Road to Bountiful (4 page)

We drive away from my house, away from my street. Levi reaches the main street of our town and asks which way we turn.

“To the left. That’s west, the way we need to go,” I tell him. I feel a little of what the pioneers must have experienced, leaving a home, looking west, moving toward a setting sun, and for some, with dark clouds hugging the horizon. Levi guns the engine again as we turn onto the highway, and we lurch forward. This is my life passing before me, at forty-five miles an hour in a twenty-five-mile zone.

I should have guessed we would drive by my old pharmacy, made of stone, graceful in its age. Driving by must have been a part of a grander scheme of things. It gives me a chance to say good-bye again. A gift boutique, its windows filled with dry flowers and homemade wood boxes and frames, occupies it now. Soon we are beyond the edge of the city, and the great fields of grain stretch to the horizon. Above, the black clouds loom, and Zeus hurls his crooked bolts of lightning to the ground, and the rumbling of thunder gurgles our way from the center of the storm. Levi seems not to notice.

The plains are beautiful at times such as these. Subtle as a wheat stalk, bold as forked lightning splintering a tree.

I wonder what kind of sign this is, the lightning and the thunder, if any kind of sign at all. Daisy used to say that I saw too many signs in too many things.

I stare straight ahead. I can’t look at this road, the fields, the houses that sit like wooden ships on a golden ocean, anymore. I can’t look at the names on the mailboxes. I know these people. I love these people. Levi reaches for the radio, flips it on, and pushes the scan button.

“Do you have any decent radio stations out here?” he asks. “I’m not really into country, if you know what I mean. But almost anything else. Except jazz. And classical. But everything else is okay. Not oldies, though. I should have brought some of my own music. Forgot to. I can’t believe I forgot.”

He makes a face toward the radio, his frustration obvious. Ahead, lightning splits the evening air, and in the distance I see the majestic sweep of a rain line.

I think this will be a strong storm. The makings are all in place. Shall I take it as a salute from nature at my departure? Lightning forks a crooked hand across the sky, and the thunder rattles through the din of the fast red car bolting down the two lanes of asphalt.

As we whip past the signs and markers, the fences and tall stalks of grain, we hurtle our way toward the westward horizon.

Levi shoots me a quick glance, smiles impishly, and says, “Don’t worry, Uncle Loyal. I’ll have us in Utah before you know it.”

He Says We Might Be Near a Tornado and Then Hands Me a Ham Sandwich

The clouds ahead, they’re dark. Really dark. I can see lightning shooting out of them every so often. I wonder,
Should we be heading right into this storm? What do you do in these North Dakota boomers? Pull over? Drive ahead? Find a bed and crawl under the blankets? Whimper? I don’t know. Should I ask Uncle Loyal?

I’ve seen some good thunderstorms in my day, but this one has them all beat. I switch on my headlights. I look at the speedometer, and we’re doing eighty-five. I ease up a little. A bolt smashes down, maybe a quarter of a mile away. Even over the engine’s roar, the thunder booms and sends a shiver through the car. It’s starting to rain. It’s starting to hail. The end is near! I expect to see a funny old guy dressed in white with a long scraggly beard with a sign announcing that the world is about to be swallowed up whole. This seems apocalyptic. Biblical. Just plain ugly. I push a knob, and the windshield wipers are flipping full speed back and forth. I sneak a glance at Uncle Loyal. I can’t read him. His face is glassy. He’s just staring straight ahead. He seemed fairly normal back at the house, but now, not so much. Ignoring this storm is like ignoring that you’re going through a car wash. With your windows down. Only this is louder. I get this vision in my mind of an old movie. I used to have nightmares about tornadoes after watching
The Wizard of Oz
. We might be the local version of Dorothy and Toto, for all I know. But Uncle Loyal just keeps his eyes on the road. Maybe this isn’t a big deal to him, just a gentle North Dakota summer shower, good for rinsing the dust out of the air.

Uncle Loyal looks at me and says pleasantly, “Big storm, eh?”

Lightning jags down maybe a couple of hundred yards away, and the instant roar causes my stomach to knot up. My hands are locked on the steering wheel with a viselike grip. Finally, I crack, and my voice comes out squeaky, a little-boy croak, the same kind of sound I made when my upper lip first turned fuzzy.

