The Stormchasers Page 14

  “Oh no,” Karena moans. “Oh my God.”

  She whips around to look in every direction.

  “But he was right there,” she insists. “He was!”

  She shakes her head. “Maybe he dropped back a little,” she says, “toward Pierre. Maybe if we just keep going a tiny bit in this direction—”

  “Maybe nothing!” Kevin says. “Maybe he’s not there at all!”

  He smacks the dash and Karena flinches.

  “God DAMN it!” he says.

  “I did see him, Kevin,” Karena says. “I swear.”

  “That is NOT the point,” Kevin roars. “The point is that even if he was there, he’s not there now, and meanwhile we’ve lost the van and we are MILES behind them and there’s at least one tornado on the ground between us and them—God DAMN!” He brings the Jeep to a stop.

  “Hang on,” he says and cranks the wheel back around.

  “I’m sorry, Kevin,” Karena says. “What can I do? Can I do anything to help?”

  Kevin is accelerating out of a hasty three-point turn, but suddenly he slows, then brakes.

  “Ho-ly Christ,” he says.

  “What IS that?” Karena asks and puts a hand over her mouth.

  For the highway ahead of them has disappeared into the storm. It is not a tornado, at least not like any tornado Karena has ever seen. It is more that the storm has simply come down onto the ground. The road now runs straight into a churning brown-black mass, a mile-high wall that has swallowed the prairie in front of them.

  “What is it?” Karena whispers. “Is it . . . a dust storm maybe?” She is thinking of the famous Dust Bowl photograph of a black cloud like a tidal wave bearing down on a tiny farmhouse.

  Kevin is still staring at the giant brown-black wall, but at the sound of Karena’s voice he comes back to himself.

  “No,” he says. “Holy fuck, no. That’s no dust storm. That’s a wedge. It’s the biggest fucking wedge tornado I’ve ever seen. It must be two miles wide—”

  He scrabbles for the transmitter.

  “KB1 SLM calling KE5 UIY,” he says. “UIY, do you copy?”

  The radio doesn’t respond. Kevin fumbles for the volume knob and screws it all the way up. His fingers are shaking.

  “This is KB1 SLM. UIY, come back, please.”

  . . .

  “KB1 SLM for UIY. UIY, do you read me?”

  . . .

  “UIY, this is SLM. Copy?”

  . . .

  Kevin looks at Karena, who stares back at him. Kevin shakes his head.

  “We’ve lost the van,” he says hoarsely.

  21

  They pull off the road, hazards flashing, to let the wedge pass. Kevin calls the local National Weather Service office on his cell to report what they’re seeing, their position, and what course the storm seems to be on. Straight east now, a right-mover as Dan predicted, tracking toward Oweeo. When he hangs up they sit on the shoulder, their faces flashing yellow, every so often saying, “Oh my God,” but otherwise not conversing. They just wait. Karena has always heard tornado survivors say the sound of the tornado is like a train, and she thinks it is something like that but not entirely accurate. People must say this because a train is a noise that can be felt with one’s feet, in the stomach, as it rumbles closer. This giant wedge is vibrating the Jeep, shaking dirt down into the drainage ditch, but the sound it is making is much lower, almost below human auditory range. It is as though the earth itself is growling.

  When the rippling black-brown wall exits stage right, when they start to see a strip of light beneath the storm’s base and Kevin determines the worst of the danger has passed, he puts the Jeep in drive and they head back north toward Oweeo. Several times he pulls over to let emergency vehicles pass, fire engines and ambulances and the sheriffs’ prowlers and SUVs they saw earlier. Karena is sitting with her behind a few inches off her seat, craning in every direction for the yellow Volvo. Kevin never stops working the radio.

  “KE5 UIY, this is KB1 SLM, copy?” he says, over and over. “KB1 SLM calling UIY, come in please.”

  About three miles outside Oweeo rain is falling, gently, and something else: pink material wafting out of the sky.

  “What is that?” Karena whispers. Her throat is hoarse. “It looks like cotton candy.”

  “It’s asbestos,” says Kevin. “Insulation.”

  Karena glances at him, his strained face, then goes back to scanning the scoured landscape for her brother’s car.

  “UIY, this is SLM,” she hears Kevin saying. “Come in, please.”

