Old Earth (5 page)

• • •

LONDON

“I must say, we put out a first-class publication,” Gruber admitted while reviewing another galley page.

“But, my boy, I think you should have more on Soufrière. After all, the volcanic activity is what people come to see when they’re not working on their tans. And considering the Petit and Gros Pitons are the remnants of three hundred thousand year old lava domes, give our readers a little more meat with their gravy. Always remember the senses. I can still smell the sulphur springs. I’ve never taken in a nastier whiff of anything, but it doesn’t stop tourists from going there. Find a literary way to work it in. ‘The anger of the earth,’” he suggested, “‘The heat burns all life at the root and the sickly grey tint rises and then disappears against the blue Caribbean sky, proving once again that beauty wins out.’ Something like that.”

Gruber’s prose impressed Kavanaugh. “Sir, if I live to be twice your age I wouldn’t have half your writing talent.”

Gruber waved off the compliment. “Thank you, but it’s wasted on the tourists. They scan the articles, book their trips and lather up with their lotions. During their fifteen minute bus stops, they run in and take cellphone pictures with that fake clicking sound. Like it’s a film camera. Ridiculous. No art to it. Then it’s back on the bus. That’s travel today. Not like when people really valued the experience.”

The conversation, like so many, turned into another diatribe. However, Kavanaugh believed that some of it blurred the lines between the publication of
Voyages
and the work of
Autem Semita
.

“Make sure features contains some subtle theological or historical subtext. Not too much to lose the casual reader; enough to satisfy subscribers interested in a few relevant facts. And why? Because that will keep you on the path. And that is why you are here.”

Gruber looked at the galley page again. “But back to the work at hand. The spread is wonderful,” Gruber said. “Beautiful pictures. The aerial shots are amazing. Step by step, we get closer to God.”

When he was satisfied that Kavanaugh was clear on all the editorial changes, he invited his associate to take one of the two Louis XIV chairs in his office seating area.

“No, not that one,” Gruber stated. “Try mine.”

“Oh, I can’t, sir.”

“It’s important for me to see how comfortable you are in it.”

“But Mr. Gruber.”

“Relax, but you’ll still have to listen to me.”

“I hope for a long time, sir.”

Gruber studied how Kavanaugh sat, how he held himself. He all but peered into his mind. There were more things he had to understand about his heir apparent in the time he had left.

“Time?” Gruber considered the word. “How would you describe
time
, young man?”

“Time. Time is how we measure our lives. It is the space we inhabit as we figure out the manner in which to fill it. We wear time. We breathe time. We run…” Kavanaugh paused, “we run out of it.”

“Insightful,” Gruber noted. “I prefer to consider Tennessee Williams’s view from
The Glass Menagerie.
‘Time is the longest distance between two places.’”

Kavanaugh liked the quote.
The longest distance between two places.

“And the job, no the duty you’re inheriting, is to maintain that critical distance between the two places that we guard. Then and now.”

Kavanaugh’s pulse quickened. He stroked his scalp again.

“You look anxious.”

“Do I? I’m sorry.”

“Be patient.” Gruber’s tone changed. “I’m not going to die on you today.”

“Sir, please accept my apologies if I…”

“Accepted. Now tell me what you know that is not between the covers of our next edition.”

“Not in the magazine?”

“What our
other
research tells us.”

“Thank you,” the younger man answered. “Well, the Soufrière cave was abandoned. A little more oil exploration off Grenada. And no one will be able to get back into the mountain in Barbados. So, nothing of any concern.”

Gruber’s tone abruptly changed. His old eyes bored down on Kavanaugh. “My dear friend,” he said without an ounce of warmth, “there is never
nothing
of concern. Never. How can we determine what has value if we don’t take everything seriously? We sailed on the Mayflower and survived the gulags. We explored the Antarctic and traveled to the four corners of the globe. Our people have been to the moon, for God’s sake. We’re always concerned. How we act on that concern is the real issue.”

Gruber closed his eyes and lowered his head, a sign that more was coming.

“Satellite telephones. Computers. Even the blasted Internet that we pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep secure. Information, Mr. Kavanaugh. I demand information. You must as well. Do I have to live longer in order to train someone else?”

