Night Without Stars

A STORY

by JAMES BINNEY

WHEN Sam left the mine tipple and started for the mine entrance, sleet was falling, and a cold wind was blowing from the northwest. He looked at the sky. Not a star was to be seen behind the gray monotony above him. He pulled his cap down over his forehead and walked on. “I guess,” he half whispered, “I guess the men’ll like the wind a lot better’n they’ll like what I’ve got to tell them.” Sam’s position as boss in a rather small non-mechanized mine of the nineteen-twenties was a responsible one.

The men stood in the cold, huddled together for protection against the sharp blasts as they waited for the motor and cars which were to take them into the mine. The man trip was late; Sam told them that they should have waited in the motor barn. Old Mario’s face was blue with cold; his son’s slim body seemed too burdened with the heavy safety lamp he carried on his back. Donaldson had a ragged overcoat drawn close about him, and his gloved hands pressed against his ears. Sam took his place among them, swearing to himself and feeling ashamed of his own chicken-heartedness, but he could not say what he knew he must say soon.

The motor came, and the men piled into the front cars. Six o’clock in the evening by Sam’s wrist watch; nine hours until the man trip would bring them out again. Sam grunted. He had sat upon the head of a bolt, and it was burning cold. He moved over along the lap side of the car to rest upon comparatively warm wood. The motor, wheels grinding monotonously, went forward; and the coal cars, filled with men who bent over to keep from cracking their heads against the jagged roof, rumbled into the main heading. The wind no longer beat against them. The small headlight on the motor split the dark ahead with a fluttering white circle; each miner’s lamp sent up a flare of its own. They approached a low spot, and the men doubled up for safety. Sam watched Scotty, who seemed to have the entire heading measured; he sat erect most of the time, drew his head down just the right distance and at the right moment to miss a projecting rock, then straightened up once more.

The motor gained speed. Jubu, a young Slav with a thin pimpled face, teased his friend Jarviski; Scotty fold smutty jokes in a low cracked voice and laughed at them himself before he came to the point; and Donaldson, his buddy, laughed until he almost lost his balance on the edge of the car. Only Mario, worn, aged, and twisted, seemed gloomy. He leaned in his place with his eyes half closed, his cracked and bent hands pulling nervously at his white handlebar mustache — a man seemingly already finished with life and work. Mario had bad lungs. Another year and only young Angelo would stand between Mario and want. Angelo was blowing lustily at a shapeless mouth organ.

Jubu’s laughter rose above the rumble of the wheels. “Listen to Angelo,” he shouted, twisting his lips comically. “He sings love tunes. He takes a woman to bed with him these nights.”

Angelo grinned foolishly.

“When do you make Mario grandfather?”

“Give me time,” Angelo said dryly. “I’ve been married only a week.”

“Have lots of kids,” Scotty advised. “Nothing like kids around your house, eh, old Mario?”

Mario took his hand from his mustache. “I never have no keed but Ang’lo.”

Sam was thinking gloomily that these were the men he had to take into Right Six — had to go through to reach good coal on the other side of a rock fault. The long heading hadn’t been worked for several years because the coal was too low and dirty; the roof leaked and was dangerous; there was draw slate, mean, ugly stuff a foot thick between the coal and the solid rock. Sam did not forget that the place was a gas pit—the men called it Hell’s Hallway. Reluctantly, Sam broke the news. “Well, boys, tomorrow we go into Right Six.”

Old Mario made a face. “Sam, you one beeg liar, you joke weeth Mario, think mebbe he’s asleep, huh?” Sam shook his head.

“Whose order?” Scotty demanded.

“The super’s and he’s in dead earnest. There’s no other place for us to work until we get through to the good coal. When we’re through the fault, everybody who sticks gets a good place.”

“Hell with the super!” Donaldson exclaimed.

Sam cursed. “Just a minute, you guys. I’m telling you what the super said. I ain’t responsible. He means it — and it’s all he can do. You don’t think I want to go in there, do you?”

“Sam,” Mario protested sadly, “I tell you one thing — the roof in Right Seex, she’s come down, sure as hell. Damma bad place.”

“Just till we get through the rock,” Sam pleaded half-heartedly.

There was silence, then a man said, “ I guess we’ll work in Right Six. I know the super. Him and me were workin’ in the big shaft a year ago. We was down about sixty feet and had dynamite and caps layin’ around the bottom. Three of us workin’ and the super there lookin’ things over, when some damn fool on the riggin’ above drops a hammer. Scared? I just put my head into the wall and waited for the big bang. The hammer struck a half inch from the caps, but they didn’t go. The super looked around just like this and grinned and said, ‘Well, Dick, another half inch and you and me’d be angels.’ ”

“That’s him,” Donaldson said. “He ain’t got nerves.”

