Houston didn’t say a word. She’d heard that sound only once before in her life but, once heard, it was never, never forgotten. She didn’t look at Kane or the servants, who were already running into the dining room, but went straight to the telephone and picked it up.
“Which one?” was all she said into the receiver, not bothering to tell the operator who she was.
“The Little Pamela,” she heard before the cold instrument slipped from her hand.
“Houston!” Kane yelled into her face as he grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t you dare faint on me now. Was that a mine?”
Houston didn’t think she’d be able to speak. There was a knot of fear closing her throat. Why did it have to be my my mine, she kept hearing inside her head as her mind’s eye saw all the children. Which boys who’d played ball yesterday were now dead?
She looked up at Kane with bleak eyes. “The shift,” she whispered. “Rafe was on the last shift.”
Kane’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “It was the Little Pamela then?” he whispered. “How bad?”
Houston’s mouth opened but no words came out.
One of the footmen stepped out of the group of now-silent servants gathered in the hall. “Sir, when the explosion is bad enough to smash windows in town, then it’s very bad.”
Kane stood still a minute, then went into action. “Houston, I want you to get every blanket and sheet in this house and load it into the big wagon and bring it to the mine. You understand me? I’m gonna get dressed and go on up there ahead of you. But I want you to come as soon as possible, you understand that?”
“They’ll be needin’ rescuers,” the footman said.
Kane gave him a quick look up and down. “Then get out of them fancy duds and get on a horse.” He turned back to Houston. “Alive or dead, I’ll get Rafe out.” After a quick kiss, he bounded up the stairs.
Houston stood still for a moment before she began to move. She couldn’t change what had happened but she could help. She turned to the women left standing near her. “You heard the master. I want every sheet and blanket put into the wagon within the next ten minutes.”
One of the maids stepped forward. “My brother works at the Little Pamela. May I go with you?”
“And me,” said Susan. “I’ve mended a few broken heads in my time.”
“Yes,” Houston answered as she hurried up the stairs to change out of her lacy morning gown. “I’m afraid we’ll need all the help we can get.”
Chapter 29
Kane had never had much experience with disasters; his battles had usually been on a one-to-one basis, so he was unprepared for what met him at the site of the Little Pamela mine. He heard the screams of the women from far away and he thought that, as long as he lived, he’d never get the sound out of his head.
The gate to the camp was open and unguarded, only a woman sitting there rocking her baby and crooning to it. Kane and the four men with him slowed as they entered the camp, and as more women, some of them running, some of them just standing and crying, came into view, the men dismounted.
As Kane walked past one woman, she grabbed his arm in an iron grip.
“Kill me!” she screeched in his face. “He’s gone and we have nothing! Nothing!”
Kane was unable to stop her from pulling him inside the shack. Rafe’s cabin was a mansion compared to this place. Five filthy children, wearing little more than rags, stood in a corner clutching at one another. Their gaunt faces and big, sad eyes told of their constant hunger. He hadn’t seen these children when he’d come yesterday, but then, he didn’t remember being in this part of the camp where the houses were hovels of tarpaper and flattened tin cans.
“Kill us all,” the woman screamed. “We’ll be better off. We’ll starve now.”
On the board that seemed to serve as a table was a half loaf of old bread, and Kane could see no more food in the house.
“Sir,” the footman who’d entered behind Kane said. “They’ll need help with the bodies.”
“Yes,” Kane said softly and left the hut, the woman crying loudly behind him. “Who are these people?” he asked, once they were outside.
“They can’t afford to pay the rent for the company houses at two dollars a room, so the company rents them land at a dollar a month and they build their own houses out of whatever they can find.” He nodded toward the slum area of shacks of corrugated tin, powder cans, and Kane thought he saw pieces of the crates that yesterday had contained the baseball equipment.
“What will happen to the woman if her husband is dead?”
The man’s mouth turned grim. “If she’s lucky, the company will pay her six months’ wages, but then she and the kids are on their own. Whatever happens, the company will say that the explosion was caused by the miners.”
Kane straightened. “At least we can help now. Let’s go get this woman some food.”