The Year of Chasing Dreams (28 page)

Eden lay stretched out on the beach, soaking up the warm, soothing rays of the Florida sun on gorgeous white sand as fine as sugar. Garret had been right. Staying a few extra days in Destin was what she had needed to get back in touch with herself and her everyday life. Her mother was gone, and Eden
hoped, finally at peace. She would take her ashes to Bellmeade and scatter them across the fertile earth Eden had grown to love.
At least I’ll always know where you are, Mom
, she thought with a wry smile.

The sound of the rolling surf became lulling music, the salty air a heady perfume. A gull swooped low, tossing its cry into the sky. Eden closed her eyes, was half asleep when she felt a shadow fall over her face. She blinked, saw Garret leaning over her. She raised her arms in an invitation for him to hold her. He plopped down beside her onto the sand, his knees drawn up. She raised up on her elbows. “No hugs for me?”

Without the glare of the sun on his face, she saw that he looked troubled. “Been watching the telly. That’s why I didn’t come out to be with you on the beach right away.”

“Your team losing?” She flashed a grin, but he didn’t return it. She sat up, turned toward him. Her pulse began to race and ratchet up her anxiety level. “What’s up? You look serious.”

“It is serious. Announcer on the telly from your national news been breaking in all morning. There’s bad weather slamming Tennessee. Worst of it hit less than an hour ago.” Garret took her hand, held her gaze without blinking. “Tornadoes on the ground all over. But one made a direct hit on your town, Windemere. Damage is bad, love. Very, very bad.”

Ciana stood dumbstruck, staring at the heap of rubble she had once called home. The house had a long history, once a modest cabin built by the original French Beauchamp owners, then a two-story farmhouse that was rebuilt into an antebellum mansion in the mid-1800s, and years later saved from rot and ruin and turned into a Victorian showpiece. That version was eventually reshaped and modified for life in the twentieth century. It had endured the Civil War, drought, floods, even a nineteenth-century fire, only to be reduced to ruin in seconds by an act of nature. Now all that stood amid the piles of broken wood and brick that even resembled a house was a partial fireplace chimney. She walked closer to the ruined house, saw that the chicken coop had been decimated, too, and averted her eyes from the carnage of the dead birds.

Ciana let out a tortured sob, forced herself to face reality—the house was no more. Jon still needed help. She knew better than to venture into the ruins. Too dangerous. She needed another
plan. She turned to face the other direction, where the barn was supposed to be. Her heart leaped when she saw that it was still standing. In its whimsy, the wind had spared the structure, skipping over it entirely. The horses! She trotted to the old barn that opened into grazing pastures. At the far end of the open field, the animals huddled in a herd, heads hanging low. She whistled and their heads came up. Firecracker and Sonata started toward her, and the boarders’ horses followed in a cluster. Briefly, she wondered about Caramel and where her terror-driven run had taken her, and if she was safe.

At the fence she stroked a few noses, gave each horse a quick look over. Some had cuts, but none acted badly hurt. Ciana heard a noise behind her, spun and saw Soldier crawl on his belly from a hole under the barn. She dropped to her knees, threw her arms around the shepherd’s neck, and hugged him hard. “Are you okay?”

The dog licked her face. She checked him over and he seemed fine. She surmised that like Caramel, the dog had sensed the approaching disaster and found safety. “Good boy,” she said, ruffling the thick fur. Seeing the dog had buoyed her spirits. “Jon’s hurt,” she told the animal. Soldier’s ears pricked.

Precious seconds had passed, so she darted into the gloom of the barn and the darkened tack room. There was no electricity, but she knew the space like the back of her hand. She gathered an armful of saddle blankets, bottles of water from the small refrigerator, and a first-aid kit.

Outside she halted at the sight of the long driveway leading to the front road. Her breath caught. The path of the tornado was evident. Several of the grand old trees that had stood over Bellmeade for as long as two hundred years lay uprooted or snapped like kindling, broken, supine offerings to the wind gods. Nothing had stood in the way of the powerful
wind’s advance to the house. Nothing could have. The sight was staggering, nauseating.

The approach to the main road was impassable. Sweat trickled down Ciana’s back and her knees felt too weak to hold her. She staggered under the weight of what she was seeing. Her body begged for rest and her thirst to be quenched. She refused to do either until she could return to Jon’s side. She tried her cell phone again. No luck. Overloaded circuits still busy. She considered her few options to getting back to him. Her way off the property to the front road was blocked, and she assumed the country roads were also.

She dropped the load in her arms, ran into the barn, snatched a bridle from the orderly cascade Jon kept arranged on hooks, ran outside and pulled Firecracker from the pack grouped at the fence. She slipped the bit into the horse’s mouth and spread blankets across the animal’s broad, bare back. She balanced the other items on a wide nearby fence post, tangled fingers in the horse’s mane, and with all her remaining strength slung her body onto her horse’s back, almost overshooting and taking a tumble. The horse sidestepped, snorted, but Ciana righted herself and pulled the reins taut. “Steady, girl,” she said, stroking Firecracker’s neck, hoping to calm the spooked horse.

