Men of Courage II (10 page)

He’d been still somewhat shocked by the sudden turn of events and very mixed up about all the new feelings and dangerous thoughts she’d started racing around inside his head. That, on top of what they’d witnessed, well, he hadn’t wanted to trust any of it, much less put it into words. So he’d followed her cues. Being all business, after all, was his comfort zone. Talking about his feelings was not.

They’d hit the campus and within hours their film had been released to major news organizations and wire services. By the time the hubbub had subsided, Marty had quietly grabbed her diploma and taken off for a job
offer in Kansas. She’d sent him a letter shortly thereafter, thanking him for including her name in his published reports and congratulating him on the professional success his footage was bringing him. And he hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

But that was about to change. And leave it to Mother Nature to make their reunion as dramatic as their parting.

“You’ve got enough to deal with,” he told Ryan. “Go focus on marrying that beautiful fiancée of yours. I’m sorry I’m going to miss it, but if all goes well, we’ll be there by the reception.”

“Be careful,” Ryan told him. “From the reports I’m getting, it’s getting volatile out there. Anything can happen.”

Cooper thought about the last time he’d seen Marty, and how she might react when he found her this afternoon. And he’d find her all right. “Yeah,” he said, the corners of his mouth kicking up despite the knot in his gut. “That’s just what I’m hoping for.”

“D
AMMIT
!” C
OOPER SMACKED
the steering wheel with open palms. He’d finally made it to the rural route number Marty had given Ryan, though the road was hardly more than a farm trail. And, as was the case in a lot of the rural areas he’d chased storms through, there weren’t many connector roads or alternate routes to choose from. He’d already made it through several swollen creeks, detoured around downed telephone wires, and rolled over more than one busted tree branch just to get this far.

But he wasn’t getting over or around the massive pine tree presently slumped across the road. Ripped up
by the wind, exposing a massive root system with little left to cling to after a season of heavy rains, hail had quickly piled up alongside it, as well as all along the sides of the roads. He was just thankful it had finally stopped. His truck had been taking quite a beating for the past twenty or so minutes. He supposed he should just be thankful it hadn’t cracked his windshield. The rain had dwindled now as well, but lightning strikes were still frequent and the wind was near constant. Due to lack of signal or downed towers, he’d been out of cell-phone range for some time now, but he didn’t need a weather update to tell him what he could see for himself.

The cloud ceiling in front of him was circulating, with a rear downdraft pulling down the occasional tiny funnel. So far, none had formed strongly enough to come close to touching down. But the system was moving toward him, and he knew that at any time, another one could form. All of the conditions were ripe for a rare supertwister, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if one formed right in front of his very eyes.

At any other time he’d be cursing his current lack of equipment. He had his personal gear, but right about now he’d kill for one of his Severe Weather Center vans, complete with its own mini Doppler radar. He’d chased many a supercell, but it was still difficult to pinpoint the right place at the exact right time to witness
a tornado forming and touching down. Which was why scientists like himself were still struggling to answer some of the most basic questions about twister formation. Actually witnessing the birth of a twister of F4 or F5 proportions—a supertwister—was even rarer. In fact, he’d only done it once.

He and Marty had covered hundreds of miles that June afternoon, charting and mapping their way across the Plains, linking up with various weather centers as they’d tracked the storm. Even though the conditions were all but screaming for a supertwister, they’d never expected to see what they saw. And though Cooper had seen other big tornadoes since, none had been as massive, as dangerous or as destructive as the one he and Marty had all but smacked into that day.

He’d seen the footage he’d taken that day replayed a hundred times over. And yet the video was so far removed from the intensity of the actual moment. There were no words to describe what he and Marty had witnessed. No strip of film or spool of video could adequately convey the crushing, thundering power of that F5 as it had railroaded its way across open fields, stampeding through small rural towns, tossing homes around like dollhouses, flattening offices and strip malls as easily as an angry toddler having a foot-stomping tantrum.

Cars, trees, tractors, even boats had been flung about
like Frisbees at a Sunday picnic. Some had landed dozens of miles away, some had never been found. Aluminum siding had been driven like steel railroad spikes through tree trunks. People had been sucked out from under overpasses, or worse, plucked right from their homes.

What he remembered most was the sound. People often said it sounded like a freight train. And they were exactly right. What they weren’t able to convey was that it sounded like a freight train…if you were tied to the tracks and it was rumbling right over you. It changed the rhythm of your heart.

