The Complete Crime Stories (7 page)

It dawned on him that this girl was Ike's wife.

He sat down on a truck bumper, sucked nervously at his cigarette. Some of the people who had guffawed at the ice-cream-cone episode in the afternoon looked at him, whispered. The policeman called over the woman who had been explaining things, and she and the girl, together with two children, went hurriedly over to a car and climbed into it. The policeman said a few words to Ike, and then went back to his duties on the road.

Ike walked over, picked up a mess kit, squatted on the ground between tents, and resumed a meal apparently interrupted. He ate sullenly, with his head hulked down between his shoulders. It was almost dark. The lights came on. The camp was not only connected to county water but to county light as well. Two boys went over to Ike, hesitated, then pointed to Paul. “Hey, mister, that's him. Over there, sitting on the truck.”

Ike didn't look up. When the boys came closer and repeated their news, he jumped up suddenly and chased them. One of them he hit with a baked potato. When they had run away he went back to his food. He paid no attention to Paul.

In the car, the woman was working feverishly at the starter. It would whine, the engine would start and bark furiously for a moment or two, then die with a series of explosions. Each time it did this, the woman would let in the clutch, the car would rock on its wheels, and then come to rest. This went on for at least five minutes, until Paul thought he would go insane if it didn't stop, and people began to yell: “Get a horse!” “Get that damn oil can out of here and stop that noise!” “Have a heart! This ain't the Fourth of July!”

For the twentieth time it was repeated. Then Ike jumped up and ran over there. People closed in after him. Paul, propelled by some force that seemed completely apart from himself, ran after him. When he had fought his way through the crowd, Ike was on the running board of the car, the children screaming, men trying to pull him back. He had the knife from the mess kit in his hand. “I'm going to kill her! I'm going to kill her! If it's the last thing I do on earth, I'm going to kill her!”

“Oh, yeah!”

He seized Ike by the back of the neck, jerked, and slammed him against the fender. Then something smashed against his face. It was the woman, beating him with her handbag. “Go away! Git away from here!”

Ike faced him, lips writhing, eyes glaring a slaty gray against the deep red of the burns he had received that morning. But his voice was low, even if it broke with the intensity of his emotion. “Get out of my way, you! You got nothing to do with this.”

He lunged at Ike with his fist—missed. Ike struck with the knife. He fended with his left arm, felt the steel cut in. With his other hand he struck, and Ike staggered back. There was a pile of shovels beside him, almost tripping him up. He grabbed one, swung, smashed it down on Ike's head. Ike went down. He stood there, waiting for Ike to get up, with that terrible vitality he had shown this morning. Ike didn't move. In the car the girl was sobbing.

The police, the ambulance, the dust, the lights, the doctor working on his arm, all swam before his eyes in a blur. Somewhere far off, an excited voice was yelling: “But I
got
to use your telephone, I
got
to, I tell you! Guy saves a man's life this morning, kills him tonight! It's a
hell
of a story!” He tried to comprehend the point of this; couldn't.

The foreman appeared, summoned the third shift to him in loud tones, began to read names. He heard his own name called, but didn't answer. He was being pushed into the ambulance, handcuffed to one of the policemen.

Coal Black

F
rom up the entry came a whir, the blackness was shot with blue sparks, a cluster of lights appeared and approached. Lonnie opened the trap and the motor passed through. He closed the trap, sat down, and wished he was a motorman. Then he debated whether to eat one of his remaining sandwiches, but decided to wait awhile. Then he whistled “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” It was one of the three tunes he knew, so he whistled it again. Then he just sat there, and found this pleasant. Of course,
you
might not have found it pleasant to be alone in a tunnel so dark its coal walls sparkled by comparison, with only a carbide lamp to see by and nothing whatever to keep you company. But
he
minded neither the dark nor the solitude: he was so used to both that he hardly noticed them.

As for the tunnel, it had its points. It was always the same even temperature, winter or summer; the air was fresh, the intricate system of blowers and traps taking care of that. He had helped dig it, shore it, and wire it, so that it seemed a part of him—as the whole mine did for that matter. For this was the only world he had known in all his nineteen years; and he was just as at home in it as you are in your world, and found it just as familiar, just as real, just as satisfying to the soul.

After a while he heard something on the other side of the trap. Instinctively he looked at the rails. If a rat scuttled by, that meant run for his life; for a rat knows, before anybody else knows, when something is about to crack, and it is time to move, and move fast. But no rat appeared, and in a moment he got up, opened the door in the center of the trap, and peered through. At first he saw nothing. He unhooked the lamp from his hat and shot the light around. Huddled against a toolbox, her face smeared with coal dust, her dress torn so that in places her skin showed through, was a girl he judged about sixteen. She stared at him, then began to whimper:

“I'll go away, honest I will, if you just show me the way out. I don't mean nothing. I just come in to peep.”

“Who let you in here?”

“Nobody. I hid in a car.”

“Where? You mean you hid in it outside?”

