Ride With Me (A Quaking Heart Novel - Book One)

  Chapter 26

  Clint's muscles were tiring as he fought against the juddering earth. Rooted to the road between the main house and barn, he began to doubt the quake would quit. The fury of this force of nature seemed more like earthquake and cyclone. And the noise was unbelievably deafening.

  He tried to reason through a jumbled brain. Jessie. Was she safe? Sam. He might be hurt. The barn was breaking up. He needed to get to Sam. Shuffling along the vibrating earth he labored toward the barn.

  Just then, a powerful wind whipped hard against his back, throwing him off his feet. He caught himself with one hand against the road. Wind was spiraling around him. Dirt and debris stung his face like buckshot and filled his mouth. He sputtered and spit, and took another breath. What is happening?

  He squinted over at the house, the heart and soul of Harper ranch. Mabel would be in there. And Roy. Pushing to his feet, he held an arm across his eyes and fought to make it to the house. He stooped into the hurricane-like gusts, forcing his legs to move in that direction. A violent swirl of wind smacked Clint broadside. He lost his footing and fell hard, landing face first on the trembling earth. Circular airstreams seemed to ride his back, like a tornado finding its mark. He couldn't move against the pounding force of it. Would he be carried off? Out of desperation, he gripped the ground with his fingertips.

  Brief flashes of moonlight slipped through the gale, giving Clint a chance to finally see his surroundings. Closer to the house now, he scrabbled toward it, but only managed two pushes along the ground when he caught sight of something coming at him from the north. He strained to see. It drew closer. What on earth? The road was undulating, like a daunting wave rising against him. Helpless to do anything, he bent his arms around his head and waited for impact. It reached him, elevated under him, and then snapped. Like an amateur bronc buster, he was bucked airborne and flipped once, his big body landing in a heap as the buckling road continued on a southward course.

  Clint pressed his nose against his shirt sleeve and sucked in a breath of debris-free air, then another. Unnatural winds continued to circle him, but he had to get up. With all his might he shoved off the ground. He stuck his hands out in front of him like a blind man, pushing against flying bits of soil and gravel and wreckage as he went.

  He heard a splintering sound—from the house. He caught a glimpse of intact porch, moonlit eaves, sturdy walls holding the wind at bay . . . and portions of roof lifting, twisting, shredding . . No!

  A new gale wrenched the top beam free of its trusses. Like dominoes, one truss slammed against the other until they trounced the second floor, cracking the house in two. Clint stared, unblinking, uncaring that grit sandblasted his eyes. Even his breath had stoppered itself, blocked by an unvoiced scream in his head. Who is trapped inside?

  He tried to wedge his feet under him and run for the porch, but the ground toppled him to his backside. He cracked his head on hardpan and popped around like corn in a hot skillet, useless to do anything but endure the riot underneath. The taste of this evening's jerked beef came up his throat. He gagged. His head pounded, his muscles throbbed, and his limbs were scratched and bruised . . .

  God, please make this stop!

  The prayer left him dumbfounded. Because for the first time in his life, he believed wholeheartedly that God was real, and He controlled this storm. And Clint wanted to live . . . to see Jessie again. The truth vibrated through his bones with more force than the earthquake and wind combined. And the only one who could make that happen was The one Clint had run from his whole life. A Scripture shot through Clint's mind from the days of his youth, and he shouted it into the wind. "If God is for me, who can be against me?"

  Another loud crack hit him like a wall of sound breaking over his back. He wrenched toward it. His gelding bolted out of the barn, stumbling about in need of escape. In the brief slices of moonlight Clint caught its wild-eyed look of fright. The barn's roof ripped off in pieces. Surging fragments joined the darkened sky and were caught in a gale of debris, up and up and out of view.

  The quake gave another sharp jolt and then it stopped dead, like a supernatural switch had been flipped. Stunned, Clint lay in a heap, his whole body vibrating. A Bible story he had read as a child filled his mind and quieted his soul. The story was of a turbulent boat ride the disciples had taken with Jesus. Jesus had calmed the seas, as He had just done the quake. An inner peace warmed him from within.

  With great effort he thrust himself up from the fractured ground. His body hummed. He sat up, waited for all the tumblers to fall back into place. Once his equilibrium seemed to adjust, he raised his head heavenward. "Thank you. I promise. I won't forget this." It was all the words he could manage through the emotion electrifying his system.

  Clint tried to stand, but his legs were rubbery. Determined to find out who might be hurt, he willed energy into his limbs. He pushed forward, thinking of Jessie. Was she hurt, or worse? The agony of not knowing turned his stomach.

  Concentrate! People here need you. With a near impossible effort he pushed all thoughts of Jessie aside and staggered toward the house, stunned by the collapse of the second story into the first. The front steps had separated from the foundation. Mabel's potted flowers, and the swing-hammock, were no longer visible.

  He stepped over the fractured door frame, taking a moment to assess the ruin. Heavy ceiling beams had flattened furniture. The deer head rested askew on the splintered timber. He stooped, searched through the rubble for the flashlight that usually hung on a peg by the front door, and clicked it on. He skipped the ray across the room: particles of wood and dust swirled within its glow. The staircase had shifted and fallen away from the second floor and was now slanting to one side.

  Clint noticed a light in the kitchen. Clicking off his flashlight to conserve the batteries, he kicked his way into the great room and toward the light. He heard a faint moan and froze in place, listening. It was a woman somewhere in the kitchen, whimpering.

