wasn’t a court of law, not by a long shot. Mr. Fuller got his say.

“Homer, I think at the last minute you decided not to go in with Tuck because you wanted to be around when the day shift arrived. And why was that? You said it yourself.
We’re the boss.
You personally wanted to kick the tails of your foremen, get them inside as fast as you could so production wouldn’t suffer any more than it already had. That’s why Tuck Dillon died, isn’t it? You wanted production!”

Dad stayed silent, his eyes held rigidly straight ahead.

The federal inspector, Mr. Amsteader, leaned forward. “I have a question for you, Homer.” His reedy voice sounded strangely calm after Mr. Fuller’s outburst. “If Tuck Dillon had all the information he needed, would he have entered a gas-filled section in an electric locomotive?”

Dad glanced at the federal man, then mulled the question over. “I can’t imagine that he would.”

“You were his supervisor, responsible for providing him with all the information he needed?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Amsteader sat back and patted his wooden leg. A smile formed on Mr. Fuller’s face. “I think we’ve heard all that we need to hear,” he said.

“Are you done with me?” Dad asked bitterly.

Mr. Fuller waved his hand in airy dismissal. “We’ve heard enough. You may stand down.”

Dad struggled to his feet. His face was red and he was having trouble getting his breath. I started to go and help him, but Tag held me back. “You’ll shame him,” Tag said, and I knew he was right. Dad walked unsteadily to the door, his bandanna still pressed to his face. The crowd in the foyer parted before him.

Jake and Mr. Fuller huddled at the table while a conversational buzz began to grow in the parlor. When I thought I’d waited long enough, I followed Dad but was surprised to find him on the Club House sidewalk in deep conversation with Mr. Dubonnet. As I came up to them, I heard Dad say, “Don’t worry, John. I would sooner be fired.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Dubonnet said, and put his hand on Dad’s shoulder.

Dad shrugged his hand away and walked toward the Buick, which was parked in front of the Big Store.

“Sonny,” Mr. Dubonnet greeted me when I came up beside him.

We watched Dad climb in the Buick and pull out, heading up Main Street. “Why did you thank Dad?” I asked.

After a moment of obvious deliberation, he said, “Because he protected one of my men in there tonight.”

“But Mr. Dillon wasn’t a union man,” I said.

“I didn’t say he was,” Mr. Dubonnet answered, then trudged away.

37

THE HONOR OF KINGS

T
HE SECOND
testimony finished and people poured out of the Club House while I wandered around in the dark, lost inside my own head. I figured I had most of the story now, including a working theory as to why Tuck Dillon had gone in the mine by himself. But why he had blown himself up—that remained a puzzle. God, in His sly way, was still concealing things from me and everybody else.

More walking and thinking didn’t help. By the time I climbed the steps and went back inside the Club House, the place was empty and Floretta had closed herself up in her apartment. Breakfast found me entirely by myself in the dining room. Even the junior engineers didn’t turn up. The second testimony had worn everyone out, I supposed. A note in the kitchen from Floretta told me she was sleeping in, and I could fix my own breakfast. She’d at least packed my lunch.

The day on the track found me sluggish, off center, and prone to error. I kept missing spikes with my hammer and dropping my pry bar, tripping over rails and slamming my head into the roof. Bobby and Johnny let me go my sloppy way without comment. At the end of the shift, we were one rail short of finishing.

“If we have to flag down the first man-trip, what happens, Johnny?” Bobby worried.

“We lose the bet, that’s what happens,” Johnny said grimly. “Garrett would hear about it, for sure, and say we’d cheated by working past our shift.”

“Full-court press,” Bobby said. He came over to me, squeezed my arm until it hurt. “Full-court press, Sonny!”

I pulled away from him. “What are you talking about?”

“Like in basketball. We’ve got to run, throw away caution, go as fast as we can!”

“Full-court press,” Johnny said. “Yeah!”

It had been my fault we were behind. “Let’s do it!” I yelled.

We pressed. Spikes flew, hammers pounded, shovels shoveled, ties were flung to the side. We ran like bandits, oblivious to the roof. I slammed into a roof bolt, was knocked on my back, and my glasses went flying. Even though all I could see was a blur, I got up and charged ahead anyway. I went by feel alone. We drove in the last spike just as the first man-trip rounded a curve and its glaring white spotlight was flung down the track at us. We backed off, watching it roar past. Its wind buffeted us. “Can somebody help me find my glasses?” I begged.

