The Becoming

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The handcar’s rusty iron wheels squealed out a song of complaint as the big box wound its way deep into the earth. Karl Meyer shuffled along behind it, weary after a long day, counting the minutes to the end of his ten hour shift. Seventy-five to go. Glittering black coal dust caked his boots, his jumpsuit, his helmet and every inch of exposed skin.

Karl guided the car — empty now, but soon to be filled almost to overflowing with black Pennsylvania gold — around corners, along straightaways and through switchbacks, moving ever farther from small entryway back at the surface. The Tonopah Mine had been in continuous operation since the mid 1850’s, and over the ensuing seventy years a complex network of underground tunnels had been engineered.

Many of these tunnels had been sealed off, mined until the coal was played out and then abandoned. Rusting signs nailed to rotting two-by-fours placed in gigantic X’s across mine shaft entrances warned miners DANGER — TUNNEL CLOSED! Some of the signs had been in place so long they were virtually unreadable. Karl passed them all without a thought and kept going.

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