“We’re in here!” Nana’s frail voice called.
Eden followed the sound to the large hall closet, opened it to find Nana and Papaw much as she had been, surrounded by a nest of pillows, wrapped up in Nana’s quilt.
“It’s over.” Eden breathed. “You can come out now.”
“Did it hit?” Papaw’s clear eyes were wide, worried.
“No. Not in Mammoth.” Not on Riverview, anyway, but she didn’t need to share her worries with them at present. “We’re OK.”
Nana nodded, dragged herself out of the windowless room, and then stood to fold her quilt with shaking hands.
Eden grabbed a corner, folding the queen-sized friendship quilt into a tiny square. “Thank you, Eden. You’re a good girl.”
“I’m gonna head to the diner to check things out down there.” Eden inhaled long, exhaled deeper. “You OK?”
“Go on.” Nana helped Papaw to his chair. “We’ll be fine.”
“Get the phone, Naomi.” Papaw squeezed her hand, eyes going distant. “I’m in the middle of the crossword.”
“He was with me during the storm a bit.” Her grandmother’s gaze drooped with exhaustion. Or grief. “We even talked.”
Eden swept her up in a hug, tighter than Nana usually allowed.
“Don’t worry about me, child.” Bird light, Nana wrapped arms around, and held on. “I’m all right.”
Like hugging a ghost. Eden forced her mind away from that horrible notion and released her. “You always are.”
27
Jake sat on the quilt-covered earthen floor, Lilah’s head on his shoulder, and stared at the crack in the overhead doors. Waning strands of daylight touched them through hairline cracks from up above. No sign of wind, the rain a subtle patter on the wood, he strained to hear other sounds of life.
Lilah dozed off. The soft, lovely bow of her lips curved up at the corners.
He wondered what she dreamed about. He wondered if he could ever make her smile that way. Or if, by some chance, his dream self was the reason.
A girl like Lilah was worth waiting for. His mind raced to Margaret and how opposite his former wife was when compared to Lilah’s subtle beauty. Margaret, with her pulled together confidence. Even when caught cheating, Margaret had maintained the upper hand. Her voice rang in his head, “You live too much in your emotions, Jacob; ever the optimist, only seeing what you want to see.”
Maybe that was true. Perhaps the storm was God’s way of showing him he’d planned too much for this little community. But it wasn’t as if he were bringing snakes to kiss, or planning a massive healing event. He simply wanted room for all. To allow the casual wanderer to drift in, see what all that music was about, and find Jesus waiting in the tents. Softening hearts of the faithful, opening the locked places of those who’d never witnessed such a gathering. And really, wasn’t that what he wanted? God to manifest Himself in some miraculous, physical way? He’d heard about such things before—lay pastors at his home church often spoke of it. Pastor Pingry went on at length about seeing the Holy Spirit wash over his group of pastors in a wave of light.
Jake’s heart surged. What pastor wouldn’t want to see such a thing? To know, beyond measure, that the Lord was with them? Really with them. Beyond a subtle feeling, or a stirring in his gut. And wasn’t that vanity in its purest form, trying to force such a thing into happening?
A cloud-strained sunbeam crossed Lilah’s cheek. Cool, gray light stroked her gentle features. She sighed. One arm flopped over his lap, and her fingertip wove its way through his belt loop. Tugged tight. Her body, warm against his side, her head on his shoulder, curling hair tangled in his two-day growth of beard.
What had this poor girl gone through since she’d returned home? Persecuted for wandering and her failed marriage, yet saying nothing. She faced the masses on a daily basis with subtle strength and kindness. Sometimes sad, sometimes angry, but she always showed up, making her daily specials to please herself, if no one else cared to order them. Did she realize she glorified God just by her own personal act of creation, with the faith that perhaps one day someone might order what she’d made? Isn’t that what had drawn them together in the first place?
Her eyes blinked open. Found him staring down.
“Whoops.” She yawned, covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK.” He kissed the top of her head, gave her a long squeeze, and then got up to stand at the bottom of the stairs. “I think the worst is over.”
