Across the gently rolling Illinois plains, Daniel saw him. Henry waded through the waves of grain that twisted around his waist as he walked through the fields. The boy lifted his head and breathed in the fresh country air, his cheeks tinged pink from the afternoon sun in a way that made his dark red hair stand out even more. The gentlest of smiles crept onto Henry’s lips, and Daniel let out a sigh he didn’t even know he was holding in. 
            The plants crunched beneath Daniel’s boots as he weaved a path towards Henry. His body floated on the thick, summer breeze. All at once, Daniel wanted to run to Henry, to shout his name and hold him and breathe him in, but he wanted to relish this moment, too. This simple, quiet, painfully beautiful moment where he didn’t feel like he had to say anything because everything was laid out before him. Daniel was home in every way he could imagine, from the vast fields of his family farm to the boy walking towards him. 
            There was a small patch of grass at the top of a small hill that the grain didn’t quite reach, and the two boys laid themselves out beneath the never-ending blue sky, boots off, trousers rolled up, sleeves pushed as high as they’d go to soak in as much of the June sun as possible. Daniel’s long legs stretched out and his toes brushed against the sparse stalks of grain nearby while Henry buried his feet in the tangles of dry, wild grass around his ankles. 
            At some point, Daniel considered how close they were. Close, but never quite touching. He so easily could have reached out and wound his fingers in Henry’s as they played with the grass just an arm’s length away. He could have turned and rested his forehead against Henry’s, could have tilted his chin up and ghosted his lips across the boy’s furrowed brow. He could have. 
            He could have done so many things, but maybe it was better this way. Daniel knew what could happen to boys like them if the wrong people saw them doing the wrong things. Hell, even if someone just suspected it, they’d be in deep water. They’d had their close calls, probably too many to count, but that was back in the mines. There was a lot that could be forgiven then. 
            As Daniel stared up at the wispy clouds floating lazily above them, he felt himself drifting back to a time when it seemed as though the clouds had settled deep beneath the earth. But those were clouds of soot, thick and choking, as the chink of cold metal on hard coal rang out for days without end.

*          *          *

Daniel kept his eyes on Henry’s face as the boy’s head rested in his lap. It’s not that he didn’t believe that Henry would be okay. He just needed to be sure. 
He had seen him go down when the side of the mine collapsed. Henry didn’t even know what hit him before he was on the ground. Daniel watched Henry’s head snap away in pain as his helmet fell off, the sickening crack of the bone echoing through the tunnels above the din of pickaxes and the yells from other miners as if it were the only noise around for miles. Daniel saw Henry go down. He fell limply, like a ragdoll, in a heap on the ground, his lower half buried under the collapsed wall.
            Daniel didn’t think. He just did. That’s how he’d always been, but it had never come in as handy as it did just then. Weak headlamp beams flitted in all directions through the clouds of soot hanging in the air and all Daniel could do was pray that the rest of the walls would hold up that day. Daniel hadn’t even considered his shovel. He just let his legs carry him as fast as they could towards his brother. 
            Daniel shook away the images of the collapse and leaned down close to his friend, feeling slight puffs of breath on his face.  Daniel sat with Henry’s head cradled gently on his lap just a little ways off from the mine shaft as they waited above ground for the ambulance to arrive. He tried to keep his hands occupied to stop his anxious jittering. He checked the dirty, makeshift bandage on Henry’s head to make sure it was tight and he wasn’t bleeding through. Then he straightened the boy’s uniform, trying to brush all the ground-in dirt off his elbows and make the too-big jacket sit right on Henry’s narrow frame. 
            “Is he gonna be okay?” Daniel had blurted out when he and Johnny had carried Henry to safety after his hit. Daniel had sat in the cramped mine cage with Henry propped up against his chest, trying to make room for all the other injured boys trying to get out.
            “Yeah, he’ll be alright. Head’s banged up pretty good but don’t look like nothin’ too bad.” Johnny had taken Henry’s head in his hands and begun to wrap a long, blackened handkerchief around his head to cover the gash on his skull. “Might be more from bein’ half buried under that pile but he’s breathin’ at least.” When Daniel saw Henry go down, he’d thought the worst. They still didn’t know what caused it. Maybe a rotted support beam, or some weak pocket of earth beneath where Henry was digging. Maybe a crack in the ceiling they’d let get too big. When Johnny finished, he stood, ready to charge back into the disaster to help the others. “You gon’ be alright with him?”
            “Yeah,” Daniel sighed quietly, not noticing the gentle smile creeping up on his face. If he covered the rag on the boy’s head with his broad hand, he could almost pretend Henry was sleeping. He felt the cage slowly begin to rumble towards the surface. He whispered to himself, “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”
He brushed the hair off Henry’s forehead, feeling the soft strands caked in coal dust thread through his fingers as the cool morning breeze swept over them. And when all the hair was out of Henry’s face, Daniel continued to smooth it down. He couldn’t help but run his fingertips against the side of Henry’s grubby face, almost not touching him.
            “Ya can’t do that to me, ya hear?” Daniel softly began to speak to Henry. He knew the boy couldn’t hear him. In fact, he hoped he wouldn’t. But he did it anyway. “Can’t go gettin’ yourself hurt all the time. Ya scare the livin’ daylights outta me, Henry, goin’ down like that. I know sometimes you’re reckless tryna’ prove yourself, show you’re man enough as the rest of us n’ not just some lost kid. All of us is tryna’ prove somethin’ down there, Henry, and you done so much already ‘cause of it, but, damn, if somethin’ happened to you…” Daniel felt the breath in his lungs catch, and for the first time in his life he couldn’t quite finish his sentence. His face screwed up while he tried to keep his breaths steady but it didn’t work. Only a small sob escaped him at first, but soon he felt more rumbling up through his body like an earthquake. Daniel leaned down and pressed his forehead to his friend’s and he tenderly caressed the side of his face. He didn’t want to think about Henry going down for good.