The Baby Quilt. Christine Flynn
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from Chicago to do a little fishing,” he explained, wanting her to know he wasn’t some lunatic out stalking farmers’ wives. “I’m taking the day off, you know?” he asked, wondering what the rush was with getting the plants inside. He’d have thought rain would be good for them. “I noticed the weather changing and decided to head back, but my car battery’s dead.”
She didn’t reply. Nor did she slow by so much as a step as they reached the plant-filled building. Not sure if he should follow her in—or if she was even listening—he stopped by the doorway while she shoved her load onto the nearest table and spun back toward the door.
Spotting the flats he’d carried, she pulled them from his hands, slid them next to the others and hurried back out.
He arrowed a frown at her back, practically biting his tongue to keep that scowl from his voice when he fell into step beside her. “Look, I can seen you’re busy here, but all I need is a jump. If there’s a vehicle—”
“What is this ‘jump?”’
“Jump-start,” he explained, never guessing that a farm girl would be as mechanically challenged as most of the women he knew. “You know. Hook up a car with a good battery to a car with a dead one to get the dead one going again?”
Puzzlement merged with the lines of concern deepening in her brow. But all she said was, “There is no car here.”
“Then how about a tractor?” he called to the back of her retreating head.
There was no tractor, either. She told him that as the first fat drops of rain soaked into his shirt and ticked against the tin roof of the utility shed. Another bolt of lightning ripped across the black horizon. In the three seconds before the thunder rolled in to crack overhead, the rain turned to pea-size hail and the woman had tucked herself over the plants she picked up to keep them from being shredded by the little pellets of ice.
“This Clancy place,” he said, hauling another load himself. “How far is it?”
“A mile by the road.” Looking torn between encouraging and declining his unexpected help, she headed into a gust of wind. “It’s shorter if you cut through the soy field.”
“Which one’s that?
“Hey,” he muttered when she shot him a puzzled glance. “I recognize the corn over there, but I’m from the city. Is soy tall or short?”
“Everything is short at one time,” she replied ever so reasonably. “I’ll show you the route, but you’ll want to stay until this passes. You’ll need shelter.”
She was right. The sky grew darker by the minute and the air had taken on a faint glow of pink. The clouds overhead looked as if they’d been flipped upside down, their boiling bellies suddenly a little too close, a little too ominous. Between the shades of slate, misty tails of pearl gray undulated and teased, dangling downward, pulling up.
They were nearly to the greenhouse when everything went dead still. The hail stopped. Not a single leaf on the trees moved. The air itself turned too heavy to breathe, the pressure of it feeling as if it were crushing him in an invisible vise. The woman felt it, too. He could tell by the fear that washed her expression an instant before the wind hit like backwash from a jet and the trays they carried were ripped from their hands.
Everything was leaning. Trees. Cornstalks. Them. A sheet from the clothesline sailed past. The blades of the windmill clattered wildly, fighting for a direction to go. Another sound rumbled beneath the tinny cacophony. Not thunder. The deep-throated hum sounded more like a million swarming bees.
The house sat a hundred yards behind them. It looked more like a mile as he grabbed for the woman’s wrist to stop her from running for the greenhouse.
“It’s not safe there! Get in your house!”
The wind snatched his words, muffling them in the growing roar. He could barely hear the “No!” she screamed back at him. But he saw the word form, and the sheer terror in her eyes as she tried to struggle free of his grip.
Panic had robbed her of reason. He was sure of it. She had to know there was no way the unfinished building would offer any protection. It was nothing but two-by-fours and tearing plastic that, in another minute, could well be nothing but matchsticks.
He swore. In the distance, a funnel of ghostly gray twisted against the black wall. At its base, a swirling cloud of dust began to form. “That thing could be on us any minute,” he growled, finally comprehending why she’d been in such a rush. “I don’t know what your problem is, lady, but I have no intention of playing Dorothy and Toto. Come on!”
He couldn’t hear what she said. He was more concerned with the way she gripped his wrist to pull his hand from hers while he practically dragged her toward the house. Thinking he’d do better carrying her, he swung around to get a better grip when his shift in momentum allowed her the leverage she needed.
She broke free with a sharp twist of her hand. An instant later, a Volkswagen-size chunk of tree ripped past, the tips of its branches barely missing his face as it flew through the space she’d occupied seconds ago. He thought for sure that the heavy branches had grazed her, but frantic as she was, nothing slowed her down. Through the cloud of straw and dust now billowing around them, he saw her bolt through the greenhouse door.
Swearing violently, he raced after her.
The plastic covering the window holes rippled and snapped as wind shredded the flimsy covering. Through the doorway, he saw her duck beneath the long, plant-filled table just inside. He was thinking she had to be crazy not to see that the place was disintegrating around her when she jerked upright and ran back toward him with a hooded white carrier.
He’d barely noted the thick mauve liner and a pair of tiny legs when he realized there was actually an infant inside it.
Dear God, he thought, realization slamming into him. She had a baby out here.
“The cellar!” she hollered, fear stark in her eyes. “By the back door!”
He didn’t ask if she minded him carrying the kid. He just grabbed the carrier from her and pushed her out ahead of him, bent on getting them moving as fast as he could. The wind tore at them like the claws of an invisible dragon, grabbing her hair, her dress, stinging his eyes with the dust that turned day into night. A wheelbarrow blew across the yard ahead of them, flipping end over end. Eyes shielded by their forearms, they raced across the grass while behind them the funnel bore down on the land with the speed and sound of a freight train.
She reached the angled, in-ground door to the cellar two steps before he did. Using both hands, she pulled back hard on the handle. The thing wouldn’t budge.
Without a word, he shoved the carrier into her arms and jerked on the door himself. The pressure of the wind crushed down on it, making the long panel feel as if it were weighted with bricks. He could feel the muscles in his arms and back bunch as he battled, but he edged the solid wood up enough to wedge his foot between it and the frame before giving a powerful pull.
The wind shifted, catching the door, ripping it from its hinges, spinning it upward, slamming it into his shoulder.
Pain, barbed and jarring, shot down his arm. Gritting his teeth, he snatched the carrier again and practically shoved the woman down the steep and narrow stairs. He was halfway down himself when she reached up and pulled the baby from the hard plastic shell. The moment he saw that she had the tiny blond bundle of pink in her arms, he dropped the carrier and pushed her to the corner of the deep, shelf-lined space. With his back to the suction created by the raging vortex, he watched her clutch the baby to her chest and wrapped his arms around them both.
Thunder boomed. The wind shrieked. He had no idea how safe they were, but he figured that even with the door gone, they were better off tucked back in the confined space beneath the house than they would be anywhere else. At least, they were as long as the wind didn’t make missiles of the hundred or so jars of fruits and vegetables gleaming on the shelves surrounding them.
“We