by Susan Harper
“Sorry, ma’am,” Junior said. “Bo has been attached to my side ever since he was a pup.”
Jesse, who had also been sitting on the floor, smiled at him. “That’s so sweet,” she said, her eyes twinkling a bit.
Kendell could see both Monica and Laurie glare in Jesse’s direction. Kendell shook her head. Jesse had a tendency to go after guys with crazy ex-girlfriends, and here Junior was with both an ex and a potential future girlfriend lurking over his shoulder shooting Jesse don’t-you-dare looks, but that wasn’t stopping her. Once, in their early days of being flight attendants, Jesse had started dating a pilot who, as it turned out, was just getting out of a marriage with a woman who should probably have been in a ward. She set the man’s car on fire, or at least, what she thought was his new car. It was actually Jesse’s. Insurance gave her a hard time about that one, but eventually caved.
Brenton and Mary came and plopped down while Junior worked on setting up a Monopoly board. “Really, Junior? Monopoly?” Laurie asked.
“You don’t have to play,” Junior said over his shoulder. “If you had left when you were supposed to, you wouldn’t be stuck here watching me play your least favorite board game.”
Monica laughed. “I’ll play,” she said, sitting beside Junior on the opposite side from Jesse. This caused Laurie to stiffen; she did not look the least bit pleased to see not one but two girls curled up close to her ex.
The storm outside was really starting to pick up, and after only a few minutes into Monopoly, the power went out. “Great,” Mr. Carson mumbled.
“You got that backup generator?” Mr. Johnson asked.
The large fire they were all sitting by provided the crowded room with more than enough heat and light, but with the large feast of leftovers they had placed inside the fridge, Kendell imagined they wouldn’t want any of it to spoil. “Nope,” Mrs. Carson said, glancing up at his neighbor from across the room with this grin that simultaneously looked like an annoyed glare. “Someone borrowed it and never brought it back.”
“Oh, shoot, sorry about that,” Mr. Johnson said, shaking his head. “That’s my bad. I completely forgot to bring it back. I’ll get it to you next week.”
“Not really doing us a whole lot of good right now,” Mr. Carson said, and his wife elbowed him and told him to behave.
Desperate to avoid any confrontation building in the room, Kendell offered a change of subject. “So, earlier this evening, you were all herding the cattle somewhere safe for the storm? Where did you send them?” she asked.
Mr. Carson smiled. “Well, back in my youth, the family had a large barn we’d herd them all in, but that got to be too small as our herd grew. Plus, we got Johnson’s herd out there too. When Junior and Brenton were, oh, I don’t know how old you boys were…”
“About twelve,” Brenton said with a friendly smile in his neighbor’s direction.
“That’s right,” Mr. Carson said. “Well, the boys were supposed to be working, but you can’t get boys to do nothing at that age except get into trouble. There are some rocky areas on my family’s property we hadn’t never paid too much attention to because it’s no good for the herds and you can’t drive on it. No grass. No water. Nothing all that useful. Anyway, the boys were up playing that way when the ground caved in.”
“Dad, you forgot, Monica was there too,” Junior said, smiling at the girl beside him.
“Oh, yes, that’s right,” Mr. Carson said. “Back in the day, Monica’s family owned another ranch nearby. She was just as much of a troublemaker as those two boys over there. She snuck off her ranch to come chase these two boys around. I can’t believe I forgot you were there; she’s the one who came running down to the homestead looking for me to come fetch the boys out of the giant hole they had fallen in. I sent Mary to the Johnsons’ farm to let them know our boys had gotten into trouble, and we all reconvened on the rocky planes.”
“What does this have to do with herding your cattle for the storm?” Jesse asked, smiling.
“Oh, I’m getting there,” Mr. Carson said. “So, anyway, we pull the boys out. Turns out, there was a whole cavern system. It’s not so much a mountain area--not really somewhere you’d expect a bunch of caves. We did a little investigating and found that, apart from where the boys fell in, the place was real sturdy. Plenty of coverage. And, since most of its underground, perfectly safe during a storm for a large number of cattle. We haven’t ever lost one single cow in a storm thanks to those caves; not one other local rancher can say the same.”
