CHAPTER 34
Victor’s first course of action was to check the horses.
He found most of them huddled at the far end of their paddocks, dripping wet and nervous but otherwise unscathed.
That was one fear off the table. Now he had to take care of everything else.
He headed back to the barn and looked through the hole caused by the tornado peeling back the metal sheeting like the foil on a Pringles can.
That could be fixed well enough, and though the wind had really swept through the place, nothing else seemed to be damaged enough to be dangerous.
The arena was a total loss; the vinyl strips that connected each post had been shredded, with some of the posts leaning or torn out of the ground entirely.
The far stream that ran an acre east of the arena had spilled over its banks, carrying mud, shattered branches, and trash.
It’d take a few days to clean the place up, maybe a day more to fix the roof of the barn. He’d also have to have the outdoor arena fence re-built. But overall, he was glad that his house and barn were still standing and that no one, neither human nor equine, was injured.
Victor spent the next two hours driving around and checking in on neighbors in the area.
The tornado had skirted around the town limits, so most of the damage was done to farm fields and other outlying homes.
The neighbor to his east had a tree fall on and destroy her garage, but she otherwise seemed okay.
Victor offered to go back to his house and get his chainsaw to remove the worst of the branches so that she could get into her house, and that took a while.
She was very grateful to him, thanking him profusely and offering him her leftover baked goods.
Victor was on his way back home with a few cookies in his pocket when the truck picked up a phone call from Johnny.
“Well,” was all Johnny said, but Victor could sense in his voice it was serious.
“What is it?” Victor asked.
“My house is gone.”
Victor struggled to find his voice. “What do you mean gone?”
“I mean reduced to sticks. The whole damn thing.”
“Fucking Christ, Johnny. I’m driving over there now.” Victor pulled a U-turn and took off down the opposite lane, stomach in his throat. Fuck. Goddamn.
“Ain’t nothin’ to be done, really.” Johnny’s voice was soft and defeated, like he was close to tears.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay? We’ll figure it out.”
Johnny didn’t respond, so Victor assumed he’d hung up. But after a long silence, he spoke again. “You know, I ain’t that religious, but maybe God is tryin’ to tell me somethin’.”
“Like what?”
“I been tryin’ to figure that out.”
Victor didn’t know what comforting thing he could possibly say, so he resorted to practicality, which probably wasn’t what Johnny needed but it was the best Victor could do. “Do you want me to call your sister? Sarah, maybe?” Victor paused. “Are your sister and Taylor alright?”
“Yeah, her house is fine.” Johnny sniffed. “Maybe call Sarah.”
“I’ll do that. Okay? I’m here for you. We’re going to figure it out.”
“Yeah,” Johnny replied, then hung up. Victor gripped the wheel of his truck tight, squinting in the sunlight. The sky had turned bright blue again, as if nothing had happened. That was the nature of disaster though—the world moved on, even if you didn’t.
* * *
Johnny’s house had in fact been obliterated—lifted up, tossed, and torn to sticks.
All his belongings were strewn across his property, as well as the next one over, and probably further than that.
When Victor looked at the news, he saw aerial footage of what the tornado had left behind, and it wasn’t pretty.
It had been big—not exceptionally so, but nothing to scoff at.
If Johnny had lived in a solid brick house, it might have survived, but trailers and tornadoes didn’t mix, and Johnny’s had been old and fragile already.
It didn’t stand a chance. As they picked through the wreckage, all Victor could think of was how thankful he was that Taylor had run away.
Because if she hadn’t, Johnny might have been here, and he might have been killed. Unlike Victor, he had no storm shelter.
Johnny was shut down and cold the few hours Victor and Sarah spent with him.
He was still in shock. Victor was able to find several of his rodeo trophies still intact, even if others had been bent or crushed.
It was a small thing, but Victor knew how fondly Johnny looked back on his rodeo days, and how their rescue might bring comfort.
After Sarah and Victor had already picked through the mess, Johnny’s sister showed up.
She yanked Johnny into a hug with uncharacteristic warmth, then started crying—also unusual for her.
Johnny didn’t cry though. Victor wished he would.
