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? Or was 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.
Was it? The trailer was listing sideways. Claire and Beth had slid down to the foot of the bed.
“We need to get outside,” Claire said. She gathered Jenny into her arms and stood carefully on the uneven floor.
“Careful,” she warned Beth, “there’s glass.
” Claire started picking her way toward the door when a roar like a freight train ripped through the silence.
The trailer jerked like it had been hit.
Claire flew forward, clutching Jenny to her chest, as she hit the kitchenette with her shoulder.
The trailer rolled as the sound rent the night and everything went black.
The deafening sound faded to an echo. “Claire,” Beth moaned. “Is Jenny okay?”
Claire ran a hand over Jenny in the pitch dark—where had the moonlight gone?
Jenny let out a furious wail. “I think so.” Lord, let her not be hurt.
Claire felt carefully in the dark with one hand, trying to determine where she was.
She felt the wall, the handle of a cupboard door.
The trailer moved again, not jerking but listing, as if it were teetering on a precipice.
“My arm,” Beth said. “It hurts.”
Claire was calm, her thoughts strangely clear. Find the door. Get out.
A shout from outside, “Are you okay in there?”
“Help us!” Claire yelled back, supporting herself with one arm, the other keeping Jenny tight to her body.
She half crawled along the wall, groping for the door in the dark.
She felt her way along the cupboards, the small sink, the dinette table.
The door must be opposite. “Help us, please!” Claire called out again.
She reached up and found the door, now tipped to the sky like an escape hatch. She twisted the knob and pushed upward, flinging it open. The night sky was pitch black and dust choked the air. With Jenny in one arm, Claire found a foothold and pushed herself upward. Get out. Get help for Beth.
Claire’s shoulders cleared the door and now she could smell the sharp scent of pine. Jenny’s cries increased in volume.
“Where are you?” A man’s voice, close by.
Claire raised her voice. “In the trailer! Help us, please. I have a baby.”
“Climb down to me,” he said. “The water is rising.”
Water? Claire thought she must have heard wrong. She could see the dim form of a man, his arms reaching toward her. Claire wavered, then decided. “Take the baby,” Claire said, leaning toward him. “My friend is stuck. I have to help her.”
Claire groped for his hands, found them, made herself unclamp her grip on Jenny.
“I’ve got her,” the voice said as Jenny’s weight left her arms. “Hurry, I think the trailer’s going.”
Going where? Claire clambered back down into the dark trailer. She could hear other cries along with Jenny’s now. Yells and shouts. Frannie and her friends? Or Dottie and Jeffrey? She prayed no one was hurt. “Where are you?” she called to Beth.
“Here.” Beth’s voice was strained with pain and fear.
Claire used both hands to stay upright, stepping over debris with her bare feet as she followed Beth’s voice. A hand brushed against hers. Claire grabbed at it. “Come on,” she pulled Beth back toward the door.
“We’re coming,” Claire yelled, her calm replaced now with a desperate urgency to have Jenny back in her arms. She could still hear her crying and it pulled her like a tether around her heart.
“Climb up,” Claire told Beth, as they reached the spot below the open door.
Suddenly, the trailer rolled back with a sickening lurch, throwing them both into the opposite wall. Claire lost hold of Beth. “Beth,” Claire choked out before the trailer bucked again. She groped for Beth, bracing them both until the violent movement ceased into sudden silence.
Claire couldn’t hear Jenny.
“Jenny!” Claire cried out. Panicked, Claire let go of Beth and clambered toward the door. Claire grasped the frame but could see nothing but black beyond the confines of the trailer. “Jenny!” Oh, God. Where is she?
A new sound, that of rushing water, filled the air. Cold coming over the threshold of the door like a waterfall, covering her feet and ankles. Water? She didn’t stop to wonder why and where the water was coming from. Get out. Find Jenny.
Beth was there, clutching at her arm.
The water was to her knees. How was it rising so fast?
“Climb up,” Claire ordered. Claire boosted Beth upward toward the top of the trailer. By then, the water was at Claire’s waist, glacier cold and thick with silt.
“Claire!” Beth called back. “Take my hand.”
Claire climbed, Beth pulled, and Claire was up and out of the water, on the flat top of the swaying trailer. Claire lay for a moment, her breath coming in gasps. She lifted her head. No moon, nothing but black. Where was Jenny?
“Jenny!” Claire called out. Had she—was she in the water? Was she safe?
The sound of water was all around them, they were afloat, tipping to one side and then another like a cork, but she couldn’t see farther than the edge of the trailer.
Claire pushed herself to standing. She’d gone to sleep in her clothing, and now her blouse and denim jeans were soaking wet and gritty with mud. She searched for any sign of Jenny in the dark. Her throat hurt and she realized she was calling out her daughter’s name over and over.
Where was the campground? Where were Frannie and her friends? The cars and the trailers and tents? There had been dozens of people—maybe a hundred. Now she was surrounded by nothing but black water and choking dust.
“Frannie!” Claire called out. Then again, “Jenny!” Something knocked into the floating trailer, the impact throwing Claire back to her knees. Lord, help us. Let someone hear us.
Beth crawled closer, only her ghostly pale face visible. “Claire.” She gasped out what Claire—in her panic over Jenny—hadn’t yet realized. “Claire, I think we’re sinking.”