“Will my mom and dad be alright?” the girl asked. Tear tracks lined her face and two mud-covered younger girls clung to her.
“It’s going to be okay,” Mrs. Greer answered for her. “We have a nurse now, and she’ll be able to help them.”
Bridget didn’t have the heart to correct the woman.
Next, she examined a boy named Phillip with a crushed foot. “Help my mother,” the boy begged Bridget. “She’s hurt bad.” Bridget checked the mother, who almost surely had a broken collarbone, but it was her rapid pulse and clammy skin that concerned her most.
“Nurse Reilly will take good care of her,” Mrs. Greer assured Phillip.
Mrs. Greer had far more confidence in Bridget’s abilities than she had a right to. The mother’s injuries were severe, and she might have internal bleeding.
Mrs. Greer continued along the line of station wagons, each holding several injured victims. Bridget caught fragments of the night’s events—an avalanche, a flood, a horrific wind. Hard to believe, but the injuries spoke for themselves. They returned to the first station wagon, with the critical older couple and Phillip and his mother. “What should we do for them?” Mrs. Greer asked.
Before Bridget could answer—if she had an answer—headlights bounced up the hill and came to a stop. “More injured here,” a man called out from the open window of a Suburban with a wheelchair tied to the roof.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Mrs. Greer said to the driver. A girl of about twelve appeared out of the dark with an armful of towels. “Linda.” Mrs. Greer beckoned her nearer. “This is Nurse Reilly, get her whatever she needs.”
Bridget faltered, but Mrs. Greer was already gone. She looked at the line of station wagons, the wounded lying on the ground. The dark, the dirt. The sheer magnitude of the injuries she’d already seen, with more coming in. She had no plasma or morphine, no penicillin or doctor to consult or X-ray machine. Not even sterile solution to clean the dirt-covered wounds.
Linda stood at her elbow, awaiting orders. What about Claire and Jenny and Frannie? Were they among the wounded—or worse—were they hurt and waiting for help?
Phillip’s hopeful face was visible in the light of Linda’s flashlight. His hand clutched hers. She felt that tug on her heart, that pull to heal those who were hurting. “Linda,” she said briskly, “bring me the pack from that mule I came in on.”
Linda jumped to comply.
When Linda came running back, Bridget took an inventory of their supplies. A gallon of clean water in a plastic bottle, a first aid kit with several rolls of sterile gauze, ten gauze pads, and twentyBand-Aids, along with a large bottle of iodine and a tube of surgical dressing. Bucky had thrown in a tin of aspirin and—“Bless you, Bucky,” she whispered—a pint of brandy.
Mrs. Greer was back, and Bridget turned to her. “What else do we have to work with?”
“We’re using sheets and towels for bandages, we found some canteens of water, and there’s ice left in a few cold chests.” Mrs. Greer looked to Linda.
Linda spoke up. “I found five blankets and a tin of instant hot chocolate.”
It wasn’t much. But it was all they had. Bridget straightened her nurse’s cap and smoothed her hair. “Mrs. Greer,” she said with a nod, “let’s take care of our patients.”
chapter 53:CLAIRE
“Beth,” Claire croaked, her throat parched and rough. How could she be so thirsty when she was up to her neck in water? “Beth, we have to climb.”
Beth didn’t answer.
Beth’s body was limp against hers, her hand—clutched around the branch—as white as bone. She’d stopped shivering, and Claire knew that was a bad sign. Claire tried not to think of the baby. Beth couldn’t lose the baby, not after losing Dell.
Two more tremors had shaken the waters and sent waves crashing over them. Claire had pulled herself and Beth up another ten feet of tree, and the branches were thinning. Every muscle ached with the effort of holding on. Claire’s legs were numb with cold and heavy as lead.
Her thoughts were as numb as her body. She’d told Beth they had to keep hoping... but could Claire hope when everything inside her was slipping into the cold depths?
Jenny was gone. Frannie was gone.
She was losing Beth to the pull of the water.
No one knew they were there. No one was coming to save them.
Beth would have been better off with Iris and Pete. At least she and her baby would have lived. Beth would never get to Ennis now, never see her parents.
And Red. He would never see his wife or child again. Red, who had so much hope for them. If she hadn’t sold Marigold, would they be at home tonight—Jenny in her crib, Red playing solitaire and Claire listening to the radio—safe and warm in their sanctuary?
Bridget. Her sister and her best friend. Where was she? In Mammoth, not knowing that both her sisters were lost in the dark and devastation? If Claire and Frannie both... she couldn’t bear to think of Bridget’s sorrow. Of Dad’s broken heart.
