Quarry and Michelle stared all around.
She called out, “Willa? Gabriel?”
Quarry, however, was already looking at the mine entrance. “They’re still in there.” He turned and raced back through the door just as another explosion rocked the mine.
Sean jumped up to follow.
“Sean, don’t!” yelled Michelle as she clutched at his arm. “Don’t go back in there. The whole mountain’s about to come down.”
He pulled her hand free. “I was the one who got Gabriel to go in there. I promised his mother I’d bring him back.”
The tears were streaming down Michelle’s dirty face. She tried to say something but it wouldn’t come out. He turned and ran toward the mine.
She pulled herself to her feet, tried to go after them, but collapsed, grabbing her fractured ankle.
Quarry was ahead of Sean and moving fast with the energy of panic. But Sean ran like he had never run before and quickly caught up to the older man.
They both screamed out, “Gabriel! Willa!”
To his left, they heard something. They turned down that shaft just as a charge leveled another part of the mine. Everything was creaking and groaning with sections of rock giving way. Soon, even without any more explosions, it all was going to go.
They found them, huddled together next to a mound of collapsed ceiling. Sean lifted Willa up while Sean grabbed Gabriel’s hand and headed back. They sprinted to the entrance.
Another charge, not more than fifty feet away, knocked them all down again. They sat up sputtering and spitting up dust, eardrums screaming, their bodies battered to near physical failure. Getting to their feet, they somehow staggered on. The entrance was in sight. They could see the shaft of daylight. Sean suddenly ran harder than he ever had, holding Willa tight against his chest. His heart felt like it was going to burst with the effort.
Then they were through the entrance and Sean put Willa down. “Run, honey, run to Michelle.”
The little girl sprinted toward Michelle, who had managed to stagger up by holding on to an outcrop of rock.
Back inside the mine, Quarry, always so surefooted, but now fatigued beyond belief, tripped and fell over a chunk of rock. Gabriel stopped and turned back.
“Go, Gabriel, go!”
Gabriel didn’t go. He came back and helped Quarry up.
They ran right at the door. Right at the sunlight. The Alabama sky was beautiful, the sun rising high and warming.
Sean was heading back in. He saw them. “Come on,” he roared. “Come on.” He grabbed Gabriel’s hand, pulled the boy along.
Michelle and Willa watched from a distance. In the darkness of the shaft they could make out the images of the two men and the boy running with all they had left.
“Come on!” screamed Willa.
Michelle added, “Sean, run!”
Two feet.
Then one precious foot.
Sean cleared the entrance.
The last charge detonated.
A flood of dirt and smoke poured out of the mountain as the mineshaft completely collapsed.
When it finally all cleared away, Sean King lay sprawled on his back covered in dirt and rock.
On top of him was Gabriel, still breathing.