She gave them both a slow nod.
One of them raked his shaggy hair off his forehead and met Collin’s eyes. “Yeah?”
As he’d already done several times in the past eighteen hours or so, Collin surprised her. He knew their names. “Jesse. Franklin. Show a little respect, huh?”
Jesse, who was fourteen if Willa remembered correctly, cleared his throat. “We are, Mr. Traub.” Mr. Traub. So strange. To hear anybody call the youngest, wildest Traub mister. But then again, well, the Traubs were pillars of the Rust Creek Falls community. Some of that probably rubbed off, even on the family bad boy—especially to a couple of impressionable teenagers.
Franklin, who was thirteen, added, “We were just, you know, checkin’ things out.”
Collin leaned out the window and suggested in a just-between-us-men kind of voice, “You two could make yourselves useful, do this town a real big favor....”
The two boys perked up considerably. “Well, yeah. Sure,” said Jesse.
“How?” asked Franklin.
“Head on up to the garage. See if Clovis has a tow truck he can spare.” Clovis Hart had owned and run the garage and gas station at Sawmill and North Buckskin for as long as Willa could remember. “Tell him the mayor’s SUV is still sitting in the middle of Main Street with a tree trunk buried in its hood and lots of folks would appreciate it if Clovis could tow it away.”
The boys shared a wide-eyed look. And then Franklin said, “Yeah. We could do that.”
“You want me to take you up there?”
“Naw,” said Jesse, puffing out his skinny chest. “We can handle it ourselves.”
“Good enough, then. Thanks, boys—and tell Clovis he probably ought to bring a chain saw for that tree.”
“We will.” The two took off up Main at a run.
“That was well done,” Willa said, and didn’t even bother to try and hide the admiration in her voice.
Collin grunted. “Maybe, but do you think they’ll make it happen?”
“You know, I kind of do. They’re good kids. And this is a way for them to help. And you know Clovis.”
“Yes, I do. Clovis Hart respected Hunter McGee and he won’t like it that the car Hunter died in is sitting on Main with the hood smashed in for everyone to stare and point at.”
She glanced toward the dashboard clock. It was 10:45 a.m. “So what do we do now?”
“I was thinking we could go and see how your house made out....”
She glanced over her shoulder, out the back window, past a happily panting Buster, at the Main Street Bridge. Someone had put a row of orange traffic cones in front of it to warn people off trying to use it. And one of her brother’s deputies was standing, arms folded, in front of the pedestrian walk that spanned one side. “It doesn’t look like they’re letting folks cross the bridge.”
Connor glanced over his shoulder, too. “We could try heading back to the Sawmill Street Bridge, then going on foot along the top of the levee until we get to your street.”
“That could be dangerous...I mean, with the breaks in the levee and all. We would have to go carefully, and we don’t know what we’ll find if we manage to get to my house. It could take hours and we would miss the noon meeting Hank mentioned. I do think we should go to that.”
Collin faced front again, his big shoulders slumping, and stared broodingly out the windshield back the way they had come. “You know who’ll be running that meeting now Hunter’s gone, don’t you?”
She did. “Nathan Crawford.” Nathan was in his early thirties, a member of the town council. Everyone expected him to be mayor himself someday. He and Collin had never liked each other. It was as if the two had been born to be enemies. Nathan was as handsome and dynamic as Collin was brooding and magnetic. Collin had always been a rebel and Nathan considered himself a community leader.
Rumor had it that five or six years back, Nathan’s girlfriend, Anita, had gone out on him—with Collin. Word was Anita had told Collin that she and Nathan were through. But apparently, she’d failed to inform Nathan of that fact. There’d been a fight, a nasty one, between the two men. Some claimed Collin had won, others insisted Nathan had come out the victor. After that, the two had hated each other more than ever.
Plus, there was the old rivalry between their two families. Nathan was a Crawford to the core. The Crawfords not only owned the general store, they were also as influential in the community as the Traubs. And for as long as anyone could remember, Crawfords and Traubs had been at odds. Willa didn’t really know the origin of the feud, but it seemed to be bred in the bone now between the town’s two most important families. Traubs didn’t think much of Crawfords. And the Crawfords returned the favor.
She spoke gently, but with firmness. “I really think it’s important that everyone who can possibly be there attends that meeting.”
He put his arm along the back of the seat and touched her shoulder, a gentle brush of a touch. She felt that touch acutely. His dark eyes sought hers—and held them. “So you want to go to the meeting first and then decide what to do about getting to your place?”
She smiled at him. “I do. Yes.” Right then, a Rust Creek Garage tow truck came rumbling toward them down the street.
“I’ve got a chain saw in my toolbox in the back.” Collin got out to give Clovis a hand.
* * *
At ten past two that afternoon the town hall meeting was still going on.
Collin sat next to Willa and wished he was anywhere but there. He was getting hungry, for one thing. And he figured the rest of the crowd had to be hungry, too.
The big multipurpose meeting room was packed. They had a generator for the lights, but there was no air-conditioning, never had been in the town hall. As a rule, it didn’t get that hot in Rust Creek Falls. But with all the bodies packed in that room, it was hot now.
