The Glory of Green (5 page)

"Why don't you change clothes while I try to get the generator running? By then you'll have a plan of action."

In the dark of my office, I slipped the beautiful gown off and rubbed the fabric against my face. When I let it drop to the floor, Holly Beth grabbed it with her teeth and began to flop it back and forth. I couldn't help but laugh, and then hot tears filled my throat.

Slipping into jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, meant for a hike out West, I heard a faint whirring sound, and the lamp in the lobby came on. My wonderful husband had gotten the generator going. It seemed like a big victory in that moment.

Chris inspected the building while I got the computers booted up, with no Internet service. I typed in a list of stories and tried to think of how we would handle the twice-weekly print version, due out on Tuesday.

Pacing around the room while I worked, Chris furrowed his brow and kept trying to place a call on his cell and the newspaper phones, to no avail.

"You have to go," I said. "You're on the emergency team and you've got to check on your folks and my brothers, clear roads, or help with who knows what."

"I won't leave you here alone," he said.

"I can't go anywhere," I said. "Tom will be here any minute, and Alex, too. You're needed on Route Two."

"I won't leave you here alone," he said again.

"You're my husband, not my bodyguard," I said, trying to use a smile to soften the words. "You know you've got to get out there."

"I'm concerned," he said. "But I won't leave my bride until someone else shows up."

The sight of Alex coming through the front door had never been so welcome.

My only true reporter, a veteran at age twenty-three, had discarded his tie, but he wore loafers rather than his ragged tennis shoes and looked more mature than usual in his wedding slacks and nice shirt, dirty though they were.

"How bad is the damage?" I asked.

"Beyond bad," he said. "The mayor wants you at the command center. Chris, she needs you to meet a crew at the Grace Chapel parking lot."

"Fatalities?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How many? Who?" Chris asked.

"I think that's what the mayor wants to talk with Lois about. She won't tell me."

"Chris, I've got to go," I said, grabbing my purse, an extra notebook and a small digital camera. "Alex, you stay here and keep your fingers crossed that we get phone service back. Help Stan and Tom work up a plan for an extra edition for tomorrow afternoon. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Take a laptop, boss," Alex said, handing me one of the two portable computers the newspaper owned.

Chris looked agitated. "I'm going to the motel to pick up your brothers and head out to see what needs doing. I'll plan to meet you back here in four hours. If you need me before then, send Alex or Stan. I'll use Mama and Daddy's place as a base."

"If it's still there," I said.

"It will be," he said. "It has to be."

I rushed into Chris's arms and held tight. "I don't want you to go."

"I'll be back," he said, pulling my head to his shoulder. "Be careful, Mrs. Craig."

"I will," I said, unable to come up with a clever response. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He kissed me gently on the mouth. "You were a beautiful bride."

The front door swung shut, my husband out in the pitch black night, the beam of his flashlight already gone.

"Lois, are you OK?" Alex asked.

"Not yet," I said, shaking my head. "But we know how to cover the news, and that's what we have to do. Lives depend on us. Have you heard from any of the others? Tammy or Katy? Linda? Anyone?"

"Everyone's spread out, but we agreed to check in here. I haven't run into Tom, but he posted a story at seven-thirty saying a massive storm was headed our way. I did two updates from the courthouse. We scooped everyone, and the Associated Press has picked up my first story."

"The wire services are following this?"

"I'd say everyone in the country is following this."

A loose billy goat has been impounded by Bouef Parish officials after chasing calves on local farms. A deputy found the goat and is attempting to identify the owner because "this seems to be a real good quality animal." If the owner is not found, the goat will be adopted or sold at auction. If the sheriff's department has got your goat, give them a call.

—The Green News-Item

E
va Hillburn, flanked by three or four men, including the police and fire chiefs, pointed to a large map of Bouef Parish.Her back was to the door of the basement command center, and the room around her buzzed like the yellow jacket nest Chris had stirred up while mowing my yard last summer.

I stood silently at the back of the room, taking in as much information as I could without getting in the way.

"We have to go here next," Eva said, pointing to the core of town with her coral manicured fingernail. She wore the silk suit she had on at our wedding. "Door-to-door, block-toblock until everyone is accounted for. I feel certain that damage is extensive in this neighborhood. The houses were practically falling down as it was."

