He leaned his face toward hers and kissed it. Their lips met, and the powerful desires between them began again. Kathy Mae moved her arms around him then cringed with a sharp pain. They laughed, acknowledging that it would be a while before they could make love the way they wanted.
“Are you ready for some dinner?” they heard the nurse say, as she opened the door and entered with a tray. “If you can handle food, the doctor said you'd be able to go home today, as long as you take it easy for a while.”
“Food isn't the main thing on my mind right now,” replied Kathy Mae, “but if it'll get me out of here, I'll even eat the hospital Jell-O.”
“That is truly the nastiest stuff, isn't it?” agreed the nurse. “I don't know how they manage to ruin something as simple as Jell-O, but they do.”
Shortly after the meal, Mason helped her to get dressed, and they left together. They found themselves stranded without transportation and no home to go to anyway. His truck, he assumed was still parked near Borough, behind the tree that fell on Kathy Mae. He soon discovered through the Red Cross information network that neither the tree nor the truck were on that road. Everything surrounding the area of her house and the nearby town had been flattened. Unable to find a ride into Borough, they realized it was pointless to go there anyway. Only a few buildings were still standing, and they were badly damaged.
“My purse,” Kathy Mae suddenly exclaimed, “In all the commotion, it's gone. It had my first paycheck in it. I was on my way to open a bank account.”
“I would imagine the real estate business in Borough is going to suffer a setback,” said Mason. “You probably won't have a job for a while. The library suffered only minor damage, from what I could tell. They have set up a shelter there, I heard. We should probably go to it on the next shuttle. Your aunt is there, and most of the townspeople as well. It's the only place with working phone lines, and they have also brought a stockpile of food and water. That's where we need to go, at least temporarily.”
As they approached the town, the world around them looked like a scene from Armageddon. The roads were clear but on both sides of the highway trees and trash were piled high. They drove past places where barns used to be, and now it was as if the earth had cleansed them away. Electrical wires were down and crews labored to re-establish power lines. Red Cross trucks were everywhere helping the sick and the stranded. Even the National Guard had arrived with supplies and temporary shelters. They had constructed a temporary bridge to reconnect the roads. Yet, through it all, the sky was clear and brilliant, as if Mother Nature had thrown a tantrum, and it was all over. Cars, trucks, and furniture lay in piles like toys tossed aside.
Kathy Mae needed to rest and recuperate. Mason needed to search for his truck. He needed to deal with the insurance company and begin the process of having it replaced. It didn't seem that any of this would be easy with all the businesses crippled in the aftermath of such destruction.
“Mason, it’s like the prairie came back,” Kathy smiled, kissing him good-bye as he set out to take care of business.
She had read something about how the prairie needs occasional tornadoes to make sure that the land stays arid. They serve their purpose as a sudden release of energy. Without tornadoes, the book had said, the whole earth would be engulfed in a constant monster storm. The town would be rebuilt even better than before. People would recover and be stronger than before. It would be okay, she believed that.
Mason walked toward the area that had once been the road to Kathy Mae's house, leaving her in good hands at the library shelter. The road had been cleared, and he talked to some workmen that were out replacing telephone poles. One of them had seen a white pickup truck several miles away perched upon the remains of a trailer home. They could only hope that whoever had been inside had gotten out in time.
Locating the truck, Mason saw immediately that it could not be driven. It was totaled. Judging from the indentation on the roof, it looked as if a good-sized tree had smashed into it at some point during its three-mile flight through the tornado. He crawled over the remains of the trailer home and precariously reached inside to retrieve papers from the glove box. His neat little packet containing the title and his insurance information had remained intact. Although his cell phone was almost dead, he managed to get through on the 800 number and someone located in another city was able to file his claim.
“We will send a representative to assess the damage, Mr. Wheelwright,” he said. “But, that will just be a formality. We've all heard the news, and I'm positive this will be a total loss. We will be cutting you a check this afternoon, and you should be able to apply that toward the purchase of a vehicle of your choice.”
“Well, how'm I going to get the check, since I can't drive anywhere to get it?” he asked.
“I wasn't thinking, Mr. Wheelwright,” he said immediately. “I can just transfer the amount to your account. If you haven't changed banks, I still have the routing number.”
“I left a trailer on the highway between here and Minnesota,” he said. “It contains a herd of camels, and I need to get to it soon. I don't think there's anywhere in this town I can either buy or rent a new truck.”
Mason understood that the agent couldn't do much to help him under the circumstances. The money would be in his account within hours, but he didn't know how he would be able to spend it. The thought of thirsty, hungry camels preyed on his mind. Sure, camels could last without water for days—but these camels never had. They were going to be distressed and upset. He didn't like that situation. As he pondered this, a bright, shiny red super-cab pickup truck honked at him from the road.
“Are you Mason Wheelwright, by any chance?” yelled the man from his rolled-down window.