He hated to see Johnny’s face so devoid of expression.
Once it got dark, there was nothing more that could be done.
All three of them offered to let Johnny stay with them.
Victor half-expected Johnny to go with Sarah, since he slept over at her place after their argument.
But he accepted Victor’s offer instead, and as the last vestiges of sunlight faded from the sky, Johnny’s truck trundled along behind Victor’s on the way to Victor’s farm, where horses still needed to be fed before Victor could collapse into bed.
To his surprise and some dismay, Johnny offered to help, as Hannah was still MIA and there were twenty-nine horses in need of care.
He also had a slew of text from boarders asking if their horse was okay, some asking if they could visit to see for themselves.
All in all, it was one hell of a day. Victor didn’t make it back into his house until ten, which is around the time they got power back.
Johnny took a shower, then sat on the couch and stared blankly ahead.
Victor knew that the painting hanging there wasn’t that interesting.
So Victor rounded the couch, sinking into it slowly like Johnny was an easily startled deer.
“How are you holding up?” Victor asked.
“Still feel like this is some kinda dream.” Johnny curled a knee up onto the couch, holding his foot with both hands. “That was the place I grew up in. And it’s just… gone.” He looked down at his lap. “How am I supposed to feel about this?”
Victor didn’t know what to tell him. It was hard find the words when someone else was suffering, so all he could do was reach out and squeeze the back of Johnny’s neck, hoping he derived some comfort from touch in the same way Victor did.
“Picked the wrong time to stop drinkin’,” Johnny muttered with a bit of a strangled, halfhearted laugh before he bowed his head and inhaled shakily. “Goddamn. Goddamn.”
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to,” Victor said.
“After what I said and did to you?” Johnny’s head turned and wet, anguished eyes met his.
“We can talk about all that, but I’m not going to throw you out for it.”
“You don’t gotta if you don’t wanna. I can live with Sarah, maybe. Or my sister for a bit.”
“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to. You can accept it without feeling like a burden.”
Johnny forced a laugh again. “You sure got me figured out, huh.” His lower lip wobbled for a second before he turned away, shoulders hunched. “Fuck. It’s all been too much.”
Victor considered leaving him to it—just getting up and walking off and letting Johnny sleep off some of the shock before facing it head on tomorrow, but he also wanted to sit there and share the burden of Johnny’s grief without feeling the need to run from it.
Diego had been one of those men who wanted to fix things instead of letting Victor be sad in his presence.
Loss was hard to see someone else go through, but there was no lever Victor could pull to make it better.
“It’s probably for the best, in the end,” Johnny muttered, never one to let silence stretch on. “It was all a bunch of crap in that place anyway.”
“It was your life,” Victor said, rubbing a thumb through the hair on Johnny’s nape. “It meant a lot to you.”
“Came with a lot of baggage though.”
“I’m sure there were good memories, too.”
Johnny’s throat bobbed. “Yeah. My mama… she used to sit on the couch and crochet lil sweaters for all the babies in the family while she watched those terrible soap operas. When she ran outta babies, she started makin’ sweaters for dogs at the local pound.
” Johnny’s voice hitched as he struggled to keep it steady.
“She was a sweet lady, my mama. She didn’t deserve the way Daddy treated her. ”
Victor carded his fingers through the hair on the back of Johnny’s head, listening.
“I feel real bad I wasn’t around so much when she got sick.
I wanted to make enough money so I wouldn’t have to live the way I grew up.
But joke’s on me, I guess. All that time and work and now I literally got nothin’ to show for it.
A whole fuckin’ life… gone with the fuckin’ wind.
” His breath stuttered, and Victor slid his arm fully around his shoulder, drawing him in close.
Instead of pulling away like Victor half-expected, Johnny curled up into him like a babe in search of warmth and started to sob.
Victor’s grip tightened, closing any space left so that Johnny could cry into Victor’s chest. Both of Johnny’s arms wound around Victor’s waist, grasping two fistfuls of Victor’s shirt.
His weeping was ugly and violent, but Victor held him through it, petting his hair and peppering in it’ll be okay in whenever he could, except it came out as todo estará bien, mi cielo because it felt more loving that way.