Behind the peace of the subterranean doors, her shoulders quivered in a shiver-shake. There was so much he still didn’t know about her. About the town.
And now, they’d spent the whole storm together underground?
As if she read his thoughts, she shook her head and yawned. “Nu-uh, Pastor. The worst’s just starting.”
~*~
The power remained out, Nana’s great room lit only by the fading light seeping through the paned windows, their million-dollar view leveled to downed trees, toppled patio furniture strewn across the lawn, and blown corrugated metal wedged into crevasses and rocky crags down the slope.
“Lilah?” Nana appeared around the corner, little brown glass in hand, ice clinking as she walked. Her hair was mussed, the only sign of anything wrong.
“Are you guys OK?” She swept her grandmother up in a hug.
“Fine.” Nana pushed free from her granddaughter’s grasp. “Papaw’s resting. Just gave him his pill.”
“Naomi!” he called from the bedroom. “Rebecca’s not in her room…” His voice trailed off.
Nana met Lilah’s questioning gaze, shook her head, and took a sip from the glass. “It’s the storm. The weather. He’s already having a time enough, and this—well. It makes things worse.”
“Can I do anything for you?” She outstretched a hand.
“He just needs rest.” Nana’s fingers clutched her glass. “He has an appointment in West Plains tomorrow. Maybe you can go with us.”
“I’d like that.” Lilah stiffened, lip quivering. She caught and captured Nana’s faltering gaze. “I want to be here for you. It’s why I’m back.”
“Is it?” Nana challenged, voice shaking. “Where were you during the storm? Eden came to check on us first, and then she set off to see if she could help in town. Eden’s never needed anything but her family.”
So many comments flew to her lips, impossible to choose just the right barb to sling back. Fighting with her grandmother was as easy as breathing. Still, this wasn’t the time or place. “I’ll check on you later.”
Turning on her heel, Lilah raced out of the house, over to Eden’s, and found it empty. A bathtub full of pillows showed where she’d weathered the brunt of the storm.
Across the street, Jake yanked at a tree limb. It budged, but only slightly.
“Let me help.”
“Thanks.”
Together, they tugged, moved the branch, and freed up the parking shed. He hauled open the doors where his yellow, dusty truck sat, covered in a layer of globs of leaves and wet dirt dislodged in the wind and leaky roof. Mud streaked, but drivable.
“Cell towers are out, too.” Jake frowned as he checked his phone. “Anyone across the street?”
“Eden’s on her way into town.” She frowned at Jake’s dented, rusty vehicle. “Might be better to just walk down, see how everyone fared.”
“Truck’s got a winch.” He dragged out a thinly populated key chain. “Extra gas, water, supplies. Former Boy Scout.” Jake three-fingered a salute to prove it.
“Always prepared?”
“Never hurts.”
“They’ll have gathered at the high school,” Lilah guessed, joining him in the truck cab. “Anyone without somewhere to go heads there in time of trouble.”
Jake stared at the ominous sky, a worried crease in his brow.
“Don’t worry.” She squeezed his hand. “The storm’s not coming back.”
“I’m not worried about that. But loo
k where it’s been.” Across the river, she saw the source of his obvious agony. The carnival. The Ferris wheel remained straight and tall, as did the tents and midway structures. Up on the hilltop, however, was another story. The Revival tents were ripped to shreds. White canvas flicked, flags of surrender in a wicked wind.
“Jake...” Her heart sank.
All of their work, all of their plans now blown to ruin.
He nodded, swallowed, and turned the truck key. “It’s just a tent.”
“But your Revival...”
“My Revival?” He cocked his head, stared at her with hazel eyes gone stormy. “It’s not my Revival. It’s for Him. From all of us. Doesn’t anyone in this crazy town understand that?” The engine revved and he backed out a bit too fast for comfort.
He leaned closer to see as the wiper blades smeared brown sludge back and forth.
She said nothing—merely hung on to the loose armrest.
