Red Helmet Read online

  He studied the fabric. “Looks like gob,” he concluded.

  “I don’t think I want to know what gob is.”

  “Stuff that comes out of a coal mine,” he answered. “Coal dust, rock dust, grease, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. But I do know my blouse is ruined.”

  “Put it in the washing machine with a little Clorox and I bet it comes out white as rice,” he suggested.

  “That may be,” she replied coldly, “but it happens to be a pale, translucent blue. Before your friend turned it black, that is.”

  “Well, maybe you could dye it back the way it was.”

  Song stared at him. “You know, Cable, it just occurred to me that sometimes you can be an idiot.”

  Cable arched an eyebrow. “Maybe I got bit by a tick with Lyme disease. Affected my brain.”

  All Song wanted was to get somewhere other than where she was. “Let’s just go,” she grumped.

  “Bossman’s a great fellow. You’ll love him once you get to know him.”

  “Next time I see him, I’ll wear a raincoat.”

  Cable frowned in confusion, then pulled the roadster back onto the road, if a narrow, pot-holed strip of cracked asphalt was worthy of the name. They continued past another row of depleted houses, where Song saw, strolling up the street with a lunch bucket, her second miner, a giant of a man with a flat nose and furtive eyes. He was wearing a black helmet. When he saw the car, he stopped and solemnly raised his middle finger.

  “Hey, Cable!” he yelled. “Lookit what I got for you!”

  “Who’s that?” Song was astonished.

  Cable ignored the miner’s rude gesture and kept driving. “His name’s Oswald Wilkes, but everybody calls him Bum. He has trouble with authority, mainly mine.”

  “He works for you?”

  “He does.”

  “And you let him flip you the bird?”

  “He does things like that to get my goat. If I reacted, it would only make his day.”

  “You should fire him,” Song said. “My father would. For that matter, so would I.”

  Cable shook his head. “Can’t. I need every miner I can get. Besides, he was a teammate on my high school football team. We almost won the championship.”

  “Loyalty to a poor employee is bad for business, Cable,” Song lectured. “Surely you know that.”

  “Well, I guess I know the mining business a bit better than you do, honey,” he replied. “Now, look there. It’s Omar’s! Where Highcoal shops.”

  Cable’s point led Song to a grimy brick building set between weed-choked vacant lots. A sign above its front door read Omar’s Dollar and Cents Store. Song saw two display windows. One had a selection of plastic lawn ornaments, with pink flamingos dominating, and the other a mannequin wearing blue coveralls, boots, and a black miner’s helmet.

  “That’s not a store, Cable,” she said. “It’s a yard sale.”

  Cable’s lips twitched, and his left eyebrow arched minutely, but he otherwise acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “There’s the mine,” he said. “What do you think of it? Quite a complex, eh?”

  Song had always imagined a coal mine would look something like a train tunnel in the side of a mountain where men with shovels and picks on their shoulders walked in and out. Instead, she saw an ugly slash in the side of a mountain that had produced a level area. It was covered with a grayish-black substance, and was dominated by a skeletal tower that had big wheels on top and thick, greasy cables dropping down its center. Beside the tower sat two huge dirt-streaked metal buildings perched on stilts. Beneath them were piles of a dark, glittery substance that Song assumed was coal. Big, grimy pipes went this way and that along the outside of the buildings, and steam rose from somewhere behind them. “It looks dirty,” she concluded.

  “It’s a coal mine,” Cable said heavily. “It’s supposed to be dirty. I don’t know how you could have a coal mine without it being dirty.”

  Song dropped her chin. “All I know is, I feel as dirty as it looks,” she muttered.

  Cable allowed a sigh, then turned the car. In contrast to the grimy, dilapidated structures she’d seen so far in Highcoal, the next structure they approached was so clean it sparkled in the bright summer sun. It was a snowy white church, just as pretty as a picture, with a peaked roof and a steeple with a cross on top. There was a sign in front of it that said The Highcoal Church of Christian Truth. Beneath it was the message: The First Step to Heaven Is Knowing You Are Lost. Standing up from putting the last “T” on the message was a pudgy, sweet-faced man in jeans and shirt sleeves. Cable tooted at him, and the man grinned and waved. “That’s our preacher,” Cable said. “And that’s what we call him. Preacher. Every so often when I need an extra man, he also works in the mine. You want to meet him?”

