And If I Die

by John Aubrey Anderson

  “We need to pray,” said Harley.

  “Okay.” Mose didn’t ask any questions. “C’mon over here in the barn.”

  They sat in the dirt at the barn’s door to watch the rain work its way toward them, and Harley told him what happened at the store. Mose showed a rare smile when he heard about the real live angel. When Harley told him Mr. Henry was acting crazy, Mose stopped smiling.

  “You reckon he’ll come down here an’ try to shoot Lady?”

  Harley shrugged. “Hard to say. I don’t think Mr. Gilmer trusts him, even a little bit. What’ll you do if he comes?”

  “Well, like you said, we needs to pray.” Mose sat up straighter. “An’ I reckon this’d be a good time to start, ’cause that’s him right yonder comin’ down the road.”

  And it was. Nash Henry was two blocks away, walking in the rain, coming right down the middle of the street. He was carrying his shotgun.

  Harley jumped up and Mose followed. Without consultation the two boys bowed their heads. Mose said, “Lord, we in a bad spot here. We ain’t got much time to pray, an’ we need Yo’ help right quick. Amen.”

  Harley was next. “That’s the truth, Lord. I thank You for lettin’ me see my angel an’ for gettin’ me an’ Mr. Gilmer outta that scrape just now, an’ I ask that You’d do the same for me an’ my friend right now. Please protect us. Amen.”

  When they looked up, the man was a block away and still coming. He was leaning into the wind, carrying the shotgun in front of him like a soldier in a skirmish line. The wind was getting stronger; even as they watched, it blew his derby hat off and rolled it back up the street. The man didn’t turn or slow. Out by the water trough the windmill was spinning, its gears squealing.

  Mose looked around the interior of the barn and said, “He ain’t seen us. You reckon we oughta hide in here?”

  Harley shook his head. “Can’t. It’s the first place he’d look, an’ he’d have us trapped for sure.”

  The wind was starting to howl; hay blew from the recesses in the loft and swirled around the boys. Lightning flashed on the far side of the creek, thunder followed. Lightning flashed again, then again, closer. The windmill fan was a blur. A deep roar could be heard from somewhere west of them.

  “What’s that sound?” asked Harley. The roar became a rumble—deepening, resonating. A line of lightning moved toward them, the rumble was beginning to drown out the sound of the thunder.

  “I ain’t ever heard one, but I bet it’s a cyclone.”

  “That’s bound to be what it is,” yelled Harley.

  The ground was beginning to shake; dust spilled from the old rafters to be blown out of the barn. Shingles, one or two at a time, were being torn from the roof of the house. Henry stopped in the street; he was facing southwest.

  Harley looked up and watched holes appearing in the roof of the barn. Patches of gray daylight were ticking into the roof faster than he could count. “We can’t stay in here.” Harley looked at the little shack. “An’ most of the house’ll be gone ’fore we get there.”

  “My momma ain’t here. She went over to the railroad station, an’ I better get over there in case she needs me.”

  “If you try to get past him, he’s liable to shoot you.”

  “Can’t be helped.” Mose pointed over their heads. The roof was disappearing before their eyes. “Can’t stay in here either. The sides’ll go next an’ it’ll fall in on us.”

  Harley pointed at the water trough. “The wind ain’t gonna blow away that concrete. Let’s get in there.”

  Mose shook his head. “You stay there. I gotta go make sure my momma’s gonna be all right.”

  The rain was holding off, but the force of the wind was increasing. They looked through the door—Henry was on the move again.

  “I’m gonna circle around the house an’ get behind him, then run up the street.” Mose was having to yell. “He won’t ever see me.”

  “Follow me as far as the water trough,” yelled Harley.

  Mose nodded.

  Harley yelled something and ran from the barn with Mose and the dog at his heels. The bigger boy had taken only a few steps when the wind knocked him backward into Mose. They rolled a few feet, then got to their hands and knees and started crawling. Mose yelled something Harley couldn’t hear.