~*~
Luke blinked at the generator-run lights, their rattling muffled from inside the gymnasium walls. A crowd of about fifty people huddled on the bleachers and sipped water from paper cups filled from the orange power drink containers usually reserved for the basketball team. A group of Mammoth’s seniors shot hoops.
The computer lab teacher, Mr. McPhearson, looked up from his laptop with a frown. “No internet. No cellphones, either.”
Principal Quentin Marshall spun the handle on an emergency radio, twisted the dial until an AM newscast crackled out of the small speaker.
A trio of adults hunkered close to listen, and Luke joined them.
“What a difference ten years makes, huh, Luke?” Mr. Marshall clapped him on the shoulder. “Luke here was the basketball star, class of two-thousand-ancient-history. There was a time you’d be steering that game of ‘horse’ over there in your favor.”
Luke ducked his head at the attention. “Time was.”
The others jabbed about the lost state championship game—the one that got away.
Luke’s thoughts drifted. Part of him still regretted the decisions made by a boy in love, the stupidity of youth, and all the dubious consequences that came along with one fateful choice.
He watched four high school kids jab and jeer at each other, wistful at how blissfully oblivious of the storm they were, ignorant at how quickly their confident little universe could end.
The radio found purchase, spat out a weather report through whining static. “...missed northern Fulton county…Thayer was hit hard by what area experts are claiming was a class four tornado. Damage is still being assessed...”
“Class four?” Quentin straightened and hitched his belt loops up.
“Yeah,” agreed Scott, who matched Luke in size, but outweighed him. “Day I asked Emma to marry me? That class five came through. Took out farms and houses, tore through the Hardy theater.”
“Probably God telling the angels to cover their eyes,” Quentin ribbed. “As you two were off to overpopulate the planet.”
Luke caught Scott’s warning glare that no one else noticed.
“Thayer’s built of strong stuff,” Scott continued in even tones.
“Tell that to the folks who got hit.” Luke headed over to the doors. “I’m trying dispatch again.”
Outside the gym, howling wind still raged. He eyed the parking lot up the slight rise of hill, surveying trees knocked down. Cars parked every which way—the ambulance boxed in by folks in a panic to find shelter. Squinting into the wind, he pressed the button on the radio at his shoulder. “Jenny, this is Luke. Come back?”
Static.
“Anything?” Jeremy stuck his head out.
Luke shook his head.
“We may as well stay here, man.” Jeremy scanned the massing crowd with bulldog intensity.
Luke nodded. “Let’s see if any of the landlines have service.”
“I’ll go.” Jeremy disappeared inside and Luke followed. Jeremy, in the graduating class behind him, knew as well as he did where the phone bank was located.
Inside, the gym resonated with innocent laughter echoing from the kids playing basketball. Their naiveté bounced from the rafters around the room. No worries past Friday’s game.
He unclipped his walkie, laid it on a bench, sauntered over to them, and held a palm out for the ball.
“Give it to him, see what he’s got.” A kid in gym shorts seemed the alpha player. With shrugs and some “old man” comments, the lanky kid in possession bounce-passed it to him and leaned over, gripping an imaginary walker.
The leather filled Luke’s hand, its rugged surface a familiar fit. He dribbled once, twice, three times, passing one hand to the other. He eyed the square above the basket, then one-move swished the ball through. “That’s H.”
He caught the ball on the rebound and winked at the kid who’d been walker-mocking. “I’ll just be a sec.”
He made it to “S” without missing a beat. Or breaking a sweat.
The boys exchanged surprised glances as he swished “E.”
Luke dribbled out of the paint and back, and when he faced the bucket, the teenagers had shut their mouths and now gathered in a half-circle, cheering and waving their arms to distract. Luke held the ball aloft, eyeing the angle, when he heard a thud and shriek. He hesitated, ball still eye level.
“Come on, man,” the short, heavyset kid called. “Shoot!”
“Just a sec.”
Luke rolled the ball on his palms, spun around and surveyed the crowd, ears tuned for signs of distress.
“He just knows he’s gonna miss,” Alpha jabbed. “I’ll give you five bucks if you make that shot.”
