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.
Lloyd looked grim. “Road this way is a mess, but I’ll radio for a team. Maybe they can get in from the other direction.”
“Lot of trees down on the property,” she said.
“They’ll get there,” Lloyd assured her.
She nodded, and with effort remounted her horse. “I need to go.”
“Keep your phone on. It’s also a GPS—they can find you through the signal.”
Thinking of their small town, she asked, “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“We lost much of Main Street, and so far nine dead, five unaccounted for. Whole string of tornadoes came through, then headed north.”
She closed her eyes against a stab of sickening pain and helplessness, remembering that her mother might have been in the grocery store when the twister hit. All she could do was blink away tears, turn her horse, and start the arduous journey back to Jon’s side.
Ciana lay on the hard ground next to Jon. Twilight was falling, and the wool blankets were damp from the wetness leaching through from underneath their two bodies. She stroked his cheek, checked his pulse—still weak—moistened his lips with water, whispered her love for him. And waited. If no one came soon, she’d have to ride back to the barn and scrounge for dry blankets, a flashlight, maybe some dry wood she could use to build a fire to keep them warm into the night. She remembered the quilt in the loft, the old diaries. The paper would make a good fire starter—if she had the strength to climb the ladder.
Every muscle in her body throbbed, and she longed to sleep. She kept drifting off and jerking herself awake. Fear was all that stood between her and longed-for oblivion. Jon’s injuries … her mother … and what of Arie’s parents … Abbie, Eric, and the new baby? Her neighbors? What had happened to them? Had they been spared? Her one consolation was knowing that Eden and Garret were in Florida and far from the disaster area.
Ciana glanced at her horse, caked with dried mud. Firecracker’s head drooped, and Ciana knew the animal was done in. Yet the animal stood quietly, her reins looped to the rail of the fence corral, seeming to understand that her keepers were hurt and unable to change the circumstances. Soldier had sensed the same, for the large dog stood watch faithfully without a whimper. Jon had always told her that animals had senses absent in humans. She saw with her own eyes now how right he was. Ciana had found a bowl in the bed of Jon’s battered truck and shared some of the bottled water with the dog. He’d drunk greedily, but she had no food for any of them and knew they were in dire straits.
All at once, Soldier’s ears pricked forward, the ridge of fur along his back stood up, and a low growl came from his throat. “What, boy?” Ciana asked. “What do you hear?” Seconds later, she heard the whine of engines coming from a distance. She stood on quivering legs, faced toward the approaching noise. Then she saw ATVs heading from the direction of her house, or rather, the rubble of her house.
Soldier went stiff and menacing, his growl deepening. Her heart tripped. She remembered ATVs tearing up her fields at night only months before. Was this help or trouble heading toward them?
As the vehicles closed the distance, she saw that the men riding them wore bright blue jackets, and when one turned to avoid a nasty rut, she read the word PARAMEDIC on the jacket’s back in bright yellow. She sagged with relief.
“Stand down,” Ciana said, touching the dog’s head. Soldier instantly obeyed.
Three men and four vehicles, one a stretcher on off-road tires and being towed, ground to a stop in front of her. “You all right, lady?” a man asked, eyeing the dog.
“My fiancé’s hurt bad. The dog won’t hurt you.”
In minutes, the men had set up a portable triage and set to work on Jon while Ciana and Soldier stood back. She watched as the team poked in IVs and hooked up small machines to gauge his vitals. She heard one whistle low when he lifted the blanket and saw Jon’s leg. “Good thing he’s out,” the man said.
Two of the men gently straightened the leg, then put it in an air cast. Because Jon didn’t even groan through the procedure, Ciana became even more concerned for him. How far under was he?
In no time, Jon was prepped, laid on a backboard, and placed on the stretcher. One of the men radioed to say, “Bringing in two.”
Ciana rubbed her eyes, confused. “I—I’m all right—”
“No, miss,” one of the rescuers said kindly. “You’re not. You need to come with us.” He motioned for her to climb behind him on his ATV.
She felt torn. She desperately wanted to go with Jon, but the animals … Her brain went woozy. The medic took her hand and seemed to understand her concerns. “They’ll find their way back.”
“The—the reins … trip …”
“I get it,” one of the other men said. “You don’t want the horse to step on her reins.” He came forward, removed Firecracker’s bridle, draped it over the fencing. “Go on,” he told the horse, slapping her rump.