Jerry Turner, the banker who had run against Eva for mayor, sat hunched over a map on a tan metal desk and slammed his hand down on a nearby metal desk. "No," he said. "We know outlying areas are hard hit. We can't waste time on inner-city neighborhoods that may be fine."

He looked at Hank and Doug. "Don't you agree, boys? We start in the area and work our way back. We don't have enough manpower to cover the entire town, so we'll have to count on citizens to work out problems we can't reach."

"Jerry," Eva said in what I thought of as her stately mayoral voice, "this is no time to argue."

"I know what we need to do," the banker said. "Serve the people we know are hurt. Look for others next. There's plenty of work to go around."

Eva took a deep breath. "We're wasting valuable time," she said. "You handle the parish. I'll take the city limits. We'll divide volunteers into teams with captains to report back on the hour, every hour."

"That'll work," Hank said.

"Good idea, Mayor," Doug said.

She turned and surveyed the room, catching sight of me."I'll be right with you," she said, all business. She turned back to the officials nearby. "Hank, we need an emergency medical technician with each group if possible. Doug, assign the groups and get them on their way. Volunteers are meeting upstairs."

"Lois," she said, turning to me, "we have a crisis beyond what we're prepared for. We've notified the National Guard and declared a state of emergency. We've confirmed two deaths, and that's likely only the beginning. Injuries are piling up faster than the hospital can handle them. It's operating on a generator and has serious roof damage."

At the word "deaths," my mind froze. "Anna Grace?" I whispered, knowing she had been in bad shape when she left the church.

"Last I heard she was stable," Eva said, "but things are so chaotic that I don't know for sure."

I could tell there was something she was holding back.

"Who, Mayor?" I asked. "Who are the fatalities so far?"

"There's no good way to tell you," she said. "Your copy editor Tom and Papa Levi . . ."

"Tom? Are you sure?"

"A tree crushed his car. The vehicle was found blown off a side road out toward Route Two," she said quietly. "A neighbor flagged down a deputy, but Tom couldn't be saved. He was dead by the time help arrived."

"He was trying to warn us," I said. "He knew we were out of touch during the ceremony, that no one would have a phone on."

"Tom's last actions say a lot about the kind of man he was," Eva said. "He tried to send a text telling everyone to take cover, said it would be horrific."

"If he only had come to the wedding as planned."

"Lois, this is not your fault. There is nothing you could have done."

"Asa?" My voice shook.

"He's fine, other than a bruise or two. He was crying in the bathtub, surrounded by pillows, when Terrence and the others got to him. Levi was under a mattress in the hall. Apparently he had been trying to drag it to the bathroom. Most of the windows were blown out."

I put my head in my hands, and the mayor laid manicured fingers on my arm.

"Sugar Marie?" I asked, going through my mental list.

"At Dub's house. He kept her during the wedding." Dub McCuller was one of two brothers I had dealt with in the purchase of the newspaper and not one of my favorite people.

"How's Holly Beth?" Eva asked.

"We found her in her crate in a tree. She seems fine."

"A tree? Did you leave her on the porch?"

"She was in the kitchen. Aunt Helen's house is gone."

"Gone?"

"No longer there. It disappeared." I said, and I could see her processing that image. "Your house?"

"A few shingles off and my beautiful camellia uprooted, but nothing more, according to Dub. My side of the street looks like nothing happened, and the houses across the street are a mess."

"I never thought about how random a storm could be. To think that this day started so beautifully, barely a cloud in the sky."

"We've conducted a very preliminary check," Eva said, pushing her hands through her hair in a gesture I'd not seen before. "Thirty to thirty-five percent of the buildings appear to be destroyed. Many more are damaged. We have long days ahead of us."

Green had unquestionably elected the right mayor to deal with a tragedy. I tried to imagine former Mayor Oscar Myers, elderly and set in his ways, handling this.

"The wedding ceremony was lovely," Eva said, pulling a tissue from her pocket. She wiped her eyes and straightened her hair. "I have to get back to work. Your staff can use that desk in the back there."

Tom was dead.

Big, sloppy, wordaholic Tom, who loved crossword puzzles and books and edited copy as though he worked on the biggest newspaper in the country, who coached Katy so she could become a true reporter, who led our editorial crusades and cared as passionately about
The Green News-Item
as he had when he walked in the door forty-one years ago.

"This newspaper is here to stay," he'd proclaimed in a loud voice a few months ago. "No Internet or cable television will kill it. Only lazy journalists will be able to do that."

