Foxfire (15 page)

What a strange occupation mining was.

All these divergent personalities, stupid, intelligent, petty, violent, even weary and remote like Tyson, were yet bound tight together by loyalty to the mine. It was more than identification in a shared enterprise, most men felt that for their means of livelihood. The mine was a beloved entity, as a ship is to seamen.

Even Mablett, stubborn and ill-judged as were his methods, cared deeply about the success of the mine. Give the devil his due, thought Dart. Of Tiger Burton he did not think at all.

Dart shared with most native Westerners a large tolerance towards eccentricity. Here against the vast panorama of mountains and desert each individual became sharply silhouetted, traits intensified, passions more violent. The air itself bred sharper men than the soft and foggy East where corners blurred into a monotonous smooth mold.

It was not, he thought, now cooled down completely from his anger earlier at the party, Mablett the man whom he disliked so much. Dart could forgive personal vituperation and blusterings if the end were gained, as it had been. But he could not overlook the continuing stupidity, the threat to the whole fabric of the mine.

He reached the shaft and signaled to the hoistman, then while he stood waiting in the cool rock chamber there came to him a great love of this earth around him, the preciousness of the primitive return to the great mother, the beauty of the darkness and silence deep in the secret heart of the mountain. He felt again, as he had earlier out on the surface of the mountain, an extension of consciousness and a clarification.

The cage rattled down to a stop in front of him. “Hello, Mike,” he said to the old Irish eager. “Take me up to the three hundred, will you?”

“You going over to the old workings, sir?” asked Mike, surprised. “'Twill be mighty dark and lonesome, over there. The men was glad they didn't have to work there tonight. They said you changed the orders, said the big bosses didn't even know you changed 'em.” He winked up at Dart, slyly admiring.

Dart shook his head—thus gossip ran like wildfire through the mine. “Of course, Mr. Mablett knew it,” he said repressively. “We'll start re-timbering there tomorrow, so it won't be dark and lonesome any more. You'll be telling me it's haunted next.”

“Well, it might be,” said Mike. “Them Cousin Jacks keep hearin' the Tommyknockers.”

“I'll go scare the little dears away,” said Dart, stepping out into the pitch blackness of the 300 level. The cage clanged and rattled upwards toward the surface. Dart bent his head so that his lamp illumined his wrist watch. Two o'clock already. He thought with contrition about Amanda, lying there alone in the bed waiting for him. Mining's a tough profession, my girl, he said to her, and it's tougher to be a miner's wife. Almost he regretted the impulse that had sent him over here. An impulse that had come while he was waiting for the cage and worrying about the mine's welfare. An impulse born partly of hunch and partly from a subconscious memory.

He hurried, half crouching along the tunnels of the old drifts. They were not high enough to accommodate his six feet two, and the hard skull-guard hat on top of that. These old workings had been untouched since shortly after Red Bill Cunningham's death in '98, when the Boston Company bought the mine for a song, since Red Bill's original high-grade vein had suddenly pinched out. The new owners started sinking the Plymouth shaft to the west of the old Shamrock, and eventually found just enough gold-bearing ore to keep them going, as it still did in diminishing quantities. No one had bothered with the old workings for years, but now Tyson and Mablett were right. The time had come for recovery, for extracting from the old mine the remnants of ore which had been disdained in the lavish bonanza days.

But that won't take us far, thought Dart sadly, as he crawled up over the rotten timbering to the manway and into the old No. 33 stope.

He examined the pillars of rock which had been left to support the stope's roof when the rest of the ore was mined out. Not really high grade, might run around fifteen dollars a ton, but at that a hell of a lot better than the stuff they were pulling from the new Plymouth vein. That was running about nine and not too much of that, at the moment.

They'd show a loss again this month, and the Eastern stockholders would squawk, but Mr. Tyson would accompany the report with one of his lucid, beautifully philosophical letters giving them hope for next month, when the cross-cut went through, when they hit the vein again. And the stockholders and the Company president in Boston would be soothed, and wait once more. They had faith in Tyson, in the magic of his name and past reputation. Poor old boy, thought Dart, and yet despite his deficiencies the old man still had value to the mine, as a cohesive force no matter how remote, and as a liaison officer with the East.

