Free The Devil's Horn by David L. Robbins Page A

quiet but potent, strong enough to clear tons of fallen rock or scrape raw ore out of earth that had been hidden since creation.
    Allyn’s three miners shuffled their boots on the pebbly floor, unaccustomed to standing so near the big boss while idle. They waited on his curiosity, but he had none because he knew their jobs. He’d done them all at one time or another, mining copper in Zambia, gold in Zimbabwe, diamonds here in South Africa. The underground bore no discomfort for Allyn. The immense depths, dark halls, occasional terror, grueling work, he brightened it all in the sunny recollections of his youth. He liked the subterranean chill, the surprising breezes near the ventilation shafts, the blasting and loose rocks; none of it had changed. Allyn had made himself a frequent visitor to his mine for the eleven years since he’d bought the Ingwe operation.
    Today was the first time he’d come down in nine months. Labor negotiations had ended yesterday in Jo’burg, the strike was over. He was here to give his support, see the mine up and running, show the men there were no hard feelings though he’d made concessions for their new contract. The shutdown had become costly enough to everyone.
    The woman kept her attention on her notes. The overalls made her shapeless, but she seemed trim, judging from her hands and profile. Allyn had not seen her before.
    He offered his hand to the three miners around him. He asked their names but did not recall them as the men were saying them. Allyn didn’t introduce himself. He indicated one of the low trucks humming past, burdened with stones.
    “I used to be a lasher. You boys know what that is?”
    All three appeared young but might not have been. This was a trick of the mines, the dust filled the crevices and wrinkles of the face, smoothing the lines. Allyn had been in coal shafts in America where there had been no one with gray or blond hair, no black men or whites, just dirty miners. The smallest of the three before him, a little taller than Allyn, and wiry, said he did know.
    “A shoveler.”
    Allyn popped the man on the upper arm, pleased to find it solid.
    “Damn right I was. I started when I was seventeen. We didn’t have those machines to do it for us. Just shovels and these.”
    Allyn displayed his hands.
    “Did it for a year straight. I got promoted to trammer. Pushed cocopans loaded with rock over the rails. Once we’d pushed twenty cars, a little locomotive took them up to the surface.”
    The men nodded, unsure what Allyn wanted from them. When the lull lasted too long and Allyn gazed away, the mine calling him further into memory, the largest of the three asked, “How’d you make miner, then?”
    Allyn did not return fully to the moment, a bit of him lingered in the old tunnels.
    “Back then, the men were from Mozambique and Nyasaland. Blacks mostly, good blokes. I got promoted before all of them. Not fair, but that’s how it was. I made learner miner. Spent six months training how to blast. We were measured, how many pounds of dynamite we used to get how many tons of ore. Three-man drilling crews. Two-minute fuses.”
    The woman lifted her blue eyes from the clipboard, listening now. The middle miner laughed as he spoke.
    “I bet you were good, right?”
    “That I was, lad. I had the touch. Especially gold.” Allyn raised one arm parallel to the ground. “The reef runs like a river, through granite and greenstone for miles until it hits a spot, some jumble in the rock, some complex structure. Right there it pools.” He made a fist, tapped the knuckles with the other hand. “This is where you look. This is the find. Where the gold bunches up.”
    The woman had sidled into their small circle. She smiled, and she was young, perhaps in her late forties. Maybe she was a lawyer. Her tone was level and straight. Like the ore, a shine lurked inside it.
    “Mr. Pickston. How did you come up to own your own mines?”
    Was she one of his lawyers, or the