Flame and fucking smoke.
It’s coming.
Sol knows it, this time. He can see it ahead of himself clear as fucking day, thirteen hundred feet underground. Down here in the wet, dusty stink of the Penn, again, again. Over the rattle of the ore car and the chattering shatter of the widowmakers on the rock face down the end of the drift, he can hear the screams and curses and gasping for air that’s coming, soon enough. His nose tests for the acrid bite of burning wood, his lungs pull tight inside him, searching for the tickle of ash in the breath he sucks in.
He knows it: it’s coming.
Flame and smoke. Flame and fucking smoke and twenty-one men dead. Twenty-one men will die today, Owen among them.
It’s coming.
Sol hears the clatter of a dropped prybar, sees Billy looking back at him from a few feet away, eyes wide with fear. Billy knows too. A moment ago they were drinking coffee and fighting down hangovers with greasy hash and eggs; a moment ago Sol was throwing dice with Billy’s old uncle, the scar-faced, smiling bastard who can freeze a cup of coffee with a breath. A moment ago, a year from now, a year that had happened and would happen again, unless Sol does something.
It’s crazy and makes no sense but Sol can see it shining back at him from the look in Billy’s eyes. Fear of a memory of a time that doesn’t yet exist. It makes no sense but Sol’s guts are in a tangle, his asshole tight as a saddle knot, sweat pushing through the grime on his forehead.
It’s coming, flame and smoke: the mine is going to burn.
“Go!” Billy shouts, pointing down the drift. “Fucking go, Sol!”
There’s no time to think it through, no time to wonder if he’s gone completely batshit and is going to wind up down the road at Warm Springs, under the care of his brother; maybe in a day or two he’ll be swapping stories with old John Bird, Billy’s dad, about the times their heads cracked open and all the sane leaked out, laughing and hollering about what a great hoot that was, dragged away screaming about fires and futures and all sorts of fucking things. No time for that now, John Bird, Sol thinks as he sprints as best he can down the drift, hunkered down, elbowing the boys out of his way, ignoring their odd looks, no time for crazy talk because this mine is going to burn, ha-ha, I know it, going to kill a passel of men, and Owen, and how about that brother of yours, Whatshisname, with the scars and the dice and the cigarette bets, owes me a favor, that one does, and I guess this is it. Maybe soon enough he and Lizzie can rest on some porch stairs at the hospital, of an evening, enjoy a smoke and a lemonade and talk about whatever it is that lunatics talk about. How’s Owen? she’ll say, How’s my baby that I burned up? Sol will laugh, squeezing her shoulder and drawing her closer, her head to his chest, scratch of her hair against his beard. Oh, he wasn’t burnt up, girl, I saved him that first time, didn’t I, and then I saved him again, that time I went crazy down the Penn. Saved the lot of those boys from a fire that never happened, hey? And they’ll hug closer and swirl their crazy thoughts together and things will be as good as it was when they both were sane, years and years ago when they were young.
Best not to think about it, not right now anyway, best to just take this chance and leave the thinking for later, once Owen and the rest of the crew are up at the Stope, tonight after shift, alive and not burnt up at all, drinking their Sean O’Farrells and bitching about the day’s work, making rude jokes about their respective heritages and the rest of it, griping about the Company and maybe looking for a girl or a fight or just a good drunk to try on. Leave it till then and then maybe, maybe, take Billy aside to a quiet place and talk, low and lunatic, about what the fuck and that smiling, scarred-up old bastard of an uncle of his, with the evil looks and Indian magic and the crazy that’s crawled into Sol’s head and all of that.
Right now, though: run.
Coughing around the dust in his chest, trying not to bang into anything, too hard anyway, Sol sprints and staggers down the line of the drift towards the shaft, looking for Owen. Soon enough he finds him, hunched over, body sprawled out at a forty-five-degree angle as he pushes an especially overfull cart of ore towards the shaft to be hauled up to the headframe. As the new boy, Owen gets the shit jobs and it’s a bit of a game for the others to see just how heavy they can make the cars; the drift is mostly level but the cart itself is heavy enough even empty, the wheels and rails thick with muck, and stuffed as full as possible. That car can get damn oppressive, pushed back and forth over the course of twelve hours. Sol knows it from experience, years and years ago when he was the low man, doing all the scut-work and shit details, but it’s an expected part of the job and Owen needs to build up some muscle anyway. The boy takes after his mother, lean and narrow-boned. Pushing a heavy cart won’t kill him.
