By Golly, That's a Storm!

The Upper Basin Chronicles

Chapter 13

By Golly, That's a Storm!

The strange green light seemed tilled of chopped chlorophyll and cloud as the big storm worked the earth and sky.

A hammering wind pursued the school bus north. It pounded the yellow box on wheels in quartering blows from the southwest. Driver Merle Johnson had the wipers flapping full on. Just as the bus dived down the first hill, the wind caught the rear end and skipped it sideways. Merle fought the skid for control. The children screamed. Laura stood. She braced herself against the pole behind the driver.

"This is just wind and rain, people. Please be still so Mr. Johnson can concentrate on driving," she said in a firm, calm voice. Merle relaxed a bit as the bus sped over the little bridge at the bottom of the hill, and swept up the other side.

Laura slid into the seat behind him. She tried to see the storm following, but curtains of wind-blasted rain obscured everything except a black sky riddled with lightning.

"Mercy!" she said under her breath. The bus shuddered against another blast at the top of the rise.

"Let's think about taking cover at the next place!" she shouted to Merle.

Merle nodded, "I hope Harold or Irene is home." He paused, "No matter, the back door will be open."

He slowed as large hail began to roar against them. The wind beat harder, as if more determined than ever to tip the lurching bus off the road.

"BAM!" Something bounced off the rear of the vehicle, a crashing sound over the deafening hail roar. The children shrieked again.

A limb? Debris? "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women..." Laura surprised herself praying. "Yow!" she thought, "this IS serious!"

The road ahead danced under a leaping white carpet of hailstones. Merle could see a light in the front room of the Mundt place. He slowed, turned in. The small trees and shrubs in the front yard bent nearly over in the blast. A large black dog bounced at them from under the front porch. He was blown sideways cartoon-like.

Harold Mundt waved at them from the mudroom door. He shouted at the dog. Laura ran to hold the door open for the 25 children, two chaperones, and Merle. Irene showed them the basement stairway. "Welcome, children, you're safe here," she said. "You're wet, so don't slip on the stairs."

For the first time, Laura heard the township sirens screaming above the storm. She stepped inside, and pulled the door closed behind her, bracing against it as the storm slammed it shut. The black clouds had turned the afternoon to murky green night. Laura latched the door, pushed her wet hair back, and turned to find herself eye-to-eye with Harold Mundt.

"By golly, that's a storm!," he shouted. "You were right to stop here; let's get below!" He turned quickly and pounded down the cellar stairs. Laura was about to introduce herself, but was left with mouth open and hand extended. She followed Harold down just as the lights went out.

South of the Mundt farmstead, meanwhile, the freshly tilled land shed topsoil like a slick blanket off a bed. Where the headlands bordered the road, little rivulets dug parallel gullies, each full of water and soil washing downhill. In the folds of the hillsides where grass waterways ran in years past, new principal gullies were already eight inches deep and getting bigger. Muddy water flowed into the little creek, bankfull and rising.

Near the creek bottom, just beyond the bridge, silt-charged water ran through the broken window of a wheels-up Ford pickup. It ran across the inside of the cab roof. It flowed against the head of an unconscious man dangling from the seat belt. It mixed with blood dripping from a gash in Alexander Murphy's forehead. Muddy water crept over his hairline.

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Next week...Chapter 14.

The Upper Basin Chronicles, Chapter 13 was written and edited by John Gabbert.

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The characters presented here are purely fictional, and neither bear resemblance to persons living or dead, nor represent the views or opinions of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.