Heather Graham (15 page)

“Don, I’m convinced you really made it on your own.”

“Let’s not take chances. What does the list say?” he asked.

Cathy reached into her coat pocket, staring at their list.

“Well, what does it say?”

“Don, rescue Cassandra, Cathy, help the boys.”

“Rescue Cassandra, help the boys,” Don muttered with disgust.

“Maybe the blond woman—”

“Her name was Evelyn, remember?” Don said. He threw up a hand in disgust. “Now I know why there’s so much ridiculous red tape and confusion in the world. They always say that policy drifts down from the top! Who is Cassandra? What boys?”

“I don’t know about Cassandra, but I think I know who the boys are. The children, Don. Don’t you remember? They were in the train car, six of them. The kids from St. Mary’s.”

“We already helped them. They’re out of the train, remember, we brought them out and set them down in the snow…” Don broke off, staring toward a mangled railroad car. They had taken the kids out and set them on the nearby embankment, but the railroad coach had twisted to the opposite side of the tracks from the one on which they had been smashed into the train. Either from loosening in the impact or the weight of the fallen snow, the embankment had sunk. Two of the derailed cars from the train had fallen like a bridge over the gaping hole that had been created.

“How the hell
…?”
Don began.

For once, Cathy made no comment on his language. “Maybe the area had been dug out once for the subway system,” Cathy murmured. “But they must be down there.”

Don caught her hand, and they raced across the newly fallen snow.

There were rescue workers on the job, a multitude of them, but since the car had exploded, they were focusing their attention nearer the blaze that threatened to spread through the night. Their efforts were hindered by the snow, the sheer magnitude of the accident, and the confusion that came out of having a number of different agencies trying to help. One of the train’s coaches was on fire; something besides Evelyn’s old automobile had exploded. Don assumed that a gas tank had ruptured somewhere in the mess the train had become, causing the second fire. The train had been nearly full, at holiday capacity. And at least fifty automobiles had become involved in the accident—half on the one side of the tracks, where they had piled into one another and the train, half on the other, where the derailed railroad cars had jackknifed into the automobiles. Complicating the mess was the weather, the darkness—and the noise.

Now “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was coming over the car radio that refused to die. Sirens kept shrieking in the night. Rescue workers called out to one another.

So much noise…

Victims, crying, shouting…

Sobbing.

Don scrambled over one of the fallen railroad coaches, reaching down to help Cathy up and over the twisted pile of metal and wreckage. He then leapt down to the soft, snow-covered earth on the other side. They were off the road, away from the smashed cars. Here the earth had sunk under the weight of wreckage or nature. More snow had fallen upon the broken earth, and with flakes falling still, it was almost impossible to see beneath the bridgelike twist of railroad cars that stretched over the fallen earth.

Cathy pulled back on Don’s hand. “Don’t go near those rail coaches!” she warned.

“Cathy, we have to crawl below them.”

“They could fall.”

He paused, seeing her point. The railroad cars barely spanned the chasm. The least amount of weight set against these tons of metal could send them crashing down.

Crushing any life form whatsoever beneath them.

“Come over here, Cath, we can use the snow, slide down it.”

She caught his hand, following him. They found the little tract of snow, sat in it together, and braced as they started to whip faster and faster downward beneath the train’s cars. They catapulted into darkness. Don’s feet thudded against something that spoke.

“Ohhh … Ouch!”

“Hello, boys? Can you hear me?” Don asked.

“Hey, it’s help!” someone said.

He thought he had a lighter in his pocket. There was no smell of gas or kerosene here. He flicked it on. Caught and entangled in metal, luggage, strewn clothing, tires, wires—and more—was a little boy of about six. Don lifted the lighter. There were more of them. The group they had met before and had left above on the ground.

“Can you help us?” the boy demanded. He was about ten, Don thought. “We’ve been afraid to move.” He was young, but bright. He pointed upward. “If too much snow shifts, that will fall.”

“There are six of you?” Don asked.

“Me and my brothers.”

“You’re all brothers?” Cathy said.

The boy nodded. “Yeah, out of St. Mary’s.”

Cathy was next to him in the snow. She placed her hands on his face, studying his eyes. “I can’t believe no one has adopted you!” she murmured.

