Through Dark Spaces

By Karen E. Hall

When Hannah Morrison takes an environmental consulting job at a South Dakota gold mine, she doesn't expect to have to confront her darkest, most personal fears. Or to deal with her spoiled haute couture model sister Maddie.

In the course of her work, as Hannah discovers secret after secret, she realizes that somebody is poisoning the water in the beautiful Black Hills. Unexplainable clusters of cancer have appeared in the area, too. Somebody is behind all of it and people Hannah cares about are starting to disappear.

Driven to solve the problem and find those responsible, Hannah finds herself deep underground, trapped in the darkest of spaces--with a murderer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen E. Hall
• Release date: Apr 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9780983587927

Karen E. Hall

Karen Hall, an environmental engineer and writer, lives in the Black Hills outside Rapid City, SD, with her husband Jeff Nelsen and their two cats, Rocky and Junior. Though she earned a Bachelor's Degree at the University of Minnesota, she confirmed Garrison Keillor's notions about English majors; she spent time as an editor, lifeguard, graphics designer, marketing executive, bank teller, secretary and cherry picker (really—Yakima Valley, Washington). None of them suited her well, so she went back to school for degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering, and spent nearly nine years working in Minnesota's oil industry. She left to start her own environmental consulting business—and to devote more time to writing. Her first novel, Unreasonable Risk, published in 2006, is a thriller about sabotage in an oil refinery. Ms. Hall has also published several short stories and travel pieces. She has recently finished the second in her environmental series, Through Dark Spaces, A Hannah Morrison Mystery, set in the hard rock gold mining industry of the Black Hills. Watch for it here soon! Karen is currently finishing a novel about infertility.

Book preview

Through Dark Spaces

A Hannah Morrison Mystery

By Karen E. Hall

Copyright 2012 by Karen E. Hall

Published by Karen Hall Books

Smashwords Edition

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Jeff, the true love of my life,

and

For Lisa Z., whose body is failing but whose spirit will live on in those who love her

And for Gary, who loves her

Through Dark Spaces

Chapter 1

Sunday, May 11, 1997

Isaac Solverson grunted as he pulled himself onto the limestone ledge and paused to catch his breath. Claim hunting had given him a purpose, something to do while his mother died, something besides hold her hand in the sick, stale smell of her bedroom as she wasted away, a breathing skeleton wrapped in blue-veined parchment skin. Better not to watch. Better to be here, in the sunlight and freshness of the living. The clean scent of pine, the flicking shadow of a gray jay, the soft sigh of a breeze through the Ponderosas in the warmth of a cloudless spring afternoon – it wouldn’t matter, Isaac thought, if he ever found the workings. It was enough just to be out here.

He hiked this area every Sunday, had done so since the day he had found the letter, brown, fragile, so well-folded it came apart in his hands. His mother had tucked it into the family Bible, saving it, he knew, because her great-grandfather had written it. Its words scrolled through his mind as he watched a whitetail doe cross a patch of mottled sunlight, crunching fragrant pine needles on the forest floor.

False Bottom Gulch near Deadwood, Dakota Territory

June 1878

My dearest wife,

The days are long now and I am short of provisions. I have found no gold. The rock here is different from the Whitewood Creek ore, short miles away, which has produced much wealth. I fear my claims are worthless. So I sit in the shade of a mighty pine, waiting for the day’s heat to fade before I leave this place for the last time and begin my journey home. I had hoped to bring you riches. Instead I can offer only myself, and the knowledge that I tried as hard as I was able.

I shall see you well before first snow. Please extend my regards to your family and my love to our children.

Your faithful servant,

Samuel Etling

Samuel, who had joined the Black Hills Gold Rush in 1875, had never made it home to Mankato, Minnesota—making the letter all the more precious. It had been his last.

Isaac allowed himself to spend Sunday afternoons this way, searching the slopes of False Bottom Gulch for his great-great-grandfather’s mine workings. He postponed the boredom of combing through musty historical records in the stale, dry basement of the county museum to the occasional rainy Saturday in spring and fall. He hoped for results—anything—before his mother’s disease took her mind as well as her body, figuring any success would outweigh the risk of leaving her alone for three short hours each week.

