Страница 27 из 71
He watched Hugh-Jay’s truck turn left, toward the big stone house.
15
WHEN ANNABELLE AWOKE the following morning, with Jody warm and sleeping beside her, she knew by the blessed silence that the rain had finally stopped. The storm front had moved on to terrorize eastern Kansas. Batten down your hatches, she thought sympathetically. All night she’d been plagued by awful nightmares that she blamed on the storm. They had awakened her several times, and each time she’d felt an urgent need to do something, without knowing what.
It was a relief to wake up this time, even if she was still tired.
As soon as she looked at her bedside clock, she knew the power was still out, and when she quietly lifted a telephone receiver, she didn’t get a dial tone.
Judging by the slant of the sun, she gauged it to be around 5:00 A.M.
She slipped out of bed without waking her granddaughter and took a moment to look back and enjoy the sight of her, all rumpled and flushed with sleep, with her arms flung out. That vision of i
The morning had a mildewy smell.
She clasped the mug in both hands, not minding the heat of it.
She observed that her abandoned flower beds had finally been watered, albeit much too late and too heavily to save them. Their poor little root systems were drowned now, after having been parched first. The soil around them-the dirt she worked so hard to improve every single year-would turn to hard-pack clay again. It was the kind of ruined garden soil that cracked when it was wet and when it was dry. If she wanted to make bricks, she could do that with the hopeless soil; it was flowers that she wasn’t going to get this year.
A
But she perked up at the sight of intact roofs on the house, barn, and other outbuildings. She felt astonished to see only a few shingles blown off and a slat of wood or two. She saw no fences down around the house, either, and thought bitterly that it took a man with wire clippers to do that, darn him.
“We got off easy,” she said to herself, feeling a little guilty.
She was sure that many people had not escaped so easily.
She needed to feed the dogs and horses, but the remainder of the daily chores could wait until her men came home. She tossed the execrable coffee onto the ground and hurried back inside. She was worried about Rose and anxious to get Jody dressed so they could drive into town to see how their little town-and their family-had weathered the storm.
ANNABELLE AND JODY had no problem getting past the low place in the highway. The high water had drained back into the creek by then, leaving only muddy traces of its raging self. She was shocked to see-by the vegetation clinging to fence rails-how high the water had risen over the road.
Whitecaps! she thought, but stopped herself from saying it aloud, because if she did, she’d need to explain to Jody what they were, and she was too tired to answer any “Why, Grandma’s?” Jody was cranky from being pulled out of bed sooner than her body wanted to rise. A big breakfast would help both of them. A
Why do it now? A
In spite of her urgent need for better coffee, she took an alternate route to town so she could drive past a local landmark, a set of famous rock monuments that rose high above the ground, looking like a natural, bigger, taller Stonehenge, a startling contrast to the rest of the flat landscape. Testament Rocks, as they were known, attracted about the only tourists her county ever saw-archaeologists, geologists, and paleontologists, for the most part. A great inland sea had once surged through this area, an enormous body of water replete with prehistoric sharks and other seafaring creatures; later, a vast river took its place. Just to look at Testament Rocks gave A
A
She simply slowed down when she could see them in silhouette in the distance. From that angle, they all looked as she remembered them; the storm had not visibly affected them.
As always, she felt steadied by the sight of them.
“Why are we going so slow, Grandma?”
“So we can see the Rocks, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want to see rocks.”
The early morning light was hitting the Rocks just right to turn them a spectacular white-gold that made them look as if they’d been painted there against the sky, because surely no rocks in nature could shine that brightly. A
“What do you want to see instead?”
“Daddy. And pancakes.”
A
“Do you want to see butter, too?”
“Yes!”
“Maple syrup?”
“Yes! And Mommy.”
“That we can handle.”
As A
Along the rest of the way there were manifold signs of storm damage: trees sundered by lightning, branches and fences down, water standing in ditches, a few telephone poles on the ground. Distracted by the evidence of other people’s problems, A
WHEN SHE DROVE into Rose, she saw branches down there, too, and streets carpeted with wet leaves. It was clear the power was still out, but otherwise the town seemed to have escaped without major wind damage. How their basements looked this morning was probably a different story, she knew. There could well be dozens of people with their sump pumps turned on, or bailing out water by hand, by the bucketful. She saw one large tree split in two, burned streaks down the inside a
She went to the Rose Motel first and parked in front of the office.
“Where’d you stash them?” she asked the proprietor, whom she’d known for years.
“Your husband’s in Seven,” he told her with a smile, “and your boys are in Nine. How’s the highway from the ranch?”
“Clear. Water was very high, though.”
“I heard. We’re lucky nobody got washed away.”
“We sure are lucky. May I have keys to their rooms?”
With a cheery wave and keys in her hand, A