Wings Like Eagles – A Short Story

        By Noah Ballard

Mining The Emeralds of Joy.

 The story.

       “Every day, I am going to die, I think.” Manny said, settling his dusty pickax over his shoulder.

       Milo, joy in his weathered, brown eyes, looked down at the 9-year-old Colombian boy. “I know fear too, my friend. Collapse in the tunnels—disease inside the lungs—there are many things for miners to fear, but” —he pointed upward, “we have a Father in heaven who gives us strength.”

       “But does He give us food too?” Manny asked. “My family is starving. If I do not find an emerald, we will all die.”

       “God provides everything—all the food we eat also.”

       “But why,” Manny looked upward toward the tops of the trees. “Why doesn’t He just give us the food from His hand?”

       The older man looked down at his friend. “Sometimes, Manny, life is like a tight place in the Muzo Mine. You must get through the rough, tight patches to find the esmeraldas.” Milo turned sideways to avoid a reaching vine. “God gives us the emeralds, but He also gives us the mines.”

       “What do you mean?”

       “We receive all that He would give us—the good and the bad, because often, it is hard to see the good without the bad.”

       Manny frowned.

       “Just know this, Manny.” Milo smiled, though he was hungry and sad like the rest of the miners. “There would be no emeralds without the mines. There would be no joy without the pain.”

       “I can remember that.” Manny nodded.

       They entered the dark mines—Milo went much further in than his young companion. The deepest depths of the mine were treacherous and less stable.

       Manny was amongst the rubble of a dynamite explosion when he felt the ground quake beneath him—more dynamite work. The boy smeared the sweat from his forehead on his dust-caked sleeve and shifted his crouching position.

       Less than a year earlier, when his father had died of lung disease caused by the subterranean dust and rugged conditions of the mine, Manny had become—at nine years of age—the man in his family.

       The boy brought his pick down, halving another stone. Holding the stone up to his dim headlight he prayed he would see the glint of a small green stone.

       Nothing.

       Manny heard shouting and scurried out of his branch of the tunnel.

       A miner hurried up a ladder, then fell to his knees and hacked up dust until tears ran through the corners of his eyes. Wisps of dust tendrilled out of the tight tunnel from which the miner had come.

       “What is it?” Manny asked.

       “Muy mal. Very bad.” The man turned to Manny, his eyes glittering. “A collapse. Not good. Milo was down there.”

       “Milo?” Manny asked. Tears started to slip down his cheeks. “Jesus, oh Jesus, please help them.”

       “You have a big heart for un hermanito.” The man said, turned around, and watched the dust slowly follow him up. “We need to move or else the dust will catch us.”

       “What if they aren’t dead? What if the collapse just trapped them?” Manny inquired.

       “We’ll find out later. There is nothing to do but wait for the dust to settle.”

       “Jesus will help me, amigo,” Manny said, wiping away his grimy tears and following the man.

       After waiting two days for the clouds of dust to dissipate, Manny and his fellow miners surveyed the damage done to the narrow tunnels. They found the rubble that marked the collapse—tons of stone and snapped wooden supports piled up against the passageway. But beyond that blockage… perhaps Milo and the other miners lived yet.

       The Columbians began to debate whether or not the collapse was limited to just what they were seeing and drew to the conclusion that perhaps it was a very small amount of the mine that caved in.

       With an attitude full of hope, they took to removing the rubble—a tedious process in which care was needed to avoid stirring up a storm of dust.

       Soon they had removed all the loose pieces to reveal a small dark crevice. It wasn’t big enough for anyone to fit though. Anyone but Manny.

       All eyes turned to him.

       Manny stared at the hole.

       Fear rose like bile in his throat. Then he remembered a verse that he had learned in Iglesias last Domingo, a verse that Milo himself had said was his favorite verse in the entire Santa Biblia.

       Those who wait upon the LORD shall mount up with wings like eagles.

       Manny dropped to his knees outside the squeeze. “I will go.”

       A miner, eyes red, put a hand on Manny’s shoulder. “You do not have to do that—you may die.”

       “God will be with me. If Milo is alive, I want to save him. It’s a tight squeeze—but if joy lies beyond it, I will look for it.”

       The miner’s smile revealed his black teeth. “You have a big heart, being such a small chico.”

       Manny put his arms into the hole, got onto his stomach, and started to wiggle forward.

       The men behind him cheered.

