The Chase for the Mystery Twister (12 page)

“Good idea,” Frank replied. “We can take a look at the Kanner farm on the way.”

Riding down the highway toward Tulip as the sun began to set, Frank spoke aloud to help him think. “Let's say I'm Joe. I find out Toby Gill is an impostor. I want to find the impostor. What do I do?”

Frank's train of thought was broken when he spotted the Parlette mailbox at the end of the dirt drive leading to their farm. “Pull in here,” Frank told Diana. “Maybe Snowdon knows something.”

Frank and Diana found Snowdon and his grandfather sitting on the farmhouse porch with Bullet, the hound dog. Snowdon was laughing over a story Mr. Low River was telling him. When Frank approached and explained that Joe was missing, the two men grew serious.

“I owe Joe big-time,” Low River said. He told Frank about his last conversation with Joe. “When I mentioned how Gill—or, rather, Miller—disappeared behind the truck stop, Joe took off like a rocket.”

“The truck stop—of course!” Frank shouted. “Come on, Diana.”

“I know the owner of the Dust Bowl,” Snowdon said. “I'll call ahead.”

Frank paced nervously while Snowdon spoke on the phone with his friend at the Dust Bowl.

“Light blue, uh-huh,” Snowdon said. “It's there?” Snowdon gave Frank the thumbs-up sign. “Oh, you haven't?”

Frank could tell by Snowdon's tone that something was wrong.

Snowdon thanked his friend and hung up. “The blue pickup is there,” Snowdon told Frank, “but no one's seen Phil or your brother since about four-thirty this afternoon.”

Franked checked his watch. It was nearly 7:00
P.M.

• • •

Joe looked up at the cloudy, starless night sky, framed by the dark edges of the Brafford Quarry. Sometime, long ago, Joe thought, slate or granite had been mined there. Over the years the bottom of the quarry had gradually filled with rainwater.

Joe winced. His attempts to keep his mind off the pain and weakness he felt in his arms were not working. After three hours in the water, he and Phil were waterlogged and as wrinkled as prunes. “Got any more jokes, Phil?”

“None that I have the strength to tell,” Phil replied.

Joe heard distant thunder, then another sound. He pricked up his ears. “Listen.”

The two could hear a distant, mournful howl. “Unless it's Lassie, I doubt that a dog's going to be able to save us.”

“The sound is getting closer,” Joe said. “And it sounds pretty frantic, too.”

“Slow down, Bullet,” a voice echoed from above.

“Phil, it's Bullet!” Joe exclaimed.

“Who?” Phil asked.

“Snowdon's dog!” Joe shouted. “Hello!” he called. “We're down here!”

A few minutes later, a flashlight tied to the end of a long rope was lowered to Joe. Joe knew Phil was in worse shape than he was, so he tied the rope around his friend's waist.

“Ready!” Joe shouted. “Pull him up!”

Joe watched as Phil ascended, rappelling like a mountain climber off the edge of the quarry as he was pulled up and out of sight.

Finally, the rope reappeared, and Joe tied it around his own waist. Every inch of his body ached from the bumps, scrapes, cold, and fatigue he had endured. He started up.

“Joe, it's Henry Low River!” a voice called down. “Listen, if this rope breaks, you need to—”

“Forget it!” Joe interrupted with a shout. “If this rope breaks, I quit!”

Joe heard laughter from above and couldn't help but smile himself. When he reached the
top, Frank grabbed his arm and pulled him over the edge to safety.

“Joe!” Frank exclaimed, hugging his brother.

“Are you okay?” Diana asked.

Joe nodded, smiling.

“Here we are hot on the trail of three criminals, and you and Phil are off taking a swim,” Frank joked, setting everyone laughing again.

• • •

Wrapped in blankets and riding in the back of Snowdon's pickup, Joe and Phil listened as Frank and Mr. Low River explained how they had tracked them to the quarry.

“The owner of the Dust Bowl had seen the white truck leave and head north on the highway,” Frank continued.

“So with Snowdon and me in the pickup and Frank and Diana in the Jeep, we began hopscotching exits,” Low River said, picking up the story. “Then finally, at the seventh exit, the guy at the taco stand remembered seeing the truck.”

“Mr. Low River is the one who spotted the tire tracks where Kanner had pulled off the paved road,” Frank explained.

