Because they worked in a confined space deep under a mountain, miners were a tough breed. Few things scared them. One was a tunnel collapse. Being buried under tons of rock and dirt and unable to get out should frighten anyone. And the signal for a mining disaster was the emergency siren.
Upon hearing the warning alarm, I unclasped my arms and lengthen my strides. I couldn’t run on the moonlit trail but I could take chances. Slipping, falling, and scrambling back onto my feet, I reached a slope overlooking the mining operation.
All of the spotlights were lit. In the illumination, I saw the separator, the maintenance building, the trailers with the office and the clinic. The off-road trucks sat idle as did the small trucks and utility vehicles used to carry material around the flat work area. Only a few mine cars on a side track were visible meaning the motor and most of the ore cars were still in the mine.
I expected to see crewmembers working at the mouth of the mine. But the adit was abandoned. Not only were there no miners attempting to free their trapped companions, I couldn’t see anyone in the surrounding areas.
When an emergency siren sounded, everyone parked their vehicles, left the offices, work sheds, and ran to the mine to help organize the rescue. Even if most of third shift had entered the mine to clear the tunnel, there should be people outside to collect beams for shoring up the roof and sides. I slid part way down the slope looking for where they were gathering supplies. Then I stopped because the operation’s area of Crusty Boy wasn’t vacant.
***
Five massive snakes and an enormous nadreddet lounged around the mine’s entrance. All of their bellies were distended from recently feeding. I gagged when I noticed the bus sitting in the parking lot. Third shift had not left Crusty Boy and they never would.
My exhaustion vanished as anger and adrenaline coursed through my veins. I edged along the slope moving further away from the lights. When I was beyond the separator and sure to be veiled in darkness, I dropped the rest of the way down. Moving slowly so as not to attract the snakes’ attention, I crept passed the rear of the bunker and continued toward the maintenance shed.
The big metal building shielded me from the snakes’ view and heat sensors. Slipping in the rear entrance, I inched by the forge where I spent hours heating and hammering the sword and spikes. As I moved, I kept my eyes on the serpents through the partially opened rolling door. I wanted to be sure none of them joined me in the cluttered shop. From a supply cabinet, I pulled out boxes of road flares. When I had all ten boxes stacked, I wrapped them together with wire, used the wire as a handle, and edged away from the cabinet. As slowly as I entered, I backed out the rear door and located the ladder to the roof.
With the building’s winches, tracks, and hoist motors just under the tall ceilings, it was easier to service them from above rather than clutter up the shop with ladders or, in case of stoppages, trying to navigate around suspended engines or truck cabs.
I knelt on the arched roof and unwound the wires. Then I opened the boxes and positioned them on different parts of the roof. At each box, I uncapped three flares and laid them on top of the box. Ten boxes gave me access to three hundred road flares but I wanted to get the first thirty out as soon as possible. I had markers that burned at twenty-nine hundred degrees for a wall of fire and a tall building for the range. The question was, could I coax my exhausted body into performing?
***
Animals feared fire and would run from it. Snakes, on the other hand, are attracted to heat and would become more active when warmed. My hope, as I picked up the first flare, was that a wall of sizzling flames, at almost three thousand degrees, would keep the snakes trapped near the mine’s entrance.
I struck the rough edge of the cap on the end of the flare and at the first spark, I tossed it high into the air. As it arched through the dark sky, I hopped to the next box and struck another. The first one fell into the spotlight’s glare, hit the ground, hissed, and burned. By then the second one was falling and I was off to the third box.
Thirty flares formed a widely spaced obstacle of attractive heat. The snakes moved forward. From the tenth box, I struck two more and threw them. They landed between two burning ones closing that section of the arc. I was off to the ninth box to light, throw, and fill in another section. By the time I rotated back to the first box, I had a thirty-flare obstacle with snakes slithering, coiling, and wiggling back and forth on the other side. I grabbed two more, pulled the caps, fired them up, and launch them up and over to the line of bright burning tips. Then I jumped over to the second box.
