The snow picked up to nearly white out conditions. I had to drive slowly and cautiously as the acetylene headlamps just weren’t enough to keep the road illuminated. The wind blew with a bitter cold hatred, and the truck offered no shelter from the pain.

  The fresh snow from tonight had settled onto the half melted snow from the daylight, which was on top of a layer of ice that would have been mud only a few hours ago. The truck was dragging itself over layers of ice, and was heavy enough to crack through to still liquid water. The slow plodding of the truck was accompanied by a regular and rhythmic crack that was loud enough to be heard over the wind and the truck’s engine. As we climbed up a hill, I needed to open the exhaust cutout to make it up over the top. I looked back briefly to see Maria curled up inside the corner of the bed with one of the blankets wrapped around herself, and her hands over her ears.

  The road crest over the top of the hill, and I gently applied the brakes as we rolled down the descending slope. The truck howled as the single brake band on the transmission heated hot enough to howl. The truck only accelerated until we reached a wash at the bottom. The truck slid into more ice crusted liquid water and came to a sudden stop that almost tossed Lavender from the seat. Maria gripped the wooden beams of the bed for dear life as whatever we hit had tried to slip under the rear wheel.

  I put the truck in first, opened the exhaust cutout, but the wheels spun uselessly on whatever it had anchored itself to.

  “Ms. Enya, there is a rock under the wheel.” Maria said as she leaned over the bed and looked between the wheels.

  “Yeah, I shoulda known.” I said. I was about to jump out of the cab and into the wash when Lavender grabbed my arm.

  “In this weather, if your feet get wet in that wash, you will lose your toes before we make it to Bray Valley.” She said.

  I nodded and looked at the rock. It had at one point been buried not just under the snow, but under the mud. I may have never noticed it had the weather been dry. I lit a cigarette and looked down at the scene.

  “We need to move it. Don’t we have a crowbar somewhere?” Maria asked.

  “We do, but that looks too big, and the only thing you can lever against is the wheel, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I said.

  “Call a farmer over and see if they will pull us out?” Maria asked.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Midnight, just about.” Lavender said as she clicked her pocket watch shut.

  “Maria, get into the box with a wrench symbol on the front, find a crowbar, and start taking the tops off of the crates that have oilcloth tarps in them.” I said.

  “Right away, Ms. Enya.” Maria said. She did exactly as I asked, quickly and with conviction. I watched her lever the nails out and hand me the lids, which I tossed into the snow of the wash. I had three good sized platforms by the time I crawled down onto them.

  “Good, now there should be a hand sledge and a rock drill in the tool box too.” I said.

  “I don’t know what those are.” She said.

  “Rock drill looks like a chisel but with a star shaped blade.”

  “This one?” Maria grabbed exactly what I was looking for.

  “Perfect.” I puffed my cigarette before taking the tool from her. “Now grab the hand sledge and get down here.”

  She did exactly as I asked.

  “Want a cigarette, new girl?” I asked her.

  She was about to grab a cigarette from me when I heard Lavender mumble. “Dirty habit.”

  “Damnit! If you want to complain, come down here and hammer with us.” I said.

  She only huffed and pulled a blanket around herself.

  “You don’t have to hit too hard, Maria, let the weight of the hammer and the blade of the chisel do the work.” I said as I put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it with my lighter cantrip.

  She was a natural before long, she hammered, I turned the chisel with each strike, and watched as it dug a hole in the rock. The wind was enough to periodically blow the dust out, and we only had to worry about some snow finding its way in.

  Each strike rung out like a bell, tolling like a church bell for the worship of labor. We had switched to using a wedge to drive the rock apart, and with a bit of patience, it split into two. Maria jumped with excitement.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, we aren’t done yet. Grab a couple of full sized sledges from the tool box, we broke it in half, but we need to break it down even further before we can drive over it.” I said.

  “It needs to be smaller?” She said. Her voice trailed off.

