Nan Ryan (36 page)

Her lips rounded into an O, eyes flashing blue fire, Helen looked at the graves, then at Kurt.

“You see those graves?” he said. “Look at them. Read what the marker says. Read it aloud. Do it.”

Helen swallowed hard. She glared at him, then stared at the graves of the Union soldiers. And finally in a shaky voice barely above a whisper, she read the epitaph:

“Yankee soldiers lie here in peace
,

Guests of strangers
,

Far from home
,

They too died for their country
”

Tears were already beginning to sting her eyes when Kurt said, “Like these unfortunate souls, your husband is buried in a grave somewhere in an alien field. Will Courtney is dead, Helen. He’s dead, has been dead for years. He is never coming back. Say it. Say the words, ‘Will is dead. He’s dead and he’s never coming back.’”

Helen’s tears overflowed, spilled down her cheeks. But she shook her head in silent acknowledgment, and looking at the graves, she said, “Will is dead. He’s dead and he’s never coming back.” She took a quick, tortured little breath, slowly raised her head, and looking directly into Kurt’s eyes, added, “I am a widow.”

Kurt instantly released her wrist. Nodding, he turned and led Raider away, leaving Helen behind. She stayed there alone for another half hour. And when once and for all she had finally said good-bye to the husband she had lost long ago, she dried her red, swollen eyes and returned to her work in the garden.

Helen was still in the garden late that morning when a lone horseman burst out of the tree-bordered lane, drawing her attention. She stood up, raised a hand, and squinted into the blinding sunlight. Kurt, hoeing in the cornfield, saw the rider too. He immediately threw down his hoe and donned his discarded work shirt.

Half worried that something might have happened to Jolly and Charlie, Helen hurried toward the house. Kurt met her there. He stood protectively beside her as the uniformed outrider jerked his lathered steed to a standstill.

“They’ve hoisted the storm warnings all the way from Pensacola to Pascagoula,” the outrider shouted. “The Lightship off Fort Morgan semaphored that a strong hurricane is just south of Dauphin Island and heading due north toward Mobile Bay.”

“Any idea how far out the storm is? When it might come ashore?” Kurt asked.

“Hard to predict what these killer storms might do and when,” said the soldier. “But unless it changes course, it will make landfall squarely at the mouth of the bay sometime in the next twelve hours. You’d best batten down the hatches and move quickly to higher ground. Don’t wait too long. This storm is dangerous and it could hit by sunset!” The rider hauled back on the reins, jerking the bit tight against his mount’s mouth, and wheeled him about in a semicircle. “Pass the word!” the messenger shouted, and galloped away.

Kurt immediately turned to Helen and gripped her slender shoulders. Looking directly into her eyes, he said, “I want you to go inside and throw a few things in a valise. When you’re ready, ride Raider inland to higher ground. Go over to Bay Minette. Remain there with Jolly and Charlie until this storm has passed. I’ll stay here and see if I can—”

“I’m going nowhere,” Helen interrupted, decisively shaking her head. “Everything I have on earth is here in this farm!”

“I know that, Helen”—Kurt tried not to show his exasperation—”but this sounds like a dangerous hurricane. You heard the outrider. They’re calling it a killer storm. I want you to be safe. Please take Raider and go.”

“I’m not going to leave. I’m staying here to look after my home.” She shrugged from his grasp and jerked her thumb in a westward direction. “But you’re certainly free to go. It’s not your farm, not your fight. Don’t feel that you must stay here on my account. Go on.”

Incredulous, Kurt said, “Woman, do you actually think I’d leave you here alone?”

“I’ve been left alone here for years, remember?” Helen smiled then and attempted to sound casual when she said, “I have ridden out tropical storms before. Alone. I can ride this one out alone.”

It was the truth. She had weathered some severe storms in the past, but she had been extremely frightened. She was deathly afraid of hurricanes, had been since she was a child. Since an unexpected storm at sea had capsized the riverboat, carrying her young parents and all on board to their deaths. Hers was a deepseated fear which she couldn’t shake, couldn’t master no matter how hard she tried. Now the very real prospect of a strong, destructive hurricane coming ashore absolutely terrified her, but she had no intention of letting Kurt know it.

