The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #12939   Message #104121
Posted By: katlaughing
11-Aug-99 - 10:27 PM
Thread Name: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
Subject: Time for a new Story Thread!
Did some research, today, which gave me an idea for a story, so.....

Old Lucy Loveless had owned and operated the Loveless Mine, near Boulder, Montana, since the 1950's when her Pa and Ma up and died, leaving it to her, as their only world possesion which was free and clear of the bank, the livestock association and local feed store. The ranch got sold off, leaving her with just enough to eke out a living selling time in the mine to tourists who believed breathing in the old musty air, which was laden with radon, would cure them of all kinds of ailments.
The Loveless Health Mine opened everyday as soon as it was light out, and since it faced east, that was pretty early in the summertime of blue sky country. It closed before dark, because Lucy, herself, would never go in the mine after dark. She'd grown up hearing stories of the ghosts of dead miners haunting its vaulted passages; stories that always made her scared after dark. As a little girl, she never played outside after dark. She'd seen soem of those dead miners when they brought their bodies to the surface after cave-ins. She didn't ever want to run the risk of facing their spectres.
Her mind drifted back to the last story her Pa had told before he died....something about a railroad gandy dancer-turned-miner who also played a mean fiddle for the Saturday night dances down in town at the old saloon. Normally she wouldn't try to remember the story, but some tourist had complimented her, today, on the nice fiddle music she had piped in. Miss Lucy just nodded and said thank you, but in her heart she felt terror, for she knew there was no piped-in music, no music of any kind in the mine, not even a radio. Now...what was it Pa had said about that fiddler and the tune he played every night in the mine?