“Hey, George!” some of the kids cried, and Ivy June saw the relief on the boy’s face.
“Give us the names of the men they know are alive,” a woman pleaded.
“We’re trying to get that now. Charlie’s down at the mine checking. As soon as he calls, I’ll tape the names on the door back there,” Brady said, motioning to the Bible study room.
Ivy June clutched her daddy’s arm. “Where could all that water come from, Daddy? Underground river or something?”
“Probably an abandoned mine next to this one,” he said. “Sometimes they fill up.”
“And nobody knew it was there?” Ivy June said, angry tears filling her eyes.
Someone else asked the question: “How come they didn’t know water was there? How come they was drilling where it wasn’t safe?”
“We’d all like to know that,” Brady said. “Could be they had a faulty map, or management didn’t do an accurate survey—I’m not the one to ask.”
“Is there a rescue team there now?” Daddy called out.
“They’ve called for one, but I don’t know who they’ve got,” said Brady. “They don’t get here soon, I swear I’ll go in there myself.”
Ivy June tried to imagine her grandfather crawling to escape the rush of water, when it even took him a while now to get up out of a chair.
Most of the time, he’d told her once, he was squatting down or bending over in tunnels not more than four feet high. Or he was crawling on his hands and knees. A sixty-four-year-old man had no business at all doing something like that. If it was the big coal company he’d worked for as a young man, he’d said, they wouldn’t have taken him on at this age. But when they had mined what they wanted and closed operations, they’d sold to a small company that went in to get what was left. The small company wanted experienced men, and if you had a pulse, Papaw once said, they’d take you, long as you didn’t complain.
Why hadn’t he complained? Ivy June wondered. Why hadn’t he done something else? Each time he went into the mountain, he was taking a chance.
She cried.
Darkness fell, and a cold rain drummed on the church roof. More casseroles arrived, along with cakes and freshly baked pies. The sanctuary smelled of fried chicken, sausage and sauerkraut, wet concrete, and mud from the boots of men who tramped back and forth from their fruitless trips to the mine. Many relatives sat in their cars outside the church, too numb to come inside, listening for news on their car radios.
Catherine tried to help out by dialing the mine office herself on her cell phone. If they answered, she was ready to hand the phone to Ivy June’s dad. But always the line was busy, as Brady had warned them all that it would be.
Feeling she could no longer stand the suspense, Ivy June got up to use the restroom, then impulsively walked out the side door and set out blindly along the road toward the mine, pulling her jacket up over her head. But when she reached the roadblock, a policeman stopped her.
“Where you headed, miss?” he asked, aiming his flashlight in her direction.
“My grandfather’s down there,” she said, weeping.
“I’m sorry, but only emergency crews can go by right now,” he told her. “We’ve got some bulldozers coming to clear a path for a drill rig.”
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Ivy June said angrily. “Just waiting and waiting and not knowing anything …”
“Well,” he said, “I do know what it’s like. My son’s down there.”
Ivy June stopped, chastened, and then, unable even to say she was sorry, she turned away, her tears mixing with rain. Her father was coming toward her.
“Come inside, girl,” he said, leading her back toward the church.
“Daddy,” she cried in a small voice, “if anything happens to Papaw, what are we going to do?” And as soon as she said it, she regretted the question, for, looking up, she saw that her daddy’s face was as sorrowful as she’d ever seen it. He didn’t answer, only squeezed her hand.
How could this be happening the day after Catherine’s mom had her operation? What were the chances that these two girls, the only ones in the exchange program—the first Thunder Creek had ever had—would have something bad happen to their families almost on the same day? Trouble wasn’t supposed to come in fours, with the fourth being worst of all! It didn’t make sense, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t even likely, and yet—it was real.
Catherine was standing on the church steps, motioning toward them. “Come inside!” she called. “They’re going to read names.”
Daddy sat down in the pew beside Mammaw, Ivy June next to him and Catherine on the end.
Brady stood before them, holding a sheet of paper. His face was grave, and the room was still as a mountain.
“I just got back from the mine,” he said, “and here’s what we know: we have three miners aboveground, including Smit Wilson and Les Crowley; Tom Reeves is the third. Got nineteen men trapped but alive and accounted for—they got through once on the voice-activated phone—five men missing, and two men dead. The families of the two have been notified, and I’m sorry to report the names of Easter Preston and Mose Hardy.”
“Not Mose!” Mammaw gasped.
Some people began to cry. It was a name—both names—that Ivy June had heard mentioned now and then. She could not even blink. She waited.
“Here are the five who are missing,” Brady continued. “And remember, folks, there are lots of places these men might be.” He looked down at the list again, “Eldon Potter, Ted Hatfield, Eli Dodd, Spencer Mosley, and Bill McClung.”
“Oh, Ivy June!” said Catherine. But Ivy June had her face buried in her daddy’s sleeve, and he embraced his mother.
The Red Cross set up some cots at the back of the sanctuary, and a few more down by the altar. They also handed out blankets and aspirin.
Lying on a wooden pew, Ivy June made a pillow of her blanket, then shared head space on it with Catherine, each girl pointed in the opposite direction.
