David works another two shifts before a muscle in his shoulder tears. The night after, he lies on the floor of the miners’ shack, his arm bound to his chest with an old shirt, trying not to scratch at the bug bites when the siren goes off. The two men sleeping in the cots before their next shift spring up, grabbing their picks and shovels.
David pushes himself up on his elbow. “What is it? What’s happening?” He hopes it is not what he knows it is.
“Accident,” mutters one of the men, stepping over him.
He hauls himself up and goes to the open door. Everywhere he looks men run to the shaft entrance. He seizes his pick and runs with them.
They stand around the opening in the earth, waiting for the first trips to bring the men out.
“Anybody know what the hell happened?” someone asks. “Cave-in? I didn’t hear no explosion.”
“Naw, the lamps went out’s what I heard,” says someone else.
“Fucking fans been out for days,” a man growls and throws his pick in frustration.
The air is always bad down below, thick with smoke from blasting, and then there is the black damp, air dense with carbon dioxide from old shafts. There are no alarms in the mines. When the lights snuff out it means there isn’t enough oxygen to keep them burning.
They hear the rumble of the trip and the first men appear. Some are vomiting. He looks for Ingvarsson, but he isn’t among them. Most of the men get out this time. Five don’t. The Icelander is among them. His body, water-bloated and black, is brought up the next day, after the air is cleared out.
David waits until night falls again, then slips out of the camp, crawling on his belly until he reaches the fence that runs around the limits of the compound, then digs under with his bare hands. He tries not to cry out when his shoulder snags on the wire, afraid the company’s security guards will hear him and drag him back. He still owes them the six bucks.
9
October 1930
It was Wednesday evening and Douglas sat listening to the Palmolive Hour on the radio with his vest unbuttoned and a cup of tea on the small table by his chair. He looked so smug and content, Margaret wanted to smack him.
Margaret had shooed Irene off to bed early. All through dinner her nerves were so on edge she feared she’d bite through the fork. Douglas thought he was hiding the extent of their money problems from her, but he wasn’t. The first hints had come a few weeks back, when he began complaining about little things she bought.
“Do you really need new handkerchiefs, Margaret? And more gloves? Surely you have a drawer full of gloves.” He had stood in the doorway of the bedroom, with his hands in his pockets, jingling his keys, watching her fold her purchases and put them in the dresser. “For someone so very fond of pointing out how difficult times are, you certainly seem to be selective about where you economize. I don’t mean to scold, my dear, not to scold at all, but merely to draw attention to how important it is not to live above ourselves.”
“Above ourselves? What are you talking about? I’m the one who’s scrimped and saved and done without while you waste your money on booze. You’ve got your nerve, mister.”
He had looked blankly at her and turned heel.
Now, in the living room, Margaret said, “I went into Mrs. Munsen’s today.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yes, I had quite a chat with her.”
“That’s good, my dear. You should get out more often.”
“I wanted to buy some cloth, to make dresses for Irene and me.” She began to scratch the back of her hands without noticing she was doing it.
Douglas continued listening to the music on the radio.
“You can imagine my surprise when she wouldn’t take our money.” Margaret had the satisfaction of seeing his head snap around to look at her. She could hear the bones in his neck crack. He picked up his tea cup and took a sip.
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“If you have something to say, Margaret, then say it.”
Remembering the scene in the yard goods store, she was embarrassed all over again. “Yeah, a fine cloth. Blue suits you fine,” Mrs. Munsen had said, her arms waggling as she folded the cloth. “But you put your money away, missus. We owe your husband a penny or two. Not all the world’s as kind as him.”
“You’ve given them credit, haven’t you?” Margaret said, and heard his startled little gasp. “I had to stand there and hear about it, hear how my husband had put me in the position of having to barter, for the love of God!”
“Not me for sure, but Karl, my middle son, he’s not doing so good now that Inglis let off everybody just like that,” the woman had said, as though Margaret cared about her doltish son. “We help out where we can, but who’s got extra these days? You feed the family and it’s all gone, eh? You know how it is. Karl with the twins to feed, he’s got his hands full, and your husband, a good man him, he says you pay when you can. So you don’t pay here either, missus. We’ll just make a note of what you take and tell the mister to set it down against what we owe. Like the old country, eh? When the newfangled ways all go to hell, the old ways are best again.”
“There’s nothing wrong with extending a little credit to a good customer, Margaret. It’s good for business, in fact. Builds goodwill.”
“I know what you’ve been doing, Douglas. I’ve seen the books.”
Douglas stood up, overturning his tea cup.
“Douglas! Be careful!” Margaret knelt and mopped at the tea with her apron.
“Do not tell me, Margaret, do not tell me you’ve been going through my papers!”
It had been so easy to jimmy the flimsy lock on his desk with a hairpin and a nail file.
“Oh yes, I’ve been in your precious sanctum sanctorum. You’ve extended credit to almost as many people as have paid. How could you be so stupid? When do you think anyone’s going to be able to pay? Next month? Next year? And what are we supposed to live on in the meantime?”
“You had no right!”
“I have every right,” she said, standing. “You won’t tell me things. All you say is, ‘Buy cheaper meat, Margaret. Cook with beans instead, Margaret. Do without new shoes, do without new stockings, don’t buy a magazine, can’t afford this, can’t afford that!’ ” She sing-songed the words, her hands on her hips. She felt more alive than she had in some time, the fear for their future mixed with the red-hot joy of having him dead to rights, the perverse pleasure of having her fears confirmed. “We’ll lose everything!”
“Things are not that dire.”
“Collect that money,