“No, sir.”

“Then get a full grasp of it, Mr. Kavanaugh, before it’s too late! Out, now. Out of my chair. You’re dismissed.”

As Kavanaugh left the office, he heard the unmistakable sound of a pill bottle being unscrewed. Martin Gruber was taking more medication. Kavanaugh smiled. The job would be his soon and these egotistical rants would be over.

Six

NEW HAVEN, CT
THAT NIGHT

There was no shortage of boxes, books and piles of paper for McCauley to wade through in his two bedroom apartment. That had to do with the fact that there no reason for McCauley to stay organized. Or more accurately, no one to stay organized for.

After stepping over his work on his way to his lonely bed, he closed his eyes and constructed the summer campsite in his mind. His tent would serve as home and office. Outside there’d be multiple areas to collect, sift, examine, and catalog the inevitable findings. As for sleeping quarters, two per tent: the two women in one, the men in the others. At any rate, it would start out that way. Likewise for the two showers provided by the park. The latrines would be downwind, though that was a bit of a misnomer. The Montana summer would be hot and dry, and with the exception of rolling thunderstorms, relatively windless.

He could predict the routine and prepare for it. His graduate students would come in excited. They’d find
what
and
who
they had in common before deciding whom they’d befriend. They’d listen to him for a few days, then begin to think they know more. He’d settle them down. Some might think about leaving, but they’d all stay. They always did, because by the second or third week, they’d actually find something interesting and it would reinvigorate their sense of purpose.

Hooking up usually hit week three. When partners changed in week five, an uncomfortable silence would fall over the camp. McCauley had the solution for that. A wild night at the bar; laughter, and talk about the sexual and mating habits of the dinosaurs. The detailed descriptions always brought laughter and obliterated the walls that had invariably gone up or the silos where they’d retreated.

The rest of the term would become a pure joy of discovery, growth and understanding. No one returned to grad school the same. Friendships would be forged for life. In some cases, marriages.

McCauley had seen it all over the years. He closed his eyes and focused on each of the students’ vitae. He believed that some would eventually make significant contributions to the field of study. Others could become more effective teachers because of the experience. And the remaining students? Still an enigma. They might give it all up or…he didn’t know.

• • •

LONDON

Colin Kavanaugh couldn’t sleep. He kept going over reports he’d recently read. Maybe there was information he hadn’t valued correctly.
Damn the old man,
he thought.
He’s right
. He vowed to go back, study everything and learn.

Seven

APRIL 18, 1913
UNIVERSAL COLLIERY
SENGHENYDD, WALES

It could have been 1713, not 1913, for all that the Welsh town offered. Little had changed for the lives of the citizens except that now they worked in the mines. Since the discovery of coal in the late nineteenth century, the people of Senghenydd and its neighboring areas went to work underground extracting fifty-six million tons of coal each year.

Like most small mining towns in the hills of Wales, Senghenydd was quaint and rural. Nothing bucolic or romantic. The people hungered for work, and the work made them hungry. And the work was grueling. That was life—chosen or inherited. Men were slaves to the bituminous coal, an unforgiving, dangerous employer. Women bore babies, prayed that their husbands would return for dinner, and fed them if they did.

There was also God and country. God, country, and family, to be precise. Those were the tenets most people lived by and voted for. In that order. Their faith couldn’t be shaken, no matter how difficult the job was or how devastating a mine disaster might be. They would always return to God, country, and family. The order of things.

The man who drove a 9.5 horsepower Standard Rhyl over the dirt roads through the Aber Valley to the mining office came to preserve such order.

He was two inches taller than six feet, with a Roman square jaw, piercing blue eyes, and jet black, wavy hair. The man hid a muscular build inside a loose-fitting, already dusty gray jacket with matching pants. He knew right where to go. Past the engine and the machine houses. Past the sheds. Nearby was the tipple-tower, a skeletal iron structure that covered the mouth of shaft #1. Soon he’d take the lift down, but first he walked up the metal steps to the single-story, ramshackle field office. The flimsy spring-hinged door snapped shut behind him, creating a loud bang.