“Is this normal, Uncle Loyal? The lightning seems to be hitting awfully close.”

He looks toward me and gives me a thin smile and says, “Oh, this is a pretty good one. Pretty good indeed. We get one of these every week or two this time of the year. But I don’t think there are any tornadoes associated with it. We should not be fearful.”

Tornadoes?
He said tornadoes. That is a word that sends big alarms off in me. That is not the word I wanted to hear. Next stop: Munchkin Land
.
I may die in North Dakota.

Stay calm, Levi. Don’t squeal or flutter or panic or let your eyes bug out too far. You were a Star Scout. You earned eight merit badges and one of them was meteorology
, I think.
Another was first aid. Both of them might come in handy.
I mentally review the steps for artificial resuscitation.
Tilt the head back and thump the chest. Or is it the other way around?
Every news report I’ve ever seen with a reporter standing grim-faced and nothing but twisted metal and broken trees in the background flashes across my mind. “This is where the town of Bumperbelt, North Dakota, stood until last night,” the reporter says, nodding over his shoulder toward the remains of a red car. “These travelers, a brilliant and handsome young man in the flower of life and his older companion never knew what hit them. Now, they are like day-old bacon.”

In the most calm voice I can muster, I ask a question, but my voice still comes out about the way it did when I was thirteen years old: up and down, up and down, and cracking.

“Tornado! Could we be in a tornado? What should we do? Hide under the car?” Well, that didn’t quite come out right.

I drop my speed all the way down to sixty. I’m having a hard time seeing the road ahead.

Uncle Loyal looks outside for a moment. He scans the sky and ever so mildly says, “No, I don’t believe any tornadoes are touching down. There’s no green in the sky, and when a tornado is close, the sky takes on a green tint. Odd, but it does. I’ve seen plenty of tornadoes in my day, but this sky doesn’t quite look right for one.”

The hail pounds, and my wipers are almost useless. I worry that the car might get dented and the rental company will hold me responsible. Aunt Barbara might not enjoy getting the bill for a totaled car, done in by hail the size of golf balls.

I nod my head. For some reason, maybe to show that I am cool and calm and in control, and not scared out of my wits, I start to whistle.

“Are you nervous, Levi?” Uncle Loyal looks at me sweetly, the way a parent would ask, “And how was your spelling test this afternoon, Junior?”

“No, no. Me, nervous? Nope. Ha! Well, maybe a little. You said a word that caught my attention, though.” I glanced and him and lowered my voice. “ Tornado.”

“I think we’ll be fine. You need not worry.”

The hail pounds the car. I wish I had read the fine print of the rental contract to know if I will be responsible for dents caused by Mother Nature. How will I tell Aunt Barbara? Guess what? I not only got your father to Utah but as a bonus, I bought you a new car in the process!
Insurance.
I hope the rental company has insurance. My mind wraps around the word and clings to it, the way a drowning man clings to a chunk of wood from a shipwreck.

I can’t see more than twenty feet ahead, and the dark gray veil is growing thicker. I slow to maybe forty miles an hour. Is it my imagination, or is the sky looking faintly green?

“Do you think we should pull over?”

“There isn’t much visibility.”

“I can’t stop on the highway.”

“If you drive another quarter mile, you’ll see a large white mailbox. Just beyond it is a wide driveway that leads to a farmhouse. It’s John Jannuzzi’s place. We can pull into the drive and wait out the storm. These storms usually don’t last more than an hour or so.”

I do not know John Jannuzzi, but I love the man, and I love that he’s a friend of Uncle Loyal and that he owns a house only a quarter mile away.

“Will it be okay if we pull off there? Is there a chance John what’s-his-name will run into us?”

“No, Levi.” Uncle Loyal smiles, a wispy little grin, and his eyebrows lift up and form that odd triangle on his forehead. “John’s lived on the prairie his whole life. He knows better than to come out in this kind of weather. He probably saw this cloudburst coming more than an hour ago. He knows the plains and how the weather works here. And it’s common to borrow a road or driveway to wait out a storm. It’s customary. It’s neighborly.”

I slow again and hope nobody behind is coming fast toward us. Maybe Uncle Loyal is right. The natives understand this weather, and they stay at home when they see the dark clouds gathering, sort of a local native custom, like when chickens stop laying eggs just before an earthquake. At this moment, I am really, really glad to have grown up in Utah and not North Dakota or South Dakota or Iowa or Nova Scotia or any place that has tornadoes.

