by Curry, Edna
Panic slid through him as the wind suddenly picked up and the branches of the hundred year-old maples in his yard swayed wildly above his head. Lightning flashed and thunder followed almost immediately. The storm was close.
Cal whistled sharply for Scamp, Bobby’s faithful golden lab. Where the boy went, the dog was never far behind. Calling frantically, he scanned the outbuildings, the barn, the tool shed, behind the large steel corn-cribs. Nothing.
Darn that kid. Where was he?
As more lightning flashed, he saw his son riding his bike down the driveway toward him, wearing his baseball cap backward as usual, Scamp bounding alongside.
The wind howled now and a large cloud looking like a wall of blackness almost touching the ground, was moving across the open plowed field toward them.
Tornado!
Big drops of rain pelted down, bouncing off the dry, rich black soil at his feet. They needed rain badly, but not like this.
He ran to Bobby and grabbed him off his bike. Tucking his son under his arm, legs dangling, he shouted against the wind, “It’s a tornado! We’ve got to get to the basement.” Bobby wriggled and Cal lifted him up against his body. Bobby clamped his arms tightly around Cal’s neck, whimpering. Scamp ran along beside them.
Fighting the wind, Cal made it to the house, urged Scamp in with them, and then slammed the door behind them. He hurried down the wooden stairs to the relative safety of thick cement walls underground.
They were safe. Maybe. Please, God.
Bobby was whimpering. Cal knew that Bobby feared the unusual and unknown, and was sure the boy could sense his own tension. Heart pounding, Cal sank onto an old chair and cuddled him close. “It’s okay, son, we’ll be okay,” he reassured him, though he had no idea whether they would be or not.
Huddled together, they sat there as the roaring, crashing noises continued for what seemed ages. Scamp sat close, whimpering and licking at Bobby’s hand, as though to reassure him.
Cal wrapped his arms around the small body of his son and prayed. This farmstead on the edge of Conley had been his home most of his life. His parents had farmed the land, which he now rented to a neighbor while he concentrated on running his farm implement business. His father was dead and his mother remarried and living in Arizona.
He and MaryAnn had moved here after his father died. They had brought Bobby home from the hospital to this house. It was the only home his son knew.
This old house had withstood many a windstorm. It was sturdy and strong. Would it survive this time? The crashing noises didn’t sound encouraging. The lights went out and everything went dark.
After more loud wrenching noises, daylight appeared at one end of the basement and Cal gasped and hugged Bobby tighter. Part of his house had blown away.
Suddenly, everything grew quiet again. After a few minutes, Cal released Bobby and stood. “Stay here, Bobby. I’m going to look outside.”
“No,” Bobby whined, clinging to his hand. “I’m scared. I want to come with you!”
Cal shook his head with regret. He understood the fear his son felt. “Not yet. I’ll be right back, I promise. Scamp, stay with Bobby.”
He put his foot on the bottom step and looked up the stairs. He knew the news wasn’t good. The daylight he’d seen was coming from where the door to the kitchen should be. Now there was only a gaping hole.
Cautiously climbing the stairs, he stepped onto the white-tiled kitchen floor and looked around, hardly able to believe what he saw. The sky was lighter now, but rain still fell. Pellets of hail bit into his face, matching the coldness of shock in his gut. This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t seem real.
The stove and refrigerator still sat to his right on the kitchen floor, and their bathtub was still in place farther over. But the walls between were gone. Most of their old house was gone except part of his bedroom wall.
But not much else was left. No walls. No roof. No beds or small items left.
No place to sleep tonight.
Rain continued to pelt his face and the air felt much colder than it had been earlier. How would they keep warm?
His jaw slack with shock, Cal turned his head to look at the rest of his farmyard. The heavy green tractor he’d been working on sat there, but why was it out in the open? Hadn’t he left it inside the machine shed? He swallowed hard as he knew the answer. The huge machine shed which had surrounded the tractor had disappeared. And most of the smaller pieces of machinery which had been in it waiting to be repaired were gone as well. Irrationally, he wondered if his insurance would cover that loss.
