Hope In Every Raindrop (14 page)

Katie didn't understand what they were doing. Was this another one of his games? She looked in the same direction he was, but saw nothing.

A few minutes passed and still Kyle sat there, crouched like a catcher waiting for the pitch. 

Finally Katie whispered, "What are we looking for?"

Apparently expecting the question, Kyle simply pointed across the field to the farthest hill. "Be patient. Just watch."

Something in the distance slowly moved along the subtle ridgeline of the hill farthest from them.

Katie's muscles tensed as she watched a black figure climb the slope.

King.

He stood silent, facing the storm, and lifted his nose to the wind.

Without warning, white lightning ripped through the rain and echoed over the land. King turned towards the downslope with blurring speed, as if nature had fired the starting gun. He crossed the field in a matter of seconds as he raced towards them.

The dark sky let out a loud rumble and another flash of yellow blazed from the clouds.

Kyle raised his hand to his forehead as if to shield his eyes as King continued across the vast landscape. The sky opened up around them and rain poured down.

Katie brushed the cold water from her arms, barely registering the fact that she was getting wet. She couldn't take her eyes off King. Every movement he made seemed to have a specific purpose. It was similar to being in the sled, but this time he ran free.

He turned slightly to the left just before he approached a small divot, and then back right to avoid a thick patch of grass. He moved at a furious pace, unlike anything Katie had ever seen before. 

As he passed, Kyle stood and walked to the edge of the tree line, his eyes still following King.

Katie followed, both of them just watching. 

Katie didn't understand why the mere image of a dog running seemed to overwhelm her. She had seen lots of dogs run. But there was something different about this; something deeper. As a writer she hated clichés, but this time it was true.

"Is he running from the rain?" Katie asked. 

"Not from it,” Kyle said as he lunged out from under the cover of the foliage and into the rain. “Before it." His steps were light as he moved. One step slightly balanced towards the right and then cut back towards the middle. 

Katie couldn't help but wonder,
Does Kyle run like King or does King run like Kyle?

Not sure what else to do, she followed Kyle out into the rain. Head down, she ran after him, focused on the feel of cold raindrops on the back of her neck, her thin cotton shirt plastered to her skin

“Let’s go!” she heard Kyle shout.

She looked up when she heard Kyle’s voice. He was soaking wet, his face turned towards her with a huge smile across it as he continued running. Then Katie realized she was smiling too. She picked up speed as she approached Kyle and yelled as she passed, “I’m winning!”

“Oh no you’re not!” Kyle shouted after her as he took off again.

They both ran at full speed, until the rain began to turn the ground in front of them into a slippery slope of mud and grass. Katie slowed down to catch herself in time to watch Kyle slip and go down as he tried to run and shout something at the same time.

Katie stopped next to him, gasping for breath as she mocked him. “There’s a storm coming.”

Before she could move away, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down with him.

She laughed as she fell on top of him, one hand landing on his chest, the other palm first into the wet ground. Katie lifted her head. She was just inches from Kyle. They paused for a brief moment, looking at one another before Katie swiped a muddy finger below his cheek.

Kyle’s eyes darkened and his expression went serious. Katie stopped moving. “I have a question for you,” Kyle said.

“Okay. What is it?” she said, trying to catch her breath, suddenly a little nervous.

He remained serious, letting the moment hang between them. “Are you ticklish?”

Katie couldn’t move fast enough. Kyle’s hands wrapped around her waist as he tickled her sides, just below her ribs.

“Kyle Merriman Walker!” she shouted. She was laughing so hard it hurt as he rolled her off him and onto her back. His knees straddled her waist and his hands planted on the ground next to her face. He leaned closer to her and wiped away several strands of wet hair. She reached for his waist and hooked her thumbs inside the top edge of his jeans, and pulled him closer. It was still raining hard, but all Katie could feel was the unrelenting beat of his heart.

That’s when Katie heard a sound she would never forget.