Dart tucked his sampling pick in his belt and clambered down the manway again to the drift below. It was not for ruminations about Tyson, nor even for another confirmation of the rotten state of the timbering that he had entered the old workings tonight.

He wanted to examine the far western end of the old 300 drift. The spot where Red Bill's original mine staff had given up some thirty years ago.

On an earlier visit his keen eyes had unconsciously noted some tiny grooves on the rock surface, the slickenside. He found it again now, and the marks made by pebbles when the fault occurred. From the direction and pressure of these marks he suspected that the slip had gone north, and besides there was the tiny quartz outcrop he had seen on surface, hidden in a hollow beneath a jumble of diorite and cactus.

Maybe only a pocket, maybe nothing, and yet he was almost sure. He'd examine the surface indications again in the morning, but he was as sure as anyone can be in the chancy and romantic science of mining. Drive a blind cross-cut right here, he thought. I think we'd hit something good. That old Shamrock vein didn't pinch out, it side-slipped in some uncharacteristic way. I'm sure, but who's going to listen to me? Not Mablett, certainly, nor little Jones who had naturally given this spot perfunctory examination and agreed with the original geologists. Tyson then—thought Dart. I'll make him listen. He nodded, and turned back to stumble through the maze of tunnels. He lost his way once but went back and retraced his steps successfully, buoyed by a very real optimism.

It would take patience, he'd have to bide his time and pick the right moment for the effort to convince Tyson. And there'd be renewed clashes with Mablett, of course. But there did not have to be, he thought suddenly. If Tyson could be convinced, Mablett need never know who originated the idea of the blind cross-cut. Dart had absolutely no desire for personal glory, and much as he hated subterfuge, he was prepared to do violence to any of his inherent traits—for the good of the mine. Take the odium and the blame later—if the cross-cut were opened fruitlessly, but for the present and in case of,the success in which he devoutly believed, keep himself out of it entirely except to Tyson.

He was whistling “My Sweetheart's the Mule in the Mine” when Mike again appeared down the Plymouth shaft to pick him up.

“Jeez, Mr. Dartland,” said the skip-tender, his grizzled little face lengthening, “don't be doing that.”

“What?” said Dart, stepping into the cage and ducking his head as usual.

“Whistling underground. 'Tis bad luck.”

“Sorry,” said Dart, grinning. “But I was feeling good. I didn't hear any Tommyknockers either, Mike.”

“They've too much respect for you, sir.” Mike grinned, too. He turned his head and addressed the cable, “But wouldn't you think a young man'd be out raising hell on a Saturday night, 'stead o' traipsin' around in a mine when he don't have to?”

“Well,” said Dart as they came to the surface and the cage stopped, “there were some things to see to.”

Mike nodded and he twisted his head towards Dart. “You're a mighty good foreman, Mr. Dartland,” he said, “I've seen plenty of 'em come and go through the years, and I know.”

“Why, thanks, Mike.” Dart was touched. How rare and startling was praise. Really undeserved, too, when you had a job you loved, when even the setbacks and frustrations and personal squabbles appeared tonight as challenges, as necessary hurdles set by life on the track to any worth-while goal.

He glanced at his watch, as he entered the change house again. Three o'clock now, and if it weren't for Amanda he would not have left the mine, since at seven-thirty he wanted to be here for the day shift. How much simpler to turn into the bunkhouse for a few hours, as he had often done before their marriage. He could phone from the mine office, doubtless waking up Mattie's niece, Cora, at the switchboard, and then get her to run up to Amanda with a message. Even as the idea crossed his mind he rejected it. He kicked off his muddy boots and yanked down the pulley with his good clothes, before starting for the showers.

He raced down the mountain in the cold dawn air, jog-trotting in the effortless gait Tanosay had taught him long ago, and he let himself into his shack just as the gilded flickers began to dart from their nests in the giant saguaros, twittering their tiny “Wake-up! Wake-up!”

