Free This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

resist. It was near enough now that I saw it uproot trees as itcrossed the Gilead River. It came at the water tower, and I suddenly remembered Albert and Volz, who were whitewashing the big tank. I pressed my nose to the window glass, straining to see if they were still up there. The job was only half-done, WELCOME TO HELL still visible under the old whitewash, but as nearly as I could tell, the tower was deserted.
    The tornado ripped across the ball field, and I watched the bleachers disintegrate in splinters. We should have moved, run to find shelter, but it was too late now. We stood paralyzed, watching our doom approach.
    Then, by some miracle, the tornado turned and began to follow the river. It tore up the ground north of the school, sliding past all the buildings and the Brickmans’ fine home, heading toward the town of Lincoln itself. We ran to the windows along the east side of the dorm and watched the tornado skirt the south end of town and move into the farmland farther out along the river.
    And I realized where it was headed.
    Mose did, too. He grabbed my arm and signed, Mrs. Frost and Emmy.
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    WHEN WE RAN outside, we saw Volz and Albert coming from the dining hall. Behind them, others trickled out, and I figured they’d all huddled inside that great stone building to ride out the storm. Mose and I raced across the old parade ground.
    “Mrs. Frost and Emmy,” I hollered. “Have you seen them?”
    Volz shook his head. “Not today.”
    “That tornado’s headed straight for their place.”
    “Shouldn’t they be here somewhere?” Albert said.
    “Let’s try her classroom,” Volz said.
    She wasn’t there.
    “Mrs. Brickman,” Volz suggested next. “She will know.”
    We hurried to the Brickman home and pounded on the door, but no one answered. Albert went to the garage and peered through a window.
    “The Franklin’s gone,” he said.
    Volz pounded more and the door finally opened. Clyde Brickman stood there, as white as a ghost.
    “That damn tornado almost got me,” he said.
    “Cora Frost,” Volz demanded. “Was she at school today?”
    Brickman scowled and thought a moment. “I don’t know.”
    “Mrs. Brickman,” Volz said. “Does she know?”
    “Thelma left for Saint Paul this morning, Herman. She’s gone all week.”
    “Damn.”
    Volz looked east, down the track of destruction left by the storm. We all looked that way. In my whole life, I had never been so afraid.
    “Wait here,” Volz said. “I get my automobile.”
    He drove us all, Brickman included, toward the home of Cora and Emmy Frost. At the south end of Lincoln, we saw that the wooden buildings next to the grain elevators lay in rubble. We followed the dirt road that lay beside the river, driving through the aftermath of capricious destruction. Here, a barn had been torn in half while not twenty yards away the farmhouse stood untouched. There, a silo had lost its top, but inside the cattle pen still intact next to it, cows browsed as if nothing had happened. I saw a big sheet of corrugated metal bent around a cottonwood trunk like Christmas wrapping paper. For the first time in forever, I found myself praying sincerely, desperately asking God to spare Cora Frost and her daughter.
    When we arrived at the farm, all my hope died. Where only a few days before, Mrs. Frost and the Brickmans had sat in the parlor sipping tea, nothing remained now but splintered boards. The barn had been obliterated. Many of the orchard trees had been torn out by their roots and lay thrown in an abysmal jumble. Mrs. Frost’s truck lay flipped on its top like a dead turtle. Over everything lay utter silence.
    We dug among the ruins, lifting debris, calling their names. I was sure we wouldn’t find them alive, and because of this, didn’t really want to find them at all. I could see how easily the storm had twistedand torn things of solid construction, and I didn’t want to look on the actuality of what it must have done to something as fragile