Chapter 3: At Fault

After splitting up with Luke at the main branch, Bo headed down the right side-tunnel, calling for the missing boys. This tunnel wound back and forth, heading deep into the ridge. There were any number of short side-tunnels, just twenty feet long or so, on either side. He shined his flashlight into each and moved on. He lost track of how far he'd gone. After twenty minutes or so, he was starting to get nervous. The tunnel became narrower, starting out about ten feet wide and now tapering down to five feet. Then he came around a corner and came face to face with a solid wall of angled rock, nearly walking right into it as he could hardly distinguish the black rock from the black darkness beyond the flashlight. Now annoyed, he turned around and started back.

He hadn't walked for more than a few minutes when he distantly heard Luke's voice. He couldn't make out the words. "Hang on, I'm coming!" he called and broke into a trot. Then the rumbling sound started. Bo immediately recognized it for what it was and broke into a full run, knowing his life depended on it. Failing to see the turn of a sharp bend, he slammed into the wall and fell to the ground. Scrambling to his feet, he took off again amid the coal dust falling from the ceiling and tunnel walls. He could heard bits of the tunnel wall breaking and crumbling behind him, and he dodged the occasional rubble that fell into his path. His lungs burned with the effort of breathing through the thick dust.

Bo didn't know how close he was to the mainway when the side-tunnel walls collapsed around him.

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I'm dead came his first thought, And this ain't Heaven, came his second. He tried to look around, but all he saw was black. He wondered if he was blind. He tried to pick himself up, but moving his left arm sent pain shooting through his arm and shoulder. I don't think it would hurt like that if I was dead. He lay still on his stomach and tested the muscles in the rest of his body, waiting for pain that didn't come. His back felt sore and bruised, and his chest ached, but his arm was the only real source of pain. He began to feel the edge of panic as he tried to move his legs and found that he couldn't. He stopped the effort and took a deep breath, counting to ten. Then he tried again. He could feel the muscles in his legs straining, he could feel his toes wiggling in his boots, but he couldn't move. He reached back with his good arm and felt loose bits of small rubble around his waist. Just breath. The air felt thick and hot. He coughed, soot in his nose, mouth, and lungs. He reached upwards, and felt rock just a foot above his head, slanting to the left. More feeling around proved it to be a solid slab leaning from the tunnel wall to the floor. He began to tremble with fear. He reached out in front. A basketball-sized boulder lay just ahead to the left, and beyond that - broken rubble. He was trapped.

That was when Bo panicked.

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"BO!" Luke cried, and bolted back into the cave before anyone could stop him. Cooter was the first to follow, then Daisy, Uncle Jesse, Enos, Thomas Sutton, and Carl Dunney. Rosco was left stammering outside with the mothers and their children.

"Gu…y…you…I…I'll just stay here then."

Luke ran down the now-familiar main tunnel, holding a handkerchief over his mouth and nose. The main tunnel appeared well-supported enough to hold up against the fault shift, but the first side tunnel he passed had collapsed. Luke didn't even pause to think of what might have happened to Daisy and Cooter if the timing had been different. A sob choked him as he saw the next side-tunnel on the right, strewn with rubble and broken boulders. The tunnel was blocked as completely as any the searchers had encountered elsewhere in the caves. Luke fell to his knees amid the debris as the rest of his family came up behind him.

"I should have waited…I should have gone after him…" he whispered, tears streaming tracks down his soot-covered face. Uncle Jesse put a shaking hand on his shoulder, staring at the ruins himself.

"No, Luke, then it would be both of you in there. You did the right thing, you got those boys out safe."

Daisy turned to cry in Enos' arms. Cooter stuck his hands in his pockets, biting his lip and squinting to keep the tears from falling. Sutton and Dunney were at a loss, having no words for the family who had lost a son to save theirs. Luke shook with silent tears, eyes closed tight against the pain in his heart. It was Jesse who heard the dim sound first.

Luke only noticed that Jesse stepped out from behind him and knelt next to the tunnel wall, pressing his ear to the rock. He listened for a moment as the others looked on, wondering at his purpose. Then he smiled that Uncle Jesse smile, stood up, and walked back to Luke.

"Don't give him up as dead yet, son. If he is, that's the loudest corpse I've ever heard."

Luke stared at his uncle, fearing to hope, and scrambled to press his ear to the wall as the others did the same.

"HELP!" Bo was howling at the top of his lungs, "SOMEBODY! LUKE! I'M IN HERE!" He grabbed a fist-sized rock and smashed it against the wall, making as much noise as he could. "HELP!" His reason was gone entirely - he acted on blind instinct. He stopped screaming when a fit of coughing wracked his lungs, and paused, gasping for breath.

"BO! BO, WE'RE HERE!" he heard dimly through the rubble.

Bo was breathing hard, and didn't have the strength to shout an answer. Luke looked up at the faces around him, searching for the right plan.

"He can't be that far in, if we can hear him from here. And he can't be hurt too bad, if he can call like that," the elder Duke cousin deduced. "But…there's no hole in the rubble, no vent…he can't have enough air for very long…" He fell silent at the conclusion. They'd never dig Bo out fast enough.

