6. Twilight Twister
They say a tornado sounds like a freight train. Leah thinks a freight train sounds like a freight train and a twister sounds like something else entirely.
They are traveling east across Nebraska as dusk approaches, zipping along I-80 through the hypnotic rise-and-fall of the Sand Hills when they first notice the storm. It lies on the southern horizon, a black squall line punctuated by spectacular arcs of lightning, but on the plains, it's hard to tell the distance of anything. It gains on them quickly. Edward is driving, and may be pushing 100 with a V-8 engine, but the storm continues to race northeast towards them all the same.
Seth woke her; she'd been napping with her head in his lap. "Look at that," he tells her as she sits up, his voice somewhere between anxious and excited. "I've never seen a storm like that." The first clouds have already rolled in over them like fuzzy insulation in gray instead of pink.
She can hear the brothers in the front seat conferring in whispers even her ears can't catch, but she can tell they're a little worried. There is nowhere to stop out here, just miles and miles of open land. She leans forward. She's grown so acclimated to them, and with the windows half open, she barely notices their smell. "Do we need to pull off?" She isn't used to storms like this one, and it's scaring her.
"I don't know," Edward says; he's gripping the old steering wheel hard. "That looks like a supercell."
She doesn't speak meteorologist-ese. "What does that mean?"
"It means it's a Big Damn Storm."
"Don't worry," Jasper tells her, turning in the passenger seat. "We'll be fine." She feels calmer, but isn't sure if he did that with his gift or if it owes to the trust a child places in a parent -- and when did he gain that sort of stature with her? He's not her father. She had a father, even if she doesn't any longer.
Seth is wriggling in his seat, looking out the right-hand window at the black line. The rain hasn't reached them yet but the winds have picked up so much she can feel them rock the car. The speedometer needle hovers around 116 now and it's clear Edward is anxious to get somewhere, but she can see no exits down the long black road. Tumbleweeds roll and the Ponderosa Pines that make a highway windbreak bend like drunks. There are a few other cars and at least one big 18-wheeler, but it feels almost as if they are alone out here, running before the storm like a clipper. A few pecks of rain kiss the windshield and then both Edward and Jasper are rolling up the windows. It might make the air inside the car close, but in the next minute she's glad of it as the rain comes down. Even her augmented vision can barely see the road and she wonders how Edward is managing. At least -- thank God -- he's slowed down. Even vampire reflexes won't save them if they hydroplane.
"Please pull over," Seth asks, almost whimpering. "Please pull over." He's scared, and she grips his hand.
"There's an overpass less than five miles away," Edward says. "I can see it the minds of drivers sheltering there. We want to get into the lee of that."
They take four minutes to reach it. Nobody speaks. She's sure both she and Seth would be crawling out of their skin but for Jasper. His head is tilted, as if he's listening. Edward glances back at them then returns his eyes to the road, or what of it he can see. Rain is coming down in blue sheets, pounding hard, and there is a hollow pocking of hail on the roof. It's very dark. She feels the car slowing and then pulling off to the side even as the rain lessens. They're under an overpass that runs north and south.
"Get out of the car," Edward says, even as he's opening his door and yanking his seat forward, yanking her out of the back too into the wind and blown rain. Jasper is doing the same with Seth on the other side. Theirs is not the only car under the overpass. At least two others wait there, and a motorbike. But the people remain sensibly in their vehicles, and even if the overpass keeps off the worst of the rain, she's soaked in less than a minute. Edward has picked her up and carried her over to the sandbagged-and-concrete side where Jasper already huddles with Seth. She should be embarrassed to be herded, but she's not. The pack might fearlessly face Edward and Jasper's kind, but she's not stupid enough to stand up to Grandmother Earth's rage.
"Why are we out of the car?" Seth asks -- shouts really. The wind is howling through the underpass, and however good the hearing of all of them, it's LOUD.
"Because cars can turn over," Edward shouts back.
"And this overpass could fall down!" Seth returns. He's so scared he's shaking. Or maybe he's just cold from the wind and rain, except they don't get cold like that.
Edward does something surprising then; he moves forward and puts an arm around Seth's shoulders. "We'll protect you from anything falling."
"We're werewolves!" Seth shouts.
"And we're rock," Edward replies. "You're still flesh and blood. You can't phase -- not here."
There are too many humans in the other cars, and even if they're not really watching, they'd probably notice two giant wolves who suddenly appeared. Leah's aware that Jasper has moved up beside her, gripping her much the same as Edward has Seth, and however she might resent the patronizing, she's also glad of it. Here, now, she needs another's touch, however cold and hard. They are in this together, the four of them.
Within five minutes, the first wave of rain has passed over and there's a lull, but then the wind picks up again. Jasper is looking out at the black sky. "Another wall's coming," he says, then calls across to Edward, almost playfully, "Isn't it late in the year for big storms like this?"
"Tell that to the storm!" Edward calls back.
Leah realizes she has no idea if it's late or early, and doesn't care. Instead she darts out of Jasper's loosened grasp, back to the Mustang, throwing open the door to grab the braided sweetgrass she'd put on the dashboard just yesterday. Jasper catches her even as her hand closes on it. "What are you doing?" he yells.
"Getting this!" She lets him guide her back to the wall of overpass even as a roar grows like all the Thunder Beings talking at once. He pushes her down and covers her with his body. She grips the sweetgrass and prays as her father taught her to pray. She never really learned Quileute -- like most modern Indians her 'native' language is English -- but she's heard her father pray and she echoes it now, singing to the Spirits of the sky, and to her ancestors in the earth far away. The howling is deafening and she dares to peek out from under Jasper's arm.
That's when she sees it -- as black as midnight, whipping right and left, enormous and dreadful and awesome. The tornado. She can't tell how far away it is, but as far as she's concerned, it's too damn close. And all she can do is pray. She is a Protector. And even if she and Seth have men of stone shielding them, she is a Protector, and she asks the Spirits to cover them. She reaches for Grandmother Earth and finds a little dirt under her fingers despite the white man's concrete. She digs in.
She sings as hard as she can.
The roaring crescendos, and then, abruptly, the tornado disappears out of her line of vision. The roar is still there, but she can't see it; it's turned. Only the tumbleweeds and dust and a stray bit of litter blows by. She feels like a red Dorothy singing, "There's no place like home," and in that moment, all she wants is the sound of sea striking the shore, regular, rhythmic, not this terrible, howling splendor of the Great Plains.
Seconds inch past, then a minute, two, three, four . . . the wind dies down again and now there is just rain. She feels Jasper release his hold on her and she looks around. They are all four wet, but unharmed. So's the Mustang, and the other cars and the motorbike under the pass. Shivering more from adrenaline than anything, she looks down at the braided strand of sweetgrass still gripped in her fist. Slowly, she opens her hand. It carried her prayers; she carries it's imprint across her palm.
She starts to laugh. It is full of desperation and relief.