* * *
We were more than halfway through the dishes when the power went off, plunging us into darkness deeper than most of us had seen since the last power outage. What with security lights and even streetlights popping up all over the area, we don’t get much true darkness anymore. Daddy had a flashlight to hand and once the candles and lanterns had been lit, Maidie insisted we go ahead and finish washing up while the water system still had enough pressure to do the job.
Power failure rules immediately went into effect: boys in the upstairs bathroom, girls in the downstairs and no flushing unless absolutely necessary, using water dipped from the full tubs.
Daddy and Cletus had moved into the den recliners and were regaling Stan with well-worn memories of Hurricane Hazel. Maidie’s only about fifteen years older than me, so her memories of Hazel are pretty vague, but Cletus has another six or eight years on her and can match Daddy tree for fallen tree.
The candlelight soon took Daddy even further back, back before electricity came to this area.
“We didn’t even have radio when I was a little fellow,” he reminisced. “I was near-bout grown ’fore I heared it the first time. Seventy-five years ago, they was no weather satellites and the weather bureau did a lot of its predicting by what ships out at sea telegraphed to shore about the weather where they was. Way back here in the woods, we didn’t know it was hurricanes stomping around out off the coast yonder. Old-timers used to call ’em August blows, ’cause most years, come late August, we’d get days and days of wind out of the northeast and sometimes we’d get a bunch of rain with it. A lot of times though, the sky’d be just as blue as you please, and that wind a-blowing.”
As he spoke, the wind was blowing again, rattling the old wooden windows in their loose-fitting casements, and Lashanda tugged at my shirt. “Did you bring my baby doll, Miss Deborah?”
It was the first time I’d thought of it since I put the damp doll dress in my dryer. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I went and left it at my house.”
“Is that far away?” she asked plaintively.
“Not too far,” I said brightly. “Why don’t I just run over and get it for you.”
“Here now,” said Daddy. “I don’t think that’s a real smart idea. Wind catch hold of that little car of your’n and no telling where you’ll fetch up.”
“I’ll carry her in my truck,” said Reese, who seemed to have taken a shine to the child. “It’s heavy enough. We won’t be more’n a minute.”
Before Daddy could order us not to go, Reese and I had grabbed flashlights and were out the back door, dashing across the yard to his truck. Umbrellas were useless in this wind and neither of us bothered with one. The ground was soft and soggy and squished with each running step I took. Reese’s white truck has such oversized tires that I almost needed a stepladder to swing up into the cab. There was a time when he wouldn’t have let my wet clothes and muddy shoes into his truck. But that was before a deer tore the living bejeesus out of his beautiful leather seat covers and headliner last fall. Vinyl replacements were all he could afford and nowadays he’s not quite as particular about water and dirt.
* * *
“We better not try going through the woods,” Reese said, throwing the truck into four-wheel drive before we were even out of the yard.
Instead, he took the long way, through drag rows and lanes that bordered the fields. It was an exciting ride. Treetops were whipping in the wind, rain was coming down in buckets, and green leaves and pine needles were hurled so thickly against the windshield, the wipers almost couldn’t handle them.
“Aren’t you scared?” Reese asked, almost shouting to be heard above the rain pounding on the cab roof as we skidded through a cut in the woods that was almost blocked by a large pine limb.
I just laughed, feeling more alive than I had in ages. This was more exhilarating than a roller coaster.
As we turned out into the next field and followed the lane that runs alongside the pond, we saw car lights suddenly come on at the back of my house. We thought it might be one of the family, but instead of waiting for us or coming to meet us, it sped away down my driveway toward the road. By the time we got up to the house, the taillights were long gone, but the glare of Reese’s lights showed that the door of my house was standing wide open. The window beside it had been smashed so that someone could reach inside and unlock the door.
Wind and rain were howling through the rooms. We slammed the door, then Reese headed through the kitchen to the garage for a tarp to nail over the window. When he brought it back, it was like hanging on to a sail even though my porch is roofed and screened. I had to pull the tarp taut and hold the flashlight steady, too, so he could see to nail.
As soon as that was taken care of, Reese lit the kerosene lamp on my kitchen counter and we shone our flashlights through the rest of the house to see what had been taken. Wind funnelling through the open door had scattered stuff, but no real damage had been done and I couldn’t immediately see that the house had been seriously tossed. My few bits of real jewelry were untouched in the case on my dresser and all of Mother’s sterling silver seemed to be occupying their proper compartments in the flannel-lined drawers.
The cards, pictures and bills from Clara Freeman’s wallet had blown onto the floor, yet all were still there, including a five and two tens.
“We must’ve scared him off ’fore he could grab anything,” said Reese.
I finished laying Clara’s things back on fresh dry paper towels, then shone my light around the floor for items I might have missed.
“What you looking for?” asked my nephew.
“There were two envelopes,” I said. “Here’s the light bill, but the other one—”
I widened my search over every square inch of the area, to no avail. The damp envelope that had been sealed with Scotch tape was definitely gone.
At that instant, it was as if a flashbulb suddenly exploded in my head. This was why my car had been broken into? Looking for Clara Freeman’s purse and the envelope? What could have been in it? And more importantly, who knew I had it?
Millard King had been there with Jason Bullock and me when I fished it out of the car. And at the hospital this morning, Dr. Jeremy Potts was standing beside Ralph Freeman when I said I had Lashanda’s doll and Clara’s purse.
“But not Brandon Frazier,” whispered the preacher.
“And not Reid,” said his headmate.
Until that moment of giddy relief, I hadn’t realized how much I’d been subconsciously worrying about that dent in the right front fender of Reid’s black BMW.
I was uneasy about leaving my house unprotected, but Reese wasn’t about to let me stay.
“Granddaddy’ll have my hide if I come back without you,” he said.
I stuck the doll and its clothes into a plastic bag so it wouldn’t get wet and we drove down my long rutted driveway just to make sure the intruder was well and truly gone. Normally, our sandy soil slurps up water like a sponge. Tonight, the wheel ruts were overflowing channels. Just as we paused before pulling onto the hardtop, the big wisteria-covered pine tree beside my mailbox crashed down across the driveway behind us, rocking the truck as its lower limb swiped the tailgate. Two seconds earlier and we’d have been smashed beneath it.
“Holy shit!” Reese yelped and floored the accelerator.
“Watch out!” I shrieked and he almost put us in the ditch when he swerved to miss a limb lying in our lane. “Dammit, Reese, if you can’t handle the speed, slow down!”
He did, but he was still shaking his head at two close calls.
“Well, one thing about it,” he said sheepishly. “You don’t have to worry about that guy coming back tonight. Nobody’s gonna get through your lane without a chain saw or a bulldozer.”