He looked at his watch and took a deep breath of crisp mountain air. Nearly time to go back. He rose to his feet, looked around the rock shelf and, to his right, noticed a faint deer trail winding around a tall thicket of sumac. Curious, he followed it. A few minutes wouldn’t matter.

The tunnel’s entrance surprised him and he felt a quickening in his chest. Could it be?

Isaac squinted into the opening and realized it was deep, too deep for daylight. He slung his daypack onto the ground, rooted past his water bottle and camera to the flashlight, then eased forward into the tunnel, following the beam of light. He had to duck under the timbers that shored the entrance to get inside. It was never a good idea to go into old mines, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. The drift barely accommodated his five-foot eight-inch frame, though it was wide enough that he could touch only his fingertips from sidewall to sidewall. He checked the ceiling cross-members for stability just to be sure, pushing on them, leaning in to cross-load them, ready to run. It seemed safe. Isaac inched along the damp drift for nearly twenty minutes, the opening growing smaller behind him, until he could barely see the back wall.

Was there a shaft? It looked like it—a big hole in the floor near the back. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and realized the drift was chilly, his body heat generated by excitement alone. He shone his light at the walls between shoring members, noted the quality of the rock, could even see some veining. No wonder somebody’d worked this part of the hillside. Could be a rich ore body, he thought, but ore of what? Gold? Not likely. Not this rock. There was plenty of quartz, sure, but no talc.

He nearly missed them as he swept his light beam down into the shaft. Strings? He touched one with the light, then found more, following one up along the rock, into a hole drilled horizontally, high in the wall. No. Not string, he realized: fuse. Old? His great-great-grandfather’s, maybe?

He leaned forward and touched one, expecting it to go to dust. It was solid, though, encased in plastic. New. Detonator cord.

Somebody was working this drift.

Odd. There had been no signs of activity at the mouth. Who would be blasting all the way up here?

Isaac felt the hair rise at the nape of his neck and trusted his physical reactions. Bad idea to stay.

Hey! Isaac sprinted for sunshine, for the scent of pine, for his mother’s bedside. A shadow crossed the opening, a man. Hey! I’m in here! Isaac shouted with all the strength he had.

Silhouetted against the sumac, the man stared into the drift, must have heard him, seen him running. He held something small and boxy.

An ignition switch. Oh god.

Isaac dove for the entrance, but wasn’t fast enough.

His last thought as the sound of the explosion ruptured his eardrums and the roof came down, crushing, burying him in rock: I know that guy!

Chapter 2

Monday, May 10, 2007

Ten Years Later

Hannah knew they were all watching. They always did. They were curious. She could hear the unasked questions: A woman engineer—what’s that about? And why is she going into the Aureus Mine?

Trying to ignore the stares, she adjusted her hard hat, clipped the side shields onto her safety glasses and checked her pockets for gloves.

The guy next to her leaned down and spoke quietly. You should test the lamp.

Pardon me?

Test the lamp on your hat. Be sure it works. You’ll need it down there.

Oh. Right. Hannah slid the hat off and her auburn hair swung loose, brushing the shoulders of her olive coveralls. A murmur ran through the crowd of miners, and she felt her cheeks warm slightly.

Should have brought a rubber band.

Switch is on the right there. The miner took his own hat off, pointed to the switch, ran long fingers back through his thick black hair, and clapped the hat back on his head.

Okay. She flipped the switch. Bright light. Clicked it off. Thanks. She tried not to think about needing it, twisted her hair up and slid the hardhat back on.

Dooley Arnold, the miner said and offered his hand.

Hannah Morrison. They shook.

You doing safety training?

Yup. First time in a mine.

Don’t worry, Dooley said. Same stuff they do everywhere.

I figured. But here’s a question: some of the trainees are surface workers—an accountant, a mill operator, you know. Why do they have to go?

Company policy to send everybody down. Then they got an idea of what can go wrong down there.

Hannah raised her eyebrows and Dooley grinned at her. But not much ever does. Go wrong.

Glad to hear it.

He nodded. Heard you’re an engineer.

Yup. Environmental. Word travels fast in this town, she thought.

Humh.

The trainer held up his hand. Safety trainees, listen up. Over here, please.

Gotta go, Hannah muttered. Dooley made room for her to slide in front of him through the crowd.

Have fun. He smiled at her.

