Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (34 page)

“What in the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

“There ain’t room for all of us to fit in there!” Alan answered. “I’m stayin’ here!”

“That’s crazy talk!”

“You know I’m right!”

“I won’t let you do this!” Owen yelled, frustrated. When
he reached to grab Alan again, the man just moved farther away.

“You got your whole life ’head of you! Get back in there ’fore it’s too late!”

“But your daughter…!”

“I ain’t never done right by that girl a once in her life! Ever since the day her momma died, I expected her to do all the
cleanin’, cookin’, and maintainin’ of the house without ever thinkin’ of what was best for her! Well, now I am! I’m doin’
my part to keep her alive! You just tell her that her father loved her!”

By the end, Owen could barely hear the words coming from Alan Beck’s mouth, so near had the tornado come. Even with his feet
planted as hard as he could, the wind grabbed at him, trying to pull him to his death. There was no more time for arguing.
Sarah’s father had made up his mind, and there would be no convincing him otherwise. A part of Owen understood his decision;
he would have gladly sacrificed his own life so that Charlotte might live.

Owen nodded once to Alan, then hurried back into the cave.

“I’m here!” he shouted into Charlotte’s ear.

“Where’s Alan?” she asked, but he pretended that he hadn’t heard her.

Huddling as close to Charlotte and Sarah as he could, Owen strained to maintain his position inside the cave. Outside, the
roar of the tornado escalated, its winds
annihilating everything in its path as it moved ever forward. For the first time since he was a child, Owen gave a silent
prayer, a plea that they would survive this encounter with the wrath of nature. He also gave a prayer for Alan, who had undoubtedly
already been absorbed by the storm, hopefully already dead so that he might be spared the agony of enduring the tornado’s
wrath.

Heaven help anyone unlucky enough to fall into the tornado’s path…

Carter Herrick sat behind his desk, sipping whiskey and smoking a cigar. Outside, the storm roared like a wild beast, but
inside his home all was silent save for the ticking of a clock. With the advance of the rampaging storm, all the men who worked
for him on his ranch had fled for safety, barricading themselves in shelters and holes in the earth, desperately trying to
save their own hides. But Carter didn’t share their desire to live; when he saw the tornado outside his window, he decided
just to stay and watch.

Caroline Wallace returned to his thoughts, the memory of her pretty face a stark reminder of all that he had risked and lost
throughout his life. There had been no pleasure to take from forcing himself on her all those many years ago. Recalling her
horrifying cries had wakened him from his dreams on many a night, but he had refused to let her denial of his advances be
the final word, could not allow her to belong to someone like John Grant.

“Why couldn’t you have accepted me, Caroline?” he asked into the gloom.

Would he be sitting here now if she had? Carter doubted it. He would never have married that waste of a woman in her place,
would never have had to endure whatever sickness it was that finally felled her. Maybe he would have had a son strong enough,
man enough
, to replace him.

Instead, he remained alone.

Even his machinations to ruin John Grant had come to nothing. Whatever he asked Del Grissom and Clyde Drake to do, setting
a wildfire, fouling the water supply, even starting a stampede of horses, resulted in little more than a temporary inconvenience.
Grant had always been a resilient son of a bitch when they were young, a talent that served him well now. Carter supposed
that if he really had wanted to end things between them, he should have gone up to the man and shot him himself.

Something heavy slammed into Carter’s ranch house. Looking out the window, he could see the tornado begin to pull apart one
of his outer buildings. It was fascinating, in a way, to watch the boards being lifted into the sky. He wondered what that
force might do to a man.

Soon, he would be with his son. He’d stopped living when the boy died, a corpse who didn’t have the common sense to know he
shouldn’t be drawing breath. Time would rectify that.

When the windows of his office broke, and the wood
was plied from his home by the wind, Carter Herrick sat back… and smiled.

