Chapter 5 #2
“Come help move the debris as it’s lifted out of the hole,” Lizzy said. “The sooner we clear it away, the faster we can get to the miners. But we can’t just have it strewn all about here as we remove it from the mine.”
Baskets of rocks were being emptied by the lip of the entrance, and someone was bound to be hurt if the mess wasn’t cleared soon.
“I can organize folks to move all of that,” Andrea said, some of her former strength returning.
She drew herself up, wiping her eyes. “I’ll get all of that cleared in no time.
” She nodded and strode off to where a group of women stood holding each other.
In a moment she had them organized and focused and they started a chain that passed the debris, rock by rock, hand to hand, to stack it away from the hole.
“Well, that’s that then,” Walter said. With a smile, he returned to his work.
Lizzy went back to helping to remove the debris from inside the mine. It was hard work, and Lizzy didn’t have much time to think about anything but the urgency of clearing the debris as quickly as possible so they could attend to any injured miners down below.
Timothy and the other boys were there too, helping on Andrea’s rock chain. She was quite proud of her little brother, working hard for this community. Perhaps she wasn’t doing such a bad job raising him on her own.
Food arrived, and Lizzy stopped for a couple of minutes to eat. She sat on the grass, and before she realized it, found she was sitting beside Emily. The poor woman looked exhausted and bewildered. Her town shoes were thoroughly ruined and had to be hurting her feet.
“Heck of a first day here, huh?” Lizzy said.
Emily nodded and gave a hollow chuckle. “I think I came ill-prepared.”
“Well, the town shoes and the fancy dress probably weren’t the best bet, but you shouldn’t blame yourself,” Lizzy said. “No one is ever prepared for this place.”
“You seem the type to be prepared,” Emily said, sounding a little jealous. “I mean, you know how to make a winch. Where did you learn that?”
Lizzy shrugged and bit into her cheese and tomato sandwich. “My father was a blacksmith and a tinkerer. He loved to make things.”
Emily nodded. “Ah, and he taught you,” she said. “My father was a professor of mathematics at a prestigious all-boys’ school. He taught me well too, but not in anything as practical as this.”
“The world would be a mighty dull place if we were all the same,” Lizzy said and popped the last of her food into her mouth. “I’d better get back to it while we still have light.”
As she went back to work, Lizzy was lost in her thoughts again.
Drat! She wanted to dislike Emily. She wanted to think of the other woman in Troy’s life as being a prissy, stuck-up woman from the city who would never fit in here.
She wanted to dismiss her as not being a contender for his affections.
Yet, in this crisis, despite not knowing what was going on or who anyone really was, Emily was doing her best to pitch in.
She hadn’t whined about her ruined shoes or complained about the blisters she undoubtedly had.
And her soft hands had undoubtedly gotten more than a few cuts and bruises from the hard work she’d done.
But she hadn’t muttered a word of protest.
“Lizzy,” Tim said.
“Huh? What?” she asked, blinking and coming back to reality but not stopping her steady trudging in circles.
“A log is up and halfway to us. The others want you to undo it and send the rope back down,” Tim said.
“Right, sorry,” Lizzy said. She stopped her slow, steady turning of the winch in circles.
A boy untied the rope, and they unwound it again, a much faster operation than winding it up. Soon, they had another piece of debris to haul out of the hole.
Not long after that, the first of the men came out of the hole. Jasper Peaks was pretty banged up, with blood caked down his face and a clearly broken arm.
His wife, Gerty, came flying out of the line clearing the rocks around the opening and threw her arms around him.
He let out a cry of pain, and she let go of him hurriedly.
There was a moment of confusion in which he swayed as though he was about to collapse, and then Jasper was escorted by a happily weeping Gerty to the medical area.
As Jasper got his arm set, Andrew went to speak to him. The winch was close enough that Lizzy could see and hear the whole thing.
“What happened?” Andrew demanded, appearing out of the gloom as though he was a ghost. “Jasper, what happened?”
“I dunno,” Jasper said, holding his bruised head with his good hand.
“I was bringing a load of ore to the surface. Next thing I knew, there was this terrible explosion, and everything went white. It was the brightest light you ever saw. Then it went pitch black. When I came to, you fellows were hauling me out of the rubble.”
Andrew sighed and patted the man on the shoulder, making him wince. Troy was nearby, coiling some rope, and he caught Lizzy’s eye. From that look, she knew that what was down in the hole was not good—and it was likely to get worse.
The next to emerge was Kevin Munson, one of the camp founders.
He had a dislocated shoulder and needed a lot of stitches in one arm where something had cut him deep.
He was quite exhausted and a little delirious.
“The others?” Andrew asked as he helped Kevin across the grass to Juile and Emily. “Did you see any of the others?”
Kevin shook his head and groaned something that Lizzy didn’t catch. That didn’t look good. Andrew’s face was a mask of unhappiness and worry.
They worked long after the sun set until everyone was exhausted. And then they started taking shifts. As some folks went back to camp to make some food and bring blankets up for folks to rest on, others continued with the rescue, removing debris and praying to find their friends alive.