“I’ll look,” Bobby said. He wandered up the track, his light going from side to side. I peered into the shadowy gloom. I couldn’t even read the yellow sign with black letters that marked the main line. My light reflecting off it just made it smudgier, and even squinting didn’t help.

Bobby returned and handed me my glasses. “Here. Maybe you ought to tie a string to them or something.”

After we got out, we walked down Coalwood Main in silence. I was mulling everything, a mix of Dad and Tuck, Mr. Dooley, even Rita. Bobby was polite enough to let me do it in peace. Inside the Club House, I found Floretta sitting in the parlor on one of the folding chairs. She’d cleaned up but left the chairs and everything else in place. The room seemed to still reverberate with Mr. Fuller’s accusations and Dad’s lonely words of futile defense.

“Floretta, last night Mr. Dubonnet thanked Dad for protecting somebody, a union member. I’ve been thinking and thinking about who that might be. Do you know?”

“Yes, Sonny,” she said tiredly. “And so do you, if you’d give it two seconds of thought.”

I gave it three. I opened my mouth to name who I thought it was but she shook her head. “Just keep it to yourself. It was never supposed to go this far, see? It was all supposed to be swept under the rug. That’s what we do here, hide what we need to hide because it’s
our
business,
our
way. But the steel company’s got its business, too. Nobody’s ever seen them come after a man like they’re coming after your daddy. The only way he can save himself is by telling Coalwood business—what you’ve guessed now—and he ain’t going to do that.”

“But
why
are they after Dad? That’s what I can’t figure.”

She raised her hands toward the ceiling. “I don’t know about any of that. Mr. Fuller took off this morning, heading up to Ohio to report the dirty work’s about done, I imagine.”

“Jake didn’t go?”

She shook her head. “Judging by the empty whiskey bottle outside his room this morning, I think he decided to get himself drunk.”

“Oh, no,” I said sadly.

“I guess all this got him pretty rattled.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Poor boy. It’s enough to make anybody fall off the wagon, I guess. Jake’s between the old rock and the hard place. I didn’t used to see that, but I do now. Steel company gave him a job—what was he to do but to do it as best he could? Fuller told me before he left that the last testimony is to be next Friday. Not a real testimony, just a report of findings. Pretty clear what it’s going to say.”

“That Dad was negligent.”

“Yes, and Tuck Dillon was a fool.”

“And then Dad will lose his job and Mr. Dillon will have his good name smeared.”

“That’s the long and the short of it, Sonny.”

“What good will that do the steel company?”

She shook her head. “That’s what nobody can figure.”

I sat with Floretta, both of us thinking. There had to be something that could be done, not only for Dad, but Tuck, too. Tuck’s whole life had been sullied by the way he’d died. I pushed my glasses back on my nose. They were still gritty with gob where I’d dropped them. I took my glasses off and looked at them. “It’s the honor of kings . . . ,” I murmured.

“What is?” Floretta asked.

“To find the truth.” I stood up and walked to the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Floretta demanded.

“To talk to Jake.”

“What can Jake do?”

“Maybe,” I said, “deep down in his heart, Jake Mosby’s but a king.”

Floretta looked dubious. “He’s a steel company man, Sonny. And now he’s a drunk again. That’s all he is.”

Maybe so. Maybe not. I headed upstairs to find out.

38

THE THIRD TESTIMONY

A
WEEK
passed, Friday night came, and once more the town gathered at the Club House for what was to be the third and last testimony. In the previous testimonies, before things got going, the audience had gossiped and otherwise entertained one another. Now they sat quietly, even the C.O.W. ladies. It was as if they were gathering for an execution, which, in a way, I suppose they were. I took my place standing just inside the portal from the parlor. I’d already said a prayer. Mentally, I had my fingers crossed. Maybe, just maybe, something was about to happen that nobody expected.

