Wild and Wonderful (17 page)

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.

"No. I don't want anything," she refused irritably.

Mrs. Digby, the miner's wife who had been standing silently by, pursed her lips in temper. "Miss Reynolds was thoughtful enough to bring you the coffee. The least you can do is thank her."

"I'm sorry. All I can think about is Tom," the woman began in a frightened kind of explanation.

"All you can think about is yourself," Mrs. Digby criticized.

"Please," Glenna didn't think Mrs. Digby was handling the situation properly.

But the miner's wife paid no attention to her. "Do you think you're the only one whose man is in there? Miss Reynolds has a man in there—Bruce Hawkins—and you don't see her standing around feeling sorry for herself. She's trying to help. You have two little babies here and look who is making sure they have something to eat."

When Glenna saw that the woman's words had shocked Mrs. Cummins into an awareness of her children, she understood the woman's tactics. When soft words failed, a figurative slap in the face usually worked. It was now.

"Is it true?" Mrs. Cummins searched Glenna's face, seeing someone else's plight other than just her own. "Is your man really in there, too?"

"Yes." It was a small, deceit. After all, she did truly care about Bruce even if "her man" was too strong a description. "He is." There was no harm in a white lie.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." She reached for the coffee Glenna had brought. "Thank you…for everything."

"It's all right." When she handed her the cup, she noticed a fourth long shadow intruding on the ones they cast. She turned to see Jett standing to one side, and pivoted to take a step toward him. A question leaped into her eyes as she scanned the impenetrable mask of his features, but a brief shake of his head told her there was no news.

"I came out for some fresh air," he said in explanation of his presence.

Taking a cigarette from his shirt pocket, he bent his head to the flame of his lighter. Glenna took the last few steps to be closer to him. She found it difficult to talk; all her thoughts were overshadowed by the knowledge that men were trapped in the mountain beneath them. It almost seemed wrong that her pulse should quicken because she was near him.

"The accident happened when they were installing an air duct to make it safer to work in the mine," she murmured. "There's a certain irony in that."

She knew instantly that she had chosen the wrong subject. She could almost see Jett shut her the rest of the way out. If he had sought her out, as she suspected, it had been to escape talk of the accident and the rescue efforts.

"Jett." She didn't know how to reach him so she turned away instead. "Hannah may need me. I'd better go in."

He said nothing when she walked away.