Forever My Hero, page 20
“Now it’s time to help her,” Johnny said.
Facing the inevitable, Dori turned loose of her fears. “Get your slicker. Take the big spotlight lantern. Take an ax. Don’t forget your cell, even though we could lose cell power at any minute.”
“Thank you, baby. I’ll be back. I promise.”
“I know you will,” Dori said. “Just get her to the ER, and tell her we’re praying for her.”
Johnny nodded, ran into the bedroom to put on his work boots, got a heavy jacket with a hood and the lantern flashlight, and then dug around in the garage until he found the ax he used to chop firewood for their fireplace. The last thing he put on was his hooded slicker, and Dori was still at his heels. He turned around and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“I’m going out now. I’ll shut the door. You go back to the boys and tell them I’ll be alright.”
“I will,” she said, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I love you, Johnny Pine. You come back to us in one piece. You hear?”
“I hear you. I will be okay. I promise. I wouldn’t offer to do this if I didn’t have my Cat D9 here at the house. You know how big and strong those dozers are, right? Now go. I’m not opening this door until you’re out of the kitchen.”
She ran out of the room.
Then he grabbed the ax and the spotlight, and out the door he went. He had to push to get it open, then push harder to get it shut, and he could see Dori’s cookbooks flying off the shelf. Even though the brunt of the storm was hitting the front of their house, the wind was everywhere.
Johnny knew it was bad out, but he wasn’t prepared for the wind’s true force as he climbed up onto the dozer with the ax and the big lantern. Once inside the cab, he got the key from under the mat and started the dozer up. The sound was almost lost in the storm, but he could feel the vibration of the engine beneath his feet as he put it in gear.
Within a couple of minutes, he was out of their driveway and making his way up the street. The water was at least six inches deep, but the wind in no way slowed down his progress. The things Johnny had to watch for were downed lines and flying debris. When he finally reached Lovey Cooper’s house and saw most of a tree up against the front of her house, he guessed there were limbs inside it, too.
He tensed as he rolled up into the drive and then around to the back side of her house. He would have to force the back door to get in, but damage to her house had already happened. He just needed to get her out of it.
He parked the dozer as close to her back patio as he could get, then pocketed a couple of screwdrivers from his toolbox, grabbed the ax and the spotlight, and got out of the cab. As he did, he was hit with a wind so strong that it nearly blew him off the dozer tracks on which he was standing. He crouched down and held on as he crawled off, then ran to her back door. He grabbed his largest screwdriver and jimmied open her back door. Seconds later, he was inside. He struggled to push the door shut, but to his relief, it caught. Then he pocketed his tools, took the ax and the light and began moving through the unfamiliar layout, shouting Lovey’s name.
* * *
Lovey was going in and out of consciousness. Her biggest fear was that she’d wind up back on the floor, and if she did, she’d never have the strength to get up again.
The water was up around her ankles, and she could only imagine where else it was spreading inside her house. She was partially shielded from the wind, but she was feeling faint. Just as she was about to slide off the toilet, she caught herself, bumping her broken arm in the process. She screamed—a shrill, high-pitched scream that Johnny heard. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and then he was running toward the sound and calling her name.
At the same time, Lovey thought she could hear someone shouting. She started crying again. No one knew she was trapped. They didn’t even know she was hurt. It had to be the wind.
Help me, Lord, help me!
Then she thought she heard a noise—like someone pounding on the bathroom door. And then she very faintly heard a man shouting her name.
“In here!” she screamed. “I’m in here!”
“Get away from the door,” he shouted. “Did you hear me? Get away from the door.”
“Yes, yes!” she cried, and then held on to the sink for stability, watching as the bathroom door suddenly splintered, and then splintered again and again until she realized someone was chopping a hole in the door that was big enough to get her out.
When she saw a man’s hand reach in and start pulling away huge chunks of the door, she started to cry. “Thank you, Lord, thank you.”
The man kept chopping and pulling and chopping and pulling away shards until the middle part of the door was gone.
Now the hole had given the wind another place to blow, and she could see the man fighting against it as he leaned in to assess her situation. And that’s when she saw his face.
“Johnny? Johnny Pine?”
He saw her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear her. Her broken arm dangled, but when he reached in to grab her, she locked her good arm around his neck and held on.
Lovey buried her face against his cheek, and somehow, they wound up in her hall. “Thank you, oh thank you,” she kept saying.
