James Cain - The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction

“Where you live?”

“In the north end of town.”

“I never seen you before.”

“We just moved in. My father, he enlarges pictures. We move from one town to the other. I wanted to see a mine. Please show me how to get out.”

“Set down.”

She sat down dejectedly beside the trap, and he pondered. You see, it’s bad luck for a woman to enter a mine, and whenever this happens, the mine has to be “blown out,” as it is blown out when somebody gets killed; that is, all hands have to quit work for the day, lest some dreadful catastrophe ensue. The trouble was that this was the first day’s work the mine had had in two weeks, and the last it would have for an indefinite period; indeed, all they were doing now was loading empties for the tipple, so the men could have a little work and stray orders could be filled. If he reported this, and they blew the mine out, it might go hard with this girl; for desperate housewives, counting on a full day’s pay to replenish empty shelves, might not be amused if they found they had been cheated by a ninny who merely wanted to peep.

On the next creek a woman who had dashed into a drift to say something to her husband had been so badly beaten she had to be taken to a hospital.

“You know what it means? A woman in a mine?”

“Yes; but I didn’t mean nobody to see me.”

“Ain’t no way you can get out. I can’t leave this here trap, and that place you come in, it’s at least two mile away, and you can’t find it, and anyway you got no light. Ain’t no way you can get out, except we wait till quitting time, and then I take you out by the old drift mouth.”

“All right.”

“You got to stay hid. You heard what I said? They find you in here, something’s going to happen to you. And they find out I let you stay, something’s going to happen to me, too. After they turn me loose, I can’t work in this mine no more, and maybe I can’t work in no mine.”

“Somebody’s coming.”

“In the toolbox — quick!”

She climbed in the toolbox, and he closed the cover, wedging a stone under it so she could have a little air. He sat down and with elaborate nonchalance resumed his rendition of “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” Han Biloxi was approaching. Of course, all that was visible was a bobbing point of light; but to Lonnie a bobbing point of light had special and personal motions, so that he knew it was Han Biloxi without knowing how he knew it or even wondering how he knew it. When Han was within hailing distance he stopped whistling and yelled, “Yah, Han!” There was no answer. Han came on, and when his face could be seen, it was grave. “All right, kid. We’re blowing out. Jake’s train is on the main tunnel, third entry down. He’ll hold for ten minutes.”

“Blowing out? What for?”

“Eckhart got it.”

“What?”

“Rolled ag’in’ the rib.”

“...When?”

“Just now. I seen it myself. Car jumped the switch and got him. He didn’t have a chance.”

“Gee, I rode in with him.”

“You got ten minutes.”

Han stepped through the trap, went on to notify miners farther up the entry.

Lonnie lifted the toolbox cover. “You heard him?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Now you see what you done!”

“Please don’t say that.”

“He’s dead, ain’t he?”

“You don’t have to put it on me.”

“I’m putting it where it belongs.”

She stood up, climbed out of the box, and faced him. “It’s not true. Just because I’m in here, it don’t mean that’s why he got killed. I won’t believe it!”

“Whose fault is it?”

“All right: What are you going to do now?”

“I got to go out on Jake’s train.”

“And leave me in here all alone?”

“I got to go on Jake’s train. If I don’t show up, they start looking for me. If they don’t find me, they think something happened to me.”

“And no light. And pitch dark.”

“Nobody asked you in here.”

“My, but you’re hateful.”

She turned her back to him, and the nape of her neck looked disturbingly childish. He felt a twinge of guilt. She walked around, shaking her head angrily, and then dashed for the toolbox. She didn’t have time to climb into it. She crouched behind it as six or eight miners, following Han Biloxi, stepped through the trap in gloomy silence.

Lonnie called to Han: “Tell Jake not to wait for me. I’m going out by the old drift mouth.”

“What’s the matter — you crazy?”

“There’s a roll of wire up there I want. I’m making myself some rabbit traps. Maybe catch something while we’re laid off.”

“Come on, boy — stop acting like you got no sense. Whoever hear’n tell of that, going through all them old dead entries just to get a roll of wire? Can’t you go up there tomorrow, from the outside?”

“I want the wire tonight.”

“Cut the jawing and let’s go.”

“That’s right; if the kid’s crazy, let him do what he wants — and come on, let’s get out of here.”

They went on, their footsteps growing fainter, the splotches of light contracting until they were a small cluster of luminous blurs, when abruptly they disappeared.

She stood up. “My, but it’s lonely in here!”

“Come on.”

He picked up his lunch bucket and they started down the entry. He led the way on the footpath beside the track, she stumbling along behind. When they had gone a short distance he glanced back, and was just in time to see her reel and wave crazily with her arms to keep her balance. Like a cat striking at prey, he batted her arm down, and she fell, snarling. “What you hit me for? I’m doing as good as I can. That lamp, it don’t give me no light. You can see, but I can’t.”

“Watch that wire.”

“What wire?”

“The feed wire — can’t you see it? Up there on the side, at the top of the rib. That’s why I knocked your arm down. You touch that thing, it’ll kill you so quick you won’t even know what hit you.”

“Oh.”

“We better walk on the track, if that’s how careless you are. If you can’t see behind, walk up beside me. And anyway, why didn’t you say so?”

Side by side they walked between the rails, stepping from one slippery metal tie to the next. He put his arm around her to steady her, and unexpectedly found himself touching her bare flesh. Hastily he shifted his grip, taking her arm. He began trying not to think how soft her skin was, and how warm.

Soon he turned into another entry, and abruptly the top dipped. The height of a mine tunnel depends on the thickness of the coal from which it is dug. The seven-foot seam they had been in now thinned to less than five feet, so that it was impossible for them to stand. He went along at a sidewise shamble, his back bent to clear the top; for low entries were an everyday affair to him and he slipped through them without effort. But she kept bumping her head, and presently broke into hysterics. “I can’t stand it no more! I got to stand up! It’s pressing down on me! And my back hurts!”

“Ain’t much more of the low top. Set down a few minutes, then you won’t feel that way.”

They sat down, she panting and convulsively straightening her aching back. He didn’t look at her. But he was thoroughly aware of her now — of every detail of her slim shape, of those places where her dress was torn, of the heady, sweetly sensuous scent that hung about her. Presently they went on. The top lifted, and he turned again. She gasped at what she saw.

A dead entry is indeed a terrifying spectacle, and could serve as a chamber in some horrible inferno. Untended by man, the top erodes from the air and forms great blisters, like the blisters on paint, except that each blister is five or six feet across and five or six inches thick. The blisters then crack and fall, piece by piece, to the floor, which is thus covered with jagged shards of stone that look like gigantic shark teeth. Add that one touch can bring a blister crashing down; that the fragments underfoot can cut through the thickest shoe; that wiring, timber, rails, and all other signs of human activity have long since been removed; and that in fact nothing human ever comes here — and you can form some idea of what the abandoned parts of a coal mine are like. They proceeded slowly, hugging the wall, he ahead, she at his heels, holding tight to his denim jacket. Then they turned into another, worse than this, and then into still another. They had gone only a short distance in this when there was a report like a cannon shot and the lamp went out. She screamed.