Saltwater in the Bluegrass (2 page)

The thought of catching his breath was futile. He momentarily lost consciousness. Moments later he woke, not knowing where he was, why he was there, or what had actually happened.

Lamar tried to breath, trying to pull air into his lungs. He pressed the fabric of his shirt sleeve against his face, trying to filter out the dust and the debris. Small amounts of air seeped through the tattered fabric, but not enough to bring relief. It was useless. Everything he tried was useless.

For the first time in his life he felt uncertainty. He was scared. He began to feel his own loss. Again, what had happened? Then, for only a moment, his willpower pulled him back to the present. He tried once again to gather his thoughts and make sense of what had taken place. He had a moment of clarity, maybe two, maybe three. Then, as before, his thoughts faded.

Lamar tried to listen for anything. He tried to determine the cause, the reason, for any sound he heard through the ringing in his ears. What were the people on the outside doing? What were they trying?

Were they organized? Did they have a plan? Were others coming from the villages to help? He didn’t know. He could only wait and wonder.

By now the rescuers on the outside should be using equipment to move the stone and dirt. They should be bracing columns, moving rubble, searching for bodies, and trying to get air into the cave. Had the rescuers reached any bodies? Had anyone been saved? Were the people the rescuers were finding alive? Lamar’s thoughts began to fade. He didn’t know what to do.

Wait, did he hear something?

It was impossible for Lamar to hear past the constant ringing in his ears. Had he heard screams of other miners who had also been trapped? How many were dead? How many had been trapped? How many were lying no more than a few feet away? The silence was deafening. Lamar was unable to grasp, to process, to speculate, the magnitude of the ordeal. It had all happened too fast. Now he wondered how long had he been here, how long had it been. As long as Lamar remembered, he had always been the one in control. He had always been in charge of his life and his surroundings, but not now. Now he was being controlled. Now he was utterly defenseless. Now he was lost and powerless. Now he was furious.

Cold, wet, and desperate, he waited, shivering and sinking deeper into the darkness of the collapsed tunnel. Eleven hours had already passed on the outside. On the inside, it felt like days. Lamar fought to hold back his emotions. Tears rolled down his worn face. He knew he was dying.

Lamar once again tried to gasp for any quantity of cool, clean air, any air that might work its way down his throat and into his collapsing lungs, any air that might give him a momentary stay during his lingering demise.

“Air, that’s all I need,” broke the silence. The words suddenly escaped his dried and parched lips. It made a low, echoing sound that bounced off the walls of the dark narrow passageway.

“Help,” would be his final cry, but no one would hear his words. No one would hear his cries. No one would know the agony he felt or the torment his body was going through, no one except those who had also been buried alongside him. Slowly, his thoughts took over. He once again tried to move his limbs and inch his trapped and battered body along what only his mind could see. Time and again he tried to pull his lower body away from the numbness he could not feel, the numbness of his once strong, muscular legs that were now nothing more than broken and splintered pieces cased within the frayed material of his pant legs. The weight of buried rocks and broken timbers lay upon his body, holding him down. The debris had somehow become a part of him.

As before, in the many other attempts he had made to free himself, the overwhelming pain was more than his will was able to endure. Again he collapsed. Time, exhaustion, and delusion would soon overcome any hope he had, and his eyes would close, never to open again.

His body had become only a hollow reminder of the shell that had once held the spirit of a great man. How ironic that the wooded column his crippled body laid against, the very same column, would later become the centerpiece, the tombstone, to mark his final legacy. It would be a factory-produced number three lumber-milled corner bracing post stamped Ingram Enterprises, 1977.

Thirty-two hours after Lamar Ingram gasped his last plea for help, the rescuers broke through the last wall of dirt and stone and took his body to the surface.

Brazilian radio and TV
stations interrupted their local and national programming and began reporting the tragedy of the explosion within minutes of its occurrence. Shock waves were reported as far as fifty miles away.
Cries of pain and sorrow were being heard and felt. They were ringing out through all the small towns in the surrounding areas.