       He wormed forward, his light barely piercing the darkness ahead of him, and he wondered how far or how long this little crack would last.

       The crevice grew smaller as he went on, the light of the miners fading behind him. Manny pressed his body into the bowels of the mountain and pushed along with his feet. His head got through but his shoulders stuck.

       With the coils of the rock around him, Manny felt panic set in.

       “I will mount up on wings like eagles.” He grunted and set his feet on the stone. With a final push, he made it out of the clutches of the mountain.

       And then, the tunnel was clear again—open as if there was no collapse. He carefully pulled himself from the small orifice and followed the tunnel that dug deeper into the mountain. He was filled with excitement. Milo and his team might be very close to him now.

       His jubilance was quickly cut short by more evidence of the cave-in. But there was more than that. The tunnel split off three different ways; Manny didn’t know which tunnel was Milo’s.

       All hope he had was gone completely. There would be no time to dig all of the tunnels out. If Milo was alive, it would take all Manny had to get him out—and he couldn’t afford any mistakes.

       There, beneath the Columbian mountain, the chico curled up, crying and praying.

       “God? Jesus? Will you help me? I love Milo. He told me where to find you, God. But the mountain has taken him, and I don’t know which tunnel is his.”

       After some time passed, Manny stirred and looked again at the impossible barricades that lay against the tunnels, letting his light pass over each, one at a time.

       And then he found something he’d missed before. Carved in the stone beside the tunnel to the right, wings spread wide, eyes clear and piercing was a bird. It was an eagle. And beneath the strong talons, etched in the stone, were the words ‘with wings like eagles.’

       Milo’s tunnel! He had marked it with his favorite verse.

       With sudden fury, Manny attacked the pile of stones that blocked that entrance.

       Pain and exhaustion grew to be an afterthought as the small, bent child worked for hours without ceasing. Eventually, the pile of rocks flattened out, and Manny found himself clawing like an animal at the top of the pile close to the top of the small tunnel, throwing stones behind him.

       “Milo!” He called into the darkness when he broke through. “Milo!”

       No response.

       “It’s me, Manny!”

       But still, nothing came from within.

       Manny felt tears begin to fall from his eyes again. He shoveled more and more rocks out of the way until he could twist through. He pulled his gaunt and dusty body over the pile of debris and yelled into the cave. 

       “Manny?” A voice came from the darkness.

       Manny scurried forward. “Milo?”

       A man—not Milo—came into the light, his eyes wearied and strained. The chalky dust on his forehead was streaked with sweat and his pupils were wide.

       “Little Manny?” The man laughed in joy. “I am saved!”

       “Is there anyone else here? Where is Milo?”

       The man sobered. “Yes, yes. Come. Come.”

       The two scampered along the tunnels until they came to another part that had also caved in. Most of the mining team was there, looking starved and desperate, lights dim and growing dimmer and there was Milo, with his lower body pinned under a pile of rocks. The men, all growing weak, were pulling at the confining rocks with what energy they had left.

       “Milo!”

       The man’s weary eyes looked up and all the men turned to see Manny. Raucous yells of joy rang out from among the group. “We’re saved! It’s Manny! Whoo-hoo!”

       Manny ran to Milo and took his hand. “God saved you!”

       He hugged his friend.

       With Manny’s help, the miners managed to uncover the rest of Milo’s body. Dragging him forward, they propped him up against a wall.

       “I have to go get some supplies,” Manny said and then began to explain their predicament. “There is no way for you to get out. It is a small crack, only big enough for me. But there is much hope. We will dig you out.”

       Manny left the group there and retraced his steps back to the others. After the last squeeze, he relayed the good news to the elated miners, and, an hour later, he was back with supplies for the starved miners.

       After he ate and drank, Milo pulled Manny close to him and whispered in his ear.

       “We almost died.” He said, tears forming in the wrinkled corners of his eyes. “And I almost gave up hope. And then God told me that you would come. I held onto that hope when the pain was the worst because I knew that I had to see you again. Look what I have found.” Milo, in the glow of his headlight, opened his knotted fingers—white with dust—and revealed an uncut hunk of emerald. “I had to give this to you.”

       Manny took the green stone into his hands, staring in unbelief. “You… you have saved me and my family.”

       “And you have saved me.” Milo smiled. “You are my little emerald in the dust.”

       Manny hugged the man.

       “Just remember, little one—because there are mines, we have emeralds.”