Black Evening

The Storm

Gail saw it first. She came from the Howard Johnsons toward the heat haze in the parking lot where our son, Jeff, and I were hefting luggage into our station wagon. Actually, Jeff supervised. He gave me his excited ten-year-old advice about the best place for this suitcase and that knapsack. Grinning at his sun-bleached hair and nut-brown freckled face, I told him I could never have done the job without him.

It was eight a.m., Tuesday, August second, but even that early, the thermometer outside our motel unit had risen to eighty-five. The humidity was thick and smothering. Just from my slight exertion with the luggage, I'd sweated through my shirt and jeans, wishing I'd thought to put on shorts. To the east, the sun blazed, white and swollen, the sky an oppressive chalky blue. This would be one day when the station wagon's air conditioning wouldn't be just a comfort but a necessity.

My hands were sweat-slick as I shut the hatch. Jeff nodded, satisfied with my work, then grinned beyond me. Turning, I saw Gail coming toward us. When she left the brown parched grass, her brow creased as her sandals touched the heat-softened asphalt parking lot.

"All set?" she asked.

Her smooth white shorts and cool blue top emphasized her tan. She looked trim and lithe and wonderful. I'm not sure how she did it, but she seemed completely unaffected by the heat. Her hair was soft and golden. Her subtle trace of makeup made the day seem somehow cooler.

"Ready. Thanks to Jeff," I told her.

Jeff grinned up proudly.

"Well, I paid the bill. I gave them back the key," Gail said. "Let's go." She paused. "Except…"

"What's wrong?"

"Those clouds." She pointed past my shoulder.

I turned and frowned. In contrast to the blinding eastern sky, thick black clouds seethed on the western horizon. They roiled and churned. In the distance, lightning flickered like a string of flashbulbs, thunder rumbling hollowly.

"Now where the hell did that come from?" I said. "It wasn't there before I packed the car."

Gail squinted toward the thunderheads. "You think we should wait till it passes?"

"It isn't close." I shrugged.

"But it's coming fast." Gail bit her lip. "And it looks bad."

Jeff grabbed my hand. I glanced at his worried face.

"It's just a storm, son."

Jeff surprised me, though. I'd misjudged what worried him.

"I want to go back home," he said. "I don't want to wait. I miss my friends. Please, can't we leave?"

I nodded. "I'm on your side. Two votes out of three, Gail. If you're really scared, though…"

"No. I…" Gail drew a breath and shook her head. "I'm being silly. It's just the thunder. You know how storms bother me." She ruffled Jeff's hair. "But I won't make us wait. I'm homesick, too."

We'd spent the past two weeks in Colorado, fishing, camping, touring ghost towns. The vacation had been perfect. But as eagerly as we'd gone, we were just as eager to be heading back. Last night, we'd stopped here in North Platte, a small quiet town off Interstate 80, halfway through Nebraska. Now, today, we hoped we could reach home in Iowa City by nightfall.

"Let's get moving then," I said. "It's probably a local storm. We'll drive ahead of it. We'll never see a drop of rain."

Gail tried to smile. "I hope."

Jeff hummed as we got in the station wagon. I steered toward the Interstate, went up the eastbound ramp, and set the cruise control for the speed limit of fifty-five. Ahead, the morning sun glared through the windshield. After I tugged down the visors, I turned on the air conditioner, then the radio. The local weatherman said hot and hazy.

"Hear that?" I said. "He didn't mention a storm. No need to worry. Those are only heat clouds."

I was wrong. From time to time, I checked the rearview mirror, and the clouds loomed thicker, blacker, closer, seething toward us down the Interstate. Ahead, the sun kept blazing fiercely. Jeff wiped his sweaty face. I set the air conditioner for DESERT, but it didn't seem to help.

"Jeff, reach in the ice chest. Grab us each a Coke."

He grinned. But I suddenly felt uneasy, realizing too late that he'd have to turn to open the chest in the rear compartment.

"Gosh," he murmured, staring back, awestruck.

"What's the matter?" Gail swung around before I could stop her. "Oh, my God, the clouds."

