Texas Tall

by Kaki Warner

  “I’ll tend it,” Belle offered, tightening the sash on a flimsy wrap.

  “Later. Check on the others.” Ty started downstairs, picking his way over bits of broken glass on the stair treads. Urgency made him careless and he almost tripped. He caught himself and hurried on, desperate to make sure Lottie had gotten home from the club all right.

  Below, Juno barked out orders. “Everyone okay up there?” he called when the two other whores, Sugar and Red, moved to the railing, trailed by two wild-eyed customers struggling to do up their trousers.

  Red nodded. “Except for cuts and bruises and having the Christ almighty bejesus scared out of us. Henry, can you get me Juno’s medical kit?”

  “Where’s Becky?” Ty asked Juno when he reached the main floor.

  “With the preacher.”

  “No, she’s not.” Groaning, Lindz crawled out from beneath an overturned table, blood dripping from a cut on his head. “I left her at her house an hour ago.”

  Juno rounded on him. “You left her? With a storm coming?”

  “Was Lottie there?” Ty cut in, dread crawling up his back.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t go inside. Anybody got a rag?”

  “Jesus.” Whirling, Ty charged through the broken front door, Juno on his heels.

  Ty had faced fear many times since he’d joined the rangers, but nothing scared him as much as the thought of Lottie lying crumpled and lifeless under the shattered rubble of Becky’s house. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—imagine the rest of his life without her beside him.

  As he ran down the flooded street, he saw evidence of the storm’s fury everywhere he looked—downed trees, shingles stuck into the sides of buildings, signs torn from their chains, roofs torn off, posts supporting the boardwalk overhang sheared in two, shattered windows in every storefront.

  Yet somehow, most of the buildings still stood. Hopefully, the bewildered townspeople staggering out of them had suffered only minor injuries, but he didn’t stop to find out. Until he reached Lottie and knew for certain she was safe, he couldn’t even think about helping anyone else.

  The rain had slowed to a soft drizzle, but water still raced down the street where Becky’s house stood. It looked as if this part of town had taken the brunt of the storm. Uprooted trees lay across the road. A broken branch stuck through the back wall of the Western Union office, and one house had been reduced to a pile of splinters. Surprisingly, the livery beside it showed little damage, except for the missing loft door and a coating of straw that covered everything within fifty feet of the barn.

  Lungs burning, he raced on. He would quit cussing. Memorize the Bible. Go to Africa and preach to natives. Just let her be all right. Please, God. His heart felt like it was trying to kick out of his chest, but he kept going, sinking in mud to his ankles, and splashing through the water still washing through the ruts in the road.

  God, let her be all right.

  He reached the market—made himself slow when he saw the Bracketts sitting on the back stoop, clutching each other but showing no blood. He veered toward them.

  Juno splashed past, legs pumping.

  “Lottie with you?” Ty called out.

  Mrs. Brackett stared at him, her face blank with fear.

  “Becky’s!” The old man squinted through the cracked lenses of his spectacles. “You find her, son,” he shouted and waved him on. “You get our girl.”

  Ty ran on, vaulted a downed tree, then let out a shout when he saw Becky’s house was still standing.

  Juno was already disappearing through the broken front door. Ty raced up the porch steps and almost plowed into him when he found him standing amidst broken knickknacks in the ruins of the front room, his face slack.

  Ty gaped in shock. The kitchen was gone. Where Becky’s room should have been was a gaping hole.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Juno whispered.

  Ty shoved past him. “Becky! Lottie! Where are you?”

  No answer.

  He ducked into the front bedroom Lottie used. The roof was half gone and the wall below it had partially caved in. He looked under the bed and through the debris on the floor then tried the small closet on the damaged wall. The door was jammed. He pounded on it and called her name.

  No response. He ran back into the parlor.

  “They’re here,” he told Juno, praying it was true. “Start looking. Check the yard. I’ll dig through the kitchen.”

  When Juno didn’t move, Ty gave him a hard shove. “Do it! Now!”