“You’re welcome, darlin’,” Johnny said, then laid his ax and the spotlight on a hall table and swung her up in his arms, which elicited another shriek of pain.
He left the ax and grabbed the spotlight as he took off down the hall and into her kitchen. He set her back on her feet long enough to get them out onto the patio. The wind and rain were as shocking here as they had been in her bathroom, but out here there was more.
Lovey held on to Johnny as he struggled to pull her door shut, then he leaned close to her ear so she could hear him. “I’m likely to hurt you getting you into the cab,” he said.
She gave him a nod that she understood and gritted her teeth as he picked her up again. When they came out from under the patio, the blast from the elements was shocking. As he began climbing up and into the cab, she grabbed on to her arm to keep it as immobile as possible. His climb up was far more difficult. Not only was he holding on to the dozer to keep from being blown away, but he had to hold on to her as well. The wind and the constant lurch of his body to and fro was true torture for her.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Johnny kept saying as he struggled until finally they were all the way up to the cab. Finally, he opened the door with one hand and then leaned in and set her down in his seat long enough to close the door and shut them in.
The watertight cab muted the sounds, and for the first time since she was injured, Lovey could hear her own voice. “How did you know? How did you find me?” she asked.
“It’s a long story, Miss Lovey. Right now I need to get you to the ER, okay? And that means I need my seat back.”
“Where do you need me to be?” Lovey said.
“I think you’ll be safest if we start out with you tucked up in the floor beside me.”
“Whatever you say. You have no idea how grateful I am for you.”
Johnny took off his slicker and his jacket, spread them on the floor, and then pulled her up out of the seat, then eased her back down onto the pallet he’d made for her.
“Okay?” he asked.
Lovey was crying again, but they were tears of relief. “Yes, yes, I’m okay. I just thought I would die there.”
Johnny touched her head, felt shards of glass beneath his fingers and flinched. She’d come damn close to making that happen, he thought, then got down to business and started up the engine one more time before he made that call back to the chief.
The call rang twice, and then Johnny heard Lon’s voice. “Hello? Johnny?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Chief. I’ve got her in the cab. We’re headed to the hospital, which is a good distance away, but tell them we’re coming.”
Lon let out a whoop that made Johnny grin. “Johnny Pine, you are one heck of a man!” Lon said. “Be safe, and call me again when you get home.”
“Yes, sir, I will, if we still have service.”
“It is a freaking miracle that we do,” Lon said. “And if Hurricane Fanny hadn’t taken that turn north, we’d be in a whole lot more trouble.”
“Yes, sir. I’m hanging up now.” Then Johnny put the dozer in gear, and down the driveway they went, turning left onto the street as he headed for Main.
Chapter 15
“Whoa,” Johnny said to himself, as he reached an intersection.
“What’s wrong?” Lovey asked.
“There is a tree down across Laurel Avenue, but it’s not a problem, honey,” Johnny said. “We’ll just jog a block east and then get back to Main that way. Are you okay?”
She was shaking, but didn’t know if it was from pain or from being wet for so long. “I’m alive. I’ll be okay later,” Lovey said. “You don’t worry about me. I’m happy to ride.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Johnny said, and slowly, they made their way onto Main Street, then started north toward the hospital. “We’re on Main. It won’t be long now,” he said.
Lovey moaned an acknowledgment. Now that she was out of the wind and rain, she could concentrate on something besides blowing away. And when she did, the first bit of cognizance was the pain. She touched her face and felt glass shards protruding from the flesh and moaned again.
Johnny knew talking wouldn’t help, so he stayed quiet and just kept driving the Cat forward, eyeing the strength of the water current in the streets and the low-hanging power lines. When he drove past Granny’s Country Kitchen, he didn’t mention that her big sign on the roof was gone. But he could see the windows were still boarded up, and unless the roof had suffered damage, she was still good to go. The water was deeper through here. At least a foot of water on the streets and more in the low spots, but it didn’t affect him or their mode of travel. The big dozer sat so high up off the ground that they were in no danger of flooding out.
When he finally reached the street that led down to the hospital, he slowed down to turn. “Feel that turn? We’re five blocks from getting you some help.”
Lovey reached out and clasped his forearm. “You saved me, Johnny. You saved my life.”
“Thank you, Miss Lovey, but I didn’t do this by myself. God rode shotgun all the way here.”