She couldn’t help but smile back. Right.

Hannah lined up in a semicircle with the other five trainees.

Okay, the safety trainer said. This is the entrance to the mine, the Cheyenne Shaft, which goes straight down 6,000 feet. More than a mile, but we’re not going all the way down. We’re getting off at the 5250, just shy of the bottom. The cage’ll carry us and these fine gentlemen over here— the miners paid no attention—to various levels in the mine. It’ll take us just over a minute and a half to get to our first stop at the 4500, then short hops from there. After everybody’s out, the cage’ll come back up and, a floor below us, loaders’ll fill the skip, which is attached to the bottom of the cage, with equipment needed below. Every time the cage goes down, its weight is counterbalanced with ore coming up just the other side of that wall. He pointed.

Another trainee peered at the thick metal cable that wound over an enormous rotating flywheel, humming as it pulled the cage up out of the shaft. You sure that cable’s good?

Yessir. It’s two inches thick, no weak spots, no splices anywhere, top to bottom. He paused, raised his eyebrows. I trust my life to it every day. The trainees muttered and shifted uneasily. Hannah took a deep breath and thought about where she was going.

An air horn sounded and the men waiting for the cage clustered together, shuffling toward the shaft doors. Hannah took a last look at the vast interior of the shaft’s headframe. Pigeons cooed in the rafters, a comforting sound in the face of what was coming next. Then the giant flywheel slowed and the massive braided steel cable drew the cage up from the depths. It stopped.

Hannah felt her heart thumping hard against her ribs as she followed them into the cage. She hated carnival rides, wasn’t good in small, dark spaces.

Here we go, the trainer said.

Packed like crayons in a box, the miners jostled and poked each other, trading insults and ignoring the trainees, until the cable began to roll over the monster flywheel and the cage dropped, jostling between the steel-reinforced walls, feeling almost like freefall, down the Cheyenne and into the mine.

Hannah clamped her jaw as the cage fell, felt the pulse hammer in her throat. They passed lighted levels—every 150 feet, the trainer had said—but they flashed by so quickly Hannah could only count them. The cage bounced against its guards, jarring them, banging, eliminating the possibility of talk. She tried to brace herself, but there was nothing to hold onto. No railings, no walls, just metal slats. A freight elevator falling into the center of the earth.

A phrase from church flashed into her mind: He descended into Hell. Was this a reasonable facsimile? The farther they dropped the hotter it got, reinforcing the thought. Gooseflesh rose on her scalp and she felt like screaming.

Please, God, let this be over soon.

* * * * *

Hey, Matt. Let’s go. Dooley Arnold pushed through the crowd at the shaft gate and out into the cavernous maintenance barn on the 4850 level. Bustling with miners and mechanics, Dooley thought it probably looked like a big city train station, though he’d never been in one.

I’m coming. Matt Thorpe hefted a well-used sixty-pound pneumatic rock drill. It’s finally ready.

About damn time. They had it two days, Dooley muttered. Matt and Dooley had been contract partners for nearly four years now, mining the same stopes together, riding the same routes, drinking, hunting, and fishing together, chasing the same women though Matt, at 34, was nearly six years Dooley’s junior.

Dooley picked up Matt’s lunchbox and they hurried down the length of the barn toward the rail line. They passed huge ore loaders, some in pieces, some in reassembly. They listened to the whine of drills, pumps and compressors and, without thinking about it, turned eyes away from the glare of torches as they passed the welding shop. Other miners were already waiting at the rail alcove.

Hey, Arnold. Saw you talking to that new girl. Charlie Kleimer started up.

She’s hot, that one, said Whitey.

Holdin’ out on me, Dool? Matt’s eyebrows rose.

Every chance I get. He grinned and slouched against the rock, absently checking his pockets to be sure he had everything and listening as the conversation moved on.

For a couple of minutes they razzed Whitey, the smallest of the miners, but their hearts weren’t really in it. Marshall Smith brought the conversation full circle.

So where’s that new girl stayin’?

Took that place up by Calvin Anderson. Up there on Ridge Road in your cousin’s house, Matt. Charlie Kleimer again.

Damn that Gloria. Can’t believe she didn’t call me. Matt shook his head. So she’s pretty, this new girl?

