Little Klein (12 page)

The force of his effort swept him off his feet, and he landed with a
thwap
on his knees on the ledge, scraping his face on the way down. His nose pressed against the cool wall, he breathed in the dank air and tasted blood from his lip mixing with the bitter tang of the stone. He turned and shifted to his bum. In this position his feet found another perch just below. Harold hung his head. He put fingers around his smarting knees. Salty water leaked out the sides of his eyes. What was the use?

But he whistled again.

“Help!” came a shallow cry.

Harold didn’t lift his head. “What?” he said sullenly.

“Help!” came the cry again.

Harold’s head snapped up. Was he dreaming? He stood gingerly on the muddy lower ledge and shuffled farther from shore, to where the water surged out away from the ledge.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Guys? Guys? It’s me! Hello?”

Silence.

Harold looked back at dry land. He looked out at the falling water. He slid ahead another foot before the ledge ended abruptly. Harold’s stomach flipped. As he pondered his soupy death, there was another call.

“Help! We’re down here!”

It was a Klein. And he sounded close — around-the-corner close.

“Where are you?”

“Here! Look down, look down!”

It was Mark’s voice.

Harold’s hands, already wet from the rocks, were now slick with sweat. If his heart hadn’t already beat out of his chest, he was sure it would be popping through his T-shirt at any moment, probably busting open then and leaking all over his insides. What more damage could looking down do? Harold peered at the water churning below him, at the jutting rocks, at the height he’d managed to climb, and everything Harold had eaten in recent memory came up the elevator and launched itself out and down, down, down into the swirling mist.

A wind came up in Lena. A clothespin-popping, cat-launching, paper-delivering wind. It inhaled trees, drawing leaves and branches toward Market Road, then exhaled them like feather dusters wildly clearing the gathering clouds. Keen eyes, arthritic joints, and sharp olfactories were consulted to determine the nature and intent of this day’s wind. Self-proclaimed experts gathered at Sam’s Skelly, where Officer Linden presided, the warning lights and siren of his official vehicle at the ready.

“Sky’s not green enough.”

“It’s too late in the season.”

“Tornadoes are sidereal, and I seen no prediction in the stars last night.”

“Stars? Hogwash. My knee remains one-hundred percent accurate, and it says we’ve got ourselves a tornado brewing.”

“There’s rotation in the clouds to the west.”

“Nope, Harvey, them’s straight-moving winds.”

“S’not hot enough.”

“Not humid ’nough either.”

“Sure smells like a twister.”

Widow Flom had been standing at the back of this town gathering, holding her tongue as if it were a wild puppy on a short leash. Finally, the leash snapped. “If I might add a modicum of actual science to this stew of nonsense, it’s hotter than blazes, the sky is a wicked green, and these are no kite-flying winds. This looks to be a pernicious storm. Take your lame joints, starry eyes, and overgrown nozzles home where they belong. I can’t believe I’ve stayed tuned this long.”

The crowd erupted in indignation.

Officer Linden broke into the uproar. “Thank you, Mrs. Flom. Let’s all just calm down here. Fact is we got ourselves a big wind. As usual, when it’s over, people on the east end will return wayward goods to the police station to be collected by folks from the west end. Now go make sure your neighbors are getting their kids and their selves inside. I don’t want to hear about any fly-aways. We all smell a storm coming, so get going.”

As the crowd began their muttering dispersal, Nora Nettle’s pickup sputtered into the lot, nearly mowing down newlywed Priscilla Warren, who was not yet used to jumping at the sound of Nora’s oncoming truck.

“Durn creaker,” cursed Mr. Gamble. “Can’t you take her keys, Linden?”

“Already tried, Mac, already tried.”

Nora Nettle opened the driver’s side door and climbed down.

“Listen to me now,” she ordered.

Several people shook their heads and hurried toward home.

“Listen to me
now
!” she screeched, reaching back into her pickup to honk the horn. “Those Klein Boys done took Wilson’s Fork and gone over the falls. Most likely they’re dead and drowned, but we oughta find ’em anyhow. The mother will want something to bury, don’t you know.”

“Little Klein didn’t go over!” came a voice from the other side of the truck. Emma Brown appeared and hopped into the bed of the truck. “We have him right . . .” she looked under tarps and behind barrels. “He was right here! The dog, too.”

Emma Brown’s reputation among most adults of Lena was shaky at best, given rumors of her behavior and of her family’s misfortunes. Now, finding her in the company of Nora Nettle, standing in an empty pickup, they didn’t linger for further explanation.

“Get in,” Nora Nettle commanded Emma. She reversed into the quickly parting crowd, chugging back down Main and out of town.

There was only a small gathering left: Reverend Clambush because he knew that Cornelia would be managing at home just fine and Widow Flom because she didn’t have anyone at home. Mac Gamble stayed on because Officer Linden was his cousin, and Muriel the librarian was too frightened of storms to be alone in her apartment above Tim and Tom’s Market.

“Mac and Muriel, go get Mrs. Klein and bring her to the police station. Stay downstairs until the storm’s over and we find those boys,” said Officer Linden.

“Flom and Clambush, let’s go.” Officer Linden turned on the squad car’s light though no one else was out driving, and they sped away.