“Mornin’,” he said.

“Nothin’ good about it,” replied one of the two men in the room.

The snarky remark came from the forty-five year old plump, balding, short, irascible company general manager lazily sitting in the far end of the room. Another man sat at a desk working, perhaps cooking the books. He offered no comment.

“I didn’t say there was. Just ‘mornin.’ I’m Anthony Formichelli, Regional Inspector of Mines. Here to look at things.”

The man in front stopped and looked up from charts he was going over. He established eye-contact with the visitor for a fleeting moment, then broke it off.

“Go away,” bellowed the man from further back. You fuckin’ assholes were just here last week.”

“He was scheduled,” Formichelli stated.

“And he received ten pounds for doing nothing and going away. One hundred times a miner’s day wage.”

“Yes. Well, I’m the unscheduled guy. And I’m here.”

“Okay how much do you want? Twenty? Don’t you people ever think you’ve gotten enough?”

“I’m not here to take your money, Mr. Dwyer? It is Mr. Dwyer?”

“It is. Wilem Dwyer. If you’ve not come for sterling what are you here for?”

“Mr. Dwyer, I’m here to examine a portion of your mine.”

“You’re crazy. None of you guys ever really want to go down. That’s what the money’s for. So you don’t. Not today. Not ever.”

“Today is different,” Formichelli said in an uncompromising voice.

“Why is that?”

“Because eighty-one died in 1901 and you had another disaster recently with nothing to show for it.”

“Coal. We have coal to show for it. That’s what we do here. Dig coal out of the damn ground. We get our hands dirty. You guys do it by gratefully taking our payoffs.”

“I didn’t come for a payoff. We’re going downstairs together.”

Dwyer decided to be coy. “Look, I get it. You don’t want to take it in public. So we do it down there.”

“We do what I need to do in your mine.”

“For Christ’s sake, there’s nothing but coal. Fuckin’ tons of coal. Save yourself the trip. I’ll give you thirty-five!”

“I’ll forget about your bribe so long as we go now. If you don’t, then I’ll see to it that you’ll never have the opportunity again. I’m sure someone else would be happy to become General Manager. Like…” Formichelli nodded to the man with his head in his papers, his inside contact he’d met only a week before.

“Okay, okay. The main shaft good enough?”

“As a matter of fact, no. I want to see your new excavation. I believe you call it Lloyd George, the new spur off Central Link.”

“How?”

Formichelli didn’t let him finish the question.

“It’s my job to know.”

“Look,” Dwyer argued as he reached into a till box. “I’ll give you forty-five. How about fifty-five? You go away richer than when you arrived. And alive.”

Formichelli pushed his overcoat aside and revealed a sidearm. His hand went to the weapon. “You’ll take me all the way to Lloyd George. If you don’t…” he glanced over to the other man again. That’s where he left the thought.

Dwyer’s number two stopped his work. His eyes darted nervously, but his reaction was unseen by his boss.

“We’ve hardly broken through. Not much to see. Come back in two weeks. We’ll start all over,” Dwyer said, trying unsuccessfully to get rid of the visitor.

“Today,” Formichelli replied. “Now.”

Dwyer gave the stranger a long hard look. He was serious. Serious enough to kill.

• • •

The rickety mine shaft elevator started with a jolt.

“Uncomfortable?” Dwyer observed.

“Not at all.”

Formichelli had been in coal elevators and deep into caverns, wells and caves throughout Europe and even in America. But Dwyer was right. The rides always gave him the willies.

Through the patchwork metal roof he saw six motor-driven wires attached to the top of the cage. To the sides, guide rails ran the length of the shaft. They kept the car and counterweights from swaying during descending and ascending. It was the coal miner’s lifeline. Formichelli would have to trust it.

“Just get us down in one piece,” he added.

The ride took six minutes before the elevator stopped at the foot of the main shaft, Central Link. Like all the tunnels it was named after roads in Cardiff. Dwyer lifted the bar to the elevator gate and said without an ounce of real concern, “Mind your head.” The overhead support beams were difficult to see in the spotty lamp light. “You can stand most of the way. But then again, you better be ready to duck some. How’s your back?”