Yeah. Smart, too. Engineer. She come down on our cage.

Well, where is she then?

Safety training. Charlie made a face. Went down to the 5250.

Shit. I s’pose Dool was on her like white on rice.

Got that right. Dooley cracked a satisfied smile and they all chuckled.

So what’s she doin’ here? Matt said.

Something with environmental. Casson hired her.

Whadaya think she’ll be pokin’ around in?

Cleanup, I heard.

Down here?

I guess.

Well, all I can say is this: if you gotta have a janitor around, might as well be one looks like her. A typical Charlie Kleimer comment.

Several of the miners snickered.

She married? Matt asked.

No ring if she is. Dooley grinned.

How old?

Thirty, maybe.

She got a name?

Morrison. Hannah Morrison.

She was down to the grocery yesterday, another miner said. Redhead. Real looker. If it wasn’t for Harriet…

And them extra forty pounds hanging around your middle, Charlie commented.

By the time the train pulled in, they had discussed Legion Post 22’s new pitcher and made predictions about the rest of the season, trashed the Lawrence County Commission, and bragged about their kids’ soccer teams. They crowded on, two per bench, facing forward in the narrow open cars, cradling lunchboxes and equipment on their laps. The motorman sounded the horn, throttled up and the train glided, almost silently, into the darkness of the mine.

* * * * *

They heard it coming at about ten o’clock, falling down the shaft. The mechanics, motormen, supply people and planners in the maintenance barn understood immediately that trouble was headed their way. They knew the drill, though. Protect the generators, protect the pumping systems before everything else. Without power and without pumps, people would die.

Runaway coming down! The emergency channel confirmed what they already knew. Sirens followed, a required afterthought.

The cavern that housed the equipment shed and maintenance barn was better lit than most of the mine. Because the generators and many of the haulers ran on diesel, ventilation fans pushed large volumes of air through the chamber to exhaust the fumes. Everything made noise. As the runaway plunged past, though, down toward the bottom of the shaft, everybody heard it as if every other sound were muffled. Despite the 85 degree temperature, they all felt hair rise on their forearms.

It was a big piece of equipment. They watched it flash past the shaft gate. It tumbled, dragged steel netting and housing from somewhere above, banging from wall to wall. Each of the thirty-nine men at the 4850 closed his eyes and wished for a clean fall, for no jamming of the shaft, for no encounter with the ore skip coming up the other compartment. And for the safety of everybody below.

* * * * *

The rock liquefied long ago at temperatures that would flash cook a human in a millisecond and, at the insistence of massive subterranean pressures, it squeezed into fissures and cracks where water could barely seep. It cooled there, hard, tough, but eons later it fractured into a fine dust when miners drilled and blasted and mucked and transported it.

Water was the patron saint of miners, protecting their lungs from the dust particles that could kill them. Miners were so used to the sound of water that, aboveground, they felt uncomfortable in true silence, missed the soothing sibilance of the silvery-black streams that dropped through dark spaces from level to level in the mine. Rock drills sprayed a fine mist of water as they cut the rock, knocking down the dust into thin mud that flowed from stope to drift to chute, moving inexorably downward. Other process waters, pumped throughout the mine, joined the mud from the stopes and cushioned the passage of heavy vehicle traffic, subduing dust and carrying deadly particles away. Occasional ground water, too, seeping from faces and dripping from moist rock walls, joined the streams seeking the lowest levels, pulled by gravity to the warmest workings at the bottom of the mine.

When the runaway axle set crashed to its resting place at the bottom of the Cheyenne Shaft, then, nobody was surprised that it splashed. It plunged through the 10-gauge steel grid sump cover and crushed both submersible pumps, set in the bottom of the shaft below the 6000-foot level. Sharp wedges of flyrock, dislodged by the careening axle, sliced into everything but solid rock like a scalpel through flesh.

The water level in the sump rose immediately, inexorably, as drainage from miles of drifts and chutes cascaded into the sump—and nothing pumped it back out.

* * * * *

The trainees straggled in a line along the tunnel’s center, avoiding the running water in the shallow ditch at its edge—the trainer had told them all the ditches were used, in effect, as latrines. Hannah trailed behind the trainer, asking questions to keep her mind off the millions of tons of rock above her, the oppressive darkness that made her breath come short and shallow and the fear-generated sweat that trickled down her back. She knew he was tired of the endless questions but she didn’t care, didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.