  “Yes. Remember, you chose to live here, you could have stayed in the big city.” I said.

  “Of course, yes Ms. Enya.” Maria climbed into the back and did as I asked. We hammered until the boulder became stones, and the stones became gravel. Maria was swaying, and had braced herself against the bed of the truck.

  Lavender looked over. “Let her have some rest.” She said.

  “I think you’re right. You did good, new girl.” I said. She gave me a forced smile.

  I climbed into the driver’s seat and helped her back up into the bed. She was shaking, and wrapped herself in the blanket.

  The truck drove over the gravel and out of the wash. Before long, it seemed the wind had died down again and the snow had stopped falling. For a moment, things seemed calm.

  Finally, I can see the stars. This far in the remote desert, there were no lights to interfere with the view of the galaxy. Even the acetylene lamps were beginning to die as the water inside was starting to freeze. Every stroke of the gods' brushes that had painted the sky was visible, forming a masterpiece of a scale impossible for us mortals to comprehend. I had seen this sky almost every night, it didn't mean anything to me anymore.

  "It's so beautiful, I might have never known." I heard Lavender say.

  "What is?" I asked.

  "The sky, the snow, everything."

  "You have a strange understanding of beautiful. That snow will kill us if we aren't careful." I said.

  "Grandma used to tell me the lights outside of the city were beautiful, I never could have imagined how much." Maria said. I looked behind me briefly to see her still wrapped in a blanket, tears had frozen halfway down her cheeks. Her hair and eyelashes both were frosted over.

  "You're both fucking cuckoo." I said.

  There was no more talking as soon as I approached a hill and I had to open the exhaust cutout to get the power to climb. I was happy to let them admire whatever the hell they were admiring. It was all uphill from here, it was the hardest part of the whole trip. Even in the snow, large boulders still poked up from under. It was a crawl for the truck, not even 5 miles an hour in first gear. I knew the truck could do it, I've done it many times.

  I think Lavender was trying to say something to me, but I couldn't hear what. She tapped me on the shoulder. I closed the exhaust cutout but kept the throttle open.

  "Look, I don't think it's supposed to be doing that." Lavender pointed to the radiator cap. The radiator on a cabover was just in front of the driver, and before it was common practice for trucks to have windshields, the water boiling over from the cap had gotten into the cab, it looked almost like snow as it froze in the air and drifted into the seat. I hadn't even noticed, the way I was focused on the road.

  I stared for just a brief moment as the sight burned itself into my mind. The machine made snow was rising from the cap in a white cloud.

  "Damnit, damn it all, I swear to the gods if this old dog of a truck can't make it to the mines, we and all those poor men are all meeting hell tonight!" I shouted.

  "Hey, we have more water, right?" Maria said.

  "We should, yeah. Hope to the gods it isn't already frozen. Get in the tool box and get me the thickest leather gloves you can find." I said.

  Maria opened the tool box. The only leather gloves in the box were both as dry as charcoal, and almost as brittle. They were crusted over with frost that flaked away the moment she picked them up.

  "Sorry, boss. This is all we got." She said as she gave them to me. I put them on, the frost immediately melted as I grabbed the radiator cap and twisted it off. I could look down inside to see the water level had fallen well below the appropriate fill line. I climbed down to see if I could find the leak. It wasn’t hard to spot, the water was still hot as it dripped out of a tiny fracture. It dripped into the snow and became ice shortly after.

  “I found the leak.” I said.

  “Leak? I don’t know automobiles but that does sound bad.” Maria said.

  “It is, yes. Look, it isn’t enough to put more water in there, we need distilled alcohol as an antifreeze, and we will need to fix this leak if we want to ever make it to Bray Valley and back.”

  “What tools do we need?”

  “We don’t have the right tools here. I don’t think we have enough spirits nor the soldering. We could ask almost any farmer nearby if it weren’t well past midnight.” I said.

  “Leave it to me.” Lavender said. She groaned as she stood up from the truck’s seat.

