of which he ’ d had on him at the meeting , unlike his wallet and keys which had been in his pocket then .
He lit one with the intention of gaining his bearings . As it flared to life , his eyes turned back to the piece of paper tucked into the matchbook . He unfolded the sheet with one hand , holding the match aloft . Written on it in neat boilerplate handwriting were the words , “ Burn in Hell , Allison !” Well , that was clear enough .
Glancing around before the match went out , Tommy tried to gauge his exact location in the mine . Guessing from the densely packed floor , this part of the mine had probably not been worked in a very long time . It was packed from the passage of haulers , not loose from digging . That meant he was in the entrance level , most likely . The lazy bastards didn ’ t even have the gumption to take him down very far . Had he been the one doing the lugging , the victim would more than likely wake up on a pile of coal dust underneath a side seam at the very bottom of the mine . “ Just try to escape now , jackass ,” Tommy had been known to say from time to time .
That ’ s why he had to push ‘ em so hard . You give ‘ em an inch , they ’ d be laid out taking breaks for a mile . He was a man who told the board he answered to that his mines would meet quotas and , damn it , he wasn ’ t going back down in the mine again because they missed them . But if you only listened to the union reps and MSHA , the poor babies whined about needing breaks every ten minutes , even the ones who were only pulling double shifts .
He put his finger in his mouth to moisten it and pulled it out ; holding it up in the air as he tried to guess which way the air was blowing . He felt some air , but not as much as he was expecting for what he thought would be pretty close to the entrance . Still , he had a direction now , so that made him feel better . He even had some matches in case he felt turned around . Things were looking up all right , and when he got out of here , he ’ d
have every one of those pricks behind bars within the week . It gave him something to look forward to and a goal to push him through the dark .
He tripped on something . He couldn ’ t see what exactly , but he landed face first in the dirt ! As he lay there gasping for air that the fall had knocked out of him , all he could think about was getting revenge . The pain in his arm from trying to break his fall began to subside a little and air started to flow again . He didn ’ t curse and he didn ’ t yell . He just thought . Maybe he ’ d call in a few favors ; phone up a couple of good ol ’ boys who don ’ t like union pricks either …
Tommy had had the board shove the union on him in the first place . “ A sign of good faith with the community ,” they called it . Cowards ! One damned explosion and they lost their entire backbone . Things like this happen ; it comes with the mining territory . You run the mine hard , you get dust , you keep costs down , you cut corners