The rain showed signs of abating. Mildred started the car and pulled onto the highway. “I’m sorry about what happened to your new addition, Qwill.”
“Is it totally destroyed?”
“The foundation is intact, but the rest is rubble. Some of the boards have blown half a block away. And the Dunfield house is a wreck! What a blessing that the poor girl got out in time. I suppose we’ll never know who she was, or where she came from, or why she was here.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain attack the car.
Then Qwilleran said, “I nailed some plywood o’ver the opening between the cabin and the east wing. I hope it didn’t blow out.”
“It’s still in place. You’re a better carpenter than you think you are. The tornado didn’t even ruffle a shingle on the cabin. They’re crazy that way. A tornado will demolish a house without touching the lilac bush at the front door.”
“Imagine the cats having to live through that! They’d be terrified! They say a tornado sounds like a jet when it tears through one’s property.”
Mildred said, “They were still holed up in the bedroom when I went there yesterday morning, but they were like wild animals. I don’t know whether they were unnerved by the storm or just plain hungry. I took them some turkey, and last night they had meatloaf, and this morning some leftover salmon mousse. They liked it.”
“They’d been imprisoned in the guestroom for almost twenty-four hours,”
Qwilleran said. “Luckily they had their commode and drinking water. Cats hate a closed door, you know, regardless of which side they’re on. If they’re out, they want to get in, and if they’re in, they want to get out.”
The K signpost came in view, and Mildred turned on her right-turn signal.
“My car’s at the FOO. Would you mind dropping me off there?” he said. “I left it in their parking lot when we took off for Three Tree Island.’”
“Are you sure you should drive?” she asked. “If you feel drowsy, I’ll get Sharon to drive your car back to the cabin.”
“Thanks, Mildred, but I’m all right. Don’t worry.”
“All three times I went to your cabin there was a truck in the clearing. I suppose it belongs to your carpenter, but I didn’t see him around.”
“He was putting in window frames on the day of the tornado. I hope he wasn’t hurt. He’s so thin, a heavy wind could blow him away.’”
At the FOO she declined Qwilleran’s invitation to have coffee and a doughnut, saying that FOO doughnuts would make better boat anchors.
“Thanks for the ride, Mildred, and it was good of you to take care of the cats.”
“No trouble at all. In fact, I enjoyed doing it.”
Qwilleran bought a copy of the midweek Something, which had gone to press before the tornado hit. Then he drove slowly to the cabin, thinking that Mildred was a wonderful woman who would make someone a good wife if only she would unload her absentee husband. When he turned into the K driveway, he was beginning to dread the first glimpse of the destruction, but he was eager to lay eyes on the Siamese. There had been times during those long, cold, wet hours when he thought he might never see them again. He shivered at the recollection.
The scene was exactly as Mildred had described it. Iggy’s truck was in the clearing, and the east wing was a shambles, but Qwilleran didn’t care; he was only glad to be alive. Although the drenching rain was turning the clearing into a lake, he waded through the puddles without noticing them. After what he had been through, what was an inch of rainwater?
He unlocked the door and said dully, “I’m home.”
The Siamese regarded him from a distance with an expression of silent resentment.
“You can be glad your meal ticket wasn’t drowned,” he said. “CEREAL!”
The two ingrates bounded across the floor, Koko walking the last few feet on his hind legs, to receive their treat.
Qwilleran made coffee for himself and was sipping it with gratitude and relief when Arch Riker phoned.
“Thank God you were all rescued, Qwill,” the editor said. “I heard about it on the radio Tuesday night and called the papers Down Below. It was too late for our midweek edition. Why doesn’t anything ever happen on our deadline? What were you doing out on that island anyway?”
“You may not believe this, Arch, but we were looking for scorched earth where a UFO was said to have landed.”
“You’re cracking up, Qwill!”
“Be that as it may,” he answered wearily, “I’m thinking of moving back to Pickax and crossing off this summer as a lost cause. The east wing is ruined. The sky is gray. The lake is even grayer. The rain is beating on the roof and flooding the windows, and the rotten weather is expected to continue. And it’s all on account of those lousy UFOs.”
There was a brief pause before Riker asked, “What kind of medication did they give you at the hospital, Qwill?”
“Ask Dr. Halifax. It’s his secret formula. Is Pickax flooded?”
“Main Street looks like the Grand Canal. All the creeks and rivers in the county are swollen, and some of the bridges may wash out. Better stay put till the rain stops. You sound tiled. Get some rest. Catch up on your reading. Forget about the “Qwill Pen.” But when you get back to normal, you can write a hair-raising column about your ordeal.”
And still it rained, pounding the roof, flattening the beach grass. “Damn those visitors!” Qwilleran said, shaking his fist at the dreary sky.
He went to the back porch and looked at Iggy’s pickup in die clearing. The man might be living in it! He might be asleep in the truck-bed right now! Qwilleran realized he should investigate, but the rain was descending noisily, and he felt lethargic.
After a while Yum Yum forgave him for abandoning her, for shutting her up in a small room without food, for smelling like a hospital. When he stretched out on the sofa, she leaped lightly to his chest and uttered the seductive wail that meant she wanted to be petted. Koko, on the other hand, prowled about the cabin irritably, exploring remote corners, looking for a newspaper to shred, jumping on and off the moosehead repeatedly in a reckless waste of energy.
It was only when Koko crumpled the mudroom rug and started nosing the trap door with moist snorts that Qwilleran snapped to attention. His moustache bristled as a possibility flickered through his mind: Iggy might be under the floor, asleep!
He might have seen the funnel-shaped clouds and gone under the cabin to safety.
But how would he get into the cabin? The door was securely locked… . Well, he would knock out the temporary partition, step through the opening into the mudroom, and then nail the plywood back in place to keep out the gusting wind.
He would know that all such beachhouses have crawl spaces, so he would find the trap door, go down in the hole, and close it after him. Then he would stretch out on the sand and go to sleep. Iggy could sleep anywhere! It was an interesting theory, but not plausible, Qwilleran decided. Even a somnolent carpenter wouldn’t sleep thirty-six hours. Nevertheless, he shoved Koko away from the trap door, opened it a few inches, and shouted the man’s name. There was no answer from Iggy but an ear-shattering yowl from Koko.
Qwilleran was aware he was not thinking clearly. He felt groggy. As he watched the rain cascading off the cabin roof, he thought, Iggy might have been injured when the roof of the east wing collapsed; he might have been killed; his body could be lying under the rubble; or it might have been blown into the woods, along with sections of the roof and siding. Qwilleran realized he should investigate, but the rain deterred him, and he lacked ambition.
His curiosity began to overwhelm his weariness, however, when Koko’s behavior caused his moustache to quiver, ever so slightly. The cat was sniffing the trap door eagerly, passionately. Qwilleran remembered seeing a flashlight-somewhere-and he fumbled in drawers and cabinets before finding it in the mudroom. Koko, sensing his intention, pranced with long legs and rampant tail.