Everybody knew where to plant themselves. Mr. Fuller took his place at the table. Jake came in late, pushing through the crowd. His hair was in disarray, and his work uniform looked like he’d been sleeping in it. He went to his chair in the corner. He glanced at me, gave me a nod and a wink. I nodded back. All I’d done was tell him what I knew, or at least suspected. He’d sobered up fast and headed out. Where he’d gone, what he’d done, I wasn’t certain. All I knew was he’d been gone all week, doing what he needed to do. I had high hopes.

Mr. Amsteader and Mr. Mutman, the inspectors, came in and found their seats. Dad and Mr. Bundini came in last. Dad’s expression was hard to judge. Grim but resigned, I thought.

Jake pulled up his chair and sat beside Mr. Fuller. Their heads moved together. Jake was doing all the talking, Mr. Fuller vigorously shaking his head. Jake got up and walked to the window and looked out on Coalwood Main. I studied his profile. He seemed composed. And he was definitely stone-cold sober.

Mr. Fuller banged the ladle on the table. “Let’s have order,” he said, which wasn’t difficult since hardly anybody was talking.

“We are here to conclude this business,” he said, “and make final recommendations. I’ve talked things over with the federal and state inspectors and I believe we are in agreement about the particulars.”

“We don’t know all the particulars,” Jake interrupted, turning from the window. “Not yet. I’d like permission to call another witness.”

Mr. Fuller banged the ladle down, although the room was as silent as a graveyard. “I told you the time for testimony is over, Jake,” he said.

Dad spoke up. “He’s right, Jake. You’ve got all you need.”

“Just one more,” he said, holding up his index finger. He ignored Dad and looked at Mr. Bundini.

Mr. Bundini nodded. “Go ahead, Jake,” he said.

“I’d like to call Mrs. Nate Dooley.”

Dad leaned forward, whispering furiously into Mr. Bundini’s ear. Mr. Bundini raised his eyebrows, then shook his head and put a restraining hand on Dad’s arm. I silently pleaded with Mr. Bundini to make my father be still.

Floretta was standing behind me. She poked me in the ribs with her finger. “This is your fault,” she said.

Dad stood up, pulling away from Mr. Bundini’s hand. “Jake, in a hearing on mine operations, you don’t have the right to call somebody who doesn’t work for the company.”

Mr. Bundini tugged at Dad’s sleeve. “Sit down, Homer,” he said firmly.

“Martin, you don’t know everything,” he said.

“I know more than you think I do,” Mr. Bundini snapped. “Now
sit down
. I’m your boss. Remember your own lecture: To give orders, you have to know how to take them.”

Dad sat.

“Mrs. Nate Dooley,” Jake said again, and Mrs. Dooley made her way in from the foyer. She wore a thin cotton dress with printed flowers on it and carried a lace handkerchief in her birdlike hands. She was wringing it like a dishcloth.

Floretta released a long sigh. “That poor woman.” She poked me again.

“I had to do it,” I hissed at her.

“God’s going to get you for this, boy.”

“I think He already has.”

“Hand on the Bible, please,” Jake said, pointing at the Good Book.

Mrs. Dooley was sworn in. She subsided in the chair and began to twist the hanky into knots.

Jake led Mrs. Dooley through the particulars of her identity. His voice was gentle but insistent, hers a mere whisper. Finally, he asked, “Mrs. Dooley, what does your husband do for Olga Coal Company?”

Her lips trembled. “He’s responsible for cleaning the bathhouse at the number one tipple.”

“How long has he had that job?”

“Since 1948.”

“Who gave him that job?”

Her voice got stronger. “Captain Laird.”

“Your husband has had that job for thirteen years. How many times, during all those years, has he actually cleaned the bathhouse, would you say?”

Dad erupted. “Jake,
stop it
.”

Mr. Bundini clutched Dad’s arm. Jake glanced at Dad, then continued. “How many times, Mrs. Dooley?”

“As often as he could, Mr. Mosby,” she answered, a bitter edge creeping into her voice. Her back was straight as a ruler.

“What kept him from going every day?”

“My mister was hit by a tram in the mine, got his head bumped against a crib. It left him . . . different.”

“So he can’t actually do his job, can he?”

Mrs. Dooley lowered her eyes, and shook her head.

Mr. Fuller seemed to come out of a trance. His head jerked up. “A secret man? Is your husband a secret man?”