Has there ever been a fire down here?

The trainer rolled his eyes and sighed. Yes, ma’am. Had a timber fire, big one, about a year ago up on the 3450. Detectors caught it—nobody was workin’ up there, so we were lucky to get it early.

How’d it start then, if nobody was up there?

Spontaneous.

Really?

Yeh. Happens more’n you’d think.

Hannah added fire to the cause-of-death list taking shape in her mind. Along with crushed by rock, drowned and suffocated. How could people do this every day?

The tunnels here in the working part of the mine were reasonably well marked, and though she had no idea in what direction they were moving, she could tell they were going down, deeper into the mine. Probably toward another train platform that would take them—at last—to a cage, most likely at the Cheyenne shaft again, and up out of the mine.

They rounded a corner into a new drift and a soft breeze cooled Hannah’s sweaty face. Must be near a ventilation shaft, she thought. Man, does that feel good. Her mind lifted to the surface, to the Cheyenne’s parking lot. She had stood there, squinting in the warm sun and gentle spring breeze, craning her head back to take in the headframe of the mineshaft. It looked like an enormous grain elevator, a skyscraper there at the top of the hill, a structure that belonged next to a railroad track in a flat sea of ripening wheat. Odd, but a much safer place than this one.

No, she thought, I could never do this for a living. Couldn’t live without the sun, without fresh air, without plants and animals. With a mile of rock over my head. Crushing, heavy, dense rock. As the soft brush of air passed her face, she imagined the sound of cracks, widening, lengthening, making thunder underground. She felt another frisson of fear, pushed it away, cleared her throat and asked yet another question.

How do the radios work? Radio frequencies can’t travel through rock, can they?

No, ma’am. The system we use down here is called a ‘leaky feeder.’ See that coax cable there? He pointed. That there’s the radio. It’s got holes in the outside casing that let the signal leak in and out.

So when you push your radio’s switch, it sends a signal through a hole? And down the cable?

He nodded. Think of it as a loooong cell phone tower. You have to be close to a cable to send or receive. Signal’s pretty weak.

Well, that’s pretty ingenious. So you can call anybody in the mine.

Anybody who’s got a radio and is line of sight to feeder cable, yeh.

They walked on in silence. Hannah couldn’t think of another question. You’re almost done, she told herself. Hang in. Just a quick trip up and—

A siren sounded ahead, loud, quick, five short shrieks. They all jumped.

Aww, shit. The trainer stopped, pulled the radio off his belt and held it to his ear. The trainees bunched around him like chicks around a protective hen.

What? Hannah said as the siren faded away.

The trainer held up his hand, listened, then looked at his group and took a deep breath. There’s a problem. We have to leave the mine another way.

* * * * *

Five thousand feet up and a mile away in downtown Lead, South Dakota, Lila Cooper leaned over the walnut lunch counter, tapping her pencil’s eraser against the green and white order pad. She rarely used it, knew what everybody would have. You know, I can’t figure out why they’d need somebody new. Not now, she said.

Me neither. Calvin held up his cup.

And a woman to boot. Lila poured him another cup of coffee. Talked to her yet?

Nope.

Lila frowned and tucked a straight strand of strawberry blonde hair behind an ear. Wonder who has.

The crosshatched creases at the corners of Calvin’s watery blue eyes deepened as he grinned. Corrine talked to her yesterday.

Calvin Anderson, why didn’t you say so?

You didn’t ask. He flinched away, smirking, as Lila swatted at him with her order pad.

She leaned on the counter and beckoned with her fingers. Well, come on. What’d she say?

Her name’s Hannah, just like Corrine’s second cousin over to Spearfish.

Lila swung her hand in a signal for more, the short-cropped nails painted a kaleidoscope of colors. She pretty?

Yuh. Redhead. Friendly, too. First time in South Dakota.

Where’s she from, then? Denver?

Nope. St. Paul.

Humh. She for sure here about the mine?

Yuh. Workin’ for environmental, I guess. Rentin’ Gloria’s house for a couple of weeks.

So what d’you think this Hannah girl knows about gold mines?