The spread of information moved quickly as people felt the movement from the blast, saw the billowing of dark smoke lingering in the morning sky, and then heard the news as it traveled along the airways and by word of mouth.

Family members worried about their loved ones. Locals worried about their friends, about the possibility of how many others had been injured or even killed. No one yet knew if there were survivors. No one yet knew the cause of the explosion or if there would be another explosion to follow.

On stations throughout the country the words “explodiu,”

“explosão,” and “morto” at the “Minas Ingram” were running across the airways.

Within hours of the explosion, reports were coming in from all across the national wire, and the United States had even started reporting the incident on CNN. By eleven-thirty a.m., each of the four major television stations in Louisville, Kentucky had interrupted local programming and were running the story and piecing together any available information.

“Breaking news just in, Former Lieutenant Governor Lamar Alex Ingram is missing and presumed dead. Details are still sketchy, but sources confirm that earlier today an explosion rocked the small mining town of Porto Alegre, Brazil.

“Early reports state that Lamar Alex Ingram, owner of Louisvillebased Ingram Industries, was in Porto Alegre today touring the three mining operations that are owned and operated by his company. Apparently the explosion was inside the number two mine which is one of the largest gold mining operations by today’s standards anywhere in the world.

“Sources say Lamar Ingram was standing some five hundred feet inside the entrance of the mine waiting to begin a tour of the facility when the explosion occurred. Witnesses say the explosion was possibly caused by the release of propane gas in the area.

“Details are still coming in, but as many as twenty workers are missing and at this time they are all presumed dead.

“No comment yet from the Ingram family. Sources close to the family say they have pulled together in this time of need, and a representative of the company will give more details of the incident at a press conference at six-thirty this evening.

“We now return you to your local programming.”

Thomas Chandler, senior
vice president of Ingram Enterprises, Atlanta Division—Tommy to most of his close office friends and old fraternity buddies—had been at the Third Street Number One Tower office in Atlanta since early morning.

Most days started around five-thirty and went until late in the evening.

His initial plans for the day were to finish up some last minute changes on a client’s contracts, take lunch with his wife, and then meet buddies at the Stone Mountain Country Club somewhere around three in the afternoon to play a round of golf and drink the evening away.

Two-dollar Nassau, dollar birdies, and sugars were the usual bets made at the club. Tommy had played golf in college and could pretty much hold his own against anyone at the club. He had won the club championship two out of the first three years after joining. Nowadays he found his game slipping away, though. His excuses when asked were simple; it was due to his lack of play and the fact that his eyesight was changing. Judging distance was getting harder to deal with. Even so, he loved the game and intended to get the twenty dollars back he had lost during last week’s round.

It was approximately one-fifteen when Thomas returned to the office after eating lunch with his wife, Elle, their oldest daughter, Vicky, and her husband, Steve.

Vicky and Steve had flown in from Louisville earlier in the morning to help with the preparations for Thomas and Elle’s anniversary party. It was their fortieth. The party was planned for the upcoming weekend, and Thomas and Elle’s two other children were scheduled to fly into town on Friday morning for Saturday’s party. Both were nearly grown. Their son was away attending school at the University of Kentucky, working on his masters in finance, and their younger daughter was vacationing in Palm Beach, working on her tan and practicing her shopping skills.

Thomas began to finish up for the day, redefining the inconsequential crap that still needed to be done. A small stack of files lay on his desk, needing signatures. He took care of what he could, as fast as he could, reinforcing his point, and palmed off as much of the tedious work as possible to his three secretaries. It was just after two in the afternoon when the first call came in, bringing Thomas’s day to a halt: it was the news about Lamar Ingram. Dusty Freedman, one of two superintendents at the Porto Alegre mines had made the necessary call. Details of the explosion were still sketchy in the field, and Dusty promised to call Thomas back as soon as he had more news. Suddenly, Thomas’s golf game didn’t seem so important. It could be rescheduled. His party could be rescheduled. His mind traveled back to the last time he had seen Lamar. The thought of not knowing what had actually taken place made him sick to his stomach. He leaned back in his chair, his tie undone and his face expressionless, trying his best to concentrate on the folder of information placed in front of him by his assistant. He still had to do his job, more now than ever. The company would be counting on him. At this very moment it all felt meaningless. E-mails, faxes, television news reports, and radio announcements were all starting to permeate the airways. He glanced at his notes, and to calm himself he tried to think of his children coming into town.

