Chapter 2: Someday the Mountain Might Get 'Em
After only a few minutes, the quartet reached a split in the broad tunnel, with a slightly narrower tunnel breaking off to the left. The four looked at each other.
"Cooter and I will go this way," Daisy declared before anyone else spoke.
Luke nodded in agreement. They split up into two pairs, and continued on their way, calling the boys' names occasionally as they went. Daisy and Cooter headed into the side tunnel, searching the darkness with their flashlights. After twenty minutes or so, the tunnel forked again.
"We'd better split up," Daisy said.
"You sure you'll be okay?" Cooter asked in a tone that hoped she'd say no. He remembered coming in here when he was younger, no light, on a dare from his brother BB. He'd wandered around lost for hours until finding his way back out and finding that his brother had left to go fishing instead of waiting.
"I'll be just fine, Cooter. Besides, half these tunnels are blocked from the collapse in '59, they don't go very far. I'll meet you back here."
The mechanic nodded, and they each headed down a branch of the tunnel. Sure enough, Cooter found his tunnel was blocked about sixty feet in, with no sign of the boys. He turned around and waited for Daisy at the branch. She appeared a few moments later.
"Blocked," she explained.
"Mine too."
"Let's go see if we can catch up to Bo and Luke."
---------------
Just a few minutes after leaving Daisy and Cooter at the side-tunnel, the Duke boys reached another branch, this time with two side-tunnels bending off to the left and right of the wider mainway. The mines were a regular rabbit warren, and it was easy to see how a boy could get lost without a light.
"I'll take this one," Bo said, indicating the right branch with his flashlight.
"Alright. I'll take the other branch. Go on down the main line if you don't find anything, I'll catch up."
"Sounds good. Be careful."
Luke heard Bo calling the boys' names as they moved apart down each branch. The sound echoed along the length of the tunnels. After another ten minute's walking and calling, Luke hit a dead end, the way blocked by the old collapse. He shivered to look at the broken stone that had ended so many men's lives, their remains still trapped somewhere beneath the rubble. It was exciting to come into the caves as a boy - it was unnerving to walk into the tunnels as a man.
Luke turned around and hurried back out to the mainway. He waited a few minutes at the mouth of the branch to see if Bo had the same result, but he could no longer hear his cousin's voice calling. Instead, he heard Daisy.
"Luke! Bo! That you?" she called, flashlight bobbing.
"Just me. Bo's down the side-tunnel there. He's gonna meet up with us down the main tunnel. I just checked this one - dead end."
"Ours too. Let's keep going - I don't like it in here," Daisy said with a frown.
Luke had noticed, as they continued down the tunnel, that the air was starting to feel thick and stale, as they moved further from the entrance. That and the darkness gave the tunnels a close, claustrophobic feel.
"I tell you, though," Cooter said to the Duke cousins after calling for the boys again, "Them two boys is real brave, coming all the way back here - I know I never made it this far."
"Me neither," Luke agreed.
"I did," Daisy said, "The tunnel branches again a little further on."
Luke was lucky Daisy didn't see the surprise on his face. If she had, he'd have starch in his shorts for a month for sure.
Sure enough, the tunnel branched one more time, and Daisy took Cooter with her again down the left branch. Luke headed down the right. He was beginning to wonder if the boys really were here somewhere, or if they had somehow snuck past little Noah Sutton in the dark to play a prank on him. The searchers had been in the tunnels for at least an hour without a sign of the boys. His doubt was soon cut short, though, as the echo of another voice answered his call.
"…ere!"
"Daisy, Cooter, I got 'em!" Luke called at the top of his lungs, hoping they would hear him, as he trotted forward. "Lawrence! Toby! Stay where you are, I'll come to you!" he hollered.
"Here, we're down here!" the voice called, closer this time. Luke ran as fast as he could while avoiding rubble in his path and watching for side-tunnels.
"Are you boys alright?" he called, hoping to keep them talking and be guided by their voices.
"We're okay! We got lost! Is Noah alright?" a second voice called back, much closer. Luke skidded to a stop as he came around a sharp bend, narrowly avoiding running into the boys. They sat on the rubble of a cave-in, clearly scared. One was dark-haired and the spitting image of Thomas Sutton. The other was brown-haired, taller, with a cut on his cheek where it looked like he'd fallen down.
"Noah's fine," Luke said, catching his breath, "But your parents are worried sick."
"Who're you?" Toby Dunney asked suspiciously.
"I'm the guy who just found you. Come on, let's go." Seeing the stubborn set in the boy's jaw, Luke relented, annoyed. "Luke Duke. Mrs. Sutton asked my family for helping finding you."
Lawrence turned to Toby. "He's the one with the car!"
"The General Lee?" Toby looked at Luke, awed. He knew the reputation of both the car and the owners, on the race track and off.
Luke nodded confirmation. "Can we go now? These caves aren't safe - that's why you're supposed to stay out," he lectured, thinking that he'd never wanted to be the one giving that lecture.
The boys stood up, dusting themselves off, and followed him back the way he'd come. They met up with Daisy and Cooter towards the end of the branch. They had heard his call, and abandoned their branch to meet him. Cooter looked relieved, but he wasn't the only one. All five - three adults and two boys - hurried along the main tunnel, eager to be out. They still hadn't met up with Bo. They stopped at the side-tunnel where he'd broken off.
"Bo! We found 'em!" Luke called down the tunnel. He paused and listened for a response. Nothing. "Bo!"
The sound Luke heard next had none of the dulcet tones of his cousin, and all the rumbling growl of a rockslide. Luke looked around in alarm at the dust that fell from the ceiling all around them, and the tremor he felt beneath his feet. For a split second, he was torn between his choices, before shouting "RUN!" and pushing both boys before him. All five sprinted for the cave mouth at top speed as the rumbling sound followed at their heels, spewing dust into the air. Coughing and choking, they turned a bend and saw the fading sunlight, and poured on the speed.
Both boys shot out the cave mouth into the waiting arms of their parents. Daisy and Cooter were close behind, followed last by Luke. Uncle Jesse, Rosco, and Enos all waited outside the cave with the Sutton and Dunney families, and a small assortment of other families waited in the parking lot below, friends of the lost boys. Claire Dunney held her mother and younger brother in a close hug. The rumbling ceased as Luke coughed and leaned with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Uncle Jesse patted him on the back and handed him water from a waiting pitcher. Daisy and Cooter received the same care from Enos. Luke drank thirstily and coughed one more time before straightening up and looking around.
"Is Bo out here?" he asked, searching the faces nearby.
Jesse shook his head slowly. "No, he's not."
Luke looked back at the cave mouth in horror, the thick cloud of black coal dust beginning to settle around the entrance. "Then he's still in there."
Hmm...somethin' tells me I wouldn't want to be Bo Duke just now.