Owen’s heeled forward, palms on the cart, arms stiff, legs spraddled out behind him, taking one steady step after another. The startled look on his face when Sol grabs the back of his shirt, pulling him upright, would be comical if Sol himself wasn’t so terrified about what is coming. “Are you OK, boy? Are you OK?”
“What?”
“Goddamn it, just follow me!”
“What? Sol, what the hell is going on?”
“Just follow me, boy! Don’t fucking argue with me, just follow and don’t get out of my sight, you hear, Owen? Don’t get out of my fucking sight!” Sol’s pulled the boy close, screaming the last into his face, knowing he won’t understand but trusting in the power of volume and spittle-flecked proximity to trump logic. Without further discussion, he runs off down the drift, dragging his son behind him, ignoring whatever it is the boy is saying.
A moment or two later they’re at the shaft, where old Torsten sits on a stool, reading a detective magazine under the dim shine of an overhead bulb. He looks up with placid unconcern, marking his place with a finger. “Sol,” he says. “And whatever your name is.” Torsten doesn’t stand on ceremony; he’s been down the mines for almost forty years, seen plenty of boys come and go. It’s too much work to remember all the fresh ones, he says, so he doesn’t even bother to learn the names of the new kids until he’s reasonably sure they’re the kind that are going to stay. “What can I do for you, Sol?” he says.
It’s then that Sol realizes that he has no idea what to do, how he’s even going to stop whatever is coming, now that he has the chance. Some screaming part of him just says take Owen and get the fuck out of the Penn, quick fucking sharp but, as soon as he thinks it, he knows that he’ll never let what’s coming find Billy and the rest of the boys. Or any of the other men, for that matter. But Billy knows what’s coming, that nervous, fearful part of him is saying, he’ll get the boys out. Might already be doing so, right now. Sol knows he can’t leave his crew, though, those boys that look to him, not even in the hands of Billy. It wouldn’t be right. They’re his responsibility. His.
He casts his mind back – forward? – trying to remember – what? – whatever it is he knows about the fire down the Penn, what happened – will happen, Sol, you crazy fucking old man – a year ago. Now. In the aftermath, before, in the half-assed Company investigation, they figured that the fire broke out on the 1200 level – right? am I remembering that correctly? – and it started from an electrical short or an abandoned miner’s candle or who the fuck knew what else. But 1200. Two hundred plus men down the Penn that day, scattered across levels, the fire starts, they pull most of them out from safe levels and Sol and his boys go out the Tramway, a half-mile away. Most of Sol’s boys. He grabs Owen by the collar, pulls him closer.
“Send me up to 1200,” he says to Torsten.
Torsten leans back, scratching one gnarled, yellow-nailed hand across the stubble on his cheek. “Why you need to go up to 1200, Sol?”
Sol doesn’t pause, just lets Owen loose and steps forward, grabbing the old Swede by the shirtfront. “Send me the fuck up to 1200, Torsten, or get ready to count your fucking teeth, old man. Get me up to 1200!”
Torsten assumes a look of affront and peels Sol’s fingers from his shirt, brushing down his chest with wounded dignity. There’s no call for this kind of behavior, his expression says. None at all. He’s a senior man, after all, proved himself down these mines for years added on years. Sol Parker should show him some respect. General courtesy.
“I ain’t no old man, Sol,” he says. “And you’re older than me, yeah. Older than me. No need to be rude, friend, I was just askin. But I send you up there, don’t worry.” He gestures towards the cage, still wearing his mournful, hurt expression, face like a slapped ass. Once Sol and Owen are inside, Torsten joins them – I go with you, yeah – taking what seems to Sol an inordinate amount of time ringing the hoist operator up at the headframe. By the time the confirming buzzes finally sound, Sol is ready to throw the old fucking Swede down the shaft.
– 4 bells and 4: 1200 level.
There’s a jolt and the cage starts moving upwards.