Besides, there were several hurricane warnings posted every year in late summer and early autumn. Nothing much ever came of them other than a little wind and a lot of rain.

“Please go, Helen,” Kurt tried again. “I promise I’ll do all I can to look after your farm.”

“You’re not even completely well yet. Dr. Ledet said you’re to take it easy.”

“I’ll take it easy after the storm hits,” he said.

“Oh, really? Why, by then you’ll—”

“If you insist on staying, let’s don’t argue,” he interrupted. “We’re wasting precious time. I’ll go to the toolshed for the saw and hammer. There’s enough lumber stacked against the smokehouse to board up all the windows of the house.”

Helen nodded. “I’ll gather more fruits and vegetables from the garden and bring in a ham from the smokehouse. Then I’ll start moving the porch furniture inside and after that I’ll …”

And so it went.

The pair spent the long, humid September day preparing for the coming tempest. Throughout the morning there was blinding sunshine, hot and hazy. But beyond the southern horizon, the sky was an angry-looking black.

And far out to sea a deadly hurricane was growing in diameter. Feeding hungrily on the ocean’s summertime warmth, the building storm picked up speed. The seawater it had swallowed up condensed into rain and the thermal energy was quickly converted into awesomely powerful winds.

Those forceful winds were roaring at two hundred knots and the sea was howling like an enraged beast. Giant waves crashed high into the air, the sucked-up water leaving deep canyons in its wake.

Noon came and there hadn’t been so much as a sprinkle of rain on Alabama’s eastern shore. Kurt and Helen continued to ready the farm for a dangerous storm they hoped would never come. Hammering protective planks over the many windows of the farmhouse, Kurt worked tirelessly, sweating in the steamy heat, never looking up from the task at hand.

Helen worked too, moving quickly in and out of the house, taking care of the dozens of things that had to be completed before the storm came onshore.
If
it came onshore.

As she labored, she kept casting anxious glances at the southern horizon. What she saw looming out there in the distance made her grow increasingly nervous and fearful.

Concealed behind the thick wall of blackness which Helen saw was a howling sea being sucked up into a great seething dome several miles wide. Millions of tons of crashing waves being churned up into a writhing whirlpool, the gigantic maelstrom making its way steadily northward toward Mobile Bay.

By midafternoon the sun had completely disappeared and the first winds came. The storm was still hours away, but peripheral winds blew out of the dark sky in brief erratic bursts. The winds would hit, pass, and there would be total stillness again. Then shortly another quick burst of wind, slamming waves against the shore, ruffling the trees and jungle growth. Then again the eerie quiet, the dead calm, the fearsome night-black sky.

The first of the rains started in the late afternoon. Sporadic at first, huge diamond crystal drops peppered the trembling rosebushes, the branches of tall fragrant pines, and the bare tired back and shoulders of the laboring Kurt Northway.

Kurt paused for a minute, the hammer poised in his hand. He turned his hot face up to the sky. Smiling, he licked at the raindrops wetting his lips and welcomed the cool, fleeting respite from the sultry, oppressive heat.

Helen found nothing to smile about. She dashed up onto the side gallery as the first huge drops began to fall. Her face set, her mouth compressed into a tight line, she turned worried eyes toward the south. Her apprehension escalated with every passing hour. She nervously bit the inside of her bottom lip and wished she had taken Kurt’s advice and left. She should have gone inland to where it was safe. Now it was too late.

The storm was imminent.

And too close for her to run.

At sunset there was no sunset. There was no sun to set. Only a sky so inky black it might have been midnight. But by eight
P.M.,
the time when the sun should have been setting, everything had been done. All was ready.

Earlier Kurt had turned all the livestock loose, including his stallion, Raider. Giving Helen one last opportunity to reconsider and ride Raider to safety, he hadn’t pressed it when she had again refused. He’d sent the prized thoroughbred to higher ground, knowing the intelligent Raider would return when the storm was over.

All the windows in the house had been boarded up. The kitchen was full of food and fresh water. Low on coal oil for the lamps, Helen produced dozens of long white candles. Kurt agreed that they should save the precious coal oil and burn the candles first.

There was nothing left to do.

Except wait.

The earlier squalls of intermittent rain had stopped. The winds had calmed. It was very still. And it was hot. Sticky hot. The tired pair sat on the darkened steps of the front gallery, their damp clothes clinging to their overwarm bodies, their nerves raw.

