The nursery drift was narrower than the main headings of the quarry—barely five feet high at the crown and less than four feet across at the base. It had been dug forty years ago through a soft, crumbly vein of green chlorite shale that cried nonstop gray water from every joint. The air here was colder than in the drainage channels. It carried a dry, bitter-salt reek of lime whitewash and old straw that set Len’s throat aching.
Along both sides of the passage, cut directly into the soft shale, were low brick-lined alcoves, three feet deep and six feet long. In each nook stood an iron bedstead. A narrow, rusted cot of one-inch angle iron, its springs sagging almost to the stone floor. There were twenty-four of them, stretching down the heading like the ribs of an ancient carcass. The straw mattresses had long since rotted away. That left only gray, mold-matted husks that clung to the rusted iron wire like dried wasp nests.
Len walked with his head ducked, his pine pole clicking against the wet ballast. Every few yards, his shoulder brushed against an iron bed frame. It sent a dull, metal rattle through the quiet drift.