“It's that Cherokee blood,” Low River said, grinning. “We're excellent trackers.”

“We used a sock we found stuffed under the seat of the Blue Bomber to give Bullet the scent, and he used his nose to find the owner,” Frank said, pointing to Phil.

“Just think—if not for my messy nature and
smelly feet, we might still be down there,” Phil said with a laugh.

At the Dust Bowl Truck Stop, Frank, Joe, and Phil hopped out of Snowdon's truck just as the skies opened up. Diana, who had followed Snowdon from the quarry, pulled up beside them.

“See you back in town!” Low River called as he got into the cab of Snowdon's pickup.

Frank saw Diana scrambling to throw a tarp over her Jeep.

“Why don't you leave it here for tonight?” Frank suggested while he helped Diana batten down the tarp. “You can ride back with us.”

Frank, Joe, Phil, and Diana all managed to squeeze into the cab of the Blue Bomber. Phil turned the key, and the engine started right up. “Hey, on the first try,” he noted. “Maybe our luck is changing.”

Heading back down the highway toward Lone Wolf in the heavy rain, Frank and Joe filled each other in.

“So Bixby, Kanner, and Miller were working together,” Joe concluded, “setting up in one area, pulling off insurance scams, and then moving on and starting again.”

“That's my guess,” Frank replied. “Bixby would just get a job with a new insurance company, Kanner would buy another home out in the country, and Miller would arrive later, starting a low-cost insurance business to
compete
with Bixby.”

“Congratulations, guys,” Diana said. “I think you've finally put an end to their crime spree.”

“Yeah, the only problem is, they're probably halfway to Mexico by now,” Joe said.

Frank saw Phil's eyes start to close. “Phil!” he shouted.

Phil jerked his head up. “Sorry, Frank. I don't think I've been this exhausted in my life.”

“Ten minutes and you'll be in bed, old buddy,” Joe said, patting his friend on the shoulder.

Phil hit the brakes suddenly, throwing Joe forward so that he clunked his head on the windshield. The Blue Bomber fishtailed and came to a halt less than a foot away from Sheriff San Dimas's squad car.

“Can I say two things?” Joe asked, touching a fresh bump on his head. “Number one: ouch. Number two: I'm driving.”

Frank saw that the side door of the squad car was caved in and the rear tire was badly twisted. “Looks like the sheriff's been in an accident.”

Frank and Joe got out to see if anyone needed help. Frank put his hand to the windshield of the squad car and peered in. “No one inside!” he yelled to Joe through the driving rain.

Joe looked along the side of the road to see if anyone had been thrown from the vehicle. “No one here, either!” he yelled back. Just then, he nearly stumbled over a twisted cylinder about three feet long. Picking it up and seeing the red
and white spiral stripes, he realized it was a barber's pole.

“I don't get it, Frank!” he yelled. “It's from San Dimas's barbershop, but we're still five miles away from Lone Wolf!”

Frank thought for a moment His heart jumped. Running back to the Blue Bomber, he reached over Diana and turned on the radio.

“... has devastated the town of Lone Wolf,” the radio news broadcast was saying. “Once again, our breaking story, a tornado believed to be an F four or F five has touched down in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, and is moving northwest. . . .”

The transmission was interrupted by static interference.

“An F five is the most powerful tornado we know of,” Diana said. “It can have wind speeds of three hundred miles an hour.”

“You mean the tornado lifted up the sheriff's car and dropped it five miles away?” Joe asked.

“With an F five, it could happen,” Diana said.

“The question is,” Frank added, “where is the tornado now?”

The four of them stopped and listened as the wind howled around them. Joe was looking off to the left when five cloud-to-ground lightning bolts struck at once, illuminating a tornado funnel more than a mile wide.

“There it is!” Joe shouted. “Looks like it's about five miles north of us. Just wait until the lightning strikes again.”

Everyone peered into the rainy night. Thirty seconds later lightning lit up the sky. Joe thought the funnel looked even bigger.

“It's shifting,” Diana told them. “The tornado's coming back this way. It's headed right for us. We've got to get out of here—fast!”

“Let's get moving, Phil!” Joe shouted. He hopped into the driver's seat and squeezed in so he could close the door to the cab.

