by Sable Hunter
by
SABLE HUNTER
&
RYAN O’LEARY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE STORM YOU CHASE
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2020 © Sable Hunter and Ryan O’Leary
Cover and Formatting: JRA Stevens for Down Write Nuts
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author:
Sable’s Books
Chapter One
A brief glimpse into the future
The calm after the storm
“Come here. Let me hold you.” Taking his beloved’s hand, the big man pulled his beautiful wife onto his lap. “Watch the sunset with me.”
Sighing, she nestled her head on his solid shoulder, resting against him in complete contentment. “Do you find it odd how most people equate sunny days with happiness and rainy days with sadness?”
“Not me.”
“No. Not you.” She laughed, kissing him on the neck. “But you’re special.”
“I’m blessed, that’s what I am.” As he considered her observation, his eyes moved over their home. He’d never felt more fulfilled in his whole life. “You’re right, the majority of folks do associate bright sunshiny days with good things, even though most will admit they love to watch it rain or they’ll say they sleep better during a storm.”
She smiled, recognizing her own sentiment. “I just find it strange, that’s all,” she muttered, reminiscing about all they’d been through, the moments they’d shared. “We long for a carefree life, free from worry, free from care. But life doesn’t work that way, does it? To fulfill our destinies, we must grow. Change. Bud and bloom. And like a flower, planted in the sunshine, there will be no growth if there is no rain.”
“Wow. You’ve been giving this some thought.” The man kissed her tenderly on the cheek.
“I have,” she agreed, her voice soft and serious. “Storms are a necessary part of life. I guess if we were to consider where we came from, the stormy days would be the ones that molded us into the people we are now.” The woman laughed, rubbing her face against the strong arm that held her so tight. “We certainly had our stormy days, didn’t we? Do you remember?”
Chuckling, the man nodded. “I certainly do. Although, there are some I’d rather forget, if I could.”
“I don’t know,” she mused, rubbing her fingers over his forearm, taking comfort in his nearness. “Those times all worked in concert, bringing us to the place we needed to be.” The woman tilted her head to look up into his face. “Change any one of them and we might not be here today. Together.”
“You’re right.” He tightened his hold on her, unwilling to even consider the possibility that they might never have met. Never loved. “And I wouldn’t have missed this, missed you, for anything – not for anything in the world.”
Oh, she loved him. She loved him so. “It’s all been worth it, hasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes.” He rubbed his lips on her cheek. “Well worth it. Our perfect life has been a perfect storm.”
FLASHES FROM THE PAST
YESTERDAY’S STORMS
Clint Wilder at Seven Years of Age – May 25th, 1997
“Here, bend your ears over like this.” As they sat on the kitchen floor, Rowan showed Clint and Colleen how to fold their ears to close them. “See? Now, you can’t hear them arguing,” he spoke loudly.
“I can’t take any more of this. We can’t get our heads above water to save our lives. No matter how hard I work, we can’t seem to make ends meet. You’re going to have to get a job, Gillian!”
“What about the children? Don’t you understand the cost of childcare? We wouldn’t come out ahead. If you’d let us come live with you on the job, we wouldn’t have to pay rent on two places.”
“No. The North Slope is no place for a family. Do you know how cold it gets up there?”
“Well, why don’t you come home? You’re between jobs. Why don’t you hunt one here? Be with us all the time.”
“Jobs here don’t pay as well as pipeline jobs.”
“Well, why don’t you ask your…”
“No! I will not ask my family for help. If you knew them, you wouldn’t even suggest such a thing!”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m exhausted all the time. And when I come home, it’s just more of the same. I don’t think I can take any more of this.”
“Well, don’t! You don’t have to go to work. And you don’t have to come home. Just drive off into the sunset and do whatever you want to do.”
“You have no idea how tempting that sounds.”
“Well, do it. Just do it. Go!”
“I can still make out what they’re saying,” Clint mashed his ears harder against his head, wishing he were somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“I can hear them too,” Colleen mumbled as she shook her head to dispel the noise, the curls of her long blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. “I hate it when they fight.”
“I know. We all do,” Rowan assured his little sister.
“Dad is never happy. No matter what we do.” Clint bowed his head, closed his eyes, and tried to think of something else. The racket of their parents arguing became a distant, dull roar. Suddenly, another sound ripped through the air. Thunder rolled and a blast of lightning shook the windows in the house.
“Mama!” Colleen squealed.
“It’s all right.” Clint took his little sister’s hand. “It’s just a storm.”
“I know, but it’s been raining every day. We can’t even go outside.”
“I know. I haven’t been able to play football either. Spring is the time of year when we have the most storms,” Clint explained as the rain fell harder. “I think it has to do with atmospheric thermal instability.”
Rowan rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Weatherman.” He loved to pick at his little brother for his obsession with the Weather Channel and whatever weather websites Clint frequented online.
