All in the mine, parts 1 to 3

pickarooney

Potosí was grim, like Middlesbrough with llamas, Liam imagined. Sprawling higgledy-piggledy on the hills, the city was said to be the world's highest, formerly South America's richest and Bolivia's most populous.

Despite the accolades, the town had the charm and appeal of a sexagenarian in suspenders. Wretchedly cold and unrelentingly grey, it was a lugubrious slag-heap of a town which even the birds seemed to have abandoned while flightless animals of no such fortune lingered behind. Of the human population, only miners and their mine widows remained, still hacking and tearing at the carcass of the silver hillside long after the mine's veins had bled the last of their argentine wealth. The houses of Potosí followed a depressing pattern of ornate brickwork topped off with corrugated iron roofs. The people, gold-toothed and threadbare, pumped brown water from embossed bronze fountains and trudged along footpaths where every second flagstone had not been laid.

"Ah, UNESCO, is there any ****-heap backwater you won't classify as a world heritage site?" wondered Roderick aloud, hammering a loose cobble into place with the heel of a size fifteen.

Around the lopsided square beside the water pump, a small boy threw a stick for a disinterested dog. When the pooch finally resigned completely and lay down to sleep away another empty hour, the child took to hitting him with the stick instead. The beast did not seem bothered by the violence inflicted on him, as though thankful for a breach in the monotony of the ashen afternoon. He cocked a floppy chocolate and cream ear and stared silently at his tiny aggressor.

"Here's one", said Liam with half a heart, reading the hand-painted sign outside a small shop, "Guillermo's Turs."

A small figure shuffled back and forth across the shop floor, moving piles of blue cardboard boxes from one corner to the other then moving the same boxes back across. Somebody had obviously told him to look busy.

His eyes, small and close together, were all but obscured by an overhanging forehead at the base of which a gigantic caterpillar of thick, brown hair wriggled across his head. Wiry tufts of black sprang from his cheekbones, like eyelashes fallen and gone to seed. His nose, a purplish-brown organ, was short and pointed and lined with a thick, ursine fur. He had probably been clean-shaven some hours prior but the nascent sprouts of a dark beard were already pushing, almost perceptibly, through the weathered skin of his face. His lower lip was obscured by an overbite of aristocratic dimensions and his chin had long since collapsed into the black, bristling forest of his neck, like a Guatemalan village into a mudslide.

"Hi, we'd like to..." began Roderick. The hairy humanoid shook his head. "Quisiera hacer un tur de la mina, vale?"
Again, a head-shake, this time with added conviction. Looking towards a small exit at the back of the badly-lit room, hung with red and yellow beads like a vertical Spanish flag, the figure grunted. A gruff shout came in response, followed by a portly figure bursting through the bead curtain. The owner, Guillermo Valenzuela, shook their hands warmly in a powerful, fleshy mitt and invited them to sit. There were no chairs in evidence.

"Chuy, traeme dos asientos porfa!" he barked at the man-boy, hustling him off in search of a pair of stools.

The mute's name was Chuy, explained his boss, and his speechlessness a result of lung complications from his time as a servant in the earth's chambers. While the visitors took their seats, Guillermo rearranged his desk by way of a brusque sweep of a massive forearm. He picked up and scrutinised a series of pamphlets, alternately frowning at them and tossing them over his shoulder, finally settling on one. The torn, coffee-ringed booklet bore the name of the mountain – Cerro Rico – and a crude drawing of labouring miners, entitled, in English, "The Mountain That Eats Men".

He talked them through a brief history of the town and the mine. He told them of the glory days when Potosí rivalled London and Paris in size and splendour and of the dark hours of the pit's nadir, when up to eight million slave workers perished in the shaft. He explained the cooperative policy of the current exploitation and politely informed them that he didn't give an airborne **** if they chose his company or not.

He refused to give a spiel expounding the singular merits of his tour operation. It was Chuy and him and eight dollars a head, take it or leave it, trip starting at eight in the miners' market.

Liam instantly warmed to him. The adventurers signed up and sealed the agreement with a round of shots of gut-stripper rum. Feeling instantly warmed for the second time in as many minutes, Liam's opinion of the icy, hostile town began to thaw. Roderick slyly passed his cup behind his back to the eager Chuy, who polished the rum off with a slaver.
"You must buy all of these things", said Guillermo, screwing the bottle-lid loosely back on and tossing a scribbled list across his desk. "You'll get them in the market."