Tired, frightened, stressed-out townsfolk had taken every chair. More people stood at the back or along the side walls. There were children, too. People didn’t want to let their kids out of their sight at a time like this. And kids got restless when forced to sit or stand in one place for too long.
Babies were wailing and small voices kept asking, “Daddy, when can we go?” and “Mommy, is this over yet?”
There were a lot of big talkers in town and every one of them was insisting on being heard. Plus, that jerk Nathan sat up there on the hall stage with the other useless members of the council and kept banging the mayor’s big hand-carved oak gavel for order.
All right, it was true. A lot of people thought the world of Nathan Crawford. And maybe, if Collin were being fair about it, he’d admit that Nathan had a few good qualities. However, when it came to most Crawfords, and Nathan in particular, Collin just plain didn’t feel like being fair.
Nathan had the council in his pocket, naturally. They all looked at him like he was wearing a damn halo or something, like he was the one sent down from heaven to single-handedly fix everything that had gone so completely wrong since the day before.
“Everyone, your attention!” Nathan boomed in that smooth baritone that made people think he knew what he was talking about. “We all have to work together here. As I’ve said before, though phone, internet and TV are temporarily out of commission, we have the radio system at the sheriff’s office and we are in communication with DES—that is the state office of Disaster and Emergency Services. They are well aware of what is going on in Rust Creek Falls and the valley. And, unfortunately, in far too many other communities in western Montana. The good news, however, is that everything is under control and moving along.”
Somebody in the crowd made a rude noise.
Nathan banged the mayor’s gavel some more. “If we could all just be patient for a little bit longer, we will get these teams firmed up, so we can all get going on the cleanup right away.”
Collin knew he should keep his mouth shut. His plan had been to get through the meeting, help Willa deal with the probable ruin of her home and then pitch in whereve
r he was needed. But Nathan and the council had their priorities turned around. And while there were plenty of people willing to go on and on about the difficulty of the situation and how much they wanted to help, nobody else seemed ready to tell the council they were putting the cart before the horse.
He got to his feet. Beside him, Willa startled and looked up at him, wide-eyed. She did amuse him, the way she always looked so worried about what he might do next. He sent her a glance that he meant to be reassuring. Her eyes only got wider. So much for soothing her. He faced front and waded in.
“I’m sorry. Nobody’s speaking up about the real issue here and so I suppose I’m going to have to be the one. Nathan, cleanup is not the issue yet,” he said good and loud. “First, we need to get teams into the flooded areas and see who needs help there. We need search and rescue and we needed it hours ago.”
A chorus of agreement rose from the crowd. Apparently, others thought there should be a rescue effort. It was only that no one had been willing to stand up and say it out loud.
Nathan banged his gavel. He looked at Collin the way he always did: as though he’d just crawled out from under a rock. “Order. Please, everyone. I already explained. We have the volunteer firefighters out searching for trapped or injured survivors.”
“One team, you’re saying? With how many men on it?”
Nathan didn’t answer either question. Instead, he went right on with his argument. “Those men are trained for this and know what they’re doing. We don’t think it’s a big problem. No one has reported anyone missing.”
“And how’re you going to know if someone’s missing?” Collin demanded. “People can’t call. The phones are out. There can’t be more than a third of the people in the valley here at this meeting or hanging around Main Street. Where are the rest of them? Trying to clean up what’s theirs? Off to Livingston for the rodeo, or down in Thunder Canyon with the rest of my family? Or trapped on the upper floors of their houses, wondering why no one’s come looking for them?”
“But we are looking. And I honestly do not believe—”
Collin didn’t even let him get started. “And you didn’t answer my first question. How many men are out on search and rescue, Nathan?”
Others spoke up then. “Yeah! How many?” someone demanded.
“Not enough, that’s how many!” answered another.
Nathan’s face had gone a deep shade of red. “People, please. Order!”
Collin stuck his hands into the pockets of Wayne Christensen’s overalls and waited for Nathan to stop pounding that gavel. Once he did, Collin answered the question himself. “I’m guessing about nine. Nine men to cover the whole of this town and the valley. Have I got that right?”
“Nine strong, able men who are trained in effective search and rescue,” Nathan insisted, his face even redder than before.
Collin kept after him. “It doesn’t matter how good they are. Nine men are not enough. We need to put every able-bodied adult on the search until we’ve made a circuit of all the homes and ranches in town and in the valley. It shouldn’t take more than the rest of today and tomorrow, if we get a move on. After that, we can change our focus to salvage and cleanup.”
Down the row from him and Willa, one of the Crawford men called out, “Sit down and shut up, why don’t you, Traub? Let them that knows what they’re doing make the decisions here.”
“Yeah,” said another voice. “We don’t need the likes of you tellin’ us what to do first.”
And that was when Willa shot to her feet beside him. At first, Collin thought she would grab his arm and beg him to stay out of it.