He and Marty had chased and recorded the twister as intelligently as they could, given the circumstances. But once they’d both realized the magnitude of what they were recording, they’d gotten a bit reckless. And in the end, they’d been trapped right in the path of the beast, with nowhere else to run. It had been Marty’s quick thinking then that had saved their hides…and the precious reel of film. She’d been the one to spy the narrow drainage tunnel that ran beneath the road. Muddy water, muck, tree branches and God knew what else had been clogged inside the corrugated tube, but it had been their only hope. Lying flat in the muck, bodies pressed together, with his video camera tucked hard between them, they’d ridden out the twister as it literally roared directly over them, shaking the ground around them,
sounding as if the demons of hell were snapping at their feet.

They’d hidden behind the mass of debris that had collected from the heavy rains, then watched in nerve-racking terror as the tornado had plucked the entire twisted mass out of the tube as if it were nothing more than a bouquet of pansies. The two of them had been left miraculously untouched.

Later, after they’d staggered out of the drainage pipe, clinging to one another, the shock of their close call had turned to an almost giddy feeling of joyous triumph. His truck had been shoved almost a hundred yards down the road and was angled off the pavement, half in a ditch, but otherwise unharmed. They’d both worked to push it out and back on the road, then Cooper had discovered a stream running parallel to the road. Nothing more than a ditch normally, but now filled to overflowing with rainwater. Without hesitation, they’d stripped off their sodden, muck-covered clothes and splashed about like two giddy schoolkids on the first day of summer break.

Only after laying their garments across the hood and windshield of his truck to dry out did they climb in the back seat…where their almost drunken relief at still being alive had led to a decidedly more adult form of entertainment.

Cooper shoved those thoughts away and climbed
out of his truck. Right now his only focus was on finding Marty. He’d already come up with a dozen plausible explanations for that scream Ryan had heard, but that hadn’t stopped the instinctive knot tugging his gut. The one that told him she was in trouble. Maybe the kind of trouble even someone as sharp as Marty couldn’t get herself out of.

He levered himself up on the front grill so he could see beyond the downed tree. What he found was disheartening. Even if he somehow found a way around this one, there were several more just like it strewn across the road ahead. For the umpteenth time he wished he’d packed all of his stuff—including his chain saw and other survival gear. He hadn’t come to Ohio to chase storms, however, so he’d limited himself to his usual set of maps, a weather radio, his camera and laptop. None of which were going to help him cut that tree into movable pieces.

Just past the stand of trees lining this section of the dirt-and-gravel road, the landscape opened up to vast, largely empty cow fields on both sides. In the distance he saw some forest growth, but from his restricted vantage point, that was all he got. The road ahead, for as far as he could see, was absent of any kind of vehicle.

“Where the hell are you?” Since turning on this route, he’d stopped in several hole-in-the-wall towns, scoping out the handful of cars in every lot to see if any
sported a rental sticker. He’d stopped in a handful of tiny general stores to ask if anyone had seen a woman fitting Marty’s description. But he’d come up empty. There was only one way she could have been traveling to Denton after turning on 192.

Of course, it was possible she was stuck farther ahead somewhere, just as he was at this end, but given the rapidly deteriorating conditions, he doubted she’d leave what was already a rural road for one in even worse condition. Besides, there simply weren’t that many roads out here in the western part of the county. According to his map, there weren’t any detours she could have taken.

What troubled him most was that, by his estimations, he should have come across her already. There had been next to no traffic on the roads. He’d passed a few pickup trucks, but nothing matching her description of a little compact.

And he only knew that much because she’d groused to Ryan about there not being any “real vehicles” left to rent at the airport. Marty had definitely been the type of woman who valued substance over style. Some things, he was glad to know, hadn’t changed. If he wasn’t feeling so helpless, he would have smiled at that.

At the moment, however, he was too busy realizing what a fool he’d been, racing down the road without
planning anything first, thinking he’d do, what? Just ride out here on his four-wheel drive white steed and rescue the fair damsel in distress? Okay, that did make him snort. If Marty thought for one second he’d considered her a distressed damsel, she’d be the first to remind him about who’d saved whose ass the last time around. And rightfully so.

“So where the hell’s my white knight when I need her?” Raking his hand through his hair, his amusement faded as tiny seeds of panic began to take root. He stared down the empty road, then at the sky, and knew he was running out of time. “You’ve got to be down there somewhere,” he murmured.

