The next day we went into the hole after we shot the coal, on our hands and knees, Joe Kracj first, then me, then Daddy. Like we always went in. Suddenly the air cracked; Daddy gripped my ankle and dragged me backwards; thunder filled my ears and a steaming slab of rock sat where Joe had been. I screamed. Daddy kept dragging me backward. I screamed again and again.

I sat beside a prop while they dug for Joe. Daddy sent me away but I crawled back in to see if I could help. A gritty fist stuck out from beneath the slab of rock. They broke the rock up and lifted it away. His arm was mashed flat and spread wide like the body of a frog run over by a wagon wheel. Daddy turned away, cussing, and saw me.

“Jesus God! Didn’t I tell you to git?”

“Take him on home, Clabe,” someone said.

He carried me out. The women had heard the whistle blow and gathered at the tipple to learn who was killed. Mommy was there. She came forward, her face wild.

“What are you doing down there?” She shook me. “I done lost you. Coal mine will git you sure. You’re bound to git kilt. I seen it coming.”

She kept shaking me. I tried to cry out for her to stop, but no words would come. Daddy carried me home, undressed me, bathed me and sat me before the stove. He paced up and down.

“It happens,” he said. “Hit’s one of them things. Joe’s number was up, that’s all. When it comes, you cant stop it, no matter where you are.”

I opened my mouth to speak but still I could not. I was mute for three days. My tongue felt like it had swelled to twice its normal size, and it pained me to swallow. Talcott crept to where I sat beside the stove, plucked at my sleeve.

“Why cant you talk none, Rondal?”

I shook my head and concentrated on breathing, afraid that if I didn’t think about it, I would stop.

C.J. heard what happened and came to see us.

“I’m setting up my store next month,” he said to Daddy. “Drug store. Let the boy come to me. He can go to school, work the store in the afternoons, send the money back to you.”

“What do you think, Vernie?” Daddy asked.

“I dont care,” Mommy said in a flat voice.

“He’s still yet my boy,” Daddy said. “He dont want to leave home so young. Besides, I need his help. He cant make as much in no store.”

“Twenty-five cent a day,” said C.J. “Hit’s something anyhow. Ask him. Ask him what he wants to do.”

“He cant talk,” Mommy said.

“Ah-h,” I said. “Ah-”

They all looked at me.

“Ifn that boy leaves,” said Daddy, “I’ll take Talcott in. Hit comforts me to have my boys around.”