“I don't know. Yes, of course it was outside. I hid in it, and then the train ran a whole lot further than I thought it was going to. And then I slid out. And then my matches give out, and it was dark and I got lost. And then I kept falling down, and—oh my, look at my dress! Please show me how to get out. I want to go home.”

“Where you live?”

“In the north end of town.”

“I never seen you before.”

“We just moved in. My father, he enlarges pictures. We move from one town to the other. I wanted to see a mine. Please show me how to get out.”

“Set down.”

She sat down dejectedly beside the trap, and he pondered. You see, it's bad luck for a woman to enter a mine, and whenever this happens, the mine has to be “blown out,” as it is blown out when somebody gets killed; that is, all hands have to quit work for the day, lest some dreadful catastrophe ensue. The trouble was that this was the first day's work the mine had had in two weeks, and the last it would have for an indefinite period; indeed, all they were doing now was loading empties for the tipple, so the men could have a little work and stray orders could be filled. If he reported this, and they blew the mine out, it might go hard with this girl; for desperate housewives, counting on a full day's pay to replenish empty shelves, might not be amused if they found they had been cheated by a ninny who merely wanted to peep.

On the next creek a woman who had dashed into a drift to say something to her husband had been so badly beaten she had to be taken to a hospital.

“You know what it means? A woman in a mine?”

“Yes; but I didn't mean nobody to see me.”

“Ain't no way you can get out. I can't leave this here trap, and that place you come in, it's at least two mile away, and you can't find it, and anyway you got no light. Ain't no way you can get out, except we wait till quitting time, and then I take you out by the old drift mouth.”

“All right.”

“You got to stay hid. You heard what I said? They find you in here, something's going to happen to you. And they find out I let you stay, something's going to happen to
me,
too. After they turn me loose, I can't work in this mine no more, and maybe I can't work in
no
mine.”

“Somebody's coming.”

“In the toolbox—quick!”

She climbed in the toolbox, and he closed the cover, wedging a stone under it so she could have a little air. He sat down and with elaborate nonchalance resumed his rendition of “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” Han Biloxi was approaching. Of course, all that was visible was a bobbing point of light; but to Lonnie a bobbing point of light had special and personal motions, so that he knew it was Han Biloxi without knowing how he knew it or even wondering how he knew it. When Han was within hailing distance he stopped whistling and yelled, “Yah, Han!” There was no answer. Han came on, and when his face could be seen, it was grave. “All right, kid. We're blowing out. Jake's train is on the main tunnel, third entry down. He'll hold for ten minutes.”

“Blowing out? What for?”

“Eckhart got it.”

“What?”

“Rolled ag'in' the rib.”

“… When?”

“Just now. I seen it myself. Car jumped the switch and got him. He didn't have a chance.”

“Gee, I rode in with him.”

“You got ten minutes.”

Han stepped through the trap, went on to notify miners farther up the entry.

Lonnie lifted the toolbox cover. “You heard him?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Now you see what you done!”

“Please don't say that.”

“He's dead, ain't he?”

“You don't have to put it on me.”

“I'm putting it where it belongs.”

She stood up, climbed out of the box, and faced him. “It's not true. Just because I'm in here, it don't mean that's why he got killed. I won't believe it!”

“Whose fault is it?”

“All right: What are you going to do now?”

“I got to go out on Jake's train.”

“And leave me in here all alone?”

“I got to go on Jake's train. If I don't show up, they start looking for me. If they don't find me, they think something happened to me.”

“And no light. And pitch dark.”

“Nobody asked you in here.”

“My, but you're hateful.”

She turned her back to him, and the nape of her neck looked disturbingly childish. He felt a twinge of guilt. She walked around, shaking her head angrily, and then dashed for the toolbox. She didn't have time to climb into it. She crouched behind it as six or eight miners, following Han Biloxi, stepped through the trap in gloomy silence.

Lonnie called to Han: “Tell Jake not to wait for me. I'm going out by the old drift mouth.”

“What's the matter—you crazy?”

“There's a roll of wire up there I want. I'm making myself some rabbit traps. Maybe catch something while we're laid off.”

“Come on, boy—stop acting like you got no sense. Whoever hear'n tell of that, going through all them old dead entries just to get a roll of wire? Can't you go up there tomorrow, from the outside?”

“I want the wire tonight.”

“Cut the jawing and let's go.”

“That's right; if the kid's crazy, let him do what he wants—and come on, let's get out of here.”

They went on, their footsteps growing fainter, the splotches of light contracting until they were a small cluster of luminous blurs, when abruptly they disappeared.

She stood up. “My, but it's lonely in here!”

“Come on.”

He picked up his lunch bucket and they started down the entry. He led the way on the footpath beside the track, she stumbling along behind. When they had gone a short distance he glanced back, and was just in time to see her reel and wave crazily with her arms to keep her balance. Like a cat striking at prey, he batted her arm down, and she fell, snarling. “What you hit me for? I'm doing as good as I can. That lamp, it don't give me no light. You can see, but I can't.”