At around my two hundredth flare, my shoulder and arm hurt and my throws began falling short of the sparking and smoldering barrier. Each flare was rated for fifteen minutes and already some were going out. But the flare line was only the beginning. I ran to the ladder and climbed to the ground. Then I sprinted for one of the off-road dump trucks.
***
I scampered up to the cab and fired up the engine. It took a wide turn to get the massive dump truck headed for the end of my flare line and another to position it beside the end. With the snakes just over the line, I moved rapidly as I climbed down and pulled my survival knife. At the fuel tank, I jammed the knife point into the metal. It took seven stabs to get a healthy rate of flow. Once the fuel was spewing out as if coming from a sprinkler head on a garden hose, I scrambled back into the cab.
The massive off-road vehicle turned and I drove the right-side wheels over the flair line. A few of the larger snakes struck from above the hot line. I heard their fangs hammering on the side of the truck. Stradling the flares, I drove forward slowly to allow the twelve hundred gallons of fuel to coat the ground. Hopefully drenching some of the snakes during the process. In the rear-view mirrors, I watched as drops from the ruptured tank reached hot flares. A line of flame spread from the line to the field of wet fuel. At about halfway to the last flare, the ground was burning and the snakes were backing away from the flames.
It wasn’t the heat or the flames making them retreat. While the flares burned hot in small spots, the fuel burned at a lesser temperature. But the fuel consumed massive amounts of oxygen creating a deficit around the flames. While the snakes weren’t afraid of fire, they did have to breathe. They were suffocating and, suddenly, so was I.
White, blue, and orange flames engulfed the back of the truck and the flames were consuming oxygen all the way to the front of the vehicle. Where I had been chilled to the bone on the mountain, now I was sweating and holding my breath.
I wanted to bail out of the cab but the serpents had to be pinned against the mouth of the mine for my plan to work. The right-side tires caught fire and black smoke poured from the flaming rubber. Contact with the ground saved me. As the tires rolled, the bottom was extinguished before being reignited halfway through the rotation by the burning sidewalls. It couldn’t last. The tires reached a flash point and burst into flames that relit on their own after contact with the ground. And, the cab filled with black oily smoke. It was time for me to bail.
Spinning the wheels, I aimed the truck at the rock face beside the mine’s entrance. Just before it impacted with the mountain, I dove out of the left-hand door. Running, I didn’t stop until I arrived at the office trailer. Then I turned to survey the results of my hasty plan.
On impact, the fuel tanks dumped the remaining fuel. Between the fuel and the tires, the off-road dump truck was a roaring wall of flame. Spreading from the truck, the field of fuel sucked oxygen and burned hot and steady. But, at the burn rate, it wouldn’t last long.
I jumped into one of the utility vehicles used by the managers to haul material and miners from one side of the operation to the other. I made a U-turn and drove the utility vehicle off into the dark.
***
When I started this snake hunt, I didn’t have much of a plan beyond containment. But anytime you want revenge and high explosives are available, you took advantage of them. I drove to the bunker and backed the utility vehicle up to the reinforce
d door. Thankfully, the lock was still broken. I opened the door and slipped into the dark interior. Using my memory of the layout, I collected wires, blasting caps, electronic detonators, and explosives. I filled boxes, took them and all of the explosives, and stacked them in the vehicle. Then I drove to the railhead of the narrow-gauge tracks.
Opening the boxes of explosives, I inserted two blasting caps in each box. By the time I unloaded the utility vehicle, two of the ore cars were filled to the top. After attaching wires to the caps, I pulled on the strands and unraveled yards and yards of the wire. Once they were neatly coiled, I jogged and hauled the ends of the wires as far as possible. It wasn’t enough distance to satisfy me but, it was all the wire available for the job. As I did on the mountain, I had broken every explosive safety rule. This time I had a chance, I thought, as I divided the bundles of wires and wrapped them on the positive posts of two detonators.