* * *

When Katie thought of howling, she pictured a wolf standing on a silver mountain, head arched towards a full moon. The incessant hoot of a great horned owl, the rushing waters of the river’s deep, and the indescribable cadence of a deer’s hooves against the ground—all silenced by his presence. She imagined the wolf strong and fearless as he howled, the call careening off the mountain peaks and traveling through the valley. All of nature gone still around him.

But the sound Katie heard now was far from that. 

It was a few hours after daybreak, but most everything around her was covered in the storm’s shadow, save the buzzing lamp light hanging next to the barn door.

The first howl was piercing. It was not calm or smooth, it was sharp and desperate. Startling. There was no other way to describe it. She didn't just hear it, she felt it.

Katie turned her eyes towards the sound, barely able to make out the dark figure eclipsed by the falling rain. Kyle stood up and stared at the dark figure in the distance. She shielded the rain and wind from her eyes as she sat up, and looked again. It was King.

He lifted his muzzle towards the sky and let out another piercing shriek that caused her entire being to shake.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Chapter 25

Katie had never understood why people run. And yet without fail each morning in California, hundreds of runners plod over the beach or along city streets without purpose, sweat dripping off their brow or soaking into their clothes. And for what? So they could eat a few extra French fries with their burger for lunch? Or throw back several drinks guilt-free at the bar after work?

But now, she put one foot down in front of the other. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. Suddenly, she began to understand the impetus to run—particularly when there was something to run towards. 

She was several hundred feet behind Kyle when he reached King, but they didn’t pause to wait for her. Katie stopped to catch her breath at the spot where they had been standing, and looked down towards the barn.

King was nowhere in sight, and Kyle was sliding the barn doors wide open. Everything had seemed so quiet after the piercing howl, but suddenly a cacophony of barks, yips, and howls drowned out her thoughts.

Katie took several more steps, still catching her breath. And then she saw it—smoke rising from a charred hole at one end of the barn.

The barn was on fire.

The smoke was subtle at first, like a slow whisper on the ground. The orange flame built towards the far end of the barn. The red paint started to char black and flake off into the wind, now feeding the flames with more and more oxygen.

Kyle turned, his gaze fixed on Katie’s for a moment, as if he knew that she’d been standing there watching the scene unfold. Then he disappeared into the barn after King.

An unexpected shriek escaped Katie’s mouth. “No!”

Katie ran towards him, almost tripping over Belle as the dog trotted out of the barn, shaking the smoke off her body. Behind Belle, Kyle followed with four black balls of fur wrapped in his arms. The puppies.

Not breaking stride, he pushed the puppies into Katie’s arms and said, “Get all the dogs in the house. Now.” And again he disappeared back into the smoke-filled barn. The slow-moving darkness engulfed him like a thick fog.

Katie watched as he rushed from pen to pen, flipping the latch up so the gates would swing freely. King followed behind him, flicking gates open with his nose and herding the dogs towards Katie with a ferocious growl and determined eyes.

This went on for several minutes. Katie watched from a distance as some of the younger dogs cowered from the heat, unsure what to do as Kyle and King sprinted from pen to pen. Kyle had to double back several times and grab a dog by the scruff, dragging them out as they whined.

It was easier to get the dogs into the house than Katie had expected. Once they stopped coming out she began to count, as she had done earlier.

One, two, four, seven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-two, thirty-one.

She looked around and counted again. And again it was thirty-one.

She shut the door to the house and ran down the porch steps towards the barn. About twenty feet away, she started to feel the heat. The rain still fell hard against the scorched barn, but the fire was building from within.

Where is Kyle? Where is King?

Katie cupped her hands together and shouted his name, but the elements were too overwhelming to carry her voice more than a few feet.

Where was he?

She knew what she was about to do was a bad idea, but her feet were already moving forward, her hand in front of her pushing past the smoke.

The air was hot as she entered the barn, and the smoke was dark and thick, trapped within, and getting worse. The sound of the fire was deafening, coming at her from every direction. The flames cracked like a thousand tiny whips, and the timber beams groaned as they tried to resist the bright orange heat.