Night had fallen while the boys were in Guillermo's and they found themselves in pitch darkness as he locked up and switched off behind them. Liam could feel ice crystals form in his bronchi as he breathed the night air.

It was the strangest shopping list either of them had ever seen - cigarettes, coca leaves, banana pulp, alcohol and dynamite.
"It's like a DIY 4th of July", observed Liam. "What's the equivalent in Canada, by the way?"
Roderick snorted. "We just celebrate the 3rd."
"Of July? What's it represent?"
"Nothin'. We just do it to piss off the Upper Mexicans. They hate being second."

The two men sourced the coca without too much trouble. Not knowing how much of the little, oval leaves they might need, the two subterranean neophytes erred on the side of generosity in the shape of a 500g bag each. They also purchased a couple of bottles of mid-price rum and an earthen container of what purported to be whiskey. The shopkeeper, a woman of indeterminate age with a scowl that could curdle mare's milk, frowned at them, wrinkling her rubbery face still more until her features almost completely disappeared. Holding up a bottle of what appeared to be generic-brand drain-cleaner, she clacked her tongue at them.

"What's that about?" asked Liam.
Roderick shrugged and snatched the bottle from the woman's hand.
"Pure alcohol. What is this for, sterilising wounds or..."
He expanded on his shrug, question-marking his entire upper-body at the woman. The final traces of facial traits vanished into that puckered grimace. Jerking her thumb towards where her lips had been a minute before, she made the international sign for "to get pissed with, moron".

"Is she serious? They actually drink this... this... ****, man, this is hardcore."
"I have an uncle who would love it here", said Liam, unscrewing the plastic cap and sniffing the transparent hooch. The woman handed him a second bottle. She seemed to know what she was doing.
"What's this banana crap we have to buy?" queried Roderick, perusing the crumpled list.
"Oh, that's a catalyst for the coca leaves. They're kind of useless without it. I'm pretty sure she put some in. Look." Liam pulled a cube of sticky, black mulch out of his bag.
"The bitch!" shouted Roderick, looking through his own sack. "That **** put stones in mine to make it weigh more... and there's no black banana crap."
"That's not a stone, it's llijta, another type of catalyst. Look, you chew it", said Liam, cracking an edge off with his incisors and stuffing a pinch of leaves into his mouth. He winced as the bitter, alkaline powder dried up his mouth before the first dribble of antiseptic, green juice bled out of the coca.
"Hey, did you bring a camera", asked Liam, spying a photo op in the form of the silvery dome of the mountain shimmering above the galvanised iron roofs.
"Nah, man, I left it in my pack, back at the hostel. You?"
Liam shook his head. "I lost mine a couple of weeks back. Pity..."

They didn't have to search far for cigarettes. The tienda next door was selling ******s of stumpy, fat rolls of pure, black tobacco hand-rolled into irregular cylinders, along with several types of combustive compounds. The dynamite came in two tubes of green jelly with a five-metre slow-burn fuse and a small sack of white balls that looked like packing polystyrene.

"This doesn't mention food at all... should we get some chocolate or bread or... what do these ****ers eat?"
Roderick scrunched up the list and drop-kicked it down the street.
"Can't do any harm. Hey, it's the guy, we can ask him."
Guillermo approached them at a brisk pace and seized Liam's shoulder in a vice-hold, cracking a broad smile and two knuckles as he gripped the Irishman's hand. Happy with their purchases and a little amused by the last-minute addition of a bottle of fruit juice to the goodie-bag, he led them to his pickup. Chuy sat waiting in the passenger seat, drumming his hirsute fingers on the door and making tough-guy faces in the wing mirror. On hearing his boss whistle, the youngster hopped out of the cabin and climbed into the trailer. A little put off by the hierarchical discrimination, Liam held his tongue as his co-passenger yelled 'Shotgun!'

Antilles

I read all the way to the end, and then thought "Pickarooney, you a**hole!" Then I looked up to the title again, and realised it was only Part 1

Great work, as always.

pickarooney

part 2

"Mina La Negra. Abierto 27th of March 1988. Plata y zinc".
Liam read the inscription on the swinging wooden sign at the mine entrance. A cool breeze had risen but the morning was bright with an enormous sun floating in the denim sky. He took a sip of whiskey and wandered over to where a group of workers stood chatting and laughing. The smallest of the group, named Hector and apparently Chuy's cousin, offered him a cigarette. Liam shook his head and offered one in return.

"For you. Son para ustedes."

