Touchstone

by Sharon Sala

  He sighed. Home. He couldn’t wait to get there. He glanced at the directions one last time, watching for a mailbox with the name Bookout on the side. That would be where he turned. A small surge of adrenaline made him fidgety. Then he reminded himself there would be plenty of action, and soon.

  As he topped a small rise, a hard gust of wind hit the side of his car, causing him to swerve. He quickly steered back onto his side of the road, but it had been enough to give him pause. He glanced up at the darkening sky, then shrugged. So what if it rained? You didn’t need sunshine to die. For that matter, you didn’t even need daylight. But Beatty did. Without daylight, he would be lost out here. He pushed on the accelerator, suddenly anxious to get this all over.

  A short while later he saw a black mailbox and slowed. Sure enough, the name Bookout was there on the side. Although he was the only person for miles in either direction, he clicked on his turn signal and then drove down the drive. About a quarter of a mile later he saw a small cluster of buildings in the distance. He slowed down. A couple of hundred yards after that he stopped and took another of his purchases from the pawn shop out of the glove box: a pair of binoculars. He got out, adjusted the sights to his vision, and then stood in front of his car, watching.

  Five minutes passed before he saw any sign of movement. And when he did, his heart skipped a beat. It was Rachel, coming out of the house and standing on the porch. A dog stood at her side. A few moments later Beatty saw a man emerging from a large metal building a distance away from the house. He adjusted the binoculars again. It looked like the man in the picture—the man who’d taken Rachel away. He could see the man’s mouth moving. He must be shouting something to Rachel. Beatty scanned back to her. She was going back into the house.

  Beatty smiled in satisfaction and got back into his car.

  Houston was at the old windmill, opening the drain to the concrete stock tank. More than two inches of water was already in there from the earlier storm, with more to come. And since the old tank was no longer in use, leaving water to stagnate did nothing but provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

  He heard the sound of an approaching car as he was straightening up. His first thought was that Kenny had decided to come back after all. But then he saw it was a stranger, and frowned. Probably someone just needing directions. He walked out from behind the tank, intending to go to the house, but to his surprise, the car kept coming toward him. He waited.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw Rachel step out on the porch. His focus shifted to her momentarily as he watched her lift her face again to the wind. He glanced up at the sky and then frowned at the lowering cloud wall. When he looked back, the driver was out of the car and walking toward him. It took a few seconds to register the gun in his hand. By the time he did, it was too late.

  Beatty Andrews’s aim wasn’t good, but at this distance, it didn’t matter. The gun bucked in his hand. He watched with satisfaction as the bullet tore through the big man’s shoulder and knocked him backward into what looked like a very small above-ground pool.

  The wind was so strong now that it was difficult to stand upright. Beatty glanced back at the house. He could see Rachel’s mouth open in a scream, but the wind was blowing her words the other way. There was a tightness in his chest, as if he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs, but he told himself it would be all right as soon as he got out of the storm. He hurried to the edge of the concrete wall and stared down at the man inside. He was lying on his side with one arm outflung and the other crumpled up beneath him.

  “She belonged to me,” Beatty said, and aimed the gun straight at Houston’s heart.

  A gray streak came seemingly out of nowhere, hurtling through the air and piercing Beatty’s arm. He screamed in both shock and pain, trying to shake off the dog he’d seen earlier. But the dog’s teeth were firmly embedded in Beatty’s flesh. In a panic, he began beating the gun against the dog’s head and ears, screaming and running backward, trying to shake him off. Still the dog held on.

  Then something clicked inside Beatty’s mind. He was the one with the gun. That meant he was the one in control. Still screaming obscenities at both God and the dog, Beatty pointed the gun and fired. The dog dropped like a sack of potatoes. Suddenly Beatty was free.

  He was shaking so hard, he wasn’t sure he could stand, and the pain in his arm was intense. He stared down at the dog for a couple of seconds, then remembered why he’d come. He turned, the gun still dangling from his hand. Rachel was nowhere in sight. But he knew where she was. In this godforsaken place, there was nowhere to hide but the house. He started walking, with the wind pushing at his back. By the time he got to the house, he was running.

  Rachel heard the car, and, like Houston, her first thought was that Kenny had come back and that the storm was getting worse after all. She hurried back through the house, making her way to the front porch to listen. Almost immediately she realized it wasn’t Kenny. This car’s engine ran rougher, and she could hear the squeal of brakes as the driver began slowing down. The wind was stronger now, and there was a pressure to the air that she just didn’t like. She shuddered. In that same moment, shadows began moving before her eyes again, and she held her breath, waiting to see if anything emerged.

  At first nothing made sense. All she could see was something that looked like black sticks against a dark, muddy brown. But the longer she stared, the more certain she became that she should know what they were. As she waited, she heard the car go past. She frowned, trying to picture where it might go. And then it stopped. Too soon to have gone to the barn. It must have stopped at the well. She blinked, and as she did, she saw a darker image superimposed over the sticks.

