The highway culvert was five miles west of Haven, where the road crossed an abandoned railway cut through the limestone ridges.
Marisol Vega was waiting beneath the concrete abutment, a wool blanket pulled over her ears and a battery inspection lantern resting on an iron grease tub. Beside her stood Dale Clanton with two two-wheeled handcarts salvaged from the town grain cooperative, each fitted with clean pine sideboards and lined with dry hay.
When the eighteen figures stumbled out of the sumac brush onto the railway ballast, Marisol did not shout. She stepped forward, her spectacles glinting in the dark, and caught Leah Price as the girl’s knees gave way on the wet gravel.
“Asha,” Marisol whispered, embracing the woman with one quick, fierce arm. “The ticker printed at twenty past nine. We’ve had the water kettles boiling at the school for two hours.”
Jonah sank onto the hay in the first cart, pulling eight-year-old Theo onto his lap. The boy was fast asleep, his face smudged with soot, his small fingers still tangled in his sister’s coat.
“The trucks?” Jonah rasped.
“They stopped at the weir bridge,” Marisol said. “The road south is blocked by a washed-out culvert. They can’t bring the scout cars past the creek without a pontoon. You have two hours before they can move around the ridge on foot.”