“You’re welcome.” Not taking offense, Clint hugged his little sister. “At least the noise of the storm drowns out our parents fighting.”
“Yea.” Colleen wiped her face where a few tears glistened on her rosy cheeks.
BAM!
All three children jumped when they heard a door slam upstairs. Moments later, heavy footsteps sounded as their father came down the stairs with a suitcase in hand. “Move kids. I gotta go.”
“Don’t go, Daddy!” Colleen sprang up to wrap her arms around Saul’s knees.
Rowan ro
se to move to one side out of his father’s path. “Why, Daddy? I thought you didn’t have to fly back to Alaska for a couple of weeks.”
“Yea. Why, Daddy?” Clint echoed. “What about Memorial Day? We’re going to the lake.”
Their father frowned, then knelt down to give each of the children a kiss on top of their head. “Sorry. I need to leave earlier than I planned. Take care of your Mama.” He patted Rowan and Clint on their shoulders as he rose to continue down the stairs. With no further explanation, he slammed out of the front door, leaving three of his six children staring after him. In the next few seconds, they could hear a chorus of crying coming from above. “The little ones are awake,” Rowan started up the stairs. “Come help me, Clint. Mama will need us.”
“I’ll come too.” Colleen grabbed onto Clint’s shirt as she followed her brothers up the stairs. “Why did Daddy have to go away?”
“I don’t know. He and Mama were having a disagreeable,” Clint muttered.
“A disagreement, not a disagreeable,” Rowan corrected him, then answered his sister. “Money. They always fight about money.”
“Why come?” Colleen asked in her odd little way as they neared the top of the stairs.
“Because there’s six of us kids and everything costs money.”
Rowan’s explanation caused Colleen to wrinkle her face. “There’s too many of us? Let’s send Bethany back. She cries too much anyway.”
“Nobody’s being sent back,” Clint stated as he ran toward his mother who was standing at the top of the stairs holding their other sister Cassidy. “Isn’t that right, Mama? We can all stay. Each one of us is important.”
Gillian Wilder released the wiggling toddler to Rowan’s waiting arms. “Absolutely, Clint.” She pulled the young boy close. “No one’s going anywhere. Don’t worry. Your daddy will be back soon. He didn’t mean those things he said. He’s just been under lots of pressure lately.”
“I don’t like it when you argue.” He hugged his mother around her waist. Clint was afraid he and his siblings were the problem. “Did we do something wrong?”
“No. Never. And we weren’t really arguing. We were discussing things loudly.” She took him by the hand, reaching out to Colleen with the other. “Come on. Let’s gather everyone together. I’ll read the little ones a story while we wait for your father to return.”
Only he didn’t return. Not that day and not the day after.
One day bled into the next. Neither of them owned a cell phone, so Gillian was at a loss as to how to get ahold of her husband. Their Memorial Day plans fell through. With Saul gone, she didn’t feel like taking the children to the lake. Instead, they picnicked at an abandoned limestone quarry just down the road from the subdivision where they lived. Gillian made sandwiches and packed them in a paper sack, then led her little brood down the road, everyone holding hands. At the quarry, the children ran up and down the piles of rocks, playing hide and seek among the boulders and the deep holes left behind by years of excavation. As they played, Clint kept a close watch on his brothers and sisters. His mother didn’t cry, but she kept her attention focused on the road Saul would come down when he returned home.
The day after, May 27th, dawned much the same as the days before. Unable to sleep in, Clint was up early. Escaping outdoors to their treehouse, he watched the sun rise over a stand of hackberry and juniper trees. He couldn’t help but think about his dad when he came here. He’d helped the boys build their own clubhouse high in a sturdy oak, then surprised Clint with a weather station from Radio Shack. Oh, how proud he’d been to set it up and explain to his dad how each instrument worked. Today, he noted the temperature was already hot at 79 degrees and humidity was high and hung heavy in the air. There was a light breeze from the south, but all it did was bring in more sticky air.
Lying on his back, he looked for shapes in the clouds, smiling to himself when he spotted the face of a dog. The smile faded when he heard his mother calling for him.
“Clint! Clint! Where are you? I could use some help with breakfast.”
Any other time, he might’ve dilly-dallied, but he couldn’t do that now. His mother wasn’t doing very well. She cried every day and he knew she worried – not only about his father but about money. Always about money. Clint made up his mind right then and there that when he grew up, he’d do whatever it took to make sure he and his family didn’t have to worry about money. “Coming, Mom!”
Once inside, he fed his little brother Kyd some cereal and gave Bethany a bottle. Rowan took care of Cassidy while Colleen helped her mother distribute waffles fresh from the toaster. “Have you heard from Daddy?” the little girl asked, even though Rowan was giving her the evil eye, warning her not to ask the same question for the hundredth time.
“No. Not yet. Soon.”
