So Cold the River

by Michael Koryta

  … Once again, we have a confirmed tornado touchdown just west of Orleans and there are reports of significant damage. Unconfirmed reports of another touchdown just south of Paoli are coming in. A critical reminder: this is only the leading edge of this storm front, and it’s already produced tornadoes in Missouri and southern Illinois. We have more activity on the way in, and the National Weather Service has declared that the tornado warning will remain in effect for at least another hour, if not more. We’re being advised that there is a strong possibility of multiple tornadoes associated with this front. Please seek shelter immediately.

  He punched the power button and shut it back down. Hell with that shit. Storm would be the last thing anyone spoke of by evening.

  The fastest way out to the gulf was to take US 50, but he’d barely gotten on the highway before he heard police sirens. He turned off onto one of the back roads just as a pair of cruisers shot by with lights going, doing at least eighty. Out on some sort of storm-related call, surely, not looking for his truck, but it was better to avoid the risks when you had a kidnapped woman and a stack of dynamite under tarps in the bed.

  This detour north was pulling him far from the hotel, but he knew it was necessary, felt that in his bones. Eric Shaw was a part of this, had been from the start and needed to be at the finish. Campbell had placed the man’s wife in Josiah’s hands just as he had the dynamite, and both would have their role by the day’s end. The course was already charted, and now it was merely a matter of listening to the directions as they were issued.

  The route change that was forced by the police sighting would have him approaching the gulf from the south now, which would take him right past his own home. He opened the truck up again, curving along through Pipher Hollow. The storm seemed to have died off a bit now, at least here. Out to the northeast the sky still looked fierce, but here things were settling.

  He was on his own road and a half mile from his house when he started to see the damage. The first thing that caught his eye was a great gray gouge ripped through the earth in the fields ahead of him, and then he saw downed power lines sparking on the side of the road and a steel farm gate that had been torn loose and bent as easily as if it had been made out of aluminum foil.

  He let off the gas and stared around himself as the truck coasted. The row of trees that had grown here was gone, obliterated, the trunks split and the bases pulled from the ground, their mud-covered roots pointing at the sky. He looked past the grove and up toward his home and then he took his foot off the gas completely and put it on the brake.

  His house was gone. Any sense that it had been a house was gone, at least. The foundation and portions of two of the walls lingered but the rest was scattered in chunks across his yard and the field beyond. Pieces of his roof littered the yard. His couch was some eighty feet from the foundation, upside down, rain drumming down onto it. The old aerial antenna, no longer functional but never removed, was lodged in the upper branches of a tree in the backyard. The rest of the tree was adorned with pink bits of insulation. Amidst the litter of debris across the yard he saw flashes of bright, stark white. Pieces of the porch railing he’d painted.

  He sat there in the middle of the road and stared at it. Couldn’t find a thought, really, couldn’t do anything but look. This place shouldn’t matter—he’d already known he could never return to it—but still, it had been home. It had been his home.

  The sirens finally broke him out of it. They were wailing behind him, to the south, coming this way. Somebody coming to see if anyone needed rescuing.

  He punched the accelerator and the truck fishtailed on the wet pavement and then found purchase and sped on. He swerved around one downed limb in the road and drove right over the top of another and on toward the gulf. He gave the house one last look in the rearview. It was the only thing out there, the only physical structure in most of a mile in any direction, and it had been destroyed. In the distance, the Amish farm looked solid, everything still standing. Something like that, it seemed almost personal. Seemed like the damn storm had been hunting him.

  “Well, guess what?” he said aloud. “I wasn’t home. And tell you something else? I am the storm.”

  There you go, boy. There you go.

  The voice floated out of the air beside him and Josiah looked to the right and saw Campbell Bradford in the passenger seat, just as he had been at the timber camp. Campbell gave a tight-lipped smile and tipped his hat. His suit looked soaked, clinging to his shoulders as if he’d just climbed out of a swimming pool.

