Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (33 page)

“How much farther?” Owen asked, his face knit deep in concentration.

“I’m not sure,” Charlotte answered. She had been out to the shack many times, familiarized herself with the quirky landmarks
that dotted the way, but with the weather as bad as it was, she wasn’t certain where they were or how long it had been since
they left.

The truck turned sharply to the left, then back to the right. They dropped down into a depression, making Charlotte’s stomach
sicken, before rising rapidly. The road was so narrow, so bumpy, that she was thankful that it would eventually end at the
Becks’ cabin.

“That’s twice today we’ve put our necks on the line,” Owen observed.

“It’s not something that I want to make a habit of doing.”

“Me neither.”

“When the storm is over and everybody is safe,” Charlotte said, stressing the positive outcome of their journey, “I want to
go back to the pond, just the two of us, and take a swim.”

“It’ll be a lake by the time this storm is over.”

They both laughed, the sound strange in the cramped interior of the truck’s cab. But their grim laughter was suddenly cut
short; just ahead of them on the road, barely visible through the rain-streaked window, a tree that had been felled lay in
their path. It wasn’t much, not a bit larger than a young stripling in Charlotte’s Minnesota, but if the truck was to hit
it…

“Watch out!” Charlotte screamed.

Owen yanked the wheel hard to the side and the truck lurched off the road and down a sharp decline. Charlotte’s hands gripped
the dashboard. The truck’s tires bounced off large rocks, slid in the slick mud, and finally splashed through the water of
a creek that had been formed by the runoff from the storm. The effect was jarring for the truck’s passengers.

“Hold on!” Owen shouted, and Charlotte did her best to oblige.

Just as fast as the truck had gone down a hill, Owen straightened the wheel so that it would climb another. With the engine
straining hard, whining as it struggled to maintain the uncertain footing beneath its tires, they slowly, surely picked up
speed. When they crested the low
hill, they were going so fast that the wheels left the ground and they hurtled into the air. They landed with a thud, a bone-jarring
knock that bounced Charlotte around the cab. By some miracle or out of blind luck, they had landed back on the road.

For a moment, neither of them could make a sound save for the raggedness of their breath. Charlotte was so frightened that
she could barely focus her eyes and her temples throbbed.

Then, up ahead of the rapidly diminishing road, she suddenly spied the cabin that Sarah Beck shared with her father. While
the afternoon had definitely darkened as a result of the storm, Charlotte could see its distinct form outlined against the
persistent gloom. Relief welled in her heart to find that it was still, miraculously, standing, though a portion of its tin
roof had been peeled back by the relentless wind. Light shone through the cracked window. The cabin looked even smaller than
normal in the face of the storm.

“Stop the car!” she shouted. “I see it! I see the cabin!”

Owen jammed down hard on the brakes and the truck began to slowly skid, listing to its side for so long that Charlotte began
to worry that they would be unable to stop, that they might drop down into yet another depression or, worse, they might flip
over. But somehow the truck held, the wheels locking.

“We need to be fast,” Owen said. “Let me go in and get them.”

“I’m coming with you,” she cut him off defiantly.

“We don’t have time to argue!”

“So don’t!”

Charlotte knew that Owen wanted her to stay behind so that he would know where she was, know that she was safe. But she couldn’t
allow him to take all the risk. Her teaching Sarah had created a bond between the two of them. Charlotte felt a responsibility
to the pregnant girl and wanted to go to the cabin to make sure that she hadn’t been hurt.

“All right,” Owen agreed, “but you get out on my side of the truck and hold on to my hand. I don’t want the wind blowing you
away leaving me unable to find you.”

“All right.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

Charlotte was thankful that Owen insisted she take his hand. The weather had worsened dramatically. Rain pelted her mercilessly
with every step, drenching her blouse and plastering her hair to her head. The wind was considerably stronger than it had
been back at the ranch. It roared with such ferocity that Charlotte could hardly hear herself think.

Owen was shaking her hand furiously; at first she thought it was because he was trying to make sure she was close, but it
soon dawned on her that he was trying to get her attention. Shielding her eyes, she looked at him. His face was white with
terror. With his other hand, he
pointed, and when she followed, she too felt as if their world were surely about to end.