  Small pebbles and sand were blowing across the yard, stinging their faces and making it difficult to see. They moved side by side, almost on their stomachs. The dog was out front, head down, going for the trough. They could see Nash Henry in a ditch by the street, one arm wrapped around a medium-sized oak, the other hand holding on to the shotgun. Mr. Saucier’s cows broke through the fence on the far side of the pasture and were running headlong down the slope toward Big Black Creek.

  The weather system moving toward them spawned four major tornadoes. One went through the middle of Natchez, tearing up everything it touched along a path seven hundred yards across and a hundred miles long.

  It wasn’t the big one.

  The largest of the four twisters would, in years to come, become known as The Great South Mississippi Tornado. It hit Amite, Louisiana at midday and came close to wiping out the town. It crossed the Pearl River between one thirty and two o’clock, moving northeasterly into Mississippi, gaining energy by the second. Within fifteen minutes of crossing the Pearl it was cutting a swath of destruction two and a half miles wide and coming up on Big Black Creek.

  The boys and dog made it to the trough and peeked around the side, trying to locate the source of the loud roar.

  They huddled in the limited protection offered by the trough. Mose put his mouth against Harley’s ear and yelled, “I can make it from here.”

  Harley twisted so he could yell back. “You can’t even stand up.” Harley didn’t want to threaten his friend, but he’d use force if he had to. “I’m bad sorry, Mose, but I can’t let you do it. I’m bigger’n you, an’ I’ll hold you down ’fore I’ll let you get blown away.”

  “Don’t do it.” Mose shook his head forcefully. “If you try to stop me, Lady won’t know not to bite you, an’ it might be bad.”

  Harley yelled his prayer in Mose’s ear, “Lord, don’t let him do this here thing; he’ll get hurt for sure. An’, Lord, I’d sure like to come out of this without gettin’ bit too bad.”

  Lady was on her belly, tight against the side of the trough. When Harley finished his prayer, he looked at the dog and yelled, “Don’t you bite me, Lady.” The dog opened one eye as the white boy grabbed Mose around the neck and pinned him to the ground.

  Before Mose could react, Lady abandoned him and made a leap for the inside of the trough. The wind caught her at the apex of her jump and flipped her over the low wall. She scrambled up, braced her feet against the side, and barked at the boys. The wind blew her back into the tank.

  Dust filled the boys’ open mouths as they stared first at where the dog had appeared and then at each other.

  Harley tried to spit out the dirt and got saliva blown into his face. He yelled, “God wants you in that tank, Mose!”

  “Amen!” yelled Mose.

  They fought the wind and followed the dog, grunting and clawing their way over the low wall.

  Lady was pressed against the west side of the tank, hunkered down as low as she could get. They crawled on their bellies to where she was and peered over the side.

  The rain wasn’t as heavy as it was going to get, and they could see the dark outline of the trees that followed the creek. The tornado chose that moment to explode through the edge of the timber; the rain and mist parted like a curtain, and the thing started up the slope. Mose gasped, “Have mercy.”

  Both boys had heard old-timers talk about tornadoes, but nothing could have prepared them for the monster moving toward them. The funnel wasn’t hanging from a thunderstorm; it was the storm. The body of it was undulating slowly, almost casually; the lower edge seemed to boil the dirt, turning it into an angry eruption of reddish-brown steam. Full-grown trees by the thousand
s were being uprooted or broken off. Some were cast aside; others were hundreds of feet off the ground, circulating in the edges of the rotating cloud.

  Fighting their way from the barn to the tank sucked out the boys’ energy; the sight of the storm emptied their hearts. It was less than two miles away and coming fast.

  Harley dropped to the bottom of the tank on his stomach, his hands pressed against his ears, his eyes tightly closed. Mose heard a high whine from somewhere above him and looked up in time to see the first blade depart the windmill, cleaving the air like a blunt arrow. In the next instant the unbalanced fan came apart, shedding wooden shrapnel in all directions before the boy could think to protect himself.