  “Aren’t you listening, Cable? I need a bath!”

  “What do you think of Preacher’s sign?” he asked. “He makes up those sayings all by himself.”

  Song shook her head in exasperation at Cable’s obtuseness. “I don’t know about heaven, but I can tell you my first step to hell. That was landing on that postage stamp glued to the top of a mountain you West Virginians call an airport. It’s been downhill from there. Literally. And uphill too.”

  “I take it you aren’t happy,” he said.

  “My, aren’t we perceptive?” she grumped. “I’ll tell you what I am. I’m hot, tired, dirty, and I recently vomited several times. Therefore, yes, I am not happy.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Then do something about it, Cable.”

  “I’m trying.”

  They passed another row of old houses. People were sitting on their porches, every man, woman, and child dressed in either blue jeans or bib overalls. The men favored ball caps and plaid shirts with the sleeves rolled up; the women and kids were mostly in T-shirts. They looked to Song like people she’d expect to see at a professional wrestling match or tractor pull. At least they were friendly, with everybody waving and nodding. Cable happily waved and nodded back. She just couldn’t do it. Their stares made her too uncomfortable.

  Around another curve, and there—no surprise—sat yet another mountain. Song had already seen enough West Virginia mountains to last a lifetime. Up they headed along its switchback curves. Just before she was going to demand he stop again to let her stomach do its work, he pulled the little car off at an overlook. “No more scenery,” she pleaded.

  “This is scenery I guess you need to see,” he said. “There’s Hillcrest.”

  Song sighed and dutifully looked across a deep valley to a ridge where a mansion sat with turrets and bay windows and a wide front porch, all surrounded by a lawn of the greenest grass she had ever seen. Even at that distance, she could see colorful flowers along a winding brick driveway, and behind the house was a green-and-white wooden structure, which she judged to be a stable, and behind that a big, glossy meadow surrounded by a bone-white fence. It was all lovely. “Cable, that is a truly beautiful estate,” she conceded.

  His dimple made an appearance. “I knew you’d like it. The house was built by Colonel Sam Fillmore, the man who founded Highcoal and dug the first coal mine around here. I bought it about this time last year and remodeled it and added a stable. I wanted you to have a nice place to live.”

  “But we didn’t know each other then,” she pointed out. When Cable looked sheepish, she asked, “Was it for another woman?”

  “It was for you.” He winked at her. “I just didn’t know it at the time.”

  Before she could pursue the subject of another woman in his life before her, Cable pulled back on the highway, then turned off onto a dirt road. Soon they’d reached the driveway that led to the house. Beside the stable, Song observed two horses, both watching them with bright, intelligent eyes.

  “What beautiful animals,” she said.

  “The mare’s name is Trixie; the gelding is Ben. He’s the one I ride, mostly. There’re trails everywhere on top of this mounta
in. We’ll have a great time riding our property.”

  Song, feeling suddenly revitalized, got out and walked to the fence and slowly put out her hand. After a moment of hesitation, the mare rewarded her with a cautious nuzzle. “I’ll have some carrots for you next time, girl,” she promised, noting the obvious care and grooming of the horse. She called out, “Cable, who takes care of them?”

  “I have a boy come by every day,” Cable replied as he carried her bag up on the porch. “Stay there until I come back.” He disappeared inside with her bag but soon returned, calling out, “Okay. Ready.”

  Song petted Trixie again, then walked to the house and up on the porch, whereupon Cable swept her into his arms and carried her through the open front door. She squeaked in delight. “Cable, that’s so old-fashioned!”

  He set her down, took off his hat, and bowed. “You married an old-fashioned fellow, honey.”

  Song was starting to feel better about everything. She looked down at the stunning parquet floor of the hallway. It was absolutely gorgeous.

  “Solid oak,” Cable said, stomping it. “All the floors in this house are of the finest West Virginia lumber.”

  “Lovely. How many bedrooms?”

