The Way of Women (30 page)

Several army trucks and local pickups nearly blocked the road as the Blazer topped the next hill.

“I thought we were to be the first out here.” Frank braked the Blazer. He rolled down his window. “What’s going on?”

A mud-covered man in drab green answered. “Animals caught in the mudflow. We’re dragging them out.”

Jenn jumped from the vehicle as Frank parked behind the others, her camera at the ready.

Ahead, three men worked over a bedraggled steer on the ground. Two cows stood spraddle-legged, heads hanging. Mud still dripped off their steaming bodies.

“Not sure about this one,” one of them men said. “She was in pretty deep.” He felt the cow’s ribs and legs. “Can’t feel anything broken on this side.”

“Can we leave her alone for a while?” someone asked.

“No, better roll her up. She’ll get pneumonia lying like that, if she hasn’t already.”

The men struggled with the cow. One pulled on her head while Frank and an old farmer tucked her legs under her. A teen boy knelt by her back, push-lifting and talking the cow into a response. Slowly, the cow rolled up to rest on her folded legs. She coughed, then dropped her chin to the ground.

“Better put her out of her misery.”

The boy braced the cow with his knees against her back to keep her upright. “Give her some more time, please?” The cow coughed and shook her head.

“She’s looking better.” Jenn capped her lens.

“Let’s get her up, now or never.” One of the guardsmen slapped the cow on the rump.

The boy bounced his knees into her back. “Come on, do it.” His voice broke on the words.

The cow shook her head resentfully and tried to lie back, but the boy’s knees prevented her from rolling flat.

“Come on, you can make it.” Jenn grabbed the halter rope someone had snapped in place.

The cow’s chin balanced on the ground, her rump rising as her hind feet struggled for footing. The men braced her on both sides as she straightened her front legs and finally stood, head hanging, panting.

Crack! A rifle shot echoed across the valley. Jenn’s heart leaped like a deer during hunting season. “What are they doing?”

“An animal was still alive but too far gone to pull out,” one of the soldiers answered. “Can’t leave ’em to suffer, so …”

Nausea churned in Jenn’s throat. Shooting animals that had been through so much seemed cruel beyond measure, and yet she knew it was for the best.

Frank’s warm hand clapped on her shoulder. “Can’t be helped.”

“I know.”

One of the guardsmen pulled a bale of hay from the back of a truck and broke it open in front of the weary cows. Another set out a small water trough and filled it from the steel storage tank in the back of the truck. One of the cows drank immediately.

Jenn got a photo of that and followed Frank back to the truck. Mud reached halfway to her knees. “I’d not thought about the farmers losing their livestock like this.”

“There’s all kinds of loss no one thinks about until after.”

Led by the Blazer, the caravan of rescue vehicles ground over the next hill. At the edge of the gray-mud wash, the blacktop disappeared. On the far side, the road picked up and meandered over the next hill. The mud looked like a dense fog had drifted back across the holler. Even in four-wheel drive, the wheels slithered and spun, unable to keep their traction.

Frank rocked the vehicle back and forth, reversed, and backed out onto the solid road. “We’re going to have to backtrack to a logging road. Can’t drive through that yet.”

One by one the trucks turned in the narrow road and followed the Blazer about a quarter mile back to where a log barred the way on a turnoff. Two guardsmen jumped from their canvas-covered truck and rolled the log off to one side. Jenn waved their thanks as Frank shifted back into four-wheel drive and bumped up the hill.

Frank clicked on his CB. “Any news on that sediment dam at the lake?”

“Still holding, but the water’s getting deeper with all this runoff. You’d better be ready to get out of there quick.”

“Thanks, Maybelle. What would I do without you warning me?”

“Keep a zip on that lip, Sheriff.” The last was said with her traditional emphasis. “Or I’ll let the river have at you.”

Frank snorted. “Over and out.”

Back on the main road, the caravan topped another hill.

“Well, will you look at that?” Jenn grinned at Frank, who smiled back. White-faced cows and calves grazed calmly on the grass along the road. “Some kept ahead of it all.”

“But look out farther.”

Jenn saw the trapped cows but focused her camera on the barn roof that sat on the surface of the mud as if floating. The red door to the haymow was only a foot or two above the gray. She swiftly changed lenses, took her picture, then followed the men out to the cows.

A hungry calf trotted back and forth at the mud’s edge, crying for his trapped mother. The cow mooed in a frenzy, frantic because she could move only her head.

Slowly, the rescuers slogged across the mud to the trapped cows. Using small army shovels, they dug carefully around the nearest animal. With mud up only to her belly, it didn’t take long to dig a trench to free her legs. One of the men slipped a halter on the cow’s head, and while he pulled, another pushed from behind. With a bellow, the cow lurched forward into freedom. She slipped and fell to her knees, but between the man on the halter and another behind, all of them slipping and nearly falling, they got her to the edge and to her hungry calf.

The last cow lay farther out, only her head and upper back visible. She barely flicked her ears when they approached her. The men dug down on both sides of her and tunneled behind her front legs, freeing a space to thread sling and ropes. They did the same in front of the rear legs, everyone by now resembling “abominable mudmen.”

“She’s a heavy one,” one of the diggers muttered, wiping sweat and mud from his face. “It’s going to take all of us.”

“I’ll get the halter on her,” the boy said as he knelt in the mud to slip a rope around her neck and loop it over her nose for a makeshift halter.

“All together now.” The men grabbed the ropes and heaved. Jenn clicked her camera; the cow moaned.

“We can’t do this one.”

“Please try again.” Jenn couldn’t keep the words back. What did she know about pulling cows from mud? In all her years in New York, she’d hardly seen any mud.

Frank shook his head. “All together.” They strained, the sucking mud slowing releasing its captive. With a mighty heave the cow lay on her side, gasping as full breaths filled her tortured lungs.