  A constant barrage of lightning stabbed at the air from the sides of the tornado. Mr. Saucier’s cows had vanished.

  Flying barn doors and wagons were visible now, mixing with the trees—tumbling, spinning. The sound became a physical force, a demonic howl beyond deafening. A huge oak landed at the back edge of the yard and rolled down the hill behind the barn. The little water trough was centered in the storm’s path.

  The funnel was halfway up the hill when Nash Henry turned loose of the tree and pointed the shotgun at the cloud. Two silent spurts of flame and smoke belched from the shotgun. As Mose watched, the wind seized the poor man and rolled him down the street, slamming him into a lamppost. He wrapped his arms around the post, clinging to it, his mouth open in a soundless scream. In the next instant, the gale lifted him off the ground, then snatched him away from the post.

  Mose pressed himself against the far side of the trough, looking up at the savage black mass. It was coming up the hill too fast, closing on the edge of the pasture across the street. He held his hands tightly against his ears but couldn’t keep out the wind’s scream. His momma’s little wooden shack flew apart as if bursting from fright. His mouth moved as he watched the storm, but he couldn’t hear his own words. Lord, I’m close to dyin’, an’ I can’t think of what to pray. I know You’re close, but I’m scared. If I die, please take care of my momma and my Pap. Amen. A tenacious strobe of lightning clawed at the barn, ripping huge sections off the sides and top. An instant later, the wind tore away what the lightning had left.

  When it reached the top of the hill, the lower edge of the funnel continued following its upward trajectory and moved into the air above the corral. The crushing roar became a hissing sound and the ground stopped shaking. When it came over the water trough, the bottom of the tornado was more than a hundred feet above them, still moving eastward. Harley hadn’t moved. Mose was on his back, scrooched down as far as he could get; he took his hands off his ears and wrapped his arms around Lady. The opening in the bottom of the funnel was passing directly over him.

  The nightmare overhead swallowed the daylight and the world was midnight black.

  The feeling he was looking into a deep well gripped him—it was accompanied by the sensation of spinning slowly in space, falling into the black pit. He felt dizzy and wrapped his arms more tightly around the dog. He wanted to scream, but he was too terrified—the storm might hear him and pluck him away.

  The inside of the storm was a portrait of evil in motion—a horrible masterpiece offered by a demented artist. Lightning flashes worked their way up and down the interior walls and pulsed from side to side. The thousands of bright electric veins appeared like cracks in shattered mirrors, illuminating the depths for a long heartbeat while their Designer prepared a million more to feed the sucking void.

  Clusters of small tornadoes, angry at being held in check by the monster storm, whipped and snapped from the lower fringes of the rotating column. The hissing sound was coming from these miniature killers.

  The dreadful opening was past the crest of the little hill within seconds, descending as it moved, seeking the ground. The earth resumed its quaking when it touched down. The trees on the back side of the lot were tossed into the air like a splash of dark green liquid.

  A thick curtain of rain followed on the heels of the black cloud, eventually obscuring the tornado and muting its roar.

  It was headed for downtown.

  Quiet came to the tiny round refuge.

  The leaves and accumulated trash in the trough were gone.

  The dog stirred first. She pushed herself to a sitting position, and the boys sat up with her. The three peered over the edge of the trough, looking toward the creek, surveying the approach path of the storm. Holes in the fast-moving cloud cover allowed rays of sunshine to highlight the destruction.

  Lady jumped over the concrete wall and shook herself. The boys stood up, looked long at each other, then turned in a slow circle.

  Nothing was left of the little house or the barn. As far as they could see not a single house remained. The trees were gone; the ground was bare. All that was left was their water trough.

  Harley looked at his hands. Every trace of the dried blood from his nose had been polished away by blowing dust, even the residue under his fingernails was gone.

  The unnatural silence was almost as frightening as the maelstrom.

  Mose tried to speak, but his throat was too dry. He finally managed to croak, “I better get down to the train station. My momma might need me.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Harley was hoarse too. “I can go on home from there.”