Thomas had finally, after several attempts, reached Lamar’s office in Louisville and spoken with Lamar’s secretary. Several more hours passed before Thomas and four of the other six partners, his colleagues, knew that Lamar Ingram had apparently died from the explosion.

It was now going on six o’clock, and darkness was starting to fall on Atlanta.

In the past three hours the phones had rung off the hook. Families, friends and news reporters continued to call. It was six-thirty when Thomas finally received the call he had most dreaded getting. It was Lamar Jr.

“Tommy,” then there was a sudden quietness that ran through the phone. Thomas noticed it immediately, the pain palpable, so much so that it was hard to speak.

“Hey, boy, I was thinking about you.”

“Yeah, me too, Tommy,” Lamar Jr. said.

“The news has hit me hard. How’re you doing, you ok?”

“Not good, Tommy,” Lamar Jr. said, his voice was low, cracking, expressing a sadness and anxiety Thomas had not heard in several years, not since Lamar Jr.’s mother had died. “So you’ve heard about dad and the accident at the mine?”

“A few hours ago,” Thomas said. “The news spread fast.”

“Tommy, how could this have happened? I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense, none of it.”

“I know, boy, none of it makes sense to me either. I’m so sorry. I’m sick about it, the whole thing. I don’t know what to say or do or how to help.”

Suddenly there was an awkward moment of silence. Both men were preoccupied, taken by the information they were each trying to absorb.

“Anyway, what can I do to help, is there anything?” Tommy asked, choosing his words carefully, trying not to cause any additional pain to his oldest friend’s son.

“There’s nothing anyone can do. I just wanted to talk, see what you had heard. I thought that it might help. I don’t know. I was thinking about dad and you and me.”

“I totally understand. I’m glad you called. I don’t know what to think or how to respond to the news. It just happened; some things just happen,” Tommy’s throat tightened. He closed his eye, gripping the phone receiver and pulling it closer to his face. He had to keep his emotions together, if only for Lamar Jr.’s sake. Staring at the wall he tried to focus. “Some things just don’t make sense. This doesn’t make sense, none of it.”

“I know,” Lamar Jr. said.

“It’s got me torn up inside. How did you hear about it?” Thomas asked.

“Aunt Katherine called me.”

“She did?”

“I was at home earlier this afternoon getting ready to leave. I needed to run some errands.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She told me what she knew, and then a few minutes later, I saw it on the TV when it came over the television in a news report. The phones started ringing, off the hook and they haven’t stopped since the word got out, people, family, wanting to know if we had anymore information.”

“Everybody’s interested.”

“One reporter wanted to know how I felt when I heard the news. I wanted to slam the phone down in his face. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Same here,” Thomas said.

“How about you, Tommy? How did you find out? Was it on a newscast down there in Atlanta?”

“No, I got a phone call. I talked with Dusty Freedman earlier. He’s down at the site where your dad was.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me about the explosion. He confirmed that all the details were still sketchy, and that he was still piecing things together when he called.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Me neither.”

“Why was dad down there anyway? I just talked with him a couple of days ago; he didn’t mention anything about going to Brazil, not now, not this early in the year.”

“It’s got me puzzled also.”

“We were supposed to play golf at the club this weekend. We had plans. I don’t understand. Why was he even there?” Lamar Jr. asked again.

“Tell you the truth, he didn’t mention it to me either,” Thomas said.