  Ty pawed through rubble for a half hour, calling out every few minutes. But other than the drip of water from the broken pump at the sink and the crunch of smashed crockery underfoot, he heard nothing.

  Desperation made his hands shake and his head pound. Blood seeping from the cut on his arm dripped down onto his Levi’s and left dark splatters in the mud on his boots. In a fury of frustration, he tore off the tattered sleeve and yanked out the shard of glass.

  Fire shot down his arm. More blood welled as he quickly wrapped the torn sleeve around the wound, using his teeth to tie it off. He welcomed the pain, needed it to keep his thoughts focused away from the growing terror in his mind.

  “Lottie!” he yelled again. “Becky!”

  “They’re not outside.” Juno stumbled through what was left of the kitchen wall. He looked ravaged, his eyes red-rimmed, his clothes smeared with mud and blood from a dozen cuts on his hands. For a moment, he stared hopelessly at the destroyed kitchen, as if his mind couldn’t grasp the totality of the destruction.

  “Jesus . . . Becky . . . I never told her . . .” Abruptly, he bent over, gasping, hands gripping his knees. “If I’ve lost her . . .”

  “You haven’t!” Ty said savagely. “They’re safe. Maybe they went to the club.”

  “They didn’t,” a voice said.

  Whipping around, they saw Briggs standing amid the shattered figurines in the front parlor. Kearsey and Pete Spivey, the mayor, were with him.

  “You’re sure?” Juno asked in a strained voice. “They could have—”

  “I’m sure. Other than a few broken windows, the club was untouched, and all are accounted for. Now what do you need us to do?”

  Juno seemed to sag.

  But with the arrival of help, new strength flowed through Ty. “Tear this place apart. Board by board. They’ve got to be here somewhere.”

  Lottie burst into awareness with a jerk that made her head spin. She blinked at the door in front of her. Either the wind had stopped or she had gone deaf. Then she heard dripping and felt water hitting her head. She tried to move, but broken boards lay in a tangle all around her, trapping her against the small door.

  Door where?

  The closet in her bedroom.

  Squinting against the rain, she lifted her face to the light filtering through a gaping hole where the ceiling used to be. Half the wall beneath it was gone.

  Where was Becky? Ty? Was anyone still there?

  “Help!” she called, then flinched when pain blasted through her head. She managed to free a hand and felt her head. A bump above her right ear that matched the one Millsap had given her on the other side of her head. No blood, but it was tender to the touch. She felt beaten to a pulp, dizzy and nauseated, but everything seemed to work and she was alive.

  She pushed on the closet door. It didn’t move. With groans and creaks, the rubble above her shifted, pressing down on her even more than before. How much longer until it crushed her?

  She bucked and twisted. But whatever had her pinned wouldn’t budge. A feeling of suffocation grew, building with every frantic heartbeat.

  What if they didn’t find her? What if there was no one left to look for her? She’d been through a twister. Had seen the damage it could do. What if all of Greenbroke had been blown away?

  God . . . please. Let Ty be safe.

 
“Help!” she cried. “I’m here!”

  Her only answer was the steady drip of water through the broken boards above her head. A sense of hopelessness numbed her mind. Closing her eyes, she gave in to it, unable to bear the horror of her own thoughts.

  After a while—hours, minutes—she heard sounds beyond the broken outside wall. “Help!” she called and banged her free hand on the wall.

  The voices came closer.

  She knocked harder. “Help! I’m in here!”

  “Over here!” someone on the other side of the wall yelled. Crashes. Thuds. The sound of boards being tossed aside.

  Then Ty’s voice, close by. “Lottie, where are you?”

  “In the closet in my bedroom. I can’t get the door open.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. But I’m pinned against the door and the boards on top of me keep moving.”

  Other voices. She thought she recognized those of Briggs and Juno, then footsteps moving away.

  “We’re going to try to reach you from outside. Is Becky with you?”

  “I never saw her. Isn’t she with Juno?”

