Sentimental Journey (16 page)

“If that’s supposed to reassure me, it doesn’t. I can’t believe I’m just sitting here calmly—”

He laughed. “Calmly?”

“All right, sitting here hysterically and watching weather that could easily kill us.”

“These storms don’t move that fast.”

“Who said?”

“I just know.”

“Did you ever think that you just might not have
seen
one that moves fast?”

“You understand weather when you live in it all your life.”

“Okay.” She eyed the storm uneasily. It was still far enough away to make her not want to run screaming from the tower. “How long have you been doing this crazy thing?”

“Probably longer than you’ve been flying a plane.”

“That long?”

“Since I could climb the tower, I guess. These marks here in the wood are for the tornadoes I’ve seen go by.” He took out a pocket knife with a bone handle and made a mark on the rim of the platform. There were at least five long rows of marks. “The number isn’t true. I didn’t start marking them here until I had a pocket knife, after my granddaddy died. Then I started cutting a notch in the wood for every tornado that went by.”

“There must be nearly a hundred marks there.”

“Yep.”

“You’ve never had a tornado come straight through here?”

“Nope. One came close enough to pull the leaves off that pecan tree over there, but that was about it. The twister dropped down for only a second or two, then went right back up into the sky.”

“And you were sitting here when that one hit?”

“I sure was. Hell . . . when you live in
Texas
, you see tornadoes come down and take the feathers right off of the chickens.”

She stared at him, then laughed. “You’re teasing me.”

He shook his head and, with a perfectly straight face, said, “It’s true. Afterward the chickens will be just standing in the yard, pecking away, but they’re as bald as the head on a turkey buzzard.”

“And just where are all these bald chickens?”

“I ate ’
em
.”

She laughed. “I’m not swallowing that.”

“I swallowed ’
em
and they were right good, too. Fried ’
em
up for Sunday dinner. Didn’t even have to pluck ’
em
.”

“I think you’re telling one of those tall
Texas
tales I’ve heard so much about.”

“That’s only because you’ve never seen a bald chicken.”

He was clowning with her. The funny thing was, you couldn’t tell he was joking from his straight face. He was maybe two or three years younger than she was. She thought about him sitting here, as a young boy, and wondered what would have happened if a tornado had turned and headed for him. “Didn’t your mother worry about you sitting up here all alone in such dangerous weather?”

He snapped the pocket knife closed, leaned forward a bit, and stuck it back in his pocket as he looked off at something somewhere in the distance, his expression as wooden as the platform they were sitting on. “My mama was gone.”

She wanted to ask him where his mother had gone. If she was gone as in “she left,” or if she was gone as in “gone to heaven.”

His expression told her to leave it alone.

She could see the funnel cloud was still some distance away and off toward the southwest. The cone was getting wider and deeper in color. There was a long black column coming up from the ground like it was being sucked clean up into those clouds.

He shifted and brought one leg up, then rested his hand on it. “I always sort of figured if I had to, I could outrun a twister.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to test that theory today.”

“My bet is it’ll pass south of us.”

“What’s that black spot there? See?” She pointed.

“The funnel cloud is touching down. Watch that tail, the one that looks like a kite tail. It’ll whip down. See?”

“Look at that!” She watched it spin, strangely—spinning like crazy yet seeming to move toward them molasses-slow. “Look. It’s growing. I heard once that they can be miles wide.”

She knew tornado clouds could be over thirty thousand feet high. You never tried to fly over one. “It’s so huge . . . ”

“Yep. Everything’s big in
Texas
.”

She looked at him then.

He grinned at her. “My granddaddy used to say that.” He gestured at the soda bottle still in her hand. “You gonna drink that?”

She held it up. “The cap’s still on.”

He took it from her and leaned forward, placed the cap on the edge of the rail, and slammed his fist down on it. The cap flew off. He handed it back to her.

All along the railing she noticed little teeth marks, like bites—a hundred or more bottle caps had made their marks along that wooden rail. The history of Red Walker.

He opened his soda bottle and took a long swig, then pulled a package of peanuts from his pocket, tore it open with his teeth, and emptied the peanuts into the Dr. Pepper. He crumpled up the empty bag and stuffed it in his pocket.

A second later he raised the bottle to his mouth and swallowed Dr. Pepper and peanuts.

“And you think people from
California
are nuts.”

