“A silver Ford Escape.”
“Yeah, that’s hers,” Pete said solemnly. “Yeah, we’ll be right there. You want us to stop by HQ—right. Okay.” He paused again. “I’ll tell him.”
He hung up, and a hush hung over the group. Pete looked at Sierra, his face tight. “Your house collapsed.”
Sierra stared at him. “What?”
“And . . .” He swallowed. “They think Kacey and Audrey are inside.”
Ben couldn’t breathe.
No . . .
A hand tightened around his arm.
“Get in, son,” Chet said, scooting over. He glanced at Pete already moving to the driver’s side. “We’re on our way.”
15
“C’mon, Kacey, pick up.” Ben listened to her voicemail message, wincing, then hung up, fighting the urge to throw the phone.
Beside him, his father braced his hand on the dashboard as Pete cut down Main Street, then turned left onto Sierra’s road.
The flashing lights of a police cruiser splashed red over the debris pile that once formed Sierra’s house. Ben spotted a couple figures in the yard—recognized Sam, out of uniform, and Ian Shaw, and even Sheriff Blackburn and Miles, just getting out of his truck.
From this vantage point, it seemed the house had collapsed in on itself, simply folding in, one wall falling, then the other, the roof settling on top. Electrical wires dangled from the overhead poles, snapping.
And sure enough, Kacey’s Escape sat in the dirt driveway.
His father was speaking. “Ben, trust my team. They know what they’re doing. Wait for us to assess—”
But Ben had the door open before Pete pulled up to the curb. Gage’s Mustang slid in behind his.
Ben ran across the lawn toward the house. “Kacey!”
Sam intercepted him, hands to his shoulders. “Stay back, buddy. We got a call in to the electric company—they’re turning off the electricity.” He pointed to a couple live wires dangling dangerously near the soggy ground.
Ben shucked him off. “She’s in there, Sam, I just know it.”
“My house!”
Sierra had arrived on the scene, now stood with her hands over her mouth. Jess came up, put her arm around her. “It’ll be okay.”
“Are they in there?”
“We don’t know,” Sam said. “But we think so.”
“We thought it was you,” a voice said. Sierra looked past him, and Ben followed her gaze to Ian Shaw, who was staring at her with a raw, almost palpable, relief on his face.
“It’s not me, okay? It’s my best friend and her daughter! And we have to do something!”
Ben’s exact thoughts. “Somebody turn off that electricity!”
As if on command, a voice came through Sam’s handheld, confirming his request. He swiped it off his belt, asked the ETA of the volunteer fire department, his hand going back to brace against Ben’s chest. “What do you mean, they’re on a call? Then call Kalispell! Or Whitefish.”
Ben pushed Sam’s grip away, advanced on the house.
He didn’t know where to start. The cement steps suggested where the front door had once stood, but from there, the house flattened. The dormer windows were still intact and sitting atop the rubble of the roof. Underneath, the walls stacked like pancakes, the windows shattered, two-by-fours and plywood protruding like matchsticks.
Shadows pressed into the crannies, recesses where she might be trapped, deepening under the twilight descending into the valley.
He crouched in front of a space between foundation and collapsed roof. “Kacey! Can you hear me?”
He closed his eyes, listening. Heard only the terrible thunder of his heartbeat.
“We need a layout of the original structure,” Miles said as he stood beside Sam. “So we can figure out how this fell, where there might be natural voids where she might be trapped.”
“Audrey’s in there too,” Ben said in a choked whisper.
Please, God.
He got up, turned to Sam. “We’ve got to get in there!”
His father had gotten out of the cab, and now Chet stood, balanced on crutches with Sam and Miles, watching Sierra draw a map of her house on the back of a napkin someone had fished out of their car.
He joined them.
“It’s a small house—the kitchen is here, and across from that, the family room. A bathroom in the back. Two bedrooms upstairs. And a basement.”
“What kind of basement?” This from Pete, who stood next to Sam, hands on his hips.
“It’s a dirt basement. And it’s been wet since the flood.”
Ian hovered over the group. “Your deck washed away?”
She nodded. “The mess is in the backyard. I haven’t had a chance to clean it up. It’s a swamp back there.”
Ian pointed to the drawing. “If the water collected here, around the foundation, the house could have collapsed at this point, near the kitchen.” He held up his hands, demonstrating. “The foundation wall drops, and the floorboards buckle. The opposite wall caves in as the floor opens up, and then the roof collapses in on top.”
“These old houses are balloon-framed,” Pete said. “Which means if the wall torques, it’ll rip off the ledger board, which is just nailed on, and the entire floor will collapse, in pieces.”
“Which makes the debris pile highly unstable,” Ian finished. “We go in there blind, start moving things, the house could collapse further into any void they might be in.”
Ben thought he might be ill. He turned back to the house, breathing hard. “We don’t have time for this! We can’t just disassemble the house like Legos—we have to get in there.”
A hand pressed on his shoulder. “Ben, take a breath. If we want to do this right, without costing lives, we have to do it smart. My team knows what they’re doing. Now you have to start trusting God.”
Ben walked away from his father’s grip, his jaw tight.
