Frannie suddenly realized what a mess she was, with her hair all sticking up from tossing and turning. Her goofy pink pajamas. “I better get to—”
Suddenly the ground started to shake and she staggered. Paul reached out to her, and they were both thrown to their knees.
“Stay down—” she thought she heard Paul say as shouts and crashing filled the air.
She couldn’t have stood up if she tried. She flattened herself to the grass while everything went topsy-turvy, the ground rolling like waves. It seemed to go on forever, then—as suddenly as it had started—the shaking stopped.
That’s when she looked up and saw the mountain. Was it... moving?
How could a mountain move?
But it wasn’t moving... it was falling. Time seemed to slow as the immense rock buttress above the canyon broke off and slid downward. Sparks flew, boulders that had to be as big as houses bounced like ping-pong balls down the canyon wall. She glimpsed Paul’s gaze following the mountain down, his eyes wide with shock. Seconds behind the unbelievable sight came a roar like a freight train. Frannie raised her hands to cover her ears, but as she did the wind hit her.
Then she was flying.
She tumbled, her arms flailing, grabbing for anything to stop her wild careening. She landed among the rocks and felt a burst of pain in her shoulder as her body was pushed like a toy, crashing into rocks, scraped along the dirt. She was yelling, she knew it because her throat hurt, but she couldn’t hear herself over the roaring. Her hands found a branch, bark, a tree. She grabbed at it, holding with all her might. A sleeping bag flew past her like a kite, and an ice chest tumbled upstream. A yellow car—was that Jeff and Dottie’s car?—careened sideways up the riverbank. People—she could see people—tumbling along the ground, tossed like rag dolls.
How much longer could she hold on?
Suddenly the wind stopped. She blinked her gritty eyes, trying to see the campground. Paul. Her sister and Jenny. Her friends. No moon, no stars. Nothing but black. She let go of the tree, her hands cramped and burning.
Then... what was that?
A rushing, rumbling sound like a waterfall. Not the river, it wastoo loud. And it was coming from downstream, wasn’t it? The fleeting question was followed by a ridiculous lightning-quick thought:Paul would know.
Then, a wave of water hit her like a brick wall and she couldn’t think at all.
chapter 39:CLAIRE
Claire lay awake, looking out the back window of the trailer at the full moon reflected in the river, the slope of the canyon rising like a protective wall beyond, covered in a blanket of lodgepole pine and blue spruce. Jenny slept between her and Beth, the whisper of her breath joined by the distant ripple of water and the song of night insects.
Despite Claire’s weariness, her thoughts would not let her sleep.
If Frannie was right, Red hadn’t read her letter.
Could Frannie be right? Why would Red keep something like that from her—or his secrets about Dell and going to jail that winter? Even as Claire wondered, she turned the question on herself. Why hadn’t she told her husband—the man she had promised to love and honor—about her mother? Was it the shame of it, or the hurt she didn’t want to relive? Keeping that painful secret buried had—that morning at the Depot—hurt both Claire and Red.
Were Red’s secrets as deeply buried? Claire’s heart ached with the realization that neither of them had trusted the other with the pain of their pasts. Claire had tried to leave her past behind, determined that it wouldn’t affect her future. Had Red wanted to do the same? Orwas he running away from Lem Garrison and whatever had happened when Dell drowned in the Yellowstone?
Would he come home to Claire and Jenny, or had her father been right all along?
Claire curved her arm around Jenny and closed her eyes. She tried to pray—for faith in her husband. For the hope she lacked.
Claire didn’t know she’d fallen asleep until she felt Beth shaking her. Claire tried to pry open her eyes, but she was so tired. Beth shook her again. Hard. Claire opened her eyes and tried to sit up.
It wasn’t Beth. The trailer was shaking.
Moonlight poured into the back window. Beth braced herself against the back wall of the trailer as it rocked from side to side. “Claire!”
Was it a bear?
Claire pulled Jenny protectively into the curve of her body as cupboard doors flew open in the kitchenette and the contents crashed to the floor. The bed shifted underneath them. Jenny whimpered and began to cry. Claire looked out the window. Trees and rocks were falling across the river.
Not a bear, an earthquake.
The quaking stopped and all was suddenly silent.
“Is it over?” Beth asked in a breathless whisper.
