Carla Kelly (60 page)

Israel managed the ghost of a smile. “He has white tags and crayons. I have to leave.” He turned and walked back up the stairs. He stopped and looked at Della. “If it's any consolation, I think death was very quick in Number Four.”

Della and Miss Clayson sat together for a moment more. “I wish we could keep them here reading and making flowers,” the principal said, her voice wistful. “Our school year is now over. When we can—if it even matters—we'll compute their final scores from their last tests.”

Della leaned against Miss Clayson, grateful for her arm around her. “I was going to tell him tonight at the dance that I would marry him anyway.” She turned her face into Miss Clayson's black dress. “I didn't have a chance to tell him. I hope I can live with that.”

“Angharad will help you.”

They kept the children occupied until Della heard footsteps overhead. She raced up the stairs to see the stark face of Sister Parmley, with the women trailing behind, their expressions either fearful or vacant.

“Della, I am so sorry,” she whispered, her grip firm on her arm. “I can take Angharad with me. Thomas wants you to go to the houses and see what you can do.”

Della closed her eyes in relief. “Yes, please, take Angharad, but only for now. I may have to convince her, but I'd rather have her with you this day. You're far enough away.”

Sister Parmley shook her head. “No one is far enough away, but it's best.” She released Della's arm, only to touch her cheek. “She's your child now.”

Della hurried downstairs with the women, who went directly to their fatherless children, holding each one in turn, or gathering them all into a tearful embrace. She knelt by Angharad, who shook her head vigorously when she told her to go with Sister Parmley.

“Please, dearest, just for now,” Della said. “Bishop wants me to help the ladies however I can, and I still need to find your father.”

“You won't leave me?”

“Never. Go now, and help Sister Parmley. I'll get you before bedtime, and we'll go … home.”

Soon the basement was empty. Their faces so stern, even the little ones, the children left, towed by their mothers, or in some cases, already in charge and helping their younger siblings. The older boys had already pushed back the desks in her room, crowding them against the far wall next to the box with paper flowers, ready for Clarence Nix—identifying dead men now—to take to the Odd Fellows Hall for tonight's dance. She doubted anyone would dance in Scofield for a long time, if ever.

Della found a tablet and a pencil. Indecisive, she stood a long moment on the school's front steps. The magnitude of the disaster seemed to grow by the minute. Last night's coal train was ready to go. Della turned away, appalled. How could the coal just keep coming? she asked herself.

She watched, eyes as dull as anyone's, as the train began to move toward the canyon mouth. She noticed a sudden flurry on the track and stared as a woman far along in pregnancy began to walk deliberately toward the moving engine. Della sucked in her breath. It was Mari Luoma, her blonde hair wild around her pale face.

Dropping her silly pad and pencil, Della ran down the front steps and slid down the embankment, calling Mari's name, ordering her to stop. She reached the distraught woman at the same time as Emil Isgreen. He shouldered Della aside and balanced on the rails, trying to reason with the crazed woman. As the train came closer, Mari fought back when he tried to snatch her from danger.

Della joined him, tugging on her free arm and trying to speak low words of comfort at the same time. She helped Emil pick her up and carry her to safety, even as she struggled to free herself. As the train rumbled past, Mari tried to scramble back onto the tracks, screaming. Della wrapped her arms around the woman, rocking back and forth until her screams turned to whimpers and then faded away.

“God bless you, Della,” Emil said. He grabbed two men with headlamps. “Please help us take this woman to the hospital.”

“The mine rescue—” one of them started to say.

“There is no mine rescue!” Emil hissed, in a voice Della had never heard. “They're all dead. This woman is alive, and she needs help. My nurse is there. Don't argue with me.”

They didn't. They put Mari on her feet, and she crumpled to the ground. Della knelt beside her again, speaking into her ear. “Mari, you have to let these men help you. Heikki would not want to see you here like this. Think of his baby.
Please
, Mari.”

Mari looked at her, wild-eyed. Her expression gradually settled into a weird sort of acceptance almost as disturbing as her wild grief of moments ago. “Yes, my baby,” she said, her voice mechanical now, like the fan engineer at the Number One portal. “Miss Anders, did you know I am going to have a baby?”

Della shuddered inside at Mari's new world.

“Stand up, Mrs. Luoma,” Emil said firmly. “You have to help us.”

The men tried again, and she remained on her feet. They formed a human chair and carried her away. Emil draped both of his arms on Della's shoulders, weighing her down with his exhaustion.

“Please tell me she will regain her senses,” Della pleaded.

Emil nodded. “I'll tell you anything you want to hear, Della.” He took his arms off her shoulders, and she saw the tears in his eyes. “What's worse? To come upon a disaster and know there aren't enough trained people to handle it, or to come upon a disaster and not be needed because there are only dead men.” He shook his head. “Miss Harroun came on last night's train to help me with a tonsillectomy today. She was looking forward to the dance.”

He seemed to register in his mind just who she was. “And here I am, breaking your heart some more. Della, forgive me.”