She was sobbing quietly as he pulled up beneath the covered drive-through in front of the ER. Through the rain, he could see four very large men standing inside at the entrance. They’d been watching for their arrival.
“Stay seated a minute, Miss Lovey,” Johnny said, and got up and opened up the cab as the men came running out.
One immediately climbed up on the dozer and grabbed hold of the door and leaned in a bit to be heard. “We’re going to relay her down,” he said.
“She’s hurt bad,” Johnny said, shouting above the wind to be heard. “And be real careful of her right arm. It’s broken in at least two places that I could see.”
The orderly nodded, watching as Johnny Pine positioned himself just right, and then squatted down and picked her up. Just before he handed her off, he gently kissed the side of her cheek.
“I’m passing you off to the experts, Miss Lovey,” he said, and stepped outside the cab with her still in his arms, then lowered her down to the first orderly.
As soon as the orderly had Lovey in a safe position, he turned around to pass her to the next one, who was standing lower down on the dozer. As he did, he was nearly blown off his feet. If it hadn’t been for Johnny, who was still hanging on to them, they would be gone.
Then that orderly turned and gave her to the last one. As soon as she was in his arms, they all came down off the dozer and ran for the entrance.
Johnny watched from inside the cab until he couldn’t see them anymore, sent a text to Chief Pittman that read “package delivered,” and headed home.
It wasn’t until he saw his house that he began to breathe easy. He drove up their driveway through the flood of water washing down it and then parked all the way up to the back patio where he’d had the dozer before. He killed the engine, put the keys back under the mat, and then put all of his weather gear back on. He grabbed the spotlight and then out the door he went, scrambling from handhold to porch post.
He climbed up the steps and ran for the back door. The knob turned beneath his hands, and then he was inside and using all of his strength to shut and relock the door.
He began shedding the poncho and heavy jacket, then pulled off his heavy-duty boots. He was down to the wet Levi’s when Dori appeared with a flashlight and one of the blankets off their king-size bed. “The kids are asleep. My prayers have been answered. Wrap yourself up in this, and come to bed. You won’t get warm any other way.”
It wasn’t until she came closer that he could tell she’d been crying. He pulled the blanket around himself, welcoming the softness and the warmth, then opened his arms and pulled her close, covering her up with him.
“Oh, honey… Dori, I am sorry I scared you, but she was alive. She’s at the ER, and it was worth it.”
Dori just nodded and kept hugging him, then led him to bed and held him close while he told her everything. He fell asleep talking about the arm Lovey had broken in two places and the glass he’d felt in her face and hair.
* * *
Lon Pittman sent a text to Danner Amos just after midnight. All he said was that Lovey was in the hospital and to tell Elliot that he’d saved her life.
“Thank God,” Dan said to himself, and then got up and put on some pants and a pair of shoes. It was time to check the fuel gauge on the generator.
* * *
Two doctors stood, one on either side of an operating table under lights lit by a generator, picking glass out of their patient’s face, while two nurses stood on either side of her head, gently cutting away her hair clump by clump, revealing the glass the doctors then pulled from her scalp. They’d reset the broken bones in her arm with titanium rods and screws, holding the shattered bones in place.
They’d used precious power to run the CT scan, making sure there was no internal bleeding from the blow she’d sustained to the side of her head and face, and eventually, Lovey Cooper would heal.
But she’d never be the same. She’d lost hearing in one ear, and her arm would never have the mobility or agility it had before. The scars on her face would fade from her skin, but the memory—the nightmare—would never fade. She would hear that wind for the rest of her life.
It was daylight by the time they pulled the last shard of glass from her neck.
The wind had laid.
The eye had made landfall.
False calm.
Nothing to count on.
Haste lent panic as people opened doors, squinting against a light that wouldn’t last.
Water was knee deep. Many houses had flooded, and now was the time the residents could get out. They were wading through water with what they could carry on their backs, trying to get to higher ground, to friends’ houses, into the school, into the churches…anywhere that offered shelter.
It wasn’t over.
* * *
Dan came out the front door of his house to look at the storm damage. Alice stepped out behind him and then reached for the small of his back, taking comfort in the strength beneath her palm.
Charlie stepped out, carrying Patty to protect her healing ankle. Elliot came out last but quickly moved to the front. If Dan hadn’t stopped him, he would have waded his way home.
