CHAPTER SIX
Faster Than Anyone Said
The snow that had started as a scattered, halfhearted flurry outside Second Wind turned, within twenty minutes of leaving Miller's Creek, into something considerably more serious than anything the forecast had promised for another full day yet, and I watched the wipers struggle to keep pace with it, Sam's hands steady on the wheel but his jaw set in the particular tight line I'd learned meant he was working harder than he wanted to let on to keep the truck tracking straight against a wind that had picked up to a piece of it close to a howl.
"This isn't supposed to hit until tomorrow," I said, gripping the door handle as the truck shuddered through a gust that rocked it visibly on its springs.
"I know." Sam's voice stayed level, though I could hear the tension underneath it. "Forecasters missed the timing on this one, badly, by the look of it. That system must have sped up considerably faster than anybody's models accounted for."
The county road back toward Wren Lake had gone from merely wet to thoroughly treacherous in the space of a few miles, snow accumulating fast enough now that the pavement had all but disappeared beneath a thin, slick white layer, and Sam slowed us to a deliberate crawl, both of us leaning forward slightly as though it might somehow help him see further through the gathering white.
His radio crackled to life partway through the drive, the dispatcher's voice clipped and urgent in a way that told me, before I'd made out half the words, that this had stopped being an ordinary inconvenient snowfall considerably faster than anybody had wanted it to.
"All units, county roads seven, twelve, and the Miller's Creek connector are closing effective immediately, repeat, closing immediately, visibility's dropped to near zero and we've already got two vehicles off the road near the county line.
Advise anybody still out to shelter in place rather than attempt to reach their destination. "
"That's us," I said, still.
"That's us," Sam agreed, and I watched him do the fast, careful math of a man who knew this road better than almost anybody, weighing the distance we'd already covered against the distance still ahead, and felt the truck's speed ease down another notch as he settled into the specific grim focus of someone determined to get us home the hard, measured way rather than the fast, foolish one.
We made it, in the end, though it took nearly twice as long as it should have and left both of us thoroughly rattled by the time the farmhouse's lights finally swam up out of the white ahead, Sam's hands unclenching from the wheel only once we'd rolled to a stop in front of the equipment barn, the wind howling around the truck with a force that made the whole cab shudder faintly even sitting still.
Dad met us at the door, Pepper barking excited circles around his legs, his own face drawn tight with a worry he didn't bother hiding. "Thank god. Denny's been trying to raise you both on the radio for the last twenty minutes."
"Roads closed just as we crossed the county line," Sam said, shrugging out of his coat, already reaching for his own radio to check in properly. "We got lucky, honestly. Another few minutes and we'd have been stuck out there ourselves."
"You're not the only ones caught out," Dad said, grim.
"Denny's had calls coming in all afternoon.
Half of Miller's Creek got caught the same way we did, storm moving in faster than anybody planned for, and a fair number of folks are stranded on this side of the county line with nowhere better to go than here. "
It was, I would learn over the next frantic hour, considerably more than a fair number.
Odette and Emmett had left the shop not long after we did, intending to close up and drive home before the worst of it hit, only to find the roads already closing behind them by the time they reached the turn for Wren Lake, and rather than risk the highway home, they'd made straight for the campground instead, the nearest safe harbor either of them could think of.
Carla and Dot had done the same, shutting the diner down early once the radio traffic made clear nobody was getting anywhere safely that evening, bringing along two of the diner's younger staff who'd had no way home themselves once the roads closed.
Even Anjali from Second Wind turned up eventually, having tried and failed to make it back to her own place across town before the whitening roads convinced her to turn around and follow the small, growing caravan of headlights she'd spotted heading toward the lake instead.
By the time full dark settled in, thick and total under a sky still churning with snow, the pavilion had filled with a stranger, more crowded assembly than Wren Lake had probably ever hosted on a single evening, the wood stoves already blazing at both ends of the long room, Denny and Gil working the generator with the focused, unhurried competence of men who had prepared for just this contingency even while hoping they'd never actually need it.
Everett Boyle sat near one of the stoves already, a steaming mug in hand, deep in quiet conversation with Walt about something that made them both laugh soft and easy despite the howling weather outside.
