The canvas extraction cradle struck Len Vey with the bone-shaking, bone-jarring impact of a charging heavy cart horse.
It wasn’t a gentle rescue. The cradle had been built by quarry mechanics to snatch injured miners off collapsing benches before a dynamite blast could bring forty tons of limestone down on their heads. It consisted of an ash-wood spreader bar four feet across. It was bound with iron corner brackets, from which hung a deep sling basket of four-ply flax canvas heavy with double-stitched harness webbing. The canvas had been soaked in boiled linseed oil and neat’s-foot fat to prevent the gritty limestone dust from cutting the fibers. Its bottom was lined with a two-inch pad of tightly packed sheep wool to cushion broken hips against granite outcrops.
The rig had sped up to twenty-five miles an hour at the bottom of its swinging weight sweep, propelled by two thousand pounds of falling pig iron on the quarry rim.
The heavy flax rim caught Len beneath the armpits and across the middle of his back. Then, the impact drove every cubic inch of air from his lungs in a sharp, wet grunt. His vision grayed instantly, the amber lanterns of the chimney pipe washing out into a blur of purple sparks. The two cracked ribs along his left flank groaned under the sudden, brutal squeezing, the loose edges of bone shifting against the bare bone with a sickening grind that sent bile into the back of his throat.