“Not yet, Elliot,” Dan said.
“Thought I might just check for damage,” Elliot said.
“It looks fine from here, while the back of your head is still healing.”
Elliot sighed, then nodded. “Yes, yes, of course you’re right.”
He stepped back, but Dan saw the longing in his eyes and knew he’d have to watch him.
As they stood, a family of six came wading down the street in front of them. The woman had a bandage on her head. One of the kids had a bandage on his arm. They appeared to be in a stupor.
“Hey! Are you guys okay?” Dan asked.
The man paused. “Tree fell on our house,” he said. “We’re going to the Baptist church. We heard they’re taking in displaced residents.”
All of a sudden, Elliot pulled out his key ring. “My garage apartment. It’s never gonna flood. No power, but safe and dry. Tell them, Dan. Tell them they can stay there. Here’s the key.”
He pulled a separate fob off of the key ring and pointed to the two black keys. “Two keys. Give it to them.”
Dan took the keys and then shouted at the family who was already moving on. “Hey! Hey!”
The man stopped and turned. “What?”
Dan pointed to the garage apartment across the street. “Mr. Elliot is offering you his garage apartment. It won’t flood. There’s no power, but it’s safe and dry and fully furnished.”
The man started back, his arm already outstretched.
Dan turned around and yelled at Charlie. “Go get food in one of those boxes. Nothing that has to be heated or refrigerated. Peanut butter, crackers, canned meats, bread.”
Charlie handed Patty to his mother and turned around and ran as Dan waded out into the water to meet the man.
“Here’s the key. I know you’ll take as good of care of Mr. Graham’s property as possible, considering the situation.”
The man clutched the key Dan put in his hand and then put it in an inner pocket of the jacket he was wearing. “My name is Ellis Martin. I’m a plumber by trade, but right now out of work. We sure appreciate this,” he said, smiling and waving at Elliot.
“Uh…Charlie is bringing you some food. If you’ll wait a second, he’ll bring it to you.”
“That’s wonderful!” Ellis said. “Thank you, bless you, mister.”
“I’m Dan Amos. I manage about twenty rental houses here in Blessings. When all this mess is over, come back and talk. I could use an on-call plumber if you’re interested.”
Facing the inevitable, Dori turned loose of her fears. “Get your slicker. Take the big spotlight lantern. Take an ax. Don’t forget your cell, even though we could lose cell power at any minute.”
“Thank you, baby. I’ll be back. I promise.”
“I know you will,” Dori said. “Just get her to the ER, and tell her we’re praying for her.”
Johnny nodded, ran into the bedroom to put on his work boots, got a heavy jacket with a hood and the lantern flashlight, and then dug around in the garage until he found the ax he used to chop firewood for their fireplace. The last thing he put on was his hooded slicker, and Dori was still at his heels. He turned around and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“I’m going out now. I’ll shut the door. You go back to the boys and tell them I’ll be alright.”
“I will,” she said, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I love you, Johnny Pine. You come back to us in one piece. You hear?”
“I hear you. I will be okay. I promise. I wouldn’t offer to do this if I didn’t have my Cat D9 here at the house. You know how big and strong those dozers are, right? Now go. I’m not opening this door until you’re out of the kitchen.”
She ran out of the room.
Then he grabbed the ax and the spotlight, and out the door he went. He had to push to get it open, then push harder to get it shut, and he could see Dori’s cookbooks flying off the shelf. Even though the brunt of the storm was hitting the front of their house, the wind was everywhere.
Johnny knew it was bad out, but he wasn’t prepared for the wind’s true force as he climbed up onto the dozer with the ax and the big lantern. Once inside the cab, he got the key from under the mat and started the dozer up. The sound was almost lost in the storm, but he could feel the vibration of the engine beneath his feet as he put it in gear.
Within a couple of minutes, he was out of their driveway and making his way up the street. The water was at least six inches deep, but the wind in no way slowed down his progress. The things Johnny had to watch for were downed lines and flying debris. When he finally reached Lovey Cooper’s house and saw most of a tree up against the front of her house, he guessed there were limbs inside it, too.
He tensed as he rolled up into the drive and then around to the back side of her house. He would have to force the back door to get in, but damage to her house had already happened. He just needed to get her out of it.
