C. C. Phillips
C. C. Phillips
The perspiring little mob who had rushed to the livery soon flooded into the foyer of the Way-cross bank. Samantha Dexter dashed across the street from her sewing shop. David O'Malley helped his father out of the chair, intending to walk him to the clinic, but before they reached the door someone said Doc Stohl was on his way. The doctor first had to tend to Ol' Ross who had been pistol whipped.
There were a dozen or more people gathered when the storm that preceded the tornado struck; Doc Stohl, the last to arrive, was soaked through to his thin hide.
Rain descended in a miles-wide travelling waterfall. The dull, distant roar of the wind grew to a deafening bellow as colossal thunderheads spanning horizon to horizon obfuscated the sun, plunging the town into a rude and eerie twilight. Brilliant streaks and sheets of lightning ripped through the darkness, momentarily blinding with its wicked intensity. Hell howled at the windows. Brimstone filled the air. Thor, mythical God Of Thunder, awakened and, bellowing with mirth, strutted across the tormented sky; at every swing of Mjölner, his giant hammer, shards of lightning flew and thunder rocked the earth. The audience inside the bank stood riveted in fearful fascination. Only the doctor kept to his work.
Rain stopped. Wind lulled. False darkness presided.
People began to mull about chattering excitedly. David O'Malley lit two lamps.
“I must get back to my shop; Matilda is alone,” Samantha said.
McBain, who had been standing beside Samantha and her father, grasped her hand in gentle restraint. “This building is the safest in Way-cross… please, don't leave right now.”
Samantha, Moody and those who overheard the plea looked at McBain in puzzlement.
An explanation arrived upon the wind.
On the outskirts of Way-cross, the tornado touched down with a roar then swept into the town with a prolonged scream. The blacksmith's shop, with its firebox of white hot coals, offered nothing to divert the rush. The roof lifted off and contents within were drawn out in the vacuum. The glowing embers ignited in the air and where they found dry tinder, spawned a thousand tiny fires. The powerful smithy clung to his anvil moored in a concrete base. He lost his trousers and suffered a hundred tiny burns, but saved most of his skin. The storm ripped diagonally through the settlement leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. From the windows of the bank the living souls gaped in horror while the two dead men, oblivious and immune to the ravages of nature, oozed blood upon the floor. Clods of mud, shingles, doors and furniture spiralled skyward. George Kirwin recognized the misshapen form of his porch swing. A green painted two-hole outhouse sailed high in the sky, possibly on its way to Kansas. A horseless carriage rocketed along the street. Its shafts caught a rut, the front wheels dug in and the buggy cartwheeled out of sight. Two terrified mounts tied at a hitching rail, reared and struggled against their tether; the beam broke and the horses raced away, empty stirrups flapping. The marauding twister broke through the slab wall of Leo Nybo's lumber yard. Fresh milled wood filled the air like tossed handfuls of toothpicks; a large plank struck the entrance to the bank. The heavy door held but the board passed through coming to a juddering stop two feet inside the building. Wooden debris of varying dimensions buffeted the building, shattering windows, driving the watchers back from the jagged missiles of glass. Papers, curtains, loose articles of clothing, even several hats were sucked out into the storm. The whirling wall of debris became a dizzying blur. The tornado swept on, its scream diminishing in the distance.
Seconds had elapsed, but it seemed an eternity; for some, a lifetime.
In the silence that followed, a collective sigh of relief escaped the survivors. Immobile, they gazed in shocked horror upon the broken and flattened buildings that had been their town. From the broken windows the group could see at least three columns of smoke drifting skyward; there may be more beyond their vision. A dust begrimed youth holding a pup in one arm emerged from under the boardwalk across the debris strewn street. Preston recognized Lonny Fischer. People appeared at the doors of homes and businesses that had withstood the blast. Other folks crawled up from basements and cellars to gape in wonder at the ruination.
A tentative voice broke the tension.
“Would this be a good moment to propose?”
As one, the group turned toward the question. David O'Malley had his arms around his pretty colleague. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips…
Life goes on.
Satisfied the storm had passed, the people who had taken refuge in the bank building scattered to check on their homes and loved ones. Samantha dashed across the littered street to see Matilda. Dexter caught a horse and rode directly to the ranch but returned in short order when he found his wife had come to no harm. He joined Samantha, McBain and others in searching the wreckage, responding to cries for help and groans of pain. A miracle and the common sense to hide in cellar holes had preserved the lives of most of the citizens. There were more able-bodied than injured. Temporary housing, food and blankets were set up at the school for the women and children. Ol' Ross's loft provided a leaking roof over the heads of the male contingent seeking refuge.
A rainbow and bright sunshine would have helped the rescue team, but the sky remained dark and the temperature plunged. Rain returned, a steady, soaking drizzle. Fires were extinguished before the flames went completely out of control but several buildings that had tolerated the gale were burned to the ground. Except for the windows and door, the bank had withstood the twister; it fared better than most buildings. The Grand Hotel and the livery barn, the largest edifices in Way-cross, did not collapse though they took severe punishment: windows were smashed on three sides of the hotel, roofing stripped, front entrance and the veranda were torn apart; Diamond's room received a third ransacking, this time from the elements; all the doors —top, bottom, front and back— of the livery were blown off, patches of shingles were shredded and the hay in the mow had been swept away. Ol' Ross figured the barn had survived because the doors had been open to let the heat out, this allowed the wind to pass through as well. Dexter argued that the barn survived because it was off the main track of the twister. Otherwise, it would have suffered like the stage depot: it was gone. Leon's Mercantile store lay a flattened ruin, his lumber yard destroyed, merchandise scattered to the wind; now would have been an excellent time to have a supply of building materials in stock. Frost's Funeral Parlour stood the test, May-Anne's eatery did not. And so it went, several entrepreneurs lost home and business, some lost one or the other, a few folks were lucky on both counts, many families were left homeless. Charlie Morris, the telegraph operator, lost his life and a young child was crushed under a fallen wall. Ironically, the rail depot was unscathed and the key-punch should have been at work, but Charlie's body was found pinned under a fallen cottonwood near his home. Depot agent Stafford explained that Charlie had slipped home to close up his house against the elements. Doc Stohl set up shop in the town office (the clinic had disappeared) and worked thirty-six hours straight setting broken bones, mending gashes and treating wounds, before he collapsed in utter exhaustion. Several horses, two cows and two dogs had to be put down due to injury. Many other animals —pigs, chickens, pets— had died during the storm. The swath of fallen cottonwoods through town and across the creek left a grievous kind of devastation: buildings can be replaced in weeks or months, hundred year old trees take a century.