They were angry midnight chasing us. Lightning flashed. Thunder jolted.

"They still haven't reached us," I said. "If you want, I'll try outrunning them."

"Do something."

I switched off the cruise control and sped to sixty, then sixty-five. The strain of squinting toward the white-hot sky ahead of us gave me a piercing headache. I put on my sunglasses.

But all at once I didn't need them. Abruptly the clouds caught up to us. The sky went totally black. We drove in roiling darkness.

"Seventy. I'm doing seventy," I said. "But the clouds are moving faster."

"Almost a hurricane," Gail said. "That isn't possible. Not in Nebraska."

"I'm scared," Jeff said.

He wasn't the only one. Lightning blinded me, stabbing to the right and left of us. Thunder shook the car. Then the air became an eerie, dirty shade of green, and I started thinking about tornadoes.

"Find a place to stop!" Gail shouted.

But there wasn't one. We'd already passed the exit for the next town, Kearny. I searched for a roadside park, but a sign said REST STOP, THIRTY MILES. I couldn't just pull off the highway. On the shoulder, if the rain obscured another driver's vision, we could all be hit and killed. No choice. I had to keep driving.

"At least it isn't raining," I said.

The clouds unloaded. No preliminary sprinkle. Massive raindrops burst around us, gusting, roaring, pelting.

"I can't see!" I flicked the windshield wipers to their highest setting. They flapped in sharp, staccato, triple time. I peered through murky, undulating, wind swept waves of water, struggling for a clear view of the highway.

I was going too fast. When I braked, the station wagon fishtailed. We skidded on the slippery pavement. I couldn't breathe. The tires gripped. I felt the jolt. Then the car was in control.

I slowed to forty, but the rain heaved with such force against the windshield I still couldn't see.

"Pull your seatbelts tight."

Although I never found that rest stop, I got lucky when a flash of lightning showed a sign, the exit for a town called Grand Island. Shaking from tension, I eased down the off ramp. At the bottom, across from me, a Best Western motel was shrouded with rain. We left a wake through the flooded parking lot and stopped under the motel's canopy. My hands were stiff from clenching the steering wheel. My shoulders ached. My eyes felt swollen, raw.

Gail and Jeff got out, rain gusting under the canopy as they ran inside. I had to move the car to park it in the lot. I locked the doors, but although I sprinted, I was drenched and chilled when I reached the motel's entrance.

Inside, a small group stared past me toward the storm – two clerks, two waitresses, a cleaning lady. I trembled.

"Mister, use this towel," the cleaning lady said. She took one from a pile on her cart.

I thanked her, wiping my dripping face and soggy hair.

"See any accidents?" a waitress asked.

With the towel around my neck, I shook my head no.

"A storm this sudden, there ought to be accidents," the waitress said as if doubting me.

I frowned when she said sudden. "You mean it's just starting here?"

A skinny clerk stepped past me to the window. "Not too long before you came. A minute maybe. I looked out this window, and the sky was bright. I knelt to tie my shoe. When I stood up, the clouds were here – as black as night. I don't know where they came from all of a sudden, but I never saw it rain so hard so fast."

"But – " I shivered, puzzled. "The storm hit us back near Kearny. We've been driving in it for an hour."

"You were on the edge of it, I guess," the clerk said, spellbound by the devastation outside. "It followed you."

My cold wet shirt clung to me, but I felt a deeper chill.

"Looks like we've got other customers," the second clerk said, pointing out the window.

Other cars splashed through the torrent in the parking lot.

"Yeah, we'll be busy, that's for sure," the clerk said. He switched on the lights, but they didn't dispel the outside gloom.

The wind howled.

I glanced around the lobby, suddenly noticing that Gail and Jeff weren't in sight. "My wife and son."

"They're in the restaurant," the second waitress said, smiling to reassure me. "Through that arch. They ordered coffee for you. Hot and strong."

"I need it. Thanks."

Dripping travelers stumbled in.