  She ducked as something pounded on the outside wall so hard bits of roofing rained down on her head.

  “Cover your head if you can,” Briggs called from outside. “We’ll have to brace the wall before we can enlarge the hole.”

  A few minutes later, after a lot of banging and cursing, the wall fell away. Ty’s face appeared in the opening. “Keep your head covered.”

  She heard him yanking at the boards trapping her, then suddenly the weight lifted and he was reaching inside to drag her free.

  “Thank God thank God.” He pulled her so tight against his chest she felt the thud of his heart.

  She clung to him, afraid to let go.

  He carried her away from the debris, set her on her feet, and stood back, eyes scanning her face. “You’re all right?”

  She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t stop shaking. Then she looked at her hand, saw blood, and panicked when she saw the red-soaked rag tied around his arm. “You’re bleeding!”

  “Shh. It’s nothing. A scratch. How about you?”

  “It looks like more than a scratch.”

  “I’ll have Doc tend it. Are you hurt?”

  “Scared. A few bruises. Another bump on my head, but nothing bad.”

  Juno’s face appeared at Ty’s shoulder. “Where’s Becky?”

  She stiffened. “You haven’t found her yet?”

  “We just started looking,” Ty said.

  But Juno’s face told a different story.

  Behind him stood Briggs and Kearsey and the mayor, their eyes haggard in their mud- and dirt-smeared faces. But it was the stricken look in Juno’s dark eyes that sent terror through Lottie.

  “Where could she be?” he asked in a strained voice. “Lindz said he left her here. Could she have gone to the market?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t see her. Have you checked her room?” Pushing out of Ty’s arms, Lottie stepped toward the house, then froze when she saw the full extent of the damage to the back of the house. The walls were gone. Part of the roof was gone. What was left of Becky’s bedroom was a tangle of broken furniture and shattered wood. Panic gripped her throat. “I—I came in just as the storm hit. I called to her, but she didn’t answer. Where could she be?”

  “We’ll find her,” Ty said.

  Juno looked ready to collapse.

  Lottie turned to Briggs. “Jane?”

  “Unharmed. The club is fine. She and Findlay are clearing the lobby and dining room to shelter those who’ve been displaced.” With a gruff order, he sent Kearsey and Spivey back to search the rubble strewn about the backyard.

  “But what if she’s not here?” Lottie cried. “What if she’s somewhere else and you’re wasting time looking in the wrong place?”

  “Then we’ll keep looking until we find out where she is,” Ty said. “I promise.”

  Two hours later, dusk drifted over the littered streets of Greenbroke.

  And still, the rain fell. And still, no Becky.

  Desperate to keep her mind occupied, Lottie and several other women set up a soup table on the boardwalk outside the Spotted Dog, dispensing beans, stew, and bread to anyone who needed food. The sheriff and Doc Helms went from building to building throughout the town, searching for survivors, while others dug through the rubble. Ty finished helping Mr. B. board up the broken windows at the market, and now stood with a group of tired, dirty men outside the saloon, discussing where they should look next.

  Overall, the damage to the town wasn’t as bad as it could have been. One house destroyed, several needing extensive repairs. Most of the buildings on Main Street would require new doors and windows, as well as work on their roofs and a new boardwalk. But the structures along the railroad tracks had been relatively untouched, including the water tower, the Social Club, and the Greenbroke Hotel. Fortunately, there were few injuries—other than cuts and bruises and one broken leg. Those needing shelter or minor medical attention were sent to the barn where the Greater Glory to God Assembly dispensed soup, bandages, blankets, spare clothing, and enthusiastic spiritual guidance. Neighbors helping neighbors. It was good to see.

  By late afternoon, everyone had been accounted for.

  Except Becky.

  Lottie watched Juno struggle to stay hopeful, but every time he came back to the saloon after a fruitless search, it was apparent he was starting to weaken. Thinking if he ate something, it might revive his spirits, she carried a bowl of stew over to where he sat on the edge of the boardwalk, looking as dejected as Briggs had looked after Lottie had left his office earlier that day.

