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Mine Rats They’re always behind you just beyond the light— hugging the coal rib and cribbing timbers, squeezing in and out of cracks, searching for what’s been lost or discarded: trolley wire, safety tags, fuses, canary feathers. Once, in a dynamite box, a miner found a nest made of chewed scripture and company scrip. A quick turn or yawn and you might catch one in your headlamp’s glare on the shaft collar or tucked in a kerf sitting back on its haunches, eyes burning coal, spit-shining its face with licked palms. One old-timer still pitches pie crust to shadows. He says the rats 31 can feel Mary Lee #1 shudder, hear roof chocks buckling under her weight, and when it happens, he will follow dragging tails and grinding teeth out of the shadows, down the chosen path. 32 ...

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