We waited an hour. Although the coffee was as hot as promised, it didn't warm me. In the air conditioning, my soggy clothes stuck to the chilly chrome-and-plastic seat. A bone-deep freezing numbness made me sneeze.

"You need dry clothes," Gail said. "You'll catch pneumonia."

I'd hoped the storm would stop before I went out for the clothes. But even in the restaurant, I felt the thunder rumble. I couldn't wait. My muscles cramped from shivering. "I'll get a suitcase." I stood.

"Dad, be careful." Jeff looked worried.

Smiling, I leaned down and kissed him. "Son, I promise."

Near the restaurant's exit, one of the waitresses I'd talked to came over. "You want to hear a joke?"

I didn't, but I nodded politely.

"On the radio," she said. "The local weatherman. He claims it's hot and clear."

I shook my head, confused.

"The storm." She laughed. "He doesn't know it's raining. All his instruments, his radar and his charts, he hasn't brains enough to look outside and see what kind of day it is. If anything, the rain got worse." She laughed again. "The biggest joke – that dummy's my husband."

I laughed to be agreeable and went to the lobby.

It was crowded. More rain-drenched travelers pushed in, cursing the weather. They tugged at dripping clothes and bunched before the motel's counter, wanting rooms.

I squeezed past them, stopping at the big glass door, squinting out at the wildest rain I'd ever seen. Above the exclamations of the crowd, I heard the shriek of the wind.

My hand reached for the door.

It hesitated. I really didn't want to go out.

The skinny desk clerk suddenly stood next to me. "It could be you're not interested," he said.

I frowned, surprised.

"We're renting rooms so fast we'll soon be all full up," he said. "But fair is fair. You got here first. I saved a room. In case you plan on staying."

"I appreciate it. But we're leaving soon."

"You'd better take another look."

I did. Lightning split a tree. The window shook from thunder.

A steaming bath, I thought. A sizzling steak. Warm blankets while my clothes get dry.

"I changed my mind. We'll take that room."

All night, thunder shook the building. Even with the drapes shut, I saw brilliant streaks of lightning. I slept fitfully, waking with a headache. Six a.m., it was still raining.

On the radio, the weatherman sounded puzzled. As the lightning's static garbled what he said, I learned that Grand Island was suffering the worst storm in its history. Streets were flooded, sewers blocked, basements overflowing. An emergency had been declared, the damage in the millions. But the cause of the storm seemed inexplicable. The weather pattern made no sense. The front was tiny, localized, and stationary. Half a mile outside Grand Island – north and south, east and west – the sky was cloudless.

That last statement was all I needed to know. We quickly dressed and went downstairs to eat. We checked out shortly after seven.

"Driving in this rain?" The desk clerk shook his head. He had the tact not to tell me I was crazy.

"Listen to the radio," I answered. "Half a mile away, the sky is clear."

I'd have stayed if it hadn't been for Gail. Her fear of storms – the constant lightning and thunder – made her frantic.

"Get me out of here."

And so we went.

And almost didn't reach the Interstate. The car was hubcap-deep in water. The distributor was damp. I nearly killed the battery before I got the engine started. The brakes were soaked. They failed as I reached the local road. Skidding, blinded, I swerved around the blur of an abandoned truck, missing the entrance to the Interstate. Backing up, I barely saw a ditch in time. But finally we headed up the ramp, rising above the flood, doing twenty down the highway.

Jeff was white-faced. I'd bought some comics for him, but he was too scared to read them.

"The odometer," I told him. "Watch the numbers. Half a mile, and we'll be out of this."

I counted tenths of a mile with him. "One, two, three…"

The storm grew darker, stronger.

"Four, five, six…"

The numbers felt like broken glass wedged in my throat.

"But Dad, we're half a mile away. The rain's not stopping."

"Just a little farther."

But instead of ending, it got worse. We had to stop in Lincoln. The next day, the storm persisted. We pressed on to Omaha. We could normally drive from Colorado to our home in Iowa City in two leisurely days.

