There was talk of a new mine being started ten miles to the south, but what could one believe of such rumors? And with his increasing wind fatigue, how long could he work, even if the mine stayed open? No—it was more pleasant to be wondering about the new man, and the mysteries that surrounded him.
For there were surely mysteries. Big John often seemed to be muttering to himself, but not as one who is approaching madness. And he would stand and stare at the others as they worked or talked, standing apart from them and making no effort to join in. Once Hans found him standing and looking at a pile of the mining gear that had just been assigned to the new man. The gear was curiously arranged, as if for a portrait, and Big John stood some four or five feet from it, standing very still and gazing at it.
The man s sense of humor was rare in its appearance, and strange when used. Hans saw him pick up his miner’s helmet—certainly the most mundane piece of equipment one could imagine!—and finger the candle and reflector mounted in the brow, and laugh. Not as if it were funny, but as if it were not to be believed. But why would that not be believed? Would he rather they all worked in the dark?
Another time, as they all climbed down from the train cars that took them into the mine, Hans saw Big John stop and stand to one side, clutching his belt, and staring at the canary cage being hung from a wooden stake near the work area. Then he shook his head and walked away. Hans wondered if the canary was a new innovation to the mind of this man from the south. If they had mines there, and if Big John had indeed been a miner despite any indications to the contrary, perhaps they had never thought of using canaries to warn of poison gas.
But the canary allowed Big John to show his courage. One afternoon, while deep in the concentration of work, Joachim Gonnermann suddenly filled the cavern with a shout.
“The bird! Oh, Hans, see the bird!” He was so filled with fear that he called out in German.
Hans jerked his head toward the bird, and saw it fluttering weakly in the bottom of its cage. Adrenaline inspired by pure fear shot through him. “GAS!” he shrieked in a voice that cut through the clank of picks and shovels. Other workers whirled around, electrified, and shot looks straight at the canary.
“GAS! GAS!” they took up the cry, and it spread through the entire shaft. Men threw down their tools and rushed to the train cars, some of them ignoring the cars and simply sprinting for the surface.
Quickly, the train cars were filled and the driver leaped into position. Suddenly a terrible cry came from the depths of the mine: “WAIT!!”
They turned to see Big John emerge from the shadowy depths of one of the caves, dragging the inert forms of two men with him. He carried them up to the train cars, which were already overfilled with men. He set one of the unconscious men down, and almost threw the other into a full car. “Take him!” he bellowed, and the men were too struck with fear to protest. Leaving them to accommodate the man as best they could, Big John picked up the other unconscious man, carried him to the next car, and threw him into the midst of men there. “Take him!” he roared again. The men scrabbled to keep the man from falling.
Big John struck the side of the car with the big flat of his hand with a thud that shuddered through the train. “GO!” he bellowed at the driver, and the driver needed no urging.
The train cars left at top speed, and Hans sat wedged in the third car and looked back at the receding figure of Big John as the train left him behind.
The train made it to the surface in time to see the throngs from the town being summoned by the alarm bell. Wives and families ran to see if their men were alive or dead, and the miners embraced their loved ones and sucked in the sweet air of the surface, never once caring about the smoke that was always present in the air.
The two unconscious miners were slowly awaking, and dozens of men were telling the story of how they were saved by Big John, and how Big John had been left behind when the trains were full. Helga was hugging Hans, who was inconsolable.
Fifteen minutes after the train reached the surface, a shout came from someone near the mouth of the mine. "Someone’s coming up!”
Grabbing torches from the sides of the mine, several men ran in. The blazing torches illuminated the towering figure of Big John, almost completely spent, staggering up the mine corridor with another unconscious man slung over his shoulder.
Cries of awe and congratulation echoed off the walls as eager hands seized the unconscious man and relieved Big John of his burden. But such was his pride that he scorned other help, and when men tried to assist, he struck their helping hands from his belt and strode out unaided.
Weeping with gratitude, the wives of the three miners threw themselves upon him, hugging him and insisting that he sit and rest. He permitted the ministrations of the women where he refused the help of men, and soon was lowering himself heavily to the ground, allowing blankets to be spread beneath him.
Within an hour, everyone in the county knew of his heroism.
I slept most of the next day, and the townspeople left me alone. Only Helga bothered me, once knocking on my door and giving me a basket of food provided by the grateful families. “John Lewis is very ill,” she told me in her heavily accented English, “but he is expected to recover.”
“Who?”
“The third miner, the one you carried up with you. All are most grateful to you, Herr Big John.”
I was feeling violently ill myself, so I smiled briefly at her, nodded shortly, and closed the door. I went and collapsed onto my sorry excuse for a bed, and closed my eyes. I had no idea how many nanotechs had been destroyed in protecting me against hydrogen sulfide, but I was willing to bet that it was a large chunk of them. I was running a fever as they scrambled to recover their losses. They must have been confronted with a heavy concentration of the stuff to lose so many of their number. But they had worked long enough, and had bought me time—how much, I didn’t know, but enough to get me back to the surface. And they had enabled me to save the lives of three men, and had added considerably to my legend.
I laughed humorlessly at the thought that came into my mind. I had changed the past! Oh, no! The world would be violently different when I got back to my time.
I dismissed the thought without any effort. I had serious issues to deal with, and worrying about an old science fiction cliche wasn’t one of them. In this era of the Robber Barons, hundreds of thousands of people lived and died completely unnoticed, chewed up in the industrial machines controlled by a handful of incredibly powerful millionaires: Rockefeller, Morgan, Gould, Vanderbilt, Carnegie and others. For every ton of ore mined, for every acre of trees converted to lumber, for every mile of railroad track laid, dozens of men died. And if anyone complained, if anyone suggested that workers should have working conditions that wouldn’t kill them; if anyone suggested that twelve hours a day, six days a week were a little excessive; if anyone suggested that children shouldn’t be subjected to those conditions, they were branded communists and beaten, jailed, perhaps killed. In the next few decades, state militias would gun down hundreds of striking workers, all in the name of fighting communism and anarchy.
A handful of men were all that mattered in the late 1800s. It didn’t even make any difference who was president. A few mine workers would make no difference to history whatsoever.
I lay with my arm over my eyes, and thought about Sara. The memory of the kiss I gave her was still sizzling in my brain. We’d worked together for years, but it wasn’t until I went on this potentially dangerous mission that I had the nerve to do what I’d always wanted. And, apparently, she had wanted it too. The thought made me feel much better.