Luz looked disappointed, but relieved. She turned the little trap around. As it circled, Magdalena leaned out, smiled cheerfully, and waved. “Señora Elliot?” the girl called, “Leta Cujillo is going to be our mamacita now. Will you come to our wedding party?” Luz snapped that whip before I needed to answer, and the filly raised dust. Magdalena’s voice faded, although she was still chirping. “I get to have two new dresses!”
Over the next hour, I sat with Willie, who slept stretched out on the dirt floor as if it were a feather bed. Clouds to the south rose and rose again. No matter. I thought of the grass in the graveyard. In the midst of the clouds, darkness began to grow, and in the darkness, lightning flashed like sparks behind a cloth. More rain coming meant more sweetgrass. I thought of the cattle Charlie had brought home. I had yet to see them. Once Willie was headed to town and no longer in my charge, I’d ride up and get a look. When the boy was sound asleep, I left him.
I fed the corral horses. Petted Rose and Hunter, who now came and nuzzled at my pockets, the source of apples and carrots. The clouds hovered closer, blocking out the mountains south of here. Looking at that sky, I thought if my fellows got caught up in some rain, I might not see them until tomorrow. Just for good measure, I led Rose and Hunter into the farthest stalls, safe and dark. Dan and Maize got the next ones over. I even made a place for Baldy, although he held his ears back nervously, for he’d only been in the barn for new shoes, not for any kind of weather.
All the commotion woke Willie. I told him I was going to the house, and he looked mighty worried. For half a second, I weighed whether or not to have him back in the house or simply close the barn door and save him from the rain. I’d promised Charlie to keep an eye on his prisoner. I didn’t want to wait out the storm in the barn, nor did I want to march Willie to the house, where I wouldn’t be able to keep him tied as tight. In the end, he decided a little shower wouldn’t hurt the smell of him, and a little wind might just dry him off. “Besides,” he said, “I won’t be as scared if I can see you’re watchin’ me from in there.”
Dark clouds gathered lower to the ground, and thunder tore across the sky without any lightning beforehand. Right up from the south it rumbled, though it wasn’t dropping any rain yet. It came like a live animal, reaching far into the heavens. Then, like one I’d seen years back, the middle of it turned a likesome shade of blue. I knew that blue wasn’t sky; it was water—a great pool of water carried up in the sky like a floating trough.
It was bearing straight toward my place. Nip and Shiner circled each other in the yard, barking. The air got heavy. So damp and hot and still, it pulled the lights out of a person. Unearthly quiet. Nip barked, dancing around me as I stared upward. Blackness covered half the sky, and the other half seemed clear and blue and perfectly at ease. I moved toward the porch, casting a glance over my shoulder at Willie. A drumming boomed from the midst of the stormy heavens. The noise rolled louder and louder. I watched overhead.
“Nip! Shiner!” I called, though I couldn’t hear my own voice. Shiner headed for the barn. Nip tried to run past me, but I caught him by the scruff and pulled him into the house. I stood in the parlor with the dog in my arms. Nip whined from pure fear, as if he was in pain. The roaring came, sounding all at once like stampeding cattle, like tumbling water, or a freight train charging through town on a still night. The house shook when the first gust of wind hit. The dog yelped. Holding tightly to him, afraid of what the storm might be driving this way, I went to the kitchen. From the window, all was dark, then light. I heard a bang and peeked out the window, only to see another gust blow the barn door shut. I had to keep an eye on Willie! Nip struggled.
“Stay, boy,” I said.
I heard a loud crack, just like when Willie’d broken the porch rail. I pictured him somehow mustering the strength to splinter the barn’s post. At that second, hail slammed into the side of the house, clear up under the porch. The glass in the window cracked in two places but stayed in its frame.