Everywhere around them was destruction. Remnants of the Becks’ cabin littered the ground, a piece of tin roof here, scattered
boards there, and even a bit of bedding lodged in the boughs of a nearby tree. Running to the cave had saved their lives;
staying behind would have ended them.

The truck had been pushed to the lip of the path they had followed and now lay upside down at its base, a spidery web of cracks
spread across the windshield.

How is it possible that we are alive?

The answer was that they were indebted to Alan Beck. If it hadn’t been for his knowledge of the land, his wouldn’t be the
only death. Charlotte couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for the man, first to decide he should remain outside the
cave and then to have to wait for the tornado to inevitably end his life. She and he had had their differences when she had
begun teaching Sarah, but now she saw him in a new light, as a father who knew his final responsibility was to his child.

Owen settled Sarah onto a rock just outside the cave entrance. The poor girl appeared traumatized, in shock over what they
had experienced. She still had not asked for her father, but Charlotte knew that moment would soon come.

“Are you all right?” Owen asked as he took her hands in his own.

“I don’t know,” she murmured, and laughed.

“Me either.”

For a long moment, they stood surveying the carnage all around them, uncertain of what to say or how to start picking up the
pieces.

“You saved my life,” she said softly, the world suddenly so quiet after the cacophony of the tornado.

“Alan saved us all… we saved each other…”

Charlotte loved Owen Wallace; the choice she had made in giving him her heart had been the right one. Even now, in the face
of such widespread destruction, she felt hope. They would build a life together, would build a family. She would help him
to let go of his sorrow, his need for revenge, until there was no more darkness in his heart, just as the darkened sky above
would someday clear. They would laugh, cry, shout, and everything in between. None of it would be easy, but standing together,
there was nothing that they couldn’t overcome.

They had just proven it.

Sawyer, Oklahoma—Christmas Eve, 1940

“…
THAT
G
ERMAN PLANES
again struck the heart of London last night, sparking fires that raged out of control. Reports are that civilian casualties
were limited due to the timely evacuation to subway tunnels. German chancellor Adolf Hitler went on state radio to declare
the bombing a success.”

Charlotte shut off the radio with a frown. They had listened to the war news all day. She had hoped to catch something lighter,
perhaps listen to some music, maybe a variety show, but the war in Europe seemed to monopolize the airways. Right now she
had to focus on the imminent arrival of her dinner guests.

For the fourth time in two hours, she reviewed her
checklist. Everything seemed to be as she wanted; the table had been set with their nicest dishes and silverware, a turkey
was roasting in the oven, Owen was grumbling out back while cutting firewood for the night, and even all of the ornaments
on their small Christmas tree were just as she wanted them.

“May this be the best Christmas of all our lives,” she murmured to herself.

So much had changed since that first summer she had arrived in Sawyer to become a teacher, far from her home and family in
Minnesota. Looking back on those days, she was amazed at all that had happened. So many calamities had struck John Grant’s
ranch, culminating in the tornado that had nearly blown them all away, that there had never seemed a moment’s peace.

But peace… and joy had come with Owen…

Owen and she married the following spring in a simple ceremony at Sawyer’s church, an occasion that prompted a welcome visit
from her family. Unfortunately, her grandmother had not felt well enough to attend, but Rachel and Mason Tucker came, along
with Charlotte’s sister, Christina. Charlotte and Owen expected the weather to be tumultuous, much like their courtship and
the adversity they had faced, but when a gorgeous day dawned they considered it an omen, predicting a glorious future.

They moved to a house closer to the school, one that needed a little fixing up, but they enjoyed doing the work
together; Owen repaired the columns on their porch and Charlotte came along behind, applying a fresh coat of paint. Slowly,
they built something to be proud of.

In other places, lives needed to be rebuilt.

When the tornado rampaged through the Oklahoma countryside, lives had been forever altered. John Grant was fortunate in that
his ranch was spared any significant damage; a couple of outlying buildings had been destroyed, a large amount of fence had
been felled, and roads and creeks had been choked with debris. Immediately, the men of the Grant Ranch set about repairing
and restoring.