  “Six. Including the nursery.”

  “Nursery?”

  He shrugged. “Well, we don’t know what happened down in St. John, do we?”

  Song knew very well what had and hadn’t happened in St. John, and she’d no intention of having a baby any time soon, if ever. But this wasn’t the time to tell him she’d been relieved to find out she wasn’t pregnant a couple of weeks after returning to New York—and that she’d decided to go on the pill. She instead admired the grand curving staircase. Cable tossed his hat onto the banister post.

  “Buying and remodeling this old place cost me a fortune. What do you think?”

  “It’s amazing, Cable,” she said, and meant it.

  Cable took her on a tour, pointing out the exquisite oak and maple furniture in the parlor, living room, and dining room. There were fresh-cut flowers on the dining room table. “Who did you hire to do the interior decorating?” she asked, since she was nearly certain Cable hadn’t done it on his own.

  “Her name’s Rhonda,” he confirmed. “She runs the Cardinal Hotel, which is a kind of a boarding house for bachelor miners and visitors.” He grinned at her, obviously pleased that she liked the house and its furnishing. “I have an idea. You go upstairs, take a long, luxurious bath—wait’ll you see your bathroom—and then we’ll make mad, passionate love until Rhonda brings us supper.”

  Song gave the offer some thought, could see nothing wrong with it, and nodded toward the curving staircase. “The stairway to heaven, I take it?”

  “It is, Mrs. Jordan. It certainly is!”

  A bell rang, long and insistent. “That’s the mine phone,” Cable said, and walked into the parlor to pick it up. It proved to be a black rotary dial phone, the likes of which Song had never seen except in old movies.

  Cable put the clunky receiver to his ear, listened, and then said, “Call Doctor K. Then wait for me. I’ll be right there.” He crossed quickly to the staircase and plucked his hat off the post. “Got to go to the mine,” he said.

  “You’re leaving?” Song asked in disbelief.

  “A pillar let go,” he said. “Broke a man’s arm.”

  “A what let go?”

  “A pillar in the new section. If one gets mined too close . . . Look, I’ll explain later. I’m truly sorry, but I’ve got to go. Rhonda will come by with a supper basket. Don’t wait up for me. It could be hours. I’ll take the truck.”

  “Cable, wait!” She ran to follow him, but he was out the front door without looking back. She stopped on the porch and watched as he hastily climbed into a battered pickup and tore down the driveway. In seconds, he had disappeared in a literal cloud of dust.

  Song shook her head, then allowed a long sigh. “Bath, strong drink if I can find it, and a working telephone—in any order.” She headed back inside for all three.

  Five

  Considering everything, Song decided getting clean was her first priority. She peeked into the bedrooms until she found where Cable had deposited her bag. It was a big room with a high ceiling dominated by a king-sized four-poster bed and a magnificently carved headboard. Looking closer, she saw the carvings were of grim-looking coal miners holding picks and shovels. Appropriate, she thought, if going to bed with your wife is supposed to be work.

  The adjoining bathroom had twin marble sinks and a deep spa tub. “Thank you, Rhonda,” she said to the decorator whom she presumed had also designed the bathroom.

  Song opened her bag to retrieve her various bath potions, including shampoo and conditioner, and then remembered they were in the lost bag. She dug around in the bathroom closet and found a plain white bar of soap, an anti-dandruff shampoo, and an off-brand conditioner. She sighed. They would have to do.

  She started filling the bathtub and was startled when a stream of amber liquid, punctuated by several ugly burps, erupted from the spigot. After a few seconds, the hydraulic grunts stopped, but the gushing water remained the same ugly brown. She filled the tub and climbed into the nasty, lukewarm water. The soap produced no suds and her skin began to itch. Feeling only mildly cleaner than when she’d climbed into it, she got out of the tub, toweled herself dry, and then tried to wash her hair in the sink. When she was finished, it felt like matted straw. “What’s in this water?” she muttered. “Rock?”

