by Janet Dailey
The slamming of her car door coincided with a ringing of the telephone in the house. Certain it was Jett, Glenna raced for the front door only to hear the telephone cut off in mid ring as her father answered it. Still she hurried into the house, breathless yet radiant.
"Is that—" She never completed the question, silenced by the sharply raised hand of her father and the stern white look in his expression.
Glenna only heard him make one response to the caller on the phone before he hung up, and that was a clipped, "I'll be there immediately."
"What is it? What's wrong?" She read all sorts of dire things in his expression. "Has something happened?"
He measured her with an even look as he moved into action, taking her arm and steering her back toward the front door. "There's been a cave-in at the mine. That was Bidwell on the phone." He opened the door and ushered her outside.
"Bidwell." Glenna remembered he had been one of the foremen on the shifts. Evidently he'd been rehired. A single line creased her forehead as she dug the car keys out of her purse again. "Why did he call instead of Bruce? Was anybody hurt?"
"They think there are six men trapped." He left her and walked around to the passenger's side of the car while Glenna slid behind the wheel.
"Oh, no." His statement stopped the hand that started to insert the key in the ignition. On the heels of her alarm came another more frightening thought. "Bruce?"
"He's one of the men believed trapped." It was a simple statement not designed to spare her.
Its bluntness caught at her breath, squeezing her lungs until she wanted to cry out. Her rounded eyes sought her father. Neither had to say the things that were silently understood. Bruce could be trapped or buried under a rubble of rock, He could have escaped harm or be seriously injured. He could be with the others or isolated from them. Yet her father's calm strength reached out to invisibly steady her, and prevent any panic from letting her imagination run riot.
"Was there an explosion?" Her hand trembled as she succeeded in insetting the key in the ignition. "Fire?"
"No fire." He relieved one of her fears. "Bidwell was outside the entrance and said he felt the ground vibrate, then heard the rumbling inside the mine and saw the coal dust belch from the opening."
Glenna started the car and reversed out of the driveway, picturing the scene in her mind and feeling the terrible dread that must have swept through the workers on top. She blocked it out because she knew it would give rise to panic. She concentrated on her driving, suddenly impatient with the twisting mountain roads that denied speed.
"When did it happen?" she broke the chilling silence that had descended on the car.
"About twenty minutes or so before Bidwell called me," her father answered. "He notified the main office first, then called me."
Even though her father had no more to do with the mine, Glenna understood the reasoning. This was a close-knit community. In a time of crisis everybody helped. When miners were trapped, every mining man in the area volunteered his services. With her father's intimate knowledge of the mine and experience, he was an obvious choice to be notified in the event of an emergency.
Time was the enemy. It ticked away as Glenna drove as fast as she dared. She wondered if the word had reached Jett. Surely it had by now. Bruce, and the men trapped with him, had to know that every available resource was being galvanized to effect their rescue. If they were still alive. A chill went through her bones, making her shudder.
On the last mile to the mine Glenna encountered other traffic headed for the same destination. News of the cave-in had traveled fast through the West Virginia hills. Others were already arriving on the scene when she turned the car into the parking lot.
Leaving the car parked alongside others, Glenna hurried with her father toward the fence gate. There was already a hubbub of milling people outside the mine buildings and entrance. They were an assortment of miners, families, and townspeople.
A small wiry man separated himself from the group to meet her father. Glenna recognized him as Carl Bidwell, the foreman who had called her father with news of the accident.
"Am I ever glad to see you, Mr. Reynolds," he declared.
The man's face was pale and etched with lines of stress and worry. Glenna knew her face showed the same brittle tension marked with latent fear as the faces of all those around her. Her gaze sought the mine entrance, but the steadily growing crowd of people blocked it from her view. Bruce was somewhere inside that mountain. Glenna clung to the belief that he was still alive. He had to be.
"Has anything developed since you called me?" her father questioned. "Have you made contact with any of those inside?"
The negative shake of Bidwell's head was in answer to both questions. As others in the milling crowd recognized Orin Reynolds they pressed forward, besieging him with questions he hadn't had a chance to ask for himself.
The chopping whir of a helicopter interrupted the conversation, drowning out the voices as it approached. All eyes turned to it. Glenna recognized the Coulson Mining insignia on its side. Coming in low over the heads of the crowd, it whipped up a wind that swirled dust clouds through the air. Turning her head aside, Glenna shielded her eyes from the blowing particles of dirt with her hand and tried to keep the dark copper length of her hair from blowing in her face.
It landed on a helicopter pad within the fenced area around the mine, kicking up more dust to obscure the vision of those on the ground. Three men in business suits emerged from the chopper and crouched low to avoid the whirling blades as they hurried toward the crowd. The minute they were clear, the helicopter lifted off.
With a profound sense of relief, Glenna recognized Jett as one of the three men. Just the sight of his sun-bronzed craggy features gave her strength. Once free of the overhead threat of the chopper blades, he straightened his tall frame and let long strides carry him to the knotted group of onlookers. A hand reached up to absently restore some order to the untamed thickness of his black hair.