“I’m not sure, but there might be a natural void here, along the wall where it first collapsed,” Pete was saying, forming a visual with his hands. “As the floor fell, it’s possible the wall came in on top, creating a pocket.”
Ian was staring at the house. “Sierra, was your second floor an attic with knee walls or a full second floor?”
“The attic. We finished it ourselves.” She had a hitch to her voice, her arms around her waist.
“Okay, then from my rough measurement, there is definitely a lean-to void in the basement area. Otherwise, the roofline would be further down,” Ian said.
“What if we got a line around the top edge of the roof, peeled it back.” Pete said. “Then, at least, we’d have less pressure. And we could get a better look, maybe send someone in.”
“Me. I’m going in,” Ben said.
No one argued with him.
“Here comes Ty,” Miles said, and Ben turned to see the Silverado pull up. Jess jumped out, then pulled gear from the bed. “I sent them by HQ to pick up equipment.”
Jess came over, dropped a duffel at Miles’s feet, breathing hard. “I didn’t know what to grab, so we got everything—flashlights, ropes, helmets, uniforms, gloves, radios, the litter from the chopper—anything I could think of.”
“Did you get a cable?” Miles asked.
“I have a lot of climbing rope.”
“I’ll get my truck,” Pete said.
Sam was back on the radio, getting an update on the fire department.
Ian had walked over to stand by Sierra. Ben noticed how he put a hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged it away and walked over to Ben. “We’ll get them out, Ben. Kacey’s smart and tough. And she isn’t going to let anything happen to Audrey.”
In the distance, the finest whine of a siren haunted the dusk.
Ty and Gage began to loop rope around the far edge of the roof, back underneath, climbing onto the edge of the house. Miles shouted directions as Pete backed his truck into the yard.
Jess handed Ben a pair of overalls, a hard hat, glo
ves, and a harness. “We’ll belay you in. In case something goes south, we can find you.”
He couldn’t think that far, to the what-if of something going “south.”
It seemed south enough from his vantage point.
Gage and Ty looped the rope twice, secured it with a knot, and Pete attached it with tow strapping to his truck’s hitch.
“Oh please, let’s not make it worse,” Jess said, also wearing her uniform and a helmet, the first responder bag at her feet.
Pete got in the truck. “I’m just going to ease it off at an angle,” he said, putting the truck into drive. Miles gave him the go-ahead, watching the lines.
The truck chewed at the lawn, the tires scrabbling for purchase in the soft grass. The top layer of the roof began to move, sliding over the pile, toward the front lawn. Ty and Gage walked with it, easing it off, testing the rope. Wood splintered, groaned, and Ben felt the moan of it to his bones.
The bundle finally hit the grass, with the boards cracking and splintering. Pete nudged it further from the house, but it didn’t want to give.
“Hold up!” Miles said, and Pete stopped.
The siren peaked and a fire engine came down the road.
Ben took a look at them, then turned and headed for the house.
“Ben, we need to get you geared up.” Jess scrabbled behind him.
He ignored her, climbing over the debris to the front steps. Without the roof, the damage could be more easily assessed—good call, Ian and Pete. The walls had indeed pancaked in, but Sheetrock and flooring jutted up, as if propped by the interior walls below.
He dropped to his knees. “Kacey!”
He couldn’t hear anything over the sirens and the sound of the truck pulling up.
He turned to Jess. “Hook me up. If I don’t go in now, they won’t let me go.” He glanced behind him. “And I’m going to find her.”
Jess clipped a carabiner onto his harness. “Just don’t die in there.”
He pulled down his eye protection, strapped his helmet under his chin, and flicked on the lights on his hard hat, the beam shining into the crannies of the house. The siren had died, and he heard shouting behind him telling him to wait.
He pointed to the cranny between the foundation and the collapsed outer wall. “I’m going in here.” He moved a two-by-four, and the house creaked. But he leaned over the edge, found an opening between two ancient two-by-sixes. “Kacey!”
Nothing, and the rank smells of the ancient basement wafted up at him. He wedged himself into the pocket between wall and floor and climbed down, moving aside beams that crisscrossed his path. The light illuminated dangling electrical wires and crushed Sheetrock. He found a pocket under the kitchen table wedged against the kitchen counter, the electric stove on one side, propped against the wall, bracing the table. The table held up the fridge, which loomed above him like an anvil.
“Kacey!”
He listened, holding his breath. Then he heard what he thought might be a moan. “Kace—I’m here!”
He worked his way through the space under the table, found it blocked by the laminate flooring. The moaning seemed to emanate from the other side.
“Hold on, baby.” He could turn around, and now looked up at Jess, some seven feet above. “I need a pry bar. I think she’s under the floorboards here.”
He lay at a slant, and he propped himself against the oven as he tried to find an opening in the floorboards.
“I’m right above you, Kacey. I’m coming down.”
No more sounds, and he hoped he hadn’t imagined it.
“Ben King, is that you?”
He looked up, didn’t see the owner of the voice, but recognized it as Sheriff Blackburn.
“You need to come out of there and let the rescuers down there.”
“I’m a rescuer. And I’m here to get my daughter—and my . . . the woman I love. So hand me down a pry bar or get out of here.”
