Song of the Spirits (64 page)

Elaine chewed on her upper lip. “No, seriously,” she blurted out. “Didn’t you think… the girl was beautiful?”

Timothy looked at her curiously when he heard the insistence in her voice. The delicate, translucent skin on her face flushed, then turned pale, then flushed again. Her lips trembled slightly, and her eyes flickered.

Timothy wanted to wrap his arm around her shoulders and lay his hand on hers, but he sensed her instinctive reluctance, and he touched the edge of the piano instead.

“Lainie,” he said softly, “Of course she’s beautiful, and she sings beautifully too. Any man who isn’t blind and deaf could tell that. But
you’re much more beautiful and play much more touchingly, and for that reason, I would never let another girl play ‘John Riley’ for me.”

“But, I’m not as pretty as she. I…” Elaine turned away. If only she had not asked.

“You’re prettier to me,” Timothy said seriously. “You have to believe that. I want to marry you, after all. That means I’ll still think you’re pretty when you’re seventy years old, gray-haired, and wrinkled.”

Elaine hid behind her hair again. “Don’t talk like that,” she whispered.

Timothy smiled. “You can’t deny me that. Now, please play me a cheerful song and forget the girl at the piano in the Wild Rover. I already have.”

Elaine brushed her hair back and smiled shyly. She played a few trivial tunes, but people could tell her mind was not on the music. And when Timothy Lambert finally took his leave, a small miracle occurred.

Timothy said his usual “Good night, Lainie,” but Elaine took a deep breath and looked at him shyly. Almost afraid of her own courage, she decided to smile.

“Good night, Tim.”

G
REYMOUTH

Late 1896–Early 1898

T
imothy Lambert was in the best of spirits when he rode to his father’s mine on Monday. And that despite the fact that they had not yet reached an agreement over the necessary renovations. Timothy had fought fiercely with his father about them on Sunday, but Marvin Lambert considered further investment in the safety of his mine superfluous and declared the elder Biller crazy.

“He’s probably blown a gasket with that boy of his playing piano in the pub every night. No wonder the old man is coming up with ideas to keep Junior busy—in something at least vaguely related to coal mining.

Timothy had then suggested that he could start taking piano lessons himself. Maybe they could use him in the pub since his suggestions on matters of workplace safety were unwanted. Why in heaven’s name had his father had him study mining engineering if he was just going to ignore every recommendation? The whole conversation had then escalated into their usual discussion about how the mine did not need an engineer as much as it needed a savvy businessman and that Timothy could easily acquire those skills if he would duck into the office more often.

Timothy had been furious, but at that moment, in the bright sunshine that made the landscape around Greymouth appear freshly washed, he forgot his frustrations. Instead, he entertained himself with the thought of what Elaine would say to having him for a piano student, and as he pictured Elaine in his mind’s eye, his spirits rose even more. He would see her again that night. He would walk up to her, smile at her, and say “Good evening, Lainie.” And maybe she would smile again and call him “Tim.” It was a small step forward,
but an important one. Perhaps the ice had now broken. Elaine had looked so relaxed and cheerful after he had put to rest her silly ideas about the other pianist.

That was a strange matter, though. Why did the girl react with such panic about a rival she didn’t even know? Or was there history between her and this Kura person? It was possible. The Maori girl had traveled around a great deal. Had the opera ensemble brought all of its musicians along from Europe? Maybe Elaine had played piano for the singer and there had been a fight. Perhaps Kura knew who had caused the girl so much pain that she had been afraid of men ever since. Timothy briefly considered speaking to the singer himself, but that struck him as a breach of faith. He could speak to Caleb Biller, however. It was true that the boy was a bit effeminate, but Timothy had nothing against him personally. On the contrary, he was much easier to get along with than his domineering father, and he was not stupid. If Timothy told Caleb about Elaine, perhaps Caleb would cautiously sound out Kura on the subject and then tell Timothy what she had said.

Timothy whistled to himself as Fellow trotted through the miners’ camp. He had achieved a few small successes here at least. The streets had been drained for Saint Barbara’s Day, and one could travel them easily. The cleanup had also been a step forward for mine safety. There had hardly been any traversable emergency roads to Greymouth before. However, it was not even worth thinking about what would happen if the workers’ camp caught fire. Or the mine itself.

Timothy studied the headframe tower and the other mine buildings coming into view with a mixture of pride and repugnance. They could make a model operation out of it, a modern mine with high safety standards, with connections to the rail network. Timothy also had a plethora of ideas about increasing the delivery rate, about new, more efficient delivery techniques, and the expansion of the shafts. He suspected that would have to wait for Marvin’s retirement. Nevertheless, his father had agreed to go on another tour that day. At the very least, Timothy wanted to show him from above where ventilation was lacking and what possibilities there were for expanding the shafts—if he
was willing to invest the money and labor, that is. Brimming over with vim and high spirits, he almost believed he would convince his father.

Marvin Lambert looked crankily at his son.

“Typical case of Monday disease,” he complained. “There’s no end to the people skipping work today. Ten percent of the lazybones in the camp didn’t show up. The freight-wagon drivers are complaining because their carts are getting stuck in the mud—this damned rain! I should just have built the roads to the train line instead of that street through the camp. And the foreman took off too. Yeah, that’s right, took off, without even asking if I thought it proper for him to see to this plank delivery himself, which still hasn’t arrived. And then the fellow actually refused to carry on with the face until—”

Timothy’s good spirits drained away. “Father, without support beams, he
can’t
carry on with the face. I explained that to you yesterday. And the high percentage of sick workers is probably the result of all the rain we’ve had. It gets to the men’s lungs, especially if they’re already weak. But the sun is shining today, so they’ll be doing better by tomorrow. Just watch, the men’ll be here for the next shift. They need the money, you know. But for now, come, Father. You promised you’d look at the plans for the mine expansion.”

