Chapter 6 #2
Cleaned and dressed in clothes that didn’t match, the girl plopped herself onto Monty’s lap by the fireplace.
Her shoes, one too big and one too small, poked out from beneath her dress.
The more questions folks asked her, the tighter she clamped her lips.
Monty hated that she was soiling her fresh clothing by clinging to his grimy frame.
Three elderly women everyone called “the Bowser sisters” sat across from Monty, attempting to place which family the child belonged to.
After going through most every family in Johnstown, the sister with eyebrows as gray as her hair slapped her knee and sat forward in her chair. “Aren’t you little Gertrude Quinn?”
Monty watched the girl for signs of recognition, but she only blinked at the woman. He searched his memory for the moments he’d spoken to James Quinn at the dry goods store right before the dam burst. Could this be the child he’d seen on his way home, splashing in the yard with the ducklings?
Yes, it well could be.
Struggling to a stand, that Bowser sister walked to the front door and yelled into the yard, “Mrs. Foster, come see if you recognize this child. She might be your niece, Gertrude Quinn.”
In no time, a middle-aged woman with blond hair burst into the room and knelt in front of Monty, studying the child.
Leaping from his cross-legged position, the girl flew at the woman and wrapped her in a hug.
Tears streaked down Mrs. Foster’s cheeks.
“Thank God, it’s little Gertrude.” She yanked a small stick from the nest of hair at the girl’s nape, laughing.
“You barely look human, but you’re alive. Oh, you sweet girl.”
Monty’s eyes burned with emotion. At least Gertrude had someone to care for her now.
Snapping to attention, Mrs. Foster pushed the girl at arm’s length and onto Monty’s lap. “Your father. I must fetch him. He thinks—oh, he’ll be so thrilled.”
She ran from the room and, twenty minutes later, returned with a man who looked like a shadow of James Quinn. Trembling and crying like a child himself, he swayed with Gertrude in his arms. “The house—I saw it go down, chimney and all. How are you here?”
Another child, five or so years older than Gertrude, ran to Mr. Quinn’s side and threw her arms around them both. “My poor little sister. I’ll never let you out of my sight again.”
Monty’s head filled with an odd pressure he couldn’t describe. So much loss, so much grief, so much joy in so short a time made it hard for him to process any one thing that had happened. Little Gertrude was safe with her family now. Praise be to God. It was time for him to let the family reunite.
He stood and moved to the door in a dense, invisible fog that seemed to weigh his every step. Time crawled, and he had no idea where he was going. He just knew he had to keep moving or perish.
When the debris beneath his feet turned brittle and the surface sprinkled with ashes, Monty walked west toward the woods.
He could no longer look into his fellow man’s faces.
Could no more stomach what he saw in their eyes.
He simply passed by as if he were a ghost of no significance. A part of him almost wished he were.
He stepped over fallen trees but kept progressing up the incline, boots sinking in the muddy earth. The searing pain in his leg muscles matched the burning in his heart. Breaths sounded loud in his ears. His vision grew fuzzy at the edges. Sweat rolled down the sides of his face.
Someone clamped a hand on his shoulder.
Monty jerked from his stupor.
“Pastor?” Ernie Dickenson’s hand shook against Monty’s suspender. Eyes and nose red from crying or lack of drink was anyone’s guess. Monty had spent many an hour trying to help the immigrant man. Ernie wanted to escape his vice, but not enough to relinquish his hold on the bottle.
Ernie’s voice broke, and spittle leaked onto his chin. “You’ve always told me that the Lord would care for me. Will He look after me now?”
Would He? Monty was no longer certain of anything. For the first time since giving his life to Christ, God felt far out of reach.
All Monty could do was stare into Ernie’s sad, hope-filled eyes and nod.
Then, without a word, he turned and continued his trek up the mountain.
His feet ground pieces of porcelain tea sets into the earth.
China dishes littered the grass, and a ripped silken tablecloth, presumably from one of the luxurious Pullman cars that had graced the station on that fateful afternoon, pooled against the base of a tree.
The thought of anyone being trapped alive in one of those cars when the wave hit made his stomach hitch.
An open trunk half-buried in the hillside revealed the contents once neatly packed inside—lace handkerchiefs, a buttonhook, a petticoat, and the photograph of a man—that were now stained from water. Had the woman who owned this trunk survived?
He continued walking. Continued breathing. It was all he could do.
Unsure how long he’d wandered, he dropped onto a wilted patch of asparagus ferns. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks. He almost wished he’d perished in the waters. The mourning, the hunger, the cold, the uncertainty—it was all too much. Uncontrollable sobs came, unbidden.
A cat meowed beside him.
Monty swallowed and turned his blurry, puffy eyes to the feline rubbing against his leg. It was cut in several places, and its wet fur stuck out at all angles. Monty reached to comfort the creature—and himself—when it raised its head. One eye socket was void.
The cat crawled onto Monty’s lap, rubbed its face against his chest, and purred. After all this poor thing had gone through, it found solace in a stranger.
Snuggling the cat close, he wiped his own eyes with the back of his hand and winced as the action stung his raw knuckles.
The forest was cold, and the gray clouds promised even more rain.
Shock and hunger played tricks with his body temperature.
He should have stayed next to the fire and the Bowser sisters, but the haven couldn’t hold everyone who’d survived, and others would be more in need than he was.
He stood, cradled the cat, and returned to the open trunk.
He rummaged through the feminine belongings before finally yanking out the petticoat, rebuking himself the entire way to the fern patch.
Lowering onto the pile of flora, he settled the cat on his lap and slipped the petticoat with its mounds of thick warm fabric over his shoulders.
The feline purred beneath the mass and kneaded its front paws on his thigh.
Monty gazed in every direction. Hordes of people wandered the mountainside. Homeless. Starving.
One thing was certain—he wasn’t suffering alone.