But this trip took us seven, long, slow, agonizing days. We had to stop in Omaha and then Des Moines and towns whose names I'd never heard of. When we at last reached home, we felt so exhausted, so frightened, we left our bags in the car and stumbled from the garage to bed.

The rain slashed against the windows. It drummed on the roof. I couldn't sleep. When I peered out, I saw a waterfall from the overflowing eaves. Lightning struck an electricity pole. I settled to my knees and recollected every prayer I'd ever learned and then invented stronger ones.

The electricity was fixed by morning. The phone still worked. Gail called a friend and asked a question. As she listened to the answer, I was startled by the way her face shrank and her eyes receded. Mumbling "Thanks," she set the phone down.

"It's been dry here," she said. "Then last night at eight, the storm began."

"But that's when we arrived. My God, what's happening?"

"Coincidence." Gail frowned. "The storm front moved in our direction. We kept trying to escape. Instead we only followed it."

The fridge was bare. I told Gail I'd get some food and warned Jeff not to go outside.

"But Dad, I want to see my friends."

"Watch television. Don't go out till the rain stops."

"It won't end."

I froze. "What makes you say that?"

"Not today it won't. The sky's too dark. The rain's too hard."

I nodded, relaxing. "Then call your friends. But don't go out."

When I opened the garage door, I watched the torrent. Eight days since I'd seen the sun. Damp clung on me. Gusts angled toward me.

I drove from the garage and was swallowed.

Gail looked overjoyed when I came back. "It stopped for forty minutes." She grinned with relief.

"Not where I was."

The nearest supermarket was half a mile away. Despite my umbrella and raincoat, I'd been drenched when I lurched through the hissing automatic door of the supermarket. Fighting to catch my breath, I'd fumbled with the inside-out umbrella and muttered to a clerk about the goddamn endless rain.

The clerk hadn't known what I meant. "But it started just a minute ago."

I'd shuddered, but not from the water dripping off me.

Gail heard me out and paled. Her joy turned into frightened disbelief. "As soon as you came back, the storm began again."

I flinched as the bottom fell out of my soggy grocery bag. Ignoring the cans and boxes of food on the floor, I hurried to find a weather station on the radio. But the announcer's static-garbled voice sounded as bewildered as his counterparts throughout Nebraska.

His report was the same. The weather pattern made no sense. The front was tiny, localized, and stationary. Half a mile away, the sky was cloudless. In a small circumference, however, Iowa City was enduring its most savage storm on record. Downtown streets were…

I shut off the radio.

Thinking frantically, I told Gail I was going to my office at the University to see if I had mail. But my motive was quite different, and I hoped she wouldn't think of it.

She started to speak as Jeff came into the kitchen, interrupting us, his eyes bleak with cabin fever. "Drive me down to Freddie's, Dad?"

I didn't have the heart to tell him no.

At the school, the parking lot was flecked with rain. But there weren't any puddles. I live a mile away. I went in the English building and asked a secretary, although I knew what she'd tell me.

"No, Mr. Price. All morning it's been clear. The rain's just beginning."

In my office, I phoned home.

"The rain stopped," Gail said. "You won't believe how beautiful the sky is, bright and sunny."

I stared from my office window toward a storm so black and ugly I barely saw the whitecaps on the angry churning river.

Fear coiled in my guts.

The pattern was always the same. No matter where I went, the storm went with me. When I left, the storm left as well. It got worse. Nine days of it. Then ten. Eleven. Twelve. Our basement flooded as did all the other basements in the district. Streets eroded. There were mudslides. Shingles blew away. Attics leaked. Retaining walls fell over. Lightning struck the electricity poles so often the food spoiled in our freezer. We lit candles. If our stove hadn't used gas, we couldn't have cooked. As in Grand Island, an emergency was declared, the damage so great it couldn't be calculated.

What hurt the most was seeing the effect on Gail and Jeff. The constant chilly dampness gave them colds. I sneezed and sniffled, too, but didn't care about myself because Gail's spirits sank the more it rained. Her eyes became a dismal gray. She had no energy. She put on sweaters and rubbed her listless aching arms.

