Mary Connealy (57 page)

John sobbed in her arms, and she whispered comfort to him without knowing just what she said.

As suddenly as it began, it stopped.

The silence filtered into her mind. She slowly lifted her head. Dirt and rocks fell away from her back. The air she breathed was thick with dirt. She glanced overhead. The ceiling hadn’t collapsed. The stove still burned. She looked down at the frightened boy in her arms. “John, it’s over.”

His face was buried against her chest.

“It’s really over, John.”

John lifted his tearstained face and looked into her eyes. His expression beseeched her to say they were all right.

He said between trembling lips, “Wh–wh–what happened?”

“I don’t know.” She lifted herself to a sitting position, and slashing pain tore across her back. She wanted to cry out, but John’s terror forced her to be calm. “But we survived it, whatever it was.”

She moved slowly, afraid the world would erupt again. John clung to her. She pulled him with her as she brushed the dirt and rocks off her back. Her back protested. A stab of pain ripped across her chest. One of her shoulders didn’t want to move. She suppressed a groan of agony.

She got to her feet, John’s arms sliding from around her neck to around her waist as she stood. She was too unsteady to do anything but stumble to the nearest bench. Careful to avoid the hot stovepipe, she lowered herself onto a seat and pulled John onto her lap.

He hurled himself the few inches between them and wrapped his sturdy arms around her. Her bruised body protested, but he felt so good—so solid and healthily and miraculously alive—that she hugged him back fiercely. She buried her face in his soft blond hair, and when he started to cry, she couldn’t hold back her own tears.

The emotional storm passed, and John’s shoulders ceased their shuddering. He lay exhausted against her for long minutes.

She had no idea what had happened. She wished John were safely away from this living tomb. But she was treacherously glad she had him with her in the awful, cramped, dark little world.

At last his arms loosened from her a bit. She lifted her head from his white-blond curls, and they looked at each other.

She wasn’t ready for his question. “Are Pa and my brothers all right?”

Grace caught herself before a cry of fear could escape. She’d only had time to think of herself and John. What
had
happened?

Grace looked down at John’s frightened little face. The stove lit up his eyes. The slits in the stove door glowed like devilish teeth, bared in an evil smile. They were trapped, buried alive. She had to take care of him. She squared her shoulders, straightened her aching spine, and began taking stock.

“Hop down. Let’s see what’s going on.”

John got up, but he caught hold of the baggy shirt Daniel had given her and stayed tight up against her side.

She went to the door and pulled. It dragged against the floor and reluctantly swung open. They were faced with a solid wall of white. Even in the darkness, the white was so vivid they couldn’t fail to recognize it. Snow. The door was buried in a snowdrift.

“There must have been an avalanche,” Grace said. “Has this ever happened before?”

She looked down at John. He shrugged. “We just moved here this spring. We’ve never had a winter before.”

“Well, I suppose your pa is just going to have to dig us out.” Grace had a vision of a mountain of snow burying them hundreds of feet deep. Had Daniel and the other boys escaped the avalanche, or were they out there somewhere under this snow, crushed and dead?

She turned her mind away from such dreadful thoughts. She kept the fear out of her eyes as best she could. “I guess we can help. Let’s start digging.”

John seemed to become calmer when she suggested a job for him to do. She was a little steadier herself. They went to the door and began pawing through the snow.

They pulled the snow inward and shoved it off to the side. At first they felt a feverish rush as they dug, but after a while the hard work began to tell on them, and they calmed down and worked steadily. When their fingers got too cold, they went to the stove and warmed them.

As she and John stood side by side at the stove, Grace realized that the crimson teeth weren’t so bright as they had been. “We’re going to need to add kindling. The fire is going out.”

John bent down to the woodpile beside the stove while Grace, using her shirt to protect her hand, turned the squeaking little knob and lowered the cast-iron door. Burning wood nearly tipped out into her hands.

Grace realized that the stove didn’t need more fuel. So why was the fire going out? She slammed the door with a sharp clank of metal and said, “Let’s don’t add wood yet. It’s still got enough and we’re warm.”

