Faith, Hope, and Ivy June

  When Ivy June dressed for school on Tuesday, she noticed Catherine pulling on a navy blue sweatshirt, so she purposely chose a green turtleneck for herself, making sure they didn’t resemble each other.

  Catherine aced the math test the teacher sprang on them that morning, but she fell behind a little in history, in their study of World War II. In geography, the girls were about even. Once again, she was called to the office for her dad’s phone call, and once again, she came out smiling.

  “Mom’s awake and talking. She’s on pain medication, but she told Dad she’s glad it’s over.”

  “And so are you,” said Ivy June. “Do they know when she’ll be going home?”

  “They haven’t said yet. Not for a while, I suppose.”

  At lunchtime, Shirl walked by their table but ate with someone else. At least she was getting closer, Ivy June thought wryly. She must have heard the news about Cat’s mom. But the only classes that she and Catherine shared with Shirl were geography and science, and when Ivy June entered the science room after lunch, Shirl had her face in a book and didn’t look up.

  “Hope this isn’t the day we’re going to look at a frog’s lungs,” Ivy June said to no one in particular, something she’d been told was coming at some point in the semester.

  “Well, I won’t throw up if you don’t,” said Catherine.

  Ivy June wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Shirl hide a smile.

  A police car sped by the school, and Ivy June watched idly as another followed. Mrs. Toler up front raised her voice a little to get the students’ attention, and Ivy June concentrated once more on the principles of heredity.

  But then a car door slammed out in the parking lot, and Ivy June watched a woman jump from the car and run toward the office. Several other students noticed too. Then a rescue squad, its siren off, tore past the building.

  Everyone watched the windows, even the teacher. At that moment, somebody’s cell phone rang. Only a couple of kids had them, and cells weren’t allowed in the classroom. But this time Mrs. Toler didn’t object when George Wilson, a boy at the back, answered.

  He listened, his face expressionless, lips parted, until finally he murmured, “Okay….” Then he turned the phone off and stared for a moment at all the faces turned toward him. “It’s the mine,” he said. “Something’s happened, but they won’t tell us what.”

  Ivy June stood up, her notebook sliding to the floor.

  “Class,” Mrs. Toler said. “Let’s just wait for an announcement from the office.”

  “My grandfather’s down there,” Ivy June said huskily, her dry lips sticking together as she tried to get the words out.

  “So’s my uncle,” said George Wilson.

  “I realize this is hard,” the teacher said, “but we just don’t know anything yet.”

  Other students rose and went to the windows. Ivy June and Catherine joined them. They stared in the direction of the mine, but there was no column of smoke rising over the hills, no cloud of dust in the air.

  “I didn’t hear an explosion,” a girl told them.

  But there were more sirens now, growing gradually louder. In the windows of the new wing, Ivy June could see other students staring at the sky.

  The school intercom clicked on: “Students, there’s been an incident at the mine, and we’re waiting for word from the sheriff’s office,” came the principal’s voice. “Please remain in your classrooms, and as soon as we have any information, we’ll announce it. Remain in your classrooms.”

  No one spoke. Some of the kids returned to their seats; others stayed at the windows. Waiting … waiting …

  Mrs. Toler didn’t seem to know what to do either. No topic in their textbook could match the importance of what might be happening just four miles down the road.

  As the minutes ticked by, she asked finally, “How many of you have family at the mine?”

  Two people, Ivy June and George Wilson, raised their hands. Luke Weller would have raised his hand if his dad were alive, Ivy June thought.

  “How many know someone who works at the mine?” Mrs. Toler asked, and now almost every hand in the room went up. Shirl’s hand went up too.

  “Well, in a few minutes I’m sure we’ll find out what’s happened, and just how serious it is,” the teacher said.

  There didn’t have to be an explosion for it to be serious, Ivy June knew. Didn’t have to be a fire. There were small accidents just as deadly. But when not just an ambulance rode by, but police and rescue squads from places all around, you knew it was awful, and then there was another, then still another siren far off in the distance.

