Page 20 of The Heart of Bennet Hollow

For now, he tried to disregard the fact that daylight was but a memory.

It was just them and their lanterns and who knew how many tunnels below where crews of men were already hard at work.

Beside him, Callum endured the descent with a spine straighter than the wall just inches from their faces.

Yet a shift between his feet indicated life.

The man cursed tight spaces and while William had insisted he need not come today, Callum hadn’t been deterred.

William clapped Callum on the shoulder and let his hand fall away.

On William’s other side, Westgard muttered under his breath, “This cage is a mite cramped for my liking.”

Jaw tight, William kept his focus on the timbers that lined the shaft.

Silence settled. Now and again, beams of light swung as one of their group lifted a head or craned a neck. One man cleared his throat. Another shifted his boots. On the nearest wall, scrawled numbers marked the descent. Twenty feet... then forty... and then a painstaking sixty.

“Just about there,” the foreman said, his cramped voice void of any echo. “We’ll stop off at the hundred level. Let you fellas out to poke around. We might have time to make it down to the two-hundred level today as well.”

“Appreciate it.” William tried to sound natural.

But there was nothing natural about this moment. Tilting back his head, he saw the world above as a mere pinhole of light. The number 90 passed them next and voices sounded from below as they neared their stop. Finally, the wall read 100.

The cage slowed with an eerie rocking sensation. Callum sucked in through his teeth. William wasn’t too keen to be hovering either. Relief spread wider than the cage door as it opened. He made space for Callum to exit first, along with the others.

Only a moment like this could make a dank tunnel inviting, but compared to the openness of the shaft and the chance of plummeting a few more hundred feet, William savored the feel of solid earth beneath his boots again.

The tunnel bloomed with a chorus of metal against rock.

Cart wheels, pickaxes, and shovels all worked in heavy rhythm.

Men labored without slowing as their boss, Mr. Jorgensen, entered their ranks.

The air smelled of earth and sweat. All clotted by the stench of the manure lining the narrow cart tracks. Mules pulled loads of coal ore to be hauled above the surface, sorted by the breaker boys, and sold at a premium to distant towns.

“Would you like us to begin?” one of the engineers asked William.

“Please.”

The plan was for them to survey every aspect from the state of the timbers to their age and gauge not only every detail of the mine’s construction, but its health.

As for the three miners from his Pennsylvania holdings, they picked their way along, greeting workers who labored under a different payroll but the same legacy.

William listened as best he could as they traversed the hundred level, taking in every rut and coal vein.

A mule trudged by, straining to pull a cart laden with ore.

Its hide lay matted and pockmarked. So different from the carefully carded sheen of his racehorse, Lady Light.

The two beasts lived a world apart and it had little to do with breeding.

A tunnel loomed a lonely place for even the lowliest of mules who were meant to be above ground, not below.

But that was life in coal country. Still, as he watched the mule tread by, led by a young man who should have been in school, he filed the noticing—even the wondering —away where he could revisit it again.

William absorbed his every surrounding. Did change cry out to be made here?

What developments might he employ? An electric engine for the hoist was just one of them if he could figure out a way to bring in electricity.

Methods that could get those who didn’t belong here such as boys off the roster of employees.

By automating certain practices, it allowed the work to be more amply distributed among grown men instead of bringing children into the mix.

The possibilities were endless... but what was right?

A wise man would consider where the moral call on his heart led.

That question among all others circled William’s mind as he touched a hand to a bare stretch of wall.

Were he an engineer or even a geologist, he’d evaluate the soundness of the cold earth beneath his fingertips, but instead, William studied the demeanor of the men he’d assembled.

His lead engineers were surveying the height of the roof, the width of the tunnels.

Crouching down, they noted the age of the track and what material it was made from.

William walked each step with them over the course of an hour.

And then two. Joining in the conversation as they worked to unravel New River’s mysteries.

After discussing the findings of his head engineer at the two-hundred level, William worked his way to where Jorgensen trudged along to the left of the track.

With a door blocking the passageway, a young doorman opened it for them.

William nodded his thanks to the grimy lad who couldn’t have been but fourteen.

“Your man Bennet. Does he still work for you?” William kept his focus on the tunnel lest he blind Jorgensen with his lantern.

“On occasion. He’s slowed down some over the years.”

Now Mr. Bennet was well set up with both his house and his acreage.

Views that made a person want to linger.

Or perhaps it was merely the surrounding company.

William sidelined the rogue thought along with the unspoken question he wrestled with of late: whatever was he doing longing for another encounter with Lizbeth Bennet?

Even as he chided himself, he nearly tripped over a pile of ore in the dark. If he was so bent on his future right now, he might as well pay attention to pointing his lantern flame in the right direction.

He slowed and crouched as this tunnel narrowed to a halt. “Might we summon Mr. Bennet for our next venture?”

“I don’t see why not. But if I may...” Jorgensen lowered the flame on his own lantern. “How many times are you thinking to enter the mine?”

“Will you allow me three?” Still crouched down, William braced fingertips to the cool earth to balance himself.

Jorgensen didn’t need to go along with his request but might be willing if he sensed that the largest offer was yet to be made.

“In the meantime, my lawyer, Callum Brydolf, is assessing some of the final details about the property. Once we have everything squared away, I’m hopeful to be able to make an offer. ”

Jorgensen turned away from the tunnel’s end. “That we can do. Three it is.” Headlamp aiming in the opposite direction, he started toward the rest of their group.

William followed, adjusting his own light as he did. When it came to assessing his future here in New River, he had only two chances left. Time to use them wisely.