But it turned out he’d misjudged her. “I feel I must add my voice to Collin’s,” she said in that prim schoolmarm way of hers that never failed to get him kind of hot. “We have no idea how many people might be trapped in their homes or their barns. There are bound to be collapsed buildings. People could be buried in the rubble, praying they’ll be rescued before it’s too late. We’ve already lost Mayor McGee.”
“Bless his soul,” said a woman’s voice.
“Amen,” said another.
Willa wasn’t finished. “Search and rescue is the first job. And we need to give it everything. We can’t afford to lose one more precious life in Rust Creek Falls or the valley.”
And Collin added his voice to hers. “We’ve got to save our people before we worry about our property.”
The room erupted in whistles and applause. People shouted, “By God, he’s right!” and “Search and rescue!” and “Collin’s said it!” and “Listen to the schoolteacher!”
By the time the clapping finally stopped, even Nathan had seen the writing on the wall. He did what he had to do and went along. “The council, as always, seeks to understand and take action according to the wishes of our citizens. We will call in the nine trained men and reassign them as team leaders.”
Willa leaned close and asked softly, “Call? The phones are out....”
He whispered back, “They’ll have handheld radios—walkie-talkies.”
“Oh. Right...”
Nathan was still talking. “For today and tomorrow—and as long as is needed—those nine leaders will head the teams in our search-and-rescue efforts. Volunteers, seek out a leader. Marjorie?”
Marjorie Hanke, the council member to Nathan’s right, stood, picked up a pointer and smacked it against the map of the county that hung behind the council table. The map had already been divided into sections for the proposed cleanup teams. “Team one, section one—and so on,” Marjorie announced. “We’ve been fortunate in that rubber boots, heavy rubber gloves and necessary tools have already been trucked in and will be provided to each of you. Please wear the boots and gloves at all times when searching in mud or standing water. Be on careful lookout, everyone, for vermin of all persuasions. Floods bring out the rats and displace the snakes. Thank you, Nathan.” With a nod, she set down the pointer and took her seat again.
Nathan wrapped it up. At last. “Getting around in the flood areas isn’t easy, but we are able to truck in supplies from Kalispell for those in need. The Ladies Auxiliary of the Community Church has set out a meal on the church lawn while we’ve been busy with our meeting here. If everyone will file outside in an orderly manner, Pastor Alderson will lead us in a prayer, after which we will share a late lunch. By then, your team leaders will have returned—and the search for missing survivors can commence.”
Chapter Five
Buster, leashed to a railing outside the town hall, whined and wiggled in greeting when Willa went to collect him. She took a minute to pet him and praise him for being such a good dog.
Collin got her pack from his pickup for her and then he walked across the street to the church at her side. When her friend and fellow teacher, Paige Dalton, waved and called her name, Willa quickly looked away and pretended she didn’t hear.
No, it wasn’t nice of her to treat a friend that way. But she wanted a few more minutes with Collin. Soon, he would be off with one of the search teams. And then he would probably want to go up the mountain, to check on his house. There would be no reason, once he left with the searchers, for them to be together anymore. The time had come when they would go their separate ways.
She would always be grateful to him—for saving her life in the flood, for helping her make it through those awful first hours trapped in the barn. But she felt a bit wistful, too. For most of that day, it had almost seemed as though she and Collin were a team, ready and able to do what needed doing, fully capable, between them, of handling whatever challenges might arise. It had been a strangely heady feeling.
She wished she didn’t feel so sad suddenly. But already, she was looking back longingly on the afternoon and evening before, and at the morning just passed. In retrospect now, it seemed hard to believe that she’d held a grudge against him for four long years. Her recent ill will toward him seemed something from another lifetime—from someone else’s lifetime. She simply didn’t have it in her to
feel bitterness toward him now.
Now, she could almost view the flood and its immediate aftermath as some sort of lovely, exciting adventure story come to life, an adventure starring the two of them—which was way too self-absorbed of her and she knew it. This was no adventure story. This was a bona fide real-life disaster. People she cared about were losing everything.
Including herself, if you came right down to it. She wasn’t holding out a lot of hope for the condition of her house. And what about all of her stuff? She had so many treasures—her favorite velvet sofa pillow, the fairy-tale books she’d collected since childhood, that spindly inlaid table she proudly displayed in the front hall...
The list was endless. What would be left of the things that she loved?
She ordered herself not to go there. Her belongings might be precious to her, but they were only things and she needed to remember that now.
At least she had flood insurance, as did Gage, thank God. Whatever condition her house might be in, there would eventually be money to repair or rebuild. Many people in town and in the valley couldn’t afford flood insurance. They could end up with nothing.
Collin nudged her arm. “You’re wrinkling up your forehead. What’s the matter?”
She tugged on Buster’s leash as he dawdled, sniffing at the curb. “Just worrying, I guess.”
“Stop.” He gave her one of those sexy bad-boy grins of his. “We’re going to get fed. It’s something to be happy about.”
* * *
At the church, the ladies auxiliary had been busy. They’d set up rows of tables out on the lawn. And they’d even thought of people’s pets. Thelma, Hunter McGee’s mother, gave her a bowl of water for Buster and a couple of dog biscuits. The older woman looked pale, Willa thought, and her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed.
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