Weather in the south is pretty predictable. Hot and humid in the summers, and dry and bitterly cold in the winters. Not much of a transitional period in between the two. Not many extremes. So, when something out of the ordinary does occur, it catches people unawares.
My grandfather spoke briefly about one of those occurances that happened in his lifetime. I remember it vividly, as it was one of the only times his voice ever slightly broke with emotion. He was a stoic man who rarely showed more cards than what the situation called for.
In March of 1932, Northern Louisiana lost 143 souls. A tornado, the strength of which had never been seen before in the state, drove a ditch through the territory. It swept across like a broom pushing aside dust. Houses were demolished, timber was destroyed, just about everyone took some sort of loss.
In the dead of the night the funnel touched down like the finger of God. Preambled by silence and followed by dustruction. We have never seen anything like it since that day.
It caught people so unexpectedly that there was no time to prepare. Most were caught sleeping in their beds. Took 'em all, women and children alike. The town didn't even have sirens to warn people. People's houses were ripped from around them and scattered into the wind, and a few cases of people scattering along with it.
He told me our town only had one or two ambulances, or what they used as one, to it's name, so people took to loading the injured in the back of pick-up trucks. He said they stacked the dead up like cords of wood. Just hauled the ones there wasn't no saving on to the funeral home.
He said the funeral director was still in his boxer shorts and bathrobe when they pulled up. Just stood there with his hand over his mouth shaking his head as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Someone finally shook him out of it and they unloaded right there in the sanctuary. The bodies were laid out head to toe.
The silence left by the storm, he said, was all but torture. Not a leaf was shaking in the trees, not a drop of rain fell. The only thing it left behind was silence. The kind that makes your ears ring because there's nothing for them to take in.
After a while, all you could hear was the cryin' and wailin' from some of the women who had lost children or husbands. Most of the men had been in the war, so to them, the carnage was all too familiar. Like an old mistress that had come to visit. They had seen enough friends fall at their feet that they were the only ones able to seperate themselves from the heartbreak.
By the end of that day, they had seen enough devastation to last a lifetime. And the thing that still holds true today, as it did that day, is that a thing can do the most damage when it takes you unaware. When you are laid comfortably in your bed and have let all the day's worries fall to the wayside. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, the day can jerk you out and let you know it ain't done with you yet.
****
The noise that was rattling over the cb radio finally stopped and J. W. lowered his pen from his notepad and studied what he had written. He slid the pen back into the front pocket of his shirt and turned back toward Cambell.
"Sherrif, we got it. Car comes back to a Thomas Freemaux. Lives out on Belmont Highway. I know this man. He has a daughter. See 'em at church every Sunday. She's only nineteen years old, sherriff."
Campbell held out his hand and motioned for J.W. to hand over the notepad he had scribbled the information down on. His eyes swung from left to right as he scanned over everything that was scrawled down.
He looked over to the car and tapped the pad against his open palm before turning back to the third officer, who had locked down the scene before they arrived. He held out the writing for the officer to see.
"Go out to this address. Owner of this car....last name Freemaux. If he's home, wake him up and get him out here. If he ain't, find out where he is."
J.W. cleared his throat.
"To the scene? We don't know what has happened here or who might be involved. What if he had something to do with it? You just want to bring him out here?"
"Well, if he's asleep then I doubt he's our man. I know I couldn't sleep after a thing like this."
"Yessir."
The third deputy entered his police cruiser and took a few positioning maneuvers to get the car turned around in the road, before driving off in the opposite direction.
"Shouldn't take him long."
The two officers continued to search the surrounding area around the car. Which, at first glance, didn't seem to be much to look through. Campbell inspected the driver's side and J.W. inspected the passenger side.
While the driver's side door was left wide open, the passenger door remained shut. J.W. pulled a hankerchief from his back pocket and shook it out in the wind so that it unfolded. He flopped it onto the tops of his fingers and gently placed it under the handle before pulling up on it. The door creaked open. J.W. stepped back and took in any little details he thought might be of some importance.
Inside, the passenger seat and floorboard were filled with the same things that could be seen from the other side. Fast food wrappers, receipts, and empty water bottles littered the floorboard. A couple of text books sat neatly on the passanger seat. He lifted the cover of the top book and thumbed through a few of the pages.
