Treasure of the World Tara Sullivan (inspirational books for women TXT) 📖

don’t even know whether the space in front of me is big enough for my body, but terrified and twisted, I shove myself forward.

The first sense I have that I’m coming out of the crawl space is when I can bend my elbows. Pushing against the rock slide, I haul myself forward until I’m half out and can lift my head again in open space.

Sobbing, I raise my face and pull in deep gulps of dust-choked air. I use my hands to lever my hips and legs out of the tiny access tunnel and tumble onto the ground, blind with relief.

For a few moments I lie there on the cold ground, heaving in grainy breaths, waiting for the tide of fear I was drowning in to pull away from me. I am super aware of my body; my face against the smooth floor of an established mine tunnel; every scratch and rip along my aching fingers; the abrasions on my hips; the heaviness of my sneakered feet. I know it must have only been minutes that I was in the crawlway, but it felt like an eternity.

I notice the darkness and reach a trembling hand up to my head. My helmet is still there. I trace the line down from the headlamp and find a dangling tube. In my panic, I must have sheared off my acetylene tank.

This is very bad. I feel around at my feet, but I don’t brush against any smooth metal cylinders. I consider striking the lighter in my pocket so I can see. But then I picture my little tank somewhere halfway between myself and freedom. I try to remember whether acetylene is a gas that floats up or seeps down, but I can’t. I decide not to chance a flame. I’m still trembling with my last near-death encounter.

“Ana? Ana! Are you okay?” Victor’s voice echoes down the access shaft.

I turn my head in slow arcs, trying to orient myself to the sound. There! A moon-shaped grayness in the unending black marks the opening. I put out a hand to steady myself.

“Victor.” A coughing spasm racks me when I try to speak. “I’m through!”

“Thank God. I was so worried when you screamed.”

I have nothing to say to that.

“Did you find Guillermo?” he asks.

In my mind-crushing panic I had forgotten.

“Guillermo?” I grope around in the dark.

“Here!” says a choked voice beside me.

“Guillermo?” When I reach to my left, my hand brushes a shirt. I sweep my hands over him. “Are you hurt?”

“I . . .”—his voice is clogged with tears and blast dust—“can’t feel my legs.”

My fingers have to do my seeing for me. My hands trace up his shoulder and find his face. I check his head—no wetness, that’s good, at least his skull isn’t cracked. He’s bowed awkwardly off the floor. I fumble in the darkness until I can pull the loose rocks out from under him and he can rest flat. I trail my hands down his arms and across his chest, pushing away the debris piled on him, then down the side of his leg. I’ve only made it to his knee when my fingers meet the wall of rubble.

My hands flit over to his other knee; same problem there. I grip the fabric of his jeans and give a small tug, just to see if, by some miracle, his legs will slide free. When I do this, Guillermo gasps in agony.

His legs don’t move.

He’s trapped.

The pain of me pulling on his legs has fully woken him up, and I can hear his rapid breathing beside me.

“Shh,” I say.

“I . . . I . . .” His gulping breaths don’t let him finish.

“No, no, don’t panic,” I say, panicking. “We’re going to get you out.”

I flutter my hands along the grade of the slope. It doesn’t feel good. To test my theory, I pull a few rocks off the top. As soon as I do, a top layer sluices down.

Guillermo hollers in fear and I throw my body over his head and shoulders. Rocks bounce off my back. When the noise of the rockslide stops, I carefully lift myself off his chest and move my hands over the slope again. The angle is gentler, but now he’s covered from the waist down.

“Help!” he yells at me.

There’s nothing I can do or say to make it better. If I keep pulling at the rocks, the physics of the thing in front of me means I’m likely to bury him completely.

“We need to wait for the miners to help us,” I tell him. “They’ll know how to get you out.”

I hear a commotion above us. The sweep of a flashlight beam lights the access tunnel. The low rumble of male voices and the echo of boots was a sound that frightened me the last time I was in these tunnels, but I am beyond glad to hear them now.

“Victor?” I call. “What’s going on?”

“Ana!” He sounds relieved. “Some people are here. Hang on! Was that Guillermo? Are you guys okay?”

“I’m all right.” I pause and think about how to say what I need to say next without causing Guillermo to panic. “I found him,” I say. “His legs are stuck. I don’t know how badly hurt they are, but I can’t move the rocks myself. Who’s here? Can they help?”

There’s a rustle at the opening. Then a hoarse voice calls down.

“Ana?”

“César?” I’m stunned. With how sick he’s been, I would never have expected him to come to investigate the blast.

A gale of coughing answers me, and my relief at hearing his voice is instantly washed away by worry and guilt. This is my fault! If I hadn’t decided it was a good idea to toss dynamite around like it was confetti, he would still be in bed, resting.

I hear César’s voice angle away from me. “Okay, men, let’s get to work. Enlarge this access tunnel . . .” His voice gets louder again. “Ana, what direction are you?”

“Left . . . my left. To your right.”

“Enlarge it away from them,” César goes on to his crew.

“Wait!” I call up.