  They crawl along, starting to see damage. It looks familiar to Karena from the Weather Channel, the evening news, footage the whole world has seen of tornado-strewn destruction. Except, of course, the perspective is different. Everything is bigger. Closer. They are right up next to it. And it’s not just two-by-fours piled on the ground, some sentimental cameraman focusing on a teddy bear or family photo in the wreckage. There are animals. Cows. They lie at unnatural angles, some twisted, some impaled. Some still lowing, with a sound that raises Karena’s guard hairs and reminds her of her brother crying. One cow has been torn in half. She sees a horse too, on its side, kicking and nickering. Raising its head, trying in vain to get up. There is a pole driven neatly between its ribs. Its eye rolls as the Jeep passes, and Karena can hear it screaming.

  “KE5 UIY, this is SLM. Do you copy? KE5 . . .”

  And the smell. Nobody has ever told Karena about the smell. It is a thick, green, wet musk of stripped vegetation. As they near what used to be Oweeo, they start to see trees too, or what remains of them, stripped branches sheared off at shoulder height. They have been whittled to points, their white inner meat showing. It is as though a giant lawnmower has come through here and chewed off everything above five and a half feet. Then they start to smell natural gas from pumps ripped out of the ground, the rich fruity smell of it choking through the Jeep’s closed windows. Kevin shuts the air vents.

  “KE5 UIY, this is SLM. Come in, please . . .”

  Karena touches his hand and pulls her T-shirt over her nose, breathing through the thin material. She repeats her roadkill prayer under her breath: God bless souls of animals, God bless souls of animals, God bless souls of animals. She adds, God bless the people of this town. And: God bless my brother, please bless my brother. Please let me find him. Please let him be all right.

  Suddenly something thunks on the Jeep’s hood, and Karena jumps, then turns to watch it roll away: a can of Campbell’s tomato soup.

  “KE5 UIY, come in . . .”

  Kevin guides the Jeep onto the bare dirt to go around a door lying in the road, an inner door with a child’s sparkling stickers on it, spelling out CAROLEE. The backside of the storm bulks to their right, white on top and black on the bottom, bulging with breast-shaped mammatus. Another is moving in from the west. It is like being caught between two atomic mushroom clouds—the storms are that immense. The light is strained, choked. Insulation drifts pinkly down.

  “Where are you, Charles?” Karena mumbles into her T-shirt. “Where the fuck are you?” She closes her eyes to pray.

  “KE5 UIY, this is KB1 SLM. Do you copy?”

  “SLM, this is UIY,” Dennis’s voice crackles faintly. “We’re all okay here. You?”

  Karena sits up and drops the T-shirt. “Oh, thank God,” she cries, and Kevin starts nodding.

  “Yup,” he says, “yup, yup. Yes, we are,” and he quickly blots his eyes with the back of his wrist.

  “Give your position please,” says Dennis, as Karena says, “Please, ask if they’ve seen a yellow Volvo station wagon.”

  “One minute, UIY,” says Kevin.

  He glides the Jeep to a stop and peers around.

  “We’re somewhere in the damage path,” he says. “As you’re probably aware, there are no road markers because there’s no road. I can see what looks like a two-story brick wall about a half mile to my right, at my one o’clock.”

  “We’re about a quarter
mile ahead of you, then, SLM. Keep coming.”

  “Copy that,” says Kevin. “Also, we need to know, has anyone seen a yellow Volvo station wagon?”

  “Stand by,” says Dennis, and Karena twists the hem of her T-shirt, rips off a hangnail.

  “Please God,” she says. “Please God please—”

  “Negative, SLM,” says Dennis. “Nobody in our vehicle has seen a yellow wagon.”

  “Oh no,” Karena moans and starts to cry.

  “Copy,” says Kevin. “We’re coming to find you, UIY. We may be a little while, with the debris.”

  “Copy, SLM,” says Dennis. “But as quickly as you can, please. Dan wants to drop south. We’ve still got debris falling and another cell to our ten o’clock. It’s not safe.”

  “I see that, UIY,” says Kevin. “Over and out.”

  He puts the receiver back in place and reaches for Karena’s hand. She clutches his, looking through her window and weeping.

  “Okay, Karena?” Kevin says. “Hang in. We’ll find him.”

