And she prayed to her benevolent spirits, asking like a child would in utter earnestness for a second chance—a wishful pathetic prayer, sent across to the spirit world.
Her sobs fell into the dark silence of the room, her heartache so intense her breath was stifled in her throat. Laying her cheek against the warm leather where Etienne's head had rested only short hours ago, she cried, wishing for a return to yesterday.
She fell asleep after some time in the softness of Etienne's chair, exhausted from crying, weary in spirit, devastated by the staggering realization she'd lost him this time—forever.
Etienne felt the air on his face first, a tenuous sensation not immediately recognizable. And then some moments later, his consciousness sent the proper signals to his brain and he realized he was still breathing. Lying in water up to his chin, his sluggish senses slowly registered that circumstance, lagging moments behind his initial observations, and panic overwhelmed him. Struggling to escape the water, he disregarded the intense pain in his lungs and in his battered body as he shoved himself in lurching, erratic terror into a half-seated sprawl.
The effort left him gasping while white flashes burst before his eyes in the total darkness of his entombment.
But he was gloriously alive!
Understanding finally clarified what his reflexive responses had already surmised.
And he smiled in the black dampness, thousands of feet underground in a labyrinth of tunnels that could swallow a man for life.
He smiled because there was infinite pleasure in the simple act of breathing and in the knowledge he could contemplate a first wedding anniversary with the woman he loved.
His shaman gods would receive a generous offering for their fateful rescue.
Or perhaps Daisy's benevolent spirits had wanted their union to last longer than two weeks.
He thanked in turn the full panoply of possible deities.
He'd been propelled by the flood up a raise into the exploration areas of the Alaska Shaft, he surmised sometime later when he'd regained his strength and faculties enough to inspect the walls and low ceiling of his entombing space. He had only to climb the ladder in the raise, he knew, up to the surface… and freedom.
He rested a brief time after his investigation, to give the agony in his lungs time to subside to more manageable levels. Then he began ascending the ladder inside the ventilation shaft, moving slowly in his weakened state, his body bloodied and raw where he'd been flung against the jagged rocks. Resting often, light-headed and unstable from the blow to his head, his upward journey took considerable time.
At the 1400 level, the raise ended and he found himself up against solid rock. A sudden rush of panic assailed him in a mindless fear of burial. Stay calm, he cautioned himself, gripping the ladder rungs tightly while his heartbeat slowed. There's a way out… you only have to find it. Backtracking, he descended to the 1800 level where he hoped it was possible to enter the mine, and crawling several hundred yards through a low working, not yet cut out to standing height, he prayed the rough channel merged with a larger one.
With the lamps flooded out at the lower levels, the darkness was complete, the absence of light so absolute, a suffocating denseness smothered his senses. Would he find his way out, he fearfully speculated, reconnoitering with his hands before moving the next few inches forward, feeling at times as though the low ceiling and walls were crushing down on him. Progress was torturously slow, each movement painful; he was bleeding from his wounds, the oozing blood cool on his skin.
He stopped once to calm an overwhelming sense of doom when he was struck with the thought that no one would come looking for him. No one would expect him to survive the deluge. How grotesque a fate to survive the flood only to die a lingering death in this black maze of tunnels, like a human mole a half mile under the ground, a half mile away from rescue. Forcing himself to breathe a slow count of ten, he suppressed the daunting image and then doggedly resumed his forward progress. He intended to continue crawling until he couldn't… or until he bled to death.
After an uncounted pattern of exploration with his hands, then two feet of forward movement, after achingly slow progress, after another short rest before resuming his journey, he found himself at a juncture. He stood upright cautiously, heedful of his injured body, not certain in the utter blackness whether the ceiling would allow him to stand.
It did and he gingerly stretched. A tunnel of this dimension indicated some proximity to the hoist. Now which way? he wondered. Mentally tossing a coin, he turned to the left, hoping his intrinsic compass was on target. The shaft they'd come down had been situated at the center of the north-south cut of tunnels, and they'd traveled south to dynamite, so presumably the water had swept him north.
His talent as a cartographer served him well, for ten minutes later he abruptly walked onto the station turn-sheets. Cautioning himself against premature joy, he recognized the flooding may have curtailed operation of the cage. Feeling like a blind man for the signal lever in the dark, his fingers at last closed on the blessed metal lever.
Swiftly signaling three bells to hoist up, he unconsciously held his breath, waiting apprehensively to hear the familiar hum of the running cable in operation.
Long tense moments later, the cables stirred into life.
Releasing his breath, he offered up a small prayer of gratitude.
As the cage reached the surface, he found a full contingent of astonished miners crowded around the shaft, the skip signal having rung above-ground like a veritable voice from the grave.
The Duc blinked in the sunlight, squinted against the dazzle of daylight, stood wet, cold, and battered, feeling mystically reborn… like Jonah discharged from the
