The Mechanics of Mistletoe

by Liz Isaacson

  “Mom,” she called as she entered. “Link, go get the flashlight from the hall closet. I’ll grab a snack.”

  Her mother didn’t answer, and when Sammy went into the kitchen, she found a silver key sitting on the counter. She swiped it up and put it in her pocket, moving faster as the wind shook the windows in the kitchen.

  “Hurry, Link,” she called, wondering how much time had gone by since she’d heard the radio broadcast.

  He came into the kitchen, and she handed him a couple of boxes of chocolate milk and a bag of pretzels. “We have to get to the tornado shelter.” She crouched down in front of him. “You are not going to let go of my hand, do you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “It’s only about thirty feet,” she said, refusing to look toward the window as the light started to leak out of the sky. “I have a key, and we’re going to make it. We just have to stay together and hurry.”

  He nodded, and Sammy didn’t waste another second. She took him by the hand and together, they ran to the back door and outside. Her parents had not boarded anything up on their house, because they were too old to do something like that.

  “Start praying, Link,” she yelled above the wind as she looked into the dark, foaming clouds coming from the south. “Let’s go.”

  They ran across the deck and down the steps to the lawn. She led him through the wind and scattered rain to the shelter door, said, “Put your hand in my pocket,” and started fitting the key into the lock.

  It took three tries to get the door open, and she pushed Lincoln in front of her. “Click on that flashlight, Link.” He went down the steps, finally getting the light on. Sammy stepped into the shelter too and turned back to wrestle with the door.

  If she didn’t close it, it would be almost like being out in the storm. “Please,” she begged as the wind tried to snatch it from her again. “Give me one moment of calm. Just one moment.”

  God obviously heard and answered prayers, because the wind died. Everything held still and produced silence. In that moment, Sammy grabbed the door rail and pulled it closed. She locked it into place and turned to follow Lincoln into the shelter.

  “Momma?” she called.

  “Back here,” her mom said, and relief painted Sammy’s insides. “You made it.”

  “Yes,” Sammy said, coming into the glow of the electric lantern they were using. Her mother had Lincoln in her arms, and she was stroking his hair. Sammy remembered when she used to do that to her, and it had been so soothing and so comforting. With her mother around, Sammy remembered feeling like nothing could go wrong.

  Of course, she knew better now. Things could and did go wrong all the time, and when Sammy looked at her parents, all she could see was that they were missing half of their children. Not only that, but they’d lost their best daughter and been left with the one who messed up all the time.

  Her mother rose to hug her, and Sammy clung to her, another round of tears threatening to drown her on dry ground.

  “Oh, baby,” her mom said. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We have the shelter.”

  Sammy nodded and stepped back, wiping her eyes. “Hey, Daddy.” She moved over to where he sat in a recliner that Heather’s husband had moved down here years ago. He reached up and patted her on the back as she hugged him. “You made it down the steps okay?”

  “Took forever,” he grumbled. “But we left the house the moment we heard the sirens, and we knew you’d come as soon as you could.”

  “Thanks for leaving the key out,” she said. “I love you guys.”

  “We love you too.”

  She turned and took a folding chair, hoping this tornado would turn or twist and go find an uninhabited patch of Texas to blow its rage onto.

  No one said much of anything, and eventually her momma started to sing lullabies and tell stories about Heather as a young girl. Lincoln hung on every word, and Sammy hinged on every rattle and shake of the boards around them that made up the shelter.

  After what felt like hours—Sammy could really only judge time by how hungry she was, and she was hungry—everything held very still. “Check the radio, Momma,” she said.

  Her mother got up and clicked on the radio. “…repeat, stay in your shelters or under cover. There is a trio of twisters, and no one can predict which way they’ll go. Everyone should stay in their shelters or under cover in their homes. Do not go outside. Do not try to get in your car and flee. Officials are saying to shelter in place until further notice.”

