Chapter 3 |
For most people, the thought of a four-hour drive would elicit groans of monotony or yawns of indifference. But for a couple who has been separated for three months, four hours together was a luxurious blessing. Conversation from the night before came back, seemingly uninterrupted, and continued. Hands touched, fingers caressed, hearts became closer as the miles – and time apart – evaporated behind Oliver's Jaguar.
Colby, Kansas, Zip Code 67701, appeared in the windshield in the early afternoon, bathed in bright sunshine. But that bath only served to spotlight devastation. Two-thirds of the town had been wiped from the face of the earth. Evidence of the storm the day before was clearly visible to the northeast as a dark bank of menacing cloud that rested heavily on the horizon.
Oliver stopped the car, staring numbly at what had been a thriving community. Beside him, Shane sounded like she was choking back tears. She was. Sobbing quietly, she opened her laptop and called up a photograph of Colby taken months ago. The landscape was as flat as a dime and the town was clearly visible, spread along a distinctive main street. Hundreds of homes with beautifully manicured yards could be seen, spotted with trees, beautiful elms, maple, sycamore and lots of cottonwood. Oliver gasped when he saw the photo, the view outside the windshield offered no similarities.
At the west end town stood the massive grain silos of reinforced concrete, the main street was visible, what little of it was not covered with debris, half the buildings had no roofs, all had no windows, cars were piled like drifted snow against the stone and brick buildings of the business district. Two blocks from downtown, was a pile of wreckage that had been a school, with playground equipment wrapped around crumpled yellow buses. Colby was nearly a mile wide, yet the only homes still standing were along the fringes. There were no trees, anywhere, only naked trunks denuded of leaves and small limbs, many of which had collected the twisted remains of cars. Flashing red and blue lights had sprung up in a dozen places, scattered among the ruin of so many lives.
Oliver got out of the car, staring with disbelief. Shane joined him, sliding under his arm. "This is terrible."
"Uh-hum," she sniffled. A cloud chose that moment to slip between Colby and the sun, casting a dark shadow over the town, making the flashing lights of emergency vehicles seem even brighter. "Oh Oliver, look!" she cried, pointing toward the darkened bank of receding storm. Every storm since the day Noah looked out of his small window at the top of the ark, has given mankind the same promise from God, the inviting shimmer of a rainbow.
"Even in the storms there is hope to be found if we look for it, Ms McInerney."
Shane turned and stared up into his face and sighed. "Yes, there is Mr. O'Toole. I found hope in a stupid pen, thank you very much."
"Question, Ms McInerney. I don't see any street signs left standing, how are we going to find Rachel Lewis?"
"My laptop. The GPS still works, even without street signs. We might have to walk part of it though. Be careful what we step on."
After parking the Jaguar in front of the town bank that had lost one wall, exposing the safe, they set off on foot, listening to the GPS locator speaking from Shane's laptop. "At the next corner, turn left," it said when they came to a break in the destruction. The stop sign had been flattened and a white Buick had been curled around a tree trunk as if it were ribbon, but the pavement and sidewalk were clear to see. "In one half block you will reach your destination.
They did.
Their destination was not much more than a cement foundation where a house had once stood, the splintered remains of a front porch, broken and scattered furniture, soiled clothes, and the soggy remains of a garage that had been peeled like a grape. The only thing left standing was a porch swing, intact and unharmed, and squeaking softly in the breeze. A deflated woman was sitting on a tree stump in front of the missing house and had her head hanging woefully between her knees.
Oliver and Shane stopped where the picket fence had been, waiting for the woman to look up. She didn't. "Hello Rachel," Oliver said.
Shane did a double take from Oliver to the woman and back. "You know her?" Oliver nodded but said nothing. "Is this like another Dale?" She almost sounded miffed. Oliver shook his head. "Oliver honey, we have to work on our communication skills," she whispered. "Part of going steady is learning how to communicate."
The woman looked up and seemed to pose for a moment. Her face was the face of the defeated, her eyes filled with the dull glaze of failure. She blinked when she saw Oliver, and then her mouth twitched as if it had smiled once, but would not again without great effort. Then she sighed and her frame sagged back down. When she spoke her voice was clear, but exhausted. "Oliver O'Toole," she groaned. "What kind of pathetic joke is this?"