  The kitchen was in shambles, the stove the only thing still in its place. The refrigerator had been dislodged and was now lying on top of someone. Hurrying through the debris, he saw Mabel's face pinched in pain, her breaths reduced to tiny puffs that seemed to require all of her attention.

  "Mabel! Hold on. Let me get this thing off you." He squatted, lifted, and shoved the refrigerator away with one hefty push.

  His eyes flew over her small, round body, looking for wounds. "Are you hurt?"

  She gulped a full breath of air. Then her hands went up to cover her face, and she began to sob. Clint grasped her wrists to carefully peel them away. "Mabel, look at me," he demanded. "You a'right?"

  She shook her head and continued to sob hysterically.

  "Hurt or just scared?"

  She stopped crying for a moment and with frantic eyes searched his face. "Are we in Heaven?"

  "Mabel, listen to me. It was just an earthquake."

  "Just an earthquake," she screeched. "God's destroying the earth. We're goners!"

  "Mabel," he said with his foreman voice. "Calm down. I need to get you out of here. There'll be aftershocks. Come on." He grasped her upper arms and began pulling slowly, testing her ability to sit. "Now, can you tell me if you're hurt?"

  "Other than my dignity?" she asked, flushing with embarrassment. She pulled her robe tighter around her stout body.

  "Let's try to stand you up if you think nothing's broken."

  "Sure," she grunted. He rose with her to a standing position. Once stable, she wiped her tears away with a shaky hand.

  "How's that? Feeling okay?"

  Mabel stared up into his face. "I think I feel better than you. You look like a bronc-snapper what lost the battle. We both need to sit our backsides down somewhere."

  "We're going outside to the middle of the road. Need to get out of this house before the rest of it comes down around our ears. Do you know if anyone else is in here?"

  "Just me. I was getting a late snack." She flushed. "Roy's out of town on b
usiness."

  "Good, let's get out so I can go check the bunkhouses for others. Can you make it?"

  "Yep, give me a hand."

  Clint guided Mabel carefully over the wreckage in the two rooms and out the broken door. Once he deposited her in the middle of the road, he put a calming palm to her cheek. "Got to go get Sam. Stay put. I'll be right back."

  The interior of the barn looked to have experienced its own personal twister, yet the small light still shone inside. One glance at the dirt floor, and Clint found Sam sprawled out, not moving.

  "Sam!" Clint ran to his side. Nothing had fallen on him, amazingly. Clint leaned down to check his neck. The pulse was there, though weak. And he was breathing, though shallowly. Clint carefully turned him over, checking for injuries. Taking the chance that his back wasn't broken, he squatted and lifted him. His legs burned from the effort, but he forced them forward. Once he placed Sam in the open area of the road where he'd be safer, he worked at trying to rouse him. Soon Sam groaned and opened his eyes.

  "Thank you, Lord," Clint said.

  Sam gawked at Clint.

  "Yeah. I know. I finally figured out who's in charge, is all," Clint said. "Now, tell me, where're you hurt?"

  "That horse of yours decided to dance on my face and chest before he took off," Sam rasped. "Think I have some broken ribs, for sure."

  "I'm thankful you're alive, Sam. Had me worried. Will you be all right here if I go check on the others?"

  "Sure. Breathing okay, so don't think I punctured a lung. You go. I'll be fine right here. You okay, Mabel?"

  "Just shaken. Never experienced nothin' like that. Couldn't have been just an earthquake, could it?"

  "Don't know. Never been in an earthquake before," Sam replied.

  "God must be mad at us," Mabel said.

  Satisfied that Mabel and Sam would watch over each other, Clint slogged down the road toward the bunkhouses. Shining the flashlight over the destruction of the two structures, he groaned aloud. One barely stood, while the other was destroyed with beams, roofing, and splintered two-by-fours in a heap like a giant pile of pick-up-sticks.

  Several wranglers were already digging through the rubble, calling out to those who had been trapped inside. Clint hobbled toward the first bunkhouse. Two bodies lay to the far left of it, with Pete's brother, Max, hunched down beside them.

  By the way they lay, Clint feared the worst. "Are they gone?" Clint asked as he approached, recognizing them.

  "'Fraid so," Max answered in a strained voice.

  Clint drank in a deep breath. He and Max joined the men knee deep in rubble. "Who else are we looking for?"

  "Many of the guys are out with the herd, but we had about twelve men here, so we have six that are unaccounted for," Max said as he hauled another board off the wreckage. "By the way, Pete's gone a little crazy.

  Clint straightened from his task. "What do you mean?"

  "He's hysterical. Over yonder." Max nodded toward him. Pete lay in a fetal position near one of the trees. "Thinks the end of time has hit."

  "You gotta admit. It did seem that way," Clint said. "He'll snap out of it. He always does."

  They searched and uncovered the lost men. Two more were found dead, and three were alive but injured. With Sam already found, all six were accounted for. The men carried the wounded to the makeshift treatment area in the middle of the road. Clint staggered the last few steps. Max came alongside to ease his load.

  "Max, we need to get into the main house for bandages, alcohol, blankets, anything we can find," Clint said. "We'll go in together, but if we hear any rumblings of aftershocks, you get out of there pronto. Don't even hesitate."

  He'd barely gotten the words out when another rumble came from deep below. "Aw shoot, here it comes." Clint shouted over the noise. "Try to relax your bodies and roll with it."