"Looks like she was a nursing student..... Basic Concepts of Anatomy and Physiology."
He ran his eyes along the dashboard of the car and across the fabric of the seat. He noted a small tear in the seam of the fabric where a small amount of yellow foam was pushing through. Upon a closer look, the tear seemed to be fairly new and not a tear at all, but a cut. The threads sliced clean.
As he continued, he saw lines running across the plastic base runner that met the door when it was closed. He placed his hand up to what he could now tell were scratches, each one spaced out perfectly to line up with his fingertips. He placed his hankerchief across his thumb and finger, and with careful precision, picked up a tiny object poking up from within the fabric of the car's carpet.
"Sherriff......"
He held the object up to the morning light. Thin. Ragged. Partly white, and partly translucent. It was what he feared.
"Got a fingernail. Looks like it was torn off clawin' at the floor. What'ya make of that?"
"Sounds like a person that didn't want to get dragged outta this vehicle, and put up a hell of a fight not to do so."
"Jesus. What are we dealin' with here?"
"Whatever it is, I got a feelin' we are just dippin' our toe in."
J.W. bent down at the knees and began studying the dirt, while at the same time, doing his best not to disturb it. Just a foot from the door, dark brown spots led away from the car.
"More blood over here. Trails off down yonder."
"You able to follow it?"
Campbell stepped carefully around to the other side of the vehicle, and followed J.W. as he walked slowly and deliberately while watching the ground. Making certain not to step on any of the droplets and cause himself to lose the trail.
The trail was not red, as one would imagine. You see blood in the movies and it's bright red, just about as bright as you could imagine. But here in the real world, when the blood hit the brown dirt and clay of the road, it left a dark brown spot wherever it dropped. Just slightly darker than the surrounding.
The sparse droppings led off about fifty yards in the direction leading away from the highway and further down into the woods. When they reach the end, they stopped in their tracks at the opening of a hunting lease trail. A thin road notched into the thicket of woods, just big enough for atvs and trucks you don't mind getting scratched by limbs, to fit through. It was prefaced by a long line of ruts in the mud made by just such things. A white metal gate shut off access to the trail a few feet in.
"Ends here, Sherriff. Possible someone was parked here. Gate's still locked, so I don't think they went down into the lease."
"It's possible. Let's get back to the car and get the keys out of there."
"What're you thinkin'"
"Thinkin' there's one thing we haven't checked."
What was left of the dim headlights of the car shut off as Campbell slid the keys out of the ignition. They jingled in his hand as he raised up out of the car. He flipped them around in his hand. On the end of the key chain was a green and gold emblem that stated the year the girl had graduated high school. Just one year earlier.
As he made his way to the trunk, he spit another long stream of tobacco juice out on the road, while J.W. stood waiting in silence. Campbell held out the keys and offered them to him, but he shook his head and nodded toward the trunk as if to say, "no thanks, you go ahead".
As the keys notched it's way into the lock of the trunk, it seemed to happen in slow motion, one long click at a time. The anticipation and fear of what lay inside waiting took over the entire atmosphere. J.W. took a step back, expecting to see something he didn't have any desire to be so close to.
The key reached it's full revolution and the snap of the lock released as the lid of the trunk popped up an inch. The morning light fought its way against the tiny crack, trying to reveal anything it could to the two men standing reluctantly.
In the distance, the rumbling of a car approaching on the dirt road could be heard. The sherriff inhaled.....then exhaled slowly. The trunk lifted, and J.W. leaned forward. Campbell popped up the front of his cowboy hat with his finger as to get a better look. J.W.'s voice quivered.
"Sh..Sherriff...."
The returning police cruiser skidded to a stop and dust from the road englufed the scene. The sherriff looked up to his left and blocked the incoming debris from his eyes. Through the brown haze, he saw a man sitting in the passenger seat of the cruiser being driven by the officer he had sent after him. He could see the man reaching for the door handle and swinging his legs, ready to get out and head toward them.
Campbell took one last look at the contents of the trunk and slammed it shut.
"J.W. get on the horn. Get the dogs out here."
