Page 101 of The Promise
"It's awe-inspiring." She followed his gaze up to the entrance high above them. "How in the world did they get up there?"
Michael smiled. "You mean we."
The enormity of it all hit her like a sledge hammer. This mine was Michael's. He'd helped his father find it, build it. "Of course, I meant you—and your father," she added.
He pointed to the top of the cliff. "There's another entrance up there. That's what you painted. It's where Father first found the vein."
"So you reach it from the backside of the mountain. But, if that's an easier way in, then why…"
"I didn't say it was easier." He shifted in his saddle. "The main shaft sinks about 100 feet straight down into the mountain. From there we dug the main tunnel. In addition, there are probably another dozen or so smaller tunnels and drifts."
"Drifts?" She frowned.
"Tunnels without a second opening."
"Dead-ends?" Her knowledge of mining was minimal.
"Right. There are three levels in the mine, each connected with a shaft. But the main work was done on the first level."
"And that's the level your dad indicated in his note?"
"I think so."
She shaded her eyes with a hand and looked again at the timbers jutting out from the side of the mountain. "So how do we get up there?"
Again Michael smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that made her stomach tighten. "We fly."
Cara eyed him dubiously. "Beg your pardon?"
"I said, we fly. Come on, I'll show you."
They dismounted, and he led them up the incline and through a small door in the building. It took her a minute to adjust to the gloom. The floor was dusty, probably the winter home for a menagerie of animals. One side of the cable hung suspended over their heads, above the plank platform. On the other side, the cable ran across the openings for the two chutes.
"It's a turning station."
Cara looked at Michael. "A what?"
"A turning station. The ore comes down the mountain in one of these cars." He tapped the side of a shallow, rectangular bucket, its handles attached to the cable with what looked like a pulley, the pulley in turn attached to the cable. Several of the cars stood in a row just to the left of the platform. Ready for takeoff no doubt. "Once it gets here, it follows the cable there," he pointed at the wires above the openings in the floor, "And the ore is dumped down the chutes into a waiting wagon."
"I thought the cables meant a tram of some kind, but I don't see how?—"
He cut her off with the wave of a hand. "It's also used to get supplies," he paused for effect, "and men," he grinned like a mischievous little boy, "up to the mine."
Understanding washed through her with the force of a tidal wave. "Oh no, I'm not going up there." She pointed through the opening in the opposite wall at the distant mine, then eyed the narrow metal box with something bordering on panic. "In that."
"It's fun. I've done it a million times and besides it's faster than climbing over the backside of the mountain to the mineshaft."
She looked up at the cable, trying to judge its strength. When the hell did they invent reinforced steel, anyway? The wire above her head looked strong enough, but when she looked at it climbing up across the gulch, she wasn't as certain. "How exactly do you propose we do that? There isn't an engine."
Michael laughed. "We don't need one. The thing works with gravity. As a loaded tram car comes down, it pulls the one here back to the top."
"Well, we've got a problem, then. There's no one up there to fill a car and send it down," she pronounced triumphantly.
"My father rigged it so that we always leave a full one at the top."
"Great." She blew out a breath and tried to look enthusiastic. "Of course," she added, "it has been a while since you were up here, and between your dad and Amos Striker there's every chance the loaded car has been used and not replaced." She tried to keep the pleading note out of her voice, but she had absolutely no desire to emulate Peter Pan.
Michael turned his back, examining a gizmo that ran out of a window on one side of the door. "Of course we do have a back-up system."
