Work Song - Ivan Doig [79]
What awaited at the top was a large cave; blasting had hollowed out the far wall of the ledge and left a litter of ore. I clambered in behind Griff, barking my shin in the dark as I did so. “Whoopsiedaisy,” he advised absently, “watch your footing.” As I stepped over to a rock where I could sit and rub the sore spot, he cautioned: “Let’s just sort of hang back and look things over before—”
At that instant I felt a familiar tremble. Not my own, but the kind of glory-hole tremor that shook the boardinghouse every so often; somewhere in the catacombs of copper, dynamite had been routinely set off. I had just started to say to Griff, more than a little nervously, that I supposed I’d better get used to that down here, when half the cavern ceiling caved in, with an avalanche roar and a blinding boil of dust.
Choking on dust and my ears ringing, I staggered a few steps this way and that in the murky cavern. My headlamp barely penetrated the filth, thick as smoke. Desperately I tried to fan away the cloud and find Griff, or what was left of him.
In the gloom, something darker yet appeared, also disturbing the dust. It stopped and I stopped. Through a swirl of murk, Griff and I became visible to each other by the whites of our eyes.
Wiping off a mask of dirt, he said, “That’s why it’s not a good idea to rush into this kind of place.” He squinted around as the dust settled. “Lucky thing is, it was the ceiling toward the back that came down.” Turning to say something more to me, he stopped, and very slowly raised a pointing finger. “Morrie,” he said quietly, “don’t be passing the time of day under a Creeping Pete like that.” I looked up, to where he was indicating. Overhanging me was a wicked-looking slab of rock, which, if it dropped on a person, definitely would necessitate the services of the undertaker.
Hurriedly I backed away from beneath it as Griff explained that blasting throughout the mine loosened overhead rock in unpredictable places. Studying this cracked mass, he concluded: “Nasty. We’re gonna have to bar it down.”
He went over to the tool stash in the corner and fished out what looked like a very long, skinny crowbar. Armed with that, he began to pry at the slab. After many thrusts and grunts, he succeeded in breaking it loose. When it hit the floor of the mine with a deafening crash, he grinned at me. “There’s one that won’t come down on our heads.”
Griff moved on to the next overhang, eyes peeled to find the right crack to insert his bar. I stood back as far as I could, spitting out dust, and watched him jab away at the rock until I noticed he was favoring a hand. Remembering the cramp that had done him in during the drilling contest, I took a deep breath and shuffled over to relieve him of the rod. “Here, let me give it a try.”
Poking and prodding as if I were using a lance to find chinks in a dragon’s hide, eventually I was rewarded with the fall of a chunk about the size of a gravestone. “See there, we’ll make a miner out of you yet,” Griff commended from the far corner where he was sitting in apparent contentment.
“Not if I can help it.” I fanned away more dust and scanned the ominously uneven surface overhead. Trading back and forth, we pried more chunks down until Griff at last called a halt. “Let’s have a listen.” He took the bar from me and struck the rock ceiling with it. The timbre was surprisingly musical, a high lingering note that resounded rather sweetly. “There, hear that nice clean sound? It ought to be safe now.” He tossed the bar aside with satisfaction. “Now we better get to work.”
“Digging, you mean?”
“Nope. Mucking.”
I waited, but that seemed to be the entire explanation.
“Griff, really, not only