The concentration of concern had darkened his eyes to an ebony pitch. Glenna felt the penetration of his gaze the instant he singled her out from the crowd. He altered his course slightly to approach her, but it was to her father that he spoke.
"I'm glad you're here, Orin." He grasped her father's hand, the edges of his mouth lifting in a grim semblance of a smile.
"Bidwell phoned me," her father replied.
"We can use your help," Jett stated.
"I'll help any way I can. Even if you hadn't asked, I would have been here. Like the others—" her father's glance encompassed the crowd of people gathered at the site "—waiting to lend a hand if needed."
"What's the status?" Jett made a search of the encircling ring of people. "Where is Hawkins?'"
Someone on the outer edge answered, "He was in the mine when it collapsed."
Jett's gaze swerved sharply to Glenna, revealing his ignorance until that moment of the fact that Bruce was one of the missing men. His piercing look seemed to question while it reached out to comfort. Tears sprang into her eyes and her chin began quivering. Desperately she wanted to have his arms around her and ward off the chill of uncertainty with his warmth. But it was impossible and improper in this mob of people.
Something flickered across his expression, a raw frustration mixed with a savage kind of anger. Then a poker mask covered his features and his gaze was withdrawn from her, This was the time for cold clear thinking—not emotions.
"Let's go to the office." At his clipped statement the milling crowd separated to form a corridor through which Jett walked toward the mine buildings. Bidwell, the two men from the helicopter, Glenna and her father followed him. Jett continued issuing directives as he walked. "I want to see a diagram of the mine. I want to know the location of the collapse and the approximate location of the men inside when it happened."
Glenna swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked away all the tears but one that trembled on the edge of her lashes. It she brushed away. Her father's
arm was around her shoulders, silently offering her support and comfort as they followed Jett and the others into the building.
"How many men were inside? Eight?" Jett shot the question at Bidwell.
"We thought it was eight, but we accounted for two men. It looks like there are only six inside, sir," the wiry man replied, intimidated by the presence of the head of the firm.
Jett paused in an outer office. "Do you have their names?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have all their families been notified?"
"All except two, sir. We haven't been able to reach them yet."
Until that moment when Jett swung around to face her, Glenna hadn't believed he knew she had followed him inside. His eyes made an impersonal inspection of her. "Are you all right?" he asked flatly.
She knew he was really asking if she was in control of herself. "Yes," she assured him.
"Would you get the names of the two men from Bidwell and take the responsibility of making certain their families are notified?" It was an unpleasant task he was offering her, but it showed his belief in her ability to handle it.
"I will." Glenna quietly assumed the role he had given her.
While Jett, her father, and the other two men went to the inner office, Bidwell remained behind to give her the names before joining them. Both families knew Glenna through her father. It took her the better part of an hour before she was able to locate both of them and break the news to them with a woman's compassion.
Even when that job was done a sense of responsibility remained with her, a desire to do something that might in some small way help. She emptied the morning black dregs from the large coffee urn and made fresh coffee. That would be needed and more before all this was over.
All the while there was a hum of activity around her. Directives came from the private office where Jett had set up his headquarters. And reports flowed back in. The crowd outside grew larger with friends and relatives of the trapped men as well as the multitude of volunteers. Naturally the press arrived, first newspaper reporters and later on television crews.
Cleve Ross, one of the men who had arrived with Jett, emerged from the privacy of the inner office to issue a statement to the news media. It dealt in specifics, pinpointing the location of the cave-in on a diagram and the possible location of the men inside when it happened. Although the extent of the collapse wasn't known, the statement held out hope that the men were behind the wall of rock and dirt. The report actually contained little that Glenna hadn't already known.
Afterward she and two office workers volunteered to answer the incessantly ringing telephones and respond to the endless inquiries regarding the fate of the trapped miners. It kept Glenna occupied, even if it didn't allow her thoughts to stray from the worry over Bruce and his companions.
By half-past seven Glenna had stopped paying attention to who came and went through the door to the yard. As she replaced the telephone receiver on its cradle she heard the griping tone or a familiar voice behind her and turned in the swivel chair to recognize the plump figure of their former housekeeper, Hannah Burns.
"I can't stand here holding this forever," she was complaining, a large foil-mounded baking sheet in her hands. "Someone will have to clear a table to set this on."
Directly behind her there were two high-school-aged girls carrying similar pans, and a boy holding a large commercial coffee urn. A shirt-sleeved man was hurrying to clear space on a long worktable.
"Hannah." Glenna ignored the ring of the phone to rise quickly to cross the room. "What are you doing here?"
"I knew you and your father would be here," the woman replied with a brief glance. "I figured nobody would be thinking about their stomachs at a time like this. So I took it upon myself to do it for them. I brought some cold sandwiches, salads, and chips. A couple of the grocers donated the food and these young people volunteered to help fix it."
She set the baking sheet down and folded back the aluminum foil to reveal the stacks of sandwiches, then motioned the two girls to set their trays beside hers. The boy found a place for the coffee urn beside the one Glenna had fixed.
"Go get the rest of the things from the car," Hannah ordered and her trio of helpers set off to obey.
