Frozen Fire

Another offering from a prompt based writing session - we had ten minutes to work off the two words and this, with a little tidying, is what resulted.

"Frozen Fire"

Harry Porter was missing again.  When his darts team lost the final they cursed him.  Clint wished upon him the grandfather of all hangovers as retribution for his dereliction.  When Harry wasn't at the Thursday night all-you-can-eat-for-ten-dollars buffet at the bowling club, his mates began to worry.

On Friday morning, tired, cranky, and almost sober, Clint, Joe, and Martin walked across the runway of the airstrip to the cluster of old claims on the south side of the ridge.  When they reached Harry's claim they found Snapper, his dog, chained to the front of the caravan.  Clint filled his empty water bowl and food dish while the others checked inside, and around the back.

"Not in the dunny, either" Joe called as he walked back from the outhouse, zipping up his fly.  It was Clint who spotted the open shaft, its rusty grating lying to one side of the dark hole.  Leaving a shaft open and unattended was a serious sin around the fields, as well as being a criminal offence.

The generator by the hole was cold, its fuel tank empty.  A heavy power cord ran from it into the darkness.  They found a neighbour with a car that worked, and sent for the rescue crew.  No one had bought a torch with them and none of them felt steady enough to be clambering down into the darkness.  They had called Harry's name a few times, but only Snapper answered.

Two hours later, the last of the fallen rock was lifted from Harry Porter's shoulders and back.  His hands were still clutching the largest piece of black opal that any of them had ever seen – a huge swirl of red and black fire, frozen in stone.  Harry had at last found what he'd searched for most of his adult life.