Luke’s chest brewed with the challenge, but his ears perked. Someone was crying. He scanned the room and caught sight of a small girl in the back of the room. Two adults—her parents, most likely—hunched over her. The mother looked worried, bordering on frantic.
“Be right back.” Luke bounced the ball to the short kid and trotted toward the family.
“If you quit, you lose, man!” Short kid wedged the ball under his arm.
“Yeah,” the other ones agreed, but their jibes died as they watched him hurry off.
Luke made it to the couple in quick strides. “Now what happened here?”
“Our Bethie slipped. Cut her head.” The mother pressed a napkin to the wound already seeping with her daughter’s bright red blood.
The girl sobbed hysterical gasps.
“Hey, kiddo.” Luke knelt in front of the child. He turned to her worried mother with a nod. “I’ve got a first aid badge with your name on it, if you let me guess your name.”
“You know my name?” The brown-haired girl hiccupped.
He dragged his bag over, assessed the injury, and darted a glance at her mother, who mouthed at him. “Sure. It’s—Mildred, right?”
“No.” She frowned at him and hissed as he dabbed ointment.
“Gertrude?”
That brought a giggle. “Guess again.”
He kept her distracted while he cleaned and dressed her sliced forehead, and then proceeded to wrap a sling around her arm.
“My arm’s not hurt.” She laughed, proving it with an elbow flex.
“Oh, then maybe it was your big toe.” He reached a hand out to her foot, and her giggles doubled. A few minutes later, he wrote Bethie on a sticker and pasted it to her shirt. He pointed at his nameplate over his pocket. “Just like a real paramedic.”
The girl threw her arms around his neck and squeezed, as did her mother.
Across the gym, the boys finished the game. Shorty won. Alpha spun the ball on his finger, shot, and missed another basket. A series of ribs and jabs met the air ball.
This was why he quit.
After that fateful night, witnessing three totaled cars at the bottom of Deadman’s Curve, helping the medics on scene, how could he do anything else? No double-double could ever match the feeling of helping someone in need. He might not wear an army uniform, like the guys she favored, but he did h
is share of good in this world.
The gym doors opened and Eden appeared in a slice of daylight, dressed in pink shorts and a white work blouse, eyes wide, searching. She needed something. He steeled himself for the force of her, watched her scan the room, seeking familiar faces out and giving them a squeeze, celebrating together that the worst of the storm had passed.
She was a whirlwind of hugs and well wishes. The doors opened behind her, folks milled about, gathered their belongings and headed home.
The five carnies milled together. One poured a little something extra into her Gatorade cup.
Luke stepped to them. “Storm’s over.”
“Just like that.” The older man raised an eyebrow. “We could have ridden that out in our camp, Maya.”
“Better safe than sorry, Dad.” The girl—sixteen if she was a day, with curves of a twenty-year-old and makeup to match—turned back to him. “Thanks for bringing us here.”
“You never know with these storms.”
“Still, I know how the townies feel about us.” Maya dipped her gaze and then stared up through long lashes. “You’re a good man, Luke.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s all this about?” Eden marched up, hands on her hips. A little limp in her progress; he spied her wrapped ankle.
“I was just thanking one of Mammoth’s finest.” Maya stood tiptoe and kissed him full on the mouth.
Luke pushed the girl back, startled, and blotted his lips as if it would wipe away Eden’s obvious disapproval. “I’m not a cop.”
“Who said you were?” Maya swished her way back to her father and the rest.
His gaze remained glued to her backside, though it was the last place in the world he intended on staring. He hazarded a glance and met Eden’s withering gaze.
“I’d ask who the blazes that was, but she’s just a child, so it shouldn’t bother me none.”
“Shouldn’t bother you none, anyway.” Luke rubbed his jaw. Inside, his heart skipped just knowing Eden was safe. Outside, he fought to maintain an even keel to his expression. “You OK?”
She held out her foot, gave it a flex. “Just an old war wound.” She blew at her bangs. A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, she reached and squeezed his hand. “We’re still friends, right?”
Mammoth Secrets Page 15