She shook her head and climbed the embankment, retrieving her puny tablet and pencil. She stared at them a moment, then tossed them away. She sat down in the open-sided woodshed, numb to the sounds of grief all around— women running, women moving as though sleepwalking, women pleading, demanding, disturbingly calm—everyone reacting to disaster according to their natures. The children, released from school, trailed after their mothers. Some of them saw her and sat down. She cuddled them close, wordless.

An hour passed, then two. The children left her finally to follow their mothers some more, little people treading water in an ocean of distress. She looked down the canyon toward the Number Four mine. The smoke had stopped, and she saw men with stretchers now, carrying body bags to the closer company boardinghouse. The Edward boardinghouse must be full.

Weary, she stood up and walked toward Mabli's and the boardinghouse. As she came closer, she realized with horror that discarded clothing lay in a mountainous pile on one end of the building. Resolutely, she looked away and went into Mabli's house, stopping in the doorway at the sight before her.

Mabli sat on the floor, rocking rhythmically back and forth and moaning. Vomit flecked the front of her dress. Shocked, Della looked closer. Mabli had bitten through her lip and blood soaked her front.

“Oh my dear,” Della said, kneeling and taking her in her arms.

“First Dafydd and now Owen,” Mabli said, her head against Della's breast. “And William too, think on. When does it end?”

“I wish I knew,” Della told her, relieved at least that Mabli was making sense. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

Thank goodness for warm water. Her eyes listless, Mabli offered no objections when Della took off her ruined clothing, cleaned her, and put her into fresh clothing. Della found her something to eat, made sure she ate it, then settled her in the rocking chair, a warm mug of peppermint tea in her hand.

Della found a clean apron and put that over the ruin of her own clothes. She knelt by Mabli's chair. “I'm going to go see who else I can help. Just stay here.”

Mabli nodded and closed her eyes. Della put her hand on the doorknob, unwilling to open it on more scenes of misery so acute that her breath started to come in little gasps. She leaned her forehead against the door until she fought down the shriek that threatened to turn her inside out.

She said a prayer with no words to it and opened the door on a wagonload of white-shrouded bodies passing in the road. Men with stretchers carried more bodies from the boardinghouse until there was a parade of bodies as far as she could see. Shocked, she started to count them, but her overtaxed mind rebelled against trying to clamp order on top of terror. Her jaw started to ache, and she realized she was grinding her teeth. She made a conscious effort to stop but failed. It was as though her body was now working independently of her mind. Soon someone would have to remind her to breathe.

She glanced at the boardinghouse porch, groaning aloud as the volunteers set down more bodies to wait for the wagon's return. She looked beyond the bodies to the ever-growing pile of clothing. Her eyes filled with tears.

Head high, she stepped around the bodies now lying on the ground beside the porch, her eyes still focused on the clothing pile. The smell of death rose from the clothing, rank and musty. Tears streamed down her face now as she reached out and tugged at a blue and white pinstriped shirt on the pile. Only a sleeve was showing, but she knew that shirt. She had sold a lot of them last summer in Menswear.

Tenderly she cradled it in her arms, unmindful now of vomit and carbon and grease and mysterious stains. She put the shirt to her cheek and sobbed. Volunteers and rescuers hurried around her, moving fast. She wanted to tell them to slow down; there was no rush. Everyone was dead. She barely saw them as she knotted Owen's shirt around her waist and walked to Finn Town.

ella didn't leave Finn Town until dark, desperate to avoid the sights in the canyon. Darkness was like snow: it could hide a multitude of ugliness. She had spent the afternoon going from house to house as Bishop Parmley wanted, not with notepad and pencil to record anyone's needs. Everyone was in shock and had no idea what they needed. She sat with her children, just holding them on her lap as they sobbed, mingling her tears with theirs.

By some miracle, Kari Koski had stayed home that morning from Number Four with a toothache. As she saw that living, breathing man, Della finally snapped and turned on Eeva.

“How dare he be alive?” she raged.

Eeva and Kari had grabbed her, much as she and Emil had grabbed Mari hours ago. As Della struggled, they held her tight. Finally exhausted, Della sagged in Kari's arms.

God bless Eeva Koski. She gave Della little shake and put her face close to hers. “I want you to scream as loud as you can, and as long.”

“I'm so ashamed,” Della said. “Kari, I didn't mean …”

“I know that,” he told her gently. “Do what Eeva says.”

Della screamed. She screamed until her throat hurt, and then she screamed some more. She screamed until she retched. Finally she lay whimpering in Eeva's arms, drained.

“Now you pick yourself up and move on,” Eeva told her. “Go find your little girl and take her home. Do you want Kari to help you?”

She did, afraid to go into the wagon road, but shook her head. “No. It's my task, and your hands are full here. How many from Finn Town, Kari?”

“At least sixty.” He swallowed. “Two of them are my brothers.”

“Oh, Kari, forgive me,” she said.

He kissed her forehead.

The dark was a blessing, she decided as she walked slowly down the canyon. Lights were on in buildings that didn't usually have lights on: all the machine shops, the school. She stopped in front of the school, reluctant to go in, but compelled.