Chapter 7 - What Dorothy Saw in Bellamy’s Ledger
Dust rolled from the Copper Jack entrance like smoke.
Women arrived barefoot.
Men came from shops still wearing aprons.
The blacksmith carried his hammer without realizing it.
Bellamy ran beside Dorothy and lost his hat.
Nobody stopped to retrieve it.
At the mine entrance, Horace Vale shouted orders.
“Clear the mouth! Timber crew forward! Nobody enters without authorization!”
Tom Rusk fought two men trying to hold him back.
“My brother’s down there!”
“So are twenty-seven others,” Vale snapped. “You rush that opening, you make it twenty-nine.”
Tom froze.
Dorothy searched the crowd.
“Caleb?”
No one answered.
She grabbed Henry Bell.
“Was Caleb’s crew inside?”
Henry nodded.
“Lower Section Four.”
Dorothy’s chest tightened.
“How many?”
Henry swallowed.
“Twenty-eight.”
Exactly twenty-eight.
The bundles.
All twenty-eight had carried them.
Dorothy had no reason to believe that mattered.
But she held onto the thought anyway.
A rescue crew entered the main shaft.
They returned twenty minutes later.
Their foreman’s face said everything before he spoke.
“Main passage collapsed forty feet in.”
Vale swore.
“Secondary?”
“Blocked.”
“North access?”
“Rock shifted.”
Tom stepped forward.
“Ventilation?”
The foreman looked at him.
“What about it?”
“Section Four auxiliary line.”
Vale turned.
Crowley arrived covered in dust.
“It runs from upper drift.”
“Still open?”
“Don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Men scattered.
Dorothy stood uselessly among ropes, tools, lanterns, and fear.
She hated uselessness.
It reminded her of every employer who had reduced her to a body.
Too big.
Too slow.
Too female.
Too inconvenient.
No.
She refused.
She grabbed Henry again.
“Show me mine plans.”
“What?”
“Ventilation lines.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Office.”
“Then take me there.”
A guard blocked them.
“No civilians.”
Dorothy stared at him.
“Twenty-eight men I fed this morning are inside that mountain.”
“So?”
“So either move or become furniture.”
The guard blinked.
Bellamy appeared behind her.
“She works for me.”
The guard looked at him.
Bellamy lifted his chin.
“I supply the mine.”
It was technically true.
The guard stepped aside.
Inside the office, maps covered a wall.
Dorothy understood almost none of them.
Henry did.
He pointed.
“Section Four.”
A black line.
“Main ventilation?”
“Here.”
“Auxiliary?”
“Here.”
The line narrowed.
“Diameter?”
“Four-inch pipe, maybe four and a half.”
Dorothy’s heart jumped.
“Where does it surface?”
Henry traced upward.
“Old survey drift.”
Crowley entered.
“You two need out.”
Dorothy turned.
“Is this line intact?”
Crowley looked at the map.
“Maybe.”
“Does it reach the trapped chamber?”
“If they’re where we think.”
“Can you test it?”
“We are.”
“How?”
“Air pressure.”
Dorothy pointed.
“If air passes, could food?”
Crowley stared.
“What?”
“Could food pass through?”
“This isn’t a kitchen.”
“I’m aware.”
“Lady, people are buried.”
“And they’ll become hungry while you dig.”
Crowley’s face tightened.
“Rescue should take twelve hours.”
Henry looked at him.
“That fast?”
Crowley glared.
Dorothy noticed.
“How long really?”
No answer.
“How long?”
Crowley rubbed his jaw.
“Could be thirty-six.”
Bellamy went pale.
Dorothy looked again at the line.
“Water?”
Crowley frowned.
“What?”
“They have water underground?”
“Maybe seepage.”
“Maybe is not enough.”
Crowley slammed a hand against the map.
“We have men digging!”
Dorothy did not flinch.
“And if digging takes three days?”
Silence.
That was when everyone understood the possibility.
Not hours.
Days.
Dorothy turned to Bellamy.
“How much flour?”
“In store?”
“Yes.”
“About four hundred pounds.”
“Oats?”
“Two sacks.”
“Salt?”
“Plenty.”
“Molasses?”
“Half barrel.”
“Lard?”
He hesitated.
“Twenty-six pounds.”
Dorothy started toward the door.
Bellamy followed.
“What are you doing?”
“Preparing.”
“For what?”
“For thirty-six hours becoming seventy-two.”
Outside, Tom grabbed Dorothy.
“Did you see Ben?”
“No.”
“Know anything?”
“Twenty-eight believed trapped in Section Four.”
Tom’s hand shook.
“Alive?”
“We don’t know.”
He covered his mouth.
Dorothy seized his shoulders.
“Listen to me.”
His eyes met hers.
“They carried lunch.”
“What?”
“All of them.”
Tom stared.
“The biscuits?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough to help.”
Tom closed his eyes.
It was not rescue.
But it was something.
That mattered.
At 9:10, the ventilation crew shouted from the upper drift.
Airflow.
Weak.
But present.
A cheer erupted.
Dorothy climbed toward the drift with Bellamy, Tom, and Henry.
The opening was smaller than she imagined.
A metal tube disappeared into the rock.
One engineer attached a pressure gauge.
“Line’s not broken.”
Vale arrived.
“Can we speak through it?”
“Maybe.”
They removed a cap.
A worker shouted into the pipe.
“SECTION FOUR! CAN YOU HEAR?”
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Tom pressed forward.
“BEN!”
Vale pulled him back.
“Give them room.”
Minutes passed.
Then a sound came from the pipe.
Faint.
Metallic.
Three knocks.
Tom began crying.
Nobody mocked him.
The engineer shouted.
“IF YOU HEAR US, KNOCK THREE TIMES!”
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The crowd erupted.
Dorothy closed her eyes.
Alive.
At least somebody.
Then came a pattern.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two.
Pause.
Eight.
Henry frowned.
“What’s that?”
Crowley went still.
“Count.”
“What?”
“Three-two-eight?”
The tapping repeated differently.
Two.
Eight.
Dorothy understood.
“Twenty-eight.”
Tom whispered.
“All of them?”
The worker shouted down.
“ARE ALL TWENTY-EIGHT ALIVE? ONE KNOCK YES!”
A pause.
One knock.
Men cheered.
Women sobbed.
Dorothy gripped the rock wall.
Then another tapping sequence came.
Slow.
Four.
Then eight.
Crowley listened.
“Forty-eight?”
The engineer nodded.
“Maybe hours?”
Dorothy looked at him.
“What does forty-eight mean?”
No one knew.
Then the pipe emitted something else.
A whisper.
Barely audible.
A man’s voice.
“Water…”
Static.
“Low…”
Then silence.
Dorothy looked at the four-inch pipe.
Her heart began hammering.
She turned to Henry.
“Get the bent section from my shed.”
“Why?”
“Now.”
She faced Bellamy.
“Open the store.”
“It is open.”
“All of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything edible.”
Bellamy stared.
Dorothy stepped close.
“Those men have air.”
She pointed at the pipe.
“And if I’m right, before sunset they’re going to have food.”
Bellamy looked at the narrow opening.
“How?”
Dorothy held up her hands.
Three and a quarter inches apart.
“The same way a biscuit passed through your garbage yesterday.”
May you like
And for the first time in his life, Rufus Bellamy looked at Dorothy Vance as though her strangest idea might be the most important idea in town.
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