Summary: Respecting the wishes of a hero who wanted his actions to remain unknown except to his community, a newspaperman writes the story of those actions to be included in the man’s eulogy when it should become necessary.
Rating: PG  Word count: 2,360

The Mine

Standing on the old walk looking at the old Virginia City Trading Company building long since abandoned and allowed to fall into disrepair, the man remembered that day so long ago when he had written a story of heroism. That story had been picked up by other newspapers across the country angering the man who had been at the center of the tale. Dan smiled as he thought about the day Adam Cartwright had stormed into his office and told him if he ever wrote another story about him, he had better invest in a good stomach doctor because he was going to be eating the whole edition that contained such a story. Dan had defended himself by saying it was the truth, but Adam had said that didn’t matter because it was his life, and he didn’t want it to be put out there for the public’s entertainment.

It had been a great story though, and Dan planned to use it in the eulogy he was writing to explain to people who had never met the man to tell them what he was like. Although Adam was still alive, his youngest brother had told Dan that he had gotten a letter that Adam was ailing. Dan thought that such a man deserved a great eulogy so he was writing it now even though he hoped it wouldn’t have to be used for many years. Wanting to be accurate in his portrayal of the man he admired, he tried to recall all of the conversations he had heard that day.

The first words Dan heard on the day before he had written that story years ago were those of Adam addressing Hoss. Dan had heard of the mine collapse and the men who were trapped. That was a good story in itself, but then he heard the Cartwright brothers had a plan. So he followed up hoping to get a story with a happy ending by finding them and learning what they were going to do.

“I wish I had never told you that we tricked you with the matches. If I hadn’t, it would be you going in there to pick up a crate of dynamite to load on the back of a wagon and haul it as fast as you can over five miles of rocky road. If I’m not blown into tiny bits by the time I get to that mine, I’ll have to take it in and see if the whole mountain is going to fall down on me.”

“If I would have won, you still would be the one to go in the mine. Neither Joe or me knows how to set the dynamite to get what you want.”

“I know. I was just complaining to blow off a little steam. Here take my gunbelt. I won’t be needing it, and it could get in the way.”

Unstrapping it quickly, Adam handed off his gunbelt to Hoss, took a deep breath, and exhaled. It was going to be a marathon from this point on.

Their father, Ben Cartwright was trapped in a mine. They couldn’t try to excavate him and the others out because a quick inspection was all they needed to know that the rock had slid around all the ribs and back from the portal all the way through the adit. If they tried to excavate, whatever hadn’t come crashing down already would if they tried moving any of it. Adam’s plan was that he was going to go down a narrow shaft and work his way to where the men were trapped. There were always gaps in a collapse and near the top and to the side there was likely to be a big enough opening for a man to get through. When he did that, he would probably collapse the drift he was using to get to the stope where the men hopefully were located.

As he moved rock behind him, he planned to destabilize what was there and let it close in behind him. When he got in, his plan had to work or he and the others would never come back out again. Once free of the loose rock from the collapse, he had a plan to blast a new opening through more solid rock to the outside. He was carrying a map of the mine and had one of the mountain in his pocket. He would need to carefully measure to find the right place to blast through to an existing underground cavern. There was a stream there that fed out to the outside, but the stone had partially collapsed and blocked much of it. There was only a tiny opening for water so the cavern could be mostly flooded. He would need to expand the whole waterway and hope no more fell down than what he wanted. Once the water was released, he could expand the opening to the outside more as their escape route.

If it worked, Adam would be a hero rescuing his father and the other men trapped with him. If he failed, he would bury himself and everyone else in their final resting place. Dan followed them to the mine and listened as Joe worried that Adam would fail. Adam’s fatalistic humor was not appreciated by his brothers.

“Adam, are you gambling again? Are you risking all their lives on playing the odds?”

“Yes, maybe you could say that, but the odds of them getting out without me are near zero, so whatever odds I’m betting on are better.”

“You know what I’ll have to say if you’re wrong.”

“Yes, but I’ll be too deep for you to yell at me and be heard. At least, I won’t know what hit me if it collapses.”

“And our Pa, too, Adam.”

“Joe, I can’t forget that. I’m trying not to think too much about what I have to do.”

“I was just wishing you could be a mite more positive. You said it yourself. It’s the only chance Pa has.”

“Once I’m in there, it’s my only chance too. My wife will kill you if I don’t make it out. She won’t be able to take it out on me so she’ll blame you for letting me do this.”

Hoss wished he could do something but knew he was too large to fit in the openings that Adam had described. Joe was small enough but didn’t have the mining background to know where and how to set the charges. Both knew it was all up to Adam and could only pray they wouldn’t lose their father and their oldest brother.

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know. You always do.”

“You two sure changed your attitude when I mentioned my wife. You are afraid of her.”

Hoss slapped Adam on the shoulder. Then he waited until Adam secured the rope around his waist, with a knapsack of dynamite on his back, and a small pick and shovel in his hands. Slowly Hoss began lowering his older brother into that mine. Once the rope went slack, Hoss released it and sighed deeply when the frayed end dropped over the collar and into the depths below. Adam had a small candle lantern with him, matches, dynamite, a rope with feet marked off, and all of their hopes.