  About ten minutes later they come upon the van with its hazards on, canted on what used to be the road. Dennis is standing by the driver’s door, his hands on his hat, staring around. Dan is on the phone. The tourists are huddled near the side door, looking stunned, and although Dennis has said they’re all right, Karena does a quick head count: Fern Alicia Melody Alistair Scout Marla Pete oh thank God. Melody is bent over, her fluffy yellow head hanging between her knees, Marla rubbing her back. Fern and Pete are talking, Fern holding a cigarette that because of the gas she can’t light. Scout is looking transfixed at one of the whittled trees. It’s Alistair who spots the Jeep first, and he barrels toward it, yelling.

  “Eight thousand four hundred fifty-five,” he says, batting at his head. “Eight thousand four hundred fifty-five, eight thousand four hundred fifty-five, eight thousand four hundred fifty-five!”

  “What, buddy?” Kevin says, catching him, but Alistair beats Kevin’s arms away and screeches.

  “The tornado count,” Karena says, “the number of tornadoes he’s seen,” and then, because Alistair’s aunt is still hyperventilating, Fern comes rushing over to help.

  “Right, Allie,” she says, “Eight thousand four hundred fifty-five, brilliant.” She pushes back her sweatshirt hood to give Karena and Kevin a kiss each, then draws Alistair away.

  Dennis walks toward them, and they meet in the middle, picking their way through boards studded with nails, skirting downed wires. The light is peculiar, lemon bright, making Dennis’s lined face look malarial.

  “What’s up, brother,” he says to Kevin, and they hug, slapping backs. Dennis hugs Karena too. He smells acridly of smoke and sweat.

  “Man,” he says, when he lets go. “This is bad. This is worse than anything I’ve ever seen. And we’re not even within town limits. God help these people.”

  He takes off his fishing hat for the first time in Karena’s acquaintance and holds it to his chest, his gray hair flattened in a ring beneath it. “Man!” he says again. “Man, that was bad. I think I screamed like a girl when I saw that thing change course and come at us. I never, ever want to see anything like that again.”

  “You’re not alone, believe me,” says Kevin. “Where’d you guys go to get away?”

  “East,” says Dennis, “then south. Luckily Dan found a little ranch-to-market option that wasn’t too bad. At least it was gravel. If it hadn’t been for that . . .”

  He shakes his head.

  “But you made it,” says Kevin.

  “We did,” says Dennis. “We had to run in front of that wedge for about five minutes, though, and man, I’m telling you, those were the longest five minutes of my life. I thought this was it this time. That’s all I could think. This is it.”

  He shakes out a cigarette, considers it, and sticks it behind his ear.

  “Where’d you two ride it out?” he asks.

  “South also,” says Kevin. “But back more toward Pierre, about ten miles out of town.”

  Dennis nods. “That’s right,” he says, “you totally dropped out of sight, I almost forgot. What’s up with that?”

  “We had an emergency,” Kevin says, nodding at Karena. “She thought she saw her brother.”

  Karena winces, then looks straight at Dennis. It’s time for the truth now. Charles will be best served by it.

  “Your brother?” Dennis repeats. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would your brother be all the way out here? Is he a chaser?”

  “Yes,” says Karena. “He’s Charles Hallingdahl. Chuck, I mean. He’s driving the yellow wagon I asked about.”

  Dennis stares at her for a minute, then says, “HAH!”

  Karena glances at Kevin, who shrugs. Dennis stalks a few feet off with loose-jointed, bobble-headed grace, kicking boards and talking to himself. “This is just blowing my mind, man,” he is saying. “Blows my frigging mind. First the world’s biggest wedge tornado almost kills my sorry ass, and now . . .”

  He circles back and bends down to peer in Karena’s face.

  “Sure,” he says, “I see it now. Christ on a pony. Chuck Hallingdahl’s sister. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It’s a long story,” says Karena.

  “I bet it is,” says Dennis grimly. He shakes his head. “I just bet it is,” and although this isn’t her top concern right now, Karena can see she’s lost Dennis’s trust, and she feels bad.

  Then a state police SUV comes toward them, lights whirling, tires crunching over the debris. The statie’s window lowers, and he leans across his seat in his Smokey Bear hat. He’s so young, Karena thinks, bright-cheeked and open-faced, he looks like he’s nineteen years old.