Likely the paper had killed him, coming to spread the news to his coworkers, even though he was not feeling well and didn't like to drive at night. My heart ached at the thought of telling Katy and the others, but I didn't want them to hear it from anyone else.

I glanced at the big clock on the wall over the map, frozen at seven forty-eight when the power went off. I looked down at my watch and held it up to my ear.

"It hasn't stopped," Hank said, walking up with a clipboard."It really is only nine twenty-five."

"It feels like a time warp," I said.

His walkie-talkie squawked, and he stepped away, listening, his expression more stern by the moment. "I have to get back out there, Lois."

"Can I get quotes and an update from you first?"

He nodded and sighed deeply. "Two more confirmed dead."

"God help us," I said, half in anger, half in prayer.

"I don't have names on the others. I'll keep you posted."

"If you see Chris, will you tell him I'm OK?"

"Sure thing," he said. "Congratulations, again."

I tried my cell phone again. Nothing.
Would it be better to stay at the command center or go back to the paper?

The mayor had mentioned satellite service, so this could be a good place to set up shop and stay up on breaking news developments. The metal desk in the corner would be a serviceable news center for a while, but how could we coordinate coverage without better phone service? I longed for electricity and our little newsroom, Tom at the center, laying out pages, conversation whirling around me as we struggled to find enough news to fill the paper.

Even in this room surrounded by people I knew, I felt lost and alone.

For the next ten minutes, I resorted to doing what I do best—gathering information and piecing together a short article. Law enforcement personnel came and went, including volunteers who regularly helped on fire calls and with routine police matters. With each new person, a look of dread mixed with the need to know washed over faces, sick-looking under the fluorescent light of the basement room. The headquarters already smelled stale and felt stuffy.

Bud, the agriculture columnist, came in wearing his polyester Green Auxiliary Police uniform, what Katy liked to call his GAP outfit. Before I could reach him, a half dozen people mobbed him for news from the world outside.

He stopped speaking when he noticed me. His back was stiff, and I thought he was too old to be out this late, helping with such a tragedy.

"Tom handled my copy every week for more than thirty years," he said. "We've lost a good man."

I pulled out my notebook and pen. "Will you give your thoughts for the paper?" I asked, trying to hold back tears. "I want to post his obituary as soon as possible."

"First, I need to update the mayor with word from the police chief," he said. I followed as he walked over to Eva and pointed to the map. She picked up several small pins with blue heads and began to push them into neighborhoods.

I now understood what the words
deathly quiet
meant.Everyone in the room paused to watch. As Bud referred to notes, Eva pushed another pin into the map, then another.

"Friends," Eva said, while Bud folded up the paper and stuck it in his pocket, "confirmed deaths are now at five. We are awaiting word from out in the parish."

I sat down at the desk, turned on my laptop, and began to write, relieved to see a weak Internet connection.

Alex and Tammy came in after I hit send on the latest online update.

"Is it true about Tom?" Tammy asked. "Did he really die?"

"Yes," I said. "It's true." My voice trembled, and Tammy and I moved toward each other.

"It's hard to imagine putting out the
Item
without Tom," Alex said.

"I leaned on him to choose photos," Tammy said. "I've got a few good shots now, but if he were here, he'd tell me to get better ones when the sun comes up."

"I can't let myself think about it yet," I said. "Let's focus on putting out the best paper we can. I want us to put out an extra edition, one that would make Tom proud."

"What happens now?" Tammy asked.

"Stay here and get what you can, Alex. Update online every fifteen minutes and gather details for the special edition. I'll go over to the paper and send someone to relieve you when I can. Tammy, find us the picture that will tell the story in one glance."

Alex was already on his way to the coffeepot before we got out of the room, and I noticed he had changed into the ratty tennis shoes. The moment of familiarity felt good.

Stan and I were about halfway through mapping out a four-page extra for the next day in the newsroom when Iris Jo strolled in wearing a warm-up suit and baseball cap, a familiar brown accordion file in her hands and a tote bag on her shoulder.

"Are you OK?" Stan asked, rushing over to her.

"If you think I'm going to bed while everyone else works on the biggest story we've ever had, you're wrong," she said."Knowing Lois, we'll have an extra edition by this time tomorrow.We have to figure out where we'll print it and how we'll get it there."