by Alexandra Armitage

(Available on amazon)

1957

Cardinal, Colorado

“Enough of this damn thing!” LeRoy shouted when the drill bit bound up and jammed.

“Wrong tool for the job.” Mike noted, shaking his head.  The stopers drill, normally used for horizontal drilling, was all they had for overhead progress.

“The Donora Mining Company don’t have two dimes to rub together.  This is down to a second rate operation.” lamented LeRoy Busby.

“Yeah, well, it’s still work and I’m glad to have some.”

“I’m out of air.  Let’s head out for some lunch, Mike.”

“Yeah, I’ve just been sucking air out of this hose. Let’s beat it.” He disconnected the rubber hose from the metal piping which brought air all the way from the compressor in Cardinal.  He rolled the hose up and hung it from a timber.

LeRoy began picking up the tools.  He hoisted the heavy stopers drill up into the single car.  Mike added two shovels and three picks.

“Nothin’ worth a damn in here.” LeRoy said as he loaded the empty ore car.

“Glad I’m not paying us.” Mike added. “Now, we’re backing out of here, so it’s your headlamp that’s our head light.  Keep it pointing out ahead just right.”

Mike sat on the little driver’s bench and started the battery driven motor on the tram.  LeRoy loaded himself into the car among the tools and the tram began to push the ore car toward the portal.

Mike found it hard to judge speed as the tram accelerated, so he let the throttle set where it felt about right.  The air moving past his face felt good.  He could breathe a bit easier.  Busby looked ahead and Mike could see them approaching the section of the tunnel where years and years of timbering had left barely enough room for the tram to pass.

It was just when Mike realized that he might be going a little bit too fast, when the corner of the battery cover caught a timber and the battery cover lid to flew straight back at his head.

Mike ducked!  The lid slammed the backside of the tram’s headlight and crashed to the ground.

As it fell, Mike spun the wheel that was the brake and the tram came to a halt.

“Good Lord, Smith!  You trying to kill yourself?” LeRoy stood in the car and his light shone on what had been a very close call.

“I think I’ll slow down a bit from here.” Mike grinned.  A big white toothed smile flashed at Busby in the dark.

They muscled the lid back up on the tram, and then LeRoy Busby climbed back into the car.

When the tram rolled out into the bright daylight, Mike backed off the throttle.  Both men closed their eyes and commenced blinking until they could see.  They could hear the loud  ”chunka chunka,  chunka chunka” of the compressor, as the two huge fly wheels turned, pumping two pistons.   The little railroad track curved toward the tram house and blacksmith shop where Gay Lippencott stood next to the gas forge, with Mike’s wife, Jeanette, looking on.

Gay and Mary lived in the Superintendent’s House.  He was the foreman and worked the forge.  Gay would sharpen up to thirty tungsten carbide drill bits a day with an air driven shaper.  He would temper the bits in oil.  If he quenched a bit too hard, the bit would shatter, too soft it would dull quickly; but Gay got it right.  He was also the master of the compressor, running it from early in the morning, pumping air into the Boulder County Mine, until the tram reappeared in the late afternoon.

The men pulled the tram into the shop and parked it.

“Well, looks like a lady!” Busby greeted Jeanette with smile and a wave of a hand.

“Mike forgot his lunch pail, so I brought it up.” Jeanette balanced her baby boy on her hip and held out the bucket of sandwiches.

Gay went next door and turned off the compressor.  When he returned, he stood quietly in the doorway.  The two miners eyed him suspiciously.

“Well, men,” he said, although Smith and Busby looked more like boys to him, “We’re back out of work here.  John Bergren called at the ten o’clock break and he says “Pull those men.  We can’t afford to mine the Boulder County Mine any longer.””

“It’s just not producing anything commercial grade.” Busby stated disappointedly.

Mike looked at his young wife and baby.  “Oh well,” he said somewhat optimistically, “We’ll go looking for work somewhere else.”

Gay said, “This time, Mary and I might just move to town.  She’d like that.”