“If I had made that kind of bad pun, I’d bet you’d have had something snippy to say.” He pulled another package of peanuts from his coveralls and handed it to her. “Here. You try it.”

She stared at the peanut bag.

“Go on. Try it. It’ll give us something new we can argue about.”

He had a good sense of humor.

She opened the bag, but only put three of the peanuts in the bottle, one at a time.

He was staring straight ahead, as if he hadn’t been watching her. But he said quietly, “No guts.”

“Weak stomach,” she said without looking back.

So they sat there like that, as the tornado swirled in the distance, pulling up so much red
Texas
dirt that the funnel looked rusted.

The storm was traveling northeast, and as it moved, there was a distant hollow kind of sound, the kind that comes from deep inside a drum. The sound grew deeper, louder, more hollow sounding, until it was like some unearthly being screaming.

The wind whipped violently even in the storm’s perimeter, and the tower, well, the tower just quivered like a coward.

The air felt electric. Charley looked down, and the fine hair on her forearms was standing on end from the static. The heavy surrounding air tasted of dirt and rain and destruction.

The tornado whirled through a fallow farm field, kicking up a mess. The wind blew so hard that sitting there, even from a good distance away, it was like flying in an open cockpit. Her hair flew straight back, her eyes teared, and she had to close her lips because the force of the wind hurt her front teeth.

It passed by as he had predicted, and she realized she was sitting there, hugging her knees tightly, and smiling.

It was the very same feeling she’d had the first time she ever flew. She just looked at that tornado blowing across the flat land and said, “Wow!”

“I’d say that about says it all.”

The funnel cloud was spinning along the road, before she finally relaxed and leaned back against the tower again. Still half-turned, she watched it slowly disappear.

It was the strangest thing. It just wound down as if it were just getting tired of spinning. One moment the cone was there, and the next it looked like it had been swallowed up by the clouds. Gone.

The dark and heavy clouds were thinning. They faded from black to gray, and a shot of clear golden sunlight streamed through the eastern side of the storm front and cast purple shadows on the ground, where debris lay sprawled over the remnants of the field.

A large tree had been pulled from the ground and lay there; its roots looked like clawing fingers that had tried to hold on. Whole bushes, weathered and splintered boards, and an old tire were tossed there, stolen from only God knew where.

“See? You had nothing to worry about. It didn’t even come close.” Red killed off the last of his soda and was chewing on the peanuts.

She wasn’t certain what she felt. She’d sat out a tornado on an old water tower with this wild kid drinking Dr. Pepper and peanuts. “You know, I’ve heard people call flying a plane sheer craziness. They say it’s nothing but a danger-seeking thrill.”

“You like it.”

“And you like facing down tornadoes.” She paused. “Or are there other dangerous things you like to face down?”

“Snippy female pilots?”

She faced him.

“Should I duck?”

“No. I’m not dangerous. Yet.”

He laughed and stretched back a bit, folding his hands behind his head. “I watch tornadoes because there’s not much else exciting to do around here.”

“You’re saying it’s dull here in Acme,
Texas
?”

He shrugged. “I’d bet being a pilot isn’t dull.”

“It’s not.”

“What exactly does it take to be a pilot?”

She was drinking from her soda. She swallowed and faced him. Lessons.

He laughed. “I’m serious.”

“It takes a love of flying, Red. A fascination with aeronautics. A deep and abiding desire to be up in the air, to look down on the world that exists, instead of looking up at a world you can only imagine.

He seemed to understand that. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to fly. He had all the signs, signs she knew only too well. “If that plane wasn’t filled with equipment, I’d take you up.”

He turned and looked at her then.

“You could take flying lessons.”

“How much do lessons cost?”

“Enough hours to get licensed?” She added it up in her head. “I’d say maybe five hundred dollars.”

He whistled and shook his head. “That’s a
lot
of money. Guess I’d have to strike oil in the garage to be able to learn to fly.”

“Maybe you could work out a trade. Exchange engine work for flying lessons.”

“Don’t know much about airplane engines. I could learn, but it would take me a while.”

“I meant car engines. You could trade auto repair and maintenance for flying lessons.”

He seemed to think about that.

“Wouldn’t hurt to go to the nearest field and give it a try. All they can do is say no.” She set the bottle down on the platform and watched the sun burn the clouds away. There was a deep red-and-blue sunset starting west of them. “When I finish this job, I’m going to get my instructor’s license.”