So Cold the River (2010) (46 page)

“Look at that.
Look at it.
”

Eric straightened and followed his stare and felt his own breath catch.

From here they had a view out across open fields, and to the west, a ways off but not so far as to feel comfortable about
it, a funnel cloud was lowering to the earth. The mass above it was black and purple but the funnel cloud was stark white.
It eased to the ground almost peacefully, as if settling down for a rest, and then its color began to change, the white turning
gray as it blew through the fields and gathered dirt, sucking soil and debris into its vortex. The air around them vibrated
with the distant roar.

“Is it going to come this way?” Eric shouted.

“I think so.”

They stood without speaking for a moment and watched as the cloud churned through the field. The tight funnel shape morphed
into something less distinct as it went, circles of debris ringing the base. It crossed the field with apparent leisure. There
was a row of power lines just ahead of the road, and when the tornado reached them, the poles lifted from the earth and the
lines snapped. When it crossed the road and went into the next field, something lifted it into the air, almost like a bounce.
For a moment the base of the cloud seemed to hesitate, as if it might retreat altogether, but then it dropped again and there
was another burst of dark gray when it tore back into the land.

“It’s definitely coming this way,” Kellen shouted. “We got to
run!
”

“We can make the car?”

“Hell, no. Can’t outrun a tornado, man! We got to get down in that gulf. It’s the only place low enough!”

He bent and grabbed the top strand of the rusted barbed wire and lifted, tugged it up and waved at Eric to climb through.
Eric scrambled under, then turned to hold the wire for Kellen but saw that he was already across. He really
could
jump the damn thing.

The gulf was close and it was a downhill run, but the roar around them was getting louder, too. Out of the trees the wind
was a stronger force, and Eric realized with a mixture of astonishment and fear that it was actually pushing him off course.
They were running in a mad sprint now, and for a moment Eric didn’t even realize that Kellen had hold of his shirt again,
was dragging him along. By the time they hit the ridge above the gulf, the horizon line across from them was a wall of black
sky.

“Got to get
down!
” Kellen shouted, and then he put his hand in the middle of Eric’s back and shoved.

The drop-off was sheer and lined with trees, the sort of place
you’d walk around carefully on a normal day. Today, Kellen just pushed Eric right out over the top of it and jumped after
him.

For a moment Eric was airborne. Then his feet caught the hillside and his momentum sent him into a pinwheel down the slope,
branches whipping at him. He was thinking that he’d fall all the way down into the water when he tumbled into the side of
a tree. The impact exploded his vision into a burst of white light, but it also stopped him. He gasped and blinked and then
he could see where he was—two-thirds of the way down the slope, a good sixty feet from the top of the ridge.

He looked for Kellen and found him fifteen feet farther down, covered in mud and leaves. He was crawling toward the stone
cliffs, away from the trees. Trying to get lower. Eric followed, not even bothering to attempt getting to his feet, just sliding
on his ass and using his hands and heels to push himself along.

They got most of the way down the slope, about five feet from the waterline, and pushed up against the loose stone wall, where
there was an indentation that allowed them to pull back and find greater protection. There was no point in attempting to talk
now; the roar had reached a thundering crescendo. It sounded exactly like the train that had blown past Eric on his first
day in this place.

They didn’t have to wait long. Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. It
felt
longer, though, felt like a damn eternity, the way time passed when you were sitting in a hospital watching an ER surgeon
approach from down the hall to provide the status of a loved one. Then the storm finally caught them, and the world exploded.

A full-size birch, fifty feet tall at least and with a wide spread of branches, tore out of the earth on top of the ridge
and shot into space. It didn’t fall straight down, bound by the laws of gravity, but blew forward before catching on another
tree and splashing
into the swirling, roiling pool. The water sprayed up and showered them and then another tree was sliding down the cliff face,
scattering loose stones in its wake. The woods were crackling with the sound of thick, powerful limbs and trunks snapping
in two, and the wind was such that Eric could no longer hold his eyes open against it. He covered his face with his arms and
pressed his body back into the indentation Kellen had found in the limestone wall and above them the world screamed in fury.

