Hazard

419 Pages·2010·1.05 MB·English

by  Gardiner Harris

HAZARD
HAZARD

Gardiner Harris

Minotaur Books New York
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events
portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.
HAZARD. Copyright © 2010 by Gardiner Harris. All rights reserved. Printed in
the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175
Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
[http://www.minotaurbooks.com] www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Gardiner.
Hazard / Gardiner Harris.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-57016-3
1. Coal mines and mining—Kentucky—Fiction. 2. Mine accidents—Fiction. 3.
Accident investigation—Fiction. 4. Brothers—Fiction. 5. Family secrets—
Fiction. I. Title PS3608.A78285H39 2010
First Edition: March 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To T George Harris, whose passionate embrace
of ideas has always inspired me
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F
irst, I’m grateful for the patience of my wife. Writing this book increased the
burdens on her, and I couldn’t have done it without her support. The book also
results from my years writing from Hazard, and I wouldn’t have been much of a
reporter if not for the help of many. Among them are Hunt Helm, who got me
ready to go to Hazard; David Hawpe, who sent me there; and Lee Mueller, Ken
Ward, Jr., and Paul Nyden, who made me a better reporter while I was there.
CHAPTER ONE
I
n a space less than five feet high, Amos Blevins rode a shrieking, convulsing
mining machine that clawed coal out of a worked-out vein more than fifteen
stories underground. The walls left behind barely supported the roof.
A mountain of rock hung suspended above him as he tunneled away at its base.
The mine was murky, dense with black dust and barely lit by a few lights and
headlamps. To reduce the risk of coal-dust explosions, the walls were coated in
chalky limestone, making them look frozen—like a black-and-white photo of an
arctic night.
Ears covered, Amos felt the machine’s roar more than heard it. Sound waves
bathed him from every direction. They made a drum of his sternum, massaged
his organs and fought the very rhythm of his heart—on occasion, making him
gasp.
And always there was the dust. It could swallow him up and nearly drown him.
Like most miner men, he couldn’t work with a mask or respirator because it
clogged far too often. He hated the dust that filled his mouth, clogged his breath,
and hardened his snot.
But sometimes, being enveloped by the dust made him feel as if he’d joined the
mountain in some intermediate stage between existence and oblivion. The
feeling brought a blend of sadness and wonder, the way he sometimes felt
standing over a dying buck.
The mountain seemed to wake up, struggle, and surrender its black soul.
He backed the machine’s studded drum away from the coal, and the effect was
broken. He figured he’d cut forty feet from the last crosscut, twice what the law
allowed. He pulled the giant machine away from the wall and, as always, did it a
little too quickly.
He knew that he was no more likely to get crushed in a roof fall while backing
out than while digging ahead. But he’d known a guy who was killed while in
reverse. The men with him had said that, with just a few more seconds, he would
have lived. Amos didn’t want to die like that. He wanted to be fully into the
mountain when it gave way so there’d be no doubt, no what-ifs for Glenda.
Coal mine roofs stay up in part because miners leave behind columns of coal as
supports, making the mine a series of tunnels and cross tunnels that, when
mapped, look like city blocks. More support comes when men on roof-bolting
machines drill yard-long screws into the ceiling, cementing several layers of
overhead rock together.
Amos sat in the small operator’s chair stuck under a canopy on the side of the
machine, which was the shape of a huge brick with a studded roll on its front.
Barrel-chested, he wore black coveralls, a miner’s helmet, headlamp, and a coat
of grime that blacked out the gray in his shoulder-length hair and full beard. The
whites and shiny wetness of his eyes were the only contrast to the dull black that
enveloped him and erased the creases from his fifty-year-old face.
Amos knew he didn’t have to worry about backing into his helper. The kid
stayed well behind him, never venturing under unbolted roof. Made the job
harder for Amos. He didn’t have anyone just over his shoulder to guide him. The
kid was jumpy as a cat. Amos had heard that his girlfriend had just given birth to
a son.
No man can work every day in terror. Either the kid would quit or he’d give
himself up to the mountain. Amos wished that he’d get on with doing one or the
other.
Amos backed the miner left into the crosscut. Steaming, the drum smelled of
battery acid and barbecue. He put the miner into forward and headed right,
across the face of the coal.
Amos glanced behind him and saw Rob Crane drive up on a wide, low-slung
cart. Rob was one of several scoop operators in the mine who ferried coal from
Amos’s machine back to the mine’s conveyor belt.
Amos signaled with his hand that he was continuing on, and Rob nodded and
then broke into a wide grin. Amos raised his hands in question. Rob pointed at
the kid and then laughed. Amos shrugged.
It was a running joke in the mine. Amos often brought game for dinner, which
turned the kid’s stomach. Today, he had packed the grilled half-carcass of a
possum, an animal akin to a huge rat. At dinner, he had cut away portions of the
eighteen-inch stalk of bone and meat with a pocket knife, blood and grease
dripping into his beard.
As usual, the kid had stared at Amos with a mixture of fascination and horror.
The rest of the crew had watched in silence, waiting. Finally, the kid said,
“Jesus,” and crawled off to eat his dinner elsewhere. Several crew members had
chuckled, but Rob had hooted with laughter that kept on bubbling out of him.
His laughter wasn’t the only thing that set Rob apart. Rob was black, a rarity in
Appalachian coal mines.
Amos watched Rob’s mouth appear and disappear as he laughed, and Amos
smiled despite himself. Amos turned the machine into the coal face to continue
mining. He looked around again. No sign of their foreman, Mike Barnes.
Wondering what Mike did all day, Amos started the machine’s drum spinning
and edged the miner forward into the coal. The roar began again.
Amos began at floor level and gradually moved the drum up five feet to the roof.
When the teeth started to spark on the rock layer above the coal, Amos eased the
drum back down and moved the miner machine forward. Rob edged his scoop
forward and coupled with the miner so that Amos’s machine would disgorge its
coal.
Amos made it about twenty feet into his cut when a block of coal about the size
of a stove shot out of the wall and grazed the miner’s canopy before it crashed
into the machine’s tail and rolled on toward Rob.
Amos turned to see where the block had gone. He saw the rock first and then
Rob, somewhat to the side and underneath it, slapping it with his left forearm.
And behind the scoop he saw the kid, pinned to a mine rib by a column of water.
Amos realized that water was pouring out of a hole in the mine wall, pushing
him back against the canopy’s supports. Amos fought against the pressure but