Another, louder crack of thunder was followed by a grinding, screeching noise, like a train putting on its brakes too hot, and then a sound like the trampling sound of hooves sent shivers up my spine. I looked toward the barn, expecting to see Willie hightailing it out of there, but instead, I saw the cause of the drumming sound. Boards from my house were flying across the yard and beating against the barn door. If it had stayed open, Willie would surely have been beaten to death by them. Shiner, too. I turned around in the kitchen just as wind tore the glass from its frame. It hit my arm and cheek, cutting me before it fell to the floor. Then the whole kitchen ceiling raised up before my eyes, as if the house were giving a giant sigh, and fell in. Rain pummeled me. Nip squirmed.
I dragged him with me under the kitchen table. Holding the frantic dog, I couldn’t get all the way under the table. Hail beat against my back, bruising me, as if the rocks of ice had been thrown deliberately at me. Rain poured around us. My arm flowed with blood. I buried my face in Nip’s neck, murmuring reassurances to him. “Stay, boy. We’re going to be all right, boy. No, no, don’t run. Stay with me, boy.” The water with the hail in it was freezing cold. The rain fell so hard that in less than a minute I was kneeling in an inch-deep pool, then a two-inch one. I gasped for air. There was another, cracking sound, even louder this time. The house shuddered. The floor moved as if it were on wheels. It gave way under me and dropped at an angle, flopping up mud and bits of branches and slop from under the foundation. The table came down upon us and was pinned by a heavy weight; it was held up from crushing the dog and me by a single leg caught at an angle.
The roaring sound and hail were replaced by the sizzling of rain, falling hard. I tried to budge the table by lifting straight up, using my back under the flat of it, my legs to shove upward. Nothing moved. We were caught at an angle. The smells of wet dog and old mouse nests filled the drenched air, made me choke. I let go of Nip. He scrambled through the cocked boards to freedom, and I followed him, wedging myself through the angle where the tabletop met those floorboards that had stayed in place. Once out from under the table, I could see right through the kitchen ceiling.
Overhead, gray sky was filled with starlike drops of rain that came straight downward. I followed Nip over the uneven floor to the bedroom. He hid under my bed. Thank heaven there was still a ceiling in there. Hail pelted the windows, hard as gravel. I sat on the bed, shaking all over. At least it isn’t coming through the roof! I told myself. No sooner had I thought that than I noticed a bulging over my armoire, as if the ceiling were a blanket full of hay. I stood to run from the room. I’d just gotten to the door when the paper-mat ceiling came down in a gush. It splashed so hard, it knocked me on my backside into the parlor. I struggled to my feet. Water whirled around my ankles. “Nip?” I called.
The dog whined. I knew he was alive, but he wouldn’t come out from under the bed. Lightning creased the sky outside, followed by deafening thunder. The rain softened. Then, as if the sky had taken a deep breath to let loose its full fury, rain dropped on the house, not like a shower or a storm, but as if a great river had suddenly been directed from on high to a waterfall right into my parlor.
I knelt on my bed just to stay off the floor, though the quilts held water like sponges. Rustling and thrashing came from beneath the bed and Nip struggled out of there. I caught him by the scruff again and hauled him up on the bed with me, where we both shivered in the rain for many minutes.
It quit the way it had started, without much warning, without tapering, just quit. A good four inches of water swirled around the floor in the bedroom and flowed toward the sunken floor in the kitchen. Over the fireplace, a small part of the roof held, and the box I kept Jack’s watch in remained, too, wet but otherwise untouched on the mantel.
I trudged through the water, which flowed muddy and thick around my ankles, trying to see what I could save, where I could put things. Lightning snapped from every corner of heaven just then, and the thunder meeting in the middle, right over my head, drowned
out my thoughts.
I pulled Granny’s quilt from the frame in the parlor. It was wet through and through, but I folded it anyway and laid it on a chair. I took Harland’s picture painting to keep safe it for him, placing it into the armoire, cramming it hard against my clothes in there.
I climbed over a slanted section of boards and under what had been the doorway to the sleeping porch. When my first husband, Jimmy, had built this place, he constructed a great square-framed roof over the floor, then just filled in the spaces with walls. The whole wall across the back was stove in, leaning at various angles.
