I was in the back row, next to Arthur. Jenny was right in front of me, between Ben and Mikeszabo. Her hair was hanging over the back of the seat, just inches in front of me. It looked and smelled really nice. Long and brown, with highlights. Very shiny. In fact, all of Jenny looked nice. I haven’t mentioned that before, but I should have.
Arthur was asleep with his head against the glass the entire way up there. I pulled out my PSAT book and tried to do some math problems, but I was way too distracted to work. I was still angry, scared, and pumped up about our plan to go after that college guy.
It wasn’t long before we were cruising down the main street of a small town. Catherine Lyle found the mine quickly and pulled into its parking lot. It was a pretty small operation, with a gift shop, the mine itself, and a train ride. I guess it gets crowded some days, but on this day the lot was empty.
Mrs. Lyle parked the Suburban in a space right across from the gift shop and we trooped in. All the gifts in the shop—and there were hundreds of them—were based on anthracite coal. They even had coal candy.
A short, skinny woman with a pointed nose stood behind the cash register. We lined up in front of her and purchased tickets for the next tour. A guy in coveralls and a miner’s helmet sauntered in and watched us, smiling. As soon as we all had tickets, he announced, “Are you ready to get to work? Okay, come on, then!”
He led us outside toward the mine entrance. A small engine was sitting there on railroad tracks. It had three yellow coal cars attached to it. The guy climbed into the engine cab and called out, “Hop on board, you coal miners!”
Wendy Lyle and her stepmother got into the first coal car. Arthur and his stepfather chose the second, and I joined Jenny and the guys in the last one.
The guide told us, “This is a real coal mine, folks, although no one is currently working it. It has been in operation in various forms for nearly one hundred years.
“We’ll be following the tracks of the coal cars down into the mine, where the temperature is always fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit. We will get out, walk around, and see the sights common to coal miners approximately seventy-five years ago.”
The little train took off with a lurch. We pushed through a pair of wooden doors, leaving the daylight behind. We rolled past walls of rocks and wooden beams, moving steadily downward, our way lit by a series of red lanterns hanging on the walls.
The guide pointed out, “Those lanterns are electric, folks, but back in the day they would have been kerosene.” Then he added, “Those wooden beams you see won’t really help you in a cave-in, though. Nothing will. They are there mostly to make noise before they crack. The miners had a saying: ‘When the timbers start talking, you’d better start walking.’ ”
The train came to a halt in an open area crammed with prop items—tools, wheelbarrows, dummies of men and mules. The guide got out and walked over to a wall of pure anthracite. We followed and formed a semicircle in front of him.
“Seventy-five years ago,” he began, “coal miners and their helpers would chip away at veins of anthracite just like this one. They would fill carts with it, and mules would drag those carts to the surface.”
He pointed to Ben, Mikeszabo, and me. “The mules wouldn’t stop there, though. They’d keep pulling the coal up the hill to the breaker house. That’s where boys like you would be waiting. For ninety cents a day, you would sit in the breaker house and sort out the good coal from the rocks and dirt.”
Mikeszabo looked at me and whispered, “That’s not such a bad deal.”
I whispered back, “No. That’s more than I make.”
Jenny asked the man, “What about girls? Could they do that?”
The guide was adamant. “No, ma’am! There were no breaker girls. Just boys. The girls were back home learning how to cook and wash and sew.”
Arthur muttered, “Righteous.”
Jenny sneered at him playfully. But then she complained, “That’s not fair.”
The guide repeated, “No, ma’am. But that’s how it was, and everybody went along with it. Men and women. Boys and girls.”
It was at this point that I first noticed Jimmy Giles.
He did not look well. His face was pale and he appeared to be sweating, despite the fifty-two-degree temperature. His eyes were darting around.
But everybody else was focused on the guide, who continued talking. “And while we’re discussing what’s fair and what isn’t, here’s a question: Who can tell me how many pounds are in a ton?”
Wendy answered before anyone else could. “Two thousand.”
The guide nodded. “Well, you kids know that, and I know that, but the mine owners did not. They insisted that there were two thousand two hundred pounds in a ton. They called it a ‘long ton,’ and they made the miners add another two hundred pounds to every ton if they wanted to get paid.”
As we all contemplated that injustice, Jimmy took a big step away from the group.
Catherine Lyle asked him, “Are you okay, Mr. Giles?”
He whispered hoarsely, “Doomed. I’m doomed to die down here.”
“What’s that?”
“I gotta get out!”
Catherine Lyle turned to the guide. “Where is the nearest exit?”
He looked puzzled. “Well, there’s the way we came in, and there’s the way we’ll go out.”
“This man needs to go out. It’s an emergency.”
I guess it took the guide a moment too long to respond. Maybe he was hoping to finish his speech—I don’t know—but Jimmy could not wait. He squeezed behind the last coal car, got onto the tracks, and started back the way we’d come—walking first and then running.
The guide yelled, “Sir! You can’t do that.” He told us, “Everybody hop back in. I’ll get us out right now.”
We all clambered back into our cars, except for Arthur. He took off after Jimmy, scrambling as best he could over the wooden rail ties.
The train lurched forward and quickly picked up speed. We barreled around several curves before we hit another pair of doors and broke into the daylight.
The guide screeched to a halt, jumped out, and ran to the entrance. We all followed.
The guide pushed open the left wooden door and peered inside. He called over to us, “I see them! They’re okay!”
A minute later, Jimmy and Arthur emerged, blinking in the sunlight. Arthur had his hand cupped under Jimmy’s arm. Jimmy was covered with sweat and he was breathing hard, but he did manage to say, “I’m all right. I’m sorry, everybody. I’m sorry.”
Catherine asked, “Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Giles? Some water?”
Jimmy nodded, so Catherine and Wendy took off for the gift shop.
Jimmy repeated, “I am really sorry. I guess I wasn’t ready to go back down there. I messed up everybody’s trip.”
We all gathered around and assured him he hadn’t.
“It’s okay.”
“We saw enough.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
We moved toward the gift shop in a bunch. Catherine Lyle met us at the door. She was holding Jimmy’s bottle of water. No one else had money, so we just stood around and watched him drink it.
I should say no one else had money except Wendy. She went back in and shopped for jewelry. She wound up purchasing an anthracite heart on a silver chain.
A black heart.
Yeah.
When we were all back in the Suburban, Jimmy apologized some more, and everybody reassured him some more.
Arthur, who hadn’t said a word on the ride up, talked the whole way back. In a lowered voice, he told me, “Jimmy Giles was a wildcat miner when I first met him, but I don’t think he did it for too long.”
“Well, it’d be tough to be a miner if you were afraid of tunnels.”
“Yeah. It’s like if you were a roofer and afraid of heights.”