“I feel mighty blessed that the Carsons let us use the caverns during the storms too,” Mr. Johnson said. “The way our ranch floods every time it rains…” He shook his head.
“We should really do something about that sometime soon,” Brenton said. “I’m thinking about renting some equipment to dig a trench to lead the water somewhere other than our fields and our house.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Johnson said, smiling at his son. “If you can figure it out, by all means son, go for it. I’m getting too old for this nonsense.”
Kendell laughed, then turned to Monica. “So, your family are ranchers too?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “Dad sold his ranch when I was still in high school. Made a good bit of money off it to retire early, but my mom still teaches in Dallas. I sure do miss the rancher life, though,” she said, eyes gleaming in Junior’s direction; Junior tried to avoid eye contact.
“So, you three pretty much grew up together?” Kendell asked Brenton, Junior, and Monica. They all laughed and began sharing some of their misadventures growing up as local ranch kids. All three of them had been homeschooled until Monica’s mother got a job teaching in the city. They told funny stories about being in 4H together and doing things with a local homeschool group. But even with all the social interaction the three spent a lot of time together at each other’s houses. Preferring that over all the scheduled activities.
“How about you, Laurie?” Jesse asked. “How do you know the family?”
Laurie scowled a bit. “Junior and I dated, obviously.”
“How did you meet, I mean,” Jesse said.
“Through Monica,” Laurie said with a huff. “She and I used to be friends.”
Monica rolled her eyes. “After I started high school in Dallas, I met Laurie. We were both on the soccer team. I introduced her to Junior.”
Awkward, Kendell thought. It was clear that Monica and Junior had been a sort of boy-next-door story in which Junior had been and was still uninterested and Monica had probably accidentally set him up with Laurie, much to her disappointment. Poor Junior seemed embarrassed to have both girls there, and he was now really starting to focus all his attention on Jesse to try to give the two of them a hint.
Brenton scooted a bit closer to Laurie, who had not joined them on the floor but was instead taking up a large loveseat all on her own; no one seemed willing to sit with the bitter ex-girlfriend who had wound up getting stuck. “So, Laurie, how’s life in Dallas been treating you?” Brenton asked, a flirty smile etched on his face.
“No,” she said.
He huffed and scooted away, rejoining the game.
Kendell had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. The group dynamic here was quite hilarious. She glanced over at Pauline, who was sitting across the way in one of the lounge chairs, her feet still propped up. Dot had jumped out of her lap by now and was currently tugging on Bo’s ear. Bo was doing his best to ignore the small dog that was clearly a nuisance to him.
As the Monopoly game continued and conversation somewhat died down, Kendell was beginning to feel sleepy. Just as she was about to request sleeping arrangements, there was a loud clacking sound outside. Mr. Carson jumped up and darted toward the window. “Oh, holy hell,” he said under his breath. “We got a tornado! Folks, to the cellar!” he roared, and everyone jumped up.
Mrs. Carson and Mrs. Johnson ran for the kitchen, snatching old milk jugs full of water to toss over the fire. Junior, Brenton, and Monica sp
rang into action, running for a hall closet to grab emergency flashlights. Laurie was shrieking nervously. Pauline picked up Dot, and the next thing Kendell knew, they were all darting outside after Mr. Carson, who was leading the way around the house toward the outdoor entrance to their cellar.
Kendell glanced out across the field, and sure enough, there was a twister heading their way that looked so frightening she could have sworn she had just been dropped onto the set of the Wizard of Oz. “Oh, crud!” Kendell yelped, one of the last of the ladies to make her way into the underground cellar in the darkness. Their only light during their sprint to the cellar was from the occasional bolt of lightning striking not too far away.
Junior and his father closed the wooden panels above them, and they all crowded in the small storage room. A flashlight flickered on, and Kendell could see Jesse’s face. “I’m never going on vacation with you again,” Jesse muttered to Kendell, and Kendell actually managed to smile despite the grim circumstances.
