Chapter 27 - The Labyrinth Below
The air inside the deep drift grew steadily colder and thinner as they penetrated deeper into the belly of the mountain.
Every hundred yards, small crosscuts branched off into the darkness like the ribs of an ancient skeleton, their entrances marked by rotting timbers and rusted iron ore carts off their rails. Water dripped from the ceiling with a monotonous, hollow cadence: *tink... tink... tink...*
Clara held the carbide lantern high, its beam cutting through the damp mist that pooled around their knees. Beside her, Nathaniel moved with a steady, determined limp, his rifle held ready across his chest.
Ahead of them, a faint yellow light flickered in the gloom.
"Who’s there?" a trembling, high-pitched voice called out from the dark.
"It’s Clara! And Nathaniel!" Clara called out softly.
From behind an iron ore car tipped on its side, a small figure broke into a run. Willa threw herself into Clara’s arms, her small hands clutching Clara’s wool coat with terrifying strength. The little girl was shivering violently, her face streaked with tears and soot.
"I thought... I thought you were gone," Willa sobbed against Clara’s neck. "The whole mountain shook. The rocks were screaming."
"I'm here, sweet girl. I'm right here," Clara whispered, kneeling down and rocking the child in the dark. Over Willa's shoulder, she saw the rest of the survivors—twenty-four women, twelve children, and three elderly miners—huddled together in the wider cavern of the old winze station. They were wrapped in whatever blankets they had managed to snatch before the town burned, their eyes wide with the hollow shock of people who had watched their entire lives turn to ash in less than an hour.
Martha, the blacksmith’s wife, stepped forward, an old kerosene lamp clutched in her rough, capable hands. Her apron was stained with soot, her gray hair coming loose from its pins.
"Is the town gone, Nathaniel?" Martha asked.
Nathaniel looked at the gathered women, whose silent, desperate faces waited for his verdict. He did not lie to them.
"Black Ridge is gone, Martha. Vane burned everything from the depot to the church. The portal is collapsed. There’s no going back."
A stifled sob broke from a young mother holding an infant to her breast, but Martha only straightened her back, her jaw setting with frontier iron. "Then where do we go, Boone? There’s three feet of snow on the peaks, and we have women in thin shoes."
Nathaniel walked to the center of the cavern, where an old iron turntable sat rusted into the bedrock. Set into the stone floor were two narrow-gauge iron rails that did not follow the main drift, but curved sharply into a low, forgotten tunnel marked with a fading wooden sign: *SECTOR FOUR — TIMBER TRANSFER.*
"In sixty-eight, the company built an underground tramway through the spine to haul timber from the eastern valley without crossing the pass in winter," Nathaniel said, examining the rusted iron switches. "It terminates at the high trestle behind the federal telegraph relay station. If that track is clear, it cuts eight miles of blizzard down to one mile of level rail."
"And if the tunnel collapsed twenty years ago?" asked one of the older miners, leaning on a broken pick handle.
"Then we dig through it with our bare hands," Nathaniel said coldly. "Because General Vane is currently leading two hundred mounted cavalry around Devil's Gate. He knows about the eastern outlet. If he reaches that telegraph station before we do, he’ll burn that wire just like he burned Black Ridge. And this book," he looked at Clara, "will die in the snow with the rest of us."
Clara stood up, taking Willa’s hand in hers. She turned to the gathered townspeople, her voice clear, steady, and resonant in the damp chamber.
"My husband died trying to expose the men who sent those soldiers today," Clara said, her eyes meeting each woman’s gaze in turn. "They burned your homes because they think poor people have no voice against gold and bayonets. They think that if they scare us enough, we will crawl into the dark and let them steal our lives. But we are still standing. And as long as one of us reaches that telegraph key with this book, Black Ridge will have its justice."
May you like
Martha nodded once, sharply. "Show us the way, Boone."
***