  Click. Her mother turned off the radio and looked at everyone. “Who wants to play a game?”

  Sammy ate pretzels and dried banana chips for dinner, left the jars of beets and canned peaches, and made sure everyone got to choose from the assortment of food in the tornado shelter.

  Her father showed Lincoln how to heat up a can of chili with just a lighter and nothing else, and they ate that with a box of chocolates Momma had brought with her from the house.

  “It’ll be dark by now,” she said, as her phone told her it was past nine p.m. “Can we check the radio again?”

  Her mother turned it on, and this time, the broadcaster was saying, “…safe to come out now, but officials are warning everyone to use extreme caution. There is significant damage to many parts of the Texas Panhandle, including Amarillo, Borger, Three Rivers….” He continued to list towns and cities all the way up into Oklahoma, and Sammy felt sick to her stomach.

  “It’s dark,” the broadcaster said. “If you can, the National Weather Service advises simply staying wherever you are until morning. There will be nothing to see, as all electricity, water, and utilities are out in the paths of the three tornadoes that touched down in the Texas Panhandle today.”

  “I’ll get out the other sleeping bags,” Sammy said. Lincoln had gotten one down already, and she was grateful he hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. Sammy tucked a blanket around her father in the recliner he’d been sitting in for hours, and helped her mother lie down on the ground next to Lincoln with a sleeping bag and a nearly flat pillow. Sammy then zipped herself into a sleeping bag, knowing that if she slept at all, it wouldn’t be very restful.

  She hoped Jeff, Jason, and Logan had made it home okay. They had wives and families, and she closed her eyes and prayed for them.

  Bless my shop, she thought. Bless Clayton that he’s okay. Bless us that we’ll all be able to sleep well enough. Bless those in Three Rivers that have had damage, that all can be repaired and restored.

  Sammy finally fell asleep, her prayers for her friends, loved ones, and the town of Three Rivers still swarming through her mind.

  Chapter Five

  Bear emerged from the tornado shelter, every muscle in his body tight. Everyone in the family had converged to the shelter, as the one near the main homestead where Bear lived was the biggest and best stocked with emergency supplies and food.

  They’d all spent the night down there, and Bear thought he’d probably gotten about two hours of sleep.

  Behind him, Bishop said, “Dear Lord in Heaven, what are we going to see?”

  They’d prayed together, the fourteen of them. Bear had put his brother, Judge, in charge of their mother, and Ranger was taking care of his mother. Bear’s sister had brought their mother from the small cottage where the two of them lived, and Ranger’s two sisters had driven to town to get their mother from the assisted living facility where she usually lived full-time.

  Bear took his time looking around. He’d need to send everyone out to make a full assessment of the damage on the ranch. From where he stood right now, it looked like his roof had some shingle damage, and he could see a couple of broken windows.

  The house itself was still standing, and Bear closed his eyes and thanked the Lord. Micah Walker had been working on the house for almost six months, and there were only a few things left to finish up. Bear, Ranger, and Bishop had been living in it for a month and letting Micah work around them.

  “We should chec
k on the animals,” Bishop said, and Bear nodded.

  “Judge, get Auntie Dawna, and take her and Mother inside,” he said to his brother. “Everyone else, let’s gather around and make a plan.” Judge wouldn’t be happy babysitting the older ladies, but he was the best with them, and Bear needed to know his mother was well-cared for.

  “Okay, so we have cowboy cabins and our men to check on,” Bear said. “Stacy texted in to say he and the others were at the shelter closest to cabin four.”

  “I can do that,” Cactus said, and Bear hid his surprise. Cactus was just like his name—tall and prickly. He lived alone on the far western edge of the ranch and hardly ever socialized with anyone in the family. Sometimes Bear actually envied him.

  He nodded at his brother and continued naming buildings and animals that needed to be checked. “Take pictures,” he said. “Type up notes. Let’s meet back here in an hour and make a detailed list of what needs to be done.”