A lightning strike punched down in the distance, lighting up the sky…and flashing off of something shiny on the side of the road, about two hundred yards down to his right. It had probably been a trick of the light, but there had definitely been a glint of something. And with nothing but grass, mud and gravel clogging the sides of the road, there shouldn’t be anything flashy down there at all.

Where he was standing now, the right side of the road was a swollen gully, rolling over and through the extended branches of the downed tree. The left side was more passable, but that was the root end of the tree. Which meant he had a messy, slippery climb ahead of him. He looked at the roiling clouds, then at the road
behind him. There was no place to move his truck that would be any safer, but it wasn’t like any other traffic was going to be moving through here anyway. The only real question was could he make it down the road and back and still have enough time to haul ass out of there before the oncoming storm front hit?

But he was already looking for a foothold on the rain-slicked bark, and swearing under his breath. “Yeah, let’s risk life and limb to go chase after a bright, shiny object,” he grumbled, clawing his way up and over the mud-covered, sap-sticky bark. “Because you haven’t done enough stupid stuff today already.” Like purposely positioning himself alone and on foot in a wide open field, with the only nearby ditch presently filled to overflowing with water.

But he’d seen something, dammit.

After scrambling down the other side, he immediately jogged to the next downed tree and started the process all over again. Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning strikes continued in the distance. Wind slapped fistfuls of dried pine needles at his face and body as the storm cell crawled closer. But he was too focused on climbing over the gargantuan tree trunk to do much of anything but find his next handhold. A good fifteen minutes passed before he was free and clear. He didn’t waste any more time, but headed down the dirt lane at a fast jog, scanning the gully for any sign of what
the lightning might have flashed on. He’d only gone about fifty yards when he spotted the source up ahead.

Hubcaps. Four of them, sticking straight up in the air. The car they were attached to was submerged in the rushing water.

No!
He was running flat out before he’d even completed the thought.
It can’t be her.
Sending up one prayer after another, he closed in rapidly on the flipped car. He saw that one tire had blown out, and even with all the rain that had come down, the marks the skidding tires had made in the dirt and the churned-up gravel they’d left behind were still obvious. But what grabbed his full attention was the upside-down rental sticker on the exposed bumper.

A blown tire. Marty’s scream.

He was already sliding down the embankment into the thigh-high, swiftly running waters streaming through and around the car. Then he saw the open door. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” The car was full of water, but it looked like the driver had gotten out. Still, he crouched down and shoved his arms shoulder-deep into the muddy water. Groping around, all he felt was the steering wheel, dashboard and windshield.

No arms. No legs.

Relief churned through him so hard and fast, he felt sick with it. Climbing back to the road, he looked up and down the muddy lane, wondering if she’d managed
to hitch a ride to the nearest town. For her sake he hoped so. Still, he had no idea if she was badly hurt, or if she was safe and dry somewhere. The idea of her out here alone, dealing with God only knew what kind of possible injuries…

He blew out a shaky breath, knowing there was nothing else he could do now. There was nothing in front of him close enough to walk to. Depending on when the pine trees had come down, it was also possible she’d been a passenger in any one of the pickup trucks he’d already passed. For all he knew, she could be back in Denton by now.

“Damn,” he murmured. “Damn, damn, damn.” He didn’t like leaving without knowing for certain what had happened to her. His instincts were still jumping, or perhaps that was just the fear that had clutched at his belly when he’d spied that rental sticker.

It was funny, all the thoughts that had raced through his mind as he’d run, hell-bent, toward her submerged car.

Flashes of that afternoon in the back seat of his truck. Memory clips of the other hunts they’d gone on. Of Marty laughing and joking with the guys on the chase crew. Marty, her sunstreaked brown hair in a messy knot on top of her head, wire rims propped on her nose, a dry-erase marker clenched in her teeth as she’d pored over maps and weather printouts, trying to gauge the
best route around a storm. Marty, anticipation making her fidget in her seat as she directed him down one route, then across another, as they closed in on another storm cell.

Marty, staring at him with eyes so blue, so huge, biting the corner of her trembling bottom lip…right before he’d yanked her into his lap and devoured her mouth. Devoured her. Whole.

Why in the hell had it taken almost killing themselves that afternoon for him to notice her as a woman and not just a crew member?