  Someone in the office had turned the microphone on before the principal was ready, because the class heard him say, “I can’t announce that yet….”

  Another voice: “The mike’s on, Mr. Gordon….” A fumbling noise before the mike went dead.

  Ivy June felt as though her hands and feet were turning to ice, and she shivered.

  “This is so difficult,” Mrs. Toler said sympathetically. No sound from the students. Then the microphone clicked on again.

  “Students,” came Mr. Gordon’s voice, “there has been an accident at the mine, and at this point we are not sure just how serious it is or how many of the crew are involved. I know that this is an anxious time for those of you with relatives in the mine. I’m asking teachers to excuse those students from class. Please send them directly to the cafeteria and I’ll meet them there. The rest of you should proceed with your lessons as planned.”

  George Wilson stood up, and so did Ivy June, her face pale. Catherine gathered up her and Ivy June’s books, and Mrs. Toler nodded permission for Catherine to go along. Ivy June saw Luke Weller’s eyes follow them toward the door.

  “I’m praying for you,” the teacher said as they left the room.

  Ivy June knew her legs were moving, but they didn’t seem to belong to her. With each step, her heart thumped painfully against the wall of her chest, as though any moment it would leap right out. She felt Catherine’s arm around her waist.

  Mr. Gordon was waiting just inside the door to the cafeteria, and he reached out to pat some of the students on the shoulders as they shuffled silently in. Sunlight streamed through the high windows, and Ivy June wondered how anything bad could happen on a day so cheerful-looking. For a moment she felt that Papaw just had to be all right. Then she saw the cafeteria women watching anxiously through the roll-up window back by the kitchen, and her heart pounded again.

  “I wish I could tell you more,” Mr. Gordon said, “but right now there hasn’t been any statement from the mine. I’ve talked with someone at the sheriff’s office, but they’re not giving out details either. It is, they report, a serious situation, but right now we don’t know who, if any—and I repeat—if any workers were hurt.”

  A panicky murmur went through the small crowd.

  “But what was it?” someone called.

  Mr. Gordon shook his head. “I don’t know. We’re calling each of your families to see if they want you to remain here, come home, or meet them at the Presbyterian church down there near the junction. That’s where they’re setting up a place for relatives to wait. We’ve got some volunteers who’ll drive you there.”

  Students immediately began talking in low voices, turning to each other.

  Mr. Gordon looked around. “Anyone here who doesn’t have a phone at home?”

  Ivy June and three others raised their hands.

  “Okay, now. Sheriff’s going to send somebody up to deliver the news, and I’m asking you to wait here till we know what your families want you to do.”

  Ma and Daddy and Mammaw and Grandmommy didn’t know yet, Ivy June thought. Mammaw was probably out planting green beans, and then she’d see this stranger coming up the hill, or maybe Sam Feeley again, riding over on his horse.

  Forty minutes there and forty back! she was thinking. She could not stay here not knowing. With Catherine following closely behind her, she zigzagged through the
little crowd and over to where the principal was standing.

  “Mr. Gordon, I want to go to that church. I know that’s where my grandmother would tell me to go.”

  “You’ll have to wait until we hear from her,” the principal said, and turned to another girl who was pulling at his sleeve.

  Ivy June wheeled around. She grabbed Catherine’s arm, left the cafeteria, and headed for her locker.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “How far away is the mine?” Catherine asked cautiously. They had left their books in the locker.

  “A ways,” Ivy June said. “Four, five miles, maybe.”

  Catherine looked over at her. “It’s like the teacher said, though. We really don’t know anything yet.” She waited. “I mean, your grandfather could be sitting outside the mine drinking a cup of coffee.”

  “You don’t know that he is!” Ivy June shot back.

  “But you don’t know that he isn’t,” Catherine said. And then, “I’m sorry. I know how worried you are.”