The tall maples which had graced his farmyard were now twisted and torn, fresh white wood starkly revealing their injuries. One lay on its side, uprooted. Next to it was a gaping black hole where it had stood only minutes before. His pick-up was half-buried under its branches. A tree limb lay on the pickup’s tailgate that was now twisted and hanging downward.
Debris lay everywhere—broken branches, furniture, torn clothing, and pieces of twisted corrugated steel that had once been his renter’s bins holding shelled corn. The ground around him was yellow with strewn kernels of corn.
Looking to the south, a house and barn stood, looking untouched. A half mile farther, he saw that Sam’s buildings were mostly gone.
Fear surged in his gut. Were Sam and Sally and their girls okay? He had to go see.
Chapter 5
Numb and dazed, Cal turned back to get his son. And thanked God for the important thing. The storm had passed, and he and Bobby were okay.
As he came back down the basement steps, Bobby ran to him, arms out. Cal bent down to hug him. Scamp licked his bare arm and whined. Even the dog knew something was terribly wrong.
Cal felt tears on his cheeks and realized they were his own, mixing with Bobby’s tears. “The storm really wrecked the place, Bobby. But we’re okay, son; that’s the main thing. We have to go over to Sally’s to see if they’re okay.”
“I’m cold.” Bobby’s face was pale and his brown eyes wide and tear-filled as he grabbed his father’s hand and held on tightly.
Cal glanced around the basement for something to put on his son. The laundry basket full of dirty clothes sat beside the washer and dryer waiting for his attention, and he remembered he hadn’t finished the laundry last night. There was still a load of clean clothes in the dryer.
Digging through it, he found hooded sweatshirts and pulled one over Bobby’s head and put on another himself. They wouldn’t be much protection against the rain, but he had no idea where their slickers were. Probably blown out onto the fields somewhere with the rest of the things from their house.
They hurried gingerly around fallen trees and through the mess in the yard towards their pickup. Scamp bounded into the cab with them and Cal slammed the door against the cold rain.
Thankfully, the truck started on the first try. Cal eased it into gear, watching the tree branch fall aside as he drove out from under it, then he stopped again. Getting out, he pulled up the broken tailgate and checked to see nothing essential was damaged on his truck, then drove as fast as he dared through the debris on his driveway and onto the road to Sam and Sally’s house.
The beautiful pines which had formed a U around their neat farmyard were now a twisted mess of stumps. No steel grain bins, though the soybeans they had once held lay sprawled in yellow piles on the ground, soaking up the rain.
Debris of branches, shingles and chicken feathers was strewn around the graveled yard. Rain pelted the cab of his truck as he drove carefully through the mess. Relief surged as he saw their house, thankfully, had been spared.
He felt relieved to see Sally running toward him from the barn as he drove into the yard until he saw the panic and fear on her face.
Driving as close as a fallen tree allowed, Cal stopped his pickup and jumped out, calling, “Are you okay?”
“It’s Sam!” Sally yelled, racing to him. She grabbed at his arm. “Help me, Cal. Sam’s hurt! A beam fell on him and I can’t get it of
f!”
“Stay in the truck, Bobby. Stay, Scamp!”
Taking Sally’s arm, he hurried with her back to the barn. “Are the girls okay?”
“Yes. We were in the basement. But Sam was in the barn, still doing the milking. I suppose he was too busy to notice the storm. And the noise of the milker...I didn’t notice in time to warn him...and I had to take care of the kids—”
“You did what you had to do, Sally. Does your phone still work?
“No, I tried it. Our cell phone doesn’t work either.”
“The storm probably knocked the tower down,” Cal said.
Jumping over a large branch, they ran on to the barn. Only the lower floor of it remained. Sam’s prized black and white Holstein cows still stood in their stanchions between the brick walls of the lower floor of the old barn, appearing okay. “Where is he?”
“He’s down at this end,” she said, leading the way between the cows to where Sam lay under the collapsed section of the barn, one leg hidden under a heavy roof beam.
