Hurricane

Chapter 9

“This is Station WAKJ transmitting on stand-by power. The time is now 6:18. Hurricane Hilda intersected the West Coast of Florida at six o’clock at the mouth of the Suwanee River, moving in an east-northeast direction at approximately eight miles per hour...

“Up around Stephensville, Steinhatchee, Horseshoe, Cedar Key and Yankeetown the water is coming far inland. That is flat land up there. The water is many feet deep over Route 19 in places. As soon as the wind dies in that area, planes will be going in there to drop emergency supplies and effect helicopter rescues. The Red Cross will be standing by to go in there as soon as possible...

“And here’s a new report. A navy plane has bucked the heavy winds and followed the coastline all the way up. Visibility is good in the wake of the storm. The pilot reports that the water is so high and has come so far inland that he can’t pick up the familiar landmarks. The whole coastline looks altered to him. Soon the tide will drop and we will start getting a runoff of all that water...”

The great roaring, screaming winds faltered, changed. The scream dropped one octave, another. A sudden driving rain came. It came at first at a slant, but in the moments of heaviest rain, the wind died, and the rain came solidly down. It did not last long. Not over ten minutes. But it seemed to be the final unspeakable indignity as it drenched the occupants of the roofless bedroom. Then the rain left them, hurrying eastward, northward.

The silence was somehow as shocking to them as the noise of the storm. They sat huddled, drenched, miserable, exhausted by the buffeting of the winds, the great screaming sounds, the nervous strain and the emotional tensions. In the sudden incredible silence, they lifted their heads. The evening was growing brighter. They looked up. The last clouds scurried by and the sky changed to an evening blue. The placidity of the sky was like a taunt. They could hear nothing but the sound of the water that moved around the house, bubbling as cozily as the bow wave of a placid boat. Hal Dorn got to his feet as carefully, as tentatively as though he were convalescent from a long illness. He felt that when he spoke he should whisper. He looked at the children and at his wife. In the sudden release of tension the children’s eyes were quite suddenly heavy with sleep.

Jean spoke and her voice sounded rusty and strange. “Maybe some of their things stayed dry in the bags. If I can find dry things, they can sleep.”

Hal nodded and looked down at Virginia Sherrel’s upturned face. “How is he?”

“He seems to be... stirring a little. But I think he’s badly hurt. Flagan hit him with something. I saw him.”

“Flagan?”

“I saw him do it. He should be arrested.”

Hal looked down at her and shook his head. “He won’t be. He’s dead. I saw him.”

Virginia closed her eyes, squeezed them tightly shut, and then opened them. “I... I tried to feel glad, but I can’t. I certainly have no reason to wish him well... but... it’s a horrible thing, no matter who it is, no matter what they’ve done. I...”

“Who’s dead, Dad?” Stevie demanded.

“Never mind, son. Don’t think about it.”

“The thing to think about,” Bunny said, “is how soon we can get out of here. I think we’re lucky.” He stood up and looked squarely at Hal. “And I think Betty and I owe you for some of the luck. That was something, Mr. Dorn. Getting us out of there. I want to...”

“He’s waking up!” Virginia said.

They looked at Malden. He opened unfocused eyes. He tried to sit up, and Virginia tried to restrain him. He looked at her and gave her a self-conscious grin and sat up. He fingered the back of his head and winced. He felt for the thick pad of money and found it gone.

Malden looked up at Dorn and Hollis. “Flagan?”

“Yes. She saw him.”

“I came up the stairs when I heard the worst of it coming. The lights went out. It was a good one. My vision doesn’t track right.” He suddenly seemed to be listening. “Where did it all go?”

“It went fast,” Hal said.

Malden got laboriously to his feet, put one hand against the wall in a moment of apparent dizziness. “And I miss the best part of it,” he said.

“The best part?” Jean Dorn said. She had found dry clothing and was changing the almost-asleep Jan.

“Let me help,” Betty Hollis said.

“Where is Flagan?” Malden demanded.

Hal told him, taking him aside, lowering his voice so that Stevie, who was still fighting sleep, could not hear. Malden pursed his lips, nodded and said he’d better go and try to get the money back anyway. Virginia remonstrated with him, telling Malden he was too badly hurt to be walking around. Hal saw the smile Malden gave her. It was an expression of affection, of reassurance.