  An ambulance sped by, but when the girls had walked another mile and it didn’t return, Ivy June felt the panic again.

  A car came up the road behind them and stopped. A policeman leaned toward the window. “You girls shouldn’t be out this way,” he called. “Going to be a lot of traffic coming by here.”

  Ivy June gave him a determined glance and kept walking.

  The car moved forward and stopped again. “Hey! You hear what I’m tellin’ you?”

  Ivy June faced him. “My grandfather’s down in that mine!” she said.

  The officer’s face softened. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll drive you to the church. That’s where you’ll get your information.”

  The small Presbyterian church was set back from the road, but already the parking area was filled with mud-splattered pickup trucks, old sedans, and here and there a newer model. A Red Cross van stood with its door open; a man lifted out a large coffee urn and carried it inside.

  The policeman let the girls out, and Ivy June and Catherine walked across the lawn, the new grass peeking out between cars that were parked at an angle, leaving tire marks on the sod. Inside the door, a woman with a clipboard gently asked their names and the name of their relative working the mine.

  “Spencer Mosley,” Ivy June said. “My … my grandfather.”

  The woman touched her arm and nodded sympathetically. “As soon as they tell us anything, we’ll let you know,” she said.

  Ivy June and Catherine sat down in the first row and listened in on the conversations of people clustered about. The hard bench felt cold beneath them from the constant opening and closing of the door. A folding table off to one side held the coffee urn, which sat beside a large platter of store-bought cookies and a dish of potato salad. No one seemed to have answers to anything, only questions.

  “How deep is the mine, Ivy June?” Catherine asked. “Do they know if the elevator’s working? That ought to tell us something.”

  “It doesn’t have an elevator. It’s a drift mine—goes straight back into a hill from the side, not down.”

  Catherine’s eyes brightened. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Couldn’t the men walk out if they had to?”

  “They could be two or three miles back,” Ivy June said woodenly. “And there’s all sorts of ways they could be … trapped.”

  The other miners’ kids from school came in, driven there by volunteers.

  “You find out anything?” George Wilson asked, sliding into the pew beside Ivy June.

  “No,” she told him, her voice shaky. “They’re trying to get somebody from the mine to come talk to us.”

  Two men, a photographer and a reporter from the newspaper, entered the church, and people rushed over to ask what they knew. Nothing more, it turned out. The roadway to the mine had been closed off, and they were here to interview anxious relatives. Ivy June turned her face away.

  Behind the sanctuary there were restrooms and a Bible study room, which appeared to be the command post for the volunteers and the newspeople. A couple of retired miners had taken it upon themselves to get reports from the mine officials and were scurrying around the room, talking on their cell phones. One of them, a white-haired man in a leather jacket, seemed to be the person relatives wanted most to talk to, but Ivy June could tell, when he shook his head, that he didn’t know much more than anyone else.

  “If there had been an explosion, wouldn’t we have felt it?” someone said.

  Ivy June knew what they were all thinking: fire, filling the passages and crossovers with fumes, sucking out the air and searing the lungs.

  But another girl said, “My aunt lives a half mile from the mine, and she says there’s no sign of smoke or anything, only rescue trucks.”

  “If it was a cave-in, I’ll bet it was the tunnel left of the south entry. My uncle said last week that the roof needed shoring up, but nobody fixed it,” said George Wilson.

  Ivy June didn’t want to hear that, and her heart raced. She’d heard Papaw say once that it wasn’t the thought of death so much that made his blood turn cold—it was the fear of being trapped hundreds of feet inside a mountain with no way out.

  “… that slate come down on you, you don’t even hear it,” a man was saying.

  Ivy June left the others and restlessly paced the room, stopping every so often to ask someone a question, but no one had an answer. The folding table at one side now supported a platter of sliced ham and a casserole of macaroni and cheese. The fragrance of fresh coffee filled her nostrils. But no one seemed to be eating except the photographer, who made a sandwich out of ham and a roll, then hurried on out to his car.