“Cathy, we’re in the middle of a disaster here,” Don reminded her.

“I know, but—”

“We’re not splitting up,” the boy said stubbornly. “We won’t, and we’ve all sworn to make it hell for anybody who tries to get us to do that, understand? Besides, most of the time, I can take care of these guys myself. As soon as I’m eighteen, I’m getting the best job I can, and I’m adopting my own family. We won’t be split up. Mom didn’t want us split up, understand?”

“I sure as hell have no intention of splitting you up,” Don said wryly. “I’m going to try to save your lives; then you can grow up and adopt them, okay?”

“Don—” Cathy said.

“He’s cool, lady. He’s cool,” the boy said, grinning. “I’m Brenden, those are my brothers Sean, Michael, Harry, David, and Pete. Oh… I forgot the girl!” he said, stricken.

“The girl?” Cathy asked, looking around. She saw a little girl, as dark haired as the boys were light, curled into something like a fetal position not far from where the others hunched in the wreckage and snow. She was perhaps nine, with huge light blue eyes. Her coat was ripped; she wore one glove. She didn’t seem to notice.

“Tell me,” Don said, “Please … might this young lady be named … Cassandra?”

“Yeah, that’s her name,” Brenden said, glancing at Don curiously.

“Yes!” Don said, clenching his fingers into fists and then drawing two down in a victory sign. “Yes!” he repeated. “Cathy, we can make this!” He flicked his lighter and glanced at his watch again. “Pete’s the little guy. Slither here, Petey, David—”

“David has a broken leg,” Brenden said matter-of-factly.

“You get Pete, I’ll get David,” Cathy said, her look warning him that she was simply the more gentle person.

Or angel.

He nodded to her, lifting up little Pete. He was an angel, but getting back up the slide of snow that was quickly chilling into ice still seemed a monumental task. And Cathy, behind him, was huffing and puffing quite a bit for a supernatural being.

As they reached level ground once again, Cathy saw the nun, who had passed out earlier, sitting up now, very lost, sobbing.

“Over there,” she told Don.

They ran. The nun looked up. “Oh, God, thank you! The rest of them…”

“We’re going back. Look, they’ve fallen into that depression,” Don said.

“Beneath the cars?” the sister demanded anxiously. She, too, instantly saw the danger.

“Try to get some more help, will you?” Don said. He caught Cathy’s hand again. They ran back. Brenden already had little Cassandra drawn from her position. He was trying to shove her upward by her well-padded butt, his little brothers at his side, trying to help.

“Got her!” Don cried.

“Someone else, come with me, now!” Cathy commanded.

“Sean, get your butt in gear!” Brenden told one of the littlest of the crew. Sean obediently went to Cathy.

They made a second, slow, tedious ascent up the ice.

“There’s help coming,” the sister told them. She had David stretched out by her side. “They’re getting ropes so they can get down there,” she said anxiously. She stared at Don and Cathy.

David tried to rise, to look at the two of them. “The snow is so slick. It’s icing,” he said.

“It’s okay, David,” Don assured the boy.

“It will be,” Cathy promised, winking at David, who almost managed a smile in return.

Time was of the essence. For all of them.

“Great. We’ll take another run while we’re waiting,” Don said. He caught Cathy’s hand. They hurried back again.

“They’re such beautiful children, Don, all of them. So brave. They’ve been hurt so badly, and they still cling to one another. And they were trying to take care of poor little Cassandra as well.”

“We have to hurry, Cathy.”

She suddenly stopped, tugging at his fingers.

“Don, it’s starting to slip.”

Even as she spoke, they heard a grating sound. Cathy cried out; the train cars slid … caught in the earth. Stopped again.

“We could call on Gabriel,” Cathy whispered.

“I … er … can’t. I already have.”

“I can.”

“Cathy, we’re all right. I’m going down now.” He released her fingers and, this time, lay flat in the snow, trying to move as quickly as humanly—or inhumanly—possible. Once again, Brenden had the last two, Harry and Sean, ready to go. “Give me Harry,” Don said.

Cathy nearly catapulted into him. “Sean, grab Cathy there. Brenden, you’ve got to try to scratch your way up behind us, okay?”

“Yep, I gotcha,” Brenden said.

