“Everybody out!” Wyatt shouted.
The lights flickered.
Then died.
Only his flashlight remained.
He grabbed Hannah’s hand.
“Move!”
They ran toward the main tunnel.
Lucy stumbled.
Eli lifted her.
Another explosion of falling stone shook the passage.
A support beam crashed behind them.
The air filled with dust.
Wyatt’s damaged knee buckled.
He hit the ground.
Hannah turned.
“Wyatt!”
“Keep going!”
She refused.
She came back, took his arm, and helped him stand.
Together they limped toward daylight.
But twenty yards from the entrance, the tunnel split.
A wall of falling rock slammed between them and the outside.
The passage vanished beneath tons of rubble.
Lucy screamed.
Hannah sank to her knees.
“No!”
Wyatt examined the collapse.
There was no way through.
They were trapped.
Behind them, the mine continued to groan.
Eli pointed toward a narrow side passage.
“There’s an emergency ventilation shaft.”
“Where?”
“Past the old pump room.”
“How far?”
“Maybe two hundred yards.”
Wyatt looked at Hannah.
“Can you make it?”
She nodded.
They hurried into the side tunnel.
The passage narrowed until Wyatt had to turn sideways.
Water trickled along the floor.
The air grew colder.
At the pump room, Eli stopped.
A steel ladder rose into darkness.
Far above, a circle of pale light marked the opening.
Wyatt felt hope flare.
Then he looked at Hannah.
She was barely standing.
Lucy clung to her.
The ladder was nearly forty feet high.
“I’ll go first,” Eli said.
He climbed rapidly.
At the top, he pushed against the hatch.
It didn’t move.
He tried again.
“It’s stuck!”
Wyatt shouted, “Use your shoulder!”
Eli slammed into it.
Nothing.
The hatch had rusted shut.
Below them, another tremor shook the tunnel.
Water began pouring through a crack in the wall.
Hannah looked at Wyatt.
“We’re not going to make it.”
He grabbed her face gently.
“Don’t say that.”
She smiled through tears.
“You always were terrible at accepting bad news.”
Wyatt laughed once, bitterly.
“Runs in the family.”
Then a sound came from above.
A heavy thud.
Another.
Eli looked up.
“Something’s hitting the hatch!”
Wyatt froze.
The sound came again.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Then a familiar, furious whinny echoed down the shaft.
Memphis.
Wyatt’s eyes filled.
“That’s my boy.”
Above them, the horse was striking the hatch with his hooves.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The rusted metal bent inward.
Eli pressed upward.
The hatch shifted.
Sunlight spilled through a narrow gap.
“Push!” Wyatt shouted.
Eli shoved with all his strength.
The hatch broke open.
A blast of hot desert air rushed down.
Lucy began crying with relief.
Eli climbed out.
Then Wyatt helped Lucy onto the ladder.
She climbed slowly, trembling.
At the top, Eli pulled her into daylight.
Hannah followed.
Wyatt steadied her until she reached the upper rungs.
Then he began climbing.
Halfway up, the ladder shook.
A bolt tore from the stone.
Wyatt grabbed the side rail.
The ladder twisted.
His bad knee slipped.
For one terrible second, he hung above the darkness.
“Wyatt!” Hannah screamed.
He reached upward.
Eli stretched down.
Their fingers touched.
Then a violent tremor shook the shaft.
The ladder tore free.
And Wyatt fell.
Chapter Eleven: The Man Who Had Nothing Left
Wyatt struck a narrow maintenance ledge twelve feet below.
Pain exploded through his left side.
He couldn’t breathe.
Above him, Hannah screamed his name.
He tried to move.
His leg refused.
He looked down.
The ladder had fallen into the dark shaft beneath him.
There was no way to climb.
Dust poured from the ceiling.
“Wyatt!” Eli shouted. “Can you hear me?”
Wyatt coughed.
“I’m here.”
“We’re getting a rope!”
Wyatt stared at the narrow opening overhead.
He could see a piece of blue sky.
Then Memphis’s enormous head appeared beside it.
The horse snorted anxiously.
Wyatt almost laughed.
“Still making trouble, aren’t you?”
Memphis whinnied.
Wyatt closed his eyes.
He thought of Eleanor.
The way she used to stand on the porch at sunset, one hand shielding her eyes as she watched him ride home.
He remembered the first day she brought Memphis to the ranch.
The arguments.
The laughter.
The years before sickness hollowed out their home.
He had spent five years believing his life was essentially finished.
The ranch was dying.
His children were gone.
His wife was buried.
He had nothing left worth fighting for.
Then a horse had broken through a fence.
A little girl had whispered his sister’s name.
And suddenly, the world was full of things he had never known he could still lose.
Above him, Hannah shouted, “Hold on!”
A rope dropped through the opening.
Wyatt grabbed it.
Eli and Hannah pulled.
Memphis moved out of sight.
The rope tightened sharply.
Wyatt realized they had looped it around the horse’s chest harness, using his strength to help haul him upward.
“Easy, boy,” Wyatt whispered.
His injured ribs screamed.
His boots scraped the stone.
Inch by inch, he rose.
The shaft trembled.
A section of wall collapsed beneath him.
He swung against the rock.
Then hands caught his shoulders.
Hannah.
Eli.
Together they dragged him into daylight.
Wyatt collapsed onto the dirt.
The sun burned his face.
The air smelled of sagebrush and hot stone.
And Memphis stood above him, breathing heavily.
Wyatt reached up and touched the horse’s nose.
