2. Prescription For Love

“Harper’s out there and she’s going to get us out of here,” Flann said. “Just don’t move around too much, and do everything she says. No questions, just do it.” “What about the chicks?” Margie asked.

Flann would have shaken her head if she’d been able to. Had to love her. “That’s a question.” “Yeah, but for information purposes only,” Margie said.

“I’ve got them,” Blake said. “The box is still in my arms, and it’s not crushed. I can hear them cheeping.”

“Good job,” Margie said. “We can set them up in the kitchen when we get out.”

Flann grinned. Margie was a rock. Someday, she’d be the matriarch of the coming Rivers generations.

“What about the kittens?” Blake said.

“My bet is they burrowed down in the hay,” Flann said. “We’ll look for them once we get this place secure.”

A rumbling roar grew closer, and Blake gasped. “Is that another one coming?”

“That,” Flann said with a wave of relief, “is an ATV. The cavalry has arrived.”

*

Abby clutched the roll bar on the ATV as Harper maneuvered over and around fallen branches, boards, and uprooted fence posts behind the barn. Abby recoiled at the scope of the wreckage. The back half of the barn had caved in. Only two uprights and one beam about halfway to where the roof had been remained standing intact. Piles of slate, tin, and other rubble from the collapsed portions of the roof filled the interior. Miraculously, the new chicken coop remained unscathed.

Blake, Margie, and Flann were somewhere beneath that horrible devastation. How were they ever going to get to them? If they’d been in Manhattan, dozens of emergency responders with all sorts of equipment would already be on scene. Here there were no flashing lights, no sirens, no one else at all.

“It looks like a giant heap of pick-up sticks,” Abby said.

“And if we pull on the wrong one,” Harper said darkly, “we’ll bring the rest of the pile down.” “I guess a crane is out of the question.”

“Even if we could get a backhoe in here, I don’t think we want to leave them in there for days, and that’s how long it would be. Besides, the debris is going to shift. Right now they’re not injured, and we want to keep it that way.”

“You’re right.” Abby couldn’t imagine standing around doing nothing while Blake and the others were trapped inside. She had to trust that Flann had somehow kept them all safe. And she had to trust Harper to get to them. “Where do we start?”

“We find the shortest way in to them and then we can clear a tunnel so they can crawl out without shifting everything above them. If I know Flann, she’s got them close to that upright.”

Harper backed the Rhino over a mound of torn-up pasture and torn tree limbs to within a few yards of the barn. The foot-square hand-hewn post formed the center of a teepee of fallen beams, shattered slate, and splintered clapboards reaching twenty feet high. Flann and the kids were somewhere at the bottom of the rubble. Abby jumped down and vaulted over piles of debris, skidding to a stop at the edge of the wreckage. “Blake? Can you hear me?”

“Mom,” Blake called back. “We’re here!”

The sound of his voice stilled the last remnants of panic. She knew what to do in a crisis—she’d spent her life training for them. She also knew how to work in a team when she didn’t know as much as her colleagues. She looked over at Harper. “They don’t seem very far away.”

“Good.” Harper tossed her a pair of leather work gloves, crouched down, and switched on a big utility light. “Flann? What’s the situation?”

“I’m pinned down. Feels like a big beam. The kids are closer to the upright. Get them first.”

“Can you see light anywhere?” Harper called, shining the beam over the jumble of wood and stone. “No,” Flann called.

“Wait,” Blake said. “I think—”

Harper played her light again over the same area, more slowly. “Now?”

“Yes,” Blake shouted. “I can see it.”

Harper retraced the same course even more slowly. “Call out as soon as you—” “Now,” Blake and Margie yelled simultaneously.

Abby’s heart lifted. They were there, so close. “We’re coming to get you.”

“Be careful,” Flann yelled. “We don’t need the two of you getting buried too.”

Harper muttered, “Always has to be giving the orders.”

“Thank God she was with them.” Abby kept seeing Flann forcing her way through the wind and flying debris toward the barn while she scurried toward the safety of the cellar. Flann had been right to force her inside—she wouldn’t have known how to keep the kids safe. “Let’s get them out.”

Harper pointed to the base of the pile. “We start at the periphery and work our way in. Slowly and carefully, we’ll make a pathway toward the spot where Blake saw the light. One board at a time, move it aside, don’t pull out anything that’s stuck underneath. Only things that look free. This is not the time to hurry.”