Tilghman slowed his horse to a walk. For a moment he couldn’t comprehend the enormity of the devastation, and he had a fleeting image of a world turned topsy-turvy. The top of the hotel had been ripped off, and trees bordering the square had been stripped clean of bark and leaves, standing ghostly white against the brown earth. Only three buildings were undamaged: the mercantile emporium, the hardware store, and a saloon on the far side of the square. Throughout the wreckage, people wandered about in a stupor, their clothes in tatters. It was as though some diabolic force had left behind a blotch of scorched devastation.
A scream attracted Tilghman’s attention. On the west side of the square, a bucket brigade had formed outside Wallace’s Cafe. The building was engulfed in flame, and he saw men dart into the rubble only to be driven back by a wall of fire. He dismounted, hurrying forward, aware that Jane Wallace, wife of the owner, was being restrained by several women. Her eyes were wide with horror and she screamed hysterically, thrashing to break loose. A line of men desperately passed buckets of water from a pump beside a nearby horse trough.
Malcolm Kinney, the town mayor, and Albert Dale, the county judge, were directing the fire brigade. Tilghman halted beside them as they exhorted the men to work faster. Judge Dale turned to him with a desolate look.
“Bob Wallace,” he said in a shaky voice. “He’s trapped in there.”
Tilghman followed his gaze. The roof on the cafe had collapsed, and the stove in the kitchen had set the building ablaze. Bob Wallace, in an effort to escape, had made it only halfway to the front door. A falling timber, the main beam from the roof, had landed across his legs and pinned him to the floor. He struggled to free himself from the beam.
“It’s hopeless,” Judge Dale muttered. “We’ll never get him out.”
Tilghman considered a moment. “What about wetting down a path on a straight line? We might be able to reach him.”
“Tried it,” Dale said. “Not enough water to douse the fire. A bucket at a time won’t do it.”
The trapped man screamed from inside the cafe. Flames were all around him, fueled by the jumble of timber from the roof. His hair was singed off and raw blisters covered his face and hands. His eyes were stark with terror.
“Don’t lemme burn!” he wailed. “Oh God, please, somebody shoot me! Shoot me!”
His wife shrieked his name in a wild cry that racketed across the square. The women holding her tried to turn her away as tongues of flame lapped over her husband. Her head twisted around, fighting the women to look back, and then she fainted. She went limp in their arms.
Judge Dale took Tilghman’s arm. “Marshal, I order you to shoot him. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“No,” Tilghman said hollowly. “I can’t kill a man in cold blood.”
“Don’t let him die like that, Bill. I beg you, give him a merciful end.”
An instant slipped past. Then Tilghman nodded, his features wreathed in sadness, and walked forward. He pulled his pistol, thumbing the hammer, and stared down the sights. From inside the cafe, his face charred and his clothes afire, the doomed man looked into the bore of the pistol. His expression went from one of agony to desperate hope.
“Do it!” he pleaded in a tortured voice. “Do it!”
Tilghman touched the trigger. But even as he squeezed, sighting carefully for a clean shot, the walls of the cafe collapsed. The framework toppled inward, burying the trapped man beneath a roaring pyre of timber. Flames leaped skyward in a blinding inferno.
Forced to retreat, Tilghman lowered his pistol. A faint smell, harsher than woodsmoke but mingled with a sweetish odor drifted from the flames. He recognized it as the stench of burnt flesh, and turned back into the street. The men of the fire brigade moved away, some of them slumping to the ground in exhaustion. Judge Dale nodded to Tilghman with a sorrowful expression.
“Terrible thing,” he said quietly. “Bob Wallace was a good man.”
“Yeah, he was.” Tilghman’s voice was raspy. “Wish it had turned out different.”
“I appreciate what you tried to do, Bill. Thank God his suffering is over.”
Mayor Kinney joined them. “We have to get busy organizing a relief effort. Lots of people lost their homes and everything they owned.”
“Not to mention the dead,” Judge Dale added. “We’ll need volunteers for a burial detail. Bill, would you take over forming—”
Tilghman wasn’t listening. His gaze was fixed on the north side of the square, where all the buildings had been demolished. Beyond, the tornado had cut a swath along residential streets and then veered off to the northwest, flattening more houses. A grove of trees at the edge of town stood stripped of leaves.
“Bill?” Judge Dale asked, watching him with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Looks like that twister headed northwest.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Quapaw Creek’s off in that direction.”
Judge Dale suddenly understood. “You’re worried about the Strattons. Is that it?”
“I’ll see you later, Judge.”
Tilghman ran for his horse. He gathered the reins and swung into the saddle. People on the street dodged aside as he spurred from a standing start into a headlong gallop. On the outskirts of town, he turned northwest.
He rode toward Quapaw Creek.
* * *
The path of the tornado zigged and zagged across the plains. For all its whirling twists, it was nonetheless easy to follow. A swatch of grass some hundred yards in width had been ripped from the ground.
Shortly before sundown, Tilghman spotted the treeline along Quapaw Creek. The trail of the twister left much the same sign he’d seen in town. Trees were denuded of leaves and bark, and some had been torn by their roots from the earth. A