The only thing they could do then was wait. Some of the friends and relatives of the other men were there too. Every now and then, there was a small tremor, and they all realized that the rock had shifted again down below. They could only hope it was behind or away from Adam and not on top of him. Hoss sat with his brows furrowed and his eyes nearly squeezed shut. Joe paced about sighing deeply on occasion. That went on for many hours and was painful to endure until there was nothing. The tremors ended and the lack of any indication of anything happening which was demoralizing to some and worrisome to all. A few became hopeful.

“Do you think this means your brother made it to them?”

“He should have reached them by now, shouldn’t he? I mean he only had to go a couple of hundred yards. Even crawling, that shouldn’t have taken fourteen hours.”

Hoss tried to answer with logic, but he had some of the same worries.

“In a mine collapse, there’s no easy path to follow. Adam probably had to move some rocks out of his way and make openings wider in some places. Clothing can catch on things and make you have to back up before you can go forward again. Lots of things can slow you down. It’s darn dark too so it’s hard to see what all you got to do.”

“Or one of those tremors was the rocks crushing him and there’s no hope for nobody.”

That got Joe involved.

“Don’t talk like that. There are men’s wives and children here. It’s cruel to talk like that before we know anything.”

“Sorry. I guess it’s because I’m so worried.”

Only a short time later, there was reason again to hope. Near dawn, they heard the deep rumble of what must have been a blast. Joe was scared and delighted at the same time because it must have meant that Adam had reached the group that included their father. Every hour or two, they would hear another dull thump indicating another blast. By then, they had moved to the area where Adam said they would exit if his plan worked as he hoped it would. As the sun rose, they heard another thump. Dan remembered Hoss and Joe getting excited.

“Hey, Joe, that sounded closer. It was loud. They must be getting close to the outside. Adam said there was a natural cavern there and he was gonna get them down into it with the rope and then blast through the small stream that flows outta there.”

“So when the water stops flowing, that’s a good sign?”

“It sure will be.”

The assembled crowd watched the water that trickled out of the mountainside.

Hoss had remembered Adam’s instructions.

“We gotta wait at least a hundred feet away from where the water used to come out.”

Adam had told them to stay well away from it, but many of them swore it looked like it was muddy water and took that as a positive sign. There was another blast, and then the water stopped. Nothing else happened and optimism which had risen collapsed again. Then a huge sludge of mud and rocks was propelled from the side of the mountain followed by more muddy water and then by more water until it was again a slow stream. Finally, it was only a trickle that diminished and stopped.

“That water stopped flowing hours ago.”

Hoss and Joe had been joined by more and more of the friends and families of the other men trapped in there with their father as well as curious onlookers. About an hour before sunset, there was another blast that threw mud, dirt, and rock out from the side of the mountain. The crowd stood in near silence. Once the smoke and debris had settled, one man covered in mud from head to toe crawled out of the small opening. He stood up on the shelf of rock that jutted out of the mountain and grinned. There was no mistaking the white teeth in that grin. Soon he reached down to grab a hand that extended out of the muddy hole. Hoss and Joe were running there along with family members of the others who had been trapped. The brothers yelled when they saw their Pa stand up. One by one, the others exited. Adam tied off the rope he had used to get the men down into the cavern and one by one, they climbed down the twenty feet or so to helping hands down below. Adam was the last to come down. Watching from the beginning to the end of the rescue, Dan smiled and started writing the story about the hero of Mount Davidson.

Now it was many years later, and there were a few other things Dan could add to that story that he had not included at the time. Wanting some direct information, he had walked up to Adam to ask him about what he had done and gotten quite an earthy response as the question made the grin disappear. Dan knew then that it had been a cover for the stress and strain of what he had endured for thirty-six hours and didn’t want to show it to anyone.

“I’m never going into a damn cave again in my life if I can help it. It’s the closest thing there is to hell on earth. Getting some damn shiny metal is not a reason to trade men’s lives for wealth.”

Hoss had come then with a blanket and wrapped it around Adam’s shoulders.

“C’mon brother. I got some hot coffee for ya and biscuits. You can sleep in the back of the wagon too if you want. I got a bedroll back there for you and one for Pa.”

With Joe’s arm around his shoulder and Hoss supporting him, Adam waved briefly at Dan and then took up Hoss on his offers. Hoss drove the wagon as Joe rode ahead to tell the good news to the wives who were watching over the children. Dan didn’t speak with Adam again until the angry man burst into the newspaper office to complain about the article. Even that day, he had been conciliatory on one point.

“Thank you for not including my outburst. It wouldn’t have made me too popular with the miners around here, and they can be a feisty bunch.”

Always a gentleman, he tipped his hat then and left Dan standing in his office knowing what a hero is and knowing he could never write another story about him. It wouldn’t be right.

Mining terms used:

shaft: a deep narrow vertical hole that gives access to a mine.

adit: a horizontal passage leading into a mine for the purposes of access or drainage

drift: a horizontal underground opening that follows along the length of a vein or rock formation

stope: open space in a mine left after the ore is extracted