Boots and Twisters

by Myla Jackson

  Mrs. Rutledge puffed out her chest and stood even taller. “I’ve been after the county to shut down that sorry excuse for a bar for years. With you threatening me, you’ve finally given me the justification to do so. Mr. Wallendorf…” she turned to the man in the business suit, “…you heard her threaten me. I want you to find a way to use that threat to shut down the Ugly Stick Saloon.” She faced Audrey, eyes narrowed, a sneer curling her lip. “Mark my words, I will shut down the Ugly Stick if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Mona and Bunny joined the crowd around Audrey and Lucky.

  “You can’t close the Ugly Stick Saloon. Too many people depend on it for employment.”

  “It’s an eyesore and a place of sin,” Mrs. Rutledge pronounced.

  “Is not,” Bunny chimed in. “It’s a place where people go when they have nowhere else to go. Audrey’s done more for this community and the people living here than you and your snooty garden club have.”

  “Alcohol consumption is a sin.”

  “And you being judgmental isn’t?” Mona turned on Mrs. Rutledge, placing herself between Lucky, Audrey and Mrs. Rutledge.

  “Don’t you get huffy with me. I have the right to tell it as it is.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t give you the right to shut down the only place cowboys and girls have to play and let their hair down after a hard week’s work. We’re tired of you and the Temptation Garden Club pushing people around. We’re not going to take it anymore.”

  “You watch out or I’ll have the health department shut down the Shear Safari.”

  Lucky groaned. Could things get any worse?

  A blared siren wailed overhead, long, loud and insistent.

  Everyone standing on the street around Lucky glanced up at the sky, falling silent.

  “What was that?” Lucky asked.

  Audrey gripped her arm. “Tornado siren.”

  The radio clipped to the deputy’s shoulder squawked and a voice called out, “Tornado has touched down southwest of Temptation, headed northeast at sixty miles an hour. Expected to hit Temptation in less than five minutes. Seek shelter immediately.”

  Mona glanced around. “Come on, everybody, let’s get inside.”

  “We need a tornado shelter,” Audrey said. “We have one in the basement of the Ugly Stick, but that’s too far. Where is one around here? We don’t have much time.”

  “I don’t know about shelters, but my shop used to be a bank a long time ago,” Mona said. “They had a vault in the basement. The vault door was replaced with a wooden one, but the walls are concrete and it’s as solid as any other tornado shelter. Come on.”

  “Oh, dear Lord. Dear Lord.” When Mrs. Rutledge remained standing in the very spot she’d started her tirade, Mona turned back. “It’s come with us or stand here and be blown away by a tornado. Your choice.”

  “Come on, Mrs. Rutledge, be safe. Go with Mona.” Lucky motioned the woman to follow Mona. “Better safe than sorry.”

  The older woman glanced at the sky, the wind whipping dust into her eyes. “I can’t.”

  Audrey gripped the woman’s arm on one side. “Mrs. Rutledge, you can and will.” She tried to drag her along.

  The older woman’s heels dug into the pavement. “I can’t move.” Tears streamed from her eyes and she sank to her knees, sobbing. “I can’t move.”

  Lucky glanced at the roiling sky. They didn’t have much time. Debris was flung with the wind, pelting them with dust, small sticks and tree branches. She squatted next to the sobbing woman and spoke loudly and calmly into her ear. “It’s okay, Mrs. Rutledge.” The judge had called her Barbara. “Barbara, I’m going to help you to your feet. Audrey and I, we’ll carry you into the shelter. Hold on, you’re going to be all right.”

  “I’m going to die,” she cried.

  “We won’t let you.” Lucky draped one of the woman’s arms over her shoulders, Audrey draped the other. “On the count of three,” Lucky shouted over the roaring wind.

  Together, they stood, bringing Mrs. Rutledge with them. Then moving as quickly as they could with the deadweight of the older woman between them, Lucky and Audrey got Mrs. Rutledge inside. Once behind the doors of the beauty shop, she seemed to snap out of it long enough to get herself down the steps into the basement, and thank goodness, other than pushing her down the steps, Lucky couldn’t see how she or Audrey could have lifted the woman on their own.

