The next day, Ciana and Jon started building a roadway to the stables. Jon laid out the route, marked it with stakes and orange twine, turning it south to skirt the stand of trees. A longer distance, but he said it would be easier than cutting through the tree line. Ciana had hooked up the chisel plow to the tractor in order to cut through the hard ground and carve out a bed for the road. The road would be crude, made of packed sand and crushed rocks, but easier to drive on than the current rutted path.
Two days later, Jon drove his truck heaped with supplies for the day’s work and Ciana rode Caramel to the newly formed roadbed. The horse needed the exercise but seemed nervous, difficult to handle. “Calm down, girl.” Ciana tried to soothe her. “You’ll be with your friends in a little bit.” The other five horses had been turned into the pastures near the barn to graze, and Ciana suspected Caramel wanted to be with them. Ciana tied the horse to the outside rail of the corral’s fence.
Jon parked beside the water trough. They still needed a well to be dug and a waterline to be laid so the animals could drink after a workout. Another chore, Ciana reminded herself. It had to be done because toting water back to the trough in the truck was heavy, hard work. Ciana brushed aside what had to be done in favor of what they were here to do.
She and Jon began to unload the truck. The day was cool, and held the threat of a thunderstorm. Jon glanced at the sky.
Ciana asked, “Think we’ll get rained out?”
“Probably. Weatherman said a front was coming through.”
Farmers lived by the weather forecasters’ predictions, but she’d been in a hurry that morning and hadn’t listened to any reports. “We can still get something done before it hits,” she told him, hating to let a little rain stop their workday. Still, Jon kept searching the sky, watching the fast-moving banks of low-hanging gray clouds. Finally she asked, “What’s bothering you?”
“My horse. She’s acting strange, and when I turned out the others, they were acting squirrely too.”
Jon read horses like Ciana could read a book. She glanced at Caramel, saw the way the buckskin was sidestepping and how the whites of her eyes showed. “She looks scared,” Ciana said.
Jon jogged over to calm his horse. Caramel neighed, a deeply distressed sound. Ciana felt goose bumps crawl up her back. Horses had a sixth sense. “What do you think is wrong?” she called to Jon.
He leaned into the horse, trying to calm her with his familiar voice.
Seconds later Ciana felt the air grow still, heavy, clammy, and thick, and watched the gray sky churn and morph into the color of aged copper. The wind picked up. Caramel jerked, broke Jon’s hold. She reared, pawed the air, with a look of absolute terror. The leather reins went taut, then broke.
Impossible! The power of the horse’s muscle to snap a leather strap left Ciana stunned. She watched the frightened animal gallop away. The wind’s fury whipped Ciana’s hair into stinging strands that felt like whip marks on her cheeks.
Jon whirled, yelled something Ciana couldn’t hear above the roar of the wind. From the corner of her eye, she saw a funnel-shaped cloud in the sky skimming the ground, heard what sounded like a freight train bearing down on metal tracks.
Jon leaped across the distance separating him from Ciana. He hit her sideways, tumbling her into the nearly empty water trough. She landed hard, breathless, scrunched in a ball, shouting, “Jon!” and clawing at him to pile atop her. The awful screeching wind was deafening and her voice was swallowed. Daylight vanished. The world turned dark. What felt like a hundred bee stings pelted her exposed skin. Again she screamed out for Jon.
Just as suddenly as it had come, the roar of the wind abated, and an eerie silence fell. Ciana fought for breath, struggled to process what had happened. As her head cleared, she realized that she lay in a few inches of steadily rising water. She shivered. She was alone with a cold rain falling. Jon Mercer had vanished.
Jon! If she didn’t move, Ciana knew she could drown in the rapidly rising water filling the trough. But her muscles had cramped and frozen in place. She couldn’t straighten her legs. “Move,” she whispered. Then louder, “Move!” Her muscles balked, but slowly, through sheer force of will, her body began to obey. First her legs, then her arms unclenched and stretched out. Her teeth chattered as her body began to shake as she sat up.
She blinked, looked around. Destruction lay in every direction. The truck was battered, filled with rubbish. Yards from the truck, the new stables still stood, but a large tree branch had partially crushed the roof. In the other direction she saw fields littered with chunks of wood, leaves, paper—stuff she couldn’t even identify. But no matter which direction she looked, she couldn’t see Jon.