  Sitting down beside him, she held out the bowl. “Eat something.”

  He looked over and shook his head. “Not hungry.”

  “Try. You’ll be no help to her if you drop from exhaustion.”

  With little enthusiasm, he took the bowl. But after a few small bites, he set it aside. “You were right, you know.”

  “About what?”

  “I do love her. And have, for a long time. Damnation, I’m such a fool!”

  Not caring who saw, Lottie put her arm around his slumped shoulders. “We’ll discuss how foolish you are after we find her. For now, eat.”

  “What if we don’t find her?”

  “We will.” With her free hand, she picked up the bowl of stew and held it toward him. “Eat. Please.”

  He ate.

  Out in the street, several children picked through the wreckage for treasure, seeing the storm as a grand adventure. A little girl squatted down, her skirts dragging in the mud, and peered beneath the collapsed boardwalk. Behind them, Briggs droned on, outlining a strategy for searching the surrounding area. Earlier, he’d sent Ty and other riders to outlying ranches and farms to see if anyone needed help. Now he was dividing the town into grids for a second search, although they’d already checked through each building and under every pile of rubble with no luck. It was as if Becky had been plucked from the face of the earth.

  “She thinks I still mourn my wife,” Juno said, setting the half-empty bowl aside. “That’s why I won’t make a move on her. But it’s not that.” Turning his head, he let her see the tears welling in his eyes. “I failed them, Lottie. I caused their deaths. Now I might lose Becky, too, and I never told her how much she means to me.”

  Lottie felt like her chest was collapsing under the weight of grief and fear. Grief for Jane and Briggs and Juno. Fear for Becky.

  “Stop that talk,” she ordered. “You act like you’ve lost her, and you haven’t. She needs our prayers not our tears.”

  “You’re right.” He stared down at the muddy street beneath his feet, his shoulders rising and falling on a deep breath. “You’re right.”

  A dog limped by. A
cross the street, the little girl was on her hands and knees, trying to reach through the broken boards where the boardwalk had partially caved in. Sitting back, she called to the other children and pointed, but they paid no attention. She peered under the boardwalk again and appeared to be talking. Trying to coax out a lost pet? Or . . .

  Becky!

  Lottie bolted to her feet. “She’s here, Juno!” Calling for help, she charged across the street, shoes sinking in mud past her ankles.

  Juno splashed past her, yelling Becky’s name.

  The little girl jumped up, eyes round with alarm when he dropped down beside her. “Is someone under there?”

  “The lady—”

  “Becky! Can you hear me?”

  “Juno . . .” The voice was faint, but unmistakably hers.

  “Hold on! I’ll get you out!” He frantically pulled off tumbled boards. Others ran to help and soon the debris was cleared enough that they could see her beneath the broken boards of the boardwalk.

  She was lying on her stomach, covered with mud, pinned beneath one of the joists. Her eyes were closed. Air rasped through her throat as she struggled to breathe.

  But she was alive.

  Chapter 25

  While Lottie ran to tell the Bracketts and Jane and anyone else she saw that Becky had been found, the men carefully carried her to the small clinic on the first floor of Dr. Helms’s house. Lottie knew she’d only be in the way while the doctor did what he needed to do, but she couldn’t stay away long. Minutes later, mud-spattered and gasping for air, she ran back down to his house at the edge of town.

  He must have seen her coming—as soon as she charged up the porch steps, he opened the door. “She’s sleeping. Bruised and a sprained wrist and worn out, but she’s fine. Let her rest.”

  “I have to see her!” Dashing toward the sick room in back, she burst through the door to find Juno sitting in a chair beside the bed, holding Becky’s hand.

  He looked up in surprise, his eyes suspiciously bright in his weary face. When he saw who it was, he gave a shaky smile, and whispered, “She’s all right.”

  Needing to see for herself, Lottie moved to the other side of the bed.