  When they were all safely in the old vault, Lucky remembered Otis, sitting in the cab of her pickup.

  She ran up the steps.

  “Where are you going?” Audrey shouted after her.

  “My dog. I can’t leave him out there.” She ran through the beauty shop as heavier debris slammed into the window. A broken tree branch hit the glass, shattering it inward.

  Otis, she had to get to Otis.

  When she flung the shop door open, it whipped out of her hand and the wind flung her sideways. Bracing herself, she looked to the west. A wall of destruction headed straight for town, kicking up dirt from the farm fields, shattered buildings, tin roofs and more.

  Lucky ran for her truck and yanked open the door.

  Otis whined and refused to get out.

  She reached in and dragged him to the edge. Then he leaped over her and onto the ground.

  When Lucky reached for the leather collar Trent had put on him, he shot out of reach.

  She followed him, buffeted by nature, the roaring increasing with each step. A branch full of leaves raked across her face and slapped her in the eyes. She blinked and refocused on Otis as he disappeared into the open doorway of a house.

  “Otis!” Lucky yelled, the sound swallowed in the massive maw of the tornado bearing down on Temptation.

  She dove for the door as the windows imploded, blowing glass outward.

  Otis barked from the back of the house.

  Lucky prayed whoever had been in the house had made it safely to shelter. “Otis!” She ran from bedroom to bedroom. One of them was filled with children’s toys, a dollhouse and pink bedspreads on the bed.

  Otis’s tail stuck out from beneath the bed.

  Lucky grabbed his tail and yanked. “Come on, boy, we have to get somewhere safe!”

  She pulled him out from under the bed, and as soon his head cleared he barked wildly.

  “I know. I’m scared too.”

  When she tried to drag him back through the house, he yanked free and ran back into the bedroom where he barked at the bed.

  Dread washed over Lucky as she ran after Otis. Dropping to her knees, she peered beneath the bed and spied a small girl and a little boy crouched beneath. Tears streaked down their faces.

  “Oh my God.” Lucky reached out to the children. “Come with me. We have to get to safety. Please!”

  The little boy crawled out. He had to be about six, and he was shaking and scared.

  When the girl wouldn’t come, Lucky lay down on her belly and grabbed the girl’s ankle and dragged her out. She grabbed both of them up in her arms and ran for the bathroom, tossed them into the tub and ran back to the bedroom for a mattress to throw over them. A glance out the window showed a greenish-black sky, and flying debris made up of two-by-fours, siding, insulation and more. The town was being ripped apart.

  A figure lay on the ground outside in the backyard, a woman, possibly the children’s mother.

  Lucky ran back to the bathroom threw the mattress on top of the kids and raced out the back door.

  The wind lifted her up and slammed her back against the house. She fought her way forward, her arm over her eyes, protecting her vision from sharp objects.

  When she reached the woman, she grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the house. “Get up!” she yelled.

  The woman moaned, the sound barely audible over the screaming wail of the wind.

  The mother staggered to her feet and, with Lucky’s help, made it into the house and the bathroom as the full force of the tornado descended on Temptation, hitting it hard.

>   Huddled beneath the mattress, two frightened children and their mother crying beside her, Lucky prayed Trent and Isaac were okay.

  She made a promise to herself that if she made it through the storm, she’d go back to the Triple J Ranch. No more running. No more feeling sorry for herself. She’d stand up to that crappy streak of bad luck and tackle it head-on. And she’d go after the two men she had grown to admire in the short time she’d known them and see what happened. If they wanted her to stick around, she would. If they didn’t, she’d be okay too. Sad, but okay.

  She wanted to shake her fist at the tornado, to rail against the destruction and to shout, The bad luck ends here!

  Chapter Twelve

  Trent crushed the accelerator to the floorboard. The truck flew down the highway straight for Temptation and right into the eye of the storm.

  “Holy hell,” Isaac muttered beside him.