  Mose put out his hand. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead.”

  When they shook hands, Harley could only nod.

  A suggestion of warm drizzle was all that was left of the storm. The air around them smelled of freshly cut grass.

  The roof was damaged on the new courthouse, and the windows were blown out. The remainder of the business district was completely obliterated. The small handful of homes that hadn’t flattened or carried away were severely damaged.

  The railroad depot had been rolled across the tracks, leaving little more than an unrecognizable scattering of lumber. Boone Finley, Mose’s mother, and two other black people had sought refuge in a railroad boxcar. The car was thrown a hundred and fifty yards, killing all four.

  Harley Crawford’s family survived.

  Gilmer, Elise, and Julia Austin were among the dozens of people who had sought refuge in the courthouse. They, along with the three horses taken inside by their owners, were safe.

  Mr. W. B. Allsworth and Mr. F. J. Calhoun rode their horses ten miles to Richburg to tell what happened. Four hours after the storm hit, an N.O. & N.E. train arrived from Hattiesburg carrying doctors, nurses, and medical supplies.

  The courthouse doubled as a hospital and morgue.

  Trains came and went around the clock on Saturday—along with a steady stream of wagons—bringing tents, food, and rescue workers from as far away as Jackson. The badly injured were moved to the two hospitals in Hattiesburg. The trains and wagons kept coming. Two days earlier the population of Purvis had been two thousand; by Sunday evening thirty-five hundred people were living and working there.

  Rescue parties started combing through the devastation before the storm was out of sight; the efforts went on day and night. Somber, mud-covered men came too frequently to the square—bringing wagons burdened with the lifeless bodies of men, women, and children. The workers would stay long enough to take a few bites of food and drink a cup of coffee before going back out. For the first two days the sound of weeping and wailing never ceased.

  By Monday the area was taking on the appearance of an orderly refugee camp. The National Guard and Army set up bivouac areas; row after row of white tents were spread in all directions. Wagons loaded with blankets and clothing were stationed around the courthouse. Food lines were open all day. Dozens of small fires dotted the tent city. Women and children huddled by the fires in small groups, talking and praying in low voices. The men and boys dug through pile after pile of rubble, all hoping to find one more survivor.

  Monday evening the sky was black and moonless. Hundreds of kerosene lanterns moved to and fro through the town; that many more hung from poles among the tents.
A thin layer of smoke hung low over the area, casting back a reflection of the glow from the fires. Every few hours, the night’s peace would be cut by a plaintive wail—the signal another body had been found.

  Just east of the courthouse, a small black boy and his dog lay in the mud by one of the small fires; a white boy, equally unmindful of the mud, lay on the other side of the fire. The boys had spent the past three days doing men’s work—the dog was fairly clean, but the boys were muddy from their ears down. The fire they used for comfort wasn’t near their regular tent, but the tents all looked alike at night, and they weren’t sure where theirs was . . . and they were too tired to care.

  A suggestion of a breeze, barely strong enough to stir the open flames, drifted through the encampment from the southwest.

  South of the courthouse, just west of the Pass Christian Road, an old black man was moving slowly through a collection of tents pitched on the ground where “The Quarters” had been. He was looking for a black boy and his mother, and it made sense to start his search in the colored section of the temporary town. The old man was dressed for church; he wore a brown suit and hat and a loose-fitting white shirt with a tie. He walked with the help of a thick walking stick, picking his way carefully through the mud, stopping here and there to ask a few questions.

  The boy didn’t stir when the dog lifted her head. She stood up and sniffed the air, then moved to the other side of the fire. The wind confirmed what she suspected, and she blew through her nose to wake the boy. When he didn’t move, she trotted off by herself.

  A group of bone-weary black men sat around a fire, eating stew out of tin plates and drinking lukewarm coffee. One or two looked up when the old man stopped near their circle. He had to be the only man in town wearing a tie, but he didn’t look out of place.