Then it was gone.

That something so terrible could pass so swiftly seemed impossible. There were still rumblings in the woods as uprooted trees
and fallen branches slid down the hillsides and found resting places, but the raging wind was gone and the roar faded at its
heels. Eric lowered his arms and stared out at the gulf. The water tossed and spun and in its midst were a half dozen trees
now. When he looked up, he could see a line carved through the treetops on the east side of the ridge, as if trimmers had
come through and topped them and then had gone on, leaving the limbs behind in careless piles. On level ground, the damage
had been devastating. Would have been deadly. But they’d gotten down here into what was essentially a pit, ninety or a hundred
feet below the surface, and the tornado had not been able to find them there.

“That would have killed us,” he said. “If we’d been on level ground, that would have killed us.”

Kellen nodded. “Yeah. We might still be airborne. In pieces.”

His voice was as tight as if someone had a hold of his throat, and Eric finally turned and looked at him. Kellen’s face and
neck and arms were a mass of tiny cuts, and there was one good-size gash above his left eye that oozed a thick band of blood
that ran along his jaw and curled out toward his chin like a sideburn, and Eric knew
he
couldn’t look any better. Kellen’s face was locked
into a grimace, though, and he was rocking back and forth, hands squeezed into fists.

“You okay?” Eric said, and then he followed Kellen’s eyes down his leg to his foot and whispered,
“Oh, shit.”

Kellen’s right foot hung unnaturally beneath the leg, twisted almost backward, and there was a distended bulge just above
his shoe, pushing at his skin. The ankle was clearly broken. Not just broken, he realized after a closer study—destroyed.
The bone had snapped, but clearly some ligaments had torn loose as well to let his foot hang like that.

Kellen’s face had drained to a gray pallor and he kept up that gentle rocking, but he didn’t moan or gasp or shout with pain.

“You’re hurt bad,” Eric said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Shoe off,” Kellen said through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“Get the shoe off. It’s swelling so fast… I don’t think it should be in the shoe.”

Eric slid down the slick rock and reached for the laces of Kellen’s shoe. When he gave one a gentle tug, it shifted Kellen’s
foot. This time he shouted with pain. Eric dropped the shoelace and pulled back, but Kellen shook his head and said, “Get
it off.”

So he untied the shoe. He did it as quickly and gently as possible, but Kellen hissed with pain, and when Eric slid the shoe
off, he could see the bone move under the skin and felt a cloud of sickness move through him, leaving him dizzy. He dropped
the shoe and it slid down the rock and into the water. Kellen didn’t seem to care.

They waited for a moment, Kellen sucking in deep breaths and staring at the treetops. He reached into his pocket and slipped
out his cell phone, handed it to Eric.

“See if one of them works?”

Kellen’s didn’t, and wouldn’t—the face was cracked and it was soaked with water, wouldn’t even turn on. Eric’s still functioned
but couldn’t find a signal. No surprise down here in the hole, and who knew if it would change once they got to higher ground.
The tornado might have taken out a tower or two.

Eric’s left arm was shaking now and the pain buried in his head made it hard to focus, his vision starting to swim. He blinked
and stared down at the gulf.

“I think it’s still rising.”

“Coming up fast,” Kellen said without even giving it a look. “We’re going to need to get me over to the other side.”

“No way you’re walking on that,” Eric said, looking at Kellen’s massive frame and wondering if he’d be able to carry him.

“No, but you get me up, and I can hobble.”

It took three tries and some intense pain to get him upright. Then Eric dipped under his arm and tried to drag him along,
but Kellen was large and heavy and the going was awkward. Every time they took a step, Kellen gave an unwilling gasp. His
right foot just dangled below the ankle. They made it around the rim of the gulf, into the tall grass that grew along the
flat bottomland near the trail, and then Kellen told Eric to stop.

“Any chance you can make it to the car?” Eric said.

“Maybe. But I doubt there’s much left of the car.”