He parked the dozer as close to her back patio as he could get, then pocketed a couple of screwdrivers from his toolbox, grabbed the ax and the spotlight, and got out of the cab. As he did, he was hit with a wind so strong that it nearly blew him off the dozer tracks on which he was standing. He crouched down and held on as he crawled off, then ran to her back door. He grabbed his largest screwdriver and jimmied open her back door. Seconds later, he was inside. He struggled to push the door shut, but to his relief, it caught. Then he pocketed his tools, took the ax and the light and began moving through the unfamiliar layout, shouting Lovey’s name.
* * *
Lovey was going in and out of consciousness. Her biggest fear was that she’d wind up back on the floor, and if she did, she’d never have the strength to get up again.
The water was up around her ankles, and she could only imagine where else it was spreading inside her house. She was partially shielded from the wind, but she was feeling faint. Just as she was about to slide off the toilet, she caught herself, bumping her broken arm in the process. She screamed—a shrill, high-pitched scream that Johnny heard. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and then he was running toward the sound and calling her name.
At the same time, Lovey thought she could hear someone shouting. She started crying again. No one knew she was trapped. They didn’t even know she was hurt. It had to be the wind.
Help me, Lord, help me!
Then she thought she heard a noise—like someone pounding on the bathroom door. And then she very faintly heard a man shouting her name.
“In here!” she screamed. “I’m in here!”
“Get away from the door,” he shouted. “Did you hear me? Get away from the door.”
“Yes, yes!” she cried, and then held on to the sink for stability, watching as the bathroom door suddenly splintered, and then splintered again and again until she realized someone was chopping a hole in the door that was big enough to get her out.
When she saw a man’s hand reach in and start pulling away huge chunks of the door, she started to cry. “Thank you, Lord, thank you.”
The man kept chopping and pulling and chopping and pulling away shards until the middle part of the door was gone.
Now the hole had given the wind another place to blow, and she could see the man fighting against it as he leaned in to assess her situation. And that’s when she saw his face.
“Johnny? Johnny Pine?”
He saw her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear her. Her broken arm dangled, but when he reached in to grab her, she locked her good arm around his neck and held on.
Lovey buried her face against his cheek, and somehow, they wound up in her hall. “Thank you, oh thank you,” she kept saying.
“You’re welcome, darlin’,” Johnny said, then laid his ax and the spotlight on a hall table and swung her up in his arms, which elicited another shriek of pain.
He left the ax and grabbed the spotlight as he took off down the hall and into her kitchen. He set her back on her feet long enough to get them out onto the patio. The wind and rain were as shocking here as they had been in her bathroom, but out here there was more.
Lovey held on to Johnny as he struggled to pull her door shut, then he leaned close to her ear so she could hear him. “I’m likely to hurt you getting you into the cab,” he said.
She gave him a nod that she understood and gritted her teeth as he picked her up again. When they came out from under the patio, the blast from the elements was shocking. As he began climbing up and into the cab, she grabbed on to her arm to keep it as immobile as possible. His climb up was far more difficult. Not only was he holding on to the dozer to keep from being blown away, but he had to hold on to her as well. The wind and the constant lurch of his body to and fro was true torture for her.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Johnny kept saying as he struggled until finally they were all the way up to the cab. Finally, he opened the door with one hand and then leaned in and set her down in his seat long enough to close the door and shut them in.
The watertight cab muted the sounds, and for the first time since she was injured, Lovey could hear her own voice. “How did you know? How did you find me?” she asked.
“It’s a long story, Miss Lovey. Right now I need to get you to the ER, okay? And that means I need my seat back.”
“Where do you need me to be?” Lovey said.
“I think you’ll be safest if we start out with you tucked up in the floor beside me.”
“Whatever you say. You have no idea how grateful I am for you.”
Johnny took off his slicker and his jacket, spread them on the floor, and then pulled her up out of the seat, then eased her back down onto the pallet he’d made for her.
“Okay?” he asked.
Lovey was crying again, but they were tears of relief. “Yes, yes, I’m okay. I just thought I would die there.”
Johnny touched her head, felt shards of glass beneath his fingers and flinched. She’d come damn close to making that happen, he thought, then got down to business and started up the engine one more time before he made that call back to the chief.
The call rang twice, and then Johnny heard Lon’s voice. “Hello? Johnny?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Chief. I’ve got her in the cab. We’re headed to the hospital, which is a good distance away, but tell them we’re coming.”