Ivy June didn’t think she could sleep. Wondered if she would ever sleep again, but woke only once in the night when she felt someone cover her up. She opened her eyes in the morning to the sound of rain still falling and saw that her daddy had placed his jacket around her shoulders. Mammaw slumped in one corner, her head tilted back, a pillow under her neck, snoring softly.
When Ivy June went to the restroom at the back of the church, she found a bottle of mouthwash and paper cups, courtesy again of the Red Cross. She and Catherine drank orange juice at the long table, now bearing doughnuts and sticky buns. Mammaw woke, and while Catherine was putting together a breakfast for her, Ivy June went outside to look for her father. He was there on the front steps, smoking, talking to the other men.
“Any news?” she asked.
Daddy shook his head.
“Least they’re lettin’ some of us past the barricade now,” one man said. “They got four turbine pumps going, and a borehole going to the nineteen men trapped in the south tunnel, ‘cause that voice-activated phone they got down there keeps goin’ out.”
“And … the men in the north tunnel?” Ivy June asked.
Daddy shook his head. “There’ve been no other bodies washed out, Ivy June. That’s all we know.”
The morning, and all the miners’ relatives with it, seemed to move in slow motion. Each time Catherine called the mine office, the line was busy. Finally, her cell phone battery gave out.
Ivy June’s legs were stiff and achy, and she felt groggy. She ate, not because she was hungry, but to stop the pains in her stomach. When Catherine offered to brush her hair, Ivy June sat still and closed her eyes to the brushstrokes, like a small child obeying orders.
Then, when the rain let up, Ivy June took a slow walk around the cars in the parking lot. She was heading back inside when someone grabbed her around the waist. She turned and found herself in Shirley’s arms. Her friend hugged her hard.
“Ivy June, I’m so sorry.” Shirl sniffled. “Lord, I’m sorry.”
>
“I know,” Ivy June gulped, hugging her back. When they finally let go, Ivy June asked, “Is it still Wednesday?”
“Wednesday, twelve o’clock,” Shirl answered.
“What are you doing out of school?”
This time a smile played around Shirl’s lips. “Always wanted to skip, and figured this was as good an excuse as any.” She grew serious again. “Anyway, I wanted to find you.”
“I see somebody over there waving at you,” Ivy June told her, noticing a beat-up Chevy on the road in front of the church; then she recognized Fred Mason in the front seat beside an older boy who was driving.
“Yeah, me and Fred are going to the Big Happy for lunch with his cousin. Lots of kids skipping. Whole town’s torn up over this. You want to go with us? Get your mind off things for a little while?”
Ivy June shook her head. “No, you go. I know you’ll come back, once we’ve heard.”
Shirl nodded and hugged her again, then walked off toward the Chevy.
Ivy June made one more lap around the parking lot, watching the car drive off. She wanted in the worst way to be one of the laughing girls at the Big Happy Sub Shop, watching some customer try to eat the four-foot sub all by himself and win a supersize T-shirt. Wanted to be in a car with somebody—boys, even—laughing, going places. But wishes wouldn’t help.
Mrs. Hedges, a neighbor from Vulture’s Pass, leaned over Mammaw there in the pew. “Emma, I’m going up to the house to make some chicken and rice to bring back tonight. I could stop off at your house and fetch whatever you like, you needing something.”
Mammaw’s eyes were tired and so was her voice. “Thank you so much, Naomi. Russell’s not got himself another truck yet, so we haven’t a way back and forth. Jessie was here last night on her way home from work but hadn’t a thing with her we could use. I need my medicine—Ruth’ll give it to you—and something warm for my feet. My knee-high boots, maybe. And my old green jacket behind the door.”
Catherine heard and walked over. “I could go up with her, Mammaw, and help. I need some of my stuff, and the battery charger for my cell phone so I can call Dad.” She turned to Ivy June, who was resting her head on one arm. “Anything you want me to bring back?”
“We’ll be home tomorrow,” Ivy June said, her eyelids heavy, her voice flat. “The water’s going down all the time, and we’ll be home.”
Catherine looked at Mammaw. “I’ll see what I can find,” she said.
News reports came from the mine all afternoon and evening. First the man named Charlie posted them on the door of the Bible study room. Then Brady. Water had filled the whole mile and a half of twisting passages and chambers of the mine, like a huge underground lake. The rescue workers were now pumping water from several different places, and the water had begun to recede. Through a test hole, the men trapped in the main straight reported they were all right. Morale was high, and rescuers had even heard them singing. But when they drilled test holes to the north passages, all they got was water.
Ivy June curled up at the end of the pew, one blanket under her head, another tucked around her body. She was shivering, not because she was cold, but because she was thinking of cold. Of water and air of fifty-nine degrees. Of mud and rock, and how much food was in Papaw’s lunch bucket. How long the battery-operated lamp on his helmet would work.
And then Catherine was kneeling beside her.
