“Where?” the man asked. “Four years ago, there was a riot and the miners attacked the company store, so now there’s always only a bare minimum of goods, including food, in any one camp.” His mouth twisted. “And the town won’t help, either. We tried to get City Hall to help us when the last mine went up, but they said we had to go through ‘channels’.”
Kane started walking toward the center of the camp where the mine was. Before the mouth of the mine lay three sheet-draped bodies; two men carried another body to the open doors of the machine shop, where he could see Blair and two men at work. Kane walked to the stand beside Leander. “How bad is it?”
“The wors
t,” Leander said. “There’s so much gas in the mine that the rescuers are passing out before they reach the men. We can’t tell exactly what happened yet, or how many are dead, because the explosion went inward instead of outward. There could be tunnels of men still trapped in there alive. Somebody get her, will you?” Lee called as he jumped on the elevator that would take him down into the mine.
Kane caught the woman in question as she ran toward a burned body that was being hauled from the mine. She was a frail little thing, and he picked her up in his arms. “Let me take you home,” he said, but she only shook her head.
Another woman came up to them. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Do you have any brandy?” Kane asked.
“Brandy?” the woman spat at him. “We ain’t even got any fresh water.” She helped the woman Kane was holding to stand.
Two minutes later, Kane was on his horse and tearing down the side of the mountain toward Chandler. He passed Houston on the way up and she called to him, but he didn’t slow his pace.
Once in town, he kept going at full speed, nearly running over a half-dozen pedestrians who all shouted questions at him. Most of the citizens of Chandler were standing outside looking up toward the mountain that held the Little Pamela mine and speculating on what had happened.
Kane thundered through town and up Archer Avenue until he came to Edan’s house. Across the street, the new Westfield Infirmary was alive with activity. He hadn’t seen Edan since the night they’d parted so bitterly.
Edan was walking across the front porch, a saddled horse waiting for him, when Kane skidded to a stop, reining his horse so hard the animal’s front feet came off the ground.
Kane dismounted and ran up the steps all in one motion. “I know you ain’t got much use for me anymore, but I don’t know who else has got the brains to help me organize what I want to do, so I’m askin’ you to forget your feelin’s at the moment and help me out.”
“Doing what?” Edan asked cautiously. “I’m planning to go help at the mine. Jean’s uncle is up there and—.”
“He happens to be my goddamn uncle, too!” Kane exploded in Edan’s face. “I’ve just spent the last hour up there and they got more rescuers than they know what to do with, but they don’t have much food and no water, and the explosion flattened a bunch of the houses—if you can call those shacks that. I want your help in gettin’ together some food and shelter for the people, for the rescuers, and for the women that’re standin’ around screamin’.”
Edan looked at his former employer for a long hard minute. “From what Jean could find out on the telephone, it’s going to take a long time to get all the bodies out. We’ll have to rent wagons to haul everything up to the mine, and we ought to try to get a train for . . . for the bodies. Today, we’ll need food that doesn’t have to be cooked.”
Kane gave Edan a brilliant smile. “Come on, we got to get to work.”
Jean had just come onto the porch, her face ghostly white.
Edan turned to her. “I want you to call Miss Emily at the teashop and tell her to have all her sisters meet me at Randolph’s Grocery as soon as they can get there. Be sure you talk to Miss Emily herself, and be sure you say ‘sisters’. Jean! This is very important, do you understand me?”
Jean nodded once before Edan gave her a quick kiss and mounted his horse.
Once in town, Kane and Edan separated and went to anyone who they knew owned a freight wagon. Most of the owners volunteered their services and, throughout Chandler, there was a feeling of togetherness as their concern for what had happened in the camp drew them together.
Six young ladies met them in front of Randolph’s and Kane took only seconds telling them what was needed before the women took over, sweet Miss Emily bellowing orders in the voice of a gunnery sergeant.
As the wagons pulled up in front of the store’s big back doors, the women loaded cases of canned beef, beans, condensed milk, crackers and hundreds of loaves of bread. When a crowd of curious people began to gather, Miss Emily put them to work helping to load the cases of food.
Edan saw to the filling of a water wagon.
Pamela Fenton came running down the hill, holding her hat on, Zachary in front of her. “What can we do?” she asked loudly over Miss Emily’s orders.
Kane looked down at his son and a feeling of thankfulness spread through his body. This child of his would never be exposed to the constant danger of the mines. He put his hand on the boy’s head and turned to Pam. “I want you to get as many friends as you can to help you and find every tent in this town. Go up to my house and find out what Houston did with those big tents she had for the weddin’. Then, I want every one of those tents taken up to the mine.”
“I don’t think Zach is old enough yet to see what’s happened up there,” Pam said. “Sometimes those explosions can be—.”
Kane’s temper had played no part in the day’s happenings, but now he let it loose. “It’s you!” he yelled into her face. “It’s you Fentons that caused all this. If the mines weren’t so dangerous, and your father would part with his precious money, none of this would have happened. This boy is my son and, if the boys up there can die in the mines, he’s not too delicate to see the deaths that your father caused. Now, woman, you get busy and do what I say or I’ll remember who you are and remember that right now my dearest wish is to see your father dead.”
When Kane stopped, he was aware that all the many townspeople around him had stopped to stare at him, pausing, frozen in motion, as they gaped.
Edan stepped down from a wagon, the first one to move. “Are we going to stand here all day? You!” he yelled at a young boy. “Load that case of beans and you, move that wagon before that horse runs into the back of the other one.”