John looked at her. “Okay.” With perfect trust, he dropped the sticks back onto the woodpile.

The fire was dying. Grace looked up at the sealed opening where the stovepipe belonged. Where a fire couldn’t live, people couldn’t. They were running out of air.

A light sweat broke out all over her. She steadied herself and looked down at John’s trusting eyes. She had to think of something, for him.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s say a prayer.” Since she’d escaped from Parrish, she’d attended church as was proper. But right now she needed more than proper. She needed a miracle.

“Okay,” John said. “But don’t be all day about it like the parson.”

In her heart she prayed,
God, what do I do? I need help. Not for me, God, but for John. He’s so young. He trusts me
. She stared at the stove, aware of John’s chubby little hand catching hold of hers.

“God, take care of us and take care of the rest of the family.” She smiled down at John. “How was that?”

She backed up, thinking to sit and hold him again. Working made you breathe hard, and that
must
take more air. They needed to save it for as long as they could.

As she stepped back, Grace tripped over the stovepipe. She looked at the snow-packed hole. It dripped steadily onto the stove. If it was melting slowly now, maybe it would melt faster with the stovepipe carrying hot air directly to it. She didn’t know if she’d thought of it or God had told her, but she thought the timing of her “idea” was directly related to her prayer.

“We’d better see if we can get those pipes back into the hole.” She bent to pick up the first cylinder. “The stove won’t burn well if it doesn’t have an airhole.”

John went right to work. They gathered four pieces of the cooled pipe and fitted them together in a column about as tall as Grace. As the hollow metal clinked, Grace heard John whimper softly.

Trying to keep both of them encouraged, she said, “You know, you’re wrong about Mark being better than you, John. I think you’re terrific.” She wasn’t saying it to make him feel good. She had always thought John was the best behaved of the rowdy Reeves boys.

“Nah, I’m not. I’m dumbest and smallest and slowest.”

“You did really well in your classes, John. Better by far than Mark. You weren’t dumbest.”

“Yeah, I was, ’cause Mark knows how to do everything. He just doesn’t do it, if’n he don’t want to. I wanted to do it, ’cause I thought it was fun, mostly. But if he’d’a wanted to, Mark woulda beat me for sure.”

Grace shook her head as she settled the pipe into the hole in the center of the stove. “That’s not how it works, John. Smart is as smart does.”

John helped her brace the stovepipe. “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Grace smiled in the fading red light. She could imagine the little furrow in John’s forehead. He and Ike were the only ones who ever doubted themselves for a second. “It means if you’re smart inside your head but you never act smart, then you’re not so smart after all.”

“Mark acts smart.”

“Not in school things,” Grace pointed out. “He got bad grades.”

“But in other things,” John insisted. “In real things that matter, like hunting stray calves and handling the horses.”

Grace’s jaw tightened as she thought of such young boys doing so much work. They needed a chance to be children, and they needed to respect education. She wanted to shake Daniel.

Then she thought of him out there somewhere and realized if she could get her hands on him right now, she’d be so glad to see him—because it would mean he was alive and she was unburied—she’d give him a hug instead of shaking him. And she also had to admit that she was glad she had a steady little worker like John beside her in this tight spot. And who had trained him to work but Daniel?

Metal scraped on metal as she raised the pipe to the ceiling. She struggled but couldn’t get it to go into the snow-clogged hole. The fire dimmed now until there were no flames at all, only glowing embers. Grace knew they didn’t have long.

“John, what you’re saying is making my point. Mark is better at some things, and you’re better at others. That’s just what I said.”

“Yeah, but school is dumb and animals are important.”

Grace fought down her panic as she wrestled with the stubborn pipes. Goaded to hurry, she lifted the whole thing off the stove and set it on the table. “I’ve got to clear some of that snow and stick the pipe out first, then set it on the stove hole.”

John worked beside her. He pulled up a bench and held it steady.

