BS: Time for a new Story Thread!

Subject: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 99 - 10:27 PM

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?

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Aug 99 - 10:41 PM

Ah, yes...Her Pa had said one of the men killed in the accident that finally closed the mine was supposed to have gotten hitched the day after the cave-in. The old fiddler, Jake, was supposed to have played at the wedding. He had told everyone he had a secret tune that nobody'd heard before. He'd said he'd learned it from...

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Alice
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 12:38 AM

... an Irish immigrant who had come to Montana to work on the Great Northern.
(hey this is too close to real, my dad used to sit in that mine for his arthritis)

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 12:53 AM

(Alice...I thought I'd come up with a ficticious name. No? Did find some great sites on the web for others.)

carryon, somebody,please....

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 02:09 AM

(Kat, I used to stop at a bar called The Silver Saddle in Boulder, Montana everytime I passed through. One time there were these two cowboys in there kind of half-heartedly trying to start a fight. Like "yawn I could whip yer ass."" Yeah, well go ahead n' try." They finally actually went outside to fight, and I struck up a conversation with this little old lady of about 75 years, who insisted on buying me a beer. She had an interest in an old gold mine near there. COINCIDENCE or...SOMETHING ELSE? Anyway, an hour later when I left the cowboys were standing out in front of the bar saying "You don't think I'll cold-cock you, do you" and pulling on their beers and asking me what time it was. And now- Back to the story!

The visitors weren't the first to mention the fiddle tune, Lucy remembered with a shudder. There had been Jed Lewis, that old shepherd that her Dad told her about. He had been out looking for a lost ewe one June night, and had wandered to the mine and peered in to the gaping maw, moonlight penetrating fitfully to dully illuminate rocks and old timbers inside. As he looked, he saw a subtle movement, something white moving at the end of the passage. He took a cautious step into the shaft opening, called "Daisy", and trembled as his too-loud voice echoed in the chamber. The moving white object stopped, and it was then that Jed heard the eerie, plaintive first notes of the fiddle. It was so quiet at first, that Jed thought it was a trick of the wind, or his senses playing him a trick. Then it became clearer, and the hazy object at the end of the tunnel seemed to move closer. He stood petrified as the music swelled, and the approaching white image began to assume human shape. Suddenly the urge to run overcame him and he turned, bolted, fell sprawling over a large rock. As he rose again, he heard the crunch and rumble of other rocks behind him. Down the path he ran, glancing behind seeing something white in swift pursuit, stumbling again as it overtook him, he curled into a ball shouting "God Help Me!" Then feeling the woolly muzzle of Daisy against his cheek.

He had come to Lucy's house the very next day, saying he had set up the rest of the night, every lamp lit, with cotton stuffed into his ears to ward off any further intrusion of the ghost fiddler's tune. That had been over 60 years ago, but it still gave Lucy a chill.

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 08:05 AM

Amy's family had brought her to the mine thinking it might help her asthma. She was 15 years old and, though she hadn't yet figured her parents out, she knew enough to go along with their sometimes weird ideas about treatment. You never knew - sometimes something helped, and at least it didn't hurt.

Growing increasingly bored with sitting in the oppressive mine, she remembered she'd put her pennywhistle in her knapsack. She considered how the slow, mournful airs would sound echoing thru the mine, and walked deeper into the shaft, looking for a place to play away from the others. She saw a shaft to the left she hadn't noticed before - had it really been there all the time? There was an eerie glow coming from the walls, and an odd smell of lilies-of-the-valley. Oh, bother - it was almost time for Lucy to come herd them out before the mine closed, but Amy thought a little exploring wouldn't take too long. Amy's mother looked up just in time to see Amy walk through the solid rock wall.

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: MMario
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 08:55 AM

[musical interlude]

In the Loveless Mine, 'round 'forty-nine A cave-in happen'd, 'twas a crime Then her daddy died, left Lucy alone with naught to her name but a hole in stone.

chorus: and in the dark the fiddle plays while the bridegroom waits for the next day Don't never go to the mine alone Where the bridegroom waits encased in stone

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Bert
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 02:32 PM

As Lucy passed through the solid rock the eerie glow suddenly went out and left her in complete darkness.

She felt a cold draft against her face. She turned towards it and took a tentative step forward into the darkness.....

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 01:29 AM

There was a sharp clack! as the rock she stepped onto toppled and smacked the cave floor. The noise echoed down an opening that seemed to run directly ahead. She took another step, almost reeling in her disorientation from the silence and pitch blackness. She fought back the urge to panic and scream for help. Then she realized that something had changed, an undercurrent of sound was emerging. She held her breath- listening. It was a violin, coming from somewhere down the shaft. " I'm here!" she called. No one answered, but the soft melody continued.

The melody sounded familiar, but she could give it no name. She walked slowly toward the sound of it, her hand with the pennywhistle extended before her, her free hand tracing the rock wall on her left. She felt the corridor making a slow bend right, and she sensed the music growing stronger, the aroma of lilies all around her now. She felt herself raise the penny whistle to her lips, and the strange melody began to flow from her into the pitch black of the mine. As she played, she heard the fiddler cease, as if to better hear her.