Oh, my God…

In the distance, over the roof of the Becks’ dilapidated cabin, was the black spiraling cone of a tornado.

T
HE TORNADO STRETCHED DOWN
from the dark heavens as if it were the finger of God himself. Immensely broad at its top, it narrowed as it reached toward
the ground, a churning engine of destruction. Debris of every size and shape roiled in its cylinder, to be jettisoned as more
was pulled up to take its place. The tornado looked to be miles across, with an appetite for destruction that could not be
sated. Charlotte was awed by the sheer force of the wind; the gusts that buffeted them were nearly enough to lift her from
her feet. If she weren’t so frightened, a part of her would have found the tornado beautiful, something to fill her with wonder.

I don’t want that thing to be the death of me…

Still holding tight to her hand, Owen half-dragged Charlotte to the door of the cabin and began to pound
on it furiously. Over and over he smashed his closed fist against the wood; with the roar of the approaching tornado, Charlotte
wondered if the Becks could even hear his effort. She was surprised that the door hadn’t been torn open, but the Becks must
have barricaded it shut to keep the wind from ripping it off its hinges.

“Sarah!” she shouted, scarcely able to hear her own voice.

Finally, the door opened a crack. Alan Beck’s alcohol-ravaged and wrinkled face peered out at them through the gap. Owen made
no effort to identify himself, shouldering open the door and pushing back the table and chairs that had been blocking their
entry. Charlotte rushed inside.

Sarah sat on her bed back in the far corner, cradling her stomach with one hand, her mother’s picture in the other. The poor
girl looked scared out of her wits, but brightened at seeing Charlotte. An oil lamp sat on the apple crate, its burning wick
the source of the light they had seen from the road.

“How’d you get out here?” Sarah asked nervously. “It sounds bad, like this cabin is gonna fall down.”

“Shush now, Sarah,” Charlotte quieted her as she rushed over and began helping her to rise from the bed, mindful of her belly.
“There isn’t time to talk about it now! We have to go! Go right this instant!”

“It’s a twister, ain’t it?” Alan asked, staring out into the storm he had exposed by opening the door.

“It is,” Owen answered. “I can’t say for certain, but I think it’s heading right for us. If we don’t leave fast, we’re
never
going to get to safety.”

“We’ll go in the truck,” Charlotte explained, hoping that her encouragement would calm Sarah’s panic. “We can outrun it and
make it back to the ranch.”

“Ain’t no chance in hell of doin’ that,” Alan disagreed. “I seen my share of these damn things when I was a boy and they’re
faster than you’d ever believe ’em to be, I say. Ruthless as killers… like a rabid dog that done got its first taste of blood…
ain’t likely to stop till it’s got its fill.”

“I can drive fast,” Owen insisted.

“You ain’t faster than nature, boy.” Alan shook his head.

At the finality of her father’s words, Sarah began to cry, sobbing into Charlotte’s shoulder. Outside the door, the tornado
sounded as if it were a locomotive barreling down toward them, its whistle shrill. As if to demonstrate its potential, the
tornado’s winds shattered the already broken window. Sarah screamed in terror.

“We can’t stay here,” Charlotte pleaded, looking at the flimsy walls. “If we do, this cabin will be our coffin!”

“If it’s too late to take the truck, where can we go?” Owen asked Alan, realizing that the older man was right and there was
no chance for them to outrun the storm.

“Down the back of the hill opposite this here cabin, there’s a small cave. It ain’t much, no more than a couple a feet dug
into the side of the hill, but it’s carved outta rock ’stead of earth. Stumbled ’cross it when I was drinkin’ one
night ’bout a month back. I can’t say it’ll be safe, but it’s safer than here.”

“Take us there!” Owen shouted.

“I’m scared,” Sarah cried.

“I’ll be with you,” Charlotte said as confidently as she could.