Brenden knew. The cars were about to come crashing down on him.

They started back up again.

Heard a groaning of metal. A rasping, ripping of rock, of concrete perhaps.

The cars were slipping again.

“Don!” Cathy cried. “We have the power to move objects.”

“It’s one big, damned object, Cathy!”

“We’ve got to try—together.”

They were nearly at the top. Don shoved a boy up, reached for Cathy’s charge, shoved him as well. He tried to reach for Brenden and concentrate on moving the railroad cars.

The car began to shift, to fall, to rise…

A sudden, hideous shriek of metal ripped into the night as the railroad cars gave. Don screamed himself, reaching for Brenden.

The rail cars ripped out earth and trees and concrete as they plummeted down.

He didn’t quite have Brenden.

The little boy slipped down the ice. He wasn’t buried beneath the train cars though. He went hurtling down to land atop one with a heavy, deadly thud.

“G
ET HIM UP, GET
him up!” Cathy cried hysterically.

But by then, the rescue crews had come. They didn’t seem to see her or Don, they clattered past them with ropes and pulleys and the like.

Don caught hold of Cathy, drawing her a distance from the scene where the men quickly arranged a line and lever. One of the rescue workers was attached to it and lowered slowly—very slowly—downward.

He reached the boy. A canvas stretcher was lowered down to the rescue worker so that he could bring the boy up. By that time, Brenden’s brothers had come one by one to the scene. They watched in silence.

Tears streamed down little Sean’s cheeks.

“Oh, please, please, please, please, God,” Sean started to whisper.

The men drew the stretcher bearing Brenden back up to the level surface. Brenden’s coat was loosened.

“He’s dead,” Someone said. “Poor kid.”

“No!” Harry shrieked.

“No, no, no,” the others chimed in.

“Hey, kids, we’ll try, honest to God, we’ll try,” the rescue worker, a kindly looking man of about fifty said. “Damn it, someone get a real doctor over here now!” he roared. He knelt down in the snow. Closed Brenden’s little nose with his fingers, pursed his mouth, and started to try to breathe for Brenden.

“He’s dead,” Cathy said dully.

“Cathy, we did what we could.”

“Don.” She spun on him, and he saw what lay in her eyes.

“Cathy, no. Gabriel said we had the power, but that we couldn’t use it. Cathy, no…”

“Oh, God, Don, I love you so much! But that little boy was such a fighter! His brothers, what will happen to them all now? I do love you, but please understand. I have to do this. Don, please…”

“Cathy, oh, God, no!”

“Don!”

“What about us?”

“Forgive me, I do love you.”

“Hell is the absence of love!” he whispered.

“I will always love you!” she said.

He sank down to his knees in the snow, broken himself. She fell down in front of him. “Oh, Don, he’s a little boy. With so very much to live for. They’ll be split up without him. He was so good, so brave. They’re all so beautiful, but he’s special.”

“Cathy, I love you.”

“Don …”

He heard the anguish in her voice. Knew what it cost her to leave him.

Knew that she felt she had to. Cathy. She had always loved kids so damned much. Had always had their trust.

They had been coming to this. All night long.

“Cathy…” he whispered. He could see their car. By its side, covered in snow, would be their bodies. So many miracles.

None tonight for them.

Unless…

Oh, God, yes.

There could be a miracle.

He kept staring at the car. At their dead bodies.

Cathy slipped her arms around him. “Don, forgive me. I have to do this. Please … hold me!” she whispered. He did so.

He couldn’t let her go.

He had to let her go.

He knew what to do.

She eased his arms from her and stood. He could hear her silently willing Gabriel to appear.

This time, he appeared in what Don had always imagined would actually be “angelic glory.” His robes were mauve and white and gold, the silver of his wings seemed heightened by the glow of the fires all around them. He appeared in a gust of mist, and stood before them, waiting.

“Ah, Cathy. Don. You don’t need me now, you’ve accomplished your miracles. It’s very nearly midnight.”

“I need your help desperately,” Cathy said.

“For?”

“That little boy.” She pointed toward Brenden and the man working so diligently to save him.

Gabriel looked from the boy to her.

“He’s dead.”

“Yes, but the miracle was to help the boys—”

“And you did. It’s a miracle any of them are going to live.”