“Sol, what’s going on?” Owen hollers over the rattle of the lift.
Sol ignores the boy, trying to frame some kind of strategy. He can’t very well just start telling the miners to get out of the Penn, on no evidence at all, to just drop tools and fuck off up top because old Sol Parker has a scare up his butthole; when the fire starts he knows that the Company will damn sure try to hold him accountable somehow, if he does that, as a saboteur or on some other horseshit charge, negligence, maybe, no matter what he has to say. They’ll frame him up as a Wobbly anarchist or secret Bolshevik, burning up their mine. If, for some reason, the fire doesn’t start, if he’s wrong or just straight-up crazy, as he half suspects, the ACM will haul him over for that, too, and he’ll never find work again; they’ll tear up his rustling card and put him on the blacklist. Either of those options are fine and good, he’ll take them happily if it will keep all these boys safe, but the better bet is to just find this fucking fire and stop it before it happens.
And how in the hell is he going to do that? Just stroll around 1200, asking hey now have any of you boys seen a fire? Strolling around is about the extent of his ideas, just yet, though; maybe something better will come to him but, so far, that’s all he’s got. Best not to overthink it and, given the fact that he’s here at all, it seems wrong that he won’t be able to straighten things out. Best to shy away from that thought, too, though, wrapped up as it is in crazy or whatever kind of goddamn Indian witchcraft or acts of God or what the fuck ever. It’s too big of a thought to get in the head all at once without pushing something else out, so Sol just figures to ignore it for now and trust that he’s here for a reason, and that reason is to stop a fucking fire.
“Come on, boy,” he says, as the cage rattles to a halt on 1200. He steps out, dragging Owen behind him, leaving Torsten to his magazine. “Just shut up and follow me.”
Owen has no idea what’s happening. He walks behind Sol, who shuffles along, head swinging down low, side to side like a bear. For several minutes they work their way down the drift, the old man pausing at timbers, from time to time kicking them with his boot. Sol ignores the miners they encounter, who look at them curiously and then go back to their work. Whatever they’re doing, Owen is at least enjoying a break from pushing that heavy goddamn cart up and down the drift all day. It’s bullshit that he’s the one who always has to do it but Owen also gets it, that he’s the low man and gets hind tit, workwise. It’s paying your dues, he guesses, but at the same time he looks forward to the day when he’s not spending all shift at the ass end of a heavy ore cart.
If he even lasts that long. Owen isn’t sure that the miner’s life is the best fit for him. Maybe it just takes some getting used to, but the work is hard and, he hates to admit it, being down inside the earth scares the shit out of him. His dad and the others seem to pay it no mind, but Owen can feel the weight of every single foot of dirt and rock overhead, pressing down on him; sometimes the shaft walls, already narrow enough, push tighter and his breath catches in his chest, his eyes go a bit swimmy, until he can relax some. Just the thought of that that makes his head get a little light now, so Owen tries to focus on his dad, who’s still shuffling along, muttering to himself.
It’s strange being here with him, though, finally getting to know him some. Owen isn’t sure if he really likes Sol, not yet, anyway, given that the old bastard shunted him off as a kid because he was inconvenient or because of his mom or whatever the reason was, but he can see that there are at least a few things to admire about him. Which is a grudging thought but there it is. The other men look up to Sol, and he’s good at the work and seems fair and all that. He can be a pain in the ass and he’s a fucking taskmaster, but all and all there’s less to dislike about his old man than maybe Owen wanted to find when he first came to Butte.
His thoughts are interrupted by the sight of a big, big, man, damn near as tall and wide as Nancy, maybe bigger, even, blocking the drift in front of them. A pissed-off look on his face, fists the size of sledgehammers at his hips.
“What the hell you doing here, Sol?” the man says, his accent twist-mouthed and sharp around the edges.
Jesus fuck, not now, Sol thinks, looking up from his scan of the timbers. He’s never gotten on with this big fucker. Vlad, foreman of another mucker crew, who he crosses paths with more than he’d like, given their mutual animosity. Never got on with most of Vlad’s whole crew, really, Russians or Serbs or whatever the hell they were, the lot of them insular and distrustful of non-Russians or non-Serbs or non-whatevers. Pride in your heritage is fine and good but if you won’t drink with a man because he doesn’t speak whatever vowel-bereft language you speak, well, that’s just bullshit. Plus Vlad’s crew are a bunch of big, hard-knuckled bastards and Sol and his boys have come off second best in a scuffle or two with them over the years, of an evening, and that rankles.
