Read Online Red Helmet by Homer Hickam - Free Book Online

Their parents had taught them that. Cable went into the infantry and fought against Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. He did not kill any enemy soldiers, but he and his buddies captured quite a few. His prisoners knelt before him and kissed his hand while he told them they were going to be fine, that they were going to live, that they had nothing to worry about. The Iraqis naturally trusted him, as most people did.
    Cable served out his enlistment, then went home. With the money he’d saved, and with the help of the G.I. Bill, he enrolled in West Virginia University’s mining engineering school. When he graduated, he went to work for Atlas Energy, Inc., because they owned the Highcoal mine and it was still his ambition to wear the superintendent’s white helmet. It wasn’t long before he had the job.
    This morning Cable was at the working face of one of the sections of his coal mine, a place where he had always been the happiest. But he was not happy, not with his worries about production, and certainly not after the events of the morning at the Cardinal Hotel. With barely two hours of sleep, he had slipped out of the house without disturbing Song, then swung by the Cardinal for breakfast. The old boarding house was a lovely neo-Georgian, two-story stone and brick structure with a wide front porch, a cozy parlor, and a huge dining room that had once served hundreds of miners old Mr. Fillmore had brought in from Poland, Italy, Hungary, Russia, and Ireland. Abandoned by the company in the 1970s, the building became Rhonda’s when she bought it with the insurance money after her husband was killed. She extensively remodeled it, filled it with tasteful antiques, and made it her own. She was a good hostess and a great cook.
    Cable entered the Cardinal, hungry for some of her special apple pancakes, and turned into the dining room just as George “Bashful” Puckett was holding forth on a most interesting subject: Cable’s New York wife who, according to Bashful, was “full up with herself, snotty, and a pure little witch.”
    Cable and Bashful had been at odds for months. Bashful owned a well drilling company and worked under a contract from Atlas Energy headquarters, which meant he was outside Cable’s purview. Since Atlas owned the mineral rights nearly everywhere in the county, Bashful had made a nuisance of himself by drilling on private property without asking permission of the owners. Cable had to field most of the complaints, though he could do little or nothing about it. Bashful seemed to enjoy the trouble he caused. He was a balding little man with a blonde moustache who fancied himself God’s gift to women. He also had a big mouth. Cable walked up behind him just as he crowed, “Goes to figger Cable’d end up with some kind of little Chinese witch for a wife.” This was followed by a choking sound because Cable had just plucked him out of his chair by his neck.
    â€œApologize!” Cable demanded, and then Rhonda had run in from the kitchen to break it up, and it had gone downhill from there.
    Things were no better now that he was at work. Standing beside him, if standing was the word for being bent under a slab of dense rock, Bossman Carlisle eyed his superintendent, sensing Cable’s unhappiness. He shifted the bulging tobacco chaw in his cheek.
    â€œSix West is running good coal today, Cable.”
    Cable cut his eyes toward Bossman. “I guess you heard about me and Bashful.”
    Bossman shifted his chaw to his other cheek, then spat into the gob. “Yeah. I heard something about that.”
    â€œBest I can tell, he’s not the only one who’s been talking dirt about my wife.”
    Bossman pretended to be studying the men putting up a ventilation curtain, then said, “Sorry, Cable. I guess I opened my big mouth when I shouldn’t have.”
    â€œI’ve never liked the way gossip gets going around here,” Cable