Not a lot, I’d guess. His eyes sparkled. Don’t think there’s a flake of gold in Minnesota. Just iron ore, hard and deep.

A timer sounded, interrupting their conversation, and Lila hurried into the kitchen. She checked the four pies in the oven—deep-dish apple, cherry, pecan and strawberry-rhubarb—and decided to leave them for another couple minutes.

Makin’ chocolate pie today, Lila? Calvin’s voice carried through the window over the grill.

No, sir. She adjusted the oven temperature and turned her attention to the lunch special: barbecued ribs. Nobody ate the last one ‘cept you, and I had to throw half of it out.

Guess I’ll have to have the apple, then.

Lila heard the crackle of newspaper, knew Calvin was reading the gossip column in the local four-page daily. She sighed, considering her life as she peeled and diced onions for the barbecue sauce. At thirty, she had been married, cheated on, divorced, hired, fired, loved and betrayed, orphaned and bequeathed a drafty old house too full of family history. Smart and determined, though, Lila had opened the Ore House Café to thumb her nose at the town that had judged her a failure. Six feet tall and lean, with a Betty Boop tulip of a mouth and wide blue eyes, Lila loved it when the locals came to the Ore House to find out what was going on in town, crowning her little café the center of gossip with Lila as its queen.

An onion-induced tear slid down her cheek and she sighed. Now, if only there were something good to gossip about.

Not much seemed to change in Lead from day to day. Dickey Gilbertson would try to hit on her again this morning, like every day except Sunday when the café was closed. If he were Catholic, she thought, he’d even hit on her in church. She shook her head, thought momentarily about flirting back just to change the daily dialogue. No, not a good idea. If anything about their morning routine changed, everybody else at coffee would notice, and she’d replace the new girl in Gloria’s house as the subject of local speculation.

She’d been there before, didn’t want to go back.

No. Best to smile at Dickey and put him off just like always. Tell him gently to go back to his wife. Back to poor Shelley.

There was no real going back, though, Lila knew. Not after Dickey’d been caught with Wendy Schmidt—almost half his age—down in the storerooms behind Durty Nellie’s. It was nearly impossible to be discreet in Lead, and Deadwood was only slightly better since gambling had brought in so many strangers. But to be drunk with a 20-year-old and nearly naked with a hard-on that had grown with the telling— Lila chuckled, thinking she would have liked to have walked in on them herself. Shelley had caught them instead. The news had reached Lila before breakfast the next morning, and though nearly six weeks had passed, people still talked about it. Made life interesting.

No, she’d leave Dickey alone. Endure his come-ons. Keep the peace.

The bell above the door and the familiar voices signaled arrival of the coffee bunch from offices up Main Street. They were the professional corps of Lead, South Dakota, full of themselves and the importance of their jobs. Insurance—that was Dickey—and banking, hardware, the grocery. The doctor. Hot shots. Big dogs.

Lila washed the onion off her hands, pushed the sleeves of her hot pink angora sweater back down, and opened the oven door to retrieve the pies.

She nearly dropped the cherry pie when the sirens blew. Five short blasts, deafening, from just up the street. She shoved the pie onto the counter, cursed the fact she was wearing a skirt, rummaged in a closet at the back of the kitchen and changed her clear plastic heels for black high-top tennis shoes.

Everybody else in the café had crowded to the window, looking down Main Street, jostling each other for a better view. Conversation volume had tripled in an instant.

The sirens sounded again. Lila ran from the kitchen through the dining room, stopped at the door and, pulling on a red windbreaker, pointed at Calvin and shouted, Watch the place, will you?

She paused just long enough to catch Calvin’s nod and a question from the pretty tourist at table four, What’s happening? Why’s everybody so excited?

And Dickie, that asshole, flirting, There’s been an accident in the mine.

Chapter 3

Monday, May 10

What do you mean, ‘another way’? Hannah wiped her hands on her coveralls, conscious of how clammy they felt. How many ways out are there?

Just two worth talking about. The safety trainer barely acknowledged Hannah and the other trainees as he turned the radio’s channel knob, searching for more information.

So we’re not going out the Cheyenne Shaft.

Can’t. Gotta go to the Harney.

Where’s the Harney?

Long ways from here, ma’am. He lifted the radio and listened.

What happened? Another trainee finally piped up.