Hector took two, tucking them inside his loose-fitting helmet. He also graciously accepted half the small bottle of cognac Liam passed his way, choosing to share it with his colleagues only under duress.

The young men, wiry youths in grey bomber jackets and knobbly rubber boots, ranged in age from fourteen to thirty-one, many of them a few short years from death. Theirs was not a soft life, nor were the rewards for their travails great. In contrast, their rock-star attitude to hard-living and harder partying was refreshing. Though the mine would eventually kill them all, through falling debris, silicosis, cirrhosis or carelessly-handled explosives, the miners didn't seem unduly preoccupied by their short futures. It was a job, and the money was good. They counted their blessings rather than their woes.

"Whoah, check it out Liam, it's a ****ing bomb! I don't believe this ****!"

Roderick was bent over like a carpenter's workbench, eyes glued to what Guillermo was doing. Sensing excitement in the offing, Liam passed the whiskey flask clockwise and jogged over to the earthen ridge where the husky Bolivian was arming the bang-jelly. The polystyrene balls came into play now. Pushing the fuse into one end of the pliable green tube, Guillermo placed this end into a small, green, plastic bag filled with the white pellets of ammonium nitrate. Wrapping a pinch of cordite in a strip of aluminium foil and clamping it onto the other end, he stood and inspected his work.

"Take this", he said to Roderick, passing the bag to his left hand and the fuse to his right.

Taking a Zippo from his jacket pocket, he flicked the lighter open with a snap of his wrist and touched the flame to the tip, producing a halo of sparks around the end of the white wire. As Roderick stood, transfixed, Guillermo lit a chubby cigarette and regarded him pensively through one eye, slowly exhaling smoke towards him. Glancing at his watch, he turned and strolled away, leaving the Canadian to deal with the dynamite.

Liam at first assumed that this was a practical joke and didn't wish to be the one to spoil the miners' fun. On the other hand, he thought, as he retreated alongside the guide, there was clearly no love for spoilt, white boys amongst these men, there was nobody of note within earshot and the fuse was suddenly looking very short. As he was about to call out for them to stop their tasteless charade, a brainwave struck Roderick. Snapping out of his state of paralysis, he gently lowered the bag and fuse to the earth, took a step to the side and ran like a whippet on stanozolol in the direction of the small, wooden clubhouse outside which Liam and Guillermo stood watching.

Nobody moved for a very quiet minute. Slowly, it dawned on the two visitors that the scene was a tidy little hoax cobbled together by their hosts to put the wind up them. It was cute; they even had the shopkeepers selling the gringos tubes of modelling clay and packing foam in lieu of high-powered explosives.

As Roderick reached the door of the hut, the earth erupted ten metres behind him. Although too far away to feel the force of the blast, he fell forward as his legs gave way in shock.

"****ing cock****", barked Roderick, rolling onto his back. "I ****ing missed it. Ass. Triple bitch-bastarding monkey's ass. How cool was it?"
"Pretty damn cool", assessed Liam. "Possibly the coolest thing I've seen all year", he smirked, offering his companion a hand up.
"Well, all's I can say is thank **** for yellow waterproof pants..."

Liam had been to Finland once. Its wide, empty spaces and endless forests still ranked among the most placid sights he'd seen on his travels, but above all his lasting memory of Vaalajärvi was the intense shock of dashing out of a log-cabin sauna and diving headlong into the midwinter snow. His first minute in La Negra was as different an experience as he could imagine. From the finger-blacking cold of the mine's mouth they dropped, almost vertically, into a roasting tunnel, barely wider than a fit man's body and dark as Bolivia's economic future.

Guillermo whistled the way forward as they crab-stepped behind him, the beams of their Davy lamps bouncing off the claustrophobic walls and low ceilings. Chuy took the rear, the sound of his footsteps barely registering as his boots instinctively navigated every bump and protuberance on the tunnel floor. As they went down, the temperature rose – edging past forty, nudging fifty as the prick of light from the mine entrance disappeared completely behind them.

Guillermo stopped abruptly and motioned to the boys to gather around him. His lamp focussed on a small, golden-coloured object on a stone plinth, festooned with brightly-coloured boas of raffia paper. The object was a statue of Jesus Christ, respected representative of the Bolivians' official superterranean faith. Their guide duly led the tourists in saying a few words and drinking a toast in His honour. Yet even at the altar of the Son of God himself, the Earth Mother took precedence as each toaster offered two drops to the floor before lashing back a beaker of potable, slightly tainted with a lick of jugo de naranjilla - green orange juice. Liam choked back the caustic liquid silently. Roderick, for his part, screeched hoarsely as his body attempted to expel what his pride was forcing down. Chuy, in a display of ecclesiastical zealotry, offered a second prayer.