“Some call him that,” she spat out. She looked into the silent audience, then down at her feet. “But mostly, he’s a good man who gave everything to his company. The Captain said—”

“The Captain doesn’t work here anymore!” Mr. Fuller growled.

“Amos,” Jake said quietly, “this is my witness.”

Mr. Fuller sat back after a sharp look from Mr. Bundini. Dad had dropped his chin into his cupped hands.

“Who would you say was your best friend in this town? Who helped you the most over the years?”

“Until he got killed, our next-door neighbor—Tuck Dillon,” said Mrs. Dooley, without hesitation. “My mister—Nate—always liked Tuck. They were almost like brothers. Tuck never had a brother, so Nate was it for him.”

“So Tuck helped Mr. Dooley—Nate—when he could?”

“Yes. He helped me give him his bath, and when Nate wandered, I’d call Tuck and he’d go after him.”

“Wandered?”

Mrs. Dooley allowed herself a cautious smile. “Every so often, Nate would realize who he was. Doc Lassiter says it’s like he’s got a short circuit in his brain. Sometimes a spark will jump across it and he’ll think he needs to go up to the tipple and go to work. Usually, the other miners would keep him safe. He wasn’t able to hold his thoughts together for too long, you see. Tag would bring him home most times, and Tuck sometimes did, too.”

“Mrs. Dooley, did Nate wander on the night of May the third of this year?”

I silently willed her to answer the question the way I was certain it had happened.

She nodded. “Yes. I thought he’d gone to bed. He does that sometimes when he gets scared. Thunder and lightning scares him, and there was enough of it that night. But when I checked on him, he was gone. Out the back door, I think. He’s done that before, just run away because he got scared. I called Tag, but his mama said he was out patrolling. So then I called Tuck.”

“About what time was that?”

“Eleven o’clock, thereabouts. Tuck said he’d go out and look for Nate. I told him to look up at the tipple first. Nate always felt safe there, for some reason. When I didn’t hear from Tuck for a while, I got nervous and called Loren—Mrs. Dillon. She said Tuck wasn’t back.”

“What did you do then?”

“I waited. What else could I do? The rain was fierce.” Mrs. Dooley raised her voice, as if she had to talk over the rain she was hearing in her mind. “Then Loren called—I don’t know what time—said Mr. Hickam had called the house wanting Tuck to go in the mine with him. She said she told him Tuck was probably already up at the tipple looking for Nate. I thought I’d better get on up there and see what was going on. If Tuck needed to go inside the mine, somebody would need to bring Nate home. I called Tag and this time he was home.”

I looked to my right, and there stood Tag at attention. He looked like he was made out of concrete. Not a muscle twitched.

“Tag came and got me,” she said, “and off we went. We found Tuck standing by himself at the man-lift, ready to go inside. He said he’d found Nate at the tipple but then lightning had struck nearby and Nate had taken off. Tuck had to chase him up in the woods, then wrestle him back to the tipple. Tuck said he was sorry, but Nate had got hurt. Nothing too serious. Maybe a broken wrist or a bad sprain.”

“You didn’t see Mr. Hickam?”

I glanced at my father. His chin was still cupped in his hands, and his eyes were closed.

“No. Tuck said Mr. Hickam had taken Nate off to Doc Lassiter, that we’d just missed them. Mr. Hickam was supposed to call me as soon as he got to the doctor.”

“Did Tuck say why
he
didn’t take Nate to the doctor?”

“Yes, but he told me not to ever tell anybody the real reason.”

I saw Dad rub his eyes, then lean his forehead against his hand.

“You have to tell us what Tuck said, Mrs. Dooley,” Jake said gently.

Mrs. Dooley looked at Dad. Her lips quivered and her eyes went sad. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hickam.”

“You have to tell us,” Jake said again.

She nodded. “Tuck said Mr. Hickam was worn out, that he had gone into one of his coughing fits—you know, those spots on his lungs and all—so he convinced him that he could handle checking for the gas if Mr. Hickam would deal with Nate. I think Tag and I must have passed Mr. Hickam and Nate on the way. I remember a car going past us.” She wiped her nose with her handkerchief. “Then Tuck rang the bell and got on the man-lift. It was the last time I ever saw him.” Twin streams of tears ran down her cheeks.