Jeff went to bed much earlier than usual. He slept later. He looked thin. His eyes had dark circles.

And he had nightmares. As lightning cracked, his screams woke us. Again the electricity wasn't working. We used flashlights as we hurried to his room.

"Wake up, Jeff! You're only dreaming!"

"The Indian!" Moaning, he rubbed his frightened eyes.

Thunder rumbled, making Gail jerk.

"What Indian?" I said.

"He warned you."

"Son, I don't know what – "

"In Colorado." Gail turned sharply, startling me with the hollows the darkness cast on her cheeks. "The weather dancer."

"You mean that witch doctor?"

On our trip, we'd stopped in a dingy desert town for gas and seen a meager group of tourists studying a roadside Indian display. A shack, rickety tables, beads and drums and belts. Skeptical, I'd walked across. A scruffy Indian, who looked to be at least a hundred, dressed in threadbare faded vestments, had chanted gibberish while he danced around a circle of rocks in the dust.

"What's going on?" I asked a woman aiming a camera.

"He's a medicine man. He's dancing to make it rain and end the drought."

I scuffed the dust and glanced at the burning sky. My head ached from the heat and the long oppressive drive. I'd seen too many sleazy roadside stands, too many Indians ripping off tourists, selling overpriced inauthentic artifacts. Imperfect turquoise, shoddy silver. They'd turned their back on their heritage and prostituted their traditions.

I didn't care how much they hated us for what we'd done to them. What bothered me was that behind their stoical faces they laughed as they duped us.

Whiskey fumes wafted from the ancient Indian as he clumsily danced around the circle, chanting.

"Can he do it?" Jeff asked. "Can he make it rain?"

"It's a gimmick," I said. "Watch these tourists put money in that so-called native bowl he bought at Sears."

The tourists heard me, their rapt faces suddenly suspicious.

The old man stopped performing. "Gimmick?" He glared.

"I didn't mean to speak so loud. I'm sorry if I ruined your routine."

"I made that bowl myself."

"Of course you did."

He lurched across, the whiskey fumes stronger. "You don't think my dance can make it rain?"

"I couldn't care less if you fool these tourists, but my son should know the truth."

"You want convincing?"

"I said I was sorry."

"White men always say they're sorry."

Gail came over, glancing furtively around. Embarrassed, she tugged at my sleeve. "The gas tank's full. Let's go."

I backed away.

"You'll see it rain! You'll pray it stops!" the old man shouted.

Jeff looked terrified, and that made me angry. "Shut your mouth! You scared my son!"

"He wonders if I can make it rain? Watch the sky! I dance for you now! When the lightning strikes, remember me!"

We got in the car. "That crazy coot. Don't let him bother you. The sun cooked his brain."

"All right, he threatened me. So what?" I asked. "Gail, you surely can't believe he sent this storm. By dancing? Think. It isn't possible."

"Then tell me why it's happening."

"A hundred weather experts tried but can't explain it. How can I?"

"The storm's linked to you. It never leaves you."

"It's…"

I meant to say "coincidence" again, but the word had lost its meaning and died in my throat. I studied Gail and Jeff, and in the glare of the flashlights, I realized they blamed me. We were adversaries, both of them against me.

"The rain, Dad. Can't you make it stop?"

I cried when he whispered, "Please."

Department of Meteorology. It consisted of a full professor, one associate, and one assistant. I'd met the full professor at a cocktail party several years ago. We sometimes played tennis together. On occasion, we had lunch. I knew his office hours and braved the storm to go see him.

Again the parking lot was speckled with increasing raindrops when I got there. I ran through raging wind and shook my raincoat in the lobby of his building. I'd phoned ahead. He was waiting.

Forty-five, freckled, almost bald. In damn fine shape, though, as I knew from many tennis games I'd lost.

"The rain's back." He shook his head disgustedly.

"No explanation yet?"

"I'm supposed to be the expert. Your guess would be as good as mine. If this keeps up, I'll take to reading tea leaves."

"Maybe superstition's…" I wanted to say "the answer," but I couldn't force myself.

