Free Collection 1980 - Yondering (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour

worked in mines most of his life and no trouble until now, and then the roof fell in. The whole damned mountain came down—or so it seemed. When he heard the crash, his first thought was for Mary. He was trapped here, but she was trapped out there, and she was alone.
    “Better take a rest,” Frank said. “We’ve got some time.”
    Joe sat down, and Bert looked across at him. “We could work in the dark,” he suggested. “That flame eats up air.”
    Frank shook his head. “If you can’t see, there’s too much waste effort. You’ve got to see where the pick goes. Try it with the light a little longer.”
    Joe’s eyes went to Frank. The big man lay tense and still, gripping the rock under his hand. He was in agony, Joe knew it and hated it. Frank was his friend.
    “Will we make it, Frank?” He was thinking of Mary. What would she do? What could she do? How could she handle it alone? It wasn’t as if they were married. “Think we’ll make it?”
    “We’ll make it,” Frank said. “We’ll make it, all right.”
    “Listen!” Bert sat up eagerly. “I think I hear them! Wasn’t that the sound of a pick?”
    They listened, every muscle tense. There was no sound. Then, far away, some muck shifted. Frank doused the light, and darkness closed in, silent and heavy like the dead, dead air. There was no vibrancy here, no sense of living.
    They heard Joe get up, heard the heavy blows of the pick. He worked on and on, his muscles aching with weariness. Each blow and each recovery was an effort. Then Bert spoke, and they heard them change places. Standing once more, Bert could feel the difference. It was much harder to breathe; his lungs labored, and his heart struggled against the walls of his chest, as if to break through. Once he stopped and held a hand over it, frightened.
    Long since they had thrown the first two picks aside, their points worn away. They might have to return to them, but now they were using another, sharper pick. They were standing in a hole now. Once a flake of rock fell, and Bert held himself, expecting a crash. It did not come.
    Rody moved suddenly. Frank lit the light with a brush of his palm. Rody looked at him, then reached for the pick. “Let me have it,” Rody said. “Hell, it’s better than sittin’ there suckin’ my thumb. Give me the pick.”
    Bert passed it to him; then he staggered to the muck pile and fell, full length, gasping with great throat-rasping gasps.
    Rody swung the pick, attacking the bottom of the hole savagely. Sweat ran into his eyes, and he swung, attacking the rock as if it were a flesh-and-blood enemy, feeling an exultant fury in his blows.
    Once he stopped to take five, and looking over at Frank, he said, “How goes it, big boy?”
    “Tolerable,” Frank said. “You’re a good man, Rody.”
    Rody swelled his chest, and the pick swung easily in his big hands. All of them were lying down now because the air was better close to the muck.
    “Hear anything?” Bert asked. “How long will it take them to reach us, Frank?”
    “Depends on how much it caved.” They had been over this before, but it was hope they needed, any thread of it. Even talking of rescue seemed to bring it nearer. The numbness was all gone now, and his big body throbbed with pain. He fought it, refusing to surrender to it, trying to deny it. He held the pain as though it were some great beast he must overcome.
    Suddenly Joe sat up. “Say! What became of the air line for the machine?”
    They stared at each other, shocked at their forgetting. “Maybe it ain’t busted,” Bert said.
    Stumbling in his eagerness, Joe fell across the muck, bumping Frank as he did so, jerking an involuntary grunt from him. Then Joe fell on his knees and began clawing rocks away from where the end of the pipe should be, the pipe that supplied compressed air for drilling. He found the pipe and cleared the vent, unscrewing the broken hose to the machine. Trembling, he turned the valve. Cool air shot into the