As the quartet manoeuvred into the mine proper, the din of manual labour grew louder. The high, glockenspiel clink of hammer and chisel and the low, grating rumble of loaded hand-carts trundling along tracks warped by time and wear resonated about the cavern.

Upon squeezing, arms aloft, into an opening the size of a walk-in wardrobe their eyes adjusted slowly to a scene part Indiana Jones, part Snow White. Small figures, coated head to toe in a dull film of silvery black, swung hammers and picks, pushed tonne-weight trolleys and loaded up box-carts with piles upon piles of mostly useless rock.

From beneath them, a blast echoed, sending a thick billow of noxious smoke up into the room. The men – barely boys for the most part – sang and swore as they hacked and heaved, their throats sucking poison, their backs breaking under the constant strain, barely noticing the gringos' arrival.

Guillermo nodded. Liam stretched out a hand, proffering a packet of smokes and a bag of coca to the general work area. A shape, discernible only as two small circles of white, accepted his gift with a grunt, popped a tab in his mouth and stashed the leaves, returning wordlessly to his labour. The big guide shuffled through the debris and led them to another tiny exit and into a tunnel so low they had to drop to all fours to wriggle their way along the passage.

At the end of it, in an alcove large enough to stand six, a naked, lipstick-red ogre sat in attendance, his huge, malevolent eyes open wide, lips peeled back in a malicious grin, his jutting, goateed chin challenging them to step closer. His enormous razor teeth clasped a pair of thick cigarettes. A goblet of firewater sat in each hand and a third was balanced atop his immense, horned head. Coca leaves were scattered at his cloven hooves and in his lap, centred on an erection the size of a fire-hydrant. This was Tio and the mine was his domain.

pickarooney

part 3

In the underworld, the Christian God had but nominal jurisdiction. All that lived and breathed and laboured beneath the soil of Potosí was under the de facto control of the devil Tio, he who watched over and protected, when the mood struck him, granting wishes in the form of silver streaks amongst the endless, useless rubble of the rock-face, dealing death and eating souls when his humour was less altruistic. Since the mine had been privatised and purchased by the mining cooperatives, the workers' only true boss was the seated fiend.

"The devil?" queried Roderick, in a seen-it-all-now drawl.
"Or just a miner demon", quipped Liam, no less impressed by the heathen colossus.
"So what, they own the mine now? All the silver and **** they pull out of here goes straight into their pockets? I don't feel quite so bad for them now!" said Roderick, paraphrasing the explanation Guillermo had just given regarding the lifestyle changes brought about by successive governments repeatedly washing their grubby hands of the country's natural resources.
"Yeah, except that they can't just walk into a jeweller's and hand over lumps of silver in exchange for a thousand dollars. There's ****-all useful minerals left here and they're forced to sell what they get to the cooperatives, who give them ridiculous sums for the ore. Like he said, they were way better off when they worked for a wage. They even had health benefits and a pension. Course, they still died at 40, so that was shag-all use to them..." Liam was a tad less utopian in his appraisal.

"Guillermo, amigo, cuánto ganan por mes aquí, los chicos?" inquired Roderick, thumbing his fingertips.
Guillermo snorted. "Como cincuenta dólares, no más"
"Hunh? He did understand 'how much per month' yeah?" Roderick double-checked with Liam.
The latter nodded. "Yup, told you man, it's a complete rip-off."
"And then you die horribly and let your sons take over... nice. Uh, remind me not so sign up for a job here, no matter how much they make us drink."
Chuy handed him a glass of transparent liquid with a wink.
"To the Pachamama!" exclaimed Roderick, chucking half his booze on the floor.
Guillermo pulled out his Zippo, lit a candle by the devil's side and fired up a ciggie. All three silently followed suit, taking long, slow puffs of the gnarled smokes. From time to time they heard a warning shout and the patter of feet before the shaft reverberated to the sound of another detonation.
As they sat and smoked and filled their raw cheeks with ball after ball of crushed coca, they discussed the mine, remade the world, expressed outrage at political incompetence, shame at their ancestors' participation in the atrocity of the mine's dark history, sickening guilt by association, heartfelt willingness to make amends and hope that one day things would change. Although it was too late even for the youngest of the boys here, as evidenced by the constant coughing and wheezing in the chambers above them, their hope outlived them all – hope that one day some among them, their sons or the sons of their sons could afford to educate and liberate themselves from the zinc shackles of Cerro Rico.

