Forbidden (70 page)

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 stomach of the whale. Colors gleamed with glaring brightness, the landscape took on a more three-dimensional quality, people's faces and forms developed a marvelously full-bodied volume, voices struck his ear with a distinct articulation, like the clarity of church bells. And the air was blessedly fresh in his lungs.

A deafening cheer exploded and he smiled, gripping the hand Joe Sherman put out, and allowing his arm to be shaken more vigorously than his damaged body appreciated. But pain was a pleasant reminder he was alive, he decided, and he wouldn't begrudge the discomfort.

As soon as congratulations diminished to less raucous levels, he explained how his miraculous survival had occurred, how he'd been propelled up a raise by the pressure of the flood waters, and been lucky enough to have been forced up the ventilation shaft while he was still alive.

Impatient to talk to Daisy however, he excused himself from the milling crowd to make a call to Clear River Valley. Smiles and understanding looks of indulgence followed him as he walked toward the office. When he failed to get a response, he had the foreman try, assuming he must be overlooking some idiosyncrasy in local telephone connections.

"Grounding must be down on the line. Happens a lot, Mr. De Vec," Joe Sherman said after his attempt failed as well, "once you're five miles out of town."

Etienne tried the Braddock-Black home next in the event they'd returned to Helena with Daisy, but was told the Braddock-Blacks were still out at the mine.

"Since they left to bring Miss Daisy back to Clear River Valley, sir," George Stuntz said, "they're probably all at the valley ranch."

The Braddock-Blacks were, in fact, all in transit at the moment, Hazard and Trey on their way back to the mine, Blaze and Empress returning to Helena.

The Duc's horse had been taken back to Clear River Valley, as well, when Daisy left, so Etienne borrowed a mount and one of Trey's coats to cover his wet clothes. The long travel-duster lined in wool would keep him warm on the ride home; he didn't want to take the time to change. He wasn't sure, in any event, if his battered body would appreciate the abrasion.

"Would you try reaching the Braddock-Blacks later," the Duc asked, slipping his wet shirtsleeves into the coat. "If the phones at my ranch are down, I won't be able to contact them."

Shaking hands once again with all the smiling men in the office, he took his leave.

"Good to see you alive, sir," Joe reiterated. "Made our day, sir."

The men in the office, as well as the miners, were all friends of Daisy's for she'd grown up underfoot, tagging along with her father as a child, naturally assuming a role in the operations as she matured. Daisy talked to them all exactly like her father and brother would, her understanding of mining equal to theirs, and they teased her like they would a daughter or sister. While still a child she'd begun going underground with her father with an undaunted courage they'd all admired. She'd grown up, as it were, with copper dust in her teeth, and she was their darling.

"Give our best to Miss Daisy," George said, echoing the feelings of all present.

Standing in the doorway of the office, Etienne bore a startling resemblance to Hazard and Trey, dressed as he was in Trey's long leather coat, his harsh aquiline features and long black hair reminiscent of an Absarokee. Saluting with a briefly raised hand, he said with a smile, "I'll deliver your message personally."

Etienne arrived in Clear River Valley in record time, the sight of the rustic log house so beautiful it compared for that moment with the architectural wonders of the ages. Move over Rameses II temple at Abu Simbel, step aside the Taj Mahal, weep in envy the Parthenon, he jubilantly thought cantering up the drive.

He wanted to shout with joy.

But the house was silent as he approached—odd for this hour of the day, particularly if the Braddock-Blacks were here. More curiously, when he dismounted and ascended the stairs to the entrance, no one opened the door for him.

The stillness was palpable as he stepped into the foyer, now denuded of its numerous mounted trophies. Glancing up the stairway to the darkened hallway above, he wondered:

Had Daisy not come home?

Sprinting up the stairs to see for himself, he strode swiftly down the carpeted hallway, his boots softly squishing at each step, leaving a trail of damp footprints on the burgundy carpet. At their bedroom he quickly pushed the door open and then abruptly stopped as he caught sight of Daisy.

