Jean Harnett

Chapter 34: Gloomy days

Wednesday passed in a whirl of packing and storing in her classroom. That evening, Jean was exhausted, but the muggy weather made her uneasy.

"Jean, did you see how funny the sky looks?" Mrs. Doubleday asked from their adjoining doorway.

Jean closed the book she was reading and joined her landlady on the front porch. The wind was blowing uneasily, and dark clouds rolled overhead. Twigs and other debris sped fitfully around the yard.

"It's tornado season," Jean said as they walked around the corner of the house. "I'm surprised that we haven't had any bad storms come through here this spring."

"Just look at those clouds," Iris Doubleday said as she pointed toward the southwest. "That's coming our way, and it looks bad!"

"Well, at least there's nothing to worry about so far. We haven't heard the sirens go off yet."

As if on cue, the tornado sirens began to blast.

"Let's go to the cellar, Mrs. D!"

"Where's my Fluffy cat?!"

"Forget her!" Jean yelled in the rising wind as she pushed Mrs. Doubleday toward the cellar. "She's a smart cat! She's probably waiting for us at the cellar door!"

And Fluffy was.

Later, out at the Farnsworth place southwest of town, Robert Cramer stopped in his cleanup efforts and looked back toward Woodstock. The tornado sirens had stopped long ago, and the menacing bank of dark clouds were a distant dot on the northeastern horizon.

It hadn't been so long ago that he'd seen those same dark clouds hanging over Woodstock and threatening all that he held dear: his mother, his home, his school, and all the people in the small town that made up his life. He couldn't spare any of them.

He wondered idly if Jean Harnett would've had enough sense to seek shelter. Didn't Iris Doubleday have a storm cellar in her backyard? It seemed that he could remember that she did--

"Watch out for that tin, Bob," Kenny Elliott cautioned. Kenny was Bob's second-cousin once removed and operated heavy equipment for the next county.

He'd come over with several other men to help clean up the remains of the old cow shed that had been destroyed by the passing tornado.

That shed should've been torn down years ago, so its destruction was no great loss. Nothing else on the Farnsworth place had been touched by the stern, but tin lay scattered everywhere.

Cramer bent down to help lift a piece of the limber, battered tin and wondered absently if anybody in town had gotten hurt. Had Jean gone to the cellar, or recklessly stood outside and watched the boiling clouds?

It'd be just like her to be so fascinated by the approach of the potential destructive force that she had stood mesmerized by it and had been thrilled by the fact that mere man could not harness it, let alone predict it. Cramer frowned. Why couldn't she--

"Bob!"

Cramer grabbed his right forearm and saw blood ooze up between his clutching fingers even before he felt the searing pain.

"God Almighty, Bob!" Kenny shouted as he grabbed the bleeding arm to take a look. "Why'd you go and do that for?! I'm going to have to get you to a doctor's and have that arm taken care of! You're bleeding like a stuck hog!"

"It's nothing, Kenny." Cramer protested.

"Nothing, hell! You'll need stitches and a tetanus shot, for starters! But I don't know if the doctor can do much for that cotton in your head! You've been gathering enough of it to keep a cotton gin humming for a month.