“Watch that wire.”

“What wire?”

“The feed wire—can't you see it? Up there on the side, at the top of the rib. That's why I knocked your arm down. You touch that thing, it'll kill you so quick you won't even know what hit you.”

“Oh.”

“We better walk on the track, if that's how careless you are. If you can't see behind, walk up beside me. And anyway, why didn't you say so?”

Side by side they walked between the rails, stepping from one slippery metal tie to the next. He put his arm around her to steady her, and unexpectedly found himself touching her bare flesh. Hastily he shifted his grip, taking her arm. He began trying not to think how soft her skin was, and how warm.

Soon he turned into another entry, and abruptly the top dipped. The height of a mine tunnel depends on the thickness of the coal from which it is dug. The seven-foot seam they had been in now thinned to less than five feet, so that it was impossible for them to stand. He went along at a sidewise shamble, his back bent to clear the top; for low entries were an everyday affair to him and he slipped through them without effort. But she kept bumping her head, and presently broke into hysterics. “I can't stand it no more! I got to stand up! It's pressing down on me! And my back hurts!”

“Ain't much more of the low top. Set down a few minutes, then you won't feel that way.”

They sat down, she panting and convulsively straightening her aching back. He didn't look at her. But he was thoroughly aware of her now—of every detail of her slim shape, of those places where her dress was torn, of the heady, sweetly sensuous scent that hung about her. Presently they went on. The top lifted, and he turned again. She gasped at what she saw.

A dead entry is indeed a terrifying spectacle, and could serve as a chamber in some horrible inferno. Untended by man, the top erodes from the air and forms great blisters, like the blisters on paint, except that each blister is five or six feet across and five or six inches thick. The blisters then crack and fall, piece by piece, to the floor, which is thus covered with jagged shards of stone that look like gigantic shark teeth. Add that one touch can bring a blister crashing down; that the fragments underfoot can cut through the thickest shoe; that wiring, timber, rails, and all other signs of human activity have long since been removed; and that in fact nothing human ever comes here—and you can form some idea of what the abandoned parts of a coal mine are like. They proceeded slowly, hugging the wall, he ahead, she at his heels, holding tight to his denim jacket. Then they turned into another, worse than this, and then into still another. They had gone only a short distance in this when there was a report like a cannon shot and the lamp went out. She screamed.

“It's all right. Some top fell down, that's all. Stick close to the rib, like I do. It generally falls in the middle.”

“Is the lamp busted? Why did it go out?”

“Air. Concussion blew it out.”

“Please light it. The dark scares me so.”

“Sure.”

He had, in fact, already unhooked the lamp from his hat and was banging the flint with the palm of his hand. Sparks appeared, but no light. She moaned: “I knew it was busted.”

“It ain't busted. Carbide needs water, that's all.”

He opened his lunch bucket, to pour in water. Then he remembered he had drunk all his water. He waited, hoping a few drops might still be left. Nothing happened.

He closed the bucket, set it down, puckered his lips, preparatory to priming the lamp with spit. Then his mouth went dry with fright and he couldn't spit. For what he had touched, when he set down the bucket, was a hand, cold and unmoving. She felt his breath stop. “What's the matter?”

“We took the wrong turn.”

“Are we lost?”

“No, we ain't lost. But we're in the haunted entry.”

“The—”

He placed her hand over the cold thing he had touched. She screamed, and screamed again. “That's the stone—the stone they put up for him because they couldn't get him out. With the hand chiseled on it, holding a palm. And he's in there, and he keeps tamping his powder.”

“I don't hear nothing,” she whispered.

“You will. … He tamped in his powder, and lit his fuse, and started out here to wait for the shot. Then the whole room caved in. And he keeps going back there to see why it don't go off, and then he tamps in his powder again, and—”

“I still don't hear—”

But her words froze in her throat, for off in the rock somewhere began a faint
clink, clink, clink.
Then it stopped. “That's it—that's the needle. Now comes the tamping iron.” The sound resumed, reached a brisk crescendo, and stopped again. “Now he's coming out! Now he's coming this way!
And we can't move; we got no light!”

They were crouched on the floor now, locked in each other's arms, in an ecstasy of terror. Several times the sound was repeated, and they strained closer as they listened and waited. But fear is a peculiar emotion: it cannot be sustained indefinitely at the same high pitch. In spite of his horror of the ghost, he gradually became aware that there was something distinctly pleasurable about this: lying in the dark with this girl in his arms, shuddering in unison with her, mingling his breath with hers; indeed, with an almost exquisite agony he began to look forward to each repetition of the sound. He thought of her flesh again, and in a moment his hand was touching her side, patting the torn place in her dress, as though this were what the circumstances called for. She didn't seem to mind. On the contrary, his thick paw apparently soothed her; so that she relaxed slightly, and put her head on his shoulder, and sighed. He patted and patted again, and each time the sound would resume they would draw together.