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When all was in readiness, Holden came back to the ledge where A
He'd had less sleep than she. No one had worked harder; no one had taken fewer rests, yet aside from a miner's tan of filth, he looked none the worse for wear.
"How do you do it?" A
"Coffee breaks," Holden said simply.
Coffee. A
Holden tapped the pocket on the front of his tee-shirt. "Next to my heart." He pulled out a small foil envelope of Taster's Choice instant, ripped off a corner, and tapped the contents expertly into his bottom lip like a farmer taking chaw. "Good to the last crystal."
Frieda was as tired as any of them. Without the concealing mask of dirt, her face showed it. Her skin was drawn and pale and her eyes were staring, too much of the whites showing. For the hauls, Holden needed her awake and moderately alert so she could tell them if she was in any distress and needed to stop. There was a limit to the amount of pain medication Dr. McCarty could give her and still leave her with enough brain power to work on her own behalf. Though no one but A
"Ready for a last push?" Tillman asked Frieda.
"Ready whenever you are. I'm the one's been napping all day."
"This is rigged like a dream," he promised. "You'll be in camp in no time. I got a special room in the Swiss cheese earmarked. You two can have it all to yourselves to do lady things."
When this was over A
A
Nothing in Lechuguilla was designed for the easy access of humans. Katie's Pigtail was no exception. The crack was irregular; the sides of jutting rock looked as if they had only recently been torn from the opposing wall. The stones were white overlaid with dirt that sifted from above. Below, all was darkness, a band of unrelenting night cutting raggedly away from the farthest reach of the lamps. The right side of the Pigtail was concave, gaping holes where chunks of rock had fallen away. On the left was a fractured ledge, a footpath for mountain goats. It was here the remaining rescuers would make their way. Three-quarters of the way to the exit, the crevasse was crossed by breakdown, immense slabs forming a natural bridge. Five yards beyond was the landing where they would start the climb to camp.
Katie's Pigtail couldn't be rigged in the neat in-line haul that Holden had managed above Razor Blade. For most of the way the rigging was tucked up close to the left-hand wall. The ledge was too fragmented to hand-carry the Stokes. It would be suspended over the drop and moved along by pulleys and haul lines.
A
Knowing this was the last work of the day gave strength to A
The first hint that something had gone wrong was the call "Rock!" carried down the black canyon on a gust of fear.
7
Like a flick of foam on the crest of a tidal wave, the shout was borne down on a thunderous roar. In the insulated chamber, sworn to long silence by the earth itself, the noise consumed everything in its path. The stone beneath A
Silt-out, she thought inanely, her mind grasping at a diving incident years before. Dust: the earth was reclaiming the canyon they crept through. Curling down over Frieda, A
Ropes slipped, and there was a sickening skid downward. Then something broke loose, and they fell as one falls in a nightmare. Sudden weightlessness, a sense of utter helplessness, as all that was once real, once stable, is sucked away. Without sight, there were no walls streaking by, no floor rushing up. There were just the wind and the breathless drop.
Without warning the ropes caught, and A
She lied. The leather of her gloves began to slip, a slow rotation that would pry her fingers from the metal. Squeezing with every muscle in her body, A
By the light of her lamp she could see Frieda's face below her. Through the gauze of swirling dust she looked no more than twelve years old. "Grab me, Frieda. Grab my wrists." In what appeared to be slow motion, Frieda reached up. A