“Keep her out, Mark. Let her comfort the wives if the men do not make it,” he said firmly.
Shawna let her cousin go, then she looked to Mark.
“Mark, let me pass.”
“M’lady—”
“You must let me pass,” she said firmly.
Reluctantly, he let her go. Shawna raced on into the shaft, where lanterns provided an eerie light. Aidan, covered in coal dust and supporting a completely blackened man, was coming from the shaft.
“Shawna, take yourself out of here!” he commanded. “We’ve opened the shaft. We’re getting the men.”
“The boy?” she inquired.
The blackened miner who had been caught in the cave-in shook his head. “Not yet,’ees in a natural shaft we’ve not taken to yet.”
“Oh god!” Shawna breathed. She ignored Aidan and the miner, moving deeper into the eerie light and darkness of the shaft. Men were working with support beams. Each of them called to her. She ignored them until she came to the place where the men had been working. Now, they dug, her kilted uncles tearing at the coal with a strength to match that of any man there.
There was a cry as they dug through to free another man. “Me leg!” the miner cried.
“I’ve got him,” she heard her cousin Alaric say, hunkering down to pick up the man in his arms as the fellow groaned, but cleared the coal around him.
Wiping his blackened brow, Gawain turned and saw Shawna. “For God’s sake, lass, are you seeking death? Alistair, I said to take her outside?—”
“And I left her outside, Father. She’s a stubborn wench, and you know it.”
“Get your cousin out—” Lowell began.
“Nay, I’m here now,” Shawna pleaded. “Where’s the boy?”
“Back in there,” a voice croaked.
“Angus—where are you?” Alistair demanded.
“Here!”
Alistair and Lowell crawled to where the last of the trapped miners still lay beneath a mound of rock and coal. “We’ve got you, man!” Alistair assured him.
All of the men were safe.
But a child remained.
Shawna crawled over the dirt and rock and coal to a tiny, incredibly narrow shaft above the spot where the last of the buried miners had been caught.
The men could not explore such places. Only children could do so.
And women.
She was slim enough to manage the space, she thought. Instinctively, she started to crawl into it. She was dimly aware of her great-uncle Gawain swearing from behind her.
“Daniel?” she called softly. She shouldn’t shout. She knew that the shaft would be vulnerable now to whatever had caused the cave-in that had plagued the larger tunnel.
“Shawna, get out of there!” Gawain demanded.
“Daniel…Danny? Are you there?”
She heard a soft whimpering sound. Oh god, the boy sounded so very far away!