Fear for him wiped out the remaining dullness in her brain. Panic gave her strength to boost herself up and slide over the side of the trough. Her legs were too weak to support her. She hung on the edge of the water trough, waited for waves of nausea to pass. She had to find Jon.
She tested her legs. She was wobbly, but her legs worked. She examined her hands, arms. Cuts and scrapes, but no gushing blood. Ciana pushed back her tangle of wet hair, her eyes darting in every direction. No sign of Jon. She limped forward, calling his name. The farther from the truck and stables she went, the more scared she became. He’d been right beside her when he’d pushed her into the trough.
She kept moving slowly and methodically, forcing herself to not run willy-nilly screaming and yelling for him. Control. She had to stay in control of her fragile will, so close to shattering. The world looked surreal, like some willful child had pitched a temper tantrum and kicked a well-ordered play space into shambles. To add to the insult of wreckage, the rain had stopped and sunlight spilled generously from blue sky through pockets of gray clouds, so that the damage stood out in sharp relief.
In the distance she heard the sound of a siren. Tornado warning. Had it been going all along, and was just now registering? She didn’t know. She resumed her search. Thirst burned her throat. Her head ached and her vision blurred. Her knees gave way and she fell into a standing puddle. Mud splattered. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, fought the urge to vomit, then to cry. Neither would help. She held up her head, took deep breaths, but seeing the area from a different vantage point allowed her to recognize a man-shaped lump about twenty yards to her left. Jon!
Relieved, she staggered upright, but when she got to him, she saw that while his right leg lay straight, his left was twisted, obviously badly broken. He was bleeding from a deep cut on his forehead. And he wasn’t moving. Her relief gave way to fear, then terror. What if … what if? Her heart beat like a trip hammer.
She warned herself away from the dark precipice of such a thought, dropped to her knees beside him. She bent, said his name into his ear. No movement. She wanted to touch him, was afraid to touch him. Screwing up her courage, Ciana pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, searching for the sign that would herald life. Her breath caught. She felt a flutter and sagged. His pulse was weak, but it was there.
She crouched, kissed his cheek, his lips. No response. “Jon, I’m here, honey. I’m here.” She realized he was unconscious, and if he woke, he’d be in terrible pain. He needed medical help, and he needed it quickly.
Her cell phone! For the first time since the storm struck, she remembered it. She dove into her pocket, jerked it out, punched in 911, and heard only the frantic noise of a busy signal. She punched in the emergency number three more times, finally heard a repeating automated message, “All circuits are busy. Please try your call later.” The scope of what had happened slammed her. What had happened was not a storm. They’d been struck by a tornado. Surely many others needed help too. She’d have to go get help and bring it to Jon. But that meant leaving him. How could she leave him unconscious and broken and hurt out here in an open field? She needed to stay with him, wrap herself around him, keep calling the emergency number. She couldn’t leave him! What if he woke up, tried to move? Tried to find her?
&nb
sp; For a moment she was immobilized, torn between what she wanted to do and what she must do. Her mother had gone grocery shopping in town. She wasn’t even on the property. No one knew they were out there. No one was even looking for them. Getting help was up to her. She thought of the house. It wasn’t very far. She could go to the house, find blankets. She’d get water and anything else she needed to make Jon comfortable. Maybe the house phone, the old landline, was working, and she could get through.
Urgency shot through her. And hope. She took a second, smoothed Jon’s forehead, and although she knew he couldn’t hear her, she was compelled to say, “I have to go for help. I’ll be back soon as I can. Please hold on, darling. I love you, Jon. Hold on!”
Ciana rose, turned, and started walking as swiftly as possible through the torn earth and over debris. In seconds the exertion turned each breath into panting gasps. Her lungs were on fire, and she felt a hitch in her side. She ignored her pain, kept moving, forced air inside her mouth and nose in great gulps. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually she arrived at the garden so lovingly planted weeks before by her mother and Eden. Most of the orderly rows lay shredded by the wind, and yet other areas stood unscathed. On the far side the poles for beans to climb were arrow straight, a testament to the wind’s capriciousness.
She had stared at the ground until now, being careful not to trip. At the edge of the garden, she glanced up toward her home, then stopped and stood stock-still, not believing what her eyes were broadcasting to her shell-shocked brain.
There was no house.
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. Un
told 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.”