  The group dispersed, and Bear stood next to his one and only sister. “Well,” Arizona said. She was fifteen months older than Preacher, but the two of them got along like oil and water. She lived with their mother in a small cottage, and Zona ran all the watering on the ranch. When she wasn’t doing that, she taught art classes for kids and adults, and if there was a mural on a wall in a barn somewhere, Zona had done it.

  “Well,” Bear repeated. They didn’t say anything more.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “We’ll check on Momma’s house, and then we’ll see if our chickens blew away.”

  Bear had tried to keep everyone with at least one other person. He knew there were pitfalls around a ranch, and he didn’t want someone getting injured alone. He and Zona loaded up in his truck, which was just a tad bit dusty but otherwise fine and started down the road.

  Shiloh Ridge sat up in the foothills, which meant they often had more pests than other ranches. He didn’t like cutting down trees, so their landscaping was a little different than other ranches as well.

  Over the years, as the plots of land surrounding the ranch had gone up for sale, someone in the Glover family had bought them. They had at least six houses along the perimeter of the ranch from those purchases, which worked out since there were so many Glovers working the ranch.

  Bear had five brothers and Arizona, and all the men worked full-time on the ranch. Ranger was the oldest in his family, and he had two brothers and two sisters. His sisters ran community outreach programs from the ranch, mostly for elementary school students and high school kids interested in interning at the ranch.

  Together, the other ten of them worked the land that had been in the Glover family for one hundred and fifty years. His father had only one brother—Uncle Bull—and they’d had big families to ensure the ranch could move into the future. At least if Bear believed the stories his mother told.

  “Trees here,” Zona said, and Bear brought the truck to a stop. Together, they dragged the felled tree off the road and continued around the curve. The way got steeper, and Bear peered through the trees as a dirt driveway came into view.

  “Let’s check here.” He turned down the road, which led to a grouping of three cabins they currently weren’t using. Shiloh Ridge Ranch employed six full-time cowboys, but they’d needed many more in the past. He eased to a stop when he saw a flash of black out of his peripheral vision. “There are horses here.”

  They hadn’t had any time to mark their animals or do much more than open the doors on the barns and gates in the pastures and hope they’d get somewhere safe. The last thing he wanted was for a horse to be tied up during a tornado, unable to get away from flying debris or out of a collapsing barn.

  None of the structures he’d driven past had collapsed though, and while they’d all heard the shrieking wind and witnessed the dark, foaming green sky, Bear suspected they weren’t in the direct path of the tornadoes that had just passed through the Panhandle.

  He got out the truck and whistled. The black horse he’d seen peeked around the corner of the house, and Bear held out his hand. “Come on, Pearls.” He knew every horse by sight, and they knew him.

  She came around the side of the house, and four more came with her. Bear smiled at them and held still while Zona said, “I’ll call it in.” She ducked back into his truck and used the radio to let Ace and Ward know about the horses out here.

  “Tell ‘em we’ll put them in the paddock,” he called over his shoulder. He retreated to his truck and reached over the side to the back to grab a rope. With that around Pearls’s neck, he led her to the paddock behind the cabins. Often, the cowboys who’d lived here would ride a horse from this location into the center of the ranch.

  “The fences look good,” he told the five horses. “In you go. Ace’ll come get you.” They all went into the paddock without an argument, and Bear closed the gate behind them.

  Back in the truck, Zona confirmed that Ace knew about the horses and that he’d come get them. Bear started down the driveway, his phone chiming every half-second. One wouldn’t even finish sounding before another layered on top of it.

  “Oh, wow,” Zona said with a laugh. “Someone’s popular.”

  “Check it for me, would you?” Bear turned onto the road, more concerned with the ranch than who was texting him.

  “It’s a group,” Zona said. “From Squire Ackerman. Jeremiah Walker. Wade from down the road.”

  “Rhinehart,” Bear said. “Those are the men and women from the ranch ownership meetings I go to.”