“I am,” he answered, walking toward the man.
“Well, I'm glad to meet you, Sir,” he said. “I am Phillip Buggerby, Kathy Mae's boss. We ran into her at the library shelter. I was lucky enough to buy up one of the last trucks left on the lot in Verona. Every available vehicle in all the towns around here have been snatched up by the time they opened for business this morning. I hear you need a ride to Minnesota.”
Mason beamed with happiness and climbed into the front seat.
“Actually, I didn't even get out of Missouri before I turned around and headed back toward Borough,” he said. “The trailer should be less than fifty miles from here. I was just thinking it might as well have been a thousand. My camels and I will be eternally grateful to you Mr. Buggerby.”
“Nooo,” he groaned. “Don't call me that. It's Phillip, please. You know, I hate that name so much, I wish I had changed it legally a long time ago. Maybe I will do that now that I will undoubtedly have some time on my hands.”
Phillip told him that although the office was gone, a real estate company could operate over the kitchen table. Most of the records were online, and the rest were retrievable, eventually, under the rubble. He had already procured an office space in the town of Nevada—where the hospital was located. Few real estate deals were likely in the town of Borough—not for quite a while. The Buggerby's own house had been destroyed, but Phillip was not concerned about that. The insurance would replace everything, and his wife wanted to redecorate anyway.
They drove past Mason's old homestead in Nevada, and he could see that the house had been flattened. The barn, however, looked to be in pretty good condition. He told Phillip that they could bring the camels back to the barn. In his mind, he was thinking that he and Kathy Mae could probably live in the barn until he could rebuild. It had a bathroom and electricity. And then he realized that he had just assumed they'd live together. He had already decided he was going to marry her, if she would agree.
Mason looked around; it was freeing to see the house gone. He would never have to worry about his father or her mother again. Some people might say that this was selfish, but he did not care. They were nothing to him but an unending burden, and it was only natural that he would feel glad to be rid of them.
He remembered the t
ime that he was in a motel with his dad back in 1988. He was only five at the time, and they were traveling back from Jefferson City where his dad had to attend to some final matters regarding his mother's death in prison. It was the first road trip he had ever taken. His father left him in the motel for a few hours that turned into three days without food and water. The old man had gotten drunk and forgotten where he left him. Perhaps he even forgot he had a son at all. The manager had finally checked the room when he became worried about the rent and quickly turned him over to the police. They found Mr. Wheelwright, who insisted he had left the child with a relative, and recounted the whole incident as miscommunication. The police handed the child back to his custody, either believing his story or just not wanting to get involved.
When they arrived at the spot where Mason remembered leaving the trailer—it was not there. He was confused, worried, and frantic about the welfare of the animals.
“Maybe the tornado blew it away,” suggested Phillip. “ Or, maybe you are wrong about the location,” he said, before noticing the tire tracks in the dust and letting his voice trail off in reconsideration mode.
“The storm didn't reach this far north,” said Mason, dialing the police. “I want to report a trailer full of camels as stolen,” he said clearly to the operator.
“Are you the guy with the camels?” she gasped. “You won't believe what a commotion that caused here at the station. They're at the animal shelter here in Spencer. Come and get 'em. Assuming you had some sort of emergency, you could leave them here for a while, if you'd like. I can notify them that you've been found. They are causing quite a sensation with the kids around here. They've been well fed and are receiving a lot of attention.”
Mason thanked her and felt very relieved, but he was anxious to get them home. Phillip and he spent the entire day getting the camels, dealing with authorities, and taking them back to the miraculously preserved barn in Nevada, Missouri. Phillip was a very good sport about getting camel slobber all over his business casual attire. It took quite a few attempts and a lot of instruction before he was able to lead a camel successfully from the trailer to its stall in the barn. It was early evening before they made it back to the library. Kathy Mae greeted them with joy in her heart and had become good friends with Dawn, Phillip Buggerby’s wife, during their absence.
“C'mon you guys,” Phillip motioned them to follow him out of there. Both Kathy Mae and Mason gave a puzzled expression to him as well as to each other.
“Phillip has rented a hotel suite in town,” explained Dawn, “and we are inviting you to stay with us. There's a pool. Although, I don't know about you, but I've somehow forgotten to bring along my suit.”
It was quickly decided that a nice little vacation would be most welcomed.
“Guess what,” Kathy Mae said grabbing her purse on the cot and raising it in the air, “Got my purse back. They have a lost and found set up in the basement. People are bringing in all sorts of personal items, and my purse was among them. I've also got a few changes of clothing courtesy of the local charities which have been helping out.”
Mason explained about the barn, the camels, and the fact that her job could continue from Nevada. She told him she had signed up to receive a FEMA trailer, but didn't know how long it would take before it would be delivered to the place where her home once stood. The ground would need to be cleared of debris first, as well as establishing safe utility connections. When Mason heard this, he decided not to mention his idea of living in the barn with him and the camels.
