Light to the Hills: A Novel (16)

By the time Rai’s oldest son had turned thirteen, the Depression had dug in its heels and decided to stay awhile. The operation near Pickins, Kentucky, managed to stay afloat, with eager laborers a dime a dozen. A ton of loaded coal earned roughly thirty-one cents, and a hard twelve hours might buy some flour, seeds, or sugar. Harley had been in and out of the mines since he was Finn’s age, as had his father before him, God rest him. It was honest work if you had two good hands, a strong back, and a healthy dose of pluck. Another wage earner in the house could give them a boost, see them through another winter.

Rai had watched Finn like a hawk as the time inched closer when he would have to go with his father to do his part. The last few months before his birthday, he’d milked the daylight from the open sky each day, lingering over chores and fishing down in the creek until it was so dark Rai wondered whether he could see to bait his hook. He’d let on to Rai that if he thought about it too much, his chest tightened up, like it was practicing for the time when he wouldn’t be able to draw a clear breath. She knew he was afraid, plain and simple.

“That just means you got a lick of sense ’tween your ears,” Harley had told him. “It’s them that ain’t afraid that you want to watch out for.”

Rai had hardly been able to get Finn to eat much since the cave-in, and the less he was apt to eat, the lower her spirits sank. It was bad enough Harley had to go. Four days in, he swore his arm hardly gave him any pain, but she knew that was just words to ease her worry. Every time he’d kiss her as he headed off, Rai’s stomach clenched with concern. Harley was a grown man with a family to support. He could make his own choices. But Finn—her firstborn, the boy she’d carried and cared for—Rai was crushed thinking she’d almost sacrificed him for, what? Sugar and shoes?

At least Finn had submitted to her doctoring. Despite doing her best to keep his crushed leg clean and wrapped, it didn’t look good. She’d tried packing the wound with spiderwebs, chimney soot and lard, and even pine resin. She made teas of sassafras and powders from lady’s slipper, which she mixed with water and fed to Finn three times a day to strengthen his blood. She’d tried killing the infection by applying turpentine and sugar; nothing seemed to help. He even allowed her to bathe him, as she was accustomed to doing for Harley.

Since the day Harley first started in the mines, when he’d return home at the end of his shifts, Rai would have a tin washtub filled with warm water set up in the middle of the room and a bar of lye soap ready. Harley would strip to the waist, his overalls hanging loose over his knees as he sat in a chair and bent over the tub. Rai rubbed and scrubbed her husband’s back, arms, and head, the water running black off him while he told stories of the men on his crew. Rai knew he did it to make it seem familiar, easier for the day Finn would join him.

“Hambone and Stinkbug usually work on the hauling crew; they’re newer. Then there’s Stove Pipe and Rooster with me on the blasting line.”

’Most every miner had a nickname pinned on them if they stayed around long enough. “Why Stove Pipe, Daddy? Why Rooster?” Sass asked.

“Stove Pipe been working in the mines so long he’s got a crook in his back like a pipe joint going out the roof, and Rooster’s right proud of hisself. He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”

“Can you see anything down there? Is it like midnight in a cave?” Sass had asked. She voiced the questions her brother left unasked.

“They give us headlights we wear on our caps and lanterns, and there’s lights on the walls ever’ so many feet.”

“How do you find your way?”

“Well, now, there’s marks along the way, air vents and such sometimes. You just get along and follow the feller in front of you. There’s a heap of folks here and there, doing their own jobs. You ain’t never far from a body. Or, if you’re working the ponies, they know the place by heart.”

One morning, Harley had come home carrying a case covered by an old piece of shirt cloth. He’d waved away Rai’s bar of soap and set the curious box on the table. Harley had whipped off the cloth like a performing magician to reveal a small yellow-and-gray bird about the size of a common sparrow.

“This here’s what they call a canary,” Harley had explained. “Up in the main office, there’s little stacked rows of these here cages, maybe ten or twelve, ever’ one with a wee bird in it. Each time a crew goes in for a shift, we take one of these critters with us. Feller we call Beaker makes sure they’re all good to go.”

“Down into the mine?” Finn frowned. “They must not like it much.”

Harley had shrugged. “Don’t seem to mind it. Sometimes they even whistle and tweet a bit. They’re friendly little buggers, but this one here’s got a busted wing. Clumsy feller dropped the cage, and he must have got jostled. You’d be doing ol’ Beaker a favor to look after him till he gets mended.”

“Why do you take them in the mine, Daddy?” Fern had asked.

Harley scratched his beard. “Well, see, sometimes when you hit a vein of coal and chip away at the rock, stuff from inside the ground leaks out, what’cha call monoxide. You can’t see it, and it don’t smell like much, ’specially with a snoot full o’ coal dust. Well, these chirpy fellers let you know right quick if there’s gas floating around in the tunnels, so you can hightail it out for some fresh air.”