And he understood the Absarokee phrase—
my heart sang
.

Across the deep shadows of the room, Daisy lay curled in his chair, sleeping.

Closing the door softly behind him, he stood in the gray light, drinking in the precious sight of her, his heart and mind pervaded with the sheer beauty of his love, a sense of miracle so strong he silently promised all the gods who might have aided his escape some tangible recompense for their spectacular handiwork.

How deeply moving it was to simply stand in this plain and unadorned room, knowing he could take Daisy in his arms once more and hold her. He could be with her when their child was born. He could sleep with her at night and wake with her beside him in the morning.

He could take her hand in his, feel her slender fingers lace companionably through his—a simple act—trivial and mundane.

But almost lost to him. And he was so profoundly grateful he shut his eyes for a moment, standing like a dark shadow before the door, and whispered into the hushed room, "Thank you."

Walking quietly over to the chair, he squatted down, his long coat trailing on the floor, and saw where the tears had dried on Daisy's cheeks, saw her small hand clutched into a fist under her chin, saw the soft curve of her cheek resting on the high padded arm of his chair. She'd tranfigured his restless, fickle existence, given him love and wondrous delight in their child. A gambling man by instinct, his stomach tightened transiently at the odds against his freakish escape. Even a rash and reckless gamester wouldn't have touched those odds, and his faint smile bespoke an acknowledgment of his phenomenal luck. Reaching out, he softly stroked the swell of silky black hair falling over her shoulder—a tactile surety of his revivification.

Her eyes came open slowly at the gentle touch of his fingers.

"I found my way out," he whispered. His words were meant to soften the shock. A declarative statement easily absorbed.

And when her dark eyes opened in astonished awareness, he smiled.

His face, she thought, was the most beautiful configuration of stark plane and modeled form ever contrived by man or god. And in her own spiritual awareness, she didn't question his presence with fear, she only accepted the bounty of his reincarnation.

"You're back," she whispered, reaching out to touch his face, as though he had indeed returned from the dead for her.

"I couldn't leave you."

"I asked the spirits on the other side of the slippery log to send you back." And she had, with a solemn earnestness attuned to a spiritual world of magic and reality so intertwined, she didn't doubt now they'd listened to her plea.

"
Voila
," he murmured, his smile achingly beautiful.

She sat up then, opening her arms in welcome, her dark liquid eyes still half-lashed and drowsy with sleep.

"I'm wet," he said, taking her hands in his before she touched him.

"You're alive," she softly corrected.

He nodded, gracefully rising and pulling her upright in one fluid movement. Taking her in his arms, they stood body-to-body for a lengthening space of time, savoring their nearness, her face lifted to his, his gaze consumed with the beauty of her smile.

"You shouldn't have volunteered," she chastised in the convoluted reasoning of a dream recaptured, wanting to rearrange the sequence of the horrendous events. "I'm never allowing you out of my sight again." Her smile defined her raillery, but in a less conciliatory way she meant it.

"The dynamiting almost went perfectly," he diplomatically, said, the sound of her voice paradise, the feel of her in his arms beyond paltry definition. He smiled, thinking he'd trade this sensation for any golden-tongued articulation, and thinking, too,
I'm going to kiss her—for a thousand years or so
. His jubilant bliss swept aside theories of relativity. Savoring his anticipatory joy, he understood the word future held new meaning. It was a minute second-by-second, breath-by-breath appreciation of life.

He would never rush again.

"Trewayne said you saved him."

"He fell." The Duc's words were simple, an honorable man doing the expected.

"I won't let you go underground again."

His smile lit up his eyes. "I adore your orders. Have I told you that?" He hadn't of course. In the past, he'd either ignored them or circumvented them or allowed her her way with his own special style of gallantry.

"I mean it, Etienne." She wouldn't ever. "I'm serious."

"It's like falling off a horse, darling," he murmured, lowering his head, his mouth drifting nearer.