“Vlad. Hello, son. Just looking for something is all.”
“Rob knows you are here?”
“Goddamn it, Vlad, don’t worry about what Rob knows or don’t know, OK? Now come on, brother, I need to get past you.” He tries to edge around the big Russian but Vlad moves back in front of him.
“Maybe I think you should be back at your level. 1200 is my crew today.”
Goddamn all fucking Russian bastards and their bastard Russian fucking crews, Sol shouts quiet inside his head, but instead says, “Just looking for something, Vlad. Just give me a minute and I’ll be out of your hair, hey?”
“You tell me what is you want and I find it for you.”
Sol eyes a prybar that’s leaning against the drift wall a few feet away. In another minute he’s going to pick it up and crack it across this stupid asshole’s thick Russian skull, is what he’s going to do, ring his chimes and then be about his business.
“Not sure what it is just yet, Vlad, OK?” Sol raises a placating hand, edging a bit closer to the prybar.
“You look for something but what you don’t know.” Vlad frowns theatrically, shaking his head.
“About the size of it.” A step closer.
“Best you look for it then at your level, Sol, khorosho?” The big man reaches a hand out to take Sol’s shoulder, none too gently but, when Sol takes a step away, he sees it, a thick wodge of candle, still burning, resting up against a timber that’s beginning to char at the bottom.
“You motherfucker!”
He pushes past Vlad, who’s caught by surprise; Sol takes three quick steps forward and brings his muck-caked boot down on the candle, squashing it into the rock and mud, twisting his heel and then scraping down along the timber until he’s sure that any spark is out, cursing more or less incoherently all the while.
“The hell are you doing, Sol?” Vlad steps close, his face darkening.
“You stupid Russian motherfucker,” Sol says. “Stupid big square-headed dipshit. Stupid.” He points to the timber and the smashed candle. “You’ll burn this whole fucking mine down around us, you dumb asshole. Do your fucking job, hey? Pick your fucking shit up.”
“Is one candle. Half candle.” Vlad kicks up a pat of wet, gluey mud, hitting Sol in the shins with it. “Is wet everywhere, old man. Nothing burns.”
Before he can stop himself, Sol steps forward, slamming his palms into Vlad’s wide chest, knocking the big man into the drift wall. Even though the Russian has most of a foot and seventy-plus pounds on him, not to mention being thirty-odd years younger, all the pent-up fear and teeth-grinding emotion from what’s happened has Sol ready to tear the bastard apart, or at least give it a good shot. Mercifully, Owen takes the opportunity to step in front of him, which gives Sol a brief splash of sanity, making him back down a shade. He contents himself with pointing over the boy’s shoulder, yelling.
“Do your fucking job, Vlad. You’ll get us all killed.”
“You don’t tell me how to do my job, old man.”
Vlad is pressing forward against Owen’s outstretched hands. Owen looks a bit like he does when he’s pushing the ore cart, although he never has to worry that the ore cart is steaming furious and going to beat the shit out of him. “Hey hey hey, fellas, come on now,” he says, tries to calm things down. Even though standing between these two must be the last place he wants to be and is probably going to get him killed. Sol knows he isn’t being fair to the boy but his thoughts are still jumping hot and crazy in his head.
“You stupid Russian fuck,” he says. “You stupid fuck.”
“Fuck you, old man. You say that again, you say that to me.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Rob Quinn is standing in the drift, hands on his hips, looking every shade of annoyed. Vlad and Sol turn to look at him, Vlad fuming, Sol guilty because he knows he’s acting like an asshole, right then, even if he can’t help it. But there are goddamn circumstances, right, circumstances.
“Sol, what the hell are you doing up here?”
“Old man is looking for something he don’t know, Rob.” Vlad spits a mucousy glob on the ground between Sol’s feet.