I keep my eyes peeled for the mailbox. Out of the gloom, between the sheets of drenching rain and pounding hail, it appears, shimmering for a burst of a second when the wiper blades swish across the windshield.

“Here?”

“Yes. Turn here. If you’d like, we could probably drive right to John’s house. He’d let us in, and we could wait out the storm.”

“Let’s see what happens. Let’s just sit it out in the car, if we can.”

I bring the car to a stop, scrunching as close as I can to the side of the broad, gravel driveway. Outside, lightning crackles, thunder booms, and rain slashes at the side of the car. It’s dark; it’s gloomy. The car sways a little when the wind gusts.

It’s all kind of creepy. I begin to feel queasy. The wind howls. The hail beats against the car. I’m stuck somewhere on the plains of North Dakota sitting next to someone I barely know, a long road ahead of me. The six hundred dollars? I may be earning it after all.

Where am I? What am I doing here? Tell me again. Someone. I need assurance. I need comfort. I need someone to tell me it will be all right. I need my night light.

Uncle Loyal looks down on the floor and picks up the paper bag that he carried into the car with him. He reaches inside and pulls out what looks to be food in the dim evening light.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “This is what I thought. I thought you might be in a hurry, you might want to start our trip tonight. I thought if I made some sandwiches, it could save us time. I made them at the house; I cleared out the last of my food this afternoon. I left the refrigerator for the new couple. I won’t need it in Utah.”

He calmly pushes the sandwich in my direction. You’d think we were on a picnic, not hiding out from a monster storm. Lightning forks down, illuminating his face. I manage a quick glance at him. He looks gentle, serene, sweet. In the middle of a storm, with tornadoes possibly swirling across the land waiting to sweep us away and whirl us into a dark and chaotic world, Uncle Loyal is at ease with himself, his surroundings, and quite possibly, his life.
A tornado couldn’t move him
. It all comes to me in a flash. A literal flash, as the lightning strikes again.

This is a man who is sure of himself and sure of his element. Calm radiates from him. Calmness is contagious. I clear my throat. I look out the window. Suddenly, I feel much more at ease.

I think Loyal Wing might be a man worth knowing because he understands how to ride out storms. That has to be high on anyone’s list of skills.

“Eh?” he asks gently. “They should be good sandwiches. Made with bread baked by my neighbor, Harriet Van Acker.”

Suddenly, I feel hungry, and a sandwich sounds just right. Comfort food, and believe me, I need comfort.

“Sure. Thanks. I am hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and that was a fast-food, greasy plastic-like egg substance wrapped around mystery meat in a tortilla. You know, I got kind of caught up in everything, the travel here, trying to get some miles behind me. I was in a hurry and forgot to eat. Not my brightest move.”

“It’s easy to do. Trying to put some miles behind you. We’re all guilty of that at times.” He hands me the sandwich, thick with ham and veggies, on a grainy wheat bread.

“Ham and cheese and vegetables,” he says. “The lettuce and tomatoes are from my garden. Or rather, the garden I had. Mrs. Van Acker makes a very fine loaf of bread. Something I shall miss. ”

I take the sandwich.

“Here. I brought some juice and water. Please, take something to drink.”

The wind seems to let up some. The hail stops thumping and turns into a steady rain. The sky grows lighter, and I no longer worry about being smacked by a tornado. I feel a little embarrassed about how squeaky and fearful I had been. No munchkins, no witches in sight, and the worst of the storm seems to have blown over.

Uncle Loyal chews slowly on his sandwich. He is dressed in corduroy pants and a blue, long-sleeved shirt, buttoned to the top. He seems as calm as if he were watching flowers grow in his garden. Chew, chew, chew, swallow. Another bite, chew slowly and swallow. A day in the park, a day in the garden, a pleasant roadside stop for him.

At the peak of the storm, this man hands me a sandwich, offers me juice to drink, and my world is jerked from one side to another.

“Are you not hungry?”

I hadn’t started on my sandwich.

“Yes, yes, I am. I’m sorry. I was daydreaming. I am very hungry. Thank you, Uncle Loyal. That was thoughtful of you.” I bite into my sandwich, and yep, Harriet Van Whoever makes a stunningly good loaf of bread.