  And then she gasped. The windmill. That was what she was seeing. It wasn’t her imagination. The image wasn’t clear, but she could see what looked like a car, and it had stopped at the windmill. There was movement. She couldn’t see clearly, but it looked as if someone got out. And then she heard one loud pop. She jerked as if she’d been slapped, and grabbed hold of the porch post in disbelief. That couldn’t be a gunshot! But when Taco began to growl and suddenly bolted to his feet, Rachel panicked. Something was wrong, she just knew it.

  She screamed Houston’s name, but the wind was so strong, it blew her words away. Moments later someone started to scream. The high, fear-filled shrieks sent panic racing through her mind. She wrapped her arms around the porch post, desperate for a stability she didn’t have. When the second gunshot came and then there was nothing but the howl of the wind in her ears, she bolted for the door.

  Running through the rooms with her arms outstretched, she could just make out the larger shapes of Houston’s furniture. Outside, the wind had evolved into a roar. Something shattered in a bedroom down the hall. Without checking, she knew that a window was gone. She remembered Kenny’s warning: Stay low and away from windows. But where could she hide? And what should she hide from? The stranger who’d come unannounced, or the storm that was upon her?

  And then she remembered. The cellar. She would go to the cellar. She stumbled into the kitchen just as a piece of the roof lifted off the house. Only then did she realize it had started to rain. The kitchen table was old and heavy, but she slid it aside, feeling for the thick metal ring that would allow her to lift the door. When her fingers closed around it, she pulled, struggling against the rain and the wind to gain dominance. It wasn’t until the door was up that she realized she could see the vague outline of steps, as well as the heavy metal chain attached to the underside of the door to pull it shut.

  “Help me, God,” she muttered, and started down the steps, grabbing the chain as she went. At the bottom of the steps she turned and looked back. Above her, the air was filled with flying objects—tools, leafy branches, and pieces of wood. A flash of something silver sailed overhead, and she gasped. Houston’s barn! It was coming undone.

  And dear God, the sound was like the roar of a loaded freight train, like the wail of a million banshees. It was a torna
do. Death was upon them.

  She screamed out in rage, railing at God for giving her back her sight in time to see everyone die. Then she pulled at the chain, but the door wouldn’t close. She leaned backward, using all of her weight to pull harder, and still it wouldn’t budge. The wind was too strong, too demanding.

  When it began pulling at her clothes, tearing at her hair, trying to draw her back up the steps and into its maw, she screamed. Determined not to quit, she let go of the chain and crawled to the back wall. As she crouched on her knees, staring up at the chunk of oblong light, a face suddenly appeared in the doorway.

  She stood, blinking furiously. Someone was there and, by superhuman effort, holding on to the chain she’d let go. She screamed Houston’s name.

  And then she saw him, his features contorted by the force of the wind and by a rage she never would have believed. The high, balding forehead, the brown, wispy hair. The large, wide-set eyes and a mouth opened in a soundless scream. She knew his face. He’d stood at the doorway of her apartment building in a gold and black uniform and smiled at her as she passed. She shrank back against the wall as the rain hammered down around them, mesmerized

  by his fight with the storm.

  Their gazes connected.

  And in that moment Beatty Andrews knew she could see. A fury came over him unlike anything he had ever known. And even as the breath was being sucked out of his lungs by the force of the storm, he was determined to finish what he’d started. But to do that, he would have to loosen his hold on the chain. In the moment of accepting that it meant he would die, he knew he would take her with him. With his last angry breath, he let go, aiming the gun as the wind lifted him off his feet. He was in the air now, and only a second had passed, but he could still see her face, staring up at him in mute horror. He aimed and fired, emptying the gun toward her as a two-by-four cut him in half.

  Beatty Andrews was gone. God had done what man’s justice could not. But Rachel’s heart was in shreds. There was no justice in being given back her sight at the cost of her man. She lay facedown near the cellar wall, too overwhelmed to cry. It was only later that she realized the storm had passed. The rain was down to a mist, and the wind was almost nil. As she dragged herself to her feet and started up the steps, she began to shake. The silence was more frightening than the storm.

  Houston had come to just as the rain began to fall. He woke up flat on his back in the old concrete tank, a burning in his shoulder and a pain in his head. A couple of seconds passed as he tried to assimilate the pain he was in with what he could remember.

  And then it hit him.

  The man! The gun!

  Christ almighty, he’d been shot!

  Then his heart nearly stopped. Rachel! What had happened to Rachel? He tried to stand up and got as far as leaning over the edge of the tank. He saw Taco and groaned. Blood was washing out from a wound in his side, and there was a piece of fabric stuck in his teeth. Whatever had happened, Taco had gone down fighting. He looked toward the house. Part of the roof was gone. Panic grabbed him. He kept picturing Rachel, trying to run from a man she couldn’t see. But when he tried to crawl out, he was pushed back into the tank by the force of the wind. His heart sank as he dropped to his knees.

  “Please, God, don’t let her die.”

  Then the world above him exploded in a whirlwind of dirt and debris. Clutching the drainpipe with what was left of his strength, he rolled onto his belly and closed his eyes while the storm raged all around him. Once something dropped into the tank, landing on the back of his shoulders with a terrible blow, but before he could react to the injury, it whirled back up into the storm. Overhead, the sound of buckling metal made him quake.

