chapter 55:RED
It was a teenage boy named Lance who renewed Red’s hope.
The pressure in Red’s chest built as he searched the length and breadth of the camp above Hebgen Dam, asking at every crackling campfire, every car filled with trapped campers fiddling with their radios to try to get a station.
“Have you seen a woman and a baby?” he asked. “Two women, or a girl around eighteen with short hair? A red convertible?”
No one gave him any hope.
As he searched, he heard bits and pieces of what had happened in the canyon. Rumors and stories—an avalanche, wind, some kind of flood. Every new calamity he heard sent a shot of urgency through his veins. They had to be safe.Lord, keep them safe. Let me find them.
When Red had checked every square foot of the camp, he tracked down Bridget in what looked like a field hospital. She was bent over the open tailgate of a station wagon, the shirt and trousers Bucky had given her at Sunnyslope streaked with dirt and blood. A woman in a bathrobe and curlers stood beside her, holding a flashlight on a boy’s foot. Red’s dread ratcheted up another notch—the foot looked likeit had been through a meat grinder. An older woman lay beside him, barely breathing. “They’re not here,” he told Bridget. “I’m going to check the campgrounds downriver.”
“Who are you looking for?” A teenage kid with an armful of blankets came into the puddle of light. “I’ve talked to just about everybody in camp.”
“A woman named Claire and a baby,” Red answered, his hope dim. “And a girl named Frannie.”
The boy jerked his gaze to Red. “There’s a Frannie down at Rock Creek.”
Every muscle in Red’s body was suddenly alert, and his blood raced in his veins. “Is a woman named Claire with her, and a baby?”
“Is she hurt?” Bridget asked.
Lance looked back and forth between them, as if he didn’t know which question to answer first. “Frannie’s not hurt,” he said to Bridget. “I don’t know about anybody named Claire or a baby. They sent everybody up here, but she and a kid named Paul stayed.”
Rock Creek was at the bottom of the canyon. “I need to get there,” Red said.
“There’s a guy named Roberts,” Lance said helpfully. “I heard he was heading back downriver. I’ll get him for you.” He dropped the blankets and disappeared.
Bridget covered the injured boy with one of the blankets. “I’m going with you, Red.”
Red was fine with that, as long as they could leave right now.
But the boy reached up and grabbed Bridget’s arm. “Don’t go,” he begged. “Please, my mom needs you.”
The woman in the bathrobe didn’t like the idea either. “Please, Nurse Reilly,” she said, turning the flashlight on the line of station wagons. “I can’t do this without you. There are so many hurt.”
Red could see the indecision on Bridget’s face. Claire might be hurt at Rock Creek. Or Jenny. But there were wounded here who needed her, too.
The woman in the bathrobe didn’t mince words. “The Wilsonswon’t make it without your help, Nurse. And there’s more injured coming in every time I turn around.”
Bridget looked to the boy and his mother, the line of station wagons, and the hurting people lying on the ground. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and turned to him. “I have to stay here, Red.”
He swallowed and nodded. “I’ll bring them back,” he promised.
“Let me send some supplies with you.” She put two blankets and a canteen of water in a plastic garbage bag and shoved it in his arms. “I wish I could give you more, but we don’t have anything left.”
He nodded, his throat tight.
Bridget stepped closer. “Red, what I said that day... on the way to Mammoth.” She looked like she was having trouble getting the words out.
Red remembered every word.What if Jenny got hurt... what if she died because you insist on living in this godforsaken wilderness?
“I was wrong.” She met his gaze.
He shook his head with a jerk to disagree, not trusting his voice. She wasn’t wrong. He never should have brought Claire to Montana. They could be in Willmar right now, safe. What did it matter if he had to endure Daniel Reilly’s disapproval? He met Bridget’s eyes. Something had changed between him and his critical sister-in-law on the long ride into the canyon. He wouldn’t say they were friends—but they weren’t enemies. “I’ll find them,” he told her, shouldering the garbage bag. Claire and Jenny, Frannie, and Beth.
He’d find them or die trying.