Once Firecracker quieted, Ciana nestled the water bottles and the first-aid kit against her chest with one arm, and with the reins in the other hand turned the horse in the direction of the backfield. She looked down at Soldier, said, “Come,” and set off at a walk, knowing it was simply too dangerous to hurry the horse around the wreckage, through the ripped garden, and back to the field where Jon lay bleeding and unconscious.

Garret and Eden threw their belongings into the camper. The urgency to get home was tangible. “How long?” Eden asked when Garret had pulled away from the motel parking lot.

“My guess … about eight hours.”

“So long?” she wailed.

“We’ll get there, love.” He clicked on the radio, found a news station broadcasting frequent reports about the devastation in the Tennessee area and then about numerous tornadoes blowing into Kentucky and lower Illinois. The wind’s deadly rampage had already killed fifteen people, and the body count was expected to rise. Untold property damage was also reported. Eden’s heart lurched with every new word, every horrific revelation. Apparently Windemere had taken a bull’s-eye hit. And what of Bellmeade? What of Ciana? “I can’t raise anyone on my cell,” she told Garret after hours of trying.

“Cell towers must be down. Just keep dialin’,” he said in a soothing voice.

They stopped only for gas, bathroom breaks, and road food.

“Can’t we go faster?” she begged.

“We’ll get there.”

Afternoon shadows crept over the highway as they passed from Alabama into Tennessee, and turned northeast toward Nashville. Soon the tornado’s path became obvious—a line of trees lay crushed, fences were down in pasture land, billboards were flattened, roofs were torn off and smashed. Then, just as suddenly, the land looked normal and untouched. It was as if some capricious giant had walked over the earth, destroying at his pleasure, leaving some areas devastated, other areas
unscathed. No rhyme or reason. No plan, as a general might have plotted to subdue a population. The closer Garret drove to Windemere, the more the landscape resembled a war zone.

Traffic slowed to a crawl. State troopers massed at roadblocks, forcing motorists to turn around. Eden thought she’d jump out of her skin. When a cop tried to turn their camper, Eden cried, “But we live here. At Bellmeade.”

“Sorry,” the man said. “No one’s getting through. You’ll have to go back for now.”

She whipped out her driver’s license, jammed it under the cop’s nose to persuade him that she was telling the truth. “See? I live in Windemere.”

“Sorry,” he said, his expression intractable. “No one’s getting by except emergency vehicles. Best to go to Nashville and find a place to stay until the wounded are evacuated and roads are passable and safe. No exceptions.”

Garret whipped the steering wheel, turned the camper around on the shoulder of the road, and sped toward Nashville.

“We can’t leave!” Eden cried, almost in hysterics.

His face was set like stone. “We’ll come back, but just now, we have to do what they tell us.”

Eden shrieked in frustration.

At Jon’s side, Ciana quickly began covering him with blankets. Soldier lay with his muzzle on his paws on Jon’s other side, soulful brown eyes flicking from Jon to Ciana. “Good boy,” Ciana said, surprised at how much the animal’s presence comforted her. She opened the first-aid kit, cleaned Jon’s head wound, and smoothed antibiotic salve over the gash. He
never moved, and she was afraid to move him. What if his spine was broken? All she could do was talk to him, hoping that somehow he’d know she was there with him and that she loved him. She begged him to hang on, told lies about help coming soon. In truth, as the day stretched on, she was certain no help was coming.

She wept. She grew angry. The phone’s busy signal became a pitiful drone that made her want to hurl it away. At some point she knew that it was up to her to once more leave him and go find help. The idea made her sick, but he’d been unconscious and unmoving for so long. He was very hurt. Her body ached all over, but she knew she must suck up her pain and go. She bent over, explained how she must again leave him, went to the fence where she’d tied Firecracker. She gave Soldier the “Stay” command, mounted the horse’s bare, sleek back, and headed toward the main road some two miles away.

She rode over decimated land that in areas had been drenched in rain, but not blown to smithereens, and began to think that more than a single tornado had touched down. She saw too much damage for any other explanation. Ciana stuck to open fields, following the parallel road, where she saw downed trees, poles, and electrical wires. Going through the fields was slower, but it was safer. Her horse had to work harder to slog through the soggy earth, and soon the horse’s legs and belly were caked with mud and her sides heaving. Ciana encouraged Firecracker continuously with words and strokes, but the going was slow and strenuous. The longer the journey took, Ciana grew more heart-in-her-throat anxious. She’d been away from Jon far too long. She considered turning around. Suddenly, in the distance, she saw a flash of blue lights. Police! She drove her heels into Firecracker’s flanks
and the horse picked up the pace. Ciana cut toward the road, hovered nearer the fence line until she saw a squad car marked as one of the local sheriff’s.

A deputy leaning against the hood straightened as she approached. “Ciana? That you?”

Weak with relief, she slid off the horse. She knew this man. She and Lloyd had gone to high school together. “I—I need help at Bellmeade.” Her voice cracked. “I need paramedics. I tried to call, but can’t get through.” She explained about Jon.