"What?" He leaned ahead.

I rubbed my aching forehead. "What causes thunderstorms?"

He shrugged. "Two different fronts collide. One's hot and moist. The other's cold and dry. They bang together so hard they explode. The lightning and thunder are the blast. The rain's the fallout."

"But in this case?"

"That's the problem. We don't have two different fronts. Even if we did, the storm would move because of vacuums the winds create. But this storm stays right here. It only shifts a half a mile or so and then comes back. It's forcing us to reassess the rules."

"I don't know how to say this." But somehow I told him. Everything.

He frowned. "And you believe this?"

"I'm not sure. My wife and son do. Is it possible?"

He put some papers away. He poured two cups of coffee. He did everything but rearrange his bookshelves.

"Is it possible?" I said.

"If you repeat this, I'll deny it."

"How much crazier can – "

"In the sixties, when I was in grad school, I went on a field trip to Mexico. The mountain valleys have such complicated weather patterns they're perfect for a dissertation. One place gets so much rain the villages are flooded. Ten miles away, another valley gets no rain whatsoever. In one valley I studied, something had gone wrong. It normally had lots of rain. For seven years, though, it had been completely dry. The valley next to it, normally dry, was getting all the rain. No explanation. God knows, I worked hard to find one. People were forced to leave their homes and go where the rain was. In this seventh summer, they stopped hoping the weather would behave the way it used to. They wanted to return to their valley, so they sent for special help. A weather dancer. He claimed to be a descendent of the Mayans. He arrived one day and paced the valley, praying to all the compass points. Where they intersected in the valley's middle, he arranged a wheel of stones. He put on vestments. He danced around the wheel. One day later, it was raining, and the weather pattern went back to the way it used to be. I told myself he'd been lucky, that he'd somehow read the signs of nature and danced when he was positive it would rain. But I saw those clouds rush in, and they were strange. They didn't move on until the streams were flowing and the wells were full. Coincidence? Special knowledge? Who can say? But it troubles me when I think about what happened in that valley."

"Then the Indian I met could cause this storm?"

"Who knows? Look, I'm a scientist. I trust in facts. But sometimes superstition's a word we use for science we don't understand."

"What happens if the storm continues, if it doesn't stop?"

"Whoever lives beneath it will have to move, or else they'll die."

"But what if it follows someone?"

"You really believe it would?"

"It does!"

He studied me. "You ever hear of a superstorm?"

Dismayed, I shook my head.

"On rare occasions, several storms will climb on top of each other. They can tower as high as seven miles."

I felt my heart lurch.

"But this storm's already climbed that high. It's heading up to ten miles now. It'll soon tear houses from foundations. It'll level everything. A stationary half-mile-wide tornado."

"If I'm right, though, if the old man wants to punish me, I can't escape. Unless my wife and son are separate from me, they'll die, too."

"Assuming you're right. But I have to emphasize. There's no scientific reason to believe your theory."

"I think I'm crazy."

Eliminate the probable, then the possible. What's left must be the explanation. Either Gail and Jeff would die, or they'd have to leave me. But I couldn't bear losing them.

I knew what I had to do. I struggled through the storm to get back home. Jeff was feverish. Gail kept coughing, glaring at me in accusation.

They argued when I told them, but in desperation, they agreed.

"If what we think is true," I said, "once I'm gone, the storm'll stop. You'll see the sun again."

"But what about you? What'll happen?"

"Pray for me."

The Interstate again, heading west. The storm, of course, went with me.

Iowa. Nebraska. It took me three insane disastrous weeks to get to Colorado. Driving through rain-swept mountains was a nightmare. But I finally reached that dingy desert town. I found that sleazy roadside stand.

No trinkets, no beads. As the storm raged, turning dust to mud, I searched the town, begging for information "That old Indian. The weather dancer."

"He took sick," a store owner said.

"Where is he?"

"How should I know? Try the reservation."