By then, the snakes had retreated into the mine to avoid the inferno. My hope was if I could get the ore cars far enough into the mine, I might survive the blast while killing the snakes. It all depended on how long the wires lasted before melting and severing the connections. To help delay the effects of the flames on the wires, I added a third ore car to the train.
I could see the flames on the far end beginning to die out and knew the snakes would soon venture from the mine. The wires were placed over the third car and I pushed the train until the first was just this side of the flames. There I separated the third and pushed the two cars with the explosives forward. They rolled and gained speed as they sped toward the adit. Quickly, I ran around the third mine car and as the unspooling wires raced over it, I positioned it as close to the flames as possible. With the wires bridged over the flames and temporarily intact, I sprinted for the detonators.
The wires were smoking as the third mine car heated up. Beyond it, the two carts stacked with explosives reached the entrance and vanished. The wires were still unreeling and the connection solid. But I could see blistering on the coating as they zipped over the stationary car. I couldn’t wait and risk losing the connection. I twisted both handles on the detonators sending electronic charges down the wires, through the tunnel, and into the blasting caps inserted in the boxes of explosives.
At first, there was only a deep rumble and a poof of dust. Then snake skin and scales, rocks, and dirt shot from the mine’s entrance. I started running down the access road in the direction of my truck. The ground trembled and I fell to my knees. Looking back, I watched as the moonlit face of the mountain separated and cascaded down.
Coughing and wiping grit from my eyes, I couldn’t see anything except a cloud of dust. I stood there with my jacket sleeve over my mouth as more of the mountain peeled off and fell into the haze. It must have been a half hour later when the dust settled and I could finally see.
Crusty Boy was gone. Buried under thousands of tons of dirt and rock. The mine that claimed miners’ lives, harbored snakes, and produced ore was no more. This time for good.
I walked to my truck, opened the door, and wearily climbed in. I wanted a week’s worth of sleep and hot food. But as soon as I nosed the truck out of the woods and onto the access road, five vehicles met me coming from the other direction.
They were so chatty, I didn’t have a chance to tell the miners from the other shifts what happened. After a few minutes, I just accepted their congratulations for surviving one of the worst mining disasters on planet Scheelite or either of her two moons, Wolframite and Tungsten.
Chapter 12 – Fair Warning
Tim Constance let out an exasperated sigh, turned off the recorder, and shoved his notebook into the satchel.
“Mr. Cooper. Thank you for your time,” the researcher said. “I’ll be going now.”
“What? No more questions?” Solomon inquired.
“No. I have all I need,” Tim replied as he stood. While slipping the satchel’s strap over his shoulder, his eyes landed on the harpoon with the hefty barbed tip. “You never mentioned using the harpoon. Wasn’t that part of your arsenal for nadreddet slaying?”
“As I told you, I am no longer a nadreddet slayer,” Solomon informed the researcher. “These days I’m more of a shepherd. You see there are no deer, bears, or small game animals in Breakneck Holler. These days, I harpoon the serpents and harvest the meat. Sort of a nadreddet catch and release program.”
Tim shrugged and hung his head as he walked to the door. It was one tall tale after another and he was tired of Solomon Cooper having fun with him. Before he reached the front door, the mountain man called to him.
“Hold on a minute, Timothy,” Solomon ordered as he stood.
After slipping on an oversized coat, Solomon retrieved his sword from beside the chair then picked up a device resembling a lantern with dials from a shelf.
“Let me check before we go out there,” he offered. After opening the front door, Solomon held the device over the threshold and studied the dial. “We’re good. Come on.”
“What is that?” inquired Tim as he followed Solomon onto the porch.
The mountain man answered without taking his eyes off the dial.
“It began as a boat’s depth finder but I modified it,” Solomon explained. “The scales on giant nadreddets rub together and emit a low frequency. This device is calibrated to detect the sound. If any are moving around, I’ll know before it can sneak up on me.”