Clint knew she’d called everyone she could think of to check on Saul Wilder. All of his friends said he’d arrived at the company camp but hadn’t stayed but a couple of days. They didn’t have a clue as to where he’d gone next. Clint also knew his mom was beginning to worry about how they’d make it financially if he didn’t return. He’d heard her talking to someone yesterday about selling Avon and Tupperware.
By noon, the temperature was over 90 degrees, brutally hot for the end of May. The kids opted to stay indoors; it was just too warm to venture outdoors. Clint played video games with his older brother until he beat him so badly Rowan refused to play anymore. “Fine. I’ll just watch television.”
“Put it on something good.”
“I will.” Clint picked up the remote and flipped it to the Weather Channel.
“Not that!” Rowan tried to wrestle the remote away from his brother. “Anything but that!”
“No wait.” He might not be the oldest, but Clint was big and athletic. He outweighed his brother by twenty-five pounds. Sometimes being the biggest paid off. Putting one hand on Rowan’s chest, he easily kept him far enough away for Clint to comprehend what the weatherman was saying. “Look at that.” He pointed at the map on the screen.
“What?” Rowan did as his brother asked, but he couldn’t tell heads or tails about what he was seeing.
Clint didn’t answer right away. He was transfixed by the realization that conditions were right for a storm. A big one. “A cold front is colliding with hot dry air from the Southwest, forming a dryline.” He jumped up to run to the desktop computer, switching it on to access the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma. “Oh, man,” he muttered as he found the right link. “The CAPE reading for our area is…holy hell! 6840 Jkg!”
“Six thousand what? What are you saying?” Rowan asked, thoroughly confused.
“Six thousand joules per kilogram of air. A regular thunderstorm can generate at 500 Jkg. I have no clue what can happen at six thousand.”
“Yes, we all know your big head is chock full of brains. Will you please speak English?”
Clint kept clicking keys and checking other charts. “We’re under a tornado warning.” Jumping to his feet, he ran to the window, then took off downstairs with Rowan on his heels. Behind them, the warning from the Weather Channel was clear, “seek shelter in the innermost room on the lowest level of a sturdy, well-built structure. Protect yourself as best you can. Hang on. Hunker down. Pray.”
“Where are you going?”
Barreling outside, Clint stared mesmerized at the northern sky filled with twisting, writhing masses of sooty colored clouds. The very air around him looked funny. Instead of bright sunshine, the atmosphere was tinged an unearthly greenish gray.
Beside him, Rowan looked on in awe. “Wow.”
Both boys watched in fascination as a slender rope dipped down from the clouds, slithering earthward.
“We need to get the family together, crowd together in the bathroom.”
Rowan turned to go in, but Clint grabbed his arm. In those few seconds, the fiercely spinning tornado began to change. Ragged strands of clouds came together, and the entire black sky appeared to reach down to tear
at the earth. The vortex pulsed and breathed, growing larger by the second as it seemingly set a path straight to their door. In the distance they could see huge oaks swaying, then bending and jerking under the tremendous pressure. “No. We need to go somewhere else. This storm is too big.” Pushing his brother by the shoulder, he screamed. “Go. Run. Let’s get Mama and the others.”
“Where will we go?” Rowan screamed as he ran.
Clint knew of only one place. “The quarry. Let’s get everyone to the quarry.”
As they burst through the door, Gillian was standing nearby, holding Kyd and Bethany in her arms. “Where have you been? There’s a storm coming.”
“We know.” Clint took her by the arm. “We need to get out of the house and go to the quarry.”
“The quarry?” Gillian asked, her voice shrill with emotion. “No. We’ll be safer here. In our home.”
“No.” Clint was adamant. “This storm’s too big. We’ve got to go now!”
Rowan was ahead of him. He’d sprinted up the stairs and came down holding Cassidy in his arms, Colleen at his side. “Okay, let’s go.”
Gillian didn’t argue as her two oldest led them out of the house and across the field. “Hurry. Hurry,” Clint urged. Behind them the dull drone of the tornado began to roar louder, deeper. When he dared take the time to look back, the storm had grown from a distant cloud to an ominous monster that devoured the whole horizon. “Let’s run.”
Together, hand in hand, they made a human chain as they fled over the fields from the Double Tree Estate to the nearby quarry. The distance was only half a mile, but it seemed like an eternity passed as they raced away from the howling storm. Hail began to fall, and Gillian and Rowan covered the children’s heads as best they could. “Put your arms over your head,” Clint directed Kyd and Colleen who were toddling along as fast as their baby legs would carry them.
Glancing over his shoulder, Clint’s heart rose into his throat. Behind them, the tornado loomed like a mountain that reached to the sky. He couldn’t tell in which direction it was headed. It was so big; he wasn’t sure the exact path mattered. The winds were blowing so hard, he could feel Colleen’s hand almost slipping from his grasp. Immediately, he tightened his grip. “Hurry!” he urged. They were almost there. Just a few more yards.