The Miners: Part 2

Even still, Henry's comment rankled him. Not because he was thinking about stealing; although, he certainly considered himself capable of doing just that if he wanted to. No, the fact that it was being used this way was almost more upsetting than Henry's comment. It felt like cheating.

“Listen, just forget it, okay?” James said after giving Henry a look to shut him up. “We're all happy we got paid, and I guess this means we won't have to worry about the food anymore.”

“That's right. We won't have to worry about eating at all unless somebody takes advantage of us,” Henry agreed, nodding once.

“So does this mean we should get rid of all the coal we've saved?” another miner added.

The others nodded in agreement, all except Henry, who rolled his eyes and groaned, “Fine. Do whatever you want. Don't blame me when you end up owing me.”

With that, he stormed away.

When the miners arrived home, they decided to throw a celebration. Normally, it would have been difficult to find a place to perform at the bottom of an abandoned mine, but luckily, the company was more than willing to pay them enough to cover the expenses for the week. That also meant that most of the other miners from the mine, especially those from a neighbouring town, would be free to attend, too.

Since the majority of the miners didn't have anything better to do at the moment, they met up together in their local tavern. They weren't allowed to drink alcohol inside of the building, which was strange considering their employer kept them there for free, but they figured he'd have some other reasons for having such restrictions put in place. Besides, drinking anywhere was probably a safer bet anyway.

As the evening progressed, the atmosphere began to become rather relaxed. It was easy to forget about their troubles for a time. It was fun to joke and tease and laugh together. Some people even brought instruments out to play music. Most of them played the guitars, drums, or banjos, although there were a handful of guitarists amongst them. Everyone was having a wonderful time, enjoying themselves. For a while at least, their problems weren't looming over everyone's heads.

However, one young man noticed that things were slowly but surely getting out of hand. In all honesty, he didn't care too much. He'd rather spend the evening laughing and having fun than worrying about his next paycheck. He had other concerns, though, like whether or not he should mention something to the manager or not.

For one thing, his boss was a friend of the family. His parents, as well as all three of his sisters, lived across town and they had gotten engaged about six months previously. They had been planning to get married next year, but he and his father both agreed that they needed to wait until the miners' strike ended. The wedding wouldn't even happen until after that.

And then there was also his boss's reaction. The man didn't act like anything out of the ordinary when it came to the idea of children. In fact, they were pretty close and the two had even talked about starting a family after the mining business dried up. All in all, it was just a regular day at work.

But still, there were a couple of things he'd noticed that worried him a little. For one thing, the man never said a word about it. Not once during that entire evening. Every time someone mentioned it, he either smiled or gave them an excuse. And whenever anyone asked about their engagement party or what might have happened if they'd gotten married, his boss just brushed off the questions.

Of course, all the same, even though it may not have seemed like it at the time, he wasn't very good at hiding how concerned he was. So, with a heavy sigh and a feeling of guilt, he finally decided to approach the boss about it.

It was around late evening when he finally did so. His boss was sitting in his office, looking through a stack of paperwork, and it suddenly occurred to him that he had never even seen what was on top of the pile before he entered the room. He wondered if there were other piles scattered around the floor. He could have sworn he heard something crash earlier.

The manager didn't even notice as the miner approached, so the miner coughed lightly for attention, hoping that his boss would listen instead of ignoring him.

To be continued...