Flashes of lightning streaked across the night sky, and the thunder rolled, matching the pounding of Dixon’s heart. The wagon lurched and bounced. His hands ached from gripping the sides of the buckboard.
A hailstone hit his leg. He winced as the walnut-sized piece of ice bounced and fell to the road. These horses had better run like wildfire.
The wagon careened to its side as Joab turned into his yard.
Dixon twisted around to see his friend hauling on the reins. At this speed they’d hit the barn.
“Whoa!” Joab leaned back, pulling on the reins.
Dixon leapt from the wagon as the horses slid to a stop inches from the building. He raised his arm over his head, blocking a cascade of hail, and ran to the door. The wind fought him. He bent into it and thrust open the barn, but the wind grabbed him and the door and flung them to the side. “Argh.”
Dixon’s head slammed against the building, sending sharp needles of pain through his skull. “Confounded storm.”
Thunderous pelting drowned the rumble of wagon wheels as the buckboard entered the barn. Dixon hauled on the door while hard balls of ice battered his body like a firing squad. Gritting his teeth, he raced inside, and the door swung shut behind him. Others had told him tales of these violent storms, but he had never experienced one like this.
Weeping rose over the roar of the wind and the fierce drumming of the hail.
He focused on the Blacks now huddling together on the seat of the buckboard.
Sarah Black wailed while the sounds of the fierce storm echoed through the empty building. Poor woman.
Dixon scanned the barn, breathing in the scent of wet wood and sensing something amiss. Joab’s livestock. They were still outside, being pummeled by hailstones. A cold sweat broke over him. No telling in what condition they’d find them. His hand wrapped around the door latch. To go out to help them would place him in the same risk.
A flash of lightning lit up the barn, and Dixon caught Joab’s expression of horror. It was obvious his friend knew his animals’ fate.
One violent whoosh and all fell silent.
Dixon blinked. His skin tingled. He reached for the oil lamp hanging above him and lit it.
Shadows sprawled through the building. Though one of the horses stomped, rattling its harness, an eerie silence birthed apprehension in his soul. If he were a spiritual man, he’d say that storm carried evil with it, but such foolishness did not play well with the logic a NWMP sergeant needed.
He ground his teeth and stepped toward the buckboard. “You both all right?” What a foolhardy thing to say. Of course they were not all right.
Joab helped his wife down.
She clung to her husband. The look on her face dragged Dixon’s heart, and he pulled away from her gaze.
“Your livestock …”
“I put them in the barn before we left.” Joab’s voice sounded hollow, and he surveyed the barn as though trying to find what was not there.
The barn door was shut when they arrived. How’d the animals get out? “Let’s get your wife to the house.”
“Not without Rupert.” Her voice shook.
Dixon nodded and headed for the wagon. He glanced out the barn door as the Blacks swung it open. Moonlight radiated from the ground outside. He lifted the boy’s body and lumbered out of the barn. The sky looked phenomenal. An eerie glow orbed the heavens and flashes of lightning streaked the dark in the distance. The yard shone as bright as a snowy winter’s night, but no snow lay on the ground. Only a heavy blanket of hail smothered the grass.
Swallowing, he glanced at Joab and saw his friend’s wide-eyed expression fade into dismay. There would be nothing left of their crops.
Rivulets of water cut through the powdered dirt path to the house, while their boots crunched hailstones. Dixon choked up at the sight. No good could come from this.
Mrs. Black screamed. She pointed to bodies of dead chickens strewn across the farmyard.
Dixon’s stomach knotted. They lay as though someone had pressed them into the ground, their bellies level with the earth around them.
A whimper escaped Mrs. Black’s lips. “They were in the coop when we left.”
“Keep going, Sarah.” Joab took her elbow and led her to the house. “Let’s take care of Rupert first, and then we’ll worry about this.”
But they halted.
Dixon shifted the boy’s body to his other shoulder. What could be the problem now?
“Our milk cow,” she whispered as she wrapped her hand around her throat.
Dixon dropped his gaze to the cow in front of the couple. Its tongue hung from its mouth. It had been battered to death by hailstones. One the size of a baseball lay by the animal’s head.
Mrs. Black wailed and raced for the house.
Joab’s pale face turned to Dixon. “What more?”
“Surely this is it.” But something in Dixon’s gut told him this wasn’t the end. Was this the force of Mother Nature or the vengeance of an angry God?