More voices, arguing, and Jess reappeared. “Pry bar coming down,” she said as she leaned over and lowered it down on a rope.
He caught it, untied it. Outside, the sun had set, and only the glow of his head lamp lit the boards as he pried up the laminate flooring. It came off in a sheet, and he shoved it into a recess, then wedged the bar in between the floor joists. Already weakened, they broke free, and he pried one up, fighting it free.
It created a gap about as wide as his shoulder. He tried to angle his light into the gap, but he couldn’t see around it.
He stuck his arm down, shoulder deep, and felt around.
His fingers barely brushed the ground—or what he supposed might be the damp, pliable basement floor. “Kacey!” He moved his hand around, searching in an arc, but hit only air.
Then, just as he was about to pull back, something grabbed his hand. The slightest pressure, just at his fingertips.
Squeezed.
“I got something. Or someone!” He pressed his face to the boards, trying to position himself further without letting go.
The hand slipped away. He searched for it again, praying he hadn’t been dreaming, but nothing caught him. “They’re down here!” Or at least one of them was.
He pulled himself back up. “I need a saw!”
“I’ll get one from the rig.” Jess disappeared, and he heard Pete’s voice.
“We’re going to move the other wall, Ben. You need to get out of there.”
“Forget it. I’m not leaving her. She’s right below me.”
“The entire place is unstable. There’s a three-hundred-pound refrigerator just waiting to collapse on you.”
“Five minutes. Just give me five minutes—”
“I’ve got the saw,” Jess said and handed him down a rescue saw. He adjusted the guard, turning it only deep enough for the joists, yanked on the pull-start.
The saw buzzed, bit into the wood, and sawdust bulleted up at him, pinging off his glasses. He opened up a space big enough for him to crawl through and handed up the saw to Jess.
“If she’s not there, you’re coming out,” Pete said. “That’s direct from Miles.”
Ben tightened his jaw, then leaned down and slid into the opening.
The space was tight, reeked of mold and rot. He braced himself on his arms, lowered himself down, and maneuvered to his hands and knees.
No one. “Kacey?” He met a wall of Sheetrock and wood, more debris behind him, a wall of rubble to his left.
Nothing.
“Dad?”
He stilled. “Audrey? Where are you?”
He felt a tug on his boot. He turned and wanted to weep when he spied Audrey’s hand snaking out from a pile of litter and dirt. He grabbed it.
“I’m here, Audrey. Hang on.” He tunneled away the dirt when he saw her lying under the cradle of the laundry sink. Dirty, her eyes huge, her face smeared with tears, but she gave him a quick smile. “I thought that was you.”
He grabbed her hand, hunkered down next to her. “How badly are you hurt?”
“I think I’m okay. I’m just wedged here.” She pointed to a beam lying across her legs.
Oh no. He managed his voice. “Can you move your legs?”
“No. I can move my feet, but they’re caught—”
“You’re not in pain?”
She shook her head, but her face started to crumple. “But I’m scared.”
He wanted to cry too at her desperate expression.
“I can’t find Mom. She was right beside me.”
He didn’t want to tell her about the destruction, the rubble in every direction.
He was having a hard time breathing with the immensity of it all.
Oh God—please.
“Dad, are you okay?”
He bent down, found her gaze. “Yeah. I’m fine.” He managed to keep his voice quick, solid. “We’re going to get out of here.” All of us.
“Having faith is the bravest thing we can do. It’s the unwavering confidence that God loves us. That although we can’t see the road
ahead, we can see God.”
He had started to shake.
Yes. Please, God. Give me the faith to trust you.
Creaking and then Pete yelling, boards breaking, and Ben barely had time to brace his body over Audrey’s before the refrigerator crashed down, crushing the table, and splintering through the floorboards.
It brought the rest of the kitchen floor down around them in a cloud of dust and debris.
They were shooting at her again. Or maybe grenades, but explosions jerked Kacey awake. How could she have fallen asleep when her men needed her?
Pitch dark. She could smell the dust, and more—something foul. But she couldn’t move.
Had she been hit? Kacey searched for light, anything, found herself pinned, something heavy on her legs, unable to move her arm. Oh—her breathing tumbled out, and bile filled her throat. Don’t let them find her—don’t—
Light. It flashed above her, quick and fast, just a sliver before it flickered away.
She didn’t want to move. What if the others were dead? If she just lay here, they’d never know.
She closed her eyes, willed herself not to move, not to cry out. She didn’t feel hurt, but maybe that was simply shock.
The voices died out, leaving only her heartbeat thundering inside her.
Alone.
So alone. Blackness. Trapped. Tears filmed her eyes. God, it can’t end this way—please.
She didn’t know where the thought came from, but she leaned into it, reaching for something. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Yes, that. She fought for the words.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
She heard shuffling around her, stiffened.
They were out there. Somewhere, waiting for her.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Strength, yes, she needed strength. She stilled, centered her breathing.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Protection. Trust.
In the blackness, she heard something heavy fall—a body? One of her teammates?
Please, God, for Audrey, bring me home!
Wild Montana Skies Page 29