What They Said About Luisa by Erika Rummel

Author:Erika Rummel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press

6

Zacatecas, 1575:

Jorge Abrego, miner

They say that when you are close to death, the whole of your life passes before your eyes, but when the mine shaft collapsed and I was buried under the rocks, I never thought about the past. It lay behind me like a long, foggy road. My mind was drifting.

I didn’t know how much time had passed in that blind darkness when I woke to a fierce, stabbing pain in my shoulder and left arm, a deep ache in my bones. My throat was dry, but I had nothing to quench my thirst or still my hunger pangs. I raised my head, thumped against wood and sank back again. I couldn’t shift my body or straighten my legs, but I was able to move my right hand to explore my surroundings. I felt a wooden barrier mere inches away and realized that a toppled beam was hemming me in, running along the whole length of my body. It had pinned me down but also protected me from the falling rocks and was forming a hollow space around me that allowed me to breathe.

I had been working close to the mouth of the mine when the shaft collapsed, and the fact that I was now surrounded by darkness told me that the way out was blocked. Not even a ray of light could penetrate to the spot where I lay. I was shut up in the mine like in a tomb. The silence surrounding me was complete, except for the ghostly rumbling of shifting rocks somewhere in the depths of the mine and gravel raining down on the beam above me.

After what seemed like many hours, I heard more rumbling and saw a glimmer of light. The new rockslide had opened up a crack no wider than my hand. However close I was to the surface, it did not help me because I was trapped by the beam and could not move even an inch toward the source of light. At least I would not die a wretched death of suffocation, I thought. That tiny gap assured me a fresh supply of air.

Then it occurred to me to call out in case Chulo, my helper, could hear me — if he was still alive. I did not know how far my voice might carry from where I lay, wedged under the beam, but there was no answer to my calls. No sound reached my ears except the ominous cracking of the shifting rock. I had hired Chulo to help me dig the mine. Later he worked with me underground, breaking up the rock with hammer and crowbar and carrying the ore to the surface in hide bags. He was a young fellow, but possessed of such amazing strength that he could shoulder loads of fifty pounds at a time, clamber up the narrow ladders from the bottom of the mine to the entrance, and carry on long after I was spent and had to rest.

It was my hope

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