Lon let out a whoop that made Johnny grin. “Johnny Pine, you are one heck of a man!” Lon said. “Be safe, and call me again when you get home.”
“Yes, sir, I will, if we still have service.”
“It is a freaking miracle that we do,” Lon said. “And if Hurricane Fanny hadn’t taken that turn north, we’d be in a whole lot more trouble.”
“Yes, sir. I’m hanging up now.” Then Johnny put the dozer in gear, and down the driveway they went, turning left onto the street as he headed for Main.
Chapter 15
“Whoa,” Johnny said to himself, as he reached an intersection.
“What’s wrong?” Lovey asked.
“There is a tree down across Laurel Avenue, but it’s not a problem, honey,” Johnny said. “We’ll just jog a block east and then get back to Main that way. Are you okay?”
She was shaking, but didn’t know if it was from pain or from being wet for so long. “I’m alive. I’ll be okay later,” Lovey said. “You don’t worry about me. I’m happy to ride.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Johnny said, and slowly, they made their way onto Main Street, then started north toward the hospital. “We’re on Main. It won’t be long now,” he said.
Lovey moaned an acknowledgment. Now that she was out of the wind and rain, she could concentrate on something besides blowing away. And when she did, the first bit of cognizance was the pain. She touched her face and felt glass shards protruding from the flesh and moaned again.
Johnny knew talking wouldn’t help, so he stayed quiet and just kept driving the Cat forward, eyeing the strength of the water current in the streets and the low-hanging power lines. When he drove past Granny’s Country Kitchen, he didn’t mention that her big sign on the roof was gone. But he could see the windows were still boarded up, and unless the roof had suffered damage, she was still good to go. The water was deeper through here. At least a foot of water on the streets and more in the low spots, but it didn’t affect him or their mode of travel. The big dozer sat so high up off the ground that they were in no danger of flooding out.
When he finally reached the street that led down to the hospital, he slowed down to turn. “Feel that turn? We’re five blocks from getting you some help.”
Lovey reached out and clasped his forearm. “You saved me, Johnny. You saved my life.”
“Thank you, Miss Lovey, but I didn’t do this by myself. God rode shotgun all the way here.”
She was sobbing quietly as he pulled up beneath the covered drive-through in front of the ER. Through the rain, he could see four very large men standing inside at the entrance. They’d been watching for their arrival.
“Stay seated a minute, Miss Lovey,” Johnny said, and got up and opened up the cab as the men came running out.
One immediately climbed up on the dozer and grabbed hold of the door and leaned in a bit to be heard. “We’re going to relay her down,” he said.
“She’s hurt bad,” Johnny said, shouting above the wind to be heard. “And be real careful of her right arm. It’s broken in at least two places that I could see.”
The orderly nodded, watching as Johnny Pine positioned himself just right, and then squatted down and picked her up. Just before he handed her off, he gently kissed the side of her cheek.
“I’m passing you off to the experts, Miss Lovey,” he said, and stepped outside the cab with her still in his arms, then lowered her down to the first orderly.
As soon as the orderly had Lovey in a safe position, he turned around to pass her to the next one, who was standing lower down on the dozer. As he did, he was nearly blown off his feet. If it hadn’t been for Johnny, who was still hanging on to them, they would be gone.
Then that orderly turned and gave her to the last one. As soon as she was in his arms, they all came down off the dozer and ran for the entrance.
Johnny watched from inside the cab until he couldn’t see them anymore, sent a text to Chief Pittman that read “package delivered,” and headed home.
It wasn’t until he saw his house that he began to breathe easy. He drove up their driveway through the flood of water washing down it and then parked all the way up to the back patio where he’d had the dozer before. He killed the engine, put the keys back under the mat, and then put all of his weather gear back on. He grabbed the spotlight and then out the door he went, scrambling from handhold to porch post.
He climbed up the steps and ran for the back door. The knob turned beneath his hands, and then he was inside and using all of his strength to shut and relock the door.
He began shedding the poncho and heavy jacket, then pulled off his heavy-duty boots. He was down to the wet Levi’s when Dori appeared with a flashlight and one of the blankets off their king-size bed. “The kids are asleep. My prayers have been answered. Wrap yourself up in this, and come to bed. You won’t get warm any other way.”