Broken sunlight made the mess glow and steam. I had to see if Willie had lived through it. I walked around the side of the house and gasped when I saw the yard between the house and the barn. Boards of all sizes were scattered across the yard, tumbled and broken. Some were twisted up like straws, the dry old beams ripped in half. Squares of whole roof had been ripped from their places like discarded quilt squares that didn’t match. One made a perfect lean-to against the corral fence, just large enough for a big dog to get inside. Most of the rest of it resembled a picture I’d seen once of a logjam in a river.
I found out soon enough that some of the boards still had nails in them, and though they were old, they were still sharp. Before I got across the yard, the sunlight closed up and rain fell again. A pile of lumber held the barn door closed. Dents and broken places scarred the big oak door, but it had held. I pried the lumber loose one piece at a time, moving sometimes just an inch before seeing I had to move something else to get to the one that was held. The rain started to pour down, though not as hard as before, and not cold rain, but warm. At last, I got two pieces free and managed to wedge the door open enough to force myself inside.
I hollered, “Willie? You all right?”
“Yes’m, Aint Sair. That lightning done yet? Heck of a storm, weren’t it?”
I wanted to slap him. But I was relieved that he wasn’t hurt, and equally relieved that he wasn’t gone. I said, “Is Shiner in here?”
“Yes’m. I hate lightning. Always have. Feels like God is coming after me.”
I stared at him for a minute. My house was torn asunder. Just like that house sitting off its foundation, my whole life was wrenched apart. If God was coming after Willie, His almighty aim was off. The horses whimpered and whinnied. They were nervous and scared, but they were safe, too. I could have used Willie’s help, but I decided just to leave him be. I said, “I’m going to leave the door shut, to keep you out of the rain. You stay put, boy.”
“Yes’ m.”
He was safe enough. Drier and cleaner than I might ever be again. I squeezed back through the slit of a door. I gritted my teeth, tripping back across the twisted pile of lumber toward the house. Nip was not to be found, but I was beyond fretting. All I could hope for was that he’d found a place to hide, as he had during the stampede.
Inside, I found Gilbert’s room and changed my soggy shoes for a pair of my son’s old boots. They hadn’t fit Gil in awhile, and with a wad of paper, I could get them to stay on my feet. Gilbert’s room didn’t seem too bad off. The room that had been April’s and was now Granny’s had collapsed and ankle-deep water was everywhere, just like my bedroom. A single old housedress hanging from a nail was shredded and soaked. Granny’s few possessions, she’d taken with her to Chicago.
Charlie’s room was caved in just like the kitchen. The wall where he had tacked at least two dozen pictures of flying machines, horseless carriages, and bicycle machines was off-kilter and leaning over his bed. I couldn’t move his highboy dresser, which was protecting its contents better than if I’d emptied it.
The table we’d hidden under in the kitchen was the fancy one Jack had bought us. Its top was cracked down the middle and part of the kitchen’s south wall rested on it. The stove had keeled over onto the uneven floorboards, and I was instantly thankful that the fire had gone out long before this. Not that I thought anything could burn, I suppose, just because I’d always had a fear of leaving coals glowing in anything that could tip over. There had been jars of food in the pantry, foodstuffs we’d need to get us through the winter. Broken glass was everywhere. The contents of the broken jars mixed with mud, and filth covered it all. Mice scampered across the boards and up the walls. I had only two dozen jars of preserves left. Not a single pottery bowl was left whole. Three plates and the cast-iron skillets had survived. The coffeepot was hammered flat, pinned under the stove.
Thunder rumbled in the far distance. Rain, thick as a curtain, beat down, then stopped, as if some great hand had simply quit working the water pump. Outside, I took stock of the house. The rocks forming the foundation were in their places. One corner of the house had moved northward nearly six inches. The south wall leaned in, stable on one side, where it crossed the kitchen and Charlie’s bedroom, only teetering in place where it formed my bedroom wall.