They could feel the ground shaking, and the whirling wind outside was so loud that Kendell placed her hands over her ears.
“It’s right on top of us!” Pauline yelped, sounding almost excited rather than afraid. That was Pauline for you.
The storm went on through most of the night. So much for getting any sleep tonight, Kendell thought miserably. When at last the storm settled down, it was morning. Kendell had drifted off, for how long she wasn’t sure, with her head lying on Bo, who had been more than willing to act as her pillow. Mr. Johnson and Brenton tried to open the doors, but they were stuck. “Something fell on us,” Mr. Johnson groaned.
Junior and Mr. Johnson helped them force open the doors. It turned out it was an old tractor tire blocking them in. Thankfully, nothing too heavy to permanently confine them. Kendell looked out around them as the light blinded her a bit. The ranch was an absolute mess, and there was a trampoline, of all things, crashed through the front porch window. “You guys own a trampoline?” Kendell asked.
“We do now,” Junior teased, and Jesse giggled a bit.
Then, Jesse screamed. Everyone jumped, startled from the sudden outburst. She pointed down into the cellar where Monica remained. Kendell looked, and sure enough, Monica was still lying down in the cellar.
She was dead.
5
The first thing everyone tried to do was call the police, but of course after the storm, the phones were not operational. Mr. Carson imagined that the phone lines were down, and cell reception out that way was completely non-existent. Out of respect for Monica, they covered her up so that no one could gawk at her for any reason. Mrs. Carson went down and got flowers from the fields to lay on her.
“How could someone have gotten away with stabbing her with all of us crowded together in this tiny room?” Kendell questioned out loud. It had been pitch-black, and they hadn’t really used the flashlights much as some of them had actually attempted to sleep through the night, knowing the storm would provide them with plenty of work to do the next morning.
Kendall looked around at the sobbing families. It was hard to imagine something like this. They had all been snuggled up together in that room all night, and no one had even noticed that something was amiss. Monica had been killed, and no one had noticed until the next morning when she had been the only one not to emerge from their dark hiding spot.
Kendell and Junior left the cellar after Mrs. Carson laid flowers on the girl’s stomach, and the three of them closed the wooden latches behind them. “What are we going to do, Pa?” Junior asked his father.
The man looked angry. Everyone did. Kendell studied each person’s face, trying to read through them. “Well, we can’t get through to the police. And, even if we could, they probably wouldn’t be able to get down this way.”
“First things first, we need to find out if any of the roads or paths out of here are clear,” Mr. Johnson said. “And if they ain’t, we need to clear one.”
“I agree,” Mr. Carson said.
“But what are we supposed to do here?” Mrs. Carson asked through her tears. “Someone killed that girl!”
“I know,” Mr. Carson said, looking around cautiously. His eyes seemed to linger on Pauline, Jesse, and Kendell. They were the strange out-of-towners, after all, so Kendell couldn’t blame the mistrusting gaze they were receiving. “For now, everyone pitches in. We got to get the herd back down from the caves soon; they’ll start trampling each other if they’re locked up too long, and that’s our livelihood.”
“Clearing a path out of here is a lot more important than your stupid cows,” Laurie complained. “I mean, I get that’s your family’s business and everything, but someone was just killed. We need the police to be able to make it down this way once we’re able to call them.”
“What about this giant hole in the side of our house?” Junior pointed at the mystery trampoline that apparently no one on the ranch owned. “If it rains again, our whole kitchen and living room will flood.”
“And look!” Mary cried, pointing out toward the yard. “Looks like the chicken coop got busted. We have to mend that and catch our chickens. And we need to check to see if the herd’s fence needs mending, and who knows what sort of problems are at the Johnsons’ ranch!”
One by one someone pointed out something else that was damaged and Kendall could see what was happening. The death of Monica was too much to handle so these poor families were trying to focus on what they could handle – fixing the ranch. But she could see right through them. They were all on the verge of losing it.