The researcher didn’t acknowledge the information. But he did pick up his pace toward the hovercraft. Quickly, he placed the recorder and satchel on the passenger seat before climbing behind the controls. Tim rolled down the window and thanked Solomon.
“Keep the air pressure down and go slow,” the mountain man warned as he opened the gate.
“Sure,” the researcher responded before rolling up the window and starting the motor.
The hovercraft quivered a few inches above the ground before the nozzles shifted and the vehicle left the stockade. Behind it, Solomon Cooper waved before reaching down and pulling up the planking from over the trench. He carried it into the compound then watched as the vehicle drove away.
***
Tim was aggravated with himself and the situation. He’d just wasted a day talking to either a liar or a crazy person. In either case, it was a day he couldn’t get back. Geological reports stated a localized earthquake toppled rock fall and days later an aftershock loosened the face of the mountain. One study determined the range had a fault line and deep fissures running through the subterranean layers. In essence, Crusty Boy Mine shouldn’t have been allowed to operate in that region.
The interview with Solomon Cooper had been a last resort to fill in details on the living conditions and lifestyles of the crews that worked the ill-fated mine. None of the miners would talk about it or grant him a meeting or even return a call. All of the replies to his requests for interviews came back with the same theme. Crusty Boy was cursed and it was bad luck to talk about it.
The hovercraft reached the frozen, rutted dirt road, and began to wobble. With the air pressure low, the vehicle rocked back and forth and nosed down and up as it crossed from one long furrow to another. Then the satchel and recorder bounced into the air and landed on the floorboard. Tim reached down, retrieved the items, and angerly slammed them on the seat. He had enough of the folksy mountain stories, the odd lunch, and the rustic setting. He wanted to get back to the university and civilization.
“Go slow and keep your air pressure down,” Tim mumbled in a voice that mimicked the mountain man. “I’m a nadreddet slayer. No, Mr. Cooper, you are more than likely just a brain damaged hick.”
With that thought in mine, Tim spun up the air pressure. Air shot through the ports and lifted the hovercraft eighteen inches above the ruts. Now, floating on a column of air, the ride smoothed out. Realizing the cabin was getting hot and stuffy, he opened the windows and increased his speed.
Over pressure blew air from under the vehicle’s skirt and blasted the vegetation on the sides of t
he dirt road. In a wonderous display, bits of crystal-clear ice fluttered down as they shattered from branches and limbs.
Then two fibrous tusks crashed through the passenger window smashing the doorframe before piercing the seat and floorboard. As the hovercraft rose into the air, Tim peered across gold and red scales at a pair of diamond shaped eyes with slits in the center.
Before the researcher could make sense of what he was seeing, the hovercraft turned upside down. It arched through the sky and was dashed to the ground. Tim was thrown against the door. When it swung open, he fell to the forest floor. Struggling to his feet confused and in shock, he thought of his satchel and recording equipment. As he began to crawl back into the vehicle, wet gel splashed on his head. Glancing upward for the source of the thick liquid, Tim stopped, mesmerized by the diamond shaped eyes.
The nadreddet’s mouth lowered and as the acid saliva began to burn, Tim screamed. But his cries were cut off as the massive jaws closed and the snake swallowed the researcher.
Tim’s shrieks were muffled by slimy, fleshy tissue and his hopeless kicks were ended by powerful contractions. The researcher lived for a few more moments. Not until the snake’s stomach acid dissolved his flesh severing the nerve endings did the pain end. In that second of numbness, the spark of life winked out and Tim Constance died.
***
Solomon Cooper didn’t need the sonic emitter to tell him a snake was active. As soon as the ice cracked on the branches, he knew. And while the hovercraft was being lifted and thrown to the other side of the nadreddet’s tree, he spun on his heels and ran for the house.
Inside, the mountain man grabbed a fist full of snake jerky and a water skin. He opened the top of the steel egg, stepped in, and sat down. Then before closing the lid on his safe room, he growled to the empty house.
Serpent Circles Page 8
