The eagle's wing: A story of the Colorado

by B. M. Bower

She was sitting before the homemade desk that held her typewriter. Spread out before her were the books wherein she kept the records of the Cramer Dam. She had been working on the books when the blast wrecked the place. A beam from the ceiling had fallen, caught upon another beam, and pinned her down, bowed over her desk. Perhaps she had been leaning upon her folded arms to rest, when the shock came. But the beam was lying against her back, holding her down, and upon that, around it, rocks were piled.

Rawley set his teeth, carefully removed the rocks between him and the girl, and crept closer. Hesitating, afraid, he reached out and touched her fingers, still closed around something which she had been holding in her hand. Her fingers were cool, pliable,—alive, he could have sworn. So his heart, that had seemed to stop altogether, gave a great jump.

Very gently he released the thing she was holding and drew it toward him. His old, weather-scarred, briar pipe! He looked down at it dumbly, looked at Nevada and very carefully laid the pipe back, against her fingers. His eyes were very blue and bright; his face was very pale. He steadied himself. He would get her out; he must free her and bring her alive to the safe outside, where—

A fear stabbed him. They were going to shoot in the other dam! He hadn’t much time, then. Another shock,—Peter had told him to look out for a blast. It was perhaps a matter of minutes.

He raised himself, looked at the beams. They seemed to be solidly braced, for the present, though another concussion would be likely to throw them down. He looked down.

Nevada was sitting on a reed stool, with two cushions upon it to give her height. He crept closer, raised himself and set a shoulder against the beam that lay along her bowed shoulders. He steadied it so while he took firm hold of a cushion and pulled it from beneath her.

Nevada’s body sagged a bit. Rawley could see daylight now between her shoulders and the beam. He waited a breath, felt no settling of the beam, and pulled out the remaining cushion. Still the beam held fast. Nevada, then, was not being crushed; she had been pinned down without bearing the weight of the beam.

Rawley went back, crouching under the caved roof. His arms were round Nevada when he stopped and picked up the pipe, slipping it into the pocket of her blouse. Then, pulling her gently to him, he drew her out from under the beam and into the granite-walled storehouse. As he lifted her in his arms Nevada groaned.

Anita’s arms were uplifted to receive her when Rawley came up head and shoulders through the gaping hole in the dugout roof. But he shook his head, stepped out with her in his arms and dug heels in the soft bank, working his way down to the level.

He still held the girl in his arms, looking for a place where he might lay her comfortably, when the earth shook beneath his feet. The terrific boom of the explosion deafened him. The jumble of rock shook and fell, tighter packed.