She knelt beside Sam’s still form and felt his neck for a pulse. “He’s still alive.”
Cal quickly took stock. Sam was unconscious. Sally had applied a tourniquet to his leg, so it wasn’t bleeding at the moment. He watched Sally frantically loosen the tourniquet to allow the blood to circulate.
The large beam that lay across one leg, trapping Sam, was beyond any man’s strength to move, Cal saw. “Are the keys in your tractor?”
Sally nodded and pointed to where the big green monster stood behind the silo.
“Where’s a log chain?”
She stared at him, her eyes blank, appearing not to understand him.
Cal touched her shoulder. “Sally, listen to me. I need a heavy chain to hook onto the tractor to pull that beam off of Sam,” he repeated, “Do you know where one is?”
Sally’s blank face told him she would be no help. He would have to find it on his own.
He raced to where Sam’s shop had been, the most likely place Sam would have stored that item. The shop was no longer there, but most of the heavier metal equipment still sat on or under the tool bench, now strewn with broken boards and tree branches. Stepping carefully through the sodden mess, Cal dug around until at last he found the chain under an overturned table saw. Cal lifted the heavy saw out of the way and grabbed the chain.
Running back to the tractor, he saw another pick-up pull into the driveway. Thank goodness for helpful neighbors.
“Sam’s hurt and the cell phones are out. Get an ambulance,” he yelled at the man who stepped out. With a wave of thankfulness, he recognized his mechanic, Tom, one of the most reliable men he knew.
“Okay!” Tom yelled back and jumped back into his pickup. Hanging his head out of the window to see behind him, Tom tore backward out of the yard.
Cal hurriedly started the big tractor and backed it as close as he could to the corner of the barn where Sam lay. He jumped down and hooked the heavy chain to the tractor, then threw the end of the chain over what remained of the wall and climbed over after it.
“What can I do?” Sally asked behind him.
He turned, thankful to see Sally had recovered herself. Her eyes were bright with worry, but determinedly focused on him. The noise of the powerful engine almost drowned their voices, so he leaned close to her to shout instructions.
“When I lift up the beam with the tractor, pull Sam out from under it. Wave to me when it’s safe for me to stop,” he instructed. “Or wave if anything goes wrong, and you want me to stop.”
She nodded. With a worried glance at Sam’s pale face, Cal climbed back on the tractor and eased it into gear. The big motor roared, the beam rose, Sally tugged on Sam and in a moment, Sam was free.
At Sally’s wave, Cal shut the tractor off and hurried back to Sam. The bloody, twisted leg now visible was not encouraging and made Cal sick to his stomach.
Sally looked scared and ready to faint, but bit her lip and worked the tourniquet. Sam moaned and moved, sending a wave of hope through Cal. Sam seemed to be coming to.
They sat with him while they waited for the ambulance. Unreasonably, because they didn’t work with the tower down anyway, Cal cursed himself for not buying a personal cell phone. He’d thought having landlines at his home and office would be enough. But those were no help now.
How far would Tom have to drive to find a working phone? Then the ambulance would have to drive the ten miles from Sparville, the nearest hospital. This was one of the few disadvantages of living in the country, but it seemed a very big one now. He said a prayer and glanced at Sally to see how she was doing. She sat crouched over Sam’s still body, holding his hand. Her quietly moving lips as she watched Sam’s face told him Sally was praying as well.
At last a siren wailed and an ambulance appeared in the yard, with Tom’s pickup close behind. Carefully they transferred Sam onto a stretcher and carried him through the debris to the ambulance.
“Go with Sam,” Cal told Sally as the crew lifted Sam into the ambulance.
“But the girls are in the basement...” she said, hesitating. “I have to take them to my mother’s house and see if she’s okay.”
“We’ll do it. Go,” Cal ordered.
“Thanks, Cal,” Sally said, forcing away tears as she climbed into the ambulance.
The two men watched the vehicle leave, sirens screaming.