Quinn points a thick finger. “Goddamn it, Vlad, didn’t ask you, I asked Sol. And what the fuck are you doing standing here? If you’re done playing fuckin grabass maybe you can go do some work, huh? That’s what you’re paid to do, dipshit, not to stand here running your fuckin mouth. Now get the fuck out of here.” He points down the tunnel and Vlad slumps off, shouldering Sol out of the way, muttering to himself.
“Thanks, Rob,” Sol says. Sheepish.
“Fuck you. And Jesus, Sol, save that fuckin stuff for after shift. You know that. The fuck are you doing here, anyway? Why aren’t you down with your crew?”
Sol doesn’t really know what to say, so he mumbles something about hearing that someone needed some help with something, vague bullshit that trails off into something approaching incoherence. Quinn is looking at him with an expression somewhere between annoyance and just plain disgust by the time Sol finishes.
“Jesus Christ, Sol, get the fuck down to your crew.” He nods at Owen, standing there mostly ignored now. “Hope you don’t take after your old man here, kiddo. We’re here to fuckin work, right? Jesus, you two.” He walks off, shaking his head.
“Hey Rob,” Sol calls after him. He thinks he’s done what he needs to do, but there’s some worry still, a nagging feeling scratching at the inside of his skull. It’s not like he has an instruction manual for any of this. Quinn turns, face still sour. “Just keep an eye out today, OK?” Sol says. “Got a funny feeling, is all.”
“You got a funny feeling.”
Sol shrugs. He knows he sounds stupid, but needs to say it anyway. “Yeah, I got a funny feeling. Woman’s intuition or something. Just look out for the boys, OK?”
“Fuck, Sol, don’t tell me to do my fuckin job, because, of the two of us, I’m the only one who’s fuckin doing it right now. Now take your boy and your fuckin woman’s intuition down to Thirteen and do your fuckin job. Jesus.” He turns and strides off down the drift. “Get the fuck out of here, Sol!” he calls over a shoulder.
Sol and Owen walk back down the tunnel. Sol feels hollowed out inside, shaky on his legs now. He’s trying not to think. From time to time he glances over to Owen, who’s walking next to him and, then, from one step to another, he knows that his words to Quinn are unnecessary. There is no fire, there will be no fire. If he’s done one good thing in this life of legion and numberless mistakes, bad choices, here it is. He just feels it, feels it in his belly, warm and hot like a shot of whiskey. How he managed it, how he stopped the fire from a year on, back now from a bet, he doesn’t know and isn’t nearly ready to study on it, not for a long goddamn while, really, but there it is.
Torsten is still sitting in the cage, reading his magazine. He doesn’t look up as Sol and Owen get into the lift. Must still be in something of a snit, because, when he rings them down, the car drops sharp and hard and then heels up fast. It bangs Sol, unprepared, into the side of the car, where he cracks into a shovel that’s propped, against all regulations for sure, in the corner. The handle of the shovel knocks painfully into his shin and he curses the brokedown fucking Swede as the lift descends again, more slowly this time.
“Don’t blame me, Sol,” the old man mutters. “I’m not the one who runs the machine, I just send the ring, yeah.”
Yeah, you already sent up the drop-hard signal, you old fucker, Sol thinks. Notice you didn’t get all crashed around, braced as you were. It’s fine, though: Torsten will get over himself and Sol had been an asshole earlier, after all. He’ll buy the old Swede a drink after shift and that will be that. Sol leans down, rubbing the rising knot on his shin, grimacing at Owen, who’d made something of an unmanly squeak when the lift dropped. You’ll get used to it, boy.
Back down on 1300, the cage comes to a halt. Motioning Owen out in front of him, Sol gives Torsten a friendly slap on the shoulder as he exits the lift. “First round’s on me later, hey, old man,” he says. Torsten nods and smiles and that’s that.
Further up the shaft, the spark, kicked up from the shovel Sol banged into a moment ago, is burning into a thick smear of the grease that coats the lift cables.
It drops down onto a dry patch of timber.
***
The old sorcerer kneels in the dark, fanning the spark until it becomes a flame. As it did before, as it ever will.
Soon now.
We are sharpened, like a blade, each time.
Soon.
We are sharpened, or we are broken.