Roderick stood, unsteadily, and indicated that his bladder had taken all the abuse it could for the time being. Stepping out of the alcove, he stumbled towards a small niche in the wall to alleviate the pressure. From where they were sitting, the bilingual exchange of curses which accompanied the groan of a passing ore-cart told them he'd forgotten to check both ways before crossing the track.
Chuy, Guillermo explained as the argument outside abated, had never had the opportunity or inclination to so much as learn to write his name. Patting the kid affectionately on the shoulder, he proudly told the Irishman how not only could he now write as well as Guillermo himself, but he had discovered a talent and a passion for painting. Although he had spent his childhood largely in the dark and had grown up surrounded by browns and blacks and greys, his artwork was filled with vigorous reds and hopeful yellows, great whorls of ambiguous green and dashes of bright blue.
Chuy painted animals and birds with the childlike enthusiasm of a freed prisoner, a first-time visitor to the outside world, seeing these simple creatures as though through virgin eyes. Hearing the big man rave about his protégé's prowess, Liam was touched. One question nagged him throughout, although he dared not voice it – "Why Chuy?" Of all the lost boys in these pits of despair, what made him choose this silent adolescent to save? Finally, he decided that it was not important. What mattered was that, for all his macho posturing and gruff demeanour, Guillermo was a good man. Of good men like him there was a great need and a serious shortage. For every Chuy released from a death-sentence in Tio's kingdom, dozens more stayed there until the painful end. Humbled, moved, intoxicated, Liam felt, for once in his life, the urge to do good for his fellow man. The very next day, he would make a plan of positive action and bring it to fruition. Quite what he would do, he did not know, but the following morning would mark a new beginning. Right now, he felt himself begin to shake and would very shortly need to vomit.

Another shout, another explosion, another shot poured and chugged. In the dark, broiling abyss, time had lost all sense. Liam wasn't sure if minutes, hours or days had passed since they had entered La Negra and begun their campaign of reform through potable-fuelled dialogue. The shouts above, in high-toned Quechua, continued after the blast had cleared. Rather than subside, they seemed to grow in volume and number. Guillermo, himself no longer clear and sober as the morning snow, held a finger to his lips. Probably an argument about the direction of the blast, he said, dismissing the tumult above. It happened all the time – someone would hack lazily into the cave wall, leaving too small a crevice for the dynamite and causing the explosion to drive the rock-shards out instead of splitting the wall itself. It was of no importance. Right now he was on a verbal crusade to right the social ills caused by the previous administration, vowing to walk to La Paz and wring Evo Morales' neck if he didn't come through with his pre-electoral promises.

Roderick opened one eye to complete darkness. He turned his head as far as he could, scraping his chin off the jagged floor. He saw only black. Something heavy weighed on his back and legs. An overpowering urge to sleep washed over him and, being a bit stuck for something more interesting to do, he closed his eyes again and let Somnus embrace him. He woke up again some time later to the sound of shouting. There now appeared to be a needle of light shining from above him, although he was not sure this luminescence was not of his own mind's doing. He shut his eyes, pinched himself and opened them again. The light was still there, brighter now than before. The wall appeared to be moving. Stone by jagged stone, the heap of rubble before him began to separate. Before long, there was a small hole and through it Roderick could see the white of a brown eye peering in at him. He tried to speak, but only managed a wheeze before passing out.