"You're right, Hannah," Glenna admitted. "No one has thought about eating. I'm glad you did."
The practicality of the woman had a steadying influence on Glenna. Her mere presence offered support, and the comfort of someone who had weathered many a crisis with Glenna before.
"We certainly aren't going to feed the entire mob of gawkers out there, but the men's families and the workers are going to need some nourishment before this is over. People always have more hope when hunger isn't gnawing at them," Hannah philosophized.
The remark made Glenna aware that the hollow feeling inside might be filled by some food. The three teenagers returned with sacks of chips, paper plates and cups, as well as huge bowls of potato salad. Glenna helped them arrange the assortment of food into a buffet. When word spread there was food in the building, there was an influx of hungry people with the alternating shifts of rescue workers always having priority at the table.
A security man who had worked for her father and been rehired by Coulson approached Glenna. She knew the man only as Red, although his hair had long ago thinned and turned gray.
"Miss Reynolds," he addressed her respectfully, removing his cap. A deeply etched worry shadowed his pale eyes. "There's a Mrs. Cummins out there with two small children. Her husband is one of the men in the mine. I tried to get her to come in and eat, but she refused. She just sits out there with the little ones huddled around her, starin' at the entrance to the mine. Maybe if you spoke to her, she'd listen."
"I'll see," she promised.
Leaving the security guard she paused to tell Hannah where she would be in case she was needed and went outside in search of the woman. Local sheriff's deputies had joined the company's security force to cordon off the area around the mine entrance and separate the sightseers from those directly associated with the situation.
Glenna had no difficulty spotting the woman the guard had described. She was standing away from the others, a four-year-old pressing close to her legs, a two-year-old in her arms, and her protruding figure indicated a baby on the way. Twilight was pulling a dark curtain over the mountainscape but floodlights made the fenced yard around the mine and its buildings bright as day. Glenna crossed the lighted space to the woman and her children.
As she drew closer she heard the four-year-old boy whimpering, "I want to go home, mommy. I'm hungry."
"No. We can't go 'til daddy comes," the woman replied as if repeating it by rote, her attention not straying from the mine.
"Mrs. Cummins." Glenna saw the ashen strain on the woman's face as she half turned in answer to her name, reluctantly letting her gaze waver. "I am Glenna Reynolds."
The surname immediately drew a response. "Have you heard something?" the woman rushed. Glenna was shocked to realize the woman was no older than herself, but worry had aged her with haggard lines. "Tom? Is he—"
"I'm sorry. There hasn't been any news," Glenna explained quickly to check the outpouring of wasted questions. "It might be a while before we know anything. We have sandwiches and hot coffee inside. Why don't you come in and have something to eat? You'll feel better.'
"No." The woman had already lost interest in her. "I'm not hungry."
"Maybe you aren't, but you have to think of the children and the baby you're carrying," Glenna insisted, but the woman indifferently shook her head.
The little boy tugged at his mother's skirts and repeated, "I'm hungry." He didn't understand what was going on, or the silence of all the others in the crowd that was broken only by the murmur of hushed voices.
"If you won't come in," Glenna persisted, "would it be all right if I brought out some sandwiches for the little ones?" The woman hesitated, then nodded an absent agreement. But Glenna wasn't satisfied. She hated leaving the woman alone like this
. "Is there someone I could call to wait with you? Family or friends?"
"No." The woman shook her head and protectively hugged the little girl tighter in her arms, a hand reaching out to touch the little boy at her side in silent reassurance. "All our kin is in Kentucky. Tom…" Her voice broke slightly. "Tom just got enough money saved to send for us last week."
"I see," Glenna murmured inadequately. "I'll bring some food for the children, and a hot cup of coffee for you."
Her remark didn't receive a response and Glenna turned away. As she started to recross the yard another woman called to her. It was the wife of one of the miners who had escaped the collapse.
"Miss Reynolds, is Mrs. Cummins all right?" she questioned anxiously. "The poor thing doesn't know a soul here."
"She's frightened." As we all are, Glenna thought as she allowed herself a moment to fear for Bruce. "I'm going to bring out something for them to eat. Would you stay with her until I come back? It has to be difficult being so alone."
"Of course, I will" The older woman agreed quickly to the suggestion.
When Glenna reentered the building she went straight to the buffet table of food and fixed two plates for the children. She added more than they could eat in hopes their mother would eat what was left.
Walking to the coffee urn she noticed Jett standing not far from it, deep in conversation with two other men. His suit jacket and tie were gone and his sleeves were rolled short of his elbows. Lines of sober concern were cut into his features, his dark eyes narrowed with concentration, Glenna wished she could go to him, touch him and ease some of the burden he carried, but it was just as impossible now as it had been that afternoon.
She filled a paper cup with hot coffee, unaware that Jett glanced at her, his gaze reaching out for her. She juggled the plates until she could carry them and the cup, too, then returned outside.
When she approached with the food Mrs. Cummins sat the small children cross-legged on the ground. They acted starved, hardly waiting to be given the plates before snatching the sandwich halves to begin eating. Glenna offered the cup of coffee to Mrs. Cummins.
