R. Saunders - Underground and Radioactive

Soon we were hard at it, measuring and cutting posts and caps. Sure enough, when it came time to set the caps, Daniel couldn’t lift them high enough. I ended up balancing my end on top of a post while Daniel held his end about chest high. After my end was set, I would take Daniel’s end and lift it up into place. That system worked, but it was going to be very difficult to work that way unless someone figured something out. To his credit Daniel did just that.

Eventually Daniel took to setting a twelve-by-twelve scrap of lumber on his end to stand on so he could set the cap himself. That system worked well. Then the light returned.

Sometimes, and it usually happened early in the shift, I would glance down through the sets toward the manway, and there again was the mysterious light. I never brought it up to Daniel, but eventually he did see it. Here we go again, I thought.

The first time Daniel saw it, he wondered aloud who it might be. “Who the fuck is that?”

I told him I had seen the light many times and had checked it out many times, but that there was nobody there. That might not have been the best approach.

Confused, Daniel wanted to know what that meant. “There has to be somebody there,” he said.

I explained what had been happening and that each time we went down to check we found there was nobody. Of course Daniel didn’t think that was possible, so I told him to go take a look if he wanted to. He did and proceeded down the long row of sets. The light then, as always, vanished, and, as had Stutts, so did Daniel, right down the manway.

Soon he was back, looking confused and plainly worried. Seeing his expression, I explained how the light kept showing up and how we had never found anyone in the stope. For my part I wanted to get on with the work and ignore the light. Whatever it was wasn’t bothering us and left when we went to investigate. So why bother with it?

I did my best to explain to Daniel how long the light had been showing up, that there really was nobody there, and not to worry about it. That didn’t work very well either.

From then on Daniel was uneasy and, just as Stutts had done, continued to look for the light to show up instead of concentrating on what we were supposed to be doing. The light appeared at least twice more that day, and each time Daniel went to see who it was, and each time he found nothing.

At the end of the shift, he was even more shaken than Stutts and said the stope was haunted and he wouldn’t work in it again.

“What makes you think the stope is haunted?” I said.

“You ever see a light like that before down here?” he replied.

“No, but why does it matter? It never comes close to us and never bothers us.”

“It bothers me” was the last thing he said.

When he hit the surface, he went straight to Shotgun, told him what had happened, and asked to be removed from the stope.

That was good news for me. First, it confirmed for Shotgun what Stutts had said previously. I couldn’t be blamed for doing something to either one of them. Second, I would get a new helper who might be able to lift timber more easily.

As he had with Stutts, Shotgun, always a very fair guy, removed Daniel from the stope. He had lasted exactly one day.

After that shift I finally gave some thought to the light and figured whatever it was or whoever it was wasn’t interested in talking or interrupting our work. If it was a ghost, as Daniel and Stutts thought, then it wasn’t doing any harm and was only watching. That was fine with me; however, someone wanted some answers.

When I reported for my next shift, I had been assigned yet another helper, Tom James. Also appointed to us was our own geologist, who was to spend the day in the stope. His assignment was to stay with us and if the light appeared to get to the bottom of it.

“Who told you to hang out in the stope?” I asked.

“Listen, I’m just doing what I was told to do,” he said.

“Yeah, OK,” I replied, but I was sure suspicious of the idea of having someone hanging around the stope while we were trying to get some work done.

Why a geologist and why whoever had assigned him to that useless task cared at all about a mysterious light always remained unknown to me. I certainly was never on solid enough ground with either Shotgun or Mel to be questioning their decisions. The directive might not have come from either of them anyway, but I guess I will never know. Carry on with the work was my attitude as the three of us headed back to the stope, where Tom and I had more timber to set and the geologist had some sitting around to do.

I don’t recall who the geologist was, but I knew and liked most of them. They were usually recent college graduates, and working for Kermac was their first job. Their most distinctive characteristic was they were always clean: clean hands and face and clean clothes with tucked-in shirts. That look really made them stand out underground, where everyone else was filthy.

The geologists carried around long or short probes that they would insert into exploratory holes drilled by the long-hole miners or muck piles of recently blasted ore. Long-hole drills were much larger than those we used in production and looked to me like a lot of fun to operate.

Unlike jackleg machines, a long-hole drill was stationary and well braced against the back and floor. Other than having to carry them around, set them up, and add lengths of steel, running a long hole wasn’t a bad job. It did take a skilled miner to do it, and it paid well. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to run one.

The long-hole miner on the 1–5 was a guy by the name of Botts. He was recognizable by the yellow rain suit he wore all the time. That was unusual because the 1–5 was above the water table and was very dry. Had he been working the wet lower level, I could have understood his wearing the suit. Below the water table, water came off the back so much it was like rain, making a rain suit mandatory.

We had no long holes drilled in our stope, but the geologist had brought his short-hole probe and did use his time to look around the place and probe a few small muck piles checking for ore quality.

While the geologist was probing close by, James and I resumed square-set construction. James was a good-sized guy, and he had no problem setting caps and getting our sets caught up to where we could start drilling again. Another guy who had some experience in several mines, James knew how to set up the drill. He was busy doing that while I was laboring at the face, trying to figure out what kind of a pattern I needed to drill.

All three of us saw the light when it appeared as usual down by the manway. James of course wanted to check it out, and I once again said it was nobody. “There’s nobody there, and there never has been with that damn light, so let’s just get on with what we have to do,” I said.

That kept James with me and working, but the geologist was convinced it had to be somebody, so he was the one who took off back toward the manway. “Nope, not this time. That’s somebody for sure,” he said, scurrying toward the light source.

Of course no sooner had he left to investigate than the light vanished. Not satisfied, he climbed down the manway to the track drift and, as with all of us before him, found nothing.

The light appeared at least two more times during the shift, both of which the geologist observed. He went to investigate each time and as always found nothing.