She clawed at the snow and let it fall with a hiss on the stove. Her arms reached up higher and higher into the hole. The snow burned at her hands as they became encased in the bitter cold. If the hole was just a bit bigger, maybe she could squeeze through and dig them out through the roof, but the hole was so small now that not even John could wriggle through. When she’d cleared it as high as she could reach, she said, “I’m ready for the pipe now.”

John handed the awkward tube to her.

This time, fitting the pipe into the hole overhead first, she got the whole thing put together neatly. As she climbed down off the bench, she heard water begin running down the pipe.

The fire in the stove sputtered wildly.

She had latched onto the fire as proof that there was still some air to breathe in the cave, and her heart fluttered with fear at the thought of its going out and leaving them in the pitch dark. Then, as the embers hissed, it occurred to Grace that putting out the fire might be a good thing. That might leave more air for them.

“Let’s build the fire up some more,” John suggested. “It looks kind of low.”

Grace wondered how far the pipe had to melt before the smoke could escape and let fresh air in. She knew if she threw in more wood, it wouldn’t burn. “Not yet. There’s plenty for now until the snow stops melting.” Grace sank down onto the bench.

John sat on her lap without being urged.

They sat there and listened to the water run. The embers continued to fade. There was plenty of wood for a roaring fire.

Please, God, help us
.

“We should pray again, Ma.” John turned from the captivating red and looked at her.

Grace couldn’t help but smile. “I was already praying in my heart. But let’s pray out loud.”

John bowed his little head, and Grace remembered the unruly Reeves boys tearing around in church every week. She’d judged them very harshly for their behavior. But they’d been there, worshipping. She should have given Daniel credit for that.

“Help Pa to be okay. Bless Abe, Ike, Mark, Luke, and John.” He reeled off the names, including his own, as if he’d done it a thousand times. “And God bless Ma.”

He was silent, so Grace spoke into the darkness. “Take care of the whole Reeves family.” John had prayed for himself. She opened her mouth to add, “And me,” then realized she’d already done it. She was part of the Reeves family.

Suddenly she didn’t have to forcibly keep her fears to herself or her spine straight. She wrapped her arms tightly around John. “You just did something wonderful for me, John.”

He looked up at her. “You mean praying for you?”

That pulled Grace up short. No, she hadn’t meant that. But maybe, just maybe, praying was what it all came down to. She settled John firmly against her. “Praying for me was wonderful. Thank you. And you did something else for me, too.”

“What’s that?” John rubbed his head against her neck when he looked into her eyes.

She glanced at the dying fire and heard the dripping of the melting snow. She felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t been able to do more to save this precious little boy. She felt even worse to think that she would never have the pleasure of being his mother. Her chin quivered, but she held it steady. “You reminded me of who I am.”

“The teacher?”

Grace shook her head. “No, before I was a teacher.”

“You worked somewhere else?” John shifted his weight around as if getting comfortable for story time.

“Oh yes. I worked very hard somewhere else. But I’m not talking about what I did. I’m talking about what I was.”

John shrugged and looked confused. “What were you?”

“I was brave.”

J
ohn tilted his head and frowned. “Brave?”

“Yes, I was so brave when I was growing up.” Grace nodded. “I had to be very strong for the work I did and for the children I took care of.”

In a voice laced with fear, John asked, “You didn’t cook for them, did you?”

Grace smiled. “You ate it.”

“Yeah,” John admitted. “But it helps if you’re
real
hungry.”

Grace laughed out loud. “Well, the truth is, I didn’t cook for them. I worked at a really hard job, and when we’d get home—”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“My sisters and I.”

“Did you have a lot of them?” John bounced on her knee and swung his dangling legs.

Grace was glad he was relaxing. “I had more sisters than you have brothers. About twice as many.”

“There were ten of you?”

“Yup, at least.”

One corner of John’s mouth curled up in confusion. “You don’t know for sure how many?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I lived with a man who adopted me. I was an orphan. And he adopted a lot of other kids, too. The older ones would grow up and go away.” Run away—like she had. “And younger ones would come and take their places at the carpet mill.”