Alan Beck led the way from the cabin, Charlotte and Sarah behind him, with Owen bringing up the rear. Even in the short time
Charlotte and Owen had been inside, the storm’s rampaging intensity had increased; lashing bursts of wind snatched at his
legs, trying their best to entangle him. Occasional flashes of lightning exploded before their eyes. Rain drenched them in
seconds. But the most unbearable part of the storm was the noise; Owen couldn’t imagine a more ferocious, unstoppable sound.
He covered his ears, but even had he packed them with cotton, it would be useless. He never looked back, did not want to know
how much closer the funnel had come. The tornado was a rampaging animal, and it was after them.

Ahead, he saw Charlotte stop, struggling beside Sarah, the poor girl awash in tears and panic on both of their faces. Charlotte
screamed, her voice a wandering whisper that barely caught his ear. “Owen! I need you to take Sarah! I can’t… I can’t in this
wind… and she—”

Without speaking his answer, Owen scooped Sarah into his arms as carefully as he could, cradling her close to his chest. He
was surprised by how light she was, especially
given how far along she was in her pregnancy. Though he could feel her shoulders shivering from either fear or the rain, he
could not hear her sobbing.

“Stay close,” he shouted to Charlotte, “but don’t stop running!”

Alan rushed past the truck and stopped at the scant shrubs and stunted trees that marked the edge of the hill that led down
and away from the cabin. He looked back, waiting, frantically waving his arms for them to follow.

He yelled something, but no one could hear.

Even as he passed the truck, Owen had to fight the urge to leap inside and take his chances outrunning the tornado. He knew
that Alan was right, that it was a pointless gesture that would only get them all killed.

“We gots to go down this here hill!” Alan shouted in his ear as another round of lightning lit up the sky. “The cave is near
the bottom!” And then he was gone into the darkening afternoon, over the ridge, his footprints in the fresh mud the only sign
of his passing.

“Follow him!” Owen screamed at Charlotte. “We’ll come on just behind!”

Going down the incline was harder than Owen had expected. From the top, the path would have looked steep and treacherous in
the best of conditions, but with all of the furious rain loosening the ground, turning it into mud, he met a constant challenge
to stay upright, a task made all the more difficult by his carrying a pregnant girl. Because he could not see his feet, he
shuffled them carefully as they
awkwardly descended, hoping that he would know when he met an obstacle.

Then suddenly a gust of wind made his wishes worthless, unbalancing him and sweeping his feet out from under him. When he
knew that he was falling, Owen leaned backward as far as he could and absorbed the rough collision with his back, protecting
Sarah as they half-slid down the embankment. Though his throbbing ribs screamed, still sore from being struck by a stampeding
horse, he gritted his teeth and bore his agony silently, worrying more about ensuring Sarah’s safety.

Mercifully, the descent was short. Once Owen struggled back to his feet, he followed as Alan led them around a stone outcropping,
stopping before a low hole cut into the rock wall, half-covered by brush. It wasn’t much, Owen even wondered if he would have
noticed the cave if he had not been looking for it, but it would have to do.

“Put her in there!” Alan shouted.

Owen ducked down at the cave’s entrance and pushed his way through the dead shrubs, their sharp nettles clinging to his shirt
and scratching against his skin. He discovered that they had been shepherded into more of a depression than a cave; the solid
rock wall met him mere feet past the opening. Owen’s feet stumbled over empty liquor bottles, undoubtedly left over from one
of Alan’s benders.

How in the hell are we all going to fit in here?
Owen thought.

Blindly, he felt along in the dark, his hand against the smooth, cold stone. Thankfully, he found that there was a small opening
that rounded to the left, barely deeper than a closet. He was relieved to find that it offered some protection from the incessant
wind. Owen gently set Sarah down on her feet and then hurried Charlotte to join her.

“Hold Sarah close!” he shouted. “Stay around this corner and don’t move! I’ll be just behind you both!”

Seconds passed, Owen’s arms wrapped around Charlotte in the darkness, before he became aware that there were only three of
them in the cave.

“Stay here and don’t move!” he bellowed in Charlotte’s ear. He could feel her turn to question him, but he was already too
far away to hear.

Owen found Alan outside the entrance, his face turned up into the rain, watching the calamity breaking all around them. He
had no idea what Sarah’s father thought he was doing, but he wasn’t willing to ask.

Grabbing him by the shirt, Owen made to drag Alan back to the safety of the cave, but he was astonished to have the man shake
off his grasp.