  Rocks, sticks, nails, pieces from farm implements pummeled the truck in the back draft from what looked like an F5 tornado as it steamrolled over the little town of Temptation, demolishing everything in its path.

  They’d driven the four-wheeler over the property, trying to guess where Lucky would have gone riding. After twenty minutes, they’d given up, the sky getting so dark they reasoned she had to have headed back to the barn.

  When Isaac parked the ATV outside the barn, Trent ran in and found Thunder in his stall, the saddle back in its place in the tack room.

  He ran out of the barn and up to the house, glancing back over his shoulder at the wall of clouds with little wisps dropping down from beneath it. Funnel clouds.

  His pulse pounding, he burst through the back door and ran for Lucky’s bedroom. “Lucky!”

  She wasn’t there, the picture that had been on her nightstand was gone and so were the clothes and duffle bag she’d had in her closet.

  “Her truck is gone!” Isaac yelled from down the hall. “Lucky’s gone.”

  Trent pushed past him, grabbed his keys from the counter in the kitchen and headed out the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Isaac shouted over the wind.

  “We are going after her.” He hopped into the driver’s seat of his pickup. “Get in.”

  Isaac barely sat in his seat when Trent floored the accelerator and shot out of the yard.

  Now they were racing into a storm that appeared to have swallowed the entire town they’d grown up in.

  His heart heavy, his heart pounding against his ribs, Trent didn’t let up on the gas. People he knew and loved were there. He hoped they’d made it to shelter. He prayed they’d live to rebuild.

  “Fuck, look at it.” Isaac stared through the windshield. “It must be a mile wide at its base.”

  “All those people,” Trent said.

  “And Lucky. I hope she went the other direction.”

  Trent prayed for the same. His gut told him the opposite.

  By the time they reached the edge of town, the tornado had moved on, leaving in its wake a horrifying swath of destruction.

  From what Trent could tell, it had come in from the west, plowed through town, leveling homes, businesses and everything in its path.

  Trent pulled the truck to the side of the road and parked. He reached beneath his seat and unearthed a couple pair of work gloves, handing a set to Isaac. “We can’t go any farther by vehicle. We have to walk from here.”

  They dropped down and picked through the rubble, working their way through what had once been Main Street.

  Many of the buildings were gone. The ones still standing had entire walls ripped away, or roofs lifted and thrown across the street.

  People slowly began to emerge, crawling out from beneath the rubble, cut, scraped and dazed.

  “Help!” a woman yelled. “Help us! We’re in here.” More voices called out from below a pile of wood, insulation and glass.

  Trent and Isaac pulled away broken beams, dry wall and roof shingles. Beneath that they found broken porcelain shampoo bowls and vinyl-covered adjustable chairs.

  “This must be the Shear Safari,” Isaac said.

  “Mona? Are you in there?” Trent called out.

  “We’re down here, in the basement.”

  “How many?”

  “Six of us,” Mona answered.

  “Is Lucky with you?” Isaac threw boards and beauty shop equipment to the side.

  “No, she went back for that dog.”

  Trent dug faster, careful with the glass and electrical lines. If Lucky wasn’t with them, where had she gone?

  After twenty minutes of steady work, they found the door, cleared a path and helped Mona, Bunny, Audrey, Mrs. Rutledge, Deputy Cramer and Mr. Wallendorf, one of the four attorneys in town. With nothing more than scratches, bruises and a layer of dust, they appeared to be fine, if a little dazed.

  “You say Lucky was here before it hit?” Trent asked Mona.

  “She helped me get Mrs. Rutledge into the basement,” Audrey responded. “Then she ran out, saying something about a dog.”

  Trent glanced at his brother and they both said, “Otis” at the same time.

  Back out on the pavement, they looked around. More people were crawling out from beneath what was left of houses and businesses.

  A vehicle lay on its side, pushed up against the trunk of a tree, the top of which had been snapped off like a broken twig.

  Trent and Isaac rounded the vehicle and stopped. “It’s her truck.”

  Lucky hadn’t made it out of town. Which meant she was still somewhere in all the mess.