But for others, the damage was beyond fixing. Carter Herrick’s ranch had been directly in the line of the tornado’s path and
had paid a tremendous price. Practically every structure had been annihilated, scattered over an area of many miles. Fortunately,
most of the men and women who worked there had managed to find shelter before the storm arrived, all except Carter Herrick
himself; he was found dead in the wreckage.

When Owen learned of Carter’s death, his reaction had been muted. Charlotte had expected him to feel cheated that he hadn’t
been able to confront the man who had raped his mother and sent her life into a spiral, the man who was his father, but Owen
had surprised her.

“Good,” he’d said when he learned of Carter’s death, but nothing more.

The relationship between Owen and John Grant had improved in the time since the revelation of the true
identity of Owen’s father. Owen continued to work on the ranch beside John and Hale, and Charlotte was happy to see them laughing
together, in a way becoming the family her husband had always needed.

Del’s betrayal had undeniably wounded John. Though he never requested that Del go to the sheriff and confess to what he had
done in the service of Carter Herrick, living with his guilt was more than Del could bear to accept. One night, while all
of the ranch slept, he packed up his belongings and left, never to be seen again. His responsibilities were given to Hale,
who then passed more and more of his duties on to Owen. Charlotte worried about the war, about the likelihood that the United
States could be dragged into it and the nation’s men sent off to fight, but if it were to happen, she knew Owen would do his
duty. Her father had gone to Europe and returned, although it had taken years. Owen might need to go as well.

Charlotte hurried into the kitchen and checked the turkey; it was a golden brown as it cooked in its succulent juices. She
smiled broadly; she desperately wanted tonight to be as special as she hoped.

This was to be the first night out for Hannah and Hale as a married couple. After a courtship that seemed to go on forever,
much to Owen’s sister’s consternation, Hale had finally summoned enough courage to ask his beloved Hannah to be his bride.

“What took you so long?” she asked in place of a simple “yes.”

Their wedding had been quite the sight, Hale perspiring and stuttering over his pledge to love and honor, so uncomfortable
it looked as if he were being forced into matrimony against his will. Hannah smiled through it all, confident in Hale’s undying
love.

As the other person whose life had been irreversibly changed the day of the tornado, Sarah Beck had managed to do well. Though
she had lost her father in the cataclysmic weather, she had moved forward with her head held high, and a few weeks later she
gave birth to a boy just as she had always predicted, and named him Ethan. Charlotte had continued teaching Sarah’s lessons,
now in her room in the ranch’s main house, and she had shown real improvement; there was even talk that she would go to public
high school in the following year. Amelia had taken a particularly strong liking to the girl and their closeness had created
a sense of family among the two of them and John. Though Caroline had been taken from him, in Owen and Hannah, John had discovered
what it meant to be a parent.

“This better be enough wood,” Owen said as he burst in the back door with an armload of cut oak.

“If it isn’t, you can just go out and get some more.”

“Next year, I’m going to show
you
how to swing an axe,” he grumbled, but kissed Charlotte on the cheek as he went past.

While Owen lit a fire in their wood stove, Charlotte found herself reflecting on the one person in her family
she wished were with her for Christmas. Her sister, Christina, was finally old enough to leave their home in Carlson and to
set out on her own. Charlotte remembered what it was like for herself, the excitement of a new beginning, the nervousness
of a train ride into the unknown, and prayed that her little sister would find as much happiness as she had.

Owen came up behind her and laced his arms around her; even after their year together, Charlotte never tired of the feeling.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” he whispered in her ear.

“A time or two,” she teased. “But tell me again.”

“You better watch out, Mrs. Wallace, or Santa won’t bring you any presents.”

“I’ve already got just what I wanted.”

“And what was that?” He kissed the side of her face.

“You, my love,” she whispered.

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