Subject: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Andy A.
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 01:50 AM

As Amy played the mournful final note of the tune, she felt a gulp of dreadful foreboding, and a lump of solid fear slid down her throat to her gut. For a second she strained against the silence to hear something. Then, very nearby ( or was it far away) came a deep rumble, and a soft patter, softly at first, then louder, then overwhelming, a cry cut short. And then there was nothing but dark and quiet....

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 08:32 AM

Amy sat in the dark with the tune playing in her head. Slowly, the eerie greenish glow from the walls returned until she could see her way out. She walked the silent shaft and hummed the tune, and thought she saw faces on the glowing walls, looking at her with sad eyes - eyes that wept for their unfinished lives. Eyes that pleaded for more. Amy wondered what it must have been like for the miners who died in that cave, and for the families left behind. She wondered at the reason for the ghost fiddler teaching her the tune, and resolved to find out more.

She reached the end of the passage and turned the corner into the main shaft, only to find a seriously flustered Lucy trying to comfort her seriously hysterical parents. She stood behind them for several moments before they noticed her. Her mother blurted "Where have you been? We were scared to death!!" Lucy turned to point at the shaft she'd just exited and explained "Just down that...well, there WAS a shaft there! Mom, boy do I have a story to tell you, and I have a whole bunch of questions for Lucy!" Amy's mom, who figured Amy might have just been playing a trick, said "Amy, we've got to get some supper and go find something to do downtown." Lucy offered "I see that whistle you have, Amy. There's a dance tonight at the church, and I'm goin'. Some of the old timers get together and play - maybe they'll let you sit in. Y'know, some of those fellas had grandpas that worked in this very mine!"

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: MMario
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 01:38 PM

They all had dinner together at a little cafe down in the center of town. Amy wasn't very impressed, but Miss Lucy told her that when she was young a dinner out would have been a once a year occasion, if that. Amy had a hard time choosing something to eat, there were no burgers or anything familiar to her, but finally settled on "Miner's pie" - which Miss Lucy told her would have been called a "pasty" when she was little.

After dinner they went to the dance. Miss Lucy went to one side of the large hall, Amy to the other. As the music started to play, Amy glanced over to where Miss Lucyy was talking with some old gentleman. She was surprised, as the room seemed to be filling with a white mist... ... ...

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 02:09 PM

The band, Will Harmon and the Gandy Dancers, specialized in old-time music. They kicked off with Oh Them Golden Slippers , and many in the crowd rose to dance, none seeming to notice the eerie mist that eddied around them. When the band finished the song, they jumped immediately into another, Come Josephine in my Flying Machine , and Amy watched Lucy laughing and being pulled onto the dance floor by a smiling gray-haired man. As the couples twirled on the floor, Amy noticed a new face in the crowd, a gaunt young man dressed, like several other folks, in the clothing of a long-ago era. He stood in a dark corner by the bar, and neither the bartender nor anyone else seemed to notice him. He held something in his hands, then it caught the light- a fiddle. As she looked up to his face, she found he was gazing at her with a rather mournful smile.

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Bert
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 02:40 PM

As the number came to an end and the music stopped, the gaunt young man put the fiddle up to his chin and played a single note.

At the sound of the note a complete silence came over the whole crowd. All eyes turned to the man as he continued playing the tune that Amy had heard in the mine.

A ghostly spirit seemed to take control of her hands as she lifted the whistle to her lips....

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 10:46 PM

The dancers slowly moved into a wide circle surrounding Amy, who noticed all eyes were fixed on her. No one seemed to notice the sad-eyed fiddler, who crossed the room to stand with her. From behind her, she heard the band's fiddler pick up the tune, then the guitar player. One by one they joined, until the entire band was playing along. The mist began swirling in the center of the circle, until it seemed there were shapes forming...

Subject: RE: BS: Time for a new Story Thread!
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 11:30 PM

In the center of the swirling mist, Amy could see women in long dresses, dancing and twirled by their partners who wore suspenders, beards and moustaches, high boots and homespun shirts without collars. They looked to be having a very good time, swinging around the dance floor to the tune she and the band and the sad fiddler played.

As Amy felt compelled to keep playing, she suddenly realised with a cold strike of shock that she could see right through the eerie dancers. Her heart beating in a triphammer of terror and fascination, she trembled, longing to turn and flee. Now it was just the fiddler and her playing for the forgotten dancers. She looked at Miss Lucy and the others with incredulous eyes. They didn't seem to notice naything unsual and were dancing their own reels out on the floor...she could faintly hear the band playing a different song which they swung to the beat of...And he did like the ladies, the rise and fall/Of their ankles and dresses out on the dance floor/And rollin' the dice and spinnin' the Wheel/But he took most delight in the Slip Jigs and Reels...

Suddenly, Amy was pivoted around, so that she was facing the sad fiddler. Sparks of anger flew from his eyes, his playing became faster and more frantic; exhausted, almost spent, Amy drew a deep breath in an effort to keep up with him, for she felt the hand of mortality on her shoulder lest she falter and fail. Some rational part of mind screamed in rebellion, but in her heart she knew if she failed, the entire town would pay the consequences.