“Right Seex, damma bad place,” old Mario repeated.

The man trip thundered on into the dark, and Angelo, strangely morose, played no more love tunes on his mouth organ.

2

TWELVE days in Right Six were twelve days of trouble for Sam. He tried to make things as easy as possible for the men, but no man can do anything about low coal and a leaky roof and stuff as hellish as draw slate. Scotty came out wet one morning and took pneumonia, Jubu’s leg was crushed under a fall of rock, men came from the heading several times with shovel handles broken in the middle. Sam worked in fear that the roof would cave and bury a miner. Ho caught Jarviski In the heading with a cigarette. The poor fool just looked at him and threw the thing away.

“Get your time,” Sam said. He knew what it meant to crave a smoke, but open flame in a gas pit is plain suicide.

“Couldn’t help it,” Jarviski complained, pulling at his collar.

“I’m damned sorry,” Sam told him.

Jarviski turned away humbly, realizing too late that his carelessness had cost him his job. He had a wife, too, and a small child, and Sam pitied him. There was nothing ugly about. Jarviski, nothing revengeful; he merely grinned sorrowfully and shrugged his huge shoulders.

“All right,” Sam said. “I’ll get Barney to get you a job on the tipple. You won’t got so much money.”

“Thanks,” Jarviski said. He walked away, and Sam wondered if the man had deliberately used the cigarette as a means to escape from Right Six.

“They say I’m too soft,” Sam thought. The “they” meant his wife and friends who thought he might some day be super himself if he showed the proper gumption. But he couldn’t condemn Jarviski— Sam wished he had the whole shift out of Right Six.

Merely to walk up the heading was disheartening

— rock piled, high on both sides of the gob, draw slate reaching to the roof, coal streaked with sulphur

— there wasn’t any good coal here. Sam stopped at Donaldson’s place. The man’s black face was smeared with roof water.

“Hard going?” Sam asked.

“Damned slow.”

Sam grinned. “We’ll all be making money when we get to the good coal.”

“If gas doesn’t stop us.” Donaldson touched Sam’s arm. “Better go up and see old Mario. He’s got the willies.”

“What’s up?”

“See for yourself. He won’t tell me.”

Sam found old Mario resting with his back pressed against the cold rock wall of the mine. He was sitting on the gob and eating a sandwich. The flare of Sam’s lamp fell upon the miner’s hands — twisted, battered old hands with curved fingers and palms covered with calluses which sulphur water had cracked wide open. Old Mario smelled strongly of onions.

“Whew!” Sam said. “What you trying to do, Mario, kill the rats?” He wondered if Mario was really as old as the men said.

Mario looked up and grimaced solemnly. “Mario no give damn for rats, Sam,” He pulled at the boss’s sleeve. “Mario hears the tap-tap.”

Sam stared at him.

“The old man’s gone crazy.” Sam hadn’t seen Angelo in the shadows. “He says he hears tapping all the time.”

“Have you heard anything?” Sam asked.

Angelo hesitated. “I hear things — rocks creeping — rats mebbe — things like that. I don’t think there’s tapping like he means.”

Sam sighed. He knew there was trouble in Mario’s story if it got to the men and was believed. Many of the miners would share Mario’s conviction that tapping — or imagined tapping — warned of an impending explosion. Sam didn’t know whether he believed in tapping or not; certainly it was superstition, but he had been in Hykesville in 1924 when gas had exploded in the mine, and men had sworn that they heard tapping before the big bang. He looked at Mario. The old man’s face was drawn and worried, and his thin lips were trembling under the handle-bar mustache.

“Nothing but rats, Mario,” he said. “You hear rats.” He felt an aching sympathy with the bent old man whose days now were filled with terror as well as toil. Old Mario hadn’t much life left, but he held on to what he had.

“No, damma, no,” Mario said with a sob in his voice. “No rats. Pretta soon the beeg bang.”

Sam laughed. “Rats know, Mario, and before the big bang they come out.” This was another superstition, and Sam didn’t believe it himself. But he shivered, and not from cold, for it was easy to be afraid in the dark when one met fear in others. And old Mario was afraid.

“I wanna Ang’lo go home to his Maria,” Mario said humbly.

Sam patted him on the shoulder. “All right, Mario. Angelo can go home. I’ll have you both put on the tipple. Then when we’re through the fault, I’ll give you the best place in the mine — high coal — good clean coal — you and Angelo can make all the money in the world.”

“Ang’lo go now?” Mario asked.

