Bringing Up the Dead

by Holly Farris

Mules are more honest than any man. I've treated them accordingly, all the years I've managed a string in this underground mine. Boss man told me, Anthony, always a job for you. Mighty important, your beasts of burden.

Except today.

Motor mine-cars have come. They shine on the dusty tracks. Mules gotta go. Noise spooks them, bred and born and shod and dead this far below ground, me the witness. Leastways I go home to the family, come my shift end. Mules never seen the surface.

Front stall belongs to a young jack. Him's the one I get when roof timbers break and a shaft collapses. He's hauled recent mashed boys to a car waiting at the switch on the tracks. Scot or Italian or Pole, just the same, any mama hears a cave-in whistle, she sends her wheezy stay-home brothers to fetch the corpse. She waits at her window, twisting her apron, knowing neighbors in their kitchens are already stirring food to bring. For me, blood's always worthy of blood. Forget motors. The mule pulls, the mashed boy pumps out.

Job for you, I whisper into the jack's velvet ear. These mule fellers, not us men, work standing tall, the better for muscles to bunch and hooves to bite. Quick, my bandanna covers this first one's eyes, though he's mostly blind. Trusts me to lead him like a puppy, ears swiveling. He sucks air, trots skittish at the new. I have a job steadying him, both him and me dancing sideways. The cloth cockeyes, his white eye catches a ray. He begins to scream, nose holes flaring, at the point where the sun warms the track, him shaking me like a rag. Shuddering his hide, he waits for me to speak.

Job for you, I lie. Two men I haven't seen around hurry to his halter, tie a face hood from nose to ears. He walks flat-footed between them to the gate, to his first springtime smells and fresh grass.

I'm starting out the second stall with the jenny, her kicking and fighting though I've carried a hood. Turning harder to manage than him, she's balking when I hear the shot. Even this far below ground, I swear I feel his great weight fall.