  “We should all go. We shouldn’t leave each other in this cold.” I said. Lavender nodded. I grabbed Maria’s hand and helped her down from the truck. I pressed the spark interrupt to stop the engine and opened the water drain. It can’t have been more than a gallon that spilled out. Lavender had already lead Maria up the road, and I ran to catch up.

  It was a couple of miles through the cold and snow before we arrived at a run down row of wooden worker’s housing on a farm. There was smoke rising from fireplace smokestacks. There was a single light on in one of the windows.

  “The farm hands always wake up early. Most of the boys here don’t have any money, so they pay me in favors, and this will be the perfect opportunity to call in a favor. Maria, can you do me a favor and knock on that lit window?”

  “Yes maam.” Maria said before she knocked.

  A bearded old Rhenian Human man opened the window. He had a heavy stocking cap on to cover his bald crown, and a gray beard that was too long to be seen to the tip through the window.

  “Doc, and the Warden-Ernest girl. What in blazes are you doing in all this snow!?” He asked. “Don’t answer, let me let you inside.” He closed the window again and unlocked the front door. We all gladly stepped inside into the warmth. We all sat down by the fireplace. Maria had brought her blanket with her and sat on the floor next to the fire. Lavender and I sat down in the well worn out couch.

  “We’re lucky you’re already awake so early in the morning, Paul.” Lavender said.

  “Damn right you are!” Paul said with a laugh. “Now what in hell are you three doing walking in the snow?” He asked while leaning forward in his seat.

  “Truck broke down.” I said.

  “Okay, okay, let me rephrase that. What in hell are you three doing driving in the snow. That’s possibly worse, you know why that’s worse, right?”

  “Mine collapse in Bray Valley, we’re trying to get medical supplies and a doctor up into town.” I said.

  “Well I’ll be! We need to give you a helping hand!” He said as he climbed up from his chair.

  “No need to try to talk you into it?” Lavender said.

  “I got sons and brothers in the mines in Bray Valley, and so do most of the other boys. He rushed down a narrow hallway and started knocking on doors. “Get up, get up, we got work, and we gotta get it done now!” He shouted. Soon after, Rhenian men of all ages climbed out of their bunks, all wearing thick wool coats and duck boots.

  “What do you need and where do you need it?” Paul asked.

  “Spirits, at least a couple gallons. Acetylene torch and some solder. If you can spare medical supplies, or are willing to donate blood on arrival, that would be needed.” I said.

  “And what is all this for, warden-Ernest?” One of the farm hands had asked.

  “Mine collapse, Bray Valley, drift number nine.” I said.

  “Lord above, my brother works there!” He said. That put some pep in his step. The boys moved out to their own supply closet and loaded it up onto a mule cart. The mule seemed less than happy to be awoken at this time of night, but the skinner was a firm man who get the grumpy animal out of the shed. We walked with the mule back to the truck.

  Fixing the radiator was a routine operation for me. I melted the lead onto the crack, and it would cool almost instantly in this kind of cold. I flushed the ice from the radiator by pouring some spirit in there before closing the drain. I filled it with a couple of gallons of the liquor and then the rest with water. The engine was still warm enough that it wasn’t hard to start it up. The acetylene head lamps had completely frozen over, but the farm hands had brought electric lights to help guide us the rest of the way.

  This would be the last hang up before we could see the sun rising over the Bray Mountains. We were almost there, medical supplies and a few farm hand volunteers in tow. From the approach road, we could see the damaged mine. It looked as if the minors had already broken their way back in. One man on a horse gestured for us to follow him. They had their injured in a building, one of the only heated buildings in the area.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, new girl.” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Maria asked.

  “Mostly likely a lot of them are already dead. The cold itself is a killer, the mines rarely keep a good supply of medical supplies and equipment, and I would bet money that almost everyone who could have been saved by a blood transfusion were unable to get it. At least half of our job today is going to be counting the dead.” I said.