Hal and Bunny Hollis walked into the hallway and across to the opposite room. They looked out where the window had been. Far to the west, through the trees still standing, they could see the deep evening blue of the Gulf. The lazy sun, smug as a pumpkin, slid down the western sky.

Hal looked down at the water. It moved placidly toward the Gulf. Twigs were carried westward. Current boiled behind the trees.

“Running off,” Bunny said. “It had better not run too fast. This house is on quite a tilt — what’s left of it.”

“It should stay put now.”

“What do we do next?”

Hal glanced at him and realized that Bunny was asking for orders, asking for the reassurance of being put to work. Hal waited for the familiar reluctance in his own mind, for the desire to avoid responsibility. It did not come. He felt both glad and humble.

“We don’t know how badly hurt Malden is. We’ll have to think of some way to signal to any search planes that may come by. I don’t know how long the runoff will take to bring it down to where we can walk out. With some timbers from this house we may be able to figure a way to get us across the smaller branch of the river.”

They talked together, and plans were devised. They went back to talk to the others.

It was almost noon on the following day when the truck dropped the weary, muddy and bedraggled group off at the emergency Red Cross installation at the main corners at Otter Creek. They had reached the highway at about eleven. The blocked bridge had been cleared. Work crews with chain saws had removed fallen trees from the highway. The group had walked out, with Hal carrying Jan, and Bunny carrying Stevie despite the small boy’s indignant protests.

They were drugged by weariness. Hal had watched Jean in the truck that picked them up, had seen her eyes close and her head nod time after time. Each time she would awaken with a start and give him a tired apologetic smile. Malden sat stonily during the short trip, his forehead furrowed with the marks of pain from his blinding headache. And Hal saw that he held Virginia Sherrel’s hand. They had not been far apart ever since the storm had ended.

Bunny and Betty Hollis sat closely together, and when the truck had stopped, and they had climbed down, and the driver had pointed out the tent where they should go and check in, Hal saw that Bunny and Betty walked hand-in-hand toward the tent.

The emergency area was crowded. There were people who walked endlessly back and forth across the area, their faces pale and strained as they searched endlessly, hopelessly for the lost ones. Hal detected the delicious scent of fresh coffee. There were nurses in gleaming white and doctors with a look of chronic exhaustion.

They were efficiently checked in. Hal spoke for the group and explained where they had been, where the cars were, and told of the two fatalities. Malden was taken away for medical attention.

Later, after the children had been fed and had gone willingly to sleep on army cots in the small tent assigned to the Dorns, Hal and Jean sat side by side on one of the other cots. The sun shining through the canvas filled the tent with soft golden light.

“I’m almost too tired to sleep,” Jean said.

“You’ll sleep, honey. You’ll go off like falling down a well.” They kept their voices low.

“We were so lucky. Hal. So terribly lucky. It... it makes all the other things seem so small.”

He looked at her quickly, looked down again at his hands. “Maybe I’m too tired to say this right, Jeanie. But I think this is the time to say it. I... I acted like a whipped kid. And then I got myself into perspective. And something mended. Something healed.”

She touched his hand almost shyly. “I know.”

“The wrong things had got too important to me. You know, honey, it’s a funny thing. I know right now, with perfect confidence, that I can go back up there and handle the job, whatever it may be. This shambles down here was just the result of a bad guess and some bad planning.”

“Yes?” she said.

He looked at her and grinned. “You say that like a question. You always know when there’s something else coming, don’t you?”

“Long practice.”

“Then here it is.” He turned toward her with a quick, vibrant, boyish enthusiasm that touched her heart. “Let’s dig in right here, in this area. There’s no reason why we can’t live in a trailer, is there, if it’s big enough? There’s going to be a lot of work down here. I felt too important for that warehouse deal. Now I don’t feel that way any more. There’s going to be a lot of rebuilding down here, a lot of people starting from scratch, and we can start right with them. I know it will work out. But I have to have you say that you think it’s the right thing to do. If you think it would be better for us to go on back up...”

“Hal! Please, darling. It will be a lovely trailer. And all that... that other is over. As though you were just sick for a little while.”

“And cured by a hurricane? There’s a tired old expression about an ill wind...” He stopped as she surrendered to a truly massive yawn. Long after she was asleep he stayed awake, thinking and planning. And reveling in the feeling of confidence that had been lost for so long.