“That all?” Jak asked. “We never got them in swamps.”
J.B. looked across the fire at the white-faced youth. “Sure. Mile across at the top. This one was shimmying and advancing toward Jerzy’s farm. The air was still all around, but you could hear the storm advancing, rumbling on. Jerzy’s wife, Lorena, came out and gave a feeble, despairing sort of cry when she saw death rolling in their direction. By now it was less than a mile off.”
Dean lifted a hand to his face and barely managed to smother a yawn. Something large, with white wings, came swooping down from the highest branches, through the clearing, swooping only a few feet above the group of friends, making all of them duck. Then it vanished, twisting and weaving between the trees, before anyone could see it properly.
J.B. carried on with his story. “Jerzy looked around their yard, desperately seeking somewhere to hide from the ravening monster heading their way. He spotted the deep well, bucket hauled up and hooked off at the top. Called out to his wife to look after the children and ran to the well. He hopped over the rim and let himself down, vanishing from sight. Lorena cursed him as she stood there, helpless, knowing that if he’d waited they could have gotten into the well and likely been saved. But as it was, his action had doomed them all to almost certain death.”
“What a bastard,” Krysty said. “Should have—”
J.B. took off his glasses and polished them carefully on his sleeve, holding up his other hand to quiet her. “Just wait, Krysty.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Lorena saw nowhere to hide. Just a broken-down concrete culvert that used to be part of the cattle-feeding system, way back before skydark. She caught hold of the little ones and dragged them after her, screaming and crying, and squeezed herself under the old trough, pulling them after her, holding them as tight as tight could be. Keeping her face down, she told them to close their eyes tight shut, say a prayer, and waited for the end.”
Mildred was sitting close to the Armorer and now she reached out and gripped his hand, huddling herself close to him. “Sounds like a story that’ll end in tears, John,” she commented.
He didn’t answer her. “The tornado came down on top of them, sucking and howling like a banshee. Louder than the loudest thunder, she said. It sort of skirted past the house, sucking out the windows, but leaving the roof intact. Then it brushed past them and tugged at Lorena, ripping off most of her clothes, the sand scouring at her skin. She could feel the children crying out. Not hear them. Felt them. Then, just as suddenly as it arrived, the twister was gone again. She bunked open her eyes and looked out and saw it tunneling its way across the prairie, off toward the east. And she could make out bits of rubbish and branches and chunks of stuff flying around in it.”
“I heard tell of slivers of straw being driven clean through stout trees,” Doc said.
J.B. nodded. “True enough, Doc. Anyway, Lorena got herself up and dusted herself and the children down and went to look for her cowardly husband, fully intending to give him a real piece of her mind.”
“Hear, hear,” Ryan said, even though he knew the end of the story.
“She reaches the well and peers down into it. Now the clouds have broken up and there’s bright sunlight, illuminating right to the bottom of that well. And all the water’s gone. Bone-dry. Sucked clear out from the bottom. Bucket and chain gone. Jerzy Pollinger gone. And they never saw hide nor hair of him again, from that day to this. Plain vanished.”
There was a ripple of applause from the others, sitting around the smoldering embers of the fire.
“Excellent tale, John Barrymore,” Doc said. “Upon my soul but I have seldom heard a more moral story, so finely narrated. Divine vengeance, indeed.”
“Listen,” Jak said suddenly. Everyone fell instantly silent, straining to hear the noise that had attracted the attention of the teenager, listening for some sound above the gentle murmur of the dying campfire. At first, there was nothing.