Katie was coughing hard by the time she reached the ladder, her eyes stinging from the rise of black smoke all around her. There was no hesitation this time as she scurried up, but when she reached the top Kyle wasn’t there. The flames were starting to climb the walls around her, and she knew she had made a mistake.

“Katie!” she heard Kyle shout from below. “Katie!”

It was too late.

The fire devoured the kerosene from the oil lamp in a flash of scorching flame. The lamp exploded in front of Katie before she could react, sending a sudden burst of noise, light, and heat throughout the barn. The eruption knocked Katie back against the loft railing, which broke instantly.

The main vertical member holding up the loft fought to stand tall, but the onslaught of kinetic energy was too much to overcome.

The loft collapsed.

And there was nothing but darkness.

Chapter 26

Kyle’s first breath was little more than a cough, as he sucked in air full of carbon and hydrocarbon burned off from the barn timbers. He shook his head and tried to clear the air in front of him by waving his hand back and forth several times. The smoke burned his eyes as he swatted at it, but he was able to take short breaths. Breathing wasn’t his only problem, though.

As Kyle pushed his palms into the hard ground, a sharp pain shot up both his legs. He couldn't sit up all the way. Panic rose in his chest. Braced on his elbows, he could see one of the large timbers that once supported the loft laying across his thighs.

He wiggled his toes. He wasn't paralyzed, at least he didn't think so, but that wasn't his main concern. He didn’t see Katie.

He looked around.

Behind him and to his right, orange and red flames consumed the barn. To his left, the dog pens lay empty and still untouched. And directly in front of him, the entrance was still clear. He had no idea how much longer he had until the fire ate its way to him, but it was likely to be counted in minutes or seconds.

A dark object nearly ran into him. A soot-covered tongue lapped at his face. "King!" Kyle yelled urgently, though the dog was still standing over him. "Where's Katie?" King just stood there panting heavily.

Kyle repeated the word, "Katie."  But this time he also formed the number two with his right hand and pointed at his eyes. 

Show me Katie.

Kyle followed King's line of sight as King lifted his head slightly and looked directly at the practice sled. Less than two feet to the left of Kyle, between himself and the dog pens, sat the sled. The two wheels farthest from him lay on the ground in pieces. The impact of Katie landing on the sled had easily broken the wheels, which weren’t meant to carry much weight. 

Katie's right arm lay palm up, hanging over the side panel. Kyle could see the top of her left knee pointing at him. The rest of her body was hidden from view.

"Katie!" Kyle shouted. 

No response.

"Katie!"

Still nothing.

When Kyle looked back down at his legs, he realized it wasn't just one beam sitting on top of him, it was several. And on top of them, broken floorboards and some other scraps. He was pinned. All but buried.

His heart began to race as reality set in. A charred piece of wood fell and when he looked up he saw the dark sky in place of a piece of the roof. The fire was definitely a concern, but as he looked around at the orange flames he knew the structure would collapse long before he would be burned. Even worse, the smoke was building into a thick gray cloud. He wouldn’t have to worry about being buried alive, because soon he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

Kyle closed his eyes and covered his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt, trying to suck in a few short breaths of clean air. It didn’t work—he was coughing now as much as he was breathing. He tried to pull his legs out one more time, but there was no hope. Nothing even budged.

“Agghhhhh!” he screamed, the panic setting in.

King licked at his face again and whimpered. Kyle reached over, instinctively touching the dog.

Calm.

He breathed in slowly and began to search for something he could possibly use as a lever. The beams were too heavy to lift completely off his legs, but he might be able to raise them high enough to slide out.

Against one of the rails was the rake he used to clean out the pens, but it would snap in an instant under that much pressure. On the tool bench he could see a hammer, which might be strong enough but definitely not long enough to use as a lever. He kept scanning the barn. There had to be something he could use.