Deloris Vance had claimed a corner table, apart from the general crowd but not entirely removed from it, watching the room with the same sharp, assessing attention she brought to everything.
Otis Rowe had somehow already produced a battered paperback and settled into a folding chair with the unbothered calm of a man for whom being snowed in mostly presented an excellent opportunity for uninterrupted reading.
Nina and Jared Callahan sat close together near the far wall, soft, their hands loosely linked, the particular careful stillness of two people trying very hard not to draw attention to themselves in a room suddenly full of strangers.
The Pruitt children had already discovered the pavilion's supply of board games and were engaged in some elaborate, rule bending version of checkers that Milo appeared to be narrating for the benefit of his younger siblings, Grady and Renee watching from a nearby bench with the exhausted, affectionate patience of parents who had long since learned to pick their battles.
Sylvie Marchetti had claimed a spot near the second stove, and I noticed, with no small amount of amusement even amid the general chaos, that Gil had somehow found several totally unnecessary reasons to check on that certain stove's supply of firewood considerably more often than the one across the room.
"That wood's not going to catch any faster no matter how many times you rearrange it," Sylvie told him, not looking up from the mug she was warming her hands around, though the corner of her mouth had gone distinctly amused.
"I like to be thorough," Gil said, entirely undeterred, crouching to nudge a log that had already been perfectly well positioned.
"Thorough. Is that what we're calling it."
"A man takes pride in his stove maintenance."
"A man's found an excuse to keep wandering back over here every ten minutes, is what I'm seeing," Sylvie said, eventually glancing up at him, something warm and sharp both in her expression at once, "though I'll admit I'm not in any particular hurry to point out the flaw in his logic, seeing as the company's decent enough to make up for it. "
Gil straightened, visibly delighted despite his best efforts to play it cool, and settled onto the bench beside her without waiting for an invitation, and I left them to it, smiling to myself, and went to find Dad and Marion near the kitchen end of the pavilion, already organizing what looked like the beginnings of a proper communal meal out of whatever the assembled households had managed to bring along or already had stocked in the pavilion's own pantry.
"We'll manage fine," Marion was saying, taking stock of a growing pile of donated groceries with brisk, practical calm, Carla and Dot both already elbow deep in the makeshift kitchen beside her, sorting cans and produce with the easy efficiency of women who'd spent their complete working lives feeding a crowd on short notice.
"Between the diner's supplies and what folks brought from home, we could probably feed this whole room for the better part of a week if it comes to that. "
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Dad said, though there was no real worry in it, just the plain acknowledgment of a man taking stock of a situation and finding, on balance, that he trusted the people around him to handle whatever it actually turned out to require.
Theo found me a few minutes later, notebook already out, eyes bright with the specific focused energy he reserved for anything resembling a genuine case. "Josie. Did you see the lady in the corner? The one who wouldn't say much when she checked in?"
"Deloris. What about her?"
"She's been watching everybody since she got here. Not talking to anybody, just watching." He lowered his voice to some part of it he clearly considered appropriately conspiratorial. "I think that's suspicious."
"Or she's just a person who doesn't know anybody yet, in a room full of strangers, during a storm," I said, gentle, though I couldn't completely blame him for noticing, since I'd caught myself doing much the same thing.
"Maybe," Theo allowed, unconvinced, and made a cautious note anyway, and I let him have it, smiling, thinking that whatever oddities this crowded, storm bound gathering held, Theo would have them all cataloged by morning whether the rest of us wanted him to or not.
Odette found me near the doorway, snow still melting from her coat, Emmett close behind her with an arm settled protective around her shoulders. "Well," she said, a little breathless, glancing around at the entire crowded, firelit room, "I suppose we're staying awhile."
"Looks that way," I agreed, and felt Sam's hand find mine, warm despite the cold still clinging to both of us, and looked out at the whole strange, gathered assembly filling the pavilion, old friends and new strangers alike, the wind howling steady and relentless against the windows, and thought that whatever this storm intended to do to the county over the coming days, it had already accomplished something none of us had seen coming that morning, bringing every last one of us, campground family and town family both, together under one roof with nowhere left to go but through it, together, whatever came next.