Sam nodded, but he wondered what the super was going to say when he sent three men from Right Six to the tipple. He was being soft again. But Mario and Angelo would do more good at the tipple than they’d do inside whispering about tapping and big bangs. “It’s all right, Angelo. We’ll save you a place. Take the old man home and let him rest. Better have him see the company doctor.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Angelo said. “But we’ll stick till morning.” He whispered, “My dad’s getting old. There’s nothing wrong with him except he’s getting funny ideas these days. It’s the same at home.”

Sam reached over and touched Mario’s arm. “Take it easy, old Mario.” Then he spoke to Angelo. “Don’t let him work hard. Make him rest, and keep him quiet about the tapping. You know what will happen if the men get nervous. We’ll never get to the good coal.”

Angelo grinned. “You mean it about the good place, Sam? I promised Maria I’d get her a new car next spring.”

“Honest to God,” Sam promised. “You men who were willing to stick will be taken care of.”

“Your word’s good for me,” Angelo said.

“Honest to God,” Sam repeated. He never went back on his word, and he meant what he said now.

3

His inspection tour was discouraging. Everywhere he met doubtful men; some of them were afraid; some couldn’t stand the hard work; all were impatient, tired of the draw slate and dripping water, sick of Right Six. Sam told himself he wished to hell he’d been a farmer, or a textile worker, or a railroader, anything but a mine boss who had to coax men to go into a sweating gas pit.

He had been gone several hours when he came back into the heading near the place where he had left Angelo and Mario. His lamp was burning low; he stopped to make an adjustment. The wall to his right seemed indistinct, as though he were seeing it through smoke or fog, but he knew he could have reached out his hand to touch the rock. He was standing half bent over, shaking his lamp, when it came — a low, faint tapping. Mario’s tap-tap. Sam shivered involuntarily — then he laughed. A rat raced across the floor a yard ahead of him. He straightened up and walked on. He stopped again. Ahead, the light from his lamp silhouetted a giant shadow against the wall.

Mario came out of the dark and stood before him. The old man seemed to be trying to speak; his lips moved but no sound came from him. He merely waved his hands and cried wretchedly, and motioned feebly with his head.

Sam’s first thought was that the old man had finally gone out of his head. “What is it, Mario? Are you sick?” he asked.

Mario mumbled incoherently and pointed. Sam rushed past him and ran through the heading. He was thinking of Mario’s tap-tap and telling himself that there was no danger from gas as long as there was no open flame.

The place where he had last seen Angelo was the same, and Sam looked about puzzled, and he cursed Mario silently as a crazy old man. Then he heard moaning, and moving forward several paces he saw Angelo. The youth had been caught in a fall of rock. One huge chunk had come down upon his back as he bent over, and now he was held in a powerful vise, his stomach forced down upon his legs, his body slowly being crushed, his hands still gripping a pick handle.

Sam dropped to his knees. He was alone with Angelo although now he heard Mario screaming in the heading. He heard men shouting far away. Angelo’s eyes were open. He tried to speak and blood trickled down the corners of his mouth. Sam took his hand.

“Get me out, Sam,” Angelo gasped weakly.

Sam promised, but he knew that underneath the rock Angelo was completley broken.

Men came up to the cave-in, and Sam directed them in a half hour’s effort to free Angelo. It was difficult and dangerous work with more of the roof ready to come down. Two of the men had taken Mario away. When the last of the rock was pried from Angelo’s body, he had been dead for some minutes. His mangled corpse was laid on the hard floor and covered with a ragged overcoat.

Donaldson scratched his head in bewilderment and whispered to Sam, “Mario’s waiting down there at the crosscut.” His voice was filled with horror. “We can’t let him see the boy now.”

“No,” Sam said. “He can’t see him now.”

“Better take the old man home.”

“You stay here.” Sam motioned to several of the men, and they moved out quickly. Sam’s legs felt weak and numb as he walked; he had been crouching on his knees for more than a half hour. His lamp flashed into the gob, and a rat scampered from an obscure corner and disappeared into the dark.

“Who would have thought it when we came in,” a man said, “the kid playing his mouth organ same as always — a guy never knows when his number is up.”

“I was at Hykesville once when a rock fell from the roof and caught a motorman. He might have been anywhere else along a three-mile track, but there he was just at the moment the rock came down. Damn funny how things happen.” Someone was talking behind Sam.

“Damn funny,” Sam said. He thought, Angelo might have been at home if he’d done as I told him. I ought to be the kind of a guy a man fears — they’d be glad to go when I say go. The thought was to return to Sam in days to come when they were working in high, clean coal.

At the intersection of Right Six and the main heading, they found two miners with Mario. The old man was sitting silently staring into the dark. Sam tried to speak; he found his mouth dry. They waited for the motor trip, and when it arrived, they dumped coal from the last car to make room for themselves. The motor started its low purring. Sam stiffened suddenly and drew his coat up around his neck. Very gently he touched old Mario’s twisted and callused hands.