Ironhorse

101

Emma was looking up at me, shielding her eyes. She was cowering some, covering her sister’s eyes from the light coming through the open doors. Though the late afternoon was covered with a hazy wet fog and the light was dim, the daylight was still a harsh contrast to the previous darkness of the mineshaft. When Emma’s eyes focused, seeing it was me who was standing in front of her, she started shaking and burst into tears. I moved to her. She rose up and lunged for me, putting her arms around me. I felt her lips on the side of my face, close to my ear. One of her hands was at the back of my belt, pulling my waist to her, and the other held the back of my head. She was not clutching me tight. She was holding me gently. She was trembling, and I could feel her warm breath in my ear.

“It’s you...” she said. “You are here, you came for us. You came for me...”

She stopped talking and kissed my face softly. She kissed me again, and again, and again.

Abigail was still shielding her eyes from the light. Next to her was Ernest C., a pretty woman with wispy, wheat-colored hair. Ernest C. saw Jimmy John behind me, and she looked at him as if she was looking at a ghost.

“Jimmy John?”

“It’s me.”

Ernest C. charged Jimmy John and was off the ground into his arms in an instant. Jimmy John held her tight. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and buried her face into his neck, sobbing, “Oh! Oh my God! Oh my God! Jimmy! Oh my God! Thank God!”

“It’s okay,” Jimmy John said. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

The women were dirty and scratched up. Their dresses were soiled and ripped up. Their hands and faces were smudged with black coal, but they were alive.

Virgil kneeled down, looking at Abigail. He held out his arms toward her as if he were encouraging a baby to take her first step, but she recoiled, moving back a little, shaking her head slowly.

“You’re safe now, Abigail.”

Abigail looked unsure of Virgil. It was clear she was in shock. She just gazed at Virgil with her big eyes and continued to shake her head slowly back and forth.

“It’s all over,” Virgil said.

Emma looked to her sister. “Abby, honey, it’s Marshal Cole and Deputy Marshal Hitch.”

Abigail frowned at Emma as if she did not understand.

“They are here to help us.”

Abigail turned her attention back to Virgil.

Virgil nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “What your sister is saying is right.”

Abigail looked at Virgil and nodded very slowly.

“You’re gonna be okay now.”

She lifted up some, looking at Virgil with a hopeful expression on her face.

“That’s good,” Virgil said.

She started rising, reaching out toward him. Virgil moved closer and just as she got fully to her feet, her body went limp and she fainted, falling into Virgil’s arms.

Virgil gathered her up, holding her. He situated her head resting on his left shoulder and her legs draping over his right arm.

“Let’s go,” Virgil said.