Dexter's ranch had been spared; it was just beyond the reach of the tornado. The heavy winds prior to the twister tore down branches along the cottonwood lane and shifted anything that wasn't heavy or fastened down in the yard. Edith Dexter didn't see the approaching storm and consequently lost linen from the clothes line.
The darkened afternoon had yielded to true darkness by the time most everyone had been accounted for. The fifth gunman had not presented himself. Street lamps which were intact had been lit. A soggy Bradley McBain accompanied a bedraggled Samantha Dexter to her sewing shop —it withstood the beating— there were several boards ripped away from the false front and the big circular centre pane of the new window had shattered. The proprietress had previously taken a moment to check on Matilda; she found the widow unharmed. Matilda had told Samantha that being unable to hear probably preserved her from a death of fright.
The Widow Frye was not in sight when Sam returned with McBain. The shop was silent, still and only partially illuminated by the glow of the one surviving street lamp through the broken window. The patter of drizzle on the boardwalk seemed amplified through the opening. Diamond shifted near the sewing machines. Samantha searched for a match and lit a lamp. Preston's survival instinct flashed a warning but he could not discern the cause of his uneasiness. Voiceless mannequins came to life in the flickering shadows; the room held an eerie foreboding.
“Matilda must have gone off to bed already,” Samantha commented. “I wonder why she didn't hang a blanket or something across the hole in the window?”
“Perhaps she didn't hear it break,” McBain suggested.
“She's had the cook stove fired; it is warm in here, except near the window.”
A faint rustle of the curtain leading into Matilda's suite caught Preston's attention. The tall, gunman who had arrived on the afternoon stage stood in the doorway, a malevolent smile spreading across his face.
At first Samantha did not notice the stranger as she searched through a shelf of remnants. She held up a large square of wagon canvass. “Brad, do you think this may be large enough?”
When McBain did not respond she turned to see what held his attention. A sharp gasp escaped but she recovered instantly. “Who are you and what are you doing in my shop?” she demanded. Fear crept into her voice, “Where is Matilda?”
The smile widened, revealing a set of startlingly white teeth.
He has to have an audience, Preston thought. He'll take his time, savouring the moment, like a cat toying with a mouse… May as well indulge him… “Is the price on my head worth dying for?”
The assassin shrugged indifferently.
Samantha drew back, holding the cloth to her face. McBain's eyes never left the gunman but he could feel her fear. She could not know why, but she knew too well what was about to unfold.
Diamond prodded, “A shame you won't be able to spend the money you and your four colleagues, now deceased, were paid for your trip to Way-cross. Five men for three murders…someone miscalculated the odds. Now it is you alone; de hombre a hombre …and you won't leave this room alive.”
A flicker (was it doubt?) showed in the flinty eyes, but the shootist remained as still and mute as Samantha's dummies.
In hand combat, Preston had learned from the Chinese Master, the person to make the first move is the one who first sacrifices his readiness. An opponent will reveal intent just a tiny fraction of a second before he shifts to the offensive.
Preston waited now while the words he had spoken distracted the man in the doorway. The hired gun had lost the opportunity to grandstand in front of the pretty lady. He didn't appreciate that.
Almost imperceptibly, a tic, a twitch, tugged at a corner of the mirthless smile. Hands at opposite sides of the room flashed down and came up holding revolvers belching flame.
Shots blended together.
Two simultaneous, dead-centre forehead shots.
Samantha screamed.
The falling gunman triggered a second round from his double-action revolver; purely reflex; the slug buried itself in the floor of the sewing shop.
Heavy boots thudded on the boardwalk and Dexter burst into the room, the old Navy revolver in his right hand.
Smoke drifted toward the ceiling, burned powder reeked upon the air, Samantha stood beside the counter, sobbing hysterically. A dead man lay stretched out at the entrance of the suite.
Bradley McBain rose to his feet brushing the plaster remains of a headless mannequin from his clothes.
“What in hell…” Dexter barked.
Samantha lowered the cloth she held to her face and looked in wonder at McBain standing in front of her. “I… I thought you were killed,” She gasped. “You, you fell to the floor,..are you hurt?”
Before Preston could answer, a sudden flare-up illuminated the darkened suite where Matilda resided. He stepped around the fallen gunman and leaped through the curtained doorway, landing in the tiny kitchen. Widow Frye was jamming papers into the wood-stove. Preston grabbed her wrist, pulled the documents from the fire, then ripped a cloth from the kitchen table and wrapped it over the burning accounts to suffocate the flame. Matilda screamed in venomous anger as Preston dragged her into the lamp lighted sewing shop.
“Brad!” Samantha cried, “What are you doing with Matilda? Let go of her this instant!”
Dexter came forward holstering his gun. “McBain, you let that woman alone right now.”
Preston did not release the struggling old lady but turned to face the sheriff, “McBain? Moody, you got my name right!”
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