  The phone chimed again. “Gavin Redd,” Zona read. “Brit Bellamore.”

  “What are they saying?” Bear asked. He didn’t need a rundown of who was texting. He and the other ranch owners in the area got together every month to discuss things, and they had a group text to keep up and share information between those meetings. He knew who they were.

  He pulled back on his impatience and looked at Zona.

  “There’s a ton of messages,” she said. “We must’ve been in a dead zone for a minute there.” She glanced at him. “Basically, they’re planning a rotation for when they can all get together and help one another.”

  Bear frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “It sounds like they’re making a schedule, and everyone will get together and work on one ranch at a time to get everything repaired and put back together.” She looked down at the phone. “Jeremiah just asked about you.”

  “Let them know I’m driving, and I’ll catch up in a minute.” Bear had never told anyone how much the ranch owners meetings meant to him, but his heart swelled with love for the people on that group text.

  “They want everyone to make an assessment of their own ranch,” Zona said. “And an estimate of how many people and how long it’ll take to fix. Then Squire and Pete are going to make a schedule.”

  “Okay,” Bear said, his thoughts flying to Sammy. He needed to call her and find out what she needed. If things at Shiloh Ridge weren’t bad, but they were at her shop or house, he could get some of his ranch friends to go with him to help her.

  He and Zona finally arrived at the cottage where she lived with their mother, and they stood at the front bumper of the truck.

  “Shingles,” Zona said.

  “Shingles?” Bear asked, his mood now as dark as the sky had been before the tornado had hit. “Do you not see that tree smashed right through the middle of the roof?”

  As it turned out, his mother’s cottage had borne the most damage. It would be weeks of rebuilding to fix that, and after everyone in the family had made their report, Bear had texted into his group to let them know what Shiloh Ridge needed.

  Minor repairs on most buildings. Some vehicle and equipment damage. And my mother’s house was crushed by a tree. I could need a lot of help over a lot of days.

  Nah, Pete said. With all of us, we can have that done in a couple of days.

  Others started to agree with him, and another wave of gratitude washed over Bear. The Rhinehart’s hadn’t been hit too hard. Seven Sons and Th
e Shining Star had four homesteads, and only one had taken on any major damage. Callie and Liam Walker could easily move into another of the houses for a bit until they could get their house fixed.

  Gavin’s place needed work, and he was the only one there to do it. Brit Bellamore had been more in the direct path of one of the smaller tornadoes, and his list of damaged items spanned four texts.

  “Thank you, Lord,” Bear whispered, his prayer complete but meant to praise the Lord for preserving so much of Shiloh Ridge.

  Tammy Fullerton owned a massive apple orchard southeast of town, and she was also reporting a lot of damage.

  I think we’ve been hit fairly hard, Squire Ackerman said. Pete, Garth, and I all have lists. Should we lay it on them, boys?

  They did, and Bear just stared at the texts as they came in. Silos toppled. Fences down. Bulls gone. Pete owned and operated Courage Reins, a therapeutic riding facility, and he said there were no discernible pastures anymore. The indoor arena had a huge hole in the roof, and the outdoor arena was a pile of sticks.

  Horror washed through Bear. Three Rivers Ranch sat almost an hour north of the town of Three Rivers, and it seemed like the tornadoes had definitely hit there quite hard.

  His desperation to call Sammy tripled. She most likely wouldn’t have a network like this, and he found himself wanting to be that network for her.

  We can all start on our own places, obviously, Gavin said. And also move around to help each other.

  So worst or best first? Jeremiah asked.

  Let’s do the best first, Squire said. That way, life goes on for those ranches, and they’ll be less stressed when they have to come help us.

  Squire really was one of the most decent men Bear had the pleasure of knowing.

  South to north, then? Brit asked.

  Good idea, Garth Ahlstrom sent.

  That would put Bear third, and he wasn’t surprised when Shiloh Ridge came up with a number three next to it.