Numbly, Ciana watched her horse start in the direction of the barn. “Go,” she told Soldier. The dog tagged behind the horse, but Ciana knew that even back at the barn, there was no one to care for the animals. No food, no access into their familiar stalls and shelter. No Jon.
r /> “Ready?” the man driving her vehicle asked once she climbed on behind him. He revved the engine and followed the stretcher out of the field, past the broken house and the fallen trees to the frontage road, where an ambulance waited, lights flashing in the rapidly darkening night.
The ambulance ended up taking them to Nashville, to the same hospital where Arie had spent so much time having cancer treatments. During the ride to the hospital, listening to the calls coming over the paramedics’ walkie-talkies and battery radios, Ciana began to grasp the scope and size of the disaster. An estimated two hundred twisters had touched down over a ten-hour period through three states. Emergency forces were reeling from the toll of death and destruction. The numbers were too large, the reports too overwhelming for her mind to wrap around, so she tuned out what she could and held Jon’s hand, watched fluids flow into his arm, and answered questions for the ambulance tech, who held a sheaf of forms. At some point, the tech stretched masking tape across Jon’s forehead and wrote head trauma in black marker. “Lot of walking wounded,” the man explained while tucking the paperwork under Jon’s blanket. “Guys like this can’t speak up, and this will expedite his examination process. The two of you will be separated at the hospital.”
“Please, no—”
“No choice. The worst cases must go first. You can walk and talk.”
The hospital scene was chaotic. Jon was swiftly moved up to intensive care, while Ciana found herself in a large room that had been converted into a triage center for those victims with less serious injuries. She was placed on a cot, and in spite of the glare of overhead lights and the noise of doctors, nurses, and tearful victims, she fell into an exhausted sleep. At some point her soiled clothes were removed and bagged and she was put in a hospital gown and taken to Radiology. Afterward she was moved into a real bed in a quieter, darker space. The experience was dreamlike, as she tottered between wakefulness and oblivion.
No one knew where she and Jon were, but they were alive, which was more than could be said for so many others. For the moment, it was all she had to hold onto.
Eden and Garret landed a motel room barely the size of a closet, old and smelling musty. Garret secured it for a week. When Eden protested, saying they should be back at Bellmeade in another day, he said, “May be a while, love. Authorities have clamped down on the town and say no one comes in until they’ve searched the place completely for the wounded.”
“But how will we know about Ciana and Alice Faye?”
“We wait for them to get hold of us.”
“No one can get through!” she cried.
He put his arms around her. “That might take a few days too.”
“What should I do? I can’t just hang around doing nothing.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I’d search to see if she’s been hurt. If she has, she’ll be treated and might be easier to find.”
His idea made sense. Yet it was frightening too. “What if—”
Garret refused to let her finish her sentence. “Just do a search.”
Names of patients were being posted online by medical officials on different hospitals’ Web pages. A patient’s condition was not listed, only name and location. And yet the growing lists of both “John and/or Jane Doe,” meaning the patient hadn’t been identified, was alarming. Social media pages were filling with requests of people looking for family and friends too. Eden was diligent, surfing from site to site, and also calling medical facilities. Twenty-nine hours later, she got a hit on Ciana’s name in the Nashville hospital she knew well.
“Found her!” Eden cried to Garret, coming in the door from making a food run. “And she’s not far from here.”
“Let’s go.”
Eden needed no prompting.
The rattle of food trays woke Ciana. She felt groggy, but slowly reality returned and she remembered everything. Her first thought was for Jon. How was he? Where was he? The room was full of beds and patients like herself, so she turned to the bed next to hers to see a man shoveling food into his mouth. “You have the time?”
“ ’Bout noon,” the guy said. “That’s your tray on the table. Where you from?”
She wasn’t interested in food or talking to the stranger. She pushed the button for the nurse on her bedside remote.
“They’re real slow at showing up,” the man offered. “The place is on overload.”
As her head cleared, pain returned to remind her she had been hurt. An IV line was set in her hand, and the bag hung on a metal pole jutting from her bed. The hospital gown that opened in the back and modesty kept her from bolting out of the bed. She felt like a butterfly pinned under glass. She wanted to find Jon. She turned to the man. “You have a working cell phone? Mine got lost in the shuffle of getting here.”
“Mine’s dead and no way to charge it here.”
She tried to think of a next move. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’m just sore.”
The man said, “Doctors are coming through and checking people out of here like you and me who aren’t so hurt. Red Cross and area churches and synagogues are setting up temporary food and shelter for us until we can reconnect with our families.”