As if Providence was satisfied that I’d seen the show and the curtain could be pulled again, rain began anew. The trough that sat by the side of the house to water visitors’ horses had turned on its side. I sat there heaven knows how long, watching my house fall apart. April and Charlie had been born in that house, in that very room where my bed was now open to the rain. Jimmy had died right there, too. The grain of those walls held memories of sounds that screamed from the wood as parts buckled and bent, forced down by the weight of the beams that remained. They were the cries of newborn babes. Tears of heartbreak. Moans of ecstasy. Shouts of happiness. Arguments. Lullabies. The hiss of boiling-over beans on the stove. The crackle of a fire in winter, the setting with my feet curled up under me and Jack beside me. The gentle leafing of the pages of—Oh Lord! My books!
I stood before the bookcase, which held the singular possession I regarded with secret greed so powerful, I’d be ashamed for anyone to know of it. One hundred and seventy-one volumes of all shapes and sizes were arranged there. Some I hadn’t read in years; some I’d read again and again. Every last one of them had been soaked to the core. Opening them would destroy them, and leaving them would doom them equally. Rain poured through the open roof. My heart crumbled. Books are made with glue and leather and paper, and none of those last in water. I sank to the floor and leaned against the bookshelf. I didn’t weep. The destruction was too complete. I just sighed again and again, holding to the bookcase, watching water gushing off my books.
“Sarah!” I heard a man cry. I didn’t answer—couldn’t open my mouth. The voice cried out again. Udell Hanna came around the side of the house, running toward me. He stopped short, looked at me as if he were stunned, then stepped closer, slowly climbing over boards and overturned furniture.
“Sarah?” he said, kneeling in water. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said, though I felt sore and pained, as if I’d been run over by a locomotive. “There’s nothing left. It’s gone.”
He took my hands, looking hard at the blood on my arm. “But you’re all right?”
“Willie’s in the barn. He’s fine.”
“I came to see if the storm hit. I saw the tail of it but couldn’t see if it touched down anywhere. It doesn’t take much tornado to wreck a place.”
“I’ve had some of these books since I was a girl.”
“Let me see your neck there. What cut you? Do you remember?”
“I’m cold,” I said. “My books are gone. Every last one.”
He took both my hands as if I were some addled child. He said, “Sarah?”
“You don’t understand. These are my books.”
Udell pulled me to his chest and held me, rubbing my arms with his hands. I shivered against him, but his touch felt foreign, painful. I pushed him away. I couldn’t stand anyone or anything touching me. I got up, pretending not to notice his outstretched hand and his confused expression. I reckon a woman ought want to fall into some fellow’s arms and be comforted, but at that moment, I wanted nothing like it. Every fiber of me hurt in some way or other. I turned away, too, from the sight of th
ose drenched books. “Will you help me see if my stove is racked? It’s busted up. I want a fire. I’m cold.” The shaking, which had been a tremble before, now overwhelmed me, and I shook so hard, my teeth rattled.
His eyes questioned, but he nodded and followed me. We pulled on the stove, tugged on the wall. He said he’d have to hitch his horse to the boards and pull them off, and he told me to stand back from it.
I watched that wall rise and crash down the other way as his big team moved it. When the weight holding it shifted, the stove rolled. A big crack in the iron side of it showed me it would never be of use again. Ashes poured out and lay atop the water like a slick of grease, curling around in eddies as the water flowed between the slanted boards.
I could see Udell working to unfasten the team from the wall. I looked at the tilted floor, the cracked glass, the broken table with its fancy carved legs, only one of which had remained whole. That one leg had saved Nip and me from being crushed by the stove and the wall. Jack had bought me that table. Had it shipped from Cincinnati. If there was, by gum, only one leg of it left, I wanted it.
I tugged at the wooden leg. Put my back into it. Strained and groaned, using every fiber I had, the same way I’d struggled to save Gilbert from the moving blades of the windmill. It tore loose, and I crashed against an overturned chair. Then I started to sob, not weep, exactly, for I was so wet, I couldn’t tell if there were tears. I took that table leg in my arms and beat it against the stove. I pounded the flue pipe flat where it was still round. Stomped it with my foot. Banged the table leg at the edge of the counter where the water pump stood. The counter collapsed and only the pump handle, suspended on a pipe, stayed in place. The rain quit falling, but water dripped from every surface.
My hair fell around my shoulders. I said, “Udell? What’s left of your place?”