  “Ivy June!”

  Ivy June wheeled about, and there was Mammaw, a frenzied look on her face. Ivy June was shocked when her grandmother grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “W-what?” Ivy June stammered.

  “Where you been? I’ve not enough on my mind to worry about?” Mammaw declared, and suddenly she pulled Ivy June toward her and hugged her, crying.

  Daddy came in the door, his face drawn. “Mrs. Murphy came up to get us, Ivy June, and said we were to stop by the school and pick you up. Mr. Gordon, he didn’t know where you was, or Catherine, neither. Said you were told to wait in the cafeteria till we got there.”

  “I … I couldn’t,” Ivy June said. “I just c-couldn’t.”

  “They saying anything yet?”

  “No. Where was Papaw working, Mammaw? What tunnel was he in?”

  Mammaw shook her head. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Week before, he was working the north main, but he just didn’t say….”

  “Sit down, Ma,” Daddy told her. “Don’t upset yourself any more. We forgot your nerve medicine, remember.”

  “Lord, and I-don’t-know-what-all,” Mammaw said, lowering herself onto a pew, then grabbing at Catherine’s hand as Cat saw the family and came over. “Ruth’s there at the house with the boys looking after Grandmommy, and Jessie, I ’spect, will be here shortly, she hears the news.” Mammaw dug in her sweater pocket for a hand-kerchief and wiped her eyes.

  Catherine sat down in the pew in front, turned so she could talk with them. She looked helpless and out of place, but Ivy June could feel nothing for Catherine just then, could feel only her own terror and helplessness.

  Off in the distance, they could hear a siren coming—from the direction not of the town but of the mine. Everyone pivoted toward the door as the ambulance raced past, the flash of its red light momentarily spotting the walls of the church. That meant that someone was alive.

  The white-haired man in the leather jacket, holding a cell phone to his ear, limped to the front of the sanctuary. Ivy June could tell he’d been a miner—the nicks on his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose where rock had fallen. Miners’ tattoos, folks called them. People immediately surged toward him, but he pocketed the cell phone and held up one hand. An immediate hush fell over the room.

  “I’m going to give it to you straight,
folks, and this is all I know,” he said. “Charlie Sizemore’s at the mine now, and we’re going to keep trading places till—”

  “Just get on with it, Brady!” a man called out.

  The white-haired man nodded, and his face looked pained. “There’s been a flood at the mine. They drilled into water.”

  Gasps and cries traveled around the room.

  “Oh, my Lord Jesus …,” murmured Mammaw.

  The man named Brady continued: “There were twenty-nine men on the morning shift, and seven of them working the north passages. Three men were in the number one room, four working the number two. One of the men, Les Crowley, was washed out into the main entry and was grabbed by another miner near the mouth. They escaped by riding the conveyor belt the rest of the way out.”

  “Who pulled Les out?” a woman called.

  “I don’t know, but Crowley’s on his way to the hospital and he’s conscious, so maybe he’ll be able to tell us what happened. We’re guessing somebody cut into trapped water. They’ve got one pump going and more equipment on the way.”

  “Just one pump?” someone shouted.

  The room was filled with more questions, exclamations, but all Ivy June heard right then was Mammaw’s breathless “Spencer can’t swim.”

  A man standing next to Brady held up his hand for attention: “Remember, y’all, Brady used to work at the mine, so don’t hold him accountable. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have no news a’tall.”

  The crowd quieted some then.

  “What about the men working the south passages?” somebody asked.

  “They’ve got ninteen men up the main straight trapped on high ground, and they’ve been told to stay put till the pumps bring the water down,” Brady said. Then, “Hold on a minute.” His cell phone was ringing and he held it to his ear. Then he turned once more toward the crowd and said, “The second man on the conveyor belt was Smit Wilson, and he’s okay.”