The Underdwelling

7

Right away, Maki jumped on that one, rode it for all it was worth. “Well, it ain’t gonna be me,” he said as they cleared out the drift. “It ain’t gonna fucking be me. Every time some shit job shows up, goddamn Jurgens calls for me. Like I got the biggest shovel and I don’t mind the smell. Well, believe you me, Boyd, I ain’t going down there. No way in hell am I going down there.”

“So don’t,” Boyd told him. “He can’t make you.”

“Damn straight he can’t. I’d like to see him try. I’d be all over him. He doesn’t want to get me going, no sir. I’d jump his shit and stomp it flat. It would take three cops to get me off him. You can take that to the bank. Hell, yes.”

“Take it easy,” Boyd said.

“I ain’t taking it easy. I know how that guy works. He’s always had it in for me. But not this time, not this time. He tries and I’ll call the Union. I’ll shove a dozen grievances right up his ass sideways, that’s what.”

Jurgens came walking up. “C’mon, boys, we got work to do here. Let’s go.”

And Maki, true to form, almost knocked Boyd down getting to it. “I’ll take care of it, Mr. Jurgens.”

Boyd just shook his head.

They hit it pretty hard. In about two hours they had the drift widened to accommodate a portable winch that was pushed in there on lengths of track. Once the ceiling was braced up, there was nothing to do but wait and see what Jurgens decided next.

Jurgens was gone for about twenty minutes, but when he returned he had McNair, the paleobiologist, with him. McNair was a short, round little guy with a shaggy gray beard. He looked more like a prospector than a scientist, but he would do in a pinch.

“Okay,” Jurgens said. “Dr. McNair and I are going down. I’d like a couple volunteers to go with us.”

Not a man moved. Maybe they didn’t like that aged odor whispering up from the shaft and maybe it was something else, the idea that whatever was down there had not been disturbed in a very long time. Like the depths of an Egyptian tomb with a curse on it.

“I’ll go,” Boyd said.

“Me, too,” Breed chimed in.

“Good, good,” Jurgens said. “Probably nothing down there, but we need to have a look. We got caves or subsidence, we might have to cancel this drift altogether.”

Maki looked from Boyd to Breed again and again. Then over at Jurgens. There was something brewing in him. He was ancy and wide-eyed. “I’m going, too,” he said.

“I don’t need you,” Jurgens told him flat out.

“I got seniority over Breed and Boyd,” Maki said. “If anybody goes down, it should be me. I’m the most experienced.”

One of the miners giggled at that.

“I am. I been here longer than most. I got the seniority.”

Jurgens said, “This isn’t a matter of seniority, Maki.”

“I’m going. I’m the one that should go.”

Boyd laughed. “An hour ago you were bitching that you didn’t want to go.”

“I never said any such thing.”

Jurgens sighed. “All right, Maki. You can go.” He just caved-in, knowing that if he didn’t allow it Maki would whine and stomp his feet and make a general nuisance of himself like a spoiled brat until he got his way. And that would burn precious time.

Once the basket was hooked up to the winch, Jurgens and McNair went down. They took a walkie-talkie with them and called up that it was okay for the others to descend.

“You sure you want this?” Boyd said to Maki.

“Yeah, they’ll need me.”

Which was silly. Did anybody really need Maki? The only reason he was going was because he was still playing the big balls game, trying to show Boyd what a tough customer he was. It was silly. Absolutely silly.

They all wore rubber boots, helmets, and raingear. They took flashlights and gas masks. McNair and Jurgens had taken cameras, gas detectors, and Coleman battery lanterns down with them. It was a long ride down through that cloying darkness, the basket bumping around in the narrow shaft.

About half way down, Breed said, “Hey, Maki? Your mother have any kids that lived?”

And down they went into the underworld.