I thought about some of the footage I had shot. A gas panic, a mass evacuation, three limp bodies dramatically showing how deadly the stuff was, a lurching journey out of the mine, and the tumultuous reception of the town at the end. These men lived and died with the mine, and so did their families and the town.
Amazing. In my time, only robots did mining. No human would ever endanger himself down there, even though the last human miners had enjoyed safety conditions a million times better than what these people accepted without question.
It was a million times better, because of safety reforms the unions had forced on management. And nobody in my time realized that—they took it all for granted. Not even the management of the worst companies even considered proposing working conditions remotely like what I saw here.
It must have been the poison gas that was still affecting me, because the next thought came totally unbidden.
That’s why the country doesn’t need unions any more. Their work is done.
I sat up in surprise. What was I thinking? This was blasphemy!
I sat on my bed and thought about it. Nowhere in America were working conditions even remotely like this. Wage scales were standardized, and nobody had much complaint with them any more. Federal safety regulations were stringent, and were accepted by management and labor alike. National health insurance had removed one of the biggest negotiating obstacles. And the judicial system with its sophisticated arbitration procedures now handled disputes as well as any grievance committee could.
And what’s more, all of this was taken for granted—by both workers and management.
When was the last time I had a fight with a company’s management? Lately; all I’ve done is fight to keep the workers from dumping the union!
Sleep did not come easily that night.
I was back to work the next day. The “communistic” concept of paid sick days would not be accepted for decades yet, but my motivation was different. I only had a limited amount of time here. I had to make as much use of it as possible.
We were taken to a different part of the mine that day. The mining train took us only part way down, and then we walked a steep series of switchbacks, each delving deeper and deeper into the earth. The tunnels were narrow and sadly lacking in headroom, and the construction of the bracing was lousy. I recorded it all for posterity, not sure what posterity would do with it.
We finally got to the digging area. We had to explore for ore, and bring it out by hand, before the company would decide whether the new area was worth developing enough to accommodate a train and heavy traffic.
I looked blearily around the flickering hellhole. Yeah, whoever had worked to improve mining conditions from this crap had done an enormous amount for the working man. There was a reason men risked death by fighting for their unions in the late 1800s—they had so much to gain. And the unions had improved their lives immeasurably.
What have I done?
I’d spent my entire adult life working for unions. But had I done anything to make life better for working men and women?
No.
I finally understood why Sara and I had suffered defeat after defeat. I finally understood why Mr. Degeneres had lost his influence. The perception was that we just plain weren’t needed any more.
And I wasn’t sure they weren’t right.
The men were really steering clear of me today. The look in my eyes must have matched the feeling in my soul—the despair of realizing that I’ve wasted my life. And realizing that the ideals I’ve lived by my entire life were wrong.
The only good I’d ever done anybody was here in the 1880s. If I looked back on all of my accomplishments in my own time, I’d have to admit— what was that!
I jerked myself back to my present situation, and noticed that all of the miners had frozen, the whites of their eyes reflecting in the flickering light as they all looked upward. Like me, they were listening intently, in an agony of fear, and then it came again.
...A low, soft groan...
It wasn’t a human sound, but the ominous, subtle warning of wood that was giving way. Suddenly, as never before, I was aware of the thousands and thousands of tons of rock and soil above us. Without thinking about it, I activated my camera.
...And again...
It was Hans Deckert who broke the thrall as his spade clattered to the ground, and his voice broke the spell.
“Out!” he shrieked. “It’s a cave-in! Everybody out!”
Suddenly we were all moving, everybody shouting, a panicked stampede toward the only exit, everybody yelling in fear, so if there was another groan, none of us heard it.
...But we felt the rumble.
We were all scrambling, pushing, shoving, yelling, bolting for the exit, and the rumble knocked some people off balance. And then a board gave way with a snap, and rock and soil crashed down just a dozen feet ahead of the miners in front, smashing down in a ripping, tearing, rumbling cascade of dirt and dust and our only escape route was pulverized and obliterated by tons of earth, and we were all knocked off our feet by the power of the fell, screaming and yelling and coughing as dust filled the air and we fought to breathe. I lay flat on the ground, with two men thrown on top of me, and my ear was pressed to the dirt, and I didn’t hear or feel anything but the noise of the men in our dimly lit grave.
We scrambled to our feet and groped around. Most mens’ candles had gone out, and only two torches remained in the narrow, crowded cave.
“Trapped!” Hans yelled. “Oh my God, we’re trapped!”
A miner’s worst fear; something that didn’t even exist in my time. With the construction techniques we used in the mines, there were never any cave-ins. And even if there were, the robots were designed to withstand enormous pressures, and would just shut themselves off until they were dug out.
I knew all about mines in my time. The technicians who maintained the mining robots had voted to disband their union five years before, figuring that their union dues weren’t getting them anything they wouldn’t get anyway.
I looked around and realized that cave-ins had happened all over the place. Through some miracle, the only part that hadn’t collapsed was a short section of tunnel that we were all in. As it was, we were piled on top of each other, and were probably looking at a slower, more dreadful death than if we’d been crushed.
There was pandemonium in our cramped space as every miner cried and yelled in panic and despair. I tried to shut out the noise and think, but no ideas came. We were trapped here. The limited air supply didn’t even allow us to try to dig ourselves out. All we could do was wait and hope that rescue came before the air or the rest of the support beams gave out.
There was another groaning noise that I heard over the pandemonium because it was so close. I looked up in alarm, and saw one of the support timbers actually bending! It started giving way, letting loose a series of rifle shot cracks that got everyone’s attention. The yelling and panic increased, and I knew if that beam let go, the whole roof was going to come down on us. I leaped to my feet and put my shoulder to the sagging beam. I spread my feet wide apart, kicking men in the process, and then I focused every ounce of strength in my body and heaved with all my might.
The beam stopped sagging.
There were cheers from the miners now, and Hans was encouraging me at the top of his lungs. "Ja, Big John, you can save us all! Hold it! Hold it up!”