Shit, he was probably right. Both of Eric’s hands were shaking again. Behind them the water in the gulf gurgled and boiled
around one of the fallen trees.

“You need to get to the road,” Kellen said. “Going to be police and firefighters out checking on the farms. Tell somebody
I’m down here.”

He’d lowered himself down into the grass and leaned back on his elbows, grimacing and studying his unresponsive right foot.
Eric saw he was digging into the mud with his fingers. The pain had to be brutal.

“That water comes up much higher, it’ll drown you,” he said.

“I can get up higher if I need to. But I’m not making it back to the road.”

“All right,” Eric said. “I’ll get help.”

He went on up the hill alone.

J
OSIAH FOUND THE STREETS
of town damn near deserted, everyone taking heed of that storm siren and seeking shelter. He blew through a red light, not
giving a shit because wasn’t anybody out to notice, and then hammered the accelerator when he cleared town, sped past the
West Baden hotel without so much as a look. He’d be back for it.

At Anne McKinney’s house Campbell’s instructions had finally clarified, the reality of this whole fucking mess becoming crystal
clear: Josiah didn’t need anyone’s money. Didn’t need their explanations either, didn’t need a damn thing from a soul in the
whole valley, the whole world.

What he needed was to listen. And now, finally, he was starting to. He heard the goal now, warm as a whisper in the ear.
Take this place down, and watch it burn. They’ll know your name when it’s done, better believe that. They’ll know it, and
remember it.

Eric Shaw’s wife was in the bed of his truck, bound with tape and wrapped in a tarp and pushed up next to the dynamite. Way
that rain was coming down, the bitch was probably a tad uncomfortable. The wind was coming at him strong enough that it was
hard to hold the truck in the proper lane, and he thought it was a damn good thing the roads seemed to be deserted. Fact was,
this looked like a hell of a storm. He punched on the radio.

… Once again, we have a confirmed tornado touchdown just west of Orleans and there are reports of significant damage. Unconfirmed
reports of another touchdown just south of Paoli are coming in. A critical reminder: this is only the leading edge of this
storm front, and it’s already produced tornadoes in Missouri and southern Illinois. We have more activity on the way in, and
the National Weather Service has declared that the tornado warning will remain in effect for at least another hour, if not
more. We’re being advised that there is a strong possibility of multiple tornadoes associated with this front. Please seek
shelter immediately.

He punched the power button and shut it back down. Hell with that shit. Storm would be the last thing anyone spoke of by evening.

The fastest way out to the gulf was to take US 50, but he’d barely gotten on the highway before he heard police sirens. He
turned off onto one of the back roads just as a pair of cruisers shot by with lights going, doing at least eighty. Out on
some sort of storm-related call, surely, not looking for his truck, but it was better to avoid the risks when you had a kidnapped
woman and a stack of dynamite under tarps in the bed.

This detour north was pulling him far from the hotel, but he knew it was necessary, felt that in his bones. Eric Shaw was
a part of this, had been from the start and needed to be at the finish. Campbell had placed the man’s wife in Josiah’s hands
just as
he had the dynamite, and both would have their role by the day’s end. The course was already charted, and now it was merely
a matter of listening to the directions as they were issued.

The route change that was forced by the police sighting would have him approaching the gulf from the south now, which would
take him right past his own home. He opened the truck up again, curving along through Pipher Hollow. The storm seemed to have
died off a bit now, at least here. Out to the northeast the sky still looked fierce, but here things were settling.

He was on his own road and a half mile from his house when he started to see the damage. The first thing that caught his eye
was a great gray gouge ripped through the earth in the fields ahead of him, and then he saw downed power lines sparking on
the side of the road and a steel farm gate that had been torn loose and bent as easily as if it had been made out of aluminum
foil.

He let off the gas and stared around himself as the truck coasted. The row of trees that had grown here was gone, obliterated,
the trunks split and the bases pulled from the ground, their mud-covered roots pointing at the sky. He looked past the grove
and up toward his home and then he took his foot off the gas completely and put it on the brake.