Somewhere in the sombre rodeo of his dreams Roderick felt a hand grab him, followed by a second. Coal was in his nose, in his mouth and throat, down his trouser-legs and in his boots. Pain ripped through him as strong arms yanked his useless body over the detritus, hauling him towards the relative safety of the workspace.
"He looks a bit ****ed", said a gravelly voice above him, succinctly.
The voice barked out orders in a strange language and Roderick felt his ankles lift off the floor as his body was flipped over. Through a slit in his eyelid he caught the mildly concerned face of Guillermo. The light was coming from the torch he was pointing at the Canadian's battered mug. The powerful arms bore him up through the steep and slippery channel and into the light grey of the early afternoon outside.
"Can you hear us, man? What's his name?" asked the guttural voice.
"Ehm, Rod-Roderick", stammered Liam, shocked at the sight of the long fellow's pummelled body.
"Roderick. This is David. Can you hear me? Roderick?"
A hazy representation of a human face came into partial focus. It was a round face, tanned, but not like the faces of the miners. David pulled off his helmet, freeing a bush of sandy curls.
"Is he all right? Do you think..." Liam asked anxiously.
David waved a hand non-committally. Kneeling, he took Roderick's pulse, squeezed up and down his arms and legs and flashed his head-lamp in the stricken giant's eyes.
"Wiggle your toes", he commanded.
Roderick's right boot budged slightly, making him wince in pain.
"Do you know where you are?"
Roderick tried to speak. There was a dry hiss and a small cloud of black dust seeped out between his bruised lips. He smiled weakly, crumpling his left hand up into an approximate fist and poking a thumb out.
"Are you in North America – blink once – or South America – blink twice?"
The question seemed to take a moment to register, but eventually Roderick's eyes flickered shut a couple of times.
"Brazil – once – or Bolivia – twice?"
Two blinks, faster this time.
"Potosí – once – or Santa Cruz – twice?"
His eyes snapped shut, opened and half shut again. Roderick shook his head gently, correcting his error and causing himself evident discomfort.
"Couple of broken bones, maybe a punctured lung, hard to say. Brain seems intact... considering he just walked head-first into an explosion. Lucky we were passing. I'm pretty sure those guys were gonna leave him there. Can't say I blame them", said David, shaking out the tangles in his beige mop.
It was quite an incredible head of hair, easily doubling the volume of his skull. The spring and bounce in it after a half-day's effort in the mines were nothing short of phenomenal. Liam had to force himself to tear his gaze away from David's copious mane and back to his prostrate tour-buddy. He wondered what he should do to make himself useful. Competent as this guy seemed, Liam doubted he had a plaster of Paris mix and a lung puncture repair kit on him.

"Ma le'azazel korhe itcha David?" yelled a voice from the mine mouth.
Liam had thought the hero of the hour was a Yank, or maybe a Canuck, but even Canadians didn't say stuff like 'azzil korich', to the best of his knowledge.
"Gringo blew himself up. Nothing to see here", grinned David, answering the two newcomers in English.
They exchanged a joke in their odd language. Tan, pudgy and Jesus-haired, the more expansive of the pair was Yair, an inveterate gum-flapper and practician of the darker comedic arts. His pale and skinny sidekick, who went by the name of Nolan, looked as though smiling or standing straight might be beyond the limits of his physical capacities. Hangdog and washed-out, he abstained from the jocular exchange in favour of downcast observance. Though lacking the imposing stance and no-bull**** manner of David, Yair had the hardened confidence of a trained up soldier about him. Nolan, as his companions never tired of reminding him, had never donned khaki, nor had he ever so much as lifted a gun in anger. His Hebrew was rudimentary and he seemed unable to follow anything but the most basic of conversations. As his colleagues openly mocked him, he looked almost enviously at Roderick. Everything about him screamed 'outsider', something he'd been for a long time, even before his parents had hauled him out of his Wisconsin high school on the morning after the Columbine massacre and put him on a one-way flight to Tel-Aviv. He'd spent the last four lonely years in Israel, safe from the barbarism of the American educational system.

"Where are you guys from?" asked Liam, out of genuine curiosity, but also to draw attention back to the prone collapse victim.
"Haifa, Israel", said David. His tone was cold, a little defensive, Liam felt.
"Cool. You a doctor or...?"
David shook his voluminous head. "Meh. Basic first aid, this."
"So, what happened?" asked Yair, stretching his arms back over his head and grabbing one hand with the other.
"Collapsed mine, collapsed gringo, collapsed lung", explained Liam succinctly.
"Don't think there's a major movement risk; best get him to a hospital ASAP", decided David.

Four of them took hold of various octopine appendages and gently raised Roderick into the rear of the pickup. Liam's contribution was somewhat cosmetic as the three larger men bore the heft of the wounded Canadian. They gathered what clothes and blankets they had and wrapped him as warmly as they could, tucking him into a corner of the trailer to limit his movements on the bumpy journey to Bracamonte hospital.
* * *
"Mi compañero no está todavía. Ha debido ir al ospedale. Vuelve solo despues de unas semanas. Le moleste si yo dejo su mochilla aqui?" Liam asked the bored hotel receptionist, outlining Roderick's plight and asking for dispensation to leave his backpack in storage until his return. For once, Liam had no plan for the immediate future. For now, he just needed to make the two-thirty bus out of Potosí and on to wherever the road would take him.