Joe turned the key in the ignition. The engine started for a split second, then cut out. He tried again.

“I thought you just needed to jiggle it right!” Frank shouted to Phil.

Phil reached over and tried the ignition switch three more times. With each try, the sound got weaker and weaker. “Sorry, guys. The alternator's dead.”

“We might all be joining the alternator if we don't think of something fast,” Joe said grimly. “The tornado's getting closer.”

Frank spotted headlights coming their way.
Jumping into the middle of the road, he waved frantically. The pickup truck came to a stop, and the driver stepped out. “Snowdon!” Frank cried out.

“An overpass has crashed down onto the highway. We can't get to Lone Wolf!” Snowdon shouted.

“Our car is kaput—useless,” Frank told him.

“Pile in,” Snowdon said, waving the others out of the Blue Bomber.

A jackrabbit raced across the highway. Bullet jumped out of Snowdon's pickup and ran off into the night after it.

“Bullet!” Snowdon shouted.

“I'll get him,” Joe said.

“Bullet will be okay,” Snowdon said. “We need to think about ourselves right now.”

Snowdon's pickup had two jumper seats in the back. Still, when Joe pulled the door closed behind him, he felt like a sardine.

“Turn on the CB, Joe, and tune in channel nineteen,” Diana instructed from the backseat. “Let's see if the Windstormers are out there.”

“Mayday, mayday, this is Joe Hardy!” Joe said into the microphone.

“Mayday?” Phil wondered. “That's the distress call for airplanes.”

“And we might be airborne any second now,” Joe replied, watching the massive whirlwind advancing toward them.

“Joe, this is Lemar Jansen,” Jansen's voice came in over the CB. “I'm telling you, you don't want to be chasing this monster.”

“That's affirmative, Mr. Jansen.
We don't,”
Joe radioed back.

“The Windstormers have detailed road maps and radar on the bus,” Phil said. “Maybe Mr. Jansen can tell us the best way to avoid it.”

“What is your exact location now?” Jansen asked.

Joe handed the microphone to Henry Low River, who gave Jansen a detailed description of their surroundings.

“You should be coming up on a dirt road on your left. It's C-two-one-one-nine. Take that,” Jansen instructed.

“I see it,” Snowdon said, turning left off the highway. “I'm much obliged.”

“I'm much obliged, too,” another voice chimed in on the same frequency. “I see exactly where they are.”

“Who was that?” Frank asked.

“I know that voice,” Low River said. “It's Toby Gill.”

Joe cupped his hands and looked out the window on the passenger side. Greg Glover's monster truck was a second away from broadsiding them.

“Look out!” Joe shouted.

The massive black truck hit Snowdon's pickup just past the passenger compartment, sending it
rolling down an embankment into an irrigation ditch.

When the truck came to a stop, Joe found himself lying on top of his fellow passengers. The truck was on its side, and water from the ditch was flowing in through the broken driver's-seat window. Joe could see that Snowdon and Low River were groggy and groaning. Diana appeared to have been knocked unconscious.

Frank was pinned beneath Phil. He could feel a hard metallic object jabbing him in the back. “Your window is the only way out, Joe!” he yelled to his brother.

Joe tried to roll down his window, but it stuck fast. “The door was smashed in when we rolled,” Joe said. “It won't open!”

Frank removed the object that was jabbing him. “It's a tire iron!” he yelled, handing it to Phil, who passed it on to Joe.

Joe swung the iron bar, striking the shatterproof glass with enough force to crack the entire surface of the window. He kicked the glass out with his foot and climbed out onto the door.

Joe saw the F5 twister only a few hundred yards away, a column of black that tore up the earth as it went. He spotted a small plane flying upside down around its perimeter. He realized the F5 must have passed by the local airport—and that the aircraft had no pilot.

“Give me a hand, Joe,” Frank shouted.

Joe tossed the tire iron up onto the bank and
pulled Frank through the window. “We've got to hurry!” he shouted, pointing to the F5, which had reached a water tower about a hundred yards away.

“Get in the ditch,” Frank said, “and help them get to solid ground as I pull them out.”

Frank took Diana from Phil. He pulled her through the window, then lowered her down to Joe. Joe waded through three feet of water, carried her up the bank of the ditch, and gently put her down.