Farmer Filmore, hurrying to town to check on his widowed sister Dora Flom, had left sheets drying on the line. This got him to thinking about his late wife and how she would not have left sheets on the line in such precarious weather. In fact, she would not have been doing laundry on a Saturday. It was her Monday task. And on Mondays she always fixed him bacon for breakfast. Farmer Filmore was so lost in Mrs. Filmore thoughts that when he came upon a dog wrapped in a dead bush running toward him, he had to brake fast.

Why, it was the Klein dog. He put his truck in park there in the middle of the road and hopped out.

“Come here, boy! Here, boy!” He crouched down and called LeRoy, who barked and came up to Farmer Filmore whimpering.

“What is it, boy?” Farmer Filmore released LeRoy from the bush, but LeRoy was not satisfied.

He yapped and ran down the road a ways, looking back at Farmer Filmore to follow. He ran into the brush, barked, and looked back.

“Okay, okay, boy! I’m coming.” Farmer Filmore left his truck where it was and waded into the brush, into the hush of the forest floor, while up above, the trees groaned under the growing weight of the wind.

When Harold realized he was not to be a dumpling in the river’s soup and it was up to him to go for help, his limbs flew into action, rewinding his body across the rock wall — fingers grasping crevices, feet grabbing firm steps. He traced his mind’s map as he went: How close was the nearest house? Would someone be home to help him? On this return trip, the wall wasn’t as steep as Harold remembered, the ledge not as narrow, the river not as wide. How long would the Bigs be all right in the cave? Two knee bumps, three elbow scrapes, and an unfortunate whap to the nose later, Harold was standing on wet sand and then spread himself out like a contented butterfly on the green grass, on the hard ground, a warm trickle of blood running from nose to ear.

But something was not right. Without moving, Harold looked around him. He listened. There were no birds, no chipmunks, none of the usual forest sounds. Instead there was a hush at the ground. Where were the animals? He rustled some leaves with his foot; he gave a sharp whistle. Nothing stirred. He looked up through the trees to an eerily green sky, then his head filled with a growing roar, like a train, but there were no tracks. What was it Dad always said? If you hear a train and there aren’t any tracks, head for the cellar. Tornado.

Little Klein jumped up. He ran from tree to tree. The train was coming closer.

“Mark!” he cried. “Matthew! Luke! LeRoy! Ma! Somebody!”

A big wind was coming and the leaf was alone.

Little Klein looked at that tall wall of water and knew what stood behind. The tornado would come downriver and pass over the falls. There was no time for thinking. Harold Sylvester George Klein stepped back on the ledge. He climbed back behind the falling water and waited.

Mother Klein paced the basement of the police station. The only places to sit were the beds of the two cells, and she’d offered those to Mac and Muriel. How could they sit at a time like this?

“Do you hear that wind?” she lectured. “The youngest weighs hardly more than the dog.” Her whole adult life she’d spent raising these boys and now
poof,
they could be gone in a whoosh of wind. All the work she’d put into protecting her youngest boy, her baby, and then one day she’d just sent him out into the world because she was ornery? It was just like Stanley to be gone at a time like this. Well, she would find her boys.

She started up the steps, but Mr. Gamble stopped her.

“And the falls!” she continued. “They may be impulsive, but my boys would not do something so rash as float a raft above the falls. I told them to stay away from Wilson’s Fork and they said they’d stay away from Wilson’s Fork and my boys are nothing if not obedient. That Nora Nettle is forever stirring up trouble for my boys.” She closed her eyes.

“Lord, get out there and do something to protect my boys. Use that dog if you have to — just don’t let them blow away or get smashed by a tree or . . . oh heavens, Lord, just get on now. Please.”

Mac Gamble cleared his throat.

“Yes, Mrs. Klein. We all know Nettle. I’m sure she was exaggerating. I’m sure they’ll be fine. Now let’s just —” but Mr. Gamble’s voice was drowned out by Muriel’s shriek, which was obliterated by the sound of a freight train passing directly overhead.

Farmer Filmore and LeRoy were nearing the river when they heard the train. As he was a veteran of such storms, Mr. Filmore’s heart rate did not change a beat. He simply lifted the dog like a sack of wheat, ran his long-legged run to the bridge, and nestled the two of them on the far side of the cement wall.

Officer Linden and his crew heard the warning, too. They pulled over next to a pickup left in the middle of the road.

“That’s Fred’s truck!” shouted Widow Flom as they ran for the ditch. “Lordy, lordy. What is Fred doing out in this weather?” The rescue team flattened themselves in the ditch and covered their heads with their arms.

Harold listened to the thundering water. He’d scooted far enough to find the small place where he could sit, draw his knees up to his chin, and grasp ahold of the ledge next to him. The water was now a whisper compared to the greater cry of the wind. The rocks around and under him shuddered, poking like angry fists. Thud after thud, the world trembled. Later, Harold would discover that those thuds were trees coming down in the storm, but at that moment, he felt the earth was breaking apart, leaving him on an island. Water sprayed his face and drenched his clothes. This time he did not cry for help because he knew help could not come. He held fast and waited.