It was fifteen miles away. The road was serpentine, narrow, and mucky. I passed rocks so hot they steamed from rain. The car slid, crashing into a ditch, resting on its driveshaft. I ran through lightning and thunder, drenched and moaning when I stumbled to the largest building on the reservation. It was low and wide, made from stone. I pounded on the door. A man in a uniform opened it, the agent for the government.

I told him.

He frowned with suspicion. Turning, he spoke a different language to some Indians in the office. They answered.

He nodded. "You must want him bad," he said, "if you came out here in this storm. You're almost out of time. The old man's dying."

In the reservation's hospital, the old man lay motionless under sheets, an IV in his arm. Shriveled, he looked like a dry empty corn husk. He slowly opened his eyes. They gleamed with recognition.

"I believe you now," I said. "Please, make the rain stop."

He breathed in pain.

"My wife and son believe. It isn't fair to make them suffer. Please." My voice rose. "I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry. Make it stop."

The old man squirmed.

I sank to my knees, kissed his hand, and sobbed. "I know I don't deserve it. But I'm begging you. I've learned my lesson. Stop the rain."

The old man studied me and slowly nodded. The doctor tried to restrain him, but the old man's strength was extraordinary. He crawled from bed. He hobbled. Slowly, in evident pain, he chanted and danced.

The lightning and thunder worsened. Rain slashed the windows. The old man strained to dance harder. The frenzy of the storm increased. Its strident fury soared. It reached a crescendo, hung there – and stopped.

The old man fell. Gasping, I ran to him and helped the doctor lift him into bed.

The doctor scowled. "You almost killed him."

"He isn't dead?"

"No thanks to you."

But that was the word I used: "Thanks." To the old man and the powers in the sky.

I left the hospital. The sun, a once common sight, overwhelmed me.

Four days later, back in Iowa, I got the call. The agent from the government. He thought I'd want to know. That morning, the old man had died.

I turned to Gail and Jeff. Their colds were gone. From warm sunny weeks while I was away, their skin was brown again. They seemed to have forgotten how the nightmare had nearly destroyed us, more than just our lives, our love. Indeed they were now skeptical about the Indian and told me that the rain would have stopped, no matter what I did.

But they hadn't been in the hospital to see him dance. They didn't understand.

I set the phone down and swallowed with sadness. Stepping from our house – it rests on a hill – I peered in admiration toward the glorious sky.

I turned and faltered.

To the west, a massive cloudbank approached, dark and thick and roiling. Wind began, bringing a chill.

September twelfth. The temperature was seventy-eight. It dropped to fifty, then thirty-two.

The rain had stopped. The old man had done what I asked. But I hadn't counted on his sense of humor.

He had stopped the rain, all right.

But I had a terrible feeling that the snow would never end.

If there's a touch of humor in "The Storm," there's nothing at all humorous in this further story about the Midwest: a gross-out shocker. Although the story was published in 1984, its origin is eleven years earlier. In the summer of 1973, I spent thirty-five days on a survival course in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming. The course was conducted by Paul Petzoldt's National Outdoor Leadership School and trained its students in a variety of mountaineering skills: climbing, camping without a trace, crossing wild streams, living in snow caves, scavenging, etc. At the end of the course, our food was taken away from us. We were each allowed to keep a compass, a map, and a canteen. We were shown a spot on the map, fifty miles away, over the continental divide, and told that three days later a truck would be waiting to pick us up.

How did we eat? We weren't supposed to. The idea was to replicate an emergency situation. Scavenging uses more energy than is supplied by the plants that are scavenged, so that was out. We could have caught and eaten fish, which would have given us adequate protein, but that would have been as a last measure. The idea was to prove to us that we could go three days without food, in strenuous conditions, and still be functional at the end. I was weak and light-headed when we came over the mountains and reached the dusty trailhead that was our destination, but I could have gone a day or two longer, and I certainly had acquired confidence about the outdoors. The course completed, I set out toward Iowa along Interstate 80, but my old four-cylinder Porsche 912 developed engine trouble, and in the Nebraska panhandle, I had to leave the highway, hoping to find a mechanic. That's when I came to this very unusual, very scary town. While the story is fictional, the setting is not.