  “Excuse me, folks,” he says, “but I’m going to have to ask you to return to your vehicles and vacate the area. We need to secure it for safety purposes.”

  Dan Mitchell steps out of the Whale, papers in hand.

  “We’re aware of that, officer,” he says. “We’re a licensed stormchasing company, and we got separated from one of our vehicles during the storm. I was just waiting for them to catch up and now they have, and as soon as we plot a safe course out of here, we’re on our way.”

  “I appreciate that,” says the statie.

  “Officer,” Karena says, “have you seen a yellow Volvo station wagon?”

  “No, ma’am,” he says, “sorry, I haven’t. Now please return to your vehicle.”

  He looks at Dan. “More storms on their way,” he says. “Think we’re in for a long night?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Dan says. “It’s a very active system, and they’re going to keep training over this area.”

  The statie sits up and looks through his windshield, chewing gum.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” he says. “Well, you folks move along now, and be safe.”

  “Thank you, officer,” says Dan. “Same to you.”

  “Wait,” Karena says. She taps on the statie’s window as it rolls back up, and it stops in its track.

  “Please,” she says. “I’m searching for my brother. I saw him earlier in the Volvo and I’m afraid he was caught in the storm. Isn’t there any way I can accompany you into town? Just to look?”

  The statie shakes his head. “Sorry, ma’am,” he says. “Emergency personnel only. If we find him and he’s in need of medical attention, we’ll bring him to one of the three area hospitals, St. Mary’s, the Gettysburg Med Center in Pierre, or the Holy Infant.”

  “Hold on,” says Karena, taking out her scratch pad, “could you please repeat that?” and that’s when Marla comes up beside her.

  “Officer,” she says, “I’m Marla Johannssen from Iowa, and I’m an RN. I’d like to help any way I can.”

  The statie looks dubious, and Marla snatches off her flame cap with a curse.

  “You have ID, ma’am?” he asks, and Marla opens her wallet and hands it in. The statie considers it, then passes it back.

  “All right, Mrs. Johannssen,” he says. “H
op in.”

  “Thank you, officer,” says Marla. “Just one more thing. This is my partner, and I don’t go unless she does,” and she picks up Karena’s wrist and waves it. “She’ll help us get the word out about whatever support we need. She’s with the Minneapolis Ledger, you know. She’s press.”

  22

  They rejoin the Whirlwind tour that night at the Taco Hut in Pierre, where Dan Mitchell is calling around, trying to find lodging in a city choked with chasers, media, and emergency management. The tourists sit pushing cardboard boats of fast food around plastic trays. They are subdued, saying little. Karena, after hugging everyone hello, sets up shop in a corner with her laptop and her cell phone, calling the hospitals about Charles and filing a story about the destruction of Oweeo for the Ledger:. . . As of 10:30 CST the tally is 14 known dead, 47 wounded, 11 critically. But it could have been far worse, said Oweeo’s town manager, Chris Sides. “The town is totally destroyed,” he said. “There’s nothing left. But the sirens did go off, the NWS issued a warning. We had 17 minutes of lead time. Without that, casualties would have been unimaginable.”

  But as the National Guard was called in and sealed off what remained of Oweeo except for emergency crews, another supercell thunderstorm moved in, jeopardizing ongoing rescue efforts. “I can’t even stand to watch,” said Marla Johannssen, 50, an RN from Iowa who was in the vicinity with Whirlwind Tours, a professional stormchase company. “The way the trees were snapped off,” said Johannssen, “the tornado sharpened them like pencils. And to see them reaching up toward another storm, in that green light like they were underwater—it’s just something most people never see, a unique version of hell.”

  Contributions to help the tornado’s victims can made through the Red Cross.

  Karena reads her piece over, combs out two hundred words, and sends it in as an attachment. Instantly her phone rings, the Ledger copy desk verifying facts. When she is done going through the story with them, she again calls St. Mary’s, the Gettysburg Medical Center, the Holy Infant. Nobody matching Charles’s description is at the hospitals. Nor in their morgues. This is good, Karena tells herself—right? Empirically, it’s good. Charles isn’t dead. He isn’t critically wounded. But that could mean he is still out there somewhere, injured. He could be trapped in his yellow wagon, pinned beneath an eighteen-wheeler or a refrigerator. He could be lying on the ground, bleeding in the rain, more storms moving in.