Especially Helen’s.

She jumped when the first strong gust of wind hit. After the initial shock, it felt good. It was cool and refreshing and she enjoyed its strong stroking relief. The pleasure was short-lived. In seconds a gale-force wind struck, sending them scrambling inside the safety of the solid old farmhouse. Kurt bolted the heavy door behind them.

It was very dark in the house. Kurt lit a half dozen candles scattered about in the close, airless room. Shadows danced on the darkened parlor’s walls.

The winds stopped abruptly and all was still. Deathly still.

Helen paced anxiously. Trying hard to keep her rising fear firmly under control, she balled her hands into fists at her sides and gritted her teeth and lectured herself.

Kurt carried a lit candle to the cold fireplace. He set it down, turned about, and remained there. One long arm resting on the high mantel, he watched Helen pace, noting the rigid stiffness of her spine, her jerky movements. She was badly frightened; he knew she was. He wished he could reassure her, put her mind at ease. He started to say something, but decided against it. The times he had been badly on edge, the last thing he wanted was to hear somebody tell him to “just relax.”

Helen continued to pace, the tension mounting, her heart drumming double time. The heat inside the still room had become stifling. Almost unbearable. She felt as if she could hardly get her breath. She longed to rush back outside and into the cooling winds. Perspiration dotted her upper lip and hairline. She could feel the moisture pooling between her breasts and behind her knees.

Helen glanced at Kurt.

A trickle of sweat slipped slowly down his dark left cheek. The hollow of his throat glistened wetly in the flickering candlelight. Helen wiped her damp forehead on the back of her hand and irritably tugged at her wilted wrinkled skirts. Kurt pulled at the soaked shirt sticking to his chest and blotted his shiny face on a raised forearm.

“It’s so hot,” Helen finally murmured, pacing furiously. “So devilish hot!”

Kurt nodded understandingly, but said nothing.

For several more minutes Helen continued to prowl restlessly, on the verge of hysterics, her fragile facade about to crumble entirely. She stopped abruptly, looked at Kurt with terrified eyes, and began to tremble uncontrollably.

“I’m frightened,” she said truthfully, voice shaking like her slender body. “God, I’m so scared!”

Chapter Forty

I
n the blink of an eye she was in his arms.

Kurt held her tightly against his tall, hard body, pressing her face into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Outside, the winds grew stronger and the bay surged higher. Great swells seethed under the powerful gusts of wind rolling across the water. Giant waves broke and crashed against the shore.

“Sweetheart, it’s all right,” Kurt told her gently, “I’ve got you. I’ll never let you go.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a coward,” she cried, trembling violently. “I can’t help it, I—”

“Helen, you’re no coward,” he murmured, his hand sweeping comfortingly over her shaking back. “I’ve never known a braver woman. Running this farm alone all those years. That took a great deal of courage.”

“Just hold me tighter,” she pleaded, her lips moving against his throat. “I don’t want to die, Kurt. Not like this. Not in a storm. I’m so afraid of drowning and—”

“Shhh, baby. You’re safe here in my arms,” he promised, drawing her closer, holding her more tightly. “We’ll be okay. We’ll make it, sweetheart.”

Her arms wrapped around him, Helen stood against Kurt’s unyielding strength and squeezed him so fiercely his cracked ribs hurt, but he didn’t let on. He just continued to talk to her in low, level tones, assuring her that the farmhouse was solid as a rock, that it would withstand the storm. They would be safe. Helen listened, more comforted by the sound of his deep familiar voice than by what he said.

Still, she was frightened as she’d never been before in her life. She was terrified that the monstrous power of the hurricane would wash great walls of water over the house. That they would be swept out to sea and this home she loved so dearly would become her coffin.

Her eyes squeezed shut, her heart pounding, Helen continued to tremble as the roaring crash of the storm surf became so deafening it drowned out the comforting words Kurt spoke in her ear.

Kurt knew she could no longer hear him, so he stopped speaking. In silence he held her protectively near, stroked her back, her shoulders, her hair. Helen clung so tightly to him, he could feel the gentle curves of her soft slender body pressed intimately close against him. And soon he too began to tremble.