“I’m back,” she said. “I got some clean clothes for you, your toothbrush and paste. Brought some pillows, too. And this.” She took Ivy June’s hand and put something in it. It was small and hard, rough on one side, smooth on the other. Ivy June closed her fingers around it and drew her hand back under the blanket.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
April 11
It’s been five days since I wrote in my journal, and for Ivy June, it must seem like a year. She’s been in that church since Tuesday, and it’s Friday now. Miss Dixon drove us to her house once so we could shower, but we’re back now, and Ivy June says she’s staying till her Papaw walks out of that mine. I picked up my journal when I was back at the house, and I’m trying to write down everything I see and hear. With Mr. Mosley in the mine and Mom in the hospital, things don’t seem real.
It’s so strange that, here in the town of Thunder Creek, I can talk to my mom in Cleveland by cell phone, but Ivy June can’t even call home. Dad thinks Mom won’t be out of the hospital till next Thursday. She’s doing fine, but her surgery was complicated, he said, and the doctors want her to stay there in Cleveland for about ten days. I’ve got so many questions, but Dad’s answered what he can. So I concentrate on Ivy June’s grandfather.
Yesterday I went to the mine with her and her daddy and Mammaw just so they could see for themselves that the pumps were working as fast as they could go. We listened to the mine officials explain how they’re doing all they can. There are so many people gathered there now that they’re only letting families of the miners in. Ivy June said I was her sister so I could go too.
About all I saw was this huge gaping hole that was the entrance, with a conveyor belt where the coal comes out. Pumps were going and water was gushing and men in helmets were getting instructions on walkie-talkies.
Mostly, there were just two ambulances standing by, and people trying to look busy, when they really can’t do anything till the water level goes down. There are long stretches of water that rescue workers can’t get through, someone explained. They’ve waterproofed packages of food and sent them through the tunnel on a conveyor belt to the men in the south tunnel.
It really doesn’t sound good for Ivy June’s grandfather. They say the only places the men in the north tunnel could have escaped to are the number three and four rooms, but they drilled test holes and pounded on the steel drill pipe for a long time and no one answered. They even put a siren over one hole and played that for twenty minutes, but all they got back was silence. Ivy June cried on Mammaw’s shoulder but she still won’t give up, and neither will her daddy or grandmother.
What everyone talks about here is hope, like it’s a safety line you can hang on to. Ministers come by the church and talk to the families, reading Scripture and praying with them. They tell them to have faith that the miners are alive in body or alive in Christ, and either is cause for celebration. I don’t know….
If the water level goes down enough by tonight, rescue workers will go in just to see if the tunnel’s clear and then will bring out the men in the south tunnel. Already women are gathering at the mouth of the mine, reporters tell us, and one kid is carrying a bunch of balloons for his dad. Some of the women have fresh clothes for the men. It’s the relatives back here at the church who won’t see their men tonight. I heard a rumor that the officials are going to send in body bags when a rescue team goes in the north tunnel, but I’m not telling Ivy June. It will still be another day or two, they said, before the water will be low enough for anyone to go in there at all.
I’m sitting here in the pew behind Ivy June right now, and I think she’s asleep. Hope so, anyway. But it’s awful to be asleep and dream of somebody and then wake up and remember what’s happened. Ivy June’s grandma is asleep on a cot next to the wall, and her dad went home for a few hours to see how Mrs. Mosley’s getting along with Grandmommy and the boys. Jessie’s got no choice but to keep working.
I’ll be home when Mom comes back from the hospital, but until then, I’ll stay with Ivy June as long as I can. Mom says I should. But the things I said last Saturday to Ivy June up on the ridge! How much was true, and how much was I just upset about Mom? When the exchange program is over, I’m supposed to go back to Lexington and share as much of my journal as I want with my class. We’re supposed to talk about real differences and perceived differences, and … I just don’t know. Sadness feels the same, whether it’s in Lexington or here in Thunder Creek.
One of the differences between my family and Ivy June’s is that in hers, every last child is expected to help in some way. Ivy June’s always got a b
unch of jobs waiting for her as soon as she gets home from school. And if we stop off at her ma’s first, Howard and Ezra and even little Danny have chores to get done before dinner.
Peter and Claire and I … we’re loved, I know … but I don’t have the feeling we’re really needed. Dad and Mom need us to make up the family, I suppose, but it’s not like if we were to disappear tomorrow, there would be work that didn’t get done.
Here in Thunder Creek, it’s like a big family. Like everyone is related, even the people in towns a hundred miles away. Women who have gone home to make welcome signs for the men in the south tunnels come back to church with hot suppers for the relatives of the men in the north tunnels. Blankets, too. I’ve counted more patchwork quilts than Red Cross blankets.
I’d like to think that if there were some big catastrophe back in Lexington, our neighbors would do the same. Strangers, even. That they’d strip the blankets off their beds and bring us food off their tables, sit and hold our hands and hug us whether they knew us or not. The same mountains that separate these people from the rest of the world seem to keep them close to each other, and for that, I wonder if Ivy June knows just how lucky she is.
Catherine Combs
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ivy June did not go to the mine when the men from the south passages were rescued. The photographers and reporters were there, of course. Brady, the old retired miner, went as well, but he came back afterward to sit quietly with the relatives of the missing miners.
“What do the men from the south passages know about the five who are missing?” Daddy asked him.