Len dropped the iron upkeep ladder from the North Rim overhead frame to the pit floor, his boots ringing against the cold steel rungs. His left arm was strapped rigid in its cedar splints. Because of that, he had to climb one-handed. He gripped the upright rail with his right hand and used the friction of his knees and the toes of his heavy courier boots to control his descent. By the time his soles hit the damp gravel ballast three hundred feet below. His right shoulder was shaking with muscular tiredness. The sweat was freezing on his forehead.
The floor of the Quarry pit was an alien landscape of heavy-duty care carved into ancient rock. The air down here was cold, damp, and smelled of crushed limestone, machine oil, and the sharp, stone tang of wet lead. Above his head, the sheer limestone terraces rose like the steps of a titan’s stadium. Their whitewashed cell doorways glowed with the faint, yellow pinpricks of animal fat candles where the miners’ families watched the work in silence.
Len walked the outer edge of the salt-glass array. His boots splashed through the shallow diversion ditch that channeled runoff into the lower drainage sump. The black glass panels were underwater beneath two inches of crystal-clear mountain water. That created an unbroken, mirror-like sheet that reflected the smoky orange flames of the coal fire bowls mounted along the terrace walls. The water was flowing smoothly across the surface at a rate of three hundred…