“I’ll check on the cows, and then I have to get into Conley to see what’s happening there,” Cal said. The storm had headed toward Conley, and he was afraid of what he might find in their little town. He was the mayor and should be there to supervise help if anyone needed it. Was anything left of his business? Cal wondered as they walked back to his pickup to check on Bobby.
“Daddy!” Bobby whimpered as soon as he saw Cal. “I’m scared.”
“Hang on, Bobby. We’ll be leaving in a minute.”
“I want to stay with you.”
“I’ll get the girls,” Tom offered. “We’ll drop them and Bobby off at Sally’s mom’s house, if it’s okay with her. Then I’ll go into Conley with you.”
“Thanks, Tom. Sally said she left the girls in the basement of the house. Don’t forget the diapers and formula for the baby.”
“I know.” Tom went to the house.
Cal held out his arms to Bobby. “Come on. Let’s make sure everything’s okay at the barn before we leave.”
Wide-eyed, Bobby jumped into his father’s arms, slid to his feet and clung to his hand as they hurried to the barn.
Wanting to shield his son from the gruesome sight of any injured cows, Cal sat Bobby on a bale of hay along one wall.
“There’s no roof,” Bobby marveled, staring at the sky.
“The storm blew it away, just like our house.”
A soft meow came from behind the bale.
“Look, Daddy, Fluffy’s okay. Her kittens, too.” Bobby leaned down to pet the mother cat, who’d hidden her four kittens there.
“That’s great, son. Stay right here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Cal walked between the lowing, still nervous cows, talking softly to calm them and checking each one for injuries. Most seemed fine, but in one corner, near where Sam had lain, Cal found a pile of hay bales where the loft had caved in. Beneath it lay part of the upper floor of the barn and three of Sam’s prize Holsteins, dead.
An old German saying often repeated by Cal’s mother popped into his mind, calming him. ‘Be thankful the angel of death visited your barn and not your house.’
~*~
At four that afternoon, Tami was relaxing in the break room of the newspaper office, lounging in front of the television with a hot cup of tea.
Suddenly she sat up straight, staring at the screen. Her heart pounded as the news commentator excitedly told of the terrible reports coming in of huge tornadoes ripping their way across southern Minnesota, devastating everything in their path. “These are Texas-sized storms, much bigger than the ones that usually hit here,” the repor
ter was saying. “Conley, population 800, in Brown County has been badly hit. Unbelievable damage is being reported. Most of the town is gone.
“Now the storms are headed toward the northeast. People in the following areas should take cover immediately...”
Conley! Tami listened in disbelieving shock. Little Conley did not usually make the news.
Were Cal and his son okay? Aunt Cora? Sam and Sally? Linda and her children? Most lived outside of town, but the reporter said the storm had cut a wide path…Oh, God!
How many others she knew who still lived in that area were in the storm’s path? Had they had enough warning to take cover?
She dashed back to her desk. Picking up the telephone, she tried to call first her mother, then her Aunt Cora. No answer. The phones were probably out. They’d said nothing about Sparville or Mankato, so her small family was probably okay, she told herself.
She’d barely hung up the phone when Mr. Edward’s voice rang out across the office.
“Staff meeting, on the double!”
Everyone left their desks and gathered in the conference room. Mr. Edwards was on the phone, and had the radio on in there. They listened to the broadcast as they waited for him to finish his conversation. The details were beginning to come in. Town after town had been hit, with scattered reports of many farms being hit in between. The reporter outdid himself with superlatives, awed at the power and size of the tornadoes and amazed at the length of the area being hit.
“Usually we hear of funnels dropping down and destroying only a small area, but this is amazing,” he enthused. “This time the tornadoes are staying on the ground and leaving a wide path of destruction. There are evidently many funnels in this storm system.”
Tami started as she realized Mr. Edwards was off the phone and had begun the meeting.
“The weather’s the breaking story here,” Mr. Edwards was saying. “Arlo, you take St. Peter. Joe, go with Arlo as photographer. Get lots of pictures. Play up the church college area. It sounds like that’s heavily damaged. Lots of area congregations donate to that college, so they’ll be following it closely.”