  That ain’t home, he said. That place ain’t even close to home for you, Josiah, never was. You deserved better, boy, deserved a piece of what I’d carved out for you. I was building a kingdom down here, and you’re my rightful heir. It was taken right from your hands. Time to take it back. They’ll come to know your name, boy. They’ll know it.

  “The work will be done,” Josiah told him. “You can count on that.”

  I know it. I’m stronger than ever now, boy, and it’s thanks to you. Stronger than I’ve been in a long time, at least. And that’s all I needed—was for you to listen, and let me get my strength back. It’s coming now, son. Yes, sir, it is.

  “I should have started with the hotel,” Josiah said.

  No. We’ll go back for it, but we have to start with Shaw. You see that, don’t you? He’s the one who brought me back, then thought he could control me, hold power over me. With water, can you believe it? With water. It’s time he sees who’s won. Ain’t a force in this valley like me, and he’ll know it. He’ll be the one to tell the others.

  Another limb was across the road, this one big enough to do some serious damage, and Josiah saw it out of the corner of his eye at the last possible instant and whipped the wheel sideways. The truck skidded away, branches raking at it, bending the sideview mirror back and pounding dents and scratches into the paint, but it stayed upright. By the time Josiah had it straightened out, Campbell was gone again. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and saw a cloud of cold fog in front of his mouth. That made him smile. Campbell wasn’t gone. Hadn’t been gone in a long time, in fact, was with Josiah constantly now.

  He was suddenly glad that his house had been destroyed and that he’d happened across it. Hell, he hadn’t happened across it—Campbell had guided him there, and the message he intended to send was clear: there wasn’t anything of Josiah Bradford left now. Not the old Josiah, the one these people knew. What remained of him belonged to Campbell now, and that was as it should be. The Josiah that had been known in this valley would vanish completely by the day’s end, vanish as swiftly as the cloud that had leveled his house, and with a similar trail left behind.

  The R. L. Drake fired up without hesitation. The power in the house was still on, so it didn’t need to go to the backup generator, and seconds after Anne found the desk, she had the microphone to her lips. Most of the bands she dealt with were weather-spotter frequencies, but like any quality ham radio operator, she had the local emergency bands programmed as well. These days, some of the communications were encrypted, but there was still access for distress calls. She explained her situation to the dispatcher in as calm a tone as she could manage. Her nerves were rattled and her body felt unsteady but she held it all in check and spoke slowly and clearly. This was what she’d been training for all her life—a real emergency. She’d always known she could keep her poise during one, and while she’d imagined it would be during a tornado and not a kidnapping, her preparation didn’t fail her now.

  The dispatcher was a woman who sounded at first harried, no doubt from fielding constant storm-related calls, then astonished.

  “Ma’am, I need to understand this situation: Are you alone in the house now?”

  Anne had specified that at the start. She took a deep breath and willed herself to find patience in the face of panic.

  “That is correct.”

  “But you were held hostage for several hours this morning by a man with a gun—”

  �
�Not just some man. His name is Josiah Bradford. He’s a local. Works down at the West Baden hotel, I believe.”

  “Yes, and your understanding is that he now has another woman in his control and that he has left your house with her and the weapon, correct?”

  Anne felt a surge of frustration building, wanted to slap her hands down on the desk and shout, Of course he still has the weapon, now would you please stop asking me to repeat myself and do something about it! But poise counted in a situation like this, calm counted, and that woman who was with Josiah right now needed Anne’s help.

  “That is all correct,” she said, speaking carefully. “The woman with him is named Claire Shaw. She’s from Chicago. Her husband came down here to make a movie and somehow he crossed Josiah. And I would say that time is of the essence. He has a gun, and if he is to be believed, then he is driving a truck full of dynamite. You need to find that truck.”

  “There’s already a bulletin out for that truck. Went up yesterday. A state police detective requested it. I’m going to get in touch with him now.”