  Trent stared around at the disaster, wondering where to start in their search when he heard a dog’s bark.

  He and Isaac turned toward the sound.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Isaac asked. Without waiting for a response, he picked his way across the rubble.

  Another bark led them directly to the flattened remains of what had once been a small cottage a block off Main Street.

  As they neared, the barking grew louder, sounding as if it emanated from beneath an eight-foot section of collapsed wall.

  Trent positioned himself on one end of the wall while Isaac positioned himself on the other.

  “On the count of three,” Trent said. “One, two, three!” He put all his strength into it and the wall wouldn’t budge.

  The dog barked again and again, growing more frantic with each bark.

  Jackson, Mark and Luke Gray Wolf hurried across the debris toward them and threw their backs into moving the wall.

  With the help of all five men, they lifted and shoved the wall over, clearing what looked like a small bathroom. A mattress lay over what had once been the tub.

  Almost afraid to look beneath, Trent grabbed one end of the mattress, while Mark Gray Wolf hefted the other and they threw it to the side.

  As they cleared the mattress, Otis leaped out of a bathtub and landed beside Trent, jumping up on him, trying to lick his face.

  Trent pushed him down and looked into the tub.

  A woman lay across the length of the tub, her body covering something beneath.

  Little arms and legs moved beneath the body and a child cried out.

  Trent moved the body, lifting it up and away from two children and a woman lying beneath. The limp body he’d pealed back was Lucky.

  “Lucky.” Isaac lifted her into his arms and carried her over to a spot on the ground Luke cleared enough to lay her down. Trent knelt beside her and felt for her pulse. After a long moment, he let go of the breath he’d been holding and almost collapsed over Lucky. “She’s alive.”

  Mark and Luke lifted the children out and held them crying in their arms.

  The people who’d been trapped in the beauty salon made their way toward them. Mrs. Rutledge crying out when Jackson pulled the woman out of the tub. “Oh, dear Lord, Nan!” She rushed forward and dropped to the ground where Jackson laid the woman.

  Nan’s eyes blinked open. “Aaron and Emma?” she asked.

  “Mommy?” the
little boy called out, reaching for his mother. Mark held him back, dropping to a squat so the mother and child could see each other. Luke lowered the little girl as well.

  “Oh, babies. I’m so glad you’re okay.” Nan reached out to cup each child’s face. “Thank God for our angel of mercy,” she said. “We were lucky she came along when she did.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mrs. Rutledge asked.

  “The woman who saved us.” Nan closed her eyes. “I must have been hit by some debris, ‘cause the next thing I knew, a woman came out of nowhere, dragged me into the house and into the tub where Aaron and Emma were. She saved our lives.”

  Mrs. Rutledge glanced over at the still form of Lucky, lying as pale as a ghost against the ground. “Lucky did that?” she asked.

  Trent stared down at Lucky. “Sounds like something she’d do.”

  “Is she…is she going to live?” Mrs. Rutledge asked, her eyes rounded, filling with tears. “I owe her for saving my daughter and grandchildren.”

  “I hope so.” Trent straightened and looked around. “We have to get her to the hospital.”

  “If it’s still standing.”

  The deputy joined them. “Thank God it missed the hospital. The road crews are clearing a path so that the ambulance can get in here. We have other units coming in from Hole in the Wall that should be here in less than fifteen minutes and more help is on its way from all over the state.”

  Lucky moaned.

  Trent dropped down beside her, Isaac on the other side.

  Her eyes blinked open and she stared up at them. “The kids?”

  “They’re okay, thanks to you,” Isaac said.

  “Mom?”

  “Alive and okay.” Trent tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Again, thanks to you.” He bent to kiss her forehead.

  “That would feel a whole lot better on my booboos,” she whispered.

  “Just tell us where they are and we’ll take care of all of them,” Isaac said.

  Lucky chuckled and winced. “Ouch.” Then she raised her hand pointing to her cheek where a dark bruise was just beginning to show. “There.”

  Trent bent to press a feather-soft kiss to the spot.