“Oh, you poor girl.” Jenn, her camera slung out of the way, knelt beside the cow. Rising, she glanced down in the hole to see a patch of red. “What’s that?” She turned to Frank and pointed down in the hole that was fast filling with water.

One of the men dug a bit deeper to reveal a calf entombed in the mud.

“Oh, her baby.” Jenn fought the tears that threatened, but when she saw the boy’s tear-striped face, she turned away and let the tears wash away some of the mud. “I know it’s life, but it sure isn’t fair.”

“No one ever promised fair.” Frank turned back to the cow. “Let’s drag her across the mud and give her some solid ground to stand on.”

By the time they got the cow back on her feet and left hay and water, Jenn felt like she’d been doing as much digging as the men. The stench of mud and death coated her hands and heart. What else would they find in their search for survivors?

Two days later, her pictures of the men dragging the cow across the mud appeared on the cover of the
Portland Oregonian
. Jenn nearly cried again when she saw it.

“Good job,” Frank said when he called.

“Thank you. I’ve sold others. I need to thank you for letting me come along on these rescue operations.”

“None needed. At least you have enough sense to stay out of the way.”

“Yeah, and I finally got the muck washed out of my hair too. I keep thinking about Harry. You think he had any warning?”

“Yeah, but when he felt the blast, if he wasn’t in his tunnel already, there wasn’t enough time to get there. And by now, he’d be out of air.”

“Thanks, you’re such a comfort.”

“He’ll be a folk hero now. Old man against the mountain.”

“And he lost.”

“All depends on your point of view.”

Jenn found herself thinking of his comment more often than she’d have liked.

M
ellie wished she could disappear into the seat of the car. “We’re almost home, Mommy.” Lissa turned to look up into her mother’s face. “Bunny’s happy too.”

Mellie glanced over to Katheryn, who turned her head to share an encouraging glance. If she hadn’t known better, she could have pretended that Harv had gotten home already and was waiting for them. He would swing Lissa up to sit on his hip and put his other arm around her, so he could squeeze his two girls at the same time. Something he’d done just that way since Lissa was big enough. Before then, he’d held the baby against his shoulder and his wife tucked under his arm.

The grass had grown half a foot since they were gone. She’d never started that lawn mower in her life. Old and cranky, it sputtered to life only through Harv’s loving ministrations.

“How will I ever …?” She stopped, the enormity of it all rolling over her like those waves of mud that toppled houses and trees.

“Hurry, Mommy, I have to go potty.”

Mellie dug in her bag for the house keys. “I’m coming.”

The house smelled lost and unloved. And cold. She reset the thermostat. “Would you like a cup of tea?” Kitty wound around her legs, her plaintive cry an echo of the lonely house.

“Sounds lovely.” Katheryn rubbed her hands together. “When did Mr. Johnson say he would be home?”

“Next week. He’s always been so good to us.”

“He told me it was you and Harv who had been good to him.”

Mellie filled the teakettle and set it on the burner. “Just being neighborly. Harv met all the neighbors not long after we moved here. He was always so friendly to everyone.”
Not like me. What am I going to do?

“Your message light is blinking.” Katheryn indicated the phone.

Mellie’s heart leaped.
Harv. No, never again
. She rubbed her chest with the flat of her shaking hand. She crossed the room to press the Message button. The light blinked four.

The first from Mrs. Robins, a neighbor. The second a hang-up buzz, the third a bill collector—she cringed that Katheryn could hear such a thing—the fourth …

The doctor’s office. “If you could be here at three on Thursday, we can work you in.”

Mellie’s gaze flew to the calendar. Today. And it was already one.

“That at Fred Hutchinson?”

“Yes.”

“How quickly can you pack? You can spend the night at my house afterward.”

“I’d better call them first and see if the slot is still open.” Mellie played the number back and dialed.

She hung up, shaking her head at the same time. “That one was filled, but we already have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow at eleven.”

“That’s at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center up behind Swedish Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see, that means I need to pick you up about nine thirty, unless of course you’d like to come home with me now.”

“Mrs. Sommers, did you pet Kitty?” Lissa wore the cat draped over her arm like a shawl. Kitty’s back feet hung clear down to her knees.

“No, but she sure is pretty.” Katheryn stooped down to stroke the purring cat’s head. “When you come to my house, you can play with Lucky. She’s my dog.” And she won’t have anyone to play with her anymore.
Stop it. Remember, you promised you wouldn’t give up yet. There is still hope
.

Her knees creaked as she stood again. “Mellie?”

“Uh-huh.” She looked up from studying the note on the table. A simple note that read, “Nearly out of dried cat food. I cleaned the kitty litter box. If there is anything I can help you with, let me know. I’m going to miss Harv too. He was a fine man. Mrs. R.”

“He was a fine man, best thing that ever happened to me.”

Katheryn could barely hear her.

“Mommy, when is Daddy coming home?”

The women exchanged a glance, both of them blinking hard.

“How do I …?” Mellie gave Katheryn a pleading look.

I’m no help. How do you tell a child the daddy she adores is no longer coming home?

“I could go get the cat food for you.”

Mellie looked as if she could keel right over. “Not now.” She laid a
hand on Katheryn’s arm. “C-could you pray. I’ve got to tell her.” One tear rolled down her cheek as she sniffed back others.

“Okay.”

“Mommy?”

Mellie scooped kid and cat up in her arms and headed for the living room, where a dark wooden rocker with floral pads tied in the seat and on the back sat in front of the square picture window. Curtains that might once have been floral to match the pillows hung straight on either side.

Mellie settled them in the chair as she had done thousands of times. When Lissa leaned against her mother’s chest, Mellie rested her chin on the top of her daughter’s head.