  “All right,” Anne said, wondering what Josiah had already done to earn this attention. “He’s in the truck now, and so is she. He was taking her somewhere. I don’t know where, but it’s near his home. I could tell it was someplace near his home.”

  “Okay,” the dispatcher said, “but right now I’ve got to find someone to come get you out of that basement. Things are out of control… we’ve got a tornado that hit Orleans, another that went through Paoli not five minutes later, and every one of my units was headed to assist. I’ll find one to send back for you.”

  “No, don’t send one of them for me. Please don’t. I’m fine. But send one of them to find that truck.”

  “Of course, that’s the priority. Be advised there’s a bit of chaos right now, though. Got parts of highways closed and all sorts of major storm damage. There’s a fire—”

  “I know it’s chaos out there,” Anne said. “But I’m telling you that he could make the storm look gentle before this is done.”

  The wind was freshening again as Josiah neared the gulf, and here there were so many trees down that the road was nearly impassable. If he’d given the slightest damn about his truck he would have stopped, but at this point the Ranger meant about as much to him as the heap that had once been his house, so he plowed ahead, driving over limbs and fence posts and one snarl of barbed wire wrapped around a stump. All of it deposited in the middle of the road, left behind by a cloud, of all damn things. It was hard to believe.

  Up ahead the old white chapel was still standing and seemed little worse for wear; the storm must have passed just south of it. He saw the blinking lights of a rescue truck out across the fields, a volunteer fire department outfit, but they had pulled into one of the farm driveways and were paying him no mind. The gravel track into the gulf was empty, and he drove onto it and through the brush and saw two vehicles parked at the end of the lane: Danny’s Olds and a black Porsche Cayenne that was sitting upside down. The roof was caved in and glass lay all around it. Pointing skyward were four flat tires. That got Josiah laughing as he stopped the truck and got out to see Danny emerge from the bushes behind the cars, his ruddy, freckled face drained of color, his red hair dripping wet.

  “You see it?” he said, walking toward Josiah. “You see it? Oh, shit, I never seen anything like it. Damn it all, I never even imagined seeing anything like that.”

  Josiah nodded at the upended Porsche. “Guess you didn’t need to worry ’bout them tires.”

  Danny stared back at him blankly.

  “How’d you miss it?” Josiah asked.

  “Drove away, is how I missed it. I was waiting down here like you said, and then I heard the noise. I mean to tell you it really does sound like a train, just the way you always hear folks say it does. I heard that noise and I saw the sky going black as oil and I said, I got to get away fast. So I drove out of here and had hardly hit the road before I saw it. Big old funnel cloud, all white at first, then turning black. And I just hit the gas on this old car like I never have before in my life. Was up at the church when the tornado came in, and I pulled behind the building and set to prayin’. I’ll tell you, I was prayin’ and cryin’ like a little kid, and I think it was that church that saved me because that thing passed by not a hundred yards from me, but I was safe and—”

  “Where are they?” Josiah said.

  “Huh?”

  “The ones I’m here for, damn it! Where are they?”

  Danny blinked, then wiped at his face, leaving a streak of dirt behind.

  “I don’t know. They were in the woods. Right there, where it blew through, Josiah. Far as I know, they’re somewhere out there now.” He waved his arm off to the east, in the direction the storm had gone.

  “You think they’re dead?” Josiah said, and he felt a cold, seething rage nestle into his belly. That storm better not have taken them. He’d come here to settle up, not to collect bodies.

  “I have no idea, Josiah. I just want to get out of here. I’m done, all right? I’m—”

  “Shut up,” Josiah said. “I got a piece of work left to do, and ain’t nothing or nobody done until that work’s been completed. You don’t understand the weight of this task, Danny, you don’t understand the heft of it at all. Ain’t a thing done yet.”

  “Josiah—”

  “Stop using that name.”

  “What?”

