HOLLOWMOUTH

Synopsis

Eight years ago Dell Coy helped pour the cap on the Hollowmouth shaft and told the inspectors it was a methane seal. It was not. He signed the paperwork and the county kept its pensions. Tuesday night four men cut through that cap after scrap copper. None of them came back up. Dell is the mine-rescue technician on call, and he is the only man on the surface who knows what is down there and on what schedule. Going down is the easy part. Telling the crew why the descent plan is wrong means saying out loud what the seal was, on a recorded channel, with the state listening. One of the four missing men is nineteen.

Who this is about

Dell Coy runs mine rescue for three counties in eastern Kentucky. Eight years ago he was on the crew that sealed the Hollowmouth shaft, and he wrote the reason down wrong.

What goes wrong

Four scrappers cut the cap and go down after copper. Nobody comes back up, the company wants a quiet recovery, and the thing under the shaft has been waiting on a schedule.

What's at stake

Four men, one of them nineteen. Getting them out requires telling the truth on an open channel, which ends Dell's career and reopens every claim the seal was written to close.

Why it keeps going

Every level down costs him one more piece of the story he has protected for eight years, and the men on the surface hear all of it.

Takeaway

A lie told to protect a town keeps working right up until somebody's son tests it.

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