Don’t know. Won’t find out, either, if you guys don’t shut up for a minute. He held the radio to one ear, plugged a gloved finger into the other, swore and changed the channel again.

Point well taken, Hannah thought. Anything to get out, and get out fast.

She tried not to consider what might have happened, what might be happening now, but her thoughts slid there anyway. The air was cool, the ventilation still good. No fire, then, in this neighborhood anyway, no roaring conflagration that would suck the oxygen out of the mine and leave them gasping for air. No more water than they’d seen elsewhere, either. Unless it came around the corner at the next junction, a wall of a wave as high as a—

Her pulse was hammering again and she felt the prick of tears. Let me out! Now! She wanted to scream and run, but which way?

No. She rolled her hands into fists at her sides.

Not going to do that. Not here. I need this job. I have to succeed. My business depends on it, the business I’ve given up so much for.

Hannah closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, calming herself by sheer force of will.

Okay, the trainer finally said. We’re going down near the bottom of the Cheyenne shaft to pick up a train. It’s a hike, but it’s better than walkin’ all the way to the Harney. He clipped the radio onto his belt. Got everything? Then follow me.

* * * * *

Just by luck, Matt and Dooley were closest to the shaft’s sump, mining a stope not a quarter mile out and only a couple hundred feet up. When the sirens blew, they left their equipment in the stope, climbed down into the tunnel.

Topside radioed almost immediately. Thorpe. Arnold. Get down t’ the Cheyenne sump fast and check the pumps. They ran, headlamps bobbing light before them.

Dooley caught up with Matt at the Cheyenne’s lowest level. They leaned out over the shaft, twenty feet square and impenetrably dark, which dropped another sixty feet to the sump, and listened. Just the sibilance of water as it disappeared in blackness.

"Aw, man. Nothing’s running down there."

I’ll go down and take a look while you call. Dooley jammed a spare flashlight into his tool belt, and swung onto the sump’s manway.

As he descended the caged ladder into the pit, listening to Matt talk to Topside, every ten rungs or so he twisted around in the cascading water, shining his miner’s light down past his boots to the sump cover below. No sign of rising water yet. It couldn’t be long, though; climbing into the sump was like taking a warm shower. Water running from everywhere into this damn pit. Impossible to stay dry.

I’m no mechanic, Dooley thought. Why am I the guy taking the pee bath? Last month they’d been working over near the Harney, would have heard about this and shaken their heads for the poor bastards climbing down here with no idea what to do.

He saw the diagonal gash in the sump cover long before he got down there. Gaping, nasty, ragged edges mostly pointing down. Main pumps were not only toast, he realized, they were probably pretzeled, their casings gone, nailed by the axle. He swung his light around into the corner, twenty feet away. The backup pump casings squatted on deck plate, protected by heavy wire screen from falling debris, and looked okay at first glance. Then why weren’t the pumps running? Nearing bottom, he turned back to the gash. Still no sign of rising water.

Dooley stepped onto a four-foot square of steel tread plate at the bottom of the manway. He lifted his flashlight beam to the panel housing the backup switches, but when he flipped up the cover and hit the button, nothing happened. He checked the box for juice: dead. Flyrock, maybe? Starting at the top of the panel, his light traced the incoming electrical conduit up into the dark shaft as far as his eyes could follow it. Looked okay, but a fine slice would be hard to see.

Matt. Tell ’em everything’s dead down here.

Shit, he heard from above, then a bunch of talk he couldn’t make out, and finally, try to start the backups manually.

Dooley sighed. Crap. Why couldn’t they just kick on like they were supposed to?

Will do, he hollered up.

Be careful. Matt’s voice floated down, muted by the falling water, as Dooley stepped out onto the metal grating of the sump cover.

* * * * *

Lila picked a pair of coveralls off the guest hooks and looked for a place to change. The Dry—the Harney Shaft change house—was crowded, full of other emergency responders getting ready for the cage ride down. She picked a bench, sighed and stripped off her skirt, clucked her tongue at the chorus of wolf whistles and pulled on the pants.

None of you boys ever seen a woman before? She tried to shame them, but should have known—it never worked with this bunch. So she stood and stripped off the pink sweater, slid her arms into the coverall sleeves, kicked off the high-tops and traded them