No , getting his one phone call from one of the local tumble downs wasn ’ t gonna be any issue at all . He just hoped he wasn ’ t in one of the real out-of-the-way mines . If he got out at dark he didn ’ t want to traipse all over a mountain at night . He might have to hole up in one of the abandoned company buildings . You occasionally got bears on some of the abandoned sites , and he wasn ’ t going through all of this to end up as bear shit .
He had no way of knowing how far he walked in the floating world of absolute black . He had nothing to gauge his surroundings and no landmarks to mark off the passing of each footstep . He certainly wasn ’ t going to light another match just to find out how far he could guess he ’ d gone . There was nothing to do but to keep trudging . He just needed to keep moving in the direction he ’ d picked . He knew in his heart that he ’ d picked right . Nope , nothing to do but keep moving .
The overall feeling of the air changed around him . He reached out for the wall he ’ d been clutching to see if anything felt different there . There was an overwhelming feeling of panic for a moment . He felt nothing there , nothing but empty air !
It took him a moment to regain his composure enough to realize why the air felt different . He ’ d reached an opening , a junction . This was great news ! It would be worth burning another match to not crawl around on the ground to discover what he needed to do . He only needed to figure out which way the rails were going . He had to control his exertion now so his hand didn ’ t shake or he didn ’ t damage one of his precious matches . The way the side passages joined this one , the curve and the angle of the rails would confirm one way or another which way was out !
He lit the match methodically , taking care not to look directly at it . The light was blinding as he had been in the dark so long . He blinked repeatedly , trying to adjust his eyes as quickly as he could to get a good look around before the match burned out . But in the few moments that he had , he saw exactly what he needed to see . It was a junction , and the rails coming in from the side passages , both , were angling gracefully to join with the one he was following , He ’ d been right ! Straight ahead and OUT of here ! The match burned his fingers as he stared at it in joy , but he barely even noticed any pain as he dropped it and put his injured finger in his mouth absentmindedly .
The sight of the junction put a little pep back into his step as he moved forward . Everything about this was miserable , but he was getting through and going over the story of his life . Oh , my , Mr . Union Rabble Rouser , you think this crap scares ol ’ Tommy Allison , well you can choke on it , buddy ! When he gets outta here , you ’ ll be choking on it in jail ! You keep telling everybody that will listen that Stone Ridge was Tommy Allison ’ s fault and that he ought to go to jail , but he had enough inspectors on the payroll under the table . Big Tommy would be skating out with a fine at the worst . Bet you boys thought you ’ d teach ol ’ Tommy a lesson , straight to jail , do not collect two hundred dollars , my boy !
The dirt around the rails had gotten muddy , forcing him to slop through . His clothes were completely permeated in sweat . His thousand dollar pair of John Lobb ’ s were being destroyed in this muck . He was almost happy he didn ’ t have a headlamp , so he couldn ’ t see what they looked like now . He could feel the mud slopping over the tops and through the stitching , chilling his feet . Add something else to the offender ’ s tab . But the positive note was , water meant he was getting even closer to the surface .
It was odd , though , he had expected more air this close . The temperature outside must be close to the temperature in the mine .