Thomas Sutton broke his silence. "I've got some plumbing pipes in my truck…maybe if we use a sledgehammer…"

"…We can get him an air line and have more time to dig him out!" Luke jumped to his feet. "Let's do it! Bo! We're gonna get you out! Hang on!" he called to his cousin, confidence returning to his voice.

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Rosco was standing outside looking from the mine tunnel to the families beside him to the families gathered down below, trying to decide the best course of action - that is, the course of action that would be him look best in the public eye. He was still torn between decisions when Luke Duke came jogging out of the tunnel, calling "Bo's alive, we're gonna get him out!" as he passed. He was closely followed by Thomas Sutton and Cooter, heading down to the trucks in the parking lot, with the others a little further behind.

The sheriff watched them run past, bewildered, until Jesse clapped him on the shoulder from behind. Rosco jumped, startled, and turned around.

"Rosco! Get back over to the fair and get us some help - we're gonna need some strong backs and equipment to dig," Jesse ordered.

Rosco stammered again, thinking that he was supposed to be the one in charge at a time like this - not that he would say it to Jesse Duke's face. Then he spotted Enos.

"Enos! You heard him, get out there!" Rosco ordered.

"But...but Sheriff, I was gonna…"

"I said get out there, you dipstick! We gotta help these Dukes!"

Enos gave up arguing. "Alright, then. I'll be back quick as I can, Uncle Jesse."

"I am not your uncle!" Jesse called after him as Enos headed down the path.

Luke, Cooter, and the rest jogged past Enos on the way, arms loaded with equipment. Rosco was left stammering again as they went past, and Jesse followed them back inside.

"Gu…you…I'll just stay here then."

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Daisy and Jesse stood back, holding flashlights to light the scene, while the others worked. They'd brought in half a dozen two-inch wide plumbing pipes, each about five feet long, and a couple of heavy sledgehammers from Sutton's pickup truck - he'd just bought a load of tools and materials in town for some construction work on the farm. Thomas Sutton also carried a coil of heavy steel cable, and sat back working something with it under Daisy's light. Luke knelt next to the tunnel wall again.

"Bo! Can you hear me?" he called loudly.

"Yeah!" came the dim, muffled response. Bo had calmed down somewhat since hearing Luke earlier, but he still shivered in fear in the darkness, a dangerous flicker of hope lighting in his mind. The terrified adrenaline rush was wearing off, and he was feeling the pain in his broken arm and the tightness of the rubble around his legs all the more.

"Are you hurt?"

"I think my arm's broken…but I'm okay. Luke, please, get me out of here!"

"I will, Bo! Can you tell me where you are?"

"I'm next to a wall, I think…there's a big slab of rock above me, I got knocked down flat."

Neither cousin could hear every word shouted by the other, but enough came through to understand.

Luke tried to think of how to locate his cousin, so they'd know which direction to drive the pipes in. "Can you…can you bang a rock against the wall?"

Luke pressed his ear hard against the tunnel wall to the right of the collapsed ruins, listening to locate the sound. Cooter did the same on the opposite side.

"Can't hear nothin' here," the mechanic said. Luke could hear a steady clunk clunk clunk.

"He must be on this side," Luke told the group. "Alright, Bo! We've got it!" He reached for the first pipe and regarded the rubble for a moment, trying to decide on the best angle and position to slide it in along the side-tunnel wall.

"Hang on," Sutton said, and took the pipe back from him. The handy farmer snaked his steel cable through the pipe. A one-inch hook was bent backwards on the end, which he hooked to the end of the pipe. Luke looked at him questioningly. "When we get the pipe through the rubble, we pull it back a little bit, unhook the wire, and pull it through, clear out the inside of the pipe." He demonstrated. Luke smiled.

"Genius."

He scooped at the rubble with a hand-sized flat piece of rock, clearing as much as he could before settling the pipe and wire into place. He held it down and looked to Cooter, who had picked up one of the sledgehammers. He gave a nod. WHAM! Cooter slammed the heavy tool into the other end of the pipe, sending it a good foot into the rubble. Luke grinned. WHAM! Cooter hit it again. Another foot. He passed off the hammer to Sutton, who hit it twice more before they cleared the pipe out, lined up another one behind it, and started again.

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Bo let the rock drop with a clatter and his tired arm fell back to the ground, limp with the effort. His whole body was starting to feel fatigued. The first strike of the sledgehammer startled him, sending more bits of dust into the air in the few cubic feet of space around him. Soon, though, the steady pounding took on a regular beat, and he only noticed when there was a long pause between strokes. He relaxed a little, reassured that Luke was out there. Besides, he was so tired. He curled his good arm and lay his head against the crook of his elbow, closing his eyes - not that it made a difference in the darkness, but it felt better nonetheless. He started to doze, not noticing how his lungs fought deep and hard for every breath, or the fuzzy tingling in his fingertips and toes as they buzzed for oxygen.