Steve Shell
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Crane asked as she slid into the plush interior.
Crane joined Churchman up front, passing on Polly's instructions.
The car's powerful engine roared to life, and the three sped off into the night, southbound for the Barrow Coalfields.
Night stretched across the mountains of West Virginia.
The sky a twinkling blanket of stardust in the years before the ubiquitous light pollution of the modern world hid most of them from our view.
A long black Cadillac drove through the night.
navigating its way around the treacherous switchbacks as it slipped into the heart of coal country.
Bower County was dotted with numerous little coal towns of varying levels of prosperity, every one of which was owned, lock, stock, and barrel, by the Barrow and Lock Mining Combine.
It was nearly morning by the time they reached their destination.
A squat log cabin buried deep in the woods outside a thriving coal town called K-Burra.
B&L had claimed the structure after its former occupant, an employee who was crushed in a mine shaft collapse, left his surviving family heavily in debt to the K-Burra General Store.
It had been used since then as a base of operation for visiting management.
The little bungalow was situated a bit far from the rest of the coal camp to assign any of the workers to live there, but its isolation suited their needs perfectly.
The caddy bumped up the narrow, rutted track that led to the secluded cabin, and Mr. Churchman pulled around the back of the house to ensure that no one would detect their presence.
Although anyone who'd made their way up the drive, which was mostly hidden from the road by overgrown brush and was more than casually curious, would be dealt with in a swift and final fashion.
Mr. Crane hopped out of the car to open the door for Miss Barrow.
while Mr. Churchman went around to the back of the car to unload the large crate they had obtained from Bear House.
The dimensions of the box were somewhat awkward to manage, but it was not especially heavy, and Churchman needed no assistance maneuvering it inside the cabin, for he deposited it in the middle of the empty front room.