Free Red Helmet by Homer Hickam Page A

growled.
    Cable turned to Bum. “Bum, I’m fining you one hundred dollars for this stunt. Pinky, you’re fined fifty for not going after the foreman. As for your foreman, you tell him to come see me. Move! ”
    Pinky instantly started walking toward the section, but Bum stayed put and put his light in Cable’s eyes. “Aw, Cable. I’m your old teammate, ain’t I?” he said. “We got to stick together, right?”
    â€œWe were teammates awhile ago, Bum. Now I have a job to do. And get your light out of my eyes.”
    Bum looked away. “It ain’t right, you fining me,” he rumbled. “It ain’t right at all.”
    â€œJust get back to work, Bum. I’ll think about the fine, but this brawling has got to stop. I’ve been fielding complaints on you ever since I took over. You’re either fighting or sleeping on the job. I’ve taken up for you a lot more than I should.”
    â€œYeah, right,” Bum said. “Big man now, ain’tcha? How’d you get up so high, anyway?”
    â€œI got an education, Bum. You could have too.”
    â€œAnd how was that going to happen, with my daddy all busted up and my ma so sick all the time? I had to go to work.”
    Cable didn’t bother to remind Bum that his own father had been killed in the mine, and his mom also had to struggle until she married her plumber in Florida. Bum knew all that. He was just baiting him.
    â€œGo back to work, Bum,” he said. “And stay out of trouble. That’s all I’m asking.”
    Bum’s light flashed insolently into his eyes again, then the big miner turned and stomped off, passing the foreman, Harry “Poker” Williams, who was actually running bent beneath the low roof.
    â€œSorry, Cable,” he panted as he arrived. “I was up to my neck in alligators. The coal’s getting mighty low and the roof ’s working something fierce.”
    Cable was not impressed with the excuse. “Poker, you sent Bum with an inexperienced man to look at a power plant. What were you thinking? You should have called an electrician.”
    Poker’s mouth opened to answer, then closed as he took another moment to think. “You’re right, Cable,” he concluded. “It was stupid.”
    â€œI know you’re undermanned and I’m pushing you to mine coal, but you’ve got to use some common sense. Now, go call that electrician.”
    â€œYou going to fine me?”
    â€œI’m not going to fine anybody if you do your job for a change.”
    Poker hastily withdrew, heading toward one of the hardened telephones to make the call for an outside electrician. Disgusted, Cable aimed his jeep back down the track to the bottom and the manlift, which would carry him back to where the sky wasn’t made of stone.
    On the surface, Mole Phillips, his clerk and dispatcher, was waiting for him. Mole looked worried, and for good reason. “Einstein’s in your office, Cable,” he announced even before Cable stepped off the lift.
    â€œEinstein” was Ian Stein, the meticulous and ruthless MSHA inspector who apparently thought the Highcoal mine was his personal project. When you talked to Einstein, about the only words he wanted to hear out of your mouth were, “Yes, sir!” That was mostly what he got.
    â€œWhat’s he doing?” Cable demanded.
    â€œStudying your mine map.”
    â€œTrouble on top of trouble,” Cable groaned, and headed for his office.

Seven
    W hen Song awoke, she lay in bed for a while to think about the situation. She’d come all this way, taken a week out of her busy schedule to be with her husband, and now he was somewhere else. She contemplated his empty pillow, then reached over and tossed it off the bed.
    â€œThanks, Cable,” she muttered.
    She was angry and hurt, and she was also not used to being ignored. “Reality has sharp teeth,” her