Page 93 of The Fault Between Us
chapter 60:RED
Red held Claire in his arms as the rising sun revealed the devastation of the night.
Rock Creek Campground was gone, covered by a mountain of rubble. Downed trees blanketed the slopes on either side of the canyon, and where the Madison River had flowed clean and sparkling, a dark lake continued to rise.
When Claire had collapsed in his arms, he’d thought his heart would stop beating. Where was their little girl? The most likely answer—in the water that had almost taken Claire—he couldn’t make himself consider. He carried Claire up to the campfire. Mel and Frannie carried Beth and they built up the fire to warm the unconscious women and Frannie.
With the warmth of the fire and the blankets Bridget sent, Claire and Beth both roused. Claire told him about Jenny. “I gave her to a man, outside the trailer,” she told him between hiccuping sobs. “I’m sorry, Red.”
The iron band around Red’s chest loosened. There was still hope. “You did the right thing.” Thank God she had, or Jenny would have been in the nightmare Claire and Beth had barely survived.
If she’d given Jenny to someone at Rock Creek, where was she now? Had he missed her at Refuge Point? Or had whoever saved Jenny somehow got out of the canyon? He refused to consider the other possibility—the one that sat like a cold chunk of ice in his gut. “We’ll find her.”
Claire buried her head in his chest.
“I wish I’d been the one to save you.” Shame laced his voice, but he didn’t care if Claire heard it—or anybody else. It had just about killed him to let Frannie go out into the water after Claire. Frannie didn’t admit it, but he’d seen her exhausted face when she got the two women back. He knew he wouldn’t have made it, just like she’d said.
“You brought the life vest,” Frannie piped up as she huddled close to the blazing fire. “We couldn’t have got them without it.”
He gave Claire another sip from the canteen. They had more to talk about—Dell and Red’s past, their future back in Willmar—but those things could wait. There was only one thing he had to make sure she understood. “I ran away,” he said, his gaze on her beautiful face. “But I was always going to come back.”
Claire met his eyes. “I know—I knew, but...”
He waited as she caught her breath and found the words.
“You can know something in your head, and still not believe it all the way through—all the way to your heart.”
He nodded. She’d been abandoned by someone she loved, by someone she desperately needed. “For better or worse.” He’d made a mess of that vow, but he’d learned his lesson. He’d never leave her again.
She nodded. “’Til death do us part.”
Her words hit him in the heart and he pulled her tight against him. In a few minutes, Claire fell into an exhausted sleep.
When the sun was well over the horizon, a small orange-and-silver plane droned overhead. Frannie jumped up and waved. The plane dipped its wings in acknowledgement, then continued upriver.
“They’ll need a helicopter to get us out,” Mel said. He licked his finger and held it up to test the wind. “And even then it’ll be tricky.”
An hour later, a helicopter with a high-pitched whine appearedin the sky over the slide. Red watched as the small craft landed like a hummingbird on the edge of the ridge, its landing skids jutting off one side into thin air.
Frannie cheered and ran to meet the pilot.
She came back with a message. “He can take two people out,” she said.
Red didn’t like putting Claire in that flimsy helicopter, but she and Beth needed medical care. “Where are you taking them?” he asked the pilot, after he got the women settled into the passenger seats.
“I’m setting down on the other side of the slide,” the pilot yelled over the thrum of the blades. He pointed toward the mouth of the canyon. “There’s a line of volunteers and ambulances going to Ennis with the survivors.”
Survivors.The word twisted in his gut. He kissed Claire, wishing he didn’t have to let her out of his sight again. “I’ll see you in Ennis.”
She nodded, her eyes shining with tears and unsaid worry.
“I’ll find her,” he said as they parted. He’d find their little girl.
They stood back as the helicopter lifted off the ridge. Red held his breath as the little craft hovered, then wobbled in the wind. Finally, it buzzed westward and the clatter of blades faded away.
Red went back to the campfire with a war going on inside him. An urgency to do what he’d promised Claire, and a paralyzing dread of what he might find. He stared into the campfire, then rubbed his hand over his face and stood up. “I’m walking out over the slide,” he announced.
Mel frowned. “The helicopter is coming back for us, it’ll just be a while.”
