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

“And?” I prompt. A pencil-width of silver is not nothing.

“And Papi said maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone about it,” he goes on, his voice dropping to a mumble. “That it was only a thin thread, and if we gave it to the cooperative, it would have to be shared among all the miners—not even just the ones on our crew, but everyone. He said there might only be a thimbleful of silver, and to divide it out among so many would mean we’d only get centavos.”

“So you kept it to yourselves,” I say, my voice hard. I feel bile churn in my stomach. Francisco and Guillermo are thieves—worse than thieves, because they decided to rob their coworkers, their neighbors, people they knew were poor, not those who could afford to lose things. “You work in a cooperative. Profits are supposed to be shared. Tell me again how that’s not stealing?”

“If we had shared it, there wouldn’t have been any profit!” he barks at me, and I can hear the echo of his father in his voice. “We had to keep it to ourselves until we knew what we really had. Then we would—Papi said then, if it was a lot, of course we’d share it.”

I can hear the desperation in his voice to believe that. It’s the same tone he had when he said his father would come back for him. I want to tell him he’s an idiot to believe anything Francisco said, but we all want to think the best of our fathers, when we can. It’s not like my papi was perfect. I keep my mouth shut.

“We covered it up and told César the air was bad and that we needed to move somewhere else,” Guillermo goes on. “Then we came back at night and worked, just the two of us, and collected what we could.” He pauses. “But then the thread went deeper than we could reach with our picks, and Papi said we should use some dynamite—just a little, he said. Not so much they’d hear it topside. Just enough to loosen the outer layer . . .” he trails off.

“But you used too much,” I say, remembering the zone seven tunnel caving in around me, the puff of air and dust that doused my light.

“I guess.” He shrugs. “It became unstable. Part of the lower tunnel collapsed and we had to run. We made it to the top just seconds before César and the others arrived. We pretended we’d come because of the noise too, and joined the cleanup crew. Then they found your brother and the place was swarming. We couldn’t go back. Papi said we should take the opportunity to get the metal processed. So we told everyone we had to leave town for a funeral, and we went to Uyuni and paid a man to use the smelter there and extract the silver. We couldn’t do it here. It would have raised too many questions. Everyone knows us here.”

“But you came back.”

“The ore was good quality. Not much, but real pure. Papi wanted to check one last time and see if there was any we had missed, so we came tonight. We didn’t know they had hired a new guarda.”

“Well, they did. But it doesn’t matter,” I say bitterly. “You got your silver, and you even got out of cleaning up the mess you made getting it. Your stunt nearly killed me—it nearly killed Daniel.”

“Whatever,” he snaps. “You’ve made an even bigger mess.”

“So—what? We’re even?” I snort. “Your explosion buried me, my explosion buried you, and that’s that?”

“Hey, if we hadn’t set that, they never would have found your brother. You have me to thank that he’s a cripple, not a corpse. Besides, you should never have been in the mine anyway. It’s probably because you were there that night that our blast went wrong.”

I remember why I dislike Guillermo and his father so much.

“Fine,” I say, hefting to my feet and turning toward the access tunnel. “I’ll leave.”

“No!” He reaches out and grabs my ankle, surprisingly strong.

I look over my shoulder at him. “I’m bad luck, right? Won’t you be better off if I leave?”

Guillermo’s face crumples. His fingers tremble against my ankle. “Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

And I want to hold on to my anger against him. He and his father have been nothing but unpleasant to me and my family. He deserves the consequences of his actions. But then I think of Daniel, how he was hurt and alone in the dark and how much I wish there had been someone to sit with him while he waited for rescue. Even if it were someone who didn’t like him.

Guillermo is unpleasant and rude, but we’re both just kids trying to survive the Mountain That Eats Men. I sigh. Irony is a sharp, vicious thing. Guillermo constantly harassed me, trying to get me to leave the mine. Now he’s terrified I’ll do exactly that.

I sink back down beside him. “It’s not good to be alone,” I say.

“You’ll stay with me?” he presses, his fingers still latched on the cuff of my sweatpants. “Promise?”

“I won’t leave you.” The words taste of ash and rock dust. “I promise.”

Guillermo lets go of my ankle and stares at the tunnel ceiling, his eyes losing focus and his breath hitching in pain.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Not good,” he says. “Cold. Hurt. Scared.”

It’s an honest response. “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” I say again.

“I was here to steal,” he says quietly. “You were here to guard. It’s as much my fault as yours that I’m buried here.”

I nod, accepting that. Glad that what he offered was to take part of the blame rather than offer forgiveness. Guillermo will never be my favorite person in the world, but he’s honest and I can respect that. Here, trapped under a mountain together, it feels like maybe we don’t have to be enemies. Maybe we can just be two