  He clutched the pipe even tighter and flattened himself even more. Seconds later something crashed above him. The concrete shuddered. Houston felt it give as a great crack appeared in the middle, but to his relief, it held fast. He didn’t have to look to know that the windmill was down. Unable to believe that it would all end like this, he gritted his teeth and then called out God’s name.

  Within moments the great roar was gone, and there was nothing left but the sound of the rain. Tentatively he let go of the pipe, then rolled over and looked up. The sky was still weeping profusely at what it had endured. The steel framework of the windmill had crumpled like tinfoil and lay across the tank and the ground like a tangle of used wire.

  He took a deep breath and then tried to sit up. When he did, the earth spun around him. He dropped his head between his knees. When it stilled, he moved once again. Grabbing a piece of the windmill, he began to pull himself up, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder. The rain was little more than a mist, and the wind was gone. As he got to his feet, he looked up. His heart stopped.

  “No,” he muttered, and turned a complete circle, certain that he was only confused.

  The barn was behind him, right where it was supposed to be. Still standing, although a bit worse for the wear.

  “God, no,” he whispered, and shook his head like a dog shaking off water.

  He closed his eyes, then turned back around, telling himself that when he opened them again, this would be nothing but a bad dream. But nothing had changed. The house was gone. Everything was gone. The car that the stranger had driven, the furniture, the walls—there was nothing left but the floors and foundation.

  Seized with a terrible fear, Houston started to shake. Then he called Rachel’s name. Quietly at first, as if talking to himself. The second time he called her, he was shouting. By the time he had crawled through the tangle of steel and out of the tank, he was coming undone. Engulfed by the silence, he screamed Rachel’s name.

  Rachel heard Houston’s voice almost at the same time she started up the steps. Startled by the sound, she stumbled and fell, and it took several seconds to get back on her feet. She could hear the fear in his voice as he continued to shout.

  “Here,” she cried. “I’m here.”

  But the cavernlike quality of the cellar only swallowed the sound. She began to hurry, crawling up the steps on her hands and her feet, like a child learning to climb.

  She emerged from the hole just as Houston screamed out her name. The pain in his voice was wounding, leaving her mute. Then her breath caught on a sob as reality hit. She was alive, and she could see Houston’s face.

  “Houston.”

  He jerked, then turned, staring at the woman who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

  “Rachel?”

  Her gaze raked his body, searching the angles and curves of the man she hadn’t seen in over a year. Then she saw the wound in his shoulder and the pinkish red stain on his shirt.

  “My God,” she moaned. “He shot you.”

  The ground tilted beneath Houston’s feet. He was in danger of passing out again and he knew it, but it would take more than a bullet to keep him from Rachel. He took a step forward.

  “Please, God, let her be real.”

  He staggered, and Rachel started to run. She caught him in midstep, then braced him with her body as she guided him gently down to what was left of the floor.

  All the way there, he kept trying to stay conscious, but her face kept going in and out of focus. Finally he went to his knees.

  “I can’t,” he whispered. “Too weak.”

  “Just lie down, love. You’re going to be okay.”

  He rolled onto his back and looked up. Then it hit him. Rachel was staring back down at his face. He put a hand to her cheek, then her eyes, touching first one eyelid and then the other in disbelief. When she blinked to dodge his fingers, he started to shake.

  “My God... you can see.”

  “Yes.”

  Unashamed, he started to cry.

  “When?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It just is. Right now I’ve got to get you some help.”

  “But how? The phones... everything’s gone.”

  “But the barn is still standing, which means your truck should be there.” Then
she leaned down and kissed him, tasting his tears and his joy. “I was so scared. I thought I had lost you for good.”

  He shook his head, and almost managed a smile. “Cherokee, you couldn’t lose me if you put me in a sack and dropped me in the river.”

  Joy bubbled within her, and then she rocked back on her heels.

  “It’s all gone,” she said.

  “What’s all gone?” he asked.

  “The house... everything.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but you.”

  “I know. I feel the same way about you, but I need to tell you something before another second of my life passes.”

  “After everything that has happened, baby, don’t you think it could wait?”

  She clutched at the sleeve of his shirt. “No. I need to get this said.” She took a deep breath. “I have money.”

  He stiffened.

  “It won’t last forever, but it’s more than enough to rebuild. I’ll get my old job back at the restaurant and gladly, but I’ll never go back to modeling. I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want total strangers obsessed with my face and body ever again.”

  Houston started to smile. “Rachel, listen... you don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “We’re young, and thanks to God, we’re alive. We can do this, Houston.” She grabbed at his hand. “Together we can do anything.”

  “You don’t want to go back to New York?”

  She shuddered. “No. God, no. There you can’t see sunsets or sunrises. I missed the prairie and the coyotes at dusk. I need that, Houston. It’s a part of who I am.”

  He closed his eyes as a new wave of weakness swept over him. “Okay, you win,” he whispered. “But when I can think without wanting to sleep, I have something to tell you, too.” Then he closed his eyes.