  “You call me Campbell now. Understand? Call me Campbell.”

  Danny said, “I think you’re crazy.”

  He was staring Josiah in the face, and when he said it, he meant it.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking anymore,” Danny said. “Don’t even seem like yourself, and now you’re calling yourself Campbell…. It’s like you’re possessed.”

  “What I am,” Josiah said, “is focused.”

  He turned away from Danny and walked back to the truck, reached inside the cab and withdrew the shotgun. Then he stood beside the bed and tore the tarps loose and exposed Eric Shaw’s wife.

  “Josiah! What in… oh, hell. You are crazy! You’ve lost your ever-lovin’—”

  “I’m going to ask one more time for you to keep silent,” Josiah said, and Danny’s eyes registered for the first time that the gun in Josiah’s hand was pointed at him.

  “You going to shoot me? Me?”

  “Don’t intend to. But I came here to finish a task, and ain’t nobody going to interrupt me. You least of all.”

  Danny’s jaw slackened. He didn’t say a word. The wind was starting to gust again, another round of storms ready to chase the one that had just left this place.

  “We’re going to find those two,” Josiah said, “whether they’re out in those woods or up in a damn tree somewhere with their necks broken. We’re going to find them.”

  “Who is she?” Danny asked, staring at the woman in the bed of the truck.

  “Shaw’s wife. Now tell me where they went.”

  Danny jabbed a finger into the wind-torn woods. “Down to the gulf. Last time I saw them, they was walking down to the gulf.”

  “That’s fine,” Josiah said. “Then we’ll take the same walk. You mind helping our friend here out of the truck? I’d like to keep her at my side.”

  Danny hesitated only a moment, but when he did move, it seemed to be more out of something exchanged in his stare with the woman than in direct obedience to Josiah’s instruction. He leaned over the bed wall and tried to gather her up, but he was handling her gently, not getting a thing done.

  “Go on and pull her out of there!” Josiah barked. “She ain’t that fragile, boy.”

  Danny ignored him and went to the back of the truck and climbed in the bed to help her to her feet. As he did that, he pushed aside another tarp, glanced down to see what it had covered, and froze with his arms extended to the woman.

  “Is that… dynamite?”

  “Indeed,” Josiah said. “And it would take one squeeze of this t
rigger to blow the back of that truck into Martin County. Now you want to hurry up?”

  Danny got her upright and down out of the truck then, used his pocket knife to cut the tape free from her feet at Josiah’s instructions, and then started down the trail. The woman was unsteady with her hands still bound, and he kept an arm on her to help with balance. They’d gotten well into the trees now, the vehicles out of sight, and were crossing over familiar ground, a path on which Josiah knew every root and stone. Trees were downed in every direction, some snapped in half, others torn free at their bases, leaning crazily against one another, but somehow many had stayed upright and largely intact. Even now they were tossing around in that freshening wind. Josiah couldn’t help but marvel a little as he watched them. Damn things didn’t seem so flexible on a normal day, appeared stiff as the boards they produced, but look at ’em whipping around now. Some would break; some just bend. All depended on the tree and the storm. Some would break and some just bend…

  He’d gotten lost in the trees and didn’t see what Danny and the woman saw. Didn’t understand what was happening until the woman dropped to her knees in the middle of the trail, and when he turned to jerk her upright, he saw Danny was pointing ahead. He looked back down the trail.

  Eric Shaw was coming up it.

  57

  CLAIRE.

  Eric saw her before anything else, focused on her so much that for an instant he was unable to see the rest of the frame. The first thing that stood out was the tape: a bright shining silver X across her face. Then she dropped to her knees on the trail and the rest of the pieces clicked into understanding in his brain—Danny Hastings at her side, Josiah Bradford behind them with a gun in his hand. In that first moment, that first blink, they’d been insignificant pieces of scenery around his wife. Now they stepped forward and joined the cast and became significant as hell. Particularly the shotgun.