CHAPTER Nineteen

I have so often compared my life to a whirlwind that I should not be surprised to find myself facing a real one.

Alan Christoffersen's diary

The next morning I woke to the sound of howling wind and rain pelting my tent. Another day in paradise, I thought. My map showed that I was still about eight miles from the nearest town, so I ate breakfast in my tent, then lay back, waiting for the rain to weaken. After an hour the weather still hadn't relented, so I gave up and started off for the day.

My pace was slowed by the storm, and by the time I reached the town of Fruitland, I was cold and drenched. I stopped at a gas mart called Casey's for supplies, then walked to the nearby Jer's Restaurant for lunch.

A broad, surly-looking woman glanced up from the counter. "You're all wet," she said.

I wasn't sure if she was annoyed that I was dripping on her floor or if she just had a penchant for stating the obvious. "I've heard that before," I said.

She just glared at me.

After a moment I said, "It's raining."

"It's going to get worse," she said. "We've got a severe weather warning. Maybe even tornadoes."

"Tornadoes?"

She nodded.

Outside of The Wizard of Oz and the Weather Channel, I had never seen a tornado. It was one experience I didn't care if I missed. "Is there anyplace in town to stay?"

"Closest hotel is a couple miles ahead in Jackson."

I took off my hat and scratched my head. "A couple of miles, huh?"

"You want something to eat?" she asked sternly.

"Yes."

"Pick a table," she said.

I looked around. The restaurant was empty except for a truck driver in a corner booth who was nursing a cola and playing a video game on his cell phone.

I sat down at a booth on the opposite side of the diner, then lay my pack on the chair next to me and put my hat on top of it. When Miss Congeniality returned, I ordered fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy.

In spite of the woman's warning of worsening weather, I ate slowly, hoping the rain might ease up a little. As predicted, it got worse. I ordered a piece of peach pie to buy me more time in the shelter, then, finally accepting my inevitable drenching, paid my bill, put on my hat and walked out into the storm, hoping for better hospitality from the next town. Or the tornado.

Although Jackson was just two miles from Fruitland, in weather conditions like these, it seemed much farther. At one point my hat blew off and I chased it for several minutes.

As I neared the town, the rain came down harder. The sky had turned black, lit with what seemed an increasing frequency of lightning strikes-sometimes even simultaneous with the thunder. It occurred to me that even though I hadn't seen a funnel cloud, this was what tornado weather looked like on the Weather Channel.

As I crossed the Jackson city line, the rain suddenly turned to hail, bouncing off me and the street like water on a hot griddle. Some of the hail was nearly golf-ball-sized and it hurt. Lifting my pack over my head, I made a fifty-yard dash for cover beneath a highway overpa.s.s.

When I reached the shelter of the bridge, my heart was pounding heavily from my sprint, and I was as wet as if I had fallen into a lake. Both sides of the overpa.s.s were opaque with white sheets of hail. I lay my pack on the ground, then sat down on the curb next to the highway to rest. That's when I heard the sirens.

CHAPTER Twenty

Is it possible for those on the other side to intervene on our behalf? Millions of dollars have been spent on this very hope.

Alan Christoffersen's diary

Tornadoes are rare in both Los Angeles and Seattle-there has never, in the recorded history of either city, been a death caused by one-so, not surprisingly, I had never heard a tornado siren before.

Outside of the bridge there was no shelter in sight. I grabbed my pack and had started to climb up a weeded incline so I could hide under the bottom of the bridge when a navy-blue Nissan Sentra braked below me and honked its horn. The car's pa.s.senger window rolled down and I heard a young woman shout, "Get in."

I slid down the embankment, threw my pack in the car's back seat, then opened the front door. The driver was maybe five years younger than me, pretty, with full lips and long, bright red hair, windblown around her face. She had an exotic look, almost feline.

She smiled at me, and her hazel green eyes were bright and kind. I pulled the door shut behind me as she reached forward and turned off the radio, leaving only the sound of my heavy breathing and the wind battering her car.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm drenched."

She smiled at me. "And I'm Paige."

I reached over, taking her hand. "My name is Alan."

"Put your seatbelt on, Alan," she said. "We better get out of here."

As I fastened my belt, she checked her mirror, then pulled out onto the road. As soon as we came out from under the bridge, the sound of the storm exploded. The hail beat against her car like a snare drum.

"That's going to be an insurance claim," she shouted over the noise. She turned to me. "You're crazy being out in this storm. What are you, an extreme hiker? Didn't you hear the sirens?"

"I didn't have a lot of options," I said. "I thought the overpa.s.s would be safe."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "You'd probably be safer low to the ground. The higher up you are the more exposed you are to flying debris."

There was a loud thunderclap and she jumped a little.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"There's a hotel just up ahead. We can stay there until this blows over."

The hail lessened, but not the rain, and the car's wipers whipped violently-though mostly ineffectually-against the downpour. A quarter-mile ahead of us we finally saw the hotel: Drury Inn & Suites. The front of the building was crowded with cars and we parked as close to the entrance as we could.

Paige grabbed a small travel bag from the back seat. "Ready?"

"Let's go."

We simultaneously jumped out of her car. I grabbed my pack from the back seat as she ran for the hotel. She held the door for me as I entered.

Once we were both inside she asked, "Are you okay?"