Mr. Carson spoke loudly, interrupting the hysteria about to break loose. “All right, listen up! We have to divide and conquer here. First things first. Junior and…Jesse, you two go check on the cows’ fencing. Make sure there’s no damage there. Once you’re done with that, you two head on to the Johnsons’ farm and check on their fences too. Meanwhile, Johnson and I will head up to the herds and start leading them down here. If the gates are good, we’ll put both herds here until we can confirm that the Johnsons’ ranch is safe for his cattle too. Let’s see… Brenton, you think you and Ms. Kendell can handle getting that trampoline out of my living room?”
“We got this,” Kendell said, and Brenton nodded.
“All right, excellent. Mary, I’m going to have you go ahead and get going on coming up with a temporary fix on the chicken coop. Laurie, you and my wife can be on chicken-catching duty.”
“Joy,” Laurie moaned. “I’m sure I can help her catch some chickens. Not like I haven’t done that before.”
“Brenton, we got a lot of chickens, so once you and Kendell get a tarp up, help Laurie and my wife catch the rest of them,” Mr. Carson said. “I doubt they’ll be finished with that by the time you get that done.”
“What can I do?” Pauline asked.
“I was hoping, ma’am, that you wouldn’t mind helping Mrs. Johnson prepare everyone something to eat. We’re all going to miss breakfast, looks like, so I’m sure everyone would appreciate something hearty for lunch,” Mr. Carson said, and Pauline smiled.
“I hope you don’t mind a Georgia girl in your kitchen,” Pauline said to Mrs. Carson.
Mrs. Carson smiled. “Better you than one of these Yankee girls,” she said, winking at Kendell and Jesse.
“Okay, but what about the roads?” Laurie asked.
“Oh, yes, about forgot about the most important part,” Mr. Carson said. “Mrs. Johnson, you and Pauline mind taking my truck down the roads and finding out which ones are flooded and which ones we might be able to get out through before you start on food?”
“Looks like we’re on investigative duties,” Mrs. Johnson said to Pauline.
“All right, looks like everybody has a job,” Mr. Carson said. “Once we figured out where the herds are going, we’ll start working on the road situation.”
And, just like that, everyone’s duties were assigned to them. One thing Kendell learned quickly, Texans don’t dillydally. Brenton was dragging her off to get going on the tr
ampoline before she even had time to mentally review what she was supposed to be helping with that day. On the way to the front of the house, Kendell could hear Laurie moaning and groaning about having to chase chickens around her ex-boyfriend’s ranch.
Kendell shook her head as she and Brenton climbed onto the front porch to assess the damage. The trampoline itself seemed to be in good shape, but the metal bars had busted the window and had snapped a board up on the front porch. “This isn’t too bad,” Brenton said, eyeing the porch ceiling. “We’re lucky it didn’t break a beam and knock the whole porch cover down.”
“How in the world did it even manage to get onto the porch?” Kendell asked, not sure how they were going to wiggle this giant trampoline off the porch.
“I don’t think just the two of us are going to be able to move this,” he said and spun around, shouting for Laurie to come lend a hand. Mary hadn’t come up with a temporary repair for the chicken coop anyway, so it wasn’t like Laurie would have anywhere to put the chickens once she caught them. Between the three of them, and a lot of frustration, they were able to finally jiggle the trampoline off the porch and into the front yard. Once it stood upright, Kendell was pleased to see that the thing was not damaged.
“Where did a trampoline even come from?” Laurie asked. “The only other place around here is your family’s ranch,” she said to Brenton.
“We don’t have a trampoline. Twister must have picked it up from some poor kid’s yard before heading toward all the ranches. Whoever it belongs to is going to be really disappointed. This is a nice trampoline,” Brenton chuckled slightly.
“Whatever,” Laurie growled. “I’m going to go see if I can find those stupid chickens.” She stomped off, clearly not pleased to be having to do any work at the ranch.
“She sure is pleasant,” Kendell said under her breath.
“I mean, you can’t really blame her,” Brenton said. “She came over here to get a box of stuff Junior was threatening to trash and then bumped into Monica.”