It wasn’t until she came closer that he could tell she’d been crying. He pulled the blanket around himself, welcoming the softness and the warmth, then opened his arms and pulled her close, covering her up with him.
“Oh, honey… Dori, I am sorry I scared you, but she was alive. She’s at the ER, and it was worth it.”
Dori just nodded and kept hugging him, then led him to bed and held him close while he told her everything. He fell asleep talking about the arm Lovey had broken in two places and the glass he’d felt in her face and hair.
* * *
Lon Pittman sent a text to Danner Amos just after midnight. All he said was that Lovey was in the hospital and to tell Elliot that he’d saved her life.
“Thank God,” Dan said to himself, and then got up and put on some pants and a pair of shoes. It was time to check the fuel gauge on the generator.
* * *
Two doctors stood, one on either side of an operating table under lights lit by a generator, picking glass out of their patient’s face, while two nurses stood on either side of her head, gently cutting away her hair clump by clump, revealing the glass the doctors then pulled from her scalp. They’d reset the broken bones in her arm with titanium rods and screws, holding the shattered bones in place.
They’d used precious power to run the CT scan, making sure there was no internal bleeding from the blow she’d sustained to the side of her head and face, and eventually, Lovey Cooper would heal.
But she’d never be the same. She’d lost hearing in one ear, and her arm would never have the mobility or agility it had before. The scars on her face would fade from her skin, but the memory—the nightmare—would never fade. She would hear that wind for the rest of her life.
It was daylight by the time they pulled the last shard of glass from her neck.
The wind had laid.
The eye had made landfall.
False calm.
Nothing to count on.
Haste lent panic as people opened doors, squinting against a light that wouldn’t last.
Water was knee deep. Many houses had flooded, and now was the time the residents could get out. They were wading through water with what they could carry on their backs, trying to get to higher ground, to friends’ houses, into the school, into the churches…anywhere that offered shelter.
It wasn’t over.
* * *
Dan came out the front door of his house to look at the storm damage. Alice stepped out behind him and then reached for the small of his back, taking comfort in the strength beneath her palm.
Charlie stepped out, carrying Patty to protect her healing ankle. Elliot came out last but quickly moved to the front. If Dan hadn’t stopped him, he would have waded his way home.
“Not yet, Elliot,” Dan said.
“Thought I might just check for damage,” Elliot said.
“It looks fine from here, while the back of your head is still healing.”
Elliot sighed, then nodded. “Yes, yes, of course you’re right.”
He stepped back, but Dan saw the longing in his eyes and knew he’d have to watch him.
As they stood, a family of six came wading down the street in front of them. The woman had a bandage on her head. One of the kids had a bandage on his arm. They appeared to be in a stupor.
“Hey! Are you guys okay?” Dan asked.
The man paused. “Tree fell on our house,” he said. “We’re going to the Baptist church. We heard they’re taking in displaced residents.”
All of a sudden, Elliot pulled out his key ring. “My garage apartment. It’s never gonna flood. No power, but safe and dry. Tell them, Dan. Tell them they can stay there. Here’s the key.”
He pulled a separate fob off of the key ring and pointed to the two black keys. “Two keys. Give it to them.”
Dan took the keys and then shouted at the family who was already moving on. “Hey! Hey!”
The man stopped and turned. “What?”
Dan pointed to the garage apartment across the street. “Mr. Elliot is offering you his garage apartment. It won’t flood. There’s no power, but it’s safe and dry and fully furnished.”
The man started back, his arm already outstretched.
Dan turned around and yelled at Charlie. “Go get food in one of those boxes. Nothing that has to be heated or refrigerated. Peanut butter, crackers, canned meats, bread.”
Charlie handed Patty to his mother and turned around and ran as Dan waded out into the water to meet the man.
“Here’s the key. I know you’ll take as good of care of Mr. Graham’s property as possible, considering the situation.”
The man clutched the key Dan put in his hand and then put it in an inner pocket of the jacket he was wearing. “My name is Ellis Martin. I’m a plumber by trade, but right now out of work. We sure appreciate this,” he said, smiling and waving at Elliot.
“Uh…Charlie is bringing you some food. If you’ll wait a second, he’ll bring it to you.”
“That’s wonderful!” Ellis said. “Thank you, bless you, mister.”
“I’m Dan Amos. I manage about twenty rental houses here in Blessings. When all this mess is over, come back and talk. I could use an on-call plumber if you’re interested.”