Amanda was asleep but she stirred as he came in and opened her eyes. He saw traces of tears on her face, and she looked up at him with bewildered reproach. “I thought you were never coming,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “Poor baby.” He sat down on the bed and gathered her up in his arms.

She smelled of perfume, and she had put on a new ecru lace and chiffon nightgown. It slipped down below her breasts as she slowly, reluctantly raised her arms to him. “You
said
you'd be right back. It was so lonely here.”

He began to kiss her, hard and deep, dissolving from her eyes the darkness of resentment, and dissolving from his own heart the first impulse of exasperated pity, as he saw her lying there, waiting to be made love to, perfumed and beautiful and ready for the act of love which alone seemed to give her reassurance.

They were happy there in the sunrise hours, islanded in content, whispering and teasing a little, floating in the voluptuous aftermath of fulfillment. With tenderness he shared her mood; he let her pretend that Lodestone did not exist, or the mine and its problems, or the cluttered shack and lumpy ill-made bed on which they lay.

He gave her willing respite for those three hours, and when he at last got up and started for the kitchen to light the stove, he laughed softly at her expression of dismay.

“Oh, God,” she said rousing herself from the drowsy peace. “Dart, you're not going back to that damn mine already!”

“Yes, my love,” he said, “I must. Get out of the hay, trollop, and put the coffee on while I shave.”

She made a face, and touched one foot to the floor, then she turned around and fumbled in the bed. “I suppose I ought to put something on.”

He glanced at her through the open kitchen door and snorted. “Well, maybe, until we can buy some shades. But hurry up with the coffee, naked or not.”

She pulled on her nightgown and pattered over the linoleum into the kitchen. Dart, already dressed in his khaki pants, was crouching to see in the mirror over the sink while he shaved. The mirror which was hung for Amanda was much too low for him. Amanda, flinging coffee into the percolator basket, looked at him with eyes of deep love. Even semicrouching, even shaving, Dart had a lean easy grace.

“Oh, darling—” she said with a laughing catch in her voice, “I love you so. Can't we always be close together like this? Then I could stand anything.”

He wiped his face and hands on the grayish, sodden towel, turned and smiled at her.

“Is there really so much to stand?” he questioned, without reproach, but she flushed and bit her lip.

“No—of course there isn't. I'm a pig. A spoiled brat.” She cracked an egg on the edge of the frying pan, hurrying, and some of the white flipped onto her lace and chiffon nightgown. She dabbed at it while she tried to spread grape jam on bread for Dart's lunch box.

He leaned down and kissed her head on one of the rumpled yellow duck-tails. “Sweet brat,” he said, “you'll grow up, someday.”

“I don't want to,” she answered laughing, as she scooped the egg on the plate and gave it to him.

He had been gulping his coffee, but for a second he put his cup down and glanced at her unconscious rosy face. She looked extraordinarily pretty, fussing over his lunch box, her sea-blue eyes dark with concentration. No, she doesn't want to, he thought.

“I think I'll be down off the hill by six, anyway, Andy,” he said quietly. “I'll try not to be late tonight.”

I
T WAS
two weeks before Amanda went up to call on Calise Cunningham in the ghost town, and there made a discovery which profoundly affected her life. Amanda had been interested in Dart's suggestion that she go see Calise, but she caught a stuffy head cold and the resultant lethargy left her no energy for anything but chores.

On the morning of February second, Hugh dropped in, as she was pumping water onto the breakfast dishes.

“How are the snuffles now?” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Want some more nose drops? And have you got a cup of coffee left in that funeral urn?” He pointed at the large old-fashioned percolator the Dartlands had found in the shack.

She nodded and poured him a cup. “Snuffles about gone,” she said. “But I don't seem to have much pep.” She wiped a plate and put it on the shelf.

Hugh looked at her keenly. She was thinner than she had been when she arrived, and pale, though of course without make-up most women looked pallid. “You ought to get out more,” he said. “Bustle around. This climate's supposed to be quite healthy, you know.”

“Well, I am going to the post office, pretty soon,” she said with a faint smile. “Might be letters from home. There isn't much else to do, and at least Tessie Rubrick throws me a kind word now and then.”