Marvin Lambert would have liked to finish his tea. Timothy could smell that his father had added a splash of whiskey to it. In the end, however, he gave into his son’s importuning and followed him into the bright sunshine.

“Look, Father, you have to think of it like air circulation with an open window. A single window isn’t sufficient, nor is a second one on the upper floor of the house. If the entire house is to have fresh air, you need to have several openings. If we continue adding to the face of the shafts, expanding the house so to speak, we have to dig new air shafts. And the greater the risk of a gas leak, the more circulation there has to be. Especially with our weather here. The outside temperature and air pressure play a role as well.” Timothy explained all of this patiently, but he doubted his father was listening. The longer his presentation lasted, the more desperate he became to make
it clear to his father how complicated and dangerous the network of underground shafts and tunnels really was.

Then he heard a rumbling, almost as though a storm were brewing somewhere. Marvin, too, looked at the sky, irritated, and ducked his head back inside to avoid getting wet. But there wasn’t a single cloud over Greymouth, the mountains, or the lake. Timothy was alarmed. That sound wasn’t coming from above. It was right under their feet!

“Father, the mine. Something is going on down there. Did you order anything? A blasting? Or… you didn’t order a shaft expansion, did you? With the old explosives? Is anything out of the ordinary happening today?” Timothy’s expression was one of extreme urgency and concern.

Marvin waved his hand calmly. “That young foreman, Josh Kennedy, is extending tunnel nine,” he said almost proudly. “He’s no hemming-and-hawing do-nothing like Gawain. He was right there when…”

Timothy looked alarmed. “When you ordered the extension of tunnel nine? My God, Father, we haven’t done any test drilling in tunnel nine! And Matt suspected there were hollow spaces in the rock down there. We have to sound the alarm, Father. Something is going on down there!”

Leaving Marvin standing there, Timothy raced to the mine entrance, but the explosions beat him to it. Though the mine complex continued to look still and unchanged under the spring sky, an infernal noise was erupting beneath the earth. It sounded as though one stick of dynamite after another was going off underground. First once, then a second time, before Timothy reached the entrance of the mine.

Standing at the entrance tunnel, pale with fear, the men who operated the hoisting cage had already set the cage in motion to ascend.

As the cable began to move, there was a third explosion underground.

“That’s not right below us,” one of the men yelled. “That one’s further away, more to the south.”

Timothy nodded. “That’s tunnel nine. Or it was. There can hardly be much left of it. I hope the men made it out and there weren’t any
gas or water leaks. I need to get down there. Fetch me a lamp.” He looked at the men at the winch. One of them was an old Welsh miner with badly damaged lungs who no longer entered the mine. The other was a young man. Timothy thought he had seen him underground before. “Aren’t you normally in tunnel seven? What are you doing up here? Are you sick?”

The man shook his head—and prepared to enter the mine without being asked.

“My wife’s pregnant. She thinks the baby’s coming today, so the foreman said I should help up here. Tunnel seven was halted anyway because of the shipment of boards, so the foreman told me I could stick close to my wife.”

Timothy bit his lip. The unborn child may have just saved his father’s life. And now he was putting it in danger again.

“I’m sorry, but you have to come along anyway. It might be too late by the time other help arrives.”

Timothy boarded the hoisting cage before the expectant father. The old miner made a motion of prayer, and Timothy caught himself calling out to Saint Barbara. This was a calamitous situation, and the deeper the elevator sank into the mine, the more dire it seemed. With the exception of the noise of the hoisting cage, a deathly silence prevailed underground. Instead of the usual sounds—the constant hammering, the rattling of the carts on the tracks, the shoveling of the spoils, the voices of the sixty to a hundred men working down there—all was quiet.

The young man noticed it too. He looked at Timothy, his eyes wide with fright, and whispered, “My God.”

They came upon the first bodies in the relatively wide space in front of the hoisting cage. Two men. They must have been fleeing, but it had been too late to call the elevator.

“Gas,” Timothy whispered hoarsely. “It must have been released here, since the ventilation is still functioning here. But they had already breathed in too much of it.”

“Could also have been some kind of blast,” the young man suggested. “What are we going to do now, sir? Do we continue on?”

Timothy knew the young man would have liked to leave immediately. And he was probably right. If there were dead here, it was highly unlikely that anyone had survived farther into the mine. But what if there were survivors? What if some of them had found air bubbles?

Timothy bit his lip. “I’ll take a closer look,” he said quietly. “But you can go back up if you want.”

The man shook his head. “I’m coming with you. These are my buddies down here.”

Timothy nodded. “What’s your name?” he asked as they walked through the pitch-black and deathly still shaft.

“Joe Patterson.”

The lamps on their helmets bathed the immediate vicinity in a sallow, ghostly twilight.

“Look, there are two more,” Joe said.

“Three,” Timothy whispered.

It looked as if two of the men had been attempting to support a wounded third.

“Joe, we need to split up to cover ground more quickly. You go to tunnel seven. I’ll take nine.”

The tunnel forked here. Timothy wondered whether the men had been coming from the right or the left. In the end, he went right. Reluctantly, Joe turned down the left tunnel—continuing alone obviously made him uncomfortable. But there shouldn’t have been many men in tunnel seven. Timothy thanked heaven for the wood shipment’s delay.

In shaft nine, he found more bodies—and then the first holes. He knew he had found the origin of the explosion, whose blast had dispersed gas and a torrent of rubble all over the place. Silence still
reigned. Eventually, Timothy could no longer stand it, and he began to call out.