The news alarmed Ciana. How would she find Jon if she was shoved out the door? “I need my clothes.” She looked around as if they might suddenly materialize.
“Bags of our stuff are stored under our beds,” the man said, pointing downward.
She leaned far over the side of her bed, saw a shelf mounted to the bed’s bottom, and a paper sack jammed on it. She snatched it up, tore it open, and found a heap of filthy-looking rags that she vaguely recognized as her jeans and shirt. She shuddered just to think about putting them on again, but at the moment, she didn’t have a choice.
“Maybe you should wait for a doc,” the man said. “Risky for you to pull out your IV.”
Her eyes followed the line, knew the man was right. She growled in frustration, punched the button for a nurse hard and often.
Just then she heard a ruckus from the doorway of the oversized room. A woman’s voice came loud and sharp, “You can’t go in there!”
Another, and familiar female voice, shot back, “Watch me!”
Ciana looked up to see a dark-haired girl walking briskly around the sea of beds. She yelled and began waving. “I’m over here! Eden McLauren! I’m here!”
After a brief and teary reunion, mostly of the let’s-talk-details-later variety, Eden left to buy Ciana new jeans and a couple of shirts. While she was gone, Ciana was examined for release and given prescriptions for an antibiotic and pain medication. She was signing paperwork when Eden returned. After dressing and wiping off her muddy boots, she met Eden and Garret in a waiting area.
“We have a room here in Nashville,” Eden told her. “You can stay with us.”
He grinned and hugged her. “Ready to go?”
“Not until I find Jon,” Ciana said, hitting the bank of elevators, her nerves tight as barbed wire and just as prickly. As the three of them rode upward, she briefly told of her and Jon’s harrowing experience. “The paramedic said he’d be sent to the ICU.”
Just as the elevator dinged their arrival to the ICU floor, Ciana asked, “Have you heard anything about my mom?”
Garret shook his head. “Town’s still under lockdown. Your National Guard’s on patrol too. Not much in the way of communications coming out yet, but I’ll drive over tomorrow and see what I can find out.”
“The animals …” Ciana poured all her worries into the two words. “They need food. Care.”
“Tomorrow,” he promised, squeezing her shoulders. “Even if they try and shoot me.”
They stepped onto the floor for the ICU. Doors into the unit were locked, so Ciana stopped at the nurses’ station and asked about Jon. One of the nurses looked up his name. “Yes, he’s here.”
“How is he?” Ciana’s heart was in her throat.
“Guarded condition.”
Ciana’s heart fell. “Can I see him? We wer
e brought in together, but I’ve been discharged. He saved my life.”
“Usually only next of kin is allowed.”
“I’m his fiancé. Please.” Tears swam in Ciana’s eyes.
The nurse glanced at Eden and Garret. “Just you, then. And for only a few minutes.”
Ciana was buzzed into the unit, a large dimly lit room off a short hallway with beds set in a semicircle. Every bed held a patient, and state-of-the-art equipment kept diligent vigil beside each one. She found Jon, moved to his bedside, stopped cold. He was on a ventilator, the tube protruding from his mouth and taped in place. His broken leg had been set in a cast and was being held aloft by a pulley system. Her insides turned to jelly.
A nurse materialized beside her, holding a clipboard.
“What’s wrong? How bad is he hurt?”
“I’m writing down his doctors’ names for you. The neurologist is Dr. Patel, and he’ll be in tomorrow morning to check on Mr. Mercer,” the nurse said kindly. “He’ll answer your questions.”
“Please! Is he going to be all right?”
“Only his doctor can talk to you about his condition. Just know that his vitals are strong and he’s resting comfortably.”
Ciana nodded numbly. It wasn’t nearly enough information, but at the moment, it was all she was going to get.
After extracting a promise from the nurse at the ICU to call the motel room if there was any change in Jon, Ciana returned with Eden and Garret. There she took a long, hot shower, willing the soreness out of her muscles and joints, and re-dressed. It was easy to wash away the dirt of her ordeal from her hair and body, but nothing could rinse the pain and trauma of it from her mind. When she emerged from the steamy bathroom, she saw bags of food from several fast food places. “Didn’t know what you might want to eat,” Garret said. “So I bought some of everything. Soda and beer too.”
Eden patted a place for Ciana beside her on the bed. “Come and eat something. It’ll help.”