Red. Somehow. A surge of relief and joy and—
“Claire?” Red’s voice was urgent and his face—his eyes—anxious and questioning.
Her chest collapsed, her heart buckling and fracturing. The pain so intense she couldn’t breathe. The agony. How could she tell him? How could she break his heart, as hers was shattered?
“Where is Jenny?” His voice cracked.
Red, I’m so sorry.Claire tried to speak, her mouth dry and her throat silt-coated and aching. Her husband’s face went out of focus. Claire felt herself falling into an empty void.I’m sorry, Red. I lost our little girl.
Then the golden light dimmed, darkened, and turned to black.
chapter 59:BRIDGET
When the sun rose, Mildred and Roy Wilson were still alive.
After Bridget prayed with Connie and the twins, she’d gone to Phillip. “Tell me about your mother,” she asked him. He’d told her how his mother made the best pies in all of Ohio and won ribbons at the state fair.
“It’s just her and me,” he’d whispered. “I can’t lose her.”
Bridget smoothed a hand over his brow, his skin was cool and damp. She wanted to assure him he wouldn’t lose his mother, but it would be a hollow promise. “I don’t even know your mother’s name,” she said.
“It’s Dolores,” he said.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Bridget told him with a lump in her throat.
“Will help come now?” Phillip asked her as the sun rose over the refugee camp. Bridget tucked the blanket closer around him and wished she knew the answer.
Red hadn’t come back to Refuge Point. Roberts had returned just before dawn and told Bridget where he’d left Red. “I’ve never seen aman more determined,” he told her. “If his wife is anywhere to be found, he’ll get to her.”
Bridget assumed he was trying to be kind, but his words sent a chill of apprehension up her spine. She’d heard about Rock Creek as she’d worked through the night. It’s where the Wilsons and Phillip had been camping when the earthquake hit. She could only pray Claire and Jenny hadn’t been close to the terrible rockslide, or caught in the wind and water that followed.
“Look!” Lance’s shout carried over the camp. The high-pitched whine of a small motor cut through the air as an orange and white airplane flew above the ridge. “It’s dropping something!”
A red parachute opened against the pink-and-blue sky. Lance ran across the ridge, dodging one way, then another as the missive changed direction on the invisible breeze. He caught it and ran back to Bridget.
“It’s a message.” Bridget opened the metal cylinder as a crowd gathered around. She took out a rolled paper and smoothed it against the hood of a car. “Help is coming,” she read out loud.
Thank the Lords andhallelujahs went through the crowd.
Bridget sat down, her legs weakening with relief. How long would it take?Soon, Lord. Please make it soon.
As the sky brightened, it filled with aircraft. Big planes at high elevations and little planes buzzing lower. One small aircraft flew so low she could see a camera pointed at them behind one of the windows. If they were able to fly over, why weren’t they landing to help her patients? Bridget glared at the flying aircraft. She would be giving someone an earful when she got out of here.
Bridget walked to the verge of the ridge and looked down at Hebgen Lake. The dam was still holding, thank the Lord, but the entire lake seemed to have shifted in its bowl. On the north side—where she and Red had ridden—the water receded a dozen feet, as if it were low tide. She squinted at the deadwood floating on the surface like great rafts.
“Somebody said they were waterlogged trees sitting at the bottom of the lake.” Lance stood beside her. “The quake must have shook them up to the top.”
The quake had done more than disturb the logs on the bottom of the lake. Bridget knew she would never be the same. The Wilsons. Phillip and his mother. Everyone trapped in this canyon. So many lives shaken by one catastrophic event.
“Is that a boat?” Lance shielded his eyes from the rising sun.
She followed his gaze. A boat—with what looked like several people aboard—was navigating a crazy path over the log-strewn lake.
“Someone’s coming!” The shout went up behind her.
Lance ran down toward the dam. Bridget watched from her vantage point as the boat veered around the logjam. The whine of the motor cut out as it reached the muddy shoreline. Lance was there to meet them, wading into the water to pull the boat closer. He helped two people climb out of the boat into the knee-deep water. Bridget squinted, not believing her eyes.
It couldn’t be. She took a step closer to the slope. No, her eyes weren’t deceiving her. A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat as Dr. Kevin Sampson strode up the hill like a heroic doctor out of one of her novels, coming to save the day.