  Fortunately she carried an extra toothbrush in her purse. She brushed her teeth with an off-brand toothpaste also found in the closet, gargled with an off-brand mouthwash, and then got dressed, choosing from her surviving bag a comfortable skirt, blouse, and sandals. Now she was ready for that phone call to her father. He wasn’t going to believe that such a backward place still existed in the United States. But he would listen, probably make a joke out of it, and make her feel better. She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the telephone on the bedside table. Like the one in the parlor, it was an old rotary device. “Dispatcher!” a man immediately yelled into her ear.

  Song was so startled, she hung up. Tentatively, she lifted the receiver again. “Hey, who’s this?” the same man demanded. “Is that you, Mrs. Jordan?”

  Song realized it was Mole, Cable’s secretary or whatever he was. “It’s me, Mole,” she said. “Where’s Cable?”

  “Don’t matter where he is,” the man said. “This phone is for mine business only. Welcome to Highcoal, ma’am, but you got to get off this phone.” He abruptly hung up.

  Song looked at the phone with some astonishment, then put the receiver in its cradle and went downstairs and poked around until she found another telephone, this one a relatively modern touch-tone attached to the wall in the kitchen. She picked up its receiver and was rewarded by a dial tone. Eagerly, she dialed her father’s number only to receive an irritating series of beeps followed by a tinny voice that said, “All circuits are busy. Please try again later.”

  She dialed the number again and received the same message. “Time for a strong drink,” she muttered and started searching. The cabinets were empty of anything alcoholic so she peered inside the double-door stainless steel refrigerator that contained a quart of milk, a loaf of white bread, a package of bologna, a box of Velveeta cheese, and three bottles of white wine—two chardonnays and one fumé blanc. It was a bachelor’s refrigerator if she’d ever seen one. She next looked in the pantry and was pleased to find it contained a nice stock of reds, including a French pinot noir, which she chose.

  After searching for wine glasses, she found a pretty set that appeared to be hand-blown crystal. She admired them, even though at that moment she would have settled for a plastic cup.

  Song carried a glass of the dusky red to the front porch, where there were four white rocking chairs. She sat down in the nearest and contemplated the town, the black smear of the coal mine below, and the lush, green mountains that seemed to go on f
orever. She was distracted by cardinals, as scarlet as the reddest rose, chirping prettily as they fed from a bird feeder hanging from the porch. Squirrels also squawked and fussed as they gamboled through the magnificent oaks that grew along the driveway. Song was starting to wind down, feeling more comfortable as the wine settled happily on her empty stomach.

  Her gaze went back to the mine. She wondered where Cable was, if he was already below the earth. She shuddered, unable to fully comprehend what it was like to be underground. Then, interrupting her thoughts, a battered gray pickup truck pulled into the driveway and a heavyset woman with short-cropped blonde hair emerged wearing a white sweatshirt that read I Love Myrtle Beach.

  “Guess you’d be Song,” she said. “I’m Rhonda—cook, hotel manager, interior decorator, and all-round Cable enabler. Come on, Young Henry. Bring the basket.”

  A boy climbed out of the bed of the truck and lifted a large wicker basket. He had a burr haircut and big ears that stuck out. Song guessed him to be around twelve years old. He shyly glanced at Song and she smiled at him. He quickly looked away.

  “So you’re the Rhonda Cable told me about,” Song said.

  Rhonda nodded. “That would be me.”

  Song stood while trying to think of something else to say. She was always awkward when she met someone new unless it was business—then she had plenty to say and she said it whether they wanted to hear it or not.

  “I like what you’ve done with the house,” she managed.

  Rhonda’s round face lit up. “Do you really?”

  “Simply elegant. Where did you get the furniture?”

  Rhonda was now beaming. “Let’s get your food inside and I’ll tell you!” She held open the screen door for the boy who carried the basket inside.

  Song followed Rhonda to the kitchen. “Where’s Cable?” Rhonda asked as she began to unpack the basket.

  Song tried to remember what Cable had said before he’d rushed out. “Gone to the mine. I think he said a pillar fell down. Somebody got their arm broken.”

  Rhonda shook her head. “Fell down? Pillars don’t fall down, honey. They explode.” She clutched the boy by his arm and dragged him over. “Say hello to Mrs. Jordan, Young Henry.”