“Then what happened?”

“Tag took me home and then later Doc Hale brought me Nate. Doc Hale told me there’d been some sort of accident at the mine and Doc Lassiter and Mr. Hickam had gone on up there. Doc Lassiter had called Doc Hale to finish working on Nate’s wrist.”

Mr. Fuller came alive again. “None of this means anything except a man has drawn pay from this company for thirteen years for doing nothing and Homer Hickam knew about it. That’s a criminal offense, all by itself. It also doesn’t explain how Tuck Dillon got killed, except due to negligence by his supervisor, and that is cause to relieve him”—he pointed at Dad—“Homer Hickam—from his duties.”

“Amos,” Jake said. “Do me a favor, would you? Take off your glasses, put them in your shirt pocket, and stand up.”

“I don’t see what good that—”

“Just indulge me.”

To his credit, Mr. Fuller did as he was asked. Jake walked up to him and took the palm of his hand and thumped Mr. Fuller on the shirt pocket. Mr. Fuller was knocked back a step. “Hey!”

“Are your glasses broken, Amos?”

“They better not be!”

“But are they?”

“How can I be sure until I look?”

“Why don’t you look, then?”

Mr. Fuller reached into his shirt pocket and brought out his glasses. One of the lenses had been knocked out, and they were badly bent at the nosepiece. “You’ll buy me a new pair,” he grouched.

“Gladly, Amos.” Jake caught my eye and nodded a silent thank-you for the theory I’d given him. It was all because I’d lost my glasses that day in the mine, which had set me to thinking. “Tuck Dillon was nearsighted, although he hated to admit it. It was a gradual thing, his wife told me, and he tried to hide it most of the time. I think when Tuck got down to the landing and got in his motor, he found out that his glasses were broken, probably during his struggle with Mr. Dooley. That’s why his glasses were found broken
inside
his shirt pocket, not on his face or off in the gob somewhere. Tuck couldn’t see the signs to his section.”

Jake turned to the audience, then leveled his gaze on the inspectors. I stared at them, too. What were they making of all this? I would have floated another prayer up to heaven, but I figured there was a backlog by now.

“What would you do in that case?” Jake asked the inspectors. “How would you figure out where you needed to go in a coal mine if you couldn’t see?”

Floretta poked me. “I’m glad we got that boy on our side,” she whispered proudly.

“We?”

“Hush!”

The inspectors looked thoughtful but had nothing to say. Jake continued. “I know what I’d do if I couldn’t read the signs. I would count the turns. I think that’s what Tuck did. But if Tuck counted them that night, there would have been a problem.”

Jake went back to his chair, opened his notebook, and drew out a white form. “This is a completed Olga Coal Company engineering work order, signed off on the evening shift, May the second, 1961. This was the shift Homer ordered out of the mine when the storm hit. But before it left, this crew got its work finished. Their job was to put in a brick stopping and take out the turn leading into it. In other words, they sealed off a tunnel that led into an abandoned part of the mine. They also removed the sign for that turn.”

Jake paused, waiting for all he’d said to soak in. Then he continued. “If Tuck was counting signs to find where he needed to park his motor, he would have miscounted by one because of that stopper. Before the stopper was put in, there were nine signs on the way to his section. Ten West was the tenth one. I’m sure he had that memorized. He probably meant to turn into the ninth cut, the one he thought was just before his section. But because he miscounted, because one sign had been removed, he turned onto 10 West instead. He hit a gas pocket not fifty feet inside. That’s how Tuck Dillon died. It was an accident, pure and simple, and that’s all it was.”

I felt a nudge at my shoulder. I thought it was Floretta, so I shrugged it off. There followed immediately another nudge, this one more insistent. “Sonny boy. You’ve grown.”

I turned to stare at a woman as fresh and tan as if she’d just come off a sun-drenched beach. Her graying hair had a windblown look to it. Still, there was no mistaking who it was. “Yes, ma’am,” I said to my mother. “I sure have.”

“Pay attention,” she said, nodding toward the proceedings.

I went back to watching. Mr. Fuller was still fingering his broken glasses. “Homer Hickam still deserves to be fired,” he said. “He cheated this company out of thirteen years of false payments.”