LITMIR.BIZ

      Greg paused under the carved limestone overhang of his historic building’s facade. The wind-driven water found him with a vengeance just the same, making him wish he’d had the foresight to install a wide awning the way many of the other businesses on Main Street had. He should have known he’d need it. He’d grown up in High Plains and had experienced hundreds of similar Kansas storms.

      Then again, he mused, disgusted, anybody with a lick of sense would have stayed inside until the rain had stopped for good—mud or no mud.

      He shouted and waved to the boy. “Hey! You. Tommy. Come here.”

      The child slid his bike to a stop on the brick-paved roadway, almost overcorrecting and taking a tumble when his front tire bumped the curb.

      It amazed him to see that much athletic prowess in one so young. Maybe the boy was older than Maya thought and merely small for his age.

      Moderating his tone, Greg tried again. He didn’t know a lot about boys, other than having been one himself. “I just want to talk to you for a second, Tommy. Come here. Please?”

      The freckle-faced boy shook his head, sending droplets flying from his hair and the end of his little nose. “No way, Mister.”

      “Don’t make me come over there and get you,” Greg warned. “All I want to do is talk. Honest.”

      “My dog’ll bite you if you touch me,” Tommy replied. “Charlie takes care of me.”

      For the first time, Greg noticed a medium-sized, black-and-white mongrel standing beside the boy. That poor dog looked even more soaked than Tommy. If the dog weren’t panting and looking extremely pleased with its current adventure, he’d have assumed it was suffering.

      “I’m not going to hurt you,” Greg assured Tommy. “I just wanted to ask you why you were trying to mess up my building?”

      “I dunno. ’Cause it’s fun?”

      “Not for me, it isn’t.”

      “Oh.”

      “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

      “Guess so.” He straightened the handlebars, put one foot on a pedal and leaned to the side, obviously getting ready to ride off.

      “Wait,” Greg said, eyeing the blackening sky and recalling similar unsettled weather conditions from his own childhood. “How far is it to your house?”

      “I don’t have a house. I’m an orphan.” The boy’s words were clipped, angry-sounding.

      “I mean the place where you live right now.”

      “None of your business.” Tommy winced as the first bits of hail began to pelt him. “Ouch!”

      “Get in here under cover,” Greg shouted, realizing the danger. “That stuff can get big enough to knock out a full grown cow.”

      Ignoring him, Tommy dropped his bike and began swatting uselessly at the pellets of ice that were now falling in far greater numbers. “Ow, ow, ow!”

      At the end of his patience, Greg took four long strides and made a grab for Tommy while he was distracted. The wind had picked up and was driving the already nickel-size chunks of hail at them with stinging force. There was no more time to argue.

      A siren began to wail. Bending against the wind and struggling to stay on his feet, Greg hunched over the boy to shield him and glanced down Main Street where a distant police car had begun flashing its red-and-blue lights.

      Townspeople were scattering right and left. Umbrellas were turning inside out with a quick snap, making them worse than useless. Passersby had pulled jackets and whatever else they had at hand over their heads and were scrambling for cover. In the park across the street, a mother grabbed her toddler and made a wild dash for safety, abandoning his plastic-canopied stroller and the rest of her belongings to the storm.

      Trash cans along the street and in the park toppled with a bang and dumped their contents. Some rolled in tight arcs, kept from blowing away by the slim chains that held them to their stanchions, while others tore loose and tumbled toward the High Plains River to the north.

      This newer, more powerful wind carried strange odors, as if a freshly plowed field suddenly had become airborne. There was grass and cedar and ozone in the mix, too. That meant the weather was about to become even more perilous.

      Freezing for only an instant, Greg strained to listen. Every sense was alert. His pulse was pounding in his ears so loudly he wasn’t sure what he was actually hearing. A dull humming echoed in the distance, then increased in volume.

      Frightening memories came flooding back, fears that he had kept buried since childhood.

      How could this be happening? The morning had been warm. Balmy. There had been no tornado watches or warnings in effect that he knew of, nor had there been a peep out of the town’s antiquated alarm system.

      That didn’t matter now. The hum had grown to a roar and seemed to be coming from the southwest. Unless he was imagining things, High Plains was about to be hit by a twister!

      Greg pivoted and peered into the sheeting rain and ice crystals, trying to make out anything definitive. It was hopeless. All he could see was blackness in the distance and a gray pall overhead.

      Wind-driven hail had punched holes in the bright red-and-white awning over the front of Elmira’s Pie Shop next door. The canvas was whipping so violently it was beginning to shred and tear away from its frame. Other bits of material were blowing past, too, some large enough to do serious damage to anything or anyone in the way.

      “Come on, kid. I’m done arguing,” he shouted, staying bent over and slinging the small child into his arms.

      The boy struggled. His loose bicycle went skidding across the pavement and on down the brick street as if it were weightless.

      Shrieking, “Charlie!” Tommy reached toward the place where his dog had been. Instead of staying with him, the mutt had tucked its tail and was headed for the park across the street.

      He was frantic. “Charlie!”

      Greg ducked into the safety of the office door archway just as the police car finally reached them and cruised past, its occupant broadcasting a “take cover” order over the sound of the wailing, pulsing siren.

      Tommy was kicking and pounding on him with his tight little fists. “No! I have to get Charlie!”

      Struggling to stay balanced while holding the child, Greg paused in the doorway. Using its protruding stone frame as a temporary shelter, he took one last look at the menacing sky.

      There was no doubt about it. He couldn’t spot a funnel cloud yet but he was positive trouble was

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