“I guess a FEMA trailer is all right,” said Mason, “but there must be insurance on your house. You could probably rebuild it even better than it was before. From what I heard about the chaos after Katrina, it might be faster than waiting on the government.”
Kathy Mae decided Mason was right, and when they got to the hotel, she called the authorities and canceled her order for the FEMA trailer. They assured her that it would go to the next family on the list.
Phillip's wife, Dawn, informed them that while they had been gone all day she had received word that Lois Wade had been located. She was in the hospital and recovering from surgery. Phillip decided that he would hire some young boys to help salvage equipment and retrieve files from the old office location in Borough. He trusted Kathy Mae to run the new office in Nevada and he was about to arrange a rental car for her before she informed him she did not have a license.
“You don't drive?” he asked with astonishment and disbelief. “How can you become a real estate agent and not drive?”
“I know how to drive,” she said, “thanks to a friend of mine a long time ago. But, I never took the test or got a license. I didn't need to, since I couldn't afford a car anyway.”
Mason and Phillip decided among themselves that they would find a car for Kathy Mae soon, and that all of them would possess vehicles within the next few days. They also decided that they needed to look through the rubble at both Mason's and Kathy Mae's old places to find paperwork related to the insurance and ownership of the properties.
****
A Pleasant Surprise
Days later, Kathy was cleaning out the remnants of her old place in Borough. Mason was helping since he had already retrieved the necessary documentation at his old place. She found the old desk from the living room. Mason was glad to see that this would soon all be over, as he needed to prepare for his next trip up north to Minnesota. Kathy Mae had begun her classes, Aunt Anna had decided to move into a FEMA trailer with an old friend she had found at the shelter. It appeared that an old flame had been re-ignited between the two, and Kathy Mae was glad for that. It had been two weeks since the storm, and much was still in the process of recovery—including their relationship.
It crossed her mind when she went with Mason to the barn that the two of them could easily live there with a few minor rehab jobs to the structure. But, they hadn't reached that stage of commitment. Although they had made love nearly non-stop in the privacy of the hotel, they hadn't discussed any more permanent arrangement for themselves.
“You know, I'm disappointed,” said Kathy Mae, “but, I really didn't expect to find anything about the property here. If Aunt Anna had seen a copy of the deed, or anything pertaining to it, she would have known that my mother did not own the property. She wouldn't have kept making those payments throughout all those years.”
“So, what do you do next?” asked Mason. “You saw the original at the real estate office, right?”
“Actually, I saw it online,” she said. “They have a database. I need to get back to Nevada and do some more searching. I'm also going to the courthouse. It's very weird that neither my aunt nor my mother seemed to have a copy of my birth certificate. If not for the leniency of the DMV rules following the tornado, I probably wouldn't have been able to get my license.”
“If it had been me,” teased Mason, “they wouldn't have been so ready to accept that I am a U.S. citizen.”
“I think your ancestry would prove you more American than any of us,” she affirmed, taking his hand to help her climb over the rubble. Her ribs were still a little sore.
“So, your plan is to rebuild and live here by yourself?” he asked, sending out feelers about how she might be considering a future with him.
“I guess so,” she said. “Although, it could get pretty lonely, now that my aunt has a boyfriend. What about you? Of course, you have camels. Maybe I could come out and visit them, too—and you, of course.” She smiled suggestively at him, hoping he would know that she wanted to be with him.
His jeans were smeared with crap and dirt, and he smelled like the animals that were both his livelihood and devoted friends. In spite of his aroma, she still wanted him passionately every time he came near. Touching him drove her wild with desire, especially now that she knew full well what it was like to make love with their clothes off and with a real live man instead of a figment of her imagination. It seemed that every time her body craved him, he saw it in her eyes and respon
ded in ways that gave her pleasures of which she had never dreamed. If they were unable for reasons of lack of privacy, he would touch himself, showing her what she had aroused in him. They embraced now standing on piles of torn pieces of drywall and broken furniture. She ran her hand over his erection and moaned with pleasure, gasping at the thrill of the way it swelled beneath her firm grasp.
“We are out here in broad daylight with not a single wall to go behind,” he whispered, but in spite of this, he wasn't objecting. Instead, he ran his hand up inside her shirt, cupping her breast within his hand while stroking her nipple with the gentle tips of his fingers.
“No bra,” he said. “So this was a plan,” he teased.
“None of the hand-me-downs I could find quite fit that area of my body,” she explained. “I might be small, but not there. Everything was too tight. I ordered something in my size online, but it will take a few days for them to get here.”
“Do you think we can make it to the truck before one of us explodes?